City of Ghosts is a hybrid animated mockumentary television series created by Elizabeth Ito for Netflix. Co-produced by TeamTO and Netflix Animation, the series premiered on March 5, 2021.
In 2022, the series won a Peabody Award for Children & Youth Programming. Episode 4 of the show references the Tongva homelands of Tovaangar.
A group of kids, in this hybrid animated mockumentary series, discover stories around Los Angeles by directly communicating with ghosts who inhabit the city.
The series was announced by Netflix in May 2019, with Adventure Time writer Elizabeth Ito as showrunner.
The show's backgrounds come from photographs taken by Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, then painted over at the Los Angeles studio of Chromosphere Studio and the character animation is by the French company, TeamTO. The animation supervisor of TeamTo, Mariah Luna, said that they talked with Ito and Luis Grane, supervising director, of the show, informing their animation. The production manager, Jaimy Nikijuluw, adding that they were often in contact with Ito and Grane until the end of production of each episode. Guillaume Hellouin, president/co-founder of TeamTO said that only a small team worked on the show, one of the smallest they've "ever worked with" while Nikijuluw added they had weekly calls with those at Netflix and Chromosphere Studio.
The series was released on March 5, 2021, on Netflix. A trailer was released on February 4. Selections from the series were presented at the San Francisco International Film Festival's Schools at the Festival program in April 2021.
The series was positively received. Mashable called the show a "warm, sunny, and soft" and praised the show's pacing, wittiness, humor, and the voice cast. They also said it makes topics like discrimination, cultural appropriation, gentrification and historical erasure understandable for those at a young age. Vulture praised the series as a "lovely and refreshing vision for childrenâÂÂs entertainment" that adults can enjoy which is crafted like a nonfiction production. Wired described the series as "full of big emotional wallops and...narrative specificity" and called it delightful, arguing that it proposes a new way of thinking "about cities, ethnicity, and history," geared toward kids. Wired also called the show a "multicultural melange." The Capital Times called the show "warm and huggable" and for all ages. Los Angeles Times called the series a "gentle love letter" to Los Angeles and the diverse communities within the city, accessible to kids and adults. Animation World Network praised the animation style and background, saying the latter has "the aesthetic of a pop-up book." The New York Times recommended the series to fans of Bluey, Molly of Denali, NPR podcasts and Vida.
The series got nominated for 3 Children's and Family Emmy Awards including Outstanding Animated Series at the 1st Children's and Family Emmy Awards and won 2 awards for Outstanding Directing for an Animated Program and Outstanding Animated Series.