Friday, July 24, 2026

The band is getting back together at Studio Trigger. The studio used its Anime Expo panel to reveal a fourth original project from director Hiroyuki Imaishi and screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima, the pair behind Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, and Promare. No title, no plot, no date, just a promise that the loudest, most kinetic team in the business is loading another swing. For a studio whose whole brand is spectacle, an Imaishi and Nakashima reunion is about as big a tease as a blank slate can be (via Anime News Network).

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 just pulled off one of the more surprising music bookings in recent anime memory. The Netflix and Studio Trigger sequel will open with The Cure's 1979 post-punk classic "10:15 Saturday Night," close with a track from French pop artist Petite Meller, and slot in an original rage cut from rapper Rico Nasty. Getting an actual legacy rock band to headline an anime opening is rare air, and it signals Netflix is spending real money to make the follow-up land as hard as the original did (via Anime News Network).

The Demons Are Planning Something Good filled in its cast and staff and set a 2027 TV debut. It is the kind of mid-tier announcement that fills out a season slate rather than dominates it, but the early cast reveal gives fans a full year-plus to start the hype machine before it airs (via Anime News Network).

Black Clover is coming back after a long silence. The main trailer for the long-teased second wave of the Shonen Jump battle series confirms an October 2026 return, ending a wait that had fans wondering whether the adaptation had stalled for good. The new footage leans hard on action, the safest possible pitch for a franchise that lives and dies on its fight choreography (via Anime Corner).

The Apothecary Diaries is scaling up. Season 3 of the hit mystery series, in which apothecary Maomao solves poisonings and palace intrigue inside an imperial court, is set for October 2026, and it is being built out as a split-cour run with a second half in 2027 plus an original film in December 2026. Adding a theatrical feature to a TV season is a confidence move studios only make when a show is printing money (via GamesRadar).

The Ramparts of Ice dropped a season 2 announcement trailer with an October 1 premiere and studio KAI returning. It will air Thursdays late night on TBS and its affiliates, the standard graveyard slot where a lot of Japan's genre TV actually lives (via Anime Corner).

The wait is finally over for anyone who missed Demon Slayer in theaters. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle, the first film in the trilogy capping the mega-hit vampire-hunting saga, streams worldwide on Crunchyroll starting July 28 at 8 a.m. PT, with both the original Japanese audio and the theatrical English dub. It also lands on Netflix across most of Asia the same day. That is a full year after the film's theatrical run, an unusually long hold that shows how much money a studio can leave on the table before a streaming window (via Anime News Network).

HIDIVE is leaning into dubs this summer. Its "Summer of Dubs" slate runs across isekai, rom-com, and fantasy, headlined by The Dangers in My Heart: The Movie, the film continuation of the quietly beloved middle-school romance, which streamed with a fresh English dub from July 14. Simuldubs remain HIDIVE's main lever for pulling casual viewers off the fence (via ComicBook.com).

Collectors got a treat from the deep catalog. AnimEigo announced five new Blu-ray licenses, including a 4K restoration of AD Police Files and Natsume Ono's moody samurai drama House of Five Leaves, aimed at the physical-media crowd that still pays a premium for restored older titles (via Anime Trending).

Chainsaw Man keeps climbing the record books. Chainsaw Man: The Movie - Reze Arc, the theatrical continuation of the demon-hunting hit, has crossed $170 million worldwide and broken into the all-time top 15 highest-grossing anime films, passing classics like Princess Mononoke and the first Pokemon movie along the way. For a film built around a single arc of a still-running series, that is proof that anime theatrical is no longer a niche release strategy but a tentpole one (via Koimoi).

The money behind the medium keeps setting records. Industry figures put the Japanese anime business at a record scale of roughly $25 billion, with overseas revenue overtaking the domestic market for the first time on the back of global streaming and licensing. In plain terms, the audience outside Japan is now the one paying most of the bills, which is why platforms keep bidding up simulcast rights (via Screen Daily).

Yoshitaka Amano, the artist whose dreamlike designs defined Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter D, is stepping behind an anime of his own. His ZAN project, run through his new Los Angeles company, unveiled a staff stacked with mecha-anime veterans and debuted a first trailer at Anime Expo. Watching a legendary illustrator assemble a robot-anime crew is a reminder that name-brand creators are increasingly building around themselves rather than slotting into a studio pipeline (via Anime News Network).

Science Saru put its stamp on a cyberpunk landmark. The studio behind Dandadan and Inu-oh launched its take on The Ghost in the Shell on July 7 with a one-hour, two-chapter premiere on Prime Video, now settling into weekly episodes. Handing a franchise this iconic to a director making a feature-length debut is a bet on fresh eyes over safe hands, exactly the kind of swing Science Saru has built its reputation on (via Yahoo Entertainment).

Otakon is loading up on Japanese creative talent. The convention, running July 31 to August 2 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, confirmed that cast and staff from The World Is Dancing, The Vermillion Mask, and Trigun Stargaze will appear, with a July 31 panel digging into the making of those shows. For US fans, a staff-and-cast panel is the rare chance to hear how a production actually came together straight from the people who built it (via Anime News Network).

The Trigun Stargaze contingent keeps growing. Voice actress Chika Ayamori, who plays Milly Thompson, joined the Otakon guest roster alongside director Masako Sato and producer Yoshihiro Watanabe, giving the reboot of the classic gunslinger series a full creative bench on the convention floor (via Anime News Network).