// KOTAKU — GAMING
The 10 New Fall 2026 Anime You Should Be Most Excited For
How’s your anime backlog looking? Never-ending, I presume? You’ve barely managed to get through everything that was released over the summer, you say? Yeah—trust me, I sympathize.
Well, I’ve got good news and bad news in that respect. The good news is that the fall 2026 anime line-up is nowhere near as stacked as summer 2026’s offerings. The bad news is that it’s still pretty stacked, so if you’re still struggling to make it through the last season, you won’t get much of a breather.
Surprisingly, there’s not an awful lot in the way of massively popular returning series, either. The Apothecary Diaries is back for season 3, the incredibly underrated The Ramparts of Ice is returning for a second season, and Black Clover’s second season is finally dropping after a five-year-long hiatus.
But this isn’t a list of returning anime you should be excited about—it’s a list of new anime, so no second or third seasons here. Look, I know we’re struggling to keep up at the moment, so the last thing we need is more new stuff, but…hey, you clicked on the article, man.
All right, let’s start off strong, because I have high hopes for this one. The Vermilion Mask has the makings of an anime that could prove to be wildly popular, because it’s hitting all the same kinds of notes as Jujutsu Kaisen.
For starters, while the manga was serialized by Shōnen Gahōsha, this is actually a seinen. That’s my way of saying that this is more Attack on Titan than My Hero Academia; darker, gorier, and most definitely aimed at older audiences. I don’t wanna spoil anything, because I think the manga is very well written, but let’s just say the first episode isn’t going to be a wholesome and jolly affair.
While the relatively young animation team behind The Vermilion Mask, 100studio, isn’t an A-lister by any stretch of the imagination, what little they have produced thus far has been pretty impressive. I might be one of the only people who actually watched Quality Assurance in Another World, so take it from me; 100studio has the sauce, and I think The Vermilion Mask might be its first breakout hit.
OK, this one might be my biggest “hear me out” entry on this list, but it’s also the one I’m the most excited about. Tank Chair is a manga that I never thought would get adapted into an anime. It’s a bizarre premise, but that’s not why I didn’t think it would be adapted; it’s more because it’s only moderately popular, yet it would be wildly expensive to animate.
For context, Tank Chair is about a disabled assassin named Nagi who murders people using his motorized, mecha wheelchair. It’s awesome. Easily has some of the coolest fight scenes I’ve ever seen in a manga…but here’s the rub: the anime adaptation is gonna be 3D computer-generated.
I know, I know—3DCG is a dirty word in the anime world, but given how much this would cost to animate otherwise, I understand the decision for Tank Chair. On the plus side, when it comes to 3DCG, you don’t get much better than Polygon Pictures. This is the studio behind the likes of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; Love, Death & Robots; and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, so if something has to be 3DCG, these are the guys you want on the job.