Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Anikulapo’ S2 Is Almost Here

Kunle Afolayan has returned with the next chapter in his Anikulapo saga. On January 4, he teased the release of Anikulapo Season 2 on Instagram, set to premiere on January 30. The trailer for Season 2, titled The Ghoul Awakens, dropped on the 19th of January, giving fans their first look at what’s coming in the next season.

Building on the universe first explored in the 2022 Netflix film and the 2024 series Anikulapo: Rise of the Spectre, the new season promises a deeper dive into power, destiny, and the supernatural, expanding both its scope and stakes.

Season 2 brings back familiar faces, including Sola Sobowale, Kunle Remi, Bimbo Ademoye, Oyindamola Sanni, Aisha Lawal, Moji Afolayan, Eyiyemi Afolayan, Ronke Oshodi-Oke, Taiwo Hassan, and Lateef Adedimeji.

New additions promise fresh energy and conflict: Bukunmi Adeaga-Ilori (Kiekie), Teniola Aladese, Antar Laniyan, Joke Muyiwa, Saidi Balogun, Adeoluwa Okusaga (Saga), and Tayo Faniran. The expanded cast hints at broader storylines, including new alliances, rivalries, and possibly foreign influences.

Unlike Season 1, which primarily took place at Afolayan’s Film Village in Igbojaye, Oyo State, production for Season 2 ventures into Cape Coast, Ghana. This move reflects a collaboration between KAP Motion Pictures and Ghana’s National Film Authority, signalling a more ambitious, transnational story.

Season 2 picks up the thread of Saro, who earned the title Anikulapo (Aníkúlápó) after gaining the power to resurrect the dead through a mystical gourd stolen by Arolake. The trailer, titled ANIKULAPO: The Ghoul Awakens, sets the tone: “Once power is awakened, it demands a price.”

Going from love and betrayal to kingdom-wide power struggles, the series continues to explore the consequences of tampering with life and death. Viewers can expect:

• Heightened supernatural activity, with entities haunting dreams and unexplained disappearances, as suggested by the title. The Ghoul is a mythical demonic humanoid character froman  Arab folktale which haunts dreams and graveyards, feeds on human flesh, and takes on different deceptive forms to lead people to danger. The trailer suggests this title will play out in season two as clashes will intensify between the forces of good and evil.
  

• Intensified stakes in love, loyalty, and survival.
  

• Expanded political and cultural interactions, including hints of contact with Western traders and potentially elements related to slavery and the inception of colonisation. 

The trailer offers glimpses of new borders and foreign figures, suggesting expanded geopolitics within the Anikulapo universe. Characters appear tested like never before, with personal relationships strained under the weight of ambition, supernatural threats, and moral dilemmas.

Visuals suggest that while the supernatural elements remain central, Season 2 will explore more grounded human conflicts alongside mystical ones. Every act of resurrection, every claim to power, appears to carry consequences, raising the question: can immortality ever come without a cost?

Fans can anticipate more action, suspense, and morally complex decisions, darker explorations of human desire, revenge, and loyalty with interwoven political, cultural, and mystical layers.

As anticipation heightens for its January 30 premiere, Kunle Afolayan appears set to expand the Anikulapo universe both narratively and visually, giving audiences a story that is as much about the human experiences as it is about supernatural influences.

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