During the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23 on Friday, August 14, 2026, at the Anaheim Convention Center, Disney revealed that an original anime series based on 'Kingdom Hearts' has been greenlit for Disney Channel and Disney+, according to ABC News.

A teaser image for the series was shown during the panel.

ABC News reports the show is being developed in partnership with the creative team at series developer Square Enix and will reimagine the iconic adventure with a brand-new story that expands the universe while celebrating the characters fans already know.

Ayo Davis, president of Disney Kids & Family, said in a release that the series will be 'unmistakably Kingdom Hearts' while giving fans a whole new way to experience the world they love.

After more than two decades as a games-only saga, the franchise that began with the 2002 PlayStation 2 original — a Disney and Square Enix collaboration that has shipped over 39 million units worldwide, per Disney's release cited by ABC News — is finally crossing into animation in an original story rather than an adaptation of an existing game.

The involvement of Tetsuya Nomura is the detail fans are fixating on: Davis said the creative team is 'working closely with the legendary Tetsuya Nomura,' whose character designs and tangled lore define the series.

The announcement lands amid a broader boom in adaptations of gaming and web-novel properties.

FilmInk reports, in its own coverage, that a theatrical anime film, 'Solo Leveling: Beyond the System,' is now in production, animated by A-1 Pictures and co-produced by Crunchyroll alongside Aniplex, Netmarble, D&C MEDIA and Kakao Piccoma, continuing the saga after Season 2 ('Arise from the Shadows').

FilmInk notes the Solo Leveling franchise, created by Chugong and illustrated by DUBU of REDICE STUDIO, has exceeded 650 million page views on Japan's Piccoma platform.

That an American giant like Disney is now entering the anime space directly — with Square Enix and Nomura attached — suggests the studio sees what these Korean and Japanese cross-media hits already prove: devoted fanbases follow their stories across formats.

No release window, cast or studio specifics for the anime were given in the ABC News report beyond the Disney Channel and Disney+ destinations.

Fans do, however, have more 'Kingdom Hearts' to look forward to on the game side: per ABC News, the fourth mainline entry will be released in late 2027 and will feature a world based on Pixar's 'Coco,' with actor Benjamin Bratt voicing Ernesto de la Cruz, as he told Friday's panel.