TAGGED AS: anime, streaming, TV
(Photo by Science Saru, Crunchyroll, Netflix)
There is more new anime being made each year than ever before, and it can be quite overwhelming to even begin to narrow down what to watch during each new season. There are returning franchises with built-in fan bases, new adaptations of acclaimed manga, and plenty of original stories just waiting to shake the anime landscape. In addition, with the explosion in global popularity of the anime aesthetic, there are lots of studios outside of Japan who have been producing high-quality works heavily influenced by traditionally Japanese anime.
With all of that in mind, we’ve prepared a list of the most anticipated and noteworthy shows you should check out when they release in 2025. And this is where we’ll note that, for the sake of simplicity, we’ve limited our list to series that are produced in Japan, so while titles like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, and Netflix’s upcoming Devil May Cry and Witcher: Sirens of the Deep are heavily anime-inspired, we’ve opted not to include them.
Don’t see your most anticipated title on the list? Let us know what it is in the comments!
In a world that basically functions like an MMORPG, people with special abilities work hunting monsters in inter-dimensional dungeons, then selling the loot they get. Sung Jinwoo is considered the world’s weakest hunter until he discovers he is the only person on the planet capable of literally leveling up like he’s a video game character, thanks to a mysterious supernatural “program.” After Jinwoo discovered a terrifying new power at the end of the first season, the new season promises even more action, as well as some answers to the big mystery behind Jinwoo’s powers and the dungeon that spawned them.
Zenshu: Season 1
Premiere Date: January 5, 2025
Platform: Crunchyroll
The isekai genre (where a person is reincarnated in a fantasy world) is as popular as it is overstuffed, which means any attempt at changing the formula is a welcome change of pace. From Studio MAPPA comes an original anime about the arduous and painful work that goes into creating an anime series, which suddenly takes a turn when an animator dies from overwork and wakes up in her favorite anime — knowing it changes tone and becomes a bleak and bloody tragedy halfway through. Will the animator be able to rewrite her reality? Or is she doomed to experience the same fate as her favorite hero?
My Happy Marriage is back for more twists on the Cinderella formula. The first season of this adaptation of Akumi Agitogi and Tsukiho Tsukioka’s light novel series stood out by understanding the traumas of its heroine and taking inspiration from different takes on the fairy tale in order to make a unique and original story of love and magic. The first season earned rave reviews for its nuanced portrayal of a nascent relationship, and now the second season will focus on Miyo and Kiyoka as their relationship blossoms and enters a new challenge — meeting the parents.
We’re starting the romance season early with J.C. STAFF producing an adaptation of Mayu Murata’s acclaimed manga Honey Lemon Soda, which follows 15-year-old Uka Ishimori, whose middle school trauma left her unable to laugh, cry, or speak. It is after meeting a popular and carefree boy who accidentally drops lemon soda on her that she finds an avenue to slowly come out of her shell, and maybe even fall in love. The manga is very popular, and it received a live-action feature film adaptation in 2020, but this remains a highly awaited anime.
Everyone’s favorite medieval China-inspired Sherlock Holmes story starring a young apothecary addicted to trying out different poisons is back! The Apothecary Diaries made waves in its first season with its pseudo-historical, mystery-solving drama, which has just enough of a hint of romance to launch a lot of fan fiction and plenty of cartoonish comedy to balance the gruesome murders and crimes being investigated. Season 2 promises an even bigger mystery, new players in the Imperial Palace, and more shenanigans starring one of the best main characters in an anime.
The single best sci-fi comedy adventure about the smartest guy in the world trying to bring back humanity thousands of years after a cataclysmic event turned everyone to stone is back for the start of its final adventure. For three seasons, Dr. Stone has mixed thrilling adventures with a true love of humanity and science, making for a surprisingly educational show about the history and the making of some of the biggest discoveries and inventions in history, but always with a focus on how much fun science brings us. In its final season, Senku and his Kingdom of Science are determined to go to space to find a way to revive all of humanity, but before they can do that, the crew heads to the USA, where they’ll face their biggest challenge — an even more technologically advanced civilization who wants to take them out.
This is one of the most highly anticipated anime series of the entire year, an adaptation of one of the most popular current manga, and it’s easy to see why. What if John Wick didn’t just fall in love and get married, but had a kid and grew overweight? Skip the dead dog and you get Sakamoto Days, a hilarious, action-packed anime about a humble convenience store owner and great family man constantly plagued by hitmen trying to collect the huge bounty on his head.
