Two of autumn 2026 biggest anime sequels swapped studios on the same Sunday

Here is the autumn worth clearing your evenings for, with the dates that are actually confirmed and the ones that are not.

Before October even starts

• 25 September — STEEL BALL RUN: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, 11 episodes weekly on Netflix. It premiered on 19 March with one episode and then went dark for six months, which is why it appears on almost no Fall chart despite being the biggest thing starting this autumn.
• 27 September — As a Reincarnated Aristocrat S3, from a brand-new studio, GeyeG Pictures.

And the show everyone assumes is returning this season is leaving it: One Piece came back on 5 April and its 26-episode Elbaph run finishes around 27 September, four days before autumn begins.

2 October: the headliner

The Apothecary Diaries S3, part one — OLM, directed by Akinori Fudesaka, on Crunchyroll, with a Yorushika opening. Season two scored 8.90 on MyAnimeList and ranks 25th of all anime; season one is 33rd. It took Best Drama, Best Director and a lead-performance award at this year's Crunchyroll Anime Awards from thirteen nominations.

The credit worth squinting at: Toho Animation Studio, which co-animated the first two seasons, has dropped off season three. It is busy. Norihiro Naganuma, who directed season one, handed the TV chair to Fudesaka and is directing the film instead — 11 December, at Toho, from an original story by Natsu Hyūga. He still writes the series composition for the show. He is functionally the absentee author-director: writing the season, directing the movie, and sharing a Best Director trophy for a season somebody else directed.

Same day: Tokyo Revengers: War of the Three Titans Arc (Liden Films, Disney+ and Hulu) and Overgeared (J.C.Staff, Crunchyroll).

4 October: two prestige sequels swap studios in opposite directions

• Aoashi S2 moves to TMS Entertainment from Production I.G, with Kazuki Yokoyama replacing Akira Satō. 24 episodes planned, NHK E.
• Blue Box S2 moves away from Telecom Animation Film — TMS's own subsidiary — to Electric Circus, with Daisuke Sakō replacing Yūichirō Yano. Netflix worldwide, aiko on the opening.

In one afternoon TMS gains a football drama and loses a romance, and neither show is being made by the people who made it. Both previous seasons scored 8.15. Blue Box also has something unusual going for it: its manga finished on 13 July, so for the first time the anime is adapting a known, complete ending with no source race.

The rest of the calendar

• 3 October — Ranma ½ S3 (MAPPA, Netflix weekly). Worth noting the remake now scores below the thing it modernises: 7.96 then 7.74, against the 1989 series' 7.78 across 161 episodes.
• 7 October — Magic Knight Rayearth, a full remake of CLAMP's 1993 manga at E&H production, music by Yuki Kajiura. Western streaming still unannounced.
• 7 October (24:00 JST, so 8 October for most of us) — Reincarnated as a Sword II, C2C, on HIDIVE.
• 9 October — Firefly Wedding, David Production, noitaminA, Crunchyroll.
• 11 October — Mission: Yozakura Family S2 Part 2, and Dragon Ball Super: Beerus from Toei, which world-premieres at New York Comic Con on 8 October, three days ahead of Japan.
• 20 October — Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, Trigger, 10 episodes, Netflix.
• Black Clover S2 is coming back after roughly five years away, but the official word is still just "October." The 3 October date circulating is inference, not announcement.

One date convention that will ruin your calendar

Japanese late-night anime is announced by the day the broadcast starts — "3 October, 24:00 JST" — while Wikipedia and MyAnimeList roll it forward a day. About half the date conflicts you will see in Fall listings are this and nothing else.

And a manga stopped this week

Medalist has gone on hiatus. Tsurumaikada announced it on Friday: serialisation in Monthly Afternoon suspended "due to production circumstances," with no return date, stopping mid-match in the Junior Grand Prix Final. The author apologised for the timing and said the aim is to come back able to run to the arc's conclusion without another break — adding that she wants the manga side "to work hard so as not to lose momentum to the film version."

The Medalist film was dated for 19 February 2027 on 30 August. The manga stopped five days later. Nobody has said one caused the other, and the stated reason is scheduling. But two Kodansha sports hits are peaking this autumn in exactly inverted positions: Blue Box's anime finally has a finished story to adapt, and Medalist's film is about to overtake a stopped one.

Also worth knowing: The World's Finest Assassin S2 is January 2027, not autumn, and Shangri-La Frontier S3 is January too. Related: The two biggest anime polls disagree about who won Summer 2026.