Date A Live is ending its anime run in theaters. The Fantasia Bunko Grand Thanksgiving Festival 2026 Online event on October 25, 2026 confirmed that Date A Live F Last Date is a film, that it opens in Japan on March 26, 2027, and that it is the concluding arc of the anime series.
The event also brought a teaser trailer, a second teaser visual and several returning staff members. Anime Corner reports the teaser carries the tagline "Now, let us begin our final war, our final date."
Who is making it
Junji Nishimura directs at studio Fugaku. His recent credits include Vladlove, Extreme Hearts and Mechanical Marie. Fumihiko Shimo writes the screenplay and Naoto Nakamura designs the characters, both returning from Date A Live IV and Date A Live V. ANIMEC is distributing.
The returning voice cast is close to the full main lineup: Nobunaga Shimazaki, Marina Inoue, Misuzu Togashi, Ayana Taketatsu, Iori Nomizu, Asami Sanada, Maaya Uchida, Sarah Emi Bridcutt, Minori Chihara, Ayumi Mano, Hitomi Nabatame, Akari Kageyama and Aya Endō all reprise their roles.
The project was first announced in April 2025 without a format attached. The October 25 event is what turned it into a film with a date.
Thirteen years of Date A Live
The first season aired 12 episodes in 2013, and the second followed with 10 episodes in 2014. Funimation streamed both as they aired and released them on home video with English dubs. The first theatrical entry, Gekijōban Date A Live: Mayuri Judgment, opened in Japan in August 2015.
The third season ran 12 episodes from January 2019, with Crunchyroll streaming and Funimation producing a simuldub. The fourth season is where the schedule slipped: it was set for October 2021, got pushed to April 2022 for what the production described as "various reasons," and then aired with Crunchyroll streaming and an English dub. Date A Live V arrived in April 2024 with the same streaming arrangement.
Koushi Tachibana launched the light novels in March 2011 with art by Tsunako, and Kadokawa's Fantasia Bunko imprint published the 22nd and final volume in March 2020. Yen Press handles the English release. The books also produced manga and video games, and Yuichiro Higashide's spinoff novels Date A Live Fragment: Date A Bullet became a two-part theatrical anime in 2020.
Why a film instead of a season
The source material has been finished since 2020, so the anime has been running on a fixed amount of story for six years. A film gives the production one clean block of runtime to close out, which is the practical reason so many long-running light novel adaptations end this way. It is also cheaper to market: a single date, a single ticket, no weekly ratings to worry about.
The risk is compression. A 22-volume series closing in one film means choices about which Spirits get screen time, and those choices always cost something. The returning cast list suggests the production is at least trying to bring everyone back for the finish.
March 26, 2027 puts the film in Japan's spring movie season, a crowded window that also carries major franchise releases. For overseas viewers, no distributor has been named yet. Crunchyroll has carried every television season since 2019, so an announcement from them is the likeliest outcome, though nothing is confirmed.
For anyone following the author rather than the franchise, Tachibana's other light novel series, King's Proposal, also has an anime in production, and Aniplex revealed its 2027 premiere on the same day.
Source: Anime News Network, citing the Fantasia Bunko Grand Thanksgiving Festival 2026 Online event; tagline via Anime Corner
Source: Anime News Network, citing the Fantasia Bunko Grand Thanksgiving Festival 2026 Online event; tagline via Anime Corner
Featured image: Teaser visual for the Date A Live F Last Date anime film, via Anime News Network.
