Summer is in full swing, and that means it’s time for our Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up! We are a month in, and there is a lot to talk about. From long-absent favorites to new arrivals, this season hopes to be as hot as the summer itself. And we are here to help you find the standouts amongst the myriad offerings the new summer 2025 anime season brings.
Seeking a broad range of series and types, we hope to provide suggestions for viewers of varying tastes. From the heavy hitters to the lesser-known series, here are just some of the most noteworthy anime this season and why you should watch them or, instead, why they’re worth skipping.
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My Dress-Up Darling Season 2
Animation Studio: CloverWorks
Synopsis: Marin and Gojo are back and ready to cosplay. The pair strives to perfect their arts, even as they struggle to realize their deep feelings for each other. Comedy and romance blend in this story of high school love.
What Works: The balancing of tones thus far this season is perfect. Comedic mishaps coincide with deep character exploration in a harmonious fashion. While the series remains focused on its leading duo, it looks to expand outside of them, bringing more personality into the tale by exploring those around them as well.
What Doesn’t: The series attempts to change up animation and narrative tone by presenting some of the series Marin obsesses over. Thus far, this has landed with mixed results, as it can be entertaining or time-wasting.
Odds of Success: High
To Be Hero X
Animation Studio: Studio LAN, Pb Animation, and Paper Plane
Synopsis: In this donghua (Chinese animation), heroes are powered by the faith and trust people have in them. The more the public believes in you, the more powerful you become. In the second half of its opening season, the series continues to explore the origins of some of the world’s top heroes.
What Works: Gorgeous animation brings the varied stories of this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry to life in an engaging way. The breadth of personalities on display in To Be a Hero X makes each character stand out, even as the roster continues to grow.
What Doesn’t: 17 episodes in, and the series is still lacking a cohesive core plot. While the hero origins frequently connect in interesting ways, the transition from one origin story to another is becoming repetitive. Also, as the cast continues to grow, some personalities are falling short of the high standard of the early introductions. Obnoxious personalities or questionable handling of character flaws are beginning to become cracks in the series.
Odds of Success: Average
DanDaDan Season 2
Animation Studio: Science Saru
Synopsis: Momo, Okarun, and the rest of the gang are back to face insidious space aliens and mystical nightmares as they try to save the world and each other.
What Works: Four episodes in, and DandaDan season 2 is hitting on all cylinders. Opening the season with the Cursed House and Evil Eye Arcs gets the story back up to breakneck speed without wasting any time. The animation has been just as eye-catching as in the first season, and the show has wasted no time in rekindling the powerful connection between its starring pair. It’s all you can ask for from an opening.
What Doesn’t: So far, there is little to complain about with this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry. The more abrasive elements of the series cast have been balanced nicely so far, allowing it to dodge its biggest pitfall. If it can keep this approach up, it could deliver a sophomore outing that is even stronger than its predecessor.
Odds of Success: High
Kaiju No. 8 Season 2
Animation Studio: Production I.G.
Synopsis: With his secret out, Kafka Hibino’s place in the Defence Forces hangs in the balance. But there is little time to waste, as Kaiju No. 9 begins to make his next moves.
What Works: The action still pops in Kaiju No 8 season 2 as it did in season one. As the series’ world expands, the powers and attacks displayed continue to impress, maintaining their wow factor where fans expect it. The opening pair of episodes also shows awareness of the fact that its characters, as well as combat, make great stories. A fair balance of both so far promises not to lose sight of that.
What Doesn’t: While the expanding world creates opportunities for more powerful visuals, it also creates lots of faces, names, and concepts. The series will need to pace introductions well so it doesn’t drown the plot with too much information, making any of its critical elements difficult to focus on.
Odds of Success: High
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court
Animation Studio: AtelierPontdarc
Synopsis: Wada and Yamamoto have an important ritual. Every day, they meet up after school at the food court and talk about life. From big things to small, the girls share and learn from each other.
What Works: Brilliantly clever writing that both fleshes out the duo while also periodically diving into deep matters gives the series a surprisingly compelling energy, despite its chill atmosphere. It fantastically balances between emotion and grounded humor, making the series’ leads feel incredibly authentic.
Another strong element of this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry is the choice of story structure. Each episode is broken into four short stories, allowing the narrative to refresh frequently. This helps shift energy, tone, or conversation topics naturally, making it easy to keep dialogue fresh, while not having a single conversation wildly ricochet from topic to topic.
What Doesn’t: The minimalist line work often makes the visuals feel crude, creating a design that can come across as unpolished.
