SSS-Class Revival Hunter Anime: January 2027 Release, Teaser and Cast
Another Korean hunter story is heading for television. SSS-Class Revival Hunter gets a TV anime in January 2027, and Crunchyroll will stream it worldwide as it airs.
The announcement came with a teaser visual, a short teaser video and the first two cast members. It also settled the question webtoon readers ask first. Yes, the hero still has to die to get stronger.
Key Takeaways
- The TV anime premieres in January 2027. No exact date, network or episode count yet.
- Crunchyroll streams it as it airs across most of the world outside East Asia.
- Takeo Otsuka voices Kim Gongja and Satoshi Hino voices the Sword Emperor.
- Hiroaki Sakurai, director of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., directs.
- HAYATE, the Aniplex and Crunchyroll joint venture, produces.
When Does the SSS-Class Revival Hunter Anime Come Out?#
January 2027. That is the only date announced so far.
The official site and both teasers give the month and nothing finer. There is no premiere day yet, no Japanese broadcast network and no episode count. For a January show announced in September, the full schedule usually arrives in November or December.
Where to Watch It in English#
Crunchyroll has it, and will stream episodes as they air in Japan.
The licence covers North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East and the CIS. It also reaches the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
That reach is built in. HAYATE, the company producing the anime, is a joint venture between Aniplex and Crunchyroll set up to make anime for Crunchyroll's global service. This show was made with that platform in mind from the start.
The SSS-Class Revival Hunter Teaser#
Crunchyroll's English teaser runs 18 seconds and went up on September 9, 2026. A 15 second Japanese version landed on Bandai Namco Filmworks' channel at the same moment.
Neither is long enough to show much action. Their job is to fix the mood and introduce the two leads. The Japanese teaser PV is worth a look for the original logo and title card.
What the Teaser Visual Shows#
The key art is an overhead shot of a room that has given up. Bottles, papers and takeaway rubbish cover the floor. Kim Gongja lies curled on a thin futon, lit only by a laptop screen.
Two things hang over him. A glowing golden card floats near the ceiling, trailing sparks. In the opposite corner, the huge translucent figure of the Sword Emperor sits with his arms folded, looking down at him.
It is the premise in one frame. A washed-out hunter at the bottom of the rankings, the card that will change his life, and the ghost who is about to move in.
How the Two Teasers Have Performed#
Crunchyroll's upload has the larger audience after its first day. The production committee pitches the series as one that has caught on worldwide, the West included, and the early numbers fit that.
Likes point the same way. The Crunchyroll teaser has 967 against 359 for the Japanese PV.
What Is SSS-Class Revival Hunter About?#
A mysterious tower has appeared in the world, crawling with monsters. Hunters climb it and risk their lives for status and money.
Kim Gongja is an F-rank hunter near the bottom of that system. He spends his days resenting the Flame Emperor, the hunter who sits at number one in the rankings.
Then he gets a card. It holds an S+ rank copy skill, and it activates on one trigger only: his own death.
How the Death Mechanic Works#
The official character profile spells out the turn. Gongja witnesses a scandal involving the Flame Emperor and is killed to keep him quiet.
His copy skill fires on death and takes the Flame Emperor's own ability. That ability sends its user back 24 hours every time they die.
So Gongja wakes up a day earlier, alive, holding the power of the man whose secret got him killed. From there the story runs on revenge and on the long climb from F-rank to the top.
The Flame Emperor#
The antagonist is set up from the first page. The Flame Emperor sits at number one in the hunter rankings, the figure Gongja envies from the bottom.
He is also the reason for Gongja's first death. Gongja witnesses a scandal involving the Flame Emperor and is silenced for it.
That makes the revenge personal and the power fantasy pointed. Every time Gongja dies and comes back, he is using the Flame Emperor's own skill to do it.
The Flame Emperor has not been cast yet. So far only two roles are confirmed: Takeo Otsuka as Kim Gongja and Satoshi Hino as the Sword Emperor.
A Ghost for a Partner#
The skill brings someone along. The Sword Emperor, once one of the strongest hunters alive, ends up attached to Gongja as a ghost.
He climbed nearly to the top floor of the tower before ending up like this. He recognises Gongja's talent and settles into the role of partner and adviser.
That pairing is the core of the series. One character has the power and no experience. The other has the experience and no body.
One Series, Three Titles#
The Korean title translates roughly as SSS-Class Hunter Who Must Die to Live, and the Japanese title keeps that idea. The official English title, SSS-Class Revival Hunter, frames the same mechanic as a reset instead.
Plenty of readers still search for it as SSS-Class Suicide Hunter, a name that remains widely used online. All three names point to the same story.
The SSS-Class Revival Hunter Voice Cast#
- Takeo Otsuka as Kim Gongja
- Satoshi Hino as the Sword Emperor
Two names so far, and both are big ones.
Takeo Otsuka is Jinshi in The Apothecary Diaries and Aqua Hoshino in Oshi no Ko. He also led Run with the Wind as Kakeru Kurahara and played Leon Fou Bartfort in Trapped in a Dating Sim.
Satoshi Hino is Kyojuro Rengoku in Demon Slayer, Ainz Ooal Gown in Overlord and Kamui in Gintama. A larger-than-life former champion is an easy fit for him.
What the Cast Said#
Both actors sent comments with the announcement.
Otsuka said Gongja's rise unfolds at a brisk pace alongside a cast of distinctive characters. He added that the recording sessions themselves move fast.
Hino described the Sword Emperor as bold and forward-looking, a character who uses his experience to back Gongja up from beyond the grave. He picked out the action, the psychological battles and the back-and-forth between the two leads as the show's draw.