One Piece is rightfully one of the biggest anime of the moment, and after a six-month break, the show is finally back with new episodes, continuing the epic tale of the Egghead Island Arc. The first half of the season had some of the best visuals in the entire 25-year-old anime, and plenty of anticipated and thrilling fights, but the second half promises to up the stakes and bring about some of the most heartbreaking scenes in the story — if manga readers are to be believed. Luffy may not be King of the Pirates just yet, but this saga is approaching its final act.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
Premiere Date: April 2025
Platform: TBA
As My Hero Academia comes to an end, it was recently announced that the show is getting a spin-off series with Vigilantes. This prequel series takes place five years before the start of the main series and follows a young man who — despite not having a Hero license — decides to use his Quirk to help others as a vigilante. Studio Bones is back to produce this anime, which has a distinct look, more comic book-inspired than the main series, with onomatopoeia effects showing on-screen during fight scenes. It’s sure to be a must-watch for fans of superhero anime and My Hero Academia in particular.
Fire Force is finally back for a third season, and it’s bringing the heat. The anime follows a young man with pyrokinetic abilities who joins the titular Fire Force, a group of people who fight fire-themed monsters that threaten to destroy Tokyo, the last remaining city in a world consumed by flames. Season 3 promises some answers about the truth of the world, great fight scenes, and perhaps even a connection between the show and Soul Eater, the popular anime from the same creator of Fire Force that is supposedly set in the same universe.
Kaiju No. 8 can feel like just another big action anime about the power of friendship and being an optimist who trains to be the very best. But what makes this a special and unique show is that its protagonist is not some spiky-haired wide-eyed high schooler, but a 32-year-old who is far from physically fit, and who had long given up on his dream of being an elite soldier in the fight against the kaiju that terrorize Japan.
Dan Da Dan managed to surpass its rather high expectations and deliver one of the finest anime series of 2024. Studio Science Saru elevated the source material with a sense of loose, kinetic animation that makes every scene feel maximalist, with vibrant and colorful action scenes that are as thrilling as they are hilariously weird. Indeed, this is the most bizarre and cuckoo bananas anime in years, one that’s about a boy and a girl embarking on a quest to battle aliens and demons in order to find the boy’s missing balls (really). A show where aliens are obsessed with ABBA songs, and fight scenes feel like something out of Ren & Stimpy. But it is also a very sentimental and poignant story, with a well told romance to boot. Season 2 promises even more hijinks and shenanigans.
My Hero Academia: Season 8
Premiere Date: Fall 2025
Platform: Crunchyroll
The popular superhero anime is coming to an end, as the final season drops in 2025. For eight seasons, My Hero Academia has explored the question of what makes a hero as it tells the story of Deku Midoriya, a young boy who enrolls in a school for superheroes as he chases his dream to become the number one hero in Japan. This is an earnest, bombastic, emotional, spectacular series that’s grown from being a sort of anime version of Sky High before eventually turning into an Avengers: Endgame-sized epic with hundreds of superpowered beings on both sides fighting it out across the country in the seventh season.
(Photo by Netflix)
Leviathan: Season 1
Premiere Date: 2025
Platform: Netflix
Based on the eponymous 2009 American novel written by Scott Westerfeld and illustrated by Keith Thompson, this new series comes to us via Japanese studio Orange, who also gave us Trigun Stampede and Beastars, among others. Set in an alternate 1914 Europe, the story follows a fugitive prince and a girl in disguise as they meet aboard a bioengineered warship and attempt to change the course of history. Also worth noting is that the series will feature original music from Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi (Suzume) and original songs by legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, who scored several Studio Ghibli classics like Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away.
Nyaight of the Living Cat sounds bonkers. This is an anime created by legendary Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) about a mysterious virus that causes people to turn into cats when they cuddle with them, and the struggles of one person trying to resist the urge to hug a cat in this bizarre zombie-like cat world.
This is one of the most highly anticipated new shows of 2025, part of a wave of popular new fantasy manga. Witch Hat Atelier promises to bring some Harry Potter whimsy but with a twist. The story follows a young girl who dreams of being a witch in a world that gatekeeps magic from ordinary people. The series explores the young witch’s journey of learning the arcane arts, as well as the repercussions of tapping into extraordinary power. The series is funny, full of adventure, and also has some fantastic world-building, and it promises to make for a stunning fantasy tale.
Thumbnail images by ©Marvel Studios, Geoffrey Short/©Universal Pictures, @jamesgunn
