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Every year, the Javits Center in New York City transforms into a vibrant explosion of Japanese pop culture for Anime NYC, and 2025 was no exception. This year’s show felt particularly electric, with four days jam-packed full of premieres, attendee photoshoots, and major industry panels. The energy was palpable, and not just because of sheer crowd enthusiasm during the annual Cosplay Masquerade for the triumphant return of last year’s winners during halftime, NYC-based dance group The Baby Bottle Boys, or the number of impromptu KPop Demon Hunters group dances we witnessed outside the exhibition hall.
We’re heading into 2026 with anime more mainstream than ever before, and streaming platforms are treating new series debuts the way Hollywood studios once treated summer blockbusters. Publishers and studies are clearly rising to meet the present moment, and Crunchyroll and Netflix — two titans of anime distribution — used the convention floor and packed panel halls to roll out a wave of new announcements this year. From high-profile continuations (Star Wars: Visions and Blue Eye Samurai) to daring originals (Let’s Play, Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!), Anime NYC 2025 showcased an industry straddling two identities: the nostalgic, long-running sagas that keep fans loyal, and the fresh new works that could very welcome become part of the next “big three” (which “big three” we mean will remain up for fan debate).
Here’s everything that was revealed at Anime NYC 2025, and where you can eventually stream the shows, movies, and more online.
Netflix’s Slate — Prestige-y Blockbusters Galore
Netflix, continuing its push to secure a foothold as a premier anime hub, debuted some of the most headline-grabbing reveals of the weekend. A new trailer for Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (adapted from Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell video games and novels) set the internet buzzing, with its sleek visuals and confirmation of an October 14, 2025 release date. Starring Liev Schreiber as Sam Fisher, it’s a bold crossover attempt that blurs the line between gaming nostalgia and anime reinvention.
The streamer also confirmed that Devil May Cry Season 2 will arrive in 2026, teasing more sibling rivalry between Dante and Vergil, while fans of Emmy Award-winning Blue Eye Samurai finally got the reassurance that a second season is officially in production. Add to that Record of Ragnarok III (set to premiere in December 2025), and you have a lineup of equal parts spectacle and fan service.
Netflix Anime Streaming Slate, 2025-2026
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (October 14, 2025)
Devil May Cry Season 2 (2026)
Blue Eye Samurai Season 2 (TBD — currently in production)
Record of Ragnarok III (December 2025)
Sakamoto Days (2nd Half) (Currently streaming)
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Star Wars: Visions Season 3 — The Anime Galaxy Expands
One of the weekend’s most visually and creatively dazzling reveals came from Lucasfilm and Disney+, with the return of Star Wars: Visions for a third volume, premiering October 29, 2025. This anthology of nine new anime shorts is bringing back beloved studios and introducing bold new ones, anchored by a standout preview of “BLACK,” a vivid, experimental short from animation studio david production.
“BLACK” plunges viewers into the fractured psyche of an Imperial stormtrooper in the final moments of the Death Star’s fall. Written and directed by Shinya Ohira (whose resume includes Akira, Spirited Away, and Kill Bill Vol. 1), it forgoes traditional dialogue for a sensory fusion of music (by Sakura Fujiwara) and haunting, psychedelic imagery. Ohira described the project as “something nobody’s ever seen before,” shaped by meticulous animation of figures like the stormtroopers and a richly detailed Death Star backdrop.
“We really got down into some fine details for this film. There’s the Death Star…The setting is really super detailed, and the stormtroopers, drawing out the action in the battle scenes, it was really quite an arduous task for the animators,” Ohira said in a pre-recorded video. The panel also showcased striking new key art, spotlighting returning characters from Volume 1, like the Ronin (The Duel), F (The Village Bride), and Lah Kara (The Ninth Jedi). The Star Wars: Visions panel also teased brand-new entries expanded by studios like Kamikaze Douga, TRIGGER, Production I.G., WIT Studio, Polygon Pictures, Project Studio Q, and ANIMA.
Notably, three stories from Volume 1 — The Duel, The Village Bride, and The Ninth Jedi — are receiving sequels in Volume 3. Fans of The Ninth Jedi have even more to look forward to: Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi, a full-length spin-off series landing in 2026. At Anime NYC, Waugh hinted that more Visions stories could be expanded this way, marking the beginning of a broader “Visions Presents” initiative.
