Anime News This Week: 15 Webtoons Become Anime, The Remarried Empress Is Coming, PSYREN Finally Returns and More

Anime News This Week

Anime fans, this week was absolutely stacked — and a little historic.

Webtoons aren't just getting anime anymore, they're getting a whole production pipeline. A cult manga from 2010 finally got its premiere, a beloved romance got a January date, and our One to Watch is a wedding proposal with a body count.

We broke all of it down on the latest episode of Anime Goes Audio, presented by The Anime Blog dot com, and here's the written version for everyone who likes to read their news.

Quick show note, too: Maya has a new co-host. Connor is in the chair while Kenji takes a break for school — Kenji may be back, so keep the welcome mat out. Connor's watchlist, for the record, is already out of control.

Crunchyroll, WEBTOON and HAYATE Announce 15 Webtoon Anime

This is the industry earthquake of the week.

Crunchyroll, WEBTOON and HAYATE announced at New York Comic Con on October 8 that they're co-producing roughly 15 webtoons as anime, developed together from the planning stage — not just licensed after the fact.

The first three are The Remarried Empress, Teenage Mercenary and The Boxer. That's a deliberate spread: a fantasy romance juggernaut, a military action hit and a boxing drama.

It's the pipeline that gave us hits before, just much, much bigger. We get into whether bigger is actually better in the Deep Dive below.

The Remarried Empress Is a 2027 TV Anime

The biggest name in that first wave already has its own announcement.

The Remarried Empress is confirmed as a 2027 TV anime from studio TROYCA, directed by Tetsuya Yanagisawa. The announced cast includes Yoko Hikasa, Ryohei Kimura, Tomoaki Maeno and Reina Ueda.

The source webtoon has an enormous global audience, and fans have wanted this adaptation for years. The setup is pure court drama: an empress, a divorce, a remarriage — and an entire court losing its mind.

Can't wait that long? A live-action version arrives November 4, 2026, so the empress gets remarried twice.

SSS-Class Revival Hunter Gets Its First Full Trailer

SSS-Class Revival Hunter dropped its first full trailer and it's headed to Crunchyroll in January 2027, directed by Hiroaki Sakurai at STUDIO fu.

The hook is simple and completely unhinged: the hero gets stronger every time he dies, copying skills as he comes back. It's catnip for Solo Leveling fans, and January just got busier.

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All Locks In January 8

Yes, that's the full title. Yes, it's earned it.

CloverWorks' adaptation premieres January 8, 2027, directed by Masashi Ishihama, and a new trailer shows the story moving past its famous hook into a sweet, music-driven bond between two classmates.

The manga went viral for its art and its green-haired rocker energy. This is already an early most-anticipated pick for winter.

Manchuria Opium Squad Gets an Anime — and the Manga Resumes

This one meant more than a normal announcement.

Manchuria Opium Squad is getting a TV anime, and the manga is resuming at the same time. The series had stopped after its artist, Shikako, passed away last November.

As we talked about on the show, a new chapter was finished from pages he left behind, and a successor artist picks up from there — honoring the wish he left to see his story completed. No anime date or studio yet, just a first visual.

Some announcements are about hype. This one is about respect, and about fans finally getting closure.

PSYREN Premiered October 5 — 16 Years Later

PSYREN premiered October 5 on Crunchyroll, 16 years after the manga ended.

For years it lived in that painful category: a cancelled Jump series that became a cult classic anyway. Now it's getting a complete adaptation, start to finish.

The first two episodes even screened at the TCL Chinese Theatre on October 3. If you're new to all of this and wondering where to start, check out our post on What is Anime? Many Adults Are Learning That They Also Enjoy Anime.

Sixteen years of waiting, and the reward is the whole story told properly. Nature is healing.

Adachitoka Launch a New Manga

The creators of Noragami, Adachitoka, launched a new manga in Monthly Shonen Magazine on October 6.

Details are still thin, and that's fine. Their name alone puts it on our watchlists. Gorgeous art and emotional damage are a safe bet — probably in that order, probably by chapter ten.

Tokyo Anime Next: A New Festival in Ikebukuro

A brand-new festival just entered the chat.

Tokyo Anime Next runs October 30 to November 2 in Ikebukuro, with screenings, creator talks and workshops. The closing highlight on November 2 is a Tokyo Philharmonic concert of anime music.

Another festival to cry about from home? Sure. But a full orchestra playing anime music live is always going to get us.

Here U Are Gets a Second Teaser and Its Leads

The BL webtoon Here U Are got a second teaser at the Crunchyroll showcase, with Yuki Inoue and Ryota Suzuki confirmed as the leads.

A second teaser plus named leads means this is deep into production, not a vague promise. For a fandom that's waited a long time, that matters.

Deep Dive: Is a 15-Title Webtoon Pipeline Genius, or a Flood?

Here's where Maya and Connor actually disagreed — a little.

Maya's case: planning-stage co-production is the whole point. When the streaming platform, the webtoon platform and the studio build a show together from day one, you avoid the worst adaptation sins: rushed schedules, formats a story was never meant for, and panic hiring. The first three picks also prove it's curated, not random — romance, action and sports, three completely different audiences.

Connor's case: 15 at once is a lot. Not every webtoon is a phenomenon, great directors and animators don't grow on trees, and if every slot goes to a title with a built-in audience, where do the weird original anime go?

Where they landed: conditionally excited. A hit webtoon anime brings in millions of new fans, and some of those fans wander off and find the weird originals anyway. But 15 titles means zero excuses — they better deliver, and Connor will be watching with a clipboard.

Our take for the blog is the same: webtoons aren't a genre, they're a medium. This week proved they're now a whole new shelf in the anime library — a shelf none of us will ever finish.

Spoiler Talk, Trivia and Mailbag — the Short Version

Spoiler Talk this week was Steel Ball Run's October 9 episode, "The Devil's Palm." We're keeping this written version spoiler-light: it's the episode where the race stops feeling like a race, a new ability awakens, and the reactions online completely lost it. If you want to know why reaction culture blows up like that, we wrote about it here: Anime Streams Are Very Popular.

Trivia's "Stand or Band" game also returned. Connor went 4-for-5 — one very famous zipper-themed miss — so Kenji's perfect score survives another week.

And the mailbag settled nothing, as usual: dream Stands for real life, and subs versus dubs. Watch however you want. Just actually watch.

One to Watch: Firefly Wedding

Our pick for the week is Firefly Wedding, which premiered October 8 from David Production.

A dying noblewoman proposes marriage to an assassin. That's the pitch, and honestly, that's enough.

It's giving gothic romance, it's giving danger, and it's giving the JoJo studio a chance to make feelings look as dramatic as fight scenes. Fragile heroine, stone-cold killer, wedding bells.

The manga by Oreco Tachibana ended right around the anime announcement, so the timing for new fans is perfect. Our verdict, same as on the podcast: this is the dark romance event of the fall. Watch it or perish — those are the only options we're offering.

Closing

That's the week: a 15-title webtoon takeover, an empress era loading for 2027, PSYREN's vindication arc, and a wedding we're already obsessed with.

Next week, Steel Ball Run drops another episode on Friday, October 16, and we'll be back to talk about it — plus whatever else the fall season throws at us.

Listen to the full breakdown, banter and all, on Anime Goes Audio. Got a question for the mailbag? Send it in — we read every single one.

And if you want to support the show, check out our Patreon for bonus content. Stay addicted, everybody!