10 Anime Series You’re Probably Missing Out on in 2026

2 hours ago 1

Published Jun 18, 2026, 2:19 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Contributor at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

2026 is only halfway done, and it’s already been a veritable smorgasbord of quality anime. My weekly schedule runneth over with action, comedy, romance, and slice-of-life shows, among many others, forcing me to be a little more picky about what I bother loading up Crunchyroll for. Even so, I still make time for the shows that genuinely catch my interest, whether through an interesting initial hook or impressive production quality.

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I totally get that not everyone has the time, energy, or interest to watch absolutely everything that airs in a given season, but only sticking with the major simulcasts does feel like living entertainment on the table. If you dig a little bit deeper, try some shows you may not normally watch or look into productions that didn’t initially catch your eye, you might just end up finding your next sleeper hit. And if you don’t, well, there’s always the three-episode rule to save you some time.

10 Champignon Witch

Even a Mushroom can Find Love

Studio

Genre

Release Date

Typhoon Graphics

Fantasy

January 2026

People always say you shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but unfortunately, that’s a lesson most don’t seem to take to heart. It’s a shame, because there are a lot of really interesting people out there, like Champignon Witch’s Luna, who could have easier lives if people weren’t so judgy.

Luna is a black witch who has lived for ages in a forest crawling with poisonous fungi. The very nature of her magic causes this same fungi to sprout wherever she walks, and perhaps unsurprisingly, people aren’t into that, leaving her severely ostracized by the local village. However, she is a very kind person at heart, using her knowledge of mycology to make medicine for the townsfolk in secret, and with a few chance encounters, Luna gradually starts to find the people willing to give her a fair shake.

It’s a quiet and wholesome little show, though the highlight is definitely its visual design. It’s very storybook-esque, including Luna’s mushroom-laden cabin and the way her familiars change shape to help her. It’s a nice choice if you want to engage in a little escapism with some good vibes to match.

9 Journal with Witch

Relearning the Definition of Family

Speaking of social isolation, not everyone is isolated by external circumstances. Some people just genuinely prefer to be alone and keep their lives compartmentalized. There’s nothing wrong with that, though as we see in Journal with Witch, it does make things a little more complicated in the event life comes knocking.

Makio Kodai is a novelist by trade, largely preferring the company of books to other people. She hasn’t been in contact with her immediate or extended family in a long time, but that ends when her sister and brother-in-law are suddenly killed in a car accident, leaving her niece Asa an orphan. With none of their extended family willing to help, Makio takes Asa in, and the two attempt to deal with both their changed situations and learn to process their grief.

This is not a happy or fun show, nor is it trying to be. It’s a down-to-earth story of two people with only the loosest of connections trying to find solace in a world that hasn’t been particularly nice to either of them. It’ll get heartwarming eventually, but you gotta put the work in to get there.

8 The Demon King's Daughter is Too Kind!!

Cute Kids can Rule the World

Studio

Genre

Release Date

EMT Squared

Fantasy, comedy

January 2026

I don’t have kids, but I do have a very young, very precocious nephew, and if he so willed it, I would happily destroy the world for him. I guess that’s the power of a cute, young child, and that’s before factoring in hereditary world-destroying magic like the titular kid of The Demon King’s Daughter is Too Kind.

The world-conquering Demon King Ahriman is, without question, the most powerful, feared man on the face of the planet, with his empire growing in size and subjugating more of humanity every day. However, contrary to his evil ways, his daughter, Doux, is a perfect cinnamon roll, so unfailingly kind and joyful that even her dad can’t say no to her. Ahriman’s right-hand demon, Jahi, wants to train Doux into a proper evil successor, but her efforts are foiled at every turn by Doux’s bottomless potential for making friends.

This show is pure, saccharine sweetness, not to mention consistently funny every time Doux subverts the usual evil demon playbook and ends up making everyone loyal to her anyway. Every episode even has a sing-a-long section, usually featuring at least one bewildered demon in the background.

7 Kaya-chan Isn't Scary

The Burden of Sight

Stories about exorcists and evil spirits have been popular in manga and anime in recent years. It’s not hard to see why; it’s an easy way to cook up a contemporary fantasy setting with a mix of action and horror. It even works when your protagonist is a literal kindergartener, such as in Kaya-chan Isn’t Scary.

5-year-old Kaya Sato is something of a problem child at the local kindergarten, regularly causing fights and disagreements with the other kids and ignoring the teachers. However, as one of the teachers, Chie, finds out, all of these disagreements actually come from Kaya using her latent psychic abilities to fight off the numerous evil spirits attempting to devour the students and staff.

It’s a mildly silly premise, but while there is an occasional comedy beat, the series mostly plays it straight, leaning into the horror of each spirit’s attempts to do their dark work and Kaya’s inevitable Saitama-esque butt-kicking when she finally manages to pin them down. Of course, she’s also a literal child, so it’s interesting to see her attempt to rationalize the horrible stuff constantly happening around her.

6 Kirio Fan Club

Fandom Crops Up in Strange Places

Studio

Genre

Release Date

Satelight

Romcom

April 2026

Fandom is a fun way to meet and bond with people, which is a big part of why I like anime so much in the first place. What’s neat about fandom, though, is how a fandom can crop up just about anywhere and with any number of people, even if it’s just two girls gushing about how cool their schlub of a classmate is in Kirio Fan Club.

Aimi and Nami are two high schoolers with exactly one definitive thing in common: they’re both head-over-heels for their classmate, Ken Kirio. Unfortunately, they’re both too shy to act on that one-sided crush, so they instead spend their time conjuring elaborate fantasies about how cool Kirio is. As the two start to bond over this odd little fandom, their actual interest in Kirio starts to take a backseat to their budding friendship, which is probably good, because Kirio himself isn’t actually that impressive.

