Chainsaw Man's season two is the third instalment and still has no release window

MAPPA is making the Assassins arc. That much is settled, announced at Jump Festa in December 2025 with a teaser, and confirmed again in June 2026 with the staff attached.

What is not settled is the number in front of it.

Calling it season two skips an entire film

The anime's run so far goes: a twelve-episode television season from 12 October to 28 December 2022, and then Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, released in Japanese cinemas on 19 September 2025. The film is a direct continuation. It adapts the next arc of the manga in order. It is not a recap, not a side story and not optional.

The Assassins arc picks up after it. That makes it the third instalment of the anime and the second television one, which is presumably where "season two" comes from — but the phrase quietly tells a new viewer that they can go from episode 12 to the new series without watching a feature film that sits between them.

This is the same numbering habit that turns cours into seasons and compilation films into nothing at all. It is harmless right up to the moment somebody starts watching.

The director changed, and the phrase used to announce it hides that

The June 2026 confirmation said that series director Tatsuya Yoshihara and the original series staff were reprising their roles. Read quickly, that says the band is back together.

Season one was directed by Ryu Nakayama. Yoshihara took over for the Reze Arc film and has kept the chair. So the person being described as returning is returning from the film, not from the television season, and the director of the television season is not involved.

Both men are at MAPPA's disposal and neither departure was framed as a dispute. But "the original series staff" is doing a lot of work in a sentence about a show whose most-discussed creative question in 2022 was its direction.

What is confirmed

• Studio: MAPPA, returning.
• Series director: Tatsuya Yoshihara, confirmed 19 June 2026 along with returning staff.
• Arc: Assassins, adapted from the manga.
• Announced: December 2025, at Jump Festa '26, with a teaser.
• Season one: 12 episodes, 12 October to 28 December 2022, directed by Ryu Nakayama.
• Reze Arc: announced at Jump Festa '24 in December 2023, released 19 September 2025, Yoshihara directing, most cast and crew reprising.

What is still unknown, nine months on

No release window. Not a year, not a season, not a quarter. Announced in December 2025, staffed in June 2026, and as of the end of September 2026 there is no date.

No format. Nobody has said whether Assassins is a television season, a split-cour, or another film. Given that the last instalment was a film, that is not a rhetorical question — and "season two" is being used by people who do not know the answer either.

No episode count, which follows from the above.

An anime that has gone twelve episodes, one feature film and four years without a second television season is about to get one, some time, in some shape. Everyone has agreed to call it season two. Nobody has checked whether it is a season.