Chainsaw Man's Assassins Arc Anime: Every Confirmed Detail So Far
Full spoilers for where Chainsaw Man's Part 1 manga heads after the Reze Arc, plus general context on how far Part 2 went. Nothing about the Assassins Arc's specific chapter events is broken down here.
Chainsaw Man is coming back, and this time it's the International Assassins showing up to try to kill Denji. MAPPA has confirmed its next Chainsaw Man project — an adaptation of the manga's "Assassins Arc" — through two separate reveals, one at Jump Festa 2026 and a follow-up at the studio's own anniversary livestream six months later. Between the two, there's a real amount of confirmed information to work through: staff, source material, and how this project connects to the "Reze Arc" film that came before it. There's also a real amount that isn't confirmed yet, starting with the single biggest question fans actually want answered — when it's coming.
This is a rundown of exactly what's locked in, what's still a question mark, and why the timing of this announcement, relative to where the manga itself currently stands, matters more than it might look at first glance.
The first reveal: Jump Festa 2026
The Assassins Arc anime was first announced on December 21, 2025, at Jump Festa 2026, according to Anime News Network's coverage of the event. That initial reveal came with a teaser visual and a short promotional video, confirming the project's existence and its title without going much further than that. Jump Festa has become a fairly reliable venue for Shueisha's biggest franchises to drop exactly this kind of "it's happening" announcement, and Chainsaw Man's slot at the December event fit that pattern precisely — enough to confirm the adaptation was real, not enough to answer the follow-up questions that immediately came with it.
What that first teaser did make clear is which piece of the manga this project adapts: the "International Assassins" arc, often shortened to the "Assassins Arc" or referred to by the name of its central antagonist group, the Shikaku. It's a stretch of Tatsuki Fujimoto's original Part 1 story, and its inclusion here confirms MAPPA is continuing straight through Part 1 rather than skipping ahead or restructuring the story's order.
MAPPA, again — and a direct continuation
MAPPA remains the studio behind Chainsaw Man, continuing its run on the franchise following Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. That film opened in Japan on September 19, 2025, and, per reporting on its North American box office performance, pulled in roughly $17.25 million during its opening weekend stateside — a strong number for an anime film release and a sign of just how much audience appetite there still is for this franchise. It later began streaming on Crunchyroll, in both subbed and dubbed form, starting April 30, 2026.
The Assassins Arc project is being positioned as a direct continuation following that film, not a separate spin-off or a jump to a different part of the story. For anyone who watched Reze Arc and is wondering whether this new project picks up right where that film left off, the framing from MAPPA's own announcements answers that directly: yes, this is the next chapter, continuing straight on from Reze's story.
The second reveal: MAPPA's 15th anniversary livestream
Six months after the initial Jump Festa reveal, a second teaser and a full staff announcement arrived during MAPPA's "15th Anniversary Lineup Reveal" livestream on June 19, 2026, according to Anime News Network's report on the event. Anniversary showcases like this tend to function as a studio's way of laying out its full upcoming slate in one place, and Chainsaw Man's inclusion — alongside a genuine staff reveal rather than just a repeated teaser — signaled the project had moved further along in development than the December announcement alone suggested.
This is also where a second, unrelated but franchise-adjacent piece of news landed: MAPPA announced Chainsaw Man's first dedicated smartphone game during the same livestream. The game's opening animation is being produced by MAPPA, and its theme song is Maximum the Hormone's "ALL THE LYNCH!! ALL THE MINCE!!" It's worth being precise about that detail, since it's easy to conflate the two announcements — that song is confirmed as the mobile game's theme, not the Assassins Arc anime's opening or ending theme. No music has been attached to the anime itself yet beyond its composer.
Who's confirmed on staff
The June reveal is where the real substance of this announcement lives. According to Anime News Network's report, the confirmed staff for the Assassins Arc project includes:
- Tatsuya Yoshihara as director, returning from his work directing the Reze Arc film
- Hiroshi Seko handling scripts
- Kensuke Ushio composing the music
- Kazutaka Sugiyama as character designer
- Yūsuke Takeda and Takuya Munemasa as art directors
- Kiyotaka Oshiyama handling devil design
- Yasushi Nagura as sound director
Yoshihara's return is the detail that matters most here. Having the same director who steered Reze Arc carry straight over into the next installment is about as strong a continuity signal as MAPPA could send — it suggests the visual language, pacing choices, and overall directorial approach that defined the film are meant to carry forward rather than reset with a new creative lead. Seko's involvement is similarly notable given how much ground he covers across MAPPA's current slate; his scripting work threading through multiple ongoing franchise adaptations makes him one of the more load-bearing names in the studio's current output.
Kensuke Ushio's attachment as composer is worth sitting with too. Ushio has built a reputation for scores that lean into mood and atmosphere as much as traditional action-anime bombast, and Chainsaw Man's existing soundtrack — dating back to the original anime — already leaned into that same unconventional, texture-first sensibility. Keeping him on board suggests the Assassins Arc project intends to sound like a continuation of the franchise's established identity rather than a clean break from it.
What the second teaser actually shows
Beyond the staff reveal, the June teaser itself gave fans a genuine look at new material, even without any dialogue. It's built as a music-driven montage rather than a scene-by-scene preview, but it introduces new fiend characters and hints at a setting shift toward the United States — a detail that lines up directly with what the Assassins Arc storyline in the manga is actually about.
