Akane-banashi has a second season coming in January 2027, and TV Asahi used October 25, 2026 to show what it looks like. The broadcaster released a teaser trailer, a key visual and six new cast members, with Studio ZEXCS returning to animate.
The new names fill out the adult side of the cast, the established rakugo performers Akane will spend the season surrounded by.
The new cast
- Hōchū Ōtsuka as Miroku Kashiwaya
- Ryōtarō Okiayu as Shomei Tsubakiya
- Hiroshi Naka as Enso Sanmeitei
- Mutsumi Tamura as Urara Ransaika
- Shin'ichirō Miki as Ryu'un Kenputei
- Tomokazu Seki as Chocho Konjakutei
All six characters appeared in the final episode of the first season, so the announcement confirms faces viewers have already seen rather than introducing anyone new to the story.
Where season two starts
TV Asahi's own summary picks up after high school. Akane Osaki has graduated, formally joined Shiguma's school and now performs under the name Akane Arakawa. She arrives at Yasaka-tei, a busy traditional rakugo theater, and begins training alongside Shin'uchi, the top-ranked performers.
That is the setup for what the production calls the Zenza Arc. Zenza is the opening act on a rakugo bill, the warm-up slot given to whoever is still working their way up, so the arc is built around Akane learning to hold a room before the main performer walks out.
What came before
The first season premiered on April 4 in TV Asahi's IMAnimation block and finished in June with the end of the Karaku Cup Arc. Ayumu Watanabe directed at ZEXCS, with Yu Harima as assistant director, Kii Tanaka handling character design and chief animation duties, Michihiro Tsuchiya on series scripts and Akio Izutsu composing. Kikuhiko Hayashiya, a working rakugo performer, supervised the rakugo itself.
Overseas, the anime reached viewers through an unusual number of routes. TV Asahi runs an Akane-banashi Global YouTube channel that posts full episodes free in North America and Latin America after the Japanese broadcast. Netflix started an English dub with the first two episodes on May 17, then added episodes weekly. Aniverse has it in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, ADN in France and neighbouring territories, Anime Box in Spain, Anime Generation in Italy, and Ani-One covers much of the Asia-Pacific. Taiwan has it across Bahamut, Chunghwa Telecom, LiTV, Line TV, Catchplay and friDay, with separate deals in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Mongolia and South Korea.
Only ZEXCS has been confirmed for the second season so far. The rest of the staff has not been announced.
The manga behind it
Yūki Suenaga writes Akane-banashi with art by Takamasa Moue. The series launched in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in February 2022, and the 24th compiled volume came out on October 2, 2026. It was nominated for the 47th Kodansha Manga Awards and the 16th Manga Taisho in 2023, and placed fourth on Kono Manga ga Sugoi!'s 2023 list for male readers. Viz Media and Shueisha's MANGA Plus both publish it in English, and Viz has a print edition.
Why it matters
Rakugo is a hard sell as an anime premise. It is one performer, a folding fan and a seated audience, and the first season's answer was to treat the storytelling as the action, which is why the Karaku Cup Arc landed as well as it did. A second season that moves Akane into a professional theater trades competition brackets for a workplace, and that is a different kind of show.
The January 2027 window also puts it against a crowded season, with shows like Though I Am an Inept Villainess Cour 2 already dated for that month. Akane-banashi does not need to win that fight on spectacle. It needs the rakugo sequences to keep carrying the weight, and ZEXCS returning is the part of the announcement that matters most for that.
Source: Anime News Network, citing TV Asahi's announcement; release window via Anime Corner
Source: Anime News Network, citing TV Asahi’s announcement; January 2027 window via Anime Corner
Featured image: Teaser visual for Akane-banashi Season 2, via Anime News Network.
