The biggest anime news you missed this week, April 21

With another week wrapping up, the Bam Smack Pow team is here once again to bring the biggest anime news of the past week. The big news this week is the continued announcement of new anime dubs for Spring 2025, plus a big update on the Demon Slayer theatrical run set for later this year.

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train returning to theaters in May

In anticipation of the release of the series' final story arc hitting theaters later this year, Crunchyroll has announced that the previous Demon Slayer movie, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train will get a special 4K re-release in North American theaters starting May 14. Tickets go on sale starting April 30.

Functioning as the Demon Slayer anime's second season, Mugen Train was originally released in Japan in the fall of 2020 as a feature-length movie. Despite the complications of the COVID pandemic, Mugen Train has been a huge success at the box office, becoming both the highest-grossing film of that year internationally and the highest-grossing Japanese film ever. The original theatrical run was followed by a streaming release as a multi-episode anime season, albeit one shorter than normal. The movie version of Mugen Train is streaming on Crunchyroll, the multi-episode anime season of the storyline is streaming on Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu.

Demon Slayer Infinity Castle, which begins the final story arc of the original Demon Slayer manga's plot, will release later this year in international theaters, with specific dates staggered by region. As previously reported by the Bam Smack Pow team, these release dates include:

• July 18 in Japan

• September 11 and 12 throughout most of Europe

• September 12 in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom

Crunchyroll has posted the full list of international release dates here.

Bizarre Isekai anime announces second season

Noteworthy for both its novel premise and its lengthy title, Isekai anime series Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon has been confirmed by Crunchyroll to have a second season in production. The production team's original post on social media (seen below) has been shared by Crunchyroll and announces a July 2025 release date for the second season of the comic fantasy series.

Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is exactly what it sounds like.

After a fatal accident, ironically involving a vending machine, a man obsessed with vending machines is reincarnated in a fantasy world as a vending machine. He is discovered by the female adventurer Lammis, given the name Boxxo and recruited in Lammis's party. Able to communicate only in pre-recorded digital soundclips and unable to move, Boxxo is nonetheless able to transform himself into any kind of vending machine and quickly finds himself contributing to the party by virtue of being the one piece of modern technology in an otherwise vaguely medieval world.

The Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon anime series is based on a light novel series by author Hirukuma, which ran between 2016 and 2017. The first season of the anime aired in 2023 and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

More Spring 2025 dubs announced

With the Spring 2025 anime season now underway, various anime streaming services are continuing to update their announced English dubs for the season.

Crunchyroll's regularly updated list of Spring 2025 dubs can be found here. This week's announcements of new dub debuts include season two of Aharen-san wa Hakarenai (debuted April 21, new dubbed episodes Mondays), Teogonia (debuted April 25, new episodes Friday), and Once Upon a Witch's Death (debuted April 22, new episodes Tuesday). Other recently announced dubs in Crunchyroll's Spring 2025 schedule include Witch Watch, Fire Force season 3, and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

Via a press release from parent company AMC Networks, HIDIVE has announced that cosplay-themed romantic comedy 2.5 Dimensional Seduction will begin airing its English dub on May 7, with new episodes airing on Wednesdays. The same press release also confirms a streaming release of classic anime movie Vampire Hunter D — which HIDIVE previously brought back to North American theaters to celebrate its 40th anniversary — on both HIDIVE and the horror-centric streaming platform Shudder.

Weekly anime recommendation: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979)

Since its debut almost 50 years ago, Gundam has become one of the most popular and iconic anime series of all times — to the point that "Gundam" has become the term for any giant robot in pop culture — and the original Mobile Suit Gundam is the series that started it all.

Based on a concept by Yoshiyuki Tomino, Mobile Suit Gundam debuted as an anime, a fairly uncommon pattern in the anime industry. The majority of anime series are adaptations of either manga or light novel stories, though other source materials and entirely original stories aren't exactly rare, though certainly less common. The anime series was produced by Sunrise and the studio has been the Gundam franchise's production studio for its entire history, though it is now known by the name Bandai Namco Filmworks, though it still uses the Sunrise branding — especially for the Gundam series.

Over the past 50 years, the animation techniques and production values of the Gundam series have certainly improved, but it's amazing how much of the core of the series's storytelling has been consistent since the original Mobile Suit Gundam. The design of the original, iconic RX-78-2 Gundam has reappeared across the series, either exactly as it did in 1979, or with minimal changes. Most of the entries in the series dealt with war stories focusing on rebellion and tyranny and not shying away from the horrors of war, and the cruelty of war is highlighted by the fact that most Gundam pilots are teenagers — despite the intense mecha combat and action, Gundam has always been an openly pacifistic series.

That all goes back to the original Gundam. The plot of the original series follows the One Year War, a conflict between the Earth Federation and a coalition of its orbiting colonies called the Principality of Zeon. From the very first opening narration, it's clear that this is going to be a brutal and costly conflict, summed by the fact that the montage explaining the background of the war culminates with a space station colony being dropped on Earth as a weapon of mass destruction.

The heroes of Mobile Suit Gundam are the crew of White Base, a Federation ship filled with both civilian refugees and a crew of soldiers who are largely only there in the first place because all of the higher-ranking soldiers have been wiped out. The original Gundam pilot is Amuro, a 15-year-old who accidentally commandeers the RX-78-2 Gundam and spends most of the series having to grapple with the weight of the responsibilities of being not only the novice pilot of an immensely powerful war machine, but also the Federation's last, best hope in the One Year War.

Crunchyroll provides the following summary of the series:

"Universal Century 0079. The rebel space colonies of the Principality of Zeon launch a war of independence against the Earth Federation, using humanoid fighting vehicles called mobile suits to overwhelm the Federation Forces and conquer half of Earth's surface. Months later, the Federation has finally developed its own prototype mobile suits at a remote space colony. But when the colony suffers a Zeon surprise attack, these new weapons fall into the hands of a motley crew of civilians and cadets. Fate places a youth named Amuro Ray at the controls of the white mobile suit Gundam..."

While the bulk of the Gundam series is streaming on Crunchyroll, the latest entry in the series, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX (it rhymes with "ducks") is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The first three Mobile Suit Gundam compilation movies, which condense the original series into the runtime of three feature-length movies (compared to 43 20-ish minute episodes) are streaming on Netflix.

As always, come back to Bam Smack Pow every week for your regular update on biggest anime news and a new series recommendation. In the meantime, stay tuned for all the biggest news from the world of Marvel and DC!