Sign up for Disney+ to catch up on the last two season of Star Wars: Visions (and the rest of the Star Wars galaxy) before the third drops on October 29, 2025.
sign up for disney+
Crunchyroll’s Originals Showcase — Fresh Fire And New Worlds
Crunchyroll, for its part, doubled down on its reputation as the “home of anime” this year at Anime NYC. Their showcase revealed that Fire Force Season 3, Part 2 will land in January 2026, marking the fiery finale to Atsushi Ōkubo’s hit shōnen saga. But the real surprise was the introduction of multiple new acquisitions and adaptations.
Argubaly the biggest news was Let’s Play, a heartfelt romantic comedy based on the beloved webcomic viewed by fans more than 700 million times. This show comes from the producer of The Apothecary Diaries with Daiki Tomiyasu (Pokémon Sun & Moon) set direct the series at studio OLM. Kana Hanazawa (Mitsuri Kanroji in the smash hitDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba) will also voice the main character, Sam Young.
The panel also held announcements of a diverse slate that ranges from action-packed heroics (SI-VIS: The Sound of Heroes, The Banished Court Magician Aims to Become the Strongest), to classic isekai comfort food (A Gatherer’s Adventure in Isekai) and romcoms already penciled in for 2026 (There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero’s Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her). But Crunchyroll’s booth and panels weren’t just about announcements, either. Full of interactive exhibits and themed photo ops, this jam-packed Saturday showcase made it clear that the platform is in the business of curating community beyond just distributing anime.
Crunchyroll Streaming Slate, 2025-2026:
Fire Force Season 3 Part 2 (January 2026)
Let’s Play (TBD)
Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! (October 2025)
SI-VIS: The Sound of Heroes (October 2025)
The Banished Court Magician Aims to Become the Strongest (October 2025)
A Gatherer’s Adventure in Isekai (October 2025)
There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero’s Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her (2026)
To watch these new series, you’ll to create an account and subscribe to one of their plans which start at $7.99/month. You try out Crunchyroll through their 7-day free trial, or add it on to other platforms like Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
get crunchyroll free trial
Anime NYC 2025 Announcements Recap
Anime NYC 2025 has always been a parade of trailers and reveals, but as someone who has been attending the con since Year One in 2017, this weekend really highlighted how streaming platforms are shaping the medium’s future. The push and pull between offering cinematic spectacle and serialized variety is only a snapshot of where the industry is headed.
Netflix is clearly staking its claim by positioning anime as event television, with announcements like Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and Devil May Cry Season 2 echoing the logic of Hollywood’s franchise-driven mindset. Their strategy is clear: by upping production budgets and leaning on recognizable IP with global star power, they’re envisioning anime no longer as a niche offering, but as a prestige format meant to compete with their live-action tentpoles. Listen, when you can slot a video game adaptation next to Blue Eye Samurai on your homepage, you’re telling viewers that anime belongs in the same league as their platform’s biggest thrillers.
Crunchyroll, in contrast, is leveraging its deep ties to fandom and its sheer breadth of offerings. They know their audience isn’t looking for just one marquee release every couple of months — they want a steady stream of variety, with new series dropping each season. Platforms like theirs can (and do) thrive on delivering at this pace, and that’s why their Anime NYC showcase leaned on fresh originals and adaptations across genres. Announcing mega-popular titles like Let’s Play alongside smaller isekai adventures and quirky fantasies shows that Crunchyroll can confidently serve up something for quite literally every type of fan.
This year, though, Star Wars: Visions injected a third dimension into this competition. Globally beloved franchises are finally embracing the artistic experimentation that comes with cultural crossover (and the fact that Disney/Lucasfilms was at Anime NYC as a major player at all also shows far mainstream we’ve come in general). With anime auteurs driving short-form storytelling in a galaxy far, far away, Visions highlights the possibility of collaborative creative expression. And by turning select shorts into full-blown spin-offs (The Ninth Jedi), Lucasfilm is offering a brand new dimision of their beloved universe up to the fandom that’s not just another Skywalker-related saga.
What’s at stake, then, is more than just viewership numbers. These reveals represent two distinct visions of anime’s global future: will audiences gravitate toward Disney+ and Netflix’s polished, prestige-style event series, or will they prefer Crunchyroll‘s seemingly never-ending buffet of continuous content that captures the heartbeat of seasonal anime viewers? For fans, the answer might well be both. But for the companies, the competition couldn’t be more serious — and we can’t wait to tune in.
