Crunchyroll Expands Anime Ambitions with Solo Leveling, Ghost of Tsushima & Demon Slayer Updates

Crunchyroll President Teases Solo Leveling Season 3, Ghost of Tsushima Anime & New Demon Slayer Trilogy

Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini’s big revelations on the foretold major projects by Crunchyroll and the phenomenal success of Solo Leveling are making waves in the anime world. In an exclusive with Deadline, Purini gave hints on what is to come for the popular anime series and how its success would much shape the future of the service, being among which would be projects like Ghost of Tsushima and the much-awaited movie trilogy for Demon Slayer.

Solo Leveling has really become the titan in the bid to meteoric success of Crunchyroll. Owned by Sony, having over 15 million subscribers, it has currently been watched by most of the viewers of the anime channel through 2024. By January 2025, the second season began streaming, further ensuring that Solo Leveling would be the show to watch on the platform in the first quarter of the year, creating an intense demand from fans for more episodes.

As per Purini, the ones who are responsible for the fantastic performance of Solo Leveling are its original manhwa (Korean webtoon), a phenomenal visual effect, and above-all world-class production. A-1 Pictures handled the animated feature with Shunsuke Nakashige directing the series. However, behind the glitz and glamour, the tale itself offers a different hook from most anime.

As Purini points out, the narrative pattern of Solo Leveling is growing, gaming-centric in appeal. “Of course, the most important thing is the theme of the story,” he said. “There are many themes from gaming. If you are an RPG player or play first-person-shooting games, you understand it. When people see those themes in a narrative story format like this, it is new and it is different, and it is a language they speak-and that makes it much more compelling.”

Will there be a Season 3? Although it has yet to receive an official response, Purini holds out hopes for one. “We hope so,” he said. “The creators have a lot they want to work on, and with anime being in such high demand, this makes it tricky to find the right start time for the next season.” It’s clear the team is keen, but putting the wheels in motion is demanding with such high competition.

The popularity of Solo Leveling also drives the broader programming strategy at Crunchyroll. One of the biggest moves that will follow is Ghost of Tsushima, anime adaptations to the award-winning PlayStation game developed by Sucker Punch Productions. The action is set in feudal Japan and follows a samurai trying to protect his homeland, earning praise for storytelling and cinematic quality.

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“It certainly makes us wanna do a lot more experimentation,” Purini said. “Ghost of Tsushima is an example. It’s a game IP that we know gaming fans love, and that’s one of the reasons we want to bring it to anime; to see if we can recreate that same phenomenon.”

The anime adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima, soon to come, is a collaboration between Crunchyroll, Aniplex, Sony Music, and PlayStation Productions, and it is currently set for 2027 release. It is one of the largest game-to-anime adaptations in the horizon and a testament to the continuing endeavors of Crunchyroll in multi-platform storytelling.

More good things are coming to the Demon Slayer franchise as it announces a series of three films that will culminate its story arc. The first of those three films, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle, will arrive at theaters in the U.S. this September. This is the beginning of the end for Tanjiro and his companions, and fans are gearing up for an emotional and action-packed finale.

“They’re the final arc of the story in the trilogy movies, and, for fans, if they want to finish it, they have to see it,” Purini noted. Even so, dates for the second and third films still remain to be announced, but they will probably debut at steady intervals following the initial release.

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This trilogy boasts a successful history behind it regarding performance for Demon Slayer at the box office. The 2021 film Mugen Train made a most enormous debut from $21.2 million within the U.S., while 2023’s Swordsmith Village reached $10.1 million. High hopes are riding on the last chapter, especially with director Haruo Sotozaki’s return. Hopefully this trilogy will deliver both emotionally and visually.

Crunchyroll’s ambitious roadmap truly shows how anime is no longer a fringe interest but has become a global entertainment powerhouse. Whether adapting top-tier-gaming IPs like Ghost of Tsushima, delivering cinematic anime title like Demon Slayer, or building mega-hit series like Solo Leveling, Crunchyroll is plainly leading the charge on the future of anime storytelling.

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