Another week has come and gone, so the Bam Smack Pow team is here to bring you the biggest anime news of the week that was, plus another anime recommendation! This week's main theme is release date announcements, with some long-awaited anime releases now getting official word on their premieres. Plus, this week's anime recommendation is a supernatural mystery that's unlike anything else you've ever seen.
Demon Slayer Infinity Castle announces international release dates
Crunchyroll has launched a special promotional website to hype up audiences for the upcoming release of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, the first in a trilogy of movies to close out the Demon Slayer anime series by adapting the final arc of the long-running manga. The launch of the movie's website was followed by Crunchyroll's announcement of the theatrical release around the world.
A July 18 premiere in Japan was previously announced. The Japanese release is slated to be followed by staggered releases throughout August and September 2025 around the rest of the world. The most important date for English-speaking Demon Slayers is September 12, when the new movie is scheduled to release in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, among other countries. September 11 is when Infinity Castle will debut in the largest number of countries, releasing in the Caribbean, most of Central and South America, the Middle East, a large portion of Europe, and parts of Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
The full list of regional releases dates is available via Crunchyroll.
One-Punch Man season 3 set to debut in October
Anime News Network has reported that Bandai Namco Filmworks has revealed both a new promo video (posted above) and a key visual for season 3 of the One-Punch Man anime. This reveal also comes with an announcement of the new season's debut in Japan. We know now that the upcoming season of One-Punch Man will premiere in Japan in October 2025, though a specific day of the month has not been announced.
There has been no announcement of where or when season 3 of One-Punch will stream in English and the current streaming situation for the series is a bit complicated. The first two seasons of One-Punch Man are available on Netflix, though the English dub is exclusive to Hulu, which is not available in all international regions. Additionally, One-Punch Man is also available in certain regions on Crunchyroll.
Frieren season 2 slated for 2026
Crunchyroll has shared an update from the official social media accounts of the hit Fantasy anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. Following a livestream with the anime's Japanese voice cast, a key visual was shared by the anime's social accounts and production studio Toho Animation (the animation branch of the entertainment company best known for Godzilla) released a short trailer for the upcoming season revealing the 2026 release date:
Based on the manga series by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe, the first season of Frieren debuted in the fall 2023 anime season and quickly proved a hit. Crunchyroll provides the following summary of the series:
"After the party of heroes defeated the Demon King, they restored peace to the land and returned to lives of solitude. Generations pass, and the elven mage Frieren comes face to face with humanity’s mortality. She takes on a new apprentice and promises to fulfill old friends’ dying wishes. Can an elven mind make peace with the nature of life and death? Frieren embarks on her quest to find out."
Weekly anime recommendation: an anime movie that dazzles the eyes and the brain
First things first: we're going to need to clear up some potential confusion. Mononoke has no connection to Studio Ghibli's 1997 classic Princess Mononoke. "Mononoke" is just the Japanese word for something like "ghost" or "supernatural creature."
Of course, Princess Mononoke is one of the best animated movies of all time, so it's definitely worth a watch, but today, I want to talk about an underrated anime movie that needs more love from fans of anime, mysteries, or ghost stories: Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain, the first of three scheduled spin-off movies based on the 2007 series.
Mononoke has never really risen beyond the level of cult classic — partly because it never received an official English-language release until 2023 thanks to Discotek Media. Thanks to the reach of global streaming services like Netflix and Crunchyroll, Mononoke is now accessible to a larger audience than ever. For a lot of reasons, 2024's feature-length Phantom in the Rain is probably the best place to start.
For one thing, if you prefer to watch your anime dubbed, the Netflix-produced dub of Phantom in the Rain is significantly better than the dub of the main Mononoke series. For another, Phantom in the Rain has the advantage of nearly 20 years of technological improvements and an obviously much bigger budget, truly letting the dazzling, bewildering art style that's one of Mononoke's trademark features to really shine.
Phantom in the Rain follows the same basic formula that the multi-episode story arcs of the anime series: mysterious occurrences lead to the timely intervention of a mysterious and clearly supernatural Medicine Seller who shows up unannounced at exactly the right moment in exactly the right place. He identifies that a Mononoke — a malevolent spirit — is at work and sets out to identify its true form, its motivation, and its origin in order to draw the magical sword that will allow him to exorcise the Mononoke.
Admittedly, Mononoke has always been a pretty difficult series to decipher and Phantom in the Rain is no exception. The visuals are deliberately disorienting with a lot of clashing colors and patterns, the plot raises a lot of questions that it never explicitly answers and it's not always obvious what exactly is happening or why it's significant. Phantom in the Rain itself also seems to be setting things up that won't pay off until the following two movies of the scheduled trilogy — the second movie, Hinezumi (to be released as Ashes of Rage in English) is set to debut in Japan later in March.
Still, Phantom in the Rain is a fascinating, compelling mystery story with unique historical and supernatural aspects that set it apart from other mystery stories. Similarly, the beautiful art style is no unlike anything else out there that it makes Phantom in the Rain worth a watch just to experience how bizarrely gorgeous and gorgeously bizarre it is.
Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain is streaming on Netflix. The original Mononoke series is streaming on Netflix and Crunchyroll.