The Fall 2026 anime season is about to start, and the most anticipated title of the lineup has now been decided by the people who plan to watch it. Anime Corner’s seasonal poll closed on September 24 after 7,601 voters weighed in, and the results came down to a photo finish at the top.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 took first place with 16.42% of the vote. The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 finished second at 15.16%. That’s a gap of just 1.26 percentage points — close enough that a few hundred votes either way would have flipped it.
Fall 2026 most anticipated anime: the top 10
- 1. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 — 16.42%
- 2. The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 — 15.16%
- 3. Blue Box Season 2 — 6.29%
- 4. Black Clover Season 2 — 5.47%
- 5. The Ramparts of Ice Season 2 — 4.30%
- 6. Firefly Wedding — 3.30%
- 7. Reincarnated as a Sword Season 2 — 3.24%
- 8. Dragon Ball Super: Beerus — 3.09%
- 9. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run 2nd – 3rd STAGE — 3.05%
- 10. The Detective Is Already Dead Season 2 — 2.83%
What the numbers say
The most obvious takeaway is that the season is top-heavy. The first two shows together pulled roughly a third of all votes, and then the drop-off is steep. Third place sits at 6.29%, which is less than half of second.
It’s worth being upfront about what this ranking is. A community poll measures excitement before a season airs, not quality after it does. It’s a hype index, and hype is fickle. The reliably strong shows of any season are usually buried somewhere in the middle of lists like this.
Sequels dominate the top of the list
Eight of the top ten are continuations, re-adaptations, or specials. Only Firefly Wedding is a genuine newcomer in the upper tier, and Dragon Ball Super: Beerus is a fresh take on familiar material rather than a brand-new property.
That’s normal for a fall season, which tends to be sequel-heavy. It also means viewers who want something new have to dig a bit deeper into the list. Psyren (26th), Magic Knight Rayearth (28th), and Fool Night (14th) are all sitting well below the top five despite being genuinely interesting picks.
Long-running fans have plenty to work with
Beyond the top ten, there’s a mix of returning franchises that will carry the season for a lot of people. Tokyo Revengers: War of the Three Titan Arc landed 11th, Ranma ½ Season 3 came in 12th, and there’s new material for Tougen Anki, Mission: Yozakura Family, Aoashi, and Sasaki and Peeps further down.
For anyone planning the season ahead, that middle section is arguably the better hunting ground than the podium.
How to use this list
Treat the ranking as a starting point, not a verdict. If you’re only going to follow two or three shows this season, the top two are the safest bets by pure interest level — Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 arrives on October 20, and its creative team is largely intact from the first series.
If you’re planning further ahead than the next few months, we’ve also tracked the details on Now That We Draw’s January 2027 debut, which isn’t part of this season but is already generating a lot of attention.
Most of all, don’t write off the bottom half. Seasonal hype rankings have a long history of being wrong about which show people are still talking about a year later.
Featured image: Promotional art for the Fall 2026 anime season, via Anime Corner.
