Anime Expo 2026 July 2–5 in Los Angeles: The Fan Exclusives, Premieres and Must-See’s
Anime Expo 2026 runs July 2–5 in Los Angeles. Netflix, NBCUniversal, and Studio Trigger are all on the floor. Here’s everything film and streaming fans need to know.
If you have been treating it as a niche fan event for people who know the difference between shonen and seinen, you have been misreading the room for several years now.
Netflix is on the floor. NBCUniversal is making announcements. Studio Trigger is bringing the first real look at one of the most anticipated animated sequels in recent memory.
The convention draws over 100,000 attendees annually, making it the largest anime convention in North America, and increasingly, one of the most consequential entertainment industry events of the summer calendar.
This is what is coming. Here is why it matters beyond the cosplay.
The Streaming Industry’s Summer Opening Move
The single most significant entertainment announcement confirmed for Anime Expo 2026 is the panel for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2.
Netflix, CD Projekt Red, and Studio Trigger, the three-way creative alliance behind the original Edgerunners, which became one of Netflix’s most discussed animated releases and drove a documented revival of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game’s player base, are returning to Anime Expo to give fans the first real look at the highly anticipated sequel.
A major streaming platform, one of the most prominent game developers in the world, and the Tokyo animation studio responsible for Kill la Kill and Promare, all committing their sequel announcement to a fan convention floor in Los Angeles in early July.
The original Edgerunners effect on the Cyberpunk 2077 game was one of the more striking examples of anime’s cross-media influence in recent years, player counts surged, Steam reviews shifted, and CD Projekt Red publicly credited the series with revitalizing interest in a game that had launched to a troubled reception. The sequel carries that specific weight: not just an animated follow-up, but a proof of concept for whether the anime-to-gaming pipeline can be engineered a second time deliberately rather than discovered by accident.
The Premieres Worth Planning Around
Beyond Edgerunners 2, the confirmed programming for AX 2026 includes several events that land differently than a standard convention panel.
Magic Knight Rayearth — World Premiere Screening The world premiere of the upcoming Magic Knight Rayearth anime will screen at Anime Expo with special guest Rie Takahashi in attendance, alongside the first reveal of new updates on the project. For context: Magic Knight Rayearth is a foundational CLAMP property — the creative collective behind Cardcaptor Sakura and xxxHOLiC — and the announcement of an anime adaptation has been one of the more closely watched projects in the community. A world premiere at AX, rather than a Japanese broadcast premiere or a streaming platform reveal, is a deliberate choice about where the intended audience lives.
Jujutsu Kaisen — 5th Anniversary Panel TOHO animation is hosting a fifth-anniversary celebration of Jujutsu Kaisen, spotlighting major story moments through Season 3 and featuring behind-the-scenes material. The timing is pointed: JJK is currently one of the dominant properties in global anime, and a convention panel framed around retrospective celebration while the series is still actively airing is an audience retention play as much as a fan event. Expect announcements.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End — Season 3 Preview Also hosted by TOHO animation, the Frieren panel will feature Director Tomoya Kitagawa, Supporting Director Keiichiro Saito, and Animation Producer Yuichiro Fukushi looking ahead to Season 3, alongside a live character drawing by Character Designer Keisuke Kojima. This is the kind of panel that rewards the audience already invested in the series — a creative team showing their process, not just announcing a product.
Frieren won the anime fandom’s sustained attention through a combination of precise writing and animation craft that operates at a different register than most action-forward properties. Its presence at AX with the actual creative team in the room is an event for a specific kind of viewer, and that viewer tends to be the one who writes the reviews and drives the word-of-mouth.
NBCUniversal and the Institutional Commitment
One of the cleaner signals that Anime Expo has shifted from fan convention to industry platform is what NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan is doing there this year.
The panel will feature the world premiere of From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman Season 2, presented with director Akio Kazumi and producer Ryo Hino in attendance. Alongside that premiere, NBCUniversal is using the panel to deliver reveals for Suikoden: The Anime — based on the beloved RPG franchise — A Certain Dark Item, and Mission: Yozakura Family Season 2.
Four announcements in one panel from a major American media conglomerate’s Japanese entertainment division, at a fan convention in Los Angeles, in July. Anime Expo is where NBCUniversal has decided to spend its summer announcement capital. That is not a niche cultural footnote.
The broader studio presence at AX 2026 includes Aniplex, Toei Animation, Bandai Namco Filmworks, and Crunchyroll, each running panels that will carry their own news cycles into the summer. For an entertainment outlet covering what audiences are actually watching — as opposed to what press releases say they should be watching — the convention floor at AX is a more reliable signal than most.
Why This Matters to Film and Streaming Audiences Right Now
There is a through-line that connects the Anime Expo 2026 programming calendar to what just happened at the Memorial Day box office.
The audience that drove Backrooms to an $81 million opening, 88% under 35, built on years of YouTube and online community engagement before a single studio dollar was spent on marketing, is the same audience walking the floor at Anime Expo. They are not passive consumers of whatever the algorithm surfaces. They build fandoms from the ground up, sustain them through direct creator relationships, and show up in large numbers when something earns their trust.
The entertainment industry has been trying to understand that audience for the better part of a decade. Anime Expo is one of the places where that audience announces its own preferences in real time — through what panels fill to capacity, what announcements generate the immediate social response, what premieres drive the post-convention conversation. Studios and streaming platforms that show up are not doing so out of cultural generosity. They are doing so because this is where the information is.
Netflix already knows this. NBCUniversal clearly knows this. The question for the rest of the summer is which other platforms and studios will treat a July convention in Los Angeles as a serious intelligence-gathering and announcement opportunity — and which ones will wait for San Diego.
Practical Information
What: Anime Expo 2026
When: July 2–5, 2026
Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, Downtown Los Angeles
Attendance: 100,000+ annually
Tickets: Available at anime-expo.org
Programming: Over 1,000 hours of panels, premieres, concerts, and workshops
Mini FAQ
What is Anime Expo and why should film fans care? Anime Expo is the largest anime convention in North America, held annually at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It draws over 100,000 attendees and has become a major platform for streaming and entertainment industry announcements — including Netflix, NBCUniversal, and major Japanese studios — making it increasingly relevant beyond the traditional anime fan audience.
What is being announced at Anime Expo 2026? Confirmed highlights include the first real look at Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 from Netflix, CD Projekt Red, and Studio Trigger; the world premiere of Magic Knight Rayearth; fifth-anniversary programming for Jujutsu Kaisen; a Season 3 preview for Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End; and NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan reveals including Suikoden: The Anime and Mission: Yozakura Family Season 2.
When and where is Anime Expo 2026? Anime Expo 2026 runs July 2–5 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Tickets and full programming information are available at anime-expo.org.
What is Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2? Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is the sequel to the Netflix animated series produced by Studio Trigger, set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. The original series drove a significant revival of the game’s player base and became one of Netflix’s most discussed animated releases. The sequel’s first real look will be revealed at Anime Expo 2026.