As George Miller was envisioning which cinematic form his eventual Mad Max sequel would best manifest itself in over the past few years, one of the ideas on the journey to its feature film debut was a Japanese anime-style 3D adventure centering around the Furiosa character.

To bring his visions to life, Miller enlisted the legendary talents of Mahiro Maeda, an instrumental artist and illustrator who worked on anime classics like Blue Submarine No. 6, Castle in the Sky, Super Space Fortress Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion and The Animatrix. Many of Maeda's character designs found their way into the current Mad Max: Fury Road movie, and it's interesting to see the genesis of the tone and style Miller was looking for.

"The anime is an opportunity for me to shift a little bit about what anime is doing because anime is ripe for an adjustment or sea change," Miller told MTV in 2009. "It’s coming in games and I believe it’s the same in anime. There’s going to be a hybrid anime where it shifts more towards Western sensibilities. [Japanese filmmaker Akira] Kurosawa was able to bridge that gap between the Japanese sensibilities and the West and make those definitive films."

Have a look at this concept art of Furiosa and Immortan Joe originally shown on a Japanese TV show and tell us if you'd still love to see a Mad Max anime adaptation somewhere down the road.

Artwork for abandoned Mad Max anime (Mahiro Maeda) centered around Furiosa http://t.co/RYiN6kpjiD pic.twitter.com/TJz2CkZRUg — Wario64 (@Wario64) June 22, 2015

(Via io9)