My Hero Academia's 10th Anniversary: Ultra Expo 2027 and the New 'You Say Run,' Explained
My Hero Academia isn't getting a new season. It's getting a party. On September 20, 2026, Toho Animation and Bones held "All Might Nippon YouTube Special Edition: 10th Anniversary Midterm Report," a livestream hosted by Daiki Yamashita and Nobuhiko Okamoto — the Japanese voices of Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo, respectively — to check in on where the franchise's anniversary year stands. What came out of it were two genuinely big pieces of news: a massive two-day fan event set for April 2027, and a reworked version of the series' signature Season 1 track with an unlikely collaborator. Neither one is new story content, and that distinction matters more than it might seem at first glance.
First, the context: this is post-finale programming
My Hero Academia's anime finale, an epilogue episode titled "More," streamed exclusively worldwide (outside Asia) via Crunchyroll on May 2, 2026. That means everything coming out of this September livestream is happening after the story has already wrapped on screen — this isn't a season 9 tease or a hint at new arcs, it's the franchise marking ten years since its 2016 debut and giving fans a reason to keep gathering around it even with the anime itself finished. If you've seen headlines calling this a "10th anniversary" announcement and assumed that means new episodes are coming, that's not what was revealed here. Worth being explicit about that up front, because anniversary livestreams for finished shows tend to get misread as continuation news more often than they should.
The big reveal: My Hero Academia Ultra Expo
The centerpiece of the livestream was the announcement of "My Hero Academia Ultra Expo," a new two-day fan event scheduled for April 17-18, 2027 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, according to Anime Corner and The Magic Rain. The event will use Exhibition Halls 2 and 3 for its main floor space, plus a dedicated Event Hall for stage programming — a footprint that puts it firmly in the category of a large-scale convention rather than a smaller pop-up or themed café tie-in.
Organizers are billing Ultra Expo as the largest event in the anime's history, and it's been positioned explicitly as the closing event of the franchise's 10th-anniversary project — the finale of the anniversary celebration itself, not a standalone convention unconnected to everything else Toho and Bones have been running this year. That framing is worth sitting with. Anniversary years for long-running franchises often build toward some kind of capstone moment, and Ultra Expo is clearly meant to be that capstone for My Hero Academia specifically, timed almost exactly one year on from the anime's May 2026 finale.
What we don't know yet — and it's a lot
Here's the part that's important to be upfront about: beyond the dates and the venue, essentially none of Ultra Expo's actual content has been announced. There's no program lineup, no confirmed guest list, and no ticketing information available as of this writing. Organizers have said that fuller details are coming in early October 2026, according to Anime Corner's reporting, which puts the next real update only a couple of weeks out from the initial reveal.
That gap between "we're holding a huge event" and "here's what's actually happening at it" is fairly typical for an announcement at this stage — locking in a date and venue for a convention-scale gathering usually happens well before the specifics of programming are finalized. But it does mean anyone hoping for concrete details on panels, merchandise, or which cast and creative staff will actually appear needs to wait for that October follow-up rather than assuming anything currently circulating is confirmed.
One more thing worth flagging clearly: date reporting on this event hasn't been perfectly consistent across outlets. April 17-18, 2027 is the figure corroborated across multiple sources, so that's the one worth planning around until Toho or Bones states otherwise directly.
The other big reveal: a reimagined "You Say Run"
Alongside Ultra Expo, the anniversary rollout delivered a second, very different kind of announcement: a special 10th-anniversary version of "You Say Run," the Season 1 track originally composed by Yūki Hayashi. The new version premiered live at "My Hero Academia IN CONCERT" in London on September 20, 2026 — the same day as the livestream — with a global digital release following on September 22, 2026, according to Anime News Network's coverage of the press release and CBR's reporting on the release date.
What makes this version genuinely different isn't just a remix or remaster. It's a full collaboration between Hayashi and Electric Callboy, the German electronicore band known for blending metal instrumentation with dance and pop sensibilities. Band members Kevin Ratajczak and Nico Sallach provided new English-language vocals layered over Hayashi's original composition, according to Anime News Network's press release coverage — meaning the underlying music is still recognizably the same track that soundtracked Season 1, but now carries an entirely new vocal performance from outside the franchise's usual Japanese-language music partners.
New artwork to go with the new sound
The anniversary single isn't just an audio release. Bones Film — the studio's animation-focused wing — created new cover artwork depicting Izuku Midoriya attacking, deliberately echoing the composition of the original Season 1 soundtrack's cover art, per Anime News Network's reporting. That kind of visual callback is a small but deliberate touch: pairing a reworked track with artwork that mirrors its original packaging signals this release is meant to read as a tribute to where the franchise started, not a rebrand or a stylistic departure from it.
