With 2024 nearing its end, it’s time to look ahead to what’s hitting in the anime world next year. This past year had some of the biggest releases we have seen in years as both TV anime and feature film releases have hit higher heights than ever before. It’s put a ton of pressure of what’s coming next in 2025, and hopefully the next wave of anime coming next year is going to all of those marks set by this year. Perhaps there is even a chance of 2025 surpassing everything that has come before with some of the new releases leading the pack.
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2025 has revealed a lot of the new anime fans can look forward to over the next year. While far from the end of the reveals as lots of projects still under wraps, there are enough new anime already announced that the next year is already looking like it’s stacked with contenders for the best. There are plenty of new seasons for blockbuster franchises, manga making their highly anticipated anime debuts, brand new originals from prominent creative teams and more coming our way.
Read on for ten of the most anticipated new anime releases coming in 2025, and get ready for the new year!
Sakamoto Days
Release Date: January 11th (Netflix)
Leading the pack for new Shonen Jump series making their anime debuts in 2025 is Yuto Suzuki’s Sakamoto Days. As one of the more recent generation of action series that’s starting to find its groove with fans, Sakamoto Days is enjoying more of a cult favorite status at the moment. The anime is going to change things big time, however, as the action series is meant for as wide of an audience as possible. Following retired assassin turned convenience store owner, Taro Sakamoto, this series is ruled by what the coolest thing is at any given time.
This action might be based in the grounded assassination world, but the characters are anything but. Constantly bending the laws of physics to make fights as cool looking as they possibly be (as Sakamoto can be seen fighting across moving trains and through buildings), this series is basically perfect to share clips of online. It’s going to be a hit when it finds its audience.
Witch Watch
Release Window: April 2025
Kenta Shinohara’s Witch Watch is in the same generation as Sakamoto Days as it’s going to be Shonen Jump’s big anime premiere of the Spring. The two series could not be more different, however, as Witch Watch takes a fun, episodic approach to its own stories. When Morihito Otogi, an ogre, gets tasked with guarding his childhood friend, Nico, when she completes her training to become a witch, the two’s lives are never the same. The anime is guaranteed to have wacky magical shenanigans pretty much every week, and is going to serve as a fun way to reset yourself after watching everything else this Spring.
Witch Watch is not going to be the kind of series you seek out for high intensity action, but it’s certainly going to have plenty of the light humor that some of the best series are great at. And that has a much needed role of its own when stacked against everything else on your plate next year.
Fire Force Season 3
Release Window: April 2025 (Crunchyroll)
The first of the big returning franchises on this list is certainly one of the hottest comebacks. Fire Force ended Season 2 on a major cliffhanger, and it’s been many years with fans waiting for a potential comeback. Not only is the anime returning for new episodes next year, but Fire Force is actually kicking off the run towards its grand finale. With Atsushi Okubo’s original Fire Force manga now completed, the anime’s third season will be airing its episodes over the course of the next two years as it gears up to bring it all to an end.
There are actually some big spoilers and reveals in the newest trailers leading into Fire Force Season 3’s premiere, but showing all of it so early reveals the kind of confidence that this new season has leading to its premiere. It’s going to be a big one.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
Release Window: April 2025
My Hero Academia is coming to an end next year with its eighth and final season, and it almost made this list. But with two My Hero Academia releases competiting against one another, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes wins out for some key reasons. It’s finally going to be a full TV anime adaptation of the prequel spinoff series set years before the events of the original My Hero Academia, and fans get to see some of the rougher elements of the pro hero world that were ironed out by the time Izuku Midoriya and the rest of Class 1-A enters the scene years later.
It’s a new My Hero Academia anime series that shows off a whole new side of the hero world, and that’s going to be especially important when fans get to see how the main series ends next Fall. The franchise is set to continue by bringing this long awaited spinoff to life, and fans will soon get to see why this has been such a cult hit.