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It’s a fun little spin on a classic trope you usually see in romcom anime, and a nice observation on the concepts of friendship versus romance. Their Kirio fantasies are also hilarious, rather reminiscent of some bizarre headcanons I’ve seen in forums over the years.

5 MAO

Rumiko Takahashi’s Latest

Studio

Genre

Release Date

Sunrise

Supernatural Adventure

April 2026

Rumiko Takahashi is manga and anime royalty, having created multiple certified classics like Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and Inuyasha. Suffice to say, anything she creates, and any new anime based upon it, should be on your watchlist by default, full stop. That, then, brings us to MAO.

MAO starts in a notably similar fashion to Inuyasha, with modern-day middle-schooler Nanoka finding herself inexplicably time-slipping back to Japan’s Taisho era, encountering the sword-wielding Mao and getting tangled up in his demon-busting activities. However, despite what you may expect from precedence, Mao is completely human, while Nanoka is the supernatural entity, having died in an accident several years prior and yet continuing to live on normally.

MAO kind of reads like a newer version of Inuyasha, albeit with enough details like its later historical setting and character archetype inversion to keep it interesting. It’s also a more serious setting than Takahashi’s usual works, though with an occasional dip into comedy to keep things light.

4 Akane-banashi

Let Me Tell You a Story

Rakugo, if you’re unfamiliar, is a traditional Japanese art of stage storytelling, in which a single performer narrates and performs a funny, dramatic, or serious story on stage with no props but a fan and a kerchief. It’s got a long and storied history, though it’s a little dry to convey in modern terms. If you want a good introduction, though, Akane-banashi is a great one, not to mention a great Shonen series in its own right.

Akane Osaki is a grade schooler whose father works as a professional Rakugoka, who’s preparing for his promotion test to full professional status. In a manner I won’t spoil, that test doesn’t quite go as planned, and Akane, eager to prove the viability of her father’s art, picks up where he left off years later in high school, becoming a super rookie in the Rakugo scene.

I’ve been reading the manga for this one in Weekly Jump for a while now, and it’s been a really fascinating introduction to Rakugo as a whole, full of consistently interesting character motivations. It has its Shonen-style gimmicks, but it’s also firmly rooted in real Rakugo practices, so it can be exciting and engaging without devolving into dumb gimmicks.

3 The Ramparts of Ice

School is Just Awful

Being a teenager in public school is just… awful. It’s so, so awful. There’s no punchline here, it’s terrible. Either you risk everything and try to make some friends, or commit to being passively miserable until you make it out. Still, if you’re lucky enough to meet the right people, it can at least be bearable, as we see in The Ramparts of Ice.

Koyuki Hikawa does not get along with most people. She doesn’t hate them or anything (though she’d be entitled to after the way she was treated in middle school), but she tends to get really intense when confronted, so everyone but her best friend just assumes she’s an ice queen. By chance, she attracts the mildly unwanted attention of the school’s resident social butterfly, Minato. The two of them have to figure out what exactly they want out of their social lives, all while enduring peer pressure and misunderstandings all around them.

Ramparts of Ice comes to us from Koucha Agasawa, creator of You & I Are Polar Opposites, and once again, their skill at writing teen characters is on full display. Rather than Polar Opposites’ bubbly tone, though, this series is a lot more grounded in the pains of teen social interaction.

2 Daemons of the Shadow Realm

Better than its Generic Title

Daemons of the Shadow Realm

Something you learn when you get into anime is that finding the best shows is all about being in the know. For example, did you know that the creator of certified classic Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa, started a new manga serialization in 2021? I sure didn’t, in part because the series has a painfully generic title: Daemons of the Shadow Realm. That’s why its anime adaptation almost went under my radar, but thankfully, I caught it at the last minute.

Our hero, Yuru, is a hunter living in a small medieval mountain village, whose only family after his parents fled is his sister Asa. One day, the village is besieged by soldiers wielding modern weaponry, revealing that not only is his sister an imposter, but their village has been isolated from current-day Japan for ages. Not only that, but in order to survive, Yuru forges a contract with the village’s twin guardian deities, and the lot of them descend into the modern world in search of answers.

Daemons of the Shadow Realm has all the components of a classic Shonen series: a likable protagonist, an enduring mystery, and a cool supernatural power system. Though, what really sells Yuru is the fact that, more than his Daemons, he relies on his hunting instincts, fighting evenly with supernatural foes with nothing but a bow and his own agility.

1 Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You

A Salaryman and a Cashier Walk Behind a Supermarket…

Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You Tayama

Studio

Genre

Release Date

Asahi Production

Slice-of-life

July 2026

I don’t think people should smoke, but I can acknowledge that, for some, smoking makes for a decent social lubricant. Apparently, if you’re lucky enough, you can meet a cool punk lady just by smoking in the right place, as we see in Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You.

Sasaki is an overworked salaryman with a terrible office job and incompetent, abusive boss. His only two solaces are chain-smoking and visiting the local 24-hour supermarket so his favorite cashier, Yamada, smiles at him. By chance, he encounters cool lady Tayama (who’s actually just Yamada without her customer service face on) smoking behind the supermarket, and the two strike up a friendship, bumming cigs and shooting the breeze about adult life.

It’s always refreshing to see older protagonists in anime dealing with the humdrums of working life, and it’s fun to watch Sasaki and Tayama’s budding relationship. Technically, this show is part of the Summer 2026 season, but it was released early in the form of several “mini-episodes” adding up to the first six regular episodes. Wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t know, because it was barely announced.