That U.S.-setting tease is a meaningful confirmation on its own, even absent dialogue or plot specifics. Chainsaw Man's story up to this point has stayed largely rooted in Japan, so a teaser explicitly gesturing toward an American backdrop is a visible signal that this arc is expanding the story's geography, not just introducing a new villain group operating in the same familiar spaces.
What the Assassins Arc is actually about
For anyone catching up: the Assassins Arc, also referred to as the International Assassins arc, is the stretch of Fujimoto's Part 1 manga in which Denji becomes the target of a coordinated group of international hitmen and hitwomen — the Shikaku — all hunting for the heart of the Chainsaw Devil. It's a shift in structure from earlier arcs, trading a single antagonist for an ensemble of assassins converging on Denji from multiple directions at once, which tracks with the U.S.-setting tease in the second teaser and the "new fiend characters" the montage introduces.
In terms of scale, the arc spans roughly 18 chapters of the manga's Part 1. Some secondary reporting has attempted to pin down the exact chapter range, citing chapters 53 through 70, but that specific range isn't corroborated by a primary outlet in the coverage of this announcement — it's reportedly the range, per secondary sourcing, and should be treated with that caveat rather than as settled fact.
Reportedly returning cast — treat this one carefully
Secondary and aggregator sourcing, rather than a primary outlet's own reporting, points to an expected returning Japanese voice cast that reportedly includes Kikunosuke Toya as Denji, Tomori Kusunoki as Makima, Shogo Sakata as Aki, Fairouz Ai as Power, Karin Takahashi as Kobeni, and Maaya Uchida as Angel Devil. None of these names have been independently confirmed against a primary outlet in connection with this specific project, so this should be read as reportedly returning cast rather than an officially confirmed lineup. If MAPPA or a primary outlet issues its own cast confirmation, that would supersede this secondary reporting.
What's genuinely not confirmed yet
This is the part worth being blunt about, because it's the part most likely to get overstated elsewhere: as of this writing, there is no premiere date, no episode count, and no confirmation of whether the Assassins Arc will arrive as a television series or as another theatrical film in the mold of Reze Arc. Nothing in either the December Jump Festa reveal or the June anniversary livestream addressed format at all — both announcements focused on confirming the project exists and, in June's case, who's making it, without touching when or in what shape it lands.
That's worth repeating because it's easy to see a staff reveal and a second teaser and assume a release window must be close behind. It isn't confirmed to be. Given how Reze Arc was handled — a theatrical release rather than a broadcast season — there's a reasonable case for MAPPA continuing with the film format for the Assassins Arc too, but that's inference based on precedent, not anything stated in the actual announcements. Anyone who sees a release date attached to this project circulating online right now should treat it as unconfirmed until it traces back to MAPPA, Shueisha, or a primary outlet directly.
Why the manga's current state matters here
Context worth keeping in mind: Chainsaw Man's Part 2 manga, "The Academy Saga," concluded on March 25, 2026. That means the print story has already wrapped its second major installment entirely, while the anime is still working through the tail end of Part 1. The Assassins Arc adaptation isn't catching up to where the manga currently stands — it's continuing to fill in earlier ground the print version cleared years ago.
That gap is fairly typical for long-running Shonen Jump adaptations, where the anime frequently trails the manga by a significant margin, but it's worth being explicit about here because it shapes expectations for what this project can and can't do. The Assassins Arc anime isn't positioned to bridge into Part 2's story at all — it's finishing out Part 1's remaining ground first, with whatever comes after that, adaptation-wise, still an open question.
Reading the two-announcement rollout
Stepping back, the pattern here is a familiar one for a franchise this size: an initial confirmation-only reveal at a major fan event, followed roughly six months later by a fuller staff-and-teaser drop at a dedicated studio showcase. That's a deliberate pacing choice rather than a delay — MAPPA used Jump Festa to lock in that the project exists at all, then used its own 15th anniversary platform to attach real names and a second look at footage once more of the production had actually come together.
It also means the next real update likely won't be far behind in terms of announcement cadence, even if it's still likely months away in terms of actual calendar time. Studios building toward a release tend to follow reveals like this with progressively more concrete details — a format confirmation, then a release window, then a full trailer with dialogue, then a firm date — and Chainsaw Man's Assassins Arc currently sits at the "staff and second teaser" stage of that progression, one step past the bare announcement but still several steps short of anything resembling a release date.
Bottom line
What's actually locked in for Chainsaw Man's Assassins Arc anime: it exists, MAPPA is making it as a direct continuation following the Reze Arc film, Tatsuya Yoshihara is back directing alongside a returning-adjacent creative team that includes Hiroshi Seko, Kensuke Ushio, and Kazutaka Sugiyama, and it adapts the International Assassins arc from Fujimoto's Part 1 manga — reportedly around 18 chapters covering Denji becoming the Shikaku's shared target. What's still missing is the information most fans actually want: no format confirmation, no episode count, and no premiere date. Until MAPPA says otherwise, anyone circling a specific release window for this one is getting ahead of what's actually been announced.
Expect MAPPA to eventually confirm whether the Assassins Arc lands as a TV series or another theatrical film, along with a release window, full trailer, and cast list — none of which have been announced as of this writing.