Kaiju No. 8 Season 2
Release Window: July 2025 (Crunchyroll)
Kaiju No. 8 had what had to have been the biggest anime debut of 2024 overall. Kaiju No. 8 simultaneously premiered its episodes around the world with both Crunchyroll and X, and that was the first time fans got to see a new anime launch with that kind of scale. It was appropriate for the project itself, however, as Kaiju No. 8 was stacked to the brim with giant monster action as fans watched 30 year old Kafka Hibino trying one last time of making his childhood dream of joining the Kaiju Defense Force come true.
Season 2 is teased to have even bigger moments wiht Kafka’s secret ability to transform into the titular Kaiju No. 8 revealed to the rest of the Defense Force, and now he has to keep fighting as hard as he can to stop the monsters and earn everyone’s trust before it’s all too late.
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Spy x Family Season 3
Release Window: October 2025
Speaking of big returns, Spy x Family is finally coming back for Season 3 next year. Following the massive success of the first two seasons of the TV anime, and new movie, Spy x Family is ready to make its own comeback to screens with much more. The second season pushed more of the action outside of the Forger Family to highlight more of Yor’s assassination work with its biggest arc, and Season 3 is going to have much more of this kind of detour. Instead, fans are going to get much more of Loid’s spy action with WISE with some big events that go down and a particularly intense one involves Anya using her abilities to alleviate a hostage situation. It’s going to be a wild season.
One-Punch Man Season 3
Release Window: TBA 2025
Probably the biggest return of the year overall is also the most curious. One-Punch Man Season 3 unfortunately (and unfairly) has a lot riding on it to succeed. One-Punch Man had one of the highest rated debut anime seasons among fans, and it was such a lightning in a bottle that there was no way a future follow up could ever match that success. This was the case for Season 2, which tried its hardest with J.C. Staff but the differences between the first and second seasons were far too noticeable for fans to ignore. That could all change with the next season, however.
One-Punch Man Season 3 has been in the works for quite a while, and will be releasing next year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the anime overall. If the team behind the series truly put all that time and effort behind the next wave of episodes, then One-Punch Man Season 3 could be the hit that fans are hoping for. Or it could be a huge bomb. Either way, it’s going to be one to watch.
Oshi no Ko Season 3
Release Window: TBA 2025
Oshi no Ko had a heck of a return with Season 2 of the anime earlier this year as there was a major flip between Aqua and Ruby’s perspectives. Oshi no Ko Season 2 introduced fans to the world of stage play adaptations, and with it had Aqua seeking out more of his mysterious father. Upon thinking this father was killed, it was then revealed he’s actually more wrong than he ever had been before. At the same time, Ruby was also making some dark discoveries for herself that is changing how she’s moving forward in the anime next. With Oshi no Ko‘s original manga ending last year, the anime now has a clear path forward as it gets closer and closer to that end.
Gachiakuta
Release Window: TBA 2025
Gachiakuta‘s one of those hidden gems that’s about to become a full blockbuster if the anime’s debut is a success. Originally created by Kei Urana for Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2022, an artist who once worked together with Atsushi Okubo’s Fire Force, Gachiakuta was yet to really get its hooks into the manga audience outside of Japan. But like many of the best anime releases, Gachiakuta is set to find a much bigger world of fans who will be drawn to the gritty series inspired by street art and graffiti.
With the anime studio behind My Hero Academia bringing it to life, Gachiakuta tells the story of a young kid thrown into the garbage. Needing to fight back against the oppressive upper class who’ve wronged him, this new anime just might hit the perfect vein for 2025.
Lazarus
Release Window: TBA 2025 (Adult Swim, Max)
Last, but certainly not least, for this list is Lazarus. A new anime from the same director behind Cowboy Bebop, Carole & Tuesday and more, Shinichiro Watanabe, Lazarus is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing original anime productions from Adult Swim yet. With John Wickย director Chad Stahelski attached to the project and designing action sequences, Lazarus is already shaping up to be one of the more unique projects hitting next year overall.
Telling a brand new story unlike seen in Watanabe’s other works, and Sola Entertainment bringing it all to life, a new group is pulling together to try and save everyone from the side effects of a supposed miracle drug that has actually shortened all of their lives by mistake. We can expect to see all kinds of intrigue when this one finally hits.
