Kendi Oiwa, the artist best known for the manga adaptations of the Welcome to the N.H.K. and Goth novels, is adapting Enji Arai's award-winning Sugar Dark: Umerareta Yami to Shōjo (Sugar Dark: The Buried Darkness and the Girl) light novel. The artist mebae illustrated the original novel. The dark fantasy story follows a boy named Muoru who has been falsely arrested and sent to a forest cemetery to perform forced labor. There, he calls himself the "grave keeper" and meets a beautiful girl named Meria. Muoru becomes fascinated with Meria as he spends his days digging a hole containing the undead monster named "The Dark."

Shinichiro Inoue, the president and CEO of Kadokawa Shoten, predicted during the 14th Sneaker Awards ceremony in November that Sugar Dark will "certainly" get an anime adaptation. The novel was only the fourth novel to ever win the Grand Prize in the 15-year history of the Sneaker Awards. (The last winner was Nagaru Tanigawa's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.) Tokyopop published the original novels and manga adaptations of both Welcome to the N.H.K. and Goth in North America. ADV Films and later Funimation released the Welcome to the N.H.K. anime series, while Well Go USA will be releasing the live-action Goth film next month.