While the Fall 2026 anime season is finally here, one of the biggest Summer 2026 series is still ongoing. Red River is based on a manga written and illustrated by Chie Shinohara, which was serialized in Shogakukan’s Sho-Comi magazine from 1995 to 2002. This supernatural fantasy received praise from both readers and critics alike and even won the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shoujo category in 2000. However, despite its critical acclaim and popularity at the time, it took the manga more than 30 years since its debut to release an anime adaptation. While the 1990s and the 2000s were crucial eras for the Shojo demographic, a majority of the series never received their anime adaptations since the industry has always been heavily dominated by Shonen.
However, things have begun to quietly change this year when three 1990s series released their anime debuts. Apart from Red River, more classic Shojo such as Hana Kimi and From Far Away also released their debuts. While Red River premiered in July as part of the Summer 2026 lineup, the anime kickstarted its second part with a brand new trailer. The 60-second-long trailer shares a brief glimpse at what fans can expect from the upcoming episodes as Yuri’s journey in an unknown world continues.
Where to Watch Red River?
The anime is currently streaming weekly episodes on Crunchyroll, the largest platform for anime fans across the globe. While the anime has already released 12 episodes, all of the episodes are only available in Japanese audio with subtitles. Usually, Crunchyroll releases an English dub two weeks after the anime premiere, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Red River might be a big deal for Shojo fans, but the anime itself isn’t a huge project. The dubbed episodes might take months or even years to be released. Additionally, the anime is also available on the Crunchyroll channel of Prime Video. The anime isn’t taking any hiatuses between its two cours, which means it will release all 24 episodes by the end of the year. So far, the finale release date hasn’t been revealed yet, but we can expect the anime to wrap up sometime in December, considering there are no unexpected delays.
Red River Had One of the Most Disappointing Anime Adaptations Ever
Considering the hype around the anime announcement, the series turned out to be a huge disappointment. The show is being produced by the animation studio VAP under the banner of Tatsunoko Production, one of the oldest animation studios of all time. The studio is famous for acclaimed classics such as Ping Pong the Animation, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and more. Unfortunately, it failed to do justice to this award-winning manga. That’s not all, but the isekai-themed shojo used to be popular a few years back, but a lot of the themes within this demographic are now quite dated. If the manga was adapted in the early 2000s, the anime probably would’ve been considered a classic by now, but that wouldn’t be the case right now. The ratings and reviews aren’t all that impressive, even though the original story is still quite promising.
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