Dark Gathering Confirms Season 2 Return in Surprise Announcement

Few anime or gaming franchises have ever come close to crossing the generational gap like Pokémon, with even its imitators often falling short. Despite this, Pokémon’s anime future might not appeal to aging fans or viewers seeking something different inspired by its creature-collecting formula. Thanks to Jump Square and Kenichi Kondo, however, Dark Gathering brought something new, with its anime returning for season 2.

The production news came on October 28, 2025, courtesy of Dark Gathering’s official X account, in perfect time for a horror anime binge before Halloween. The series will carry on with its wonderfully faithful anime adaptation, although its release window is uncertain. Hailing from OLM’s Team Masuda, the anime enters the next phase of its most intense arc yet.

Pokémon’s Horror Successor Confirms Season 2 Is in Production

Dark Gathering first aired between July 10 and December 25, 2023, streaming on HIDIVE in North America and Netflix across Asia. It was a niche hit, with its intense horror visuals more than making up for its somewhat less ambitious animation. The anime has proven it’s clearly more than a Pokémon clone, although its creature-collecting elements scratch a similar itch.

Despite the series technically hailing from Shonen Jump’s monthly edition, Dark Gathering is a beautiful, oddly hilarious, boundary-pushing supernatural series. Its creature-collecting elements, pushed by its idiosyncratic breakout deuteragonist, Yayoi Hozuki, and her personal quest to capture ghosts and defeat her mother’s spectral captor. She is joined by her cousin, Eiko, and tutor, Keitaro Gentoga to confront Japan’s deadliest haunts.

But Dark Gathering is a greater beast going into season 2. Yayoi’s prolific ghost-hunting has honed an elite group of Graduate ghosts, often at the expense of violent contests with each other. Eiko’s misguided excitement for the occult evolved into spectre-capturing industrious ingenuity, and Keitaro’s bravery is backed by his brilliant engineering. Together, they challenge a profane threat.

Dark Gathering Is Far More Than a Spooky Pokémon Clone

While both Dark Gathering and Pokémon technically hail from OLM, albeit different teams, the former quickly forgoes an episodic nature before the end of cour 1 to show gripping, dire stakes. In the place of Pokémon’s ostensibly wholesome world, this anime quickly introduces lethal ghost battles and maniacal terrors across classic J-horror-inspired haunts, putting Junji Ito’s anime adaptations to shame.

Keitaro, Eizo, and Yayoi’s teamwork brings them across Ai Kamiyo, branded by a possessive and deadly god. This confrontation is easily the deadliest yet, and that’s saying a lot; characters have regularly feared for their lives as they’ve squared off against brainstem-tearing, face-flaying, baleful entities. But Yayoi has crafted a scheme that just might work.

Kicking off Dark Gathering season 2, the anime will adapt chapter #35-onward, with Yayoi’s plan to activate a massive proxy for Kyoto, trapping Ai’s covetous god in a city-wide curse. Spread across five points of a pentagram marking Kyoto’s crucial haunted zones, Graduates will consolidate this curse territory, defeat other occupying spirits, and grow the team’s numbers.

The god in question is even locked in a struggle with the anime’s other key villain so far, the Spectre of Death. Their struggle has caused real disasters like the train derailment in Shiga, so it’s imperative that they shut down the god’s threat and his claim on Ai’s life. The Kyoto Arc will be unlike anything so far.

Dark Gathering season 2 brings Yayoi one step closer to fighting the Spectre, saving her mother, and learning more about the mysterious family trying to recruit her. Meanwhile, Keitaro’s courage has grown, allowing him to serve both as Yayoi’s teacher and as Eiko’s boyfriend, while Eiko goes all-in to scale up Yayoi’s operation. It’ll be a truly wild ride ahead.