It's also worth noting why "You Say Run" specifically was chosen for this treatment rather than any other track from the show's decade-long run of openings, endings, and score work. The song has been closely associated with Season 1 since the anime's earliest run, back when My Hero Academia was still introducing Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, and the rest of U.A. High's Class 1-A to a global audience for the first time. Revisiting that specific track for the 10th anniversary — rather than, say, one of the show's later, higher-stakes finale themes — reads as a deliberate choice to loop back to the series' origin point rather than lean into its more recent, darker story beats.
An electronicore band on a shonen anniversary single is an unusual pairing — and that's the point
Electric Callboy isn't a name most My Hero Academia fans would have expected attached to this franchise. The band's genre blends heavy metal instrumentation with electronic and dance-pop elements, a combination that's built them a substantial following in the West but that sits well outside the pool of composers and vocalists Japanese anime productions typically reach for on anniversary material. Pairing them with Hayashi's original composition, rather than commissioning an entirely new track from a Japanese artist, signals an anniversary campaign that's explicitly reaching toward My Hero Academia's international audience rather than treating the milestone as a purely domestic celebration.
That reading is reinforced by where the track actually premiered. Debuting the new version live in London, at a dedicated concert event rather than a Japan-based stream or convention, put the reveal directly in front of an overseas audience first, with the global digital release following just two days later. For a franchise that's built an enormous following well beyond Japan over the past decade, choosing a Western band and a London stage for this specific piece of anniversary programming isn't a coincidental detail — it's a statement about who the campaign is aimed at.
The bigger anniversary-year timeline
This September livestream doesn't exist in isolation — it's the latest checkpoint in a 10th-anniversary campaign that's been running for months. Earlier in the year, Toho ran a free rewatch marathon of Seasons 1 through 3, covering episodes 1 through 63, on its official YouTube channel, according to an April 2026 Anime News Network press release. The marathon rolled out monthly between April and August 2026, with subtitles available in seven languages, giving both longtime fans and newcomers a low-barrier way to revisit — or discover for the first time — the earlier run of the series ahead of the anniversary's later programming.
Read together, the shape of the anniversary year becomes clearer: a subtitle-supported global rewatch campaign running spring through summer, followed by this September's livestream announcing the anniversary single and the Ultra Expo capstone event, all building toward that April 2027 event as the formal closing point of the entire 10th-anniversary project. It's a rollout built for a franchise trying to keep a finished story visible and engaged with across an entire calendar year, rather than one big single-day celebration.
Just how big the franchise has gotten
It's worth stepping back to register the actual scale being celebrated here. Since its 2016 debut, My Hero Academia's anime has produced eight seasons and more than 170 episodes, plus four feature films — a run that's made it one of the defining shonen franchises of its decade, alongside a manga that ran the story to its conclusion and an anime adaptation that closed things out with May 2026's "More" epilogue. An anniversary campaign this elaborate, with a purpose-built convention and an international musical collaboration both attached to the same milestone, tracks with a franchise of that size treating its 10-year mark as a genuine occasion rather than a routine marketing beat.
What's confirmed versus what's still open
To be precise about where things actually stand: confirmed are the September 22, 2026 global release of the new "You Say Run," its collaboration between Hayashi and Electric Callboy's Kevin Ratajczak and Nico Sallach, its London premiere, the new Bones Film cover artwork, and the April 17-18, 2027 dates and Makuhari Messe venue for Ultra Expo. Not confirmed, and explicitly still pending as of this writing, are Ultra Expo's program, its guest lineup, and any ticketing details — all of which organizers say are coming in early October 2026. And, again, worth restating plainly: nothing here confirms any new season, film, or story content. This is anniversary and event programming layered on top of a story that's already finished.
What to watch for next
The next real update should land in early October 2026, when Ultra Expo's actual programming, guests, and ticket details are expected to be revealed. Until then, what fans have to work with is a locked-in date, a venue, a scale claim, and a reworked piece of music that's already out in the world as of September 22. Given how directly Ultra Expo has been framed as the anniversary project's closing event, expect the October reveal to lean into spectacle — appearances from key cast and staff, retrospective programming, and likely more musical or merchandise tie-ins building toward that April 2027 weekend at Makuhari Messe.
Bottom line
My Hero Academia's 10th anniversary just cleared its biggest hurdle yet: a confirmed date, venue, and billing for what's being called the largest event in the franchise's history, alongside a genuinely surprising international musical collaboration that's already available to stream. What's still missing — Ultra Expo's actual program — should arrive within a matter of weeks. What isn't missing, and shouldn't be mistaken for something it's not, is any indication of new anime content. Izuku Midoriya's story ended in May 2026; this is the franchise throwing itself a decade-long celebration, not writing a new chapter.
Expect Ultra Expo program details, guest lineups, and ticket information in early October 2026, with the event itself closing out the anniversary year at Makuhari Messe on April 17-18, 2027.