Who Is Making the SSS-Class Revival Hunter Anime?#
- Director: Hiroaki Sakurai
- Scripts: Sayuri Oba
- Character design: Takahiro Yoshimatsu
- Animation production: STUDIO fu
- Produced by: HAYATE
A Comedy Director on a Revenge Story#
Hiroaki Sakurai is best known for comedy. He directed The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., Cromartie High School and The Demon Girl Next Door, and his career goes back to Di Gi Charat. His latest was The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess in 2025.
On paper that is an odd match for a story about getting murdered and coming back. In practice it could be the right call. Hino's own comment singles out the banter between Gongja and his ghost, and timing a double act is exactly Sakurai's strength.
A time-loop story also runs on rhythm. Repeating the same day only works when each pass lands differently, and knowing when a repeated beat has stopped working is a comedy director's instinct.
Sakurai admitted to feeling the pressure of adapting a hit. He said the road ahead opened up once Yoshimatsu was confirmed on character designs.
The Writer and the Designer#
Sayuri Oba handled series composition on Romantic Killer and Me & Roboco. She described this series as a rollercoaster-style Korean drama, with Gongja climbing from failed ranker to contender through what she calls the cheat of dying to live.
Takahiro Yoshimatsu is the character designer behind A Place Further Than the Universe. He is designing the main characters only, and said he was glad to work with Sakurai again after a long gap.
HAYATE and STUDIO fu#
HAYATE is the producer, and here that credit matters more than usual. Aniplex and Crunchyroll formed it as a joint venture on March 17, 2025, to make anime for Crunchyroll's worldwide service. Both parent companies sit under Sony.
It has moved quickly. In April 2026 it bought the studio Lay-duce outright. Its slate includes Reborn as a Space Mercenary, Hana-Kimi, Dengeki Daisy, Ghost of Tsushima: Legends and A Returner's Magic Should Be Special season 2, another Korean webtoon adaptation.
The structure matters for viewers. Crunchyroll is not only the streamer here. Through HAYATE it co-owns the production, so it has a stake in how the show performs rather than just a licence to carry it.
Animation production is credited to STUDIO fu, working under HAYATE.
The Web Novel and Webtoon Behind It#
This started as prose. Sinnoa serialized the original web novel on the Korean platform Munpia from November 20, 2018 to May 7, 2020. The novel is finished.
The webtoon came next. Neida adapted it and Bill K illustrated it, launching on KakaoPage on December 31, 2020. In Japan it runs on Piccoma, where it is billed as a SMARTOON, Piccoma's term for its full-colour vertical comics.
Piccoma readers have given it more than 25 million hearts, the platform's version of likes, and it keeps landing near the top of the fantasy rankings.
Where to Read It in English#
All of it is available legally. Tapas publishes the webtoon digitally in English, and Yen Press's Ize Press imprint releases it in print. Wuxiaworld carries the original web novel in English.
Because the novel is complete, the anime has a finished story to draw on. How much of it a first season can cover is another matter.
Where It Fits After Solo Leveling#
Korean hunter stories have become a steady source of anime since Solo Leveling. Towers, gates, rankings and a hero who starts at the very bottom now read as a genre of their own.
Solo Leveling's anime began in January 2024, and in May 2026 it became the first anime to pass one million ratings on Crunchyroll. Platforms have been looking for the next one ever since, and this adaptation is one of their answers.
SSS-Class Revival Hunter shares the setting and the ranking obsession. What it changes is the power curve. Sung Jinwoo gets stronger by grinding. Kim Gongja gets stronger by dying, which turns every mistake into information and every death into a restart.
If you arrived through Solo Leveling, our list of anime like Solo Leveling covers the rest of the genre. Our Solo Leveling Season 3 guide tracks that show's return.
What Could Go Wrong#
The webtoon is long, and a single cour will only reach the opening stretch. The time-loop structure also needs careful pacing on screen, where repeating a day can feel like padding rather than tension.
The staff mix is the wildcard. A comedy director and a romantic-comedy writer are not the obvious team for a revenge story. They could give the double act exactly the timing it needs, or they could soften the edges that made the webtoon work.
For the rest of the winter season, our 2027 anime hub is tracking it alongside The World's Finest Assassin Season 2, which lands in the same January window. More Korean adaptations sit in our manhwa section.
What Has Not Been Announced Yet#
This is a first announcement, so a lot is still open.
- Premiere day: only the month, January 2027, is confirmed.
- Japanese broadcast: no network or time slot yet.
- Episode count: not announced.
- Theme songs: no opening or ending artists yet.
- More cast: the Flame Emperor and the supporting cast are still unannounced.
- English dub: none has been announced.
Second promotional videos usually carry the broadcast grid and the theme songs, so the next trailer is the one to watch for.
The official site and the official X account are where the broadcast date will land first. Our anime news feed will carry it when it does.
Frequently asked questions
- When does the SSS-Class Revival Hunter anime come out?
- January 2027. No exact premiere day, Japanese broadcast network or episode count has been announced yet.
- Where can I watch SSS-Class Revival Hunter?
- Crunchyroll, as it airs. The licence covers the Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the CIS, the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
- Who voices Kim Gongja?
- Takeo Otsuka voices Kim Gongja, and Satoshi Hino voices the Sword Emperor. They are the only two cast members announced so far.
- Is it based on a manhwa or a novel?
- Both. Sinnoa wrote the original web novel on Munpia from 2018 to 2020. The webtoon, adapted by Neida and illustrated by Bill K, launched on KakaoPage in December 2020.
- Is SSS-Class Revival Hunter the same as SSS-Class Suicide Hunter?
- Yes, it is the same series. SSS-Class Revival Hunter is the official English title used by Tapas and Crunchyroll.
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