Odds of Success: High
Clevantess
Animation Studio: Lay-duce
Synopsis: After having a run-in with a group of human heroes, the Lord of the Dark Beasts, Clevantess, counterattacks, destroying a human city. Amidst the wreckage, he finds a human baby, whom he is convinced to spare. While Clevantess is immensely powerful, he knows nothing of raising a human, and soon forces the recently deceased hero Alicia to aid him. The trio soon set out, as Clevantess seeks to learn whether or not humanity is worth sparing.
What Works: Between nuanced characters and surprising plot turns, this series delivers a unique, dark fantasy tale that is both engaging and compelling.
What Doesn’t: From a visual design perspective, the vast majority of characters and locales feel as generic as they come. Additionally, while it’s clear that the tale aims to deliver a harsher, grittier story, the series can stray from impactful harshness into cruelty for shock value’s sake.
Odds of Success: High
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Season 2
Animation Studio: CloverWorks
Synopsis: Sakuta and Mai have entered college, but the mysterious effects of Puberty Syndrome continue to afflict those around them. As the couple balances work and class, they must also help their friends navigate the strange circumstances that arise. But when Sakuta encounters a Miniskirt Santa only he can see, what is known about the bizarre syndrome may change completely.
What Works: The series continues to pull off a special kind of chemistry in the new season. The cast’s relaxed dynamic with each other crafts a familiarity rarely rivaled. Even when being heckled or questioned, the chemistry between the characters never wavers, creating a comfortable aura.
The other standout element of this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry is how it dispenses wisdom to its characters. Despite some individuals needing frequent help, there is never judgment or condescending attitudes present in these moments. People are never punished for not knowing what to do, and Sakuta always provides the gentlest nudges, helping his friends reach the conclusions they need to, while avoiding simply dispensing answers to them.
What Doesn’t: The opening few episodes are pretty slow. While the original season used a creeping tension with Mai’s scenario to pull viewers in, this season doesn’t have that level of early hook. This leaves the first couple of episodes feeling a bit meandering as it builds out the first scenario.
Odds of Success: Average
The Summer Hikaru Died
Animation Studio: Cygames Pictures
Synopsis: Six months ago, Hikaru went missing for a week while on a forbidden mountain. Now, his closest friend Yoshiki is the only one who knows the truth. Hikaru died. And what’s walking around in his body is definitely not him.
What Works: Two parts horror, one part toxic yaoi, The Summer Hikaru Died’s opening episodes blend the supernatural mystery surrounding “Hikaru” with Yoshiki’s struggles to deal with the doppelganger in ways that are both surprising and impactful. The way the vastly different genres blend feels complementary, setting up an intriguingly painful story that seems to be working in this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry.
What Doesn’t: While largely brilliant and often chilling visuals support the series’ concepts, there are moments where the presentation falls short, particularly when live-action elements are utilized in some scenes.
Odds of Success: High
Arknights: Rise From Embers
Animation Studio: Yostar Pictures
Synopsis: The battle continues as Rhodes Island struggles to stop the mobile city of Urborg from reaching its deadly destination. But caught between rival factions and the pain that threatens to consume their personnel, it will take all that Amiya and the rest of Rhodes’ leaders have to save the day and bring their people home.
What Works: Arknights lives for the drama of its narrative. Every clash is filled with ideology and grand resolve. Every tussle is a battle of wills, one that decides the very passage of fate itself. Even the excellently animated physical confrontations, filled with extreme attacks and brilliantly animated energy blasts, feel crafted to accentuate the emotions of their wielders, rather than create excitement. Its grand focus never fails to captivate when it struts itself across the screen, creating a drama that feels far more classical than its sci-fi setting would have you expect.
What Doesn’t: While it delivers the grand excellently, this Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up entry does it almost universally at the expense of the connective tissue that should exist between these epic moments. The whys and hows of the setting are poorly defined, if explained at all, and some sequence rapid-fire concepts and story elements so quickly that it can become bewildering to keep up.
Odds of Success: Low
Detectives These Days Are Crazy
Animation Studio: Liden Films
Synopsis: Former teen detective sensation Keiichirou Nagumo is now a past-his-prime 35-year-old who’s barely making ends meet. But when the enthusiastic, inspiring detective Mashiro Nakanishi shows up looking to become his assistant, Nagumo’s life becomes much more hectic, if not more profitable.
What Works: The humor frequently lands, mainly due to the excellent writing between Nagumo and Mashiro, who quickly develop a terrific back-and-forth. The visuals are also a lot of fun, leaning into different genre styles throughout the episodes.
What Doesn’t: Some side characters can become annoying at times, and the pilot makes the unfortunate decision to lean on mildly pervy jokes that thankfully quickly vanish from the show’s comedic repertoire.
Odds of Success: Average
So there they are, our early thoughts on ten of the anime running this season. I hope our Summer 2025 Anime Round-Up helps you find something new to help you keep cool throughout the blistering summer months.
