Popverse's top stories

• After a four-month hiatus, the the next chapter of the Blue Exorcist manga has a release date
• Ask Rosario Dawson, the Daredevil: Born Again cast, the Amazing Digital Circus cast, the Hart of Dixie cast and more questions at Florida Supercon 2026!
• Netflix makes history with its new Scooby-Doo show - by making Scooby a real dog

The most highly anticipated manga to return in 2026 is easily Hunter x Hunter, which hasn’t had a new chapter in well over a year. We’ve had hints that it could return soon, with creator Yoshihiro Togashi saying that he’s been working on more chapters. In fact, he’s just confirmed that there are nearly a dozen Hunter x Hunter chapters ready to be published.

The update comes from Yoshihiro Togashi’s social media, where he posted a picture of Hunter x Hunter chapter 421 ready to be sent off to Shueisha. The most recent chapter to be published was Hunter x Hunter 410 back in December 2024. If Togashi does work on the chapters in the order they will be published, this means that there should be 11 chapters of Hunter x Hunter ready to be edited and published in Weekly Shonen Jump.

Despite having such a healthy buffer, there is still no release date for the next Hunter x Hunter chapter. This is probably because the publisher wants to make sure that they’ve got a steady flow of chapters before they start putting more Hunter x Hunter chapters out there. The series is known for its frequent delays and hiatuses due to Togashi’s health issues, which has meant that he’s come up with multiple plans in case he isn’t able to finish Hunter x Hunter before he dies, which had to be a morbid conversation to have with his editors.

With all these new updates and confirmation that there are nearly a dozen Hunter x Hunter chapters finished and sent off to his publisher, we’re even more convinced that a new Hunter x Hunter release date will be announced in the coming weeks. Fortunately, Hunter x Hunter fans are used to having to be patient.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
• The Summer Anime season return of Kaiju No. 8, Sakamoto Days, & Dan Da Dan are forcing me to break my vow of watching less anime
• From Tomo-Chan to Oshi No Ko: How some of your favorite manga creators got their start in hentai
• Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it
• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic