Anime NYC has just wrapped up its 2026 event with so many anticipated panels from the publishers that got fans excited for what’s to come! Crossed Hearts’s industry panel was full to the brim with new exciting titles and projects.
The highlight of the first panel on August 23 was the new in-house imprint dedicated to original storytelling, Studio Hearts. For the titles belonging to this imprint, the publisher will be directly involved in the cretive direction instead of acquiring the already finished work. There are already several original titles announced during the panel, with further details below.
The publisher also announced both manhwa and manga titles, including one work from its Creator Original program, Glam Beat, and Blush Club, its Girls’ Love and Boys’ Love imprint respectively.
Here are all the series that were announced, including covers and official summaries. Don’t forget to check out K-Comics Beat for what the publisher has in store with regards to manhwa and more!
The Two of Them Can’t Be Mobs! (Manga)
Creator: Sora Mizuki
Release Date: February 2027
“Overflowing with charm, humor, and irresistible chemistry, The Two of Them Can’t Be Mobs! is a heartwarming high school rom-com about two would-be side characters who simply can’t stay in the background… especially once love enters the picture.”
Himejima is the school’s impossibly handsome heartthrob. Onimaru is a striking beauty with the unmistakable presence of an oni.
They share one simple dream: To be completely ordinary.
No attention. No popularity. No standing out. Just a quiet high school life as background characters.
There’s just one problem.
When you’re this unforgettable… being a mob is impossible.
As fate keeps bringing the two reluctant scene-stealers together, every attempt to fade into the background only thrusts them further into the spotlight, sparking heart-fluttering moments, hilarious misunderstandings, and a romance neither of them saw coming.
Love Beyond the Final Boss: The Hero’s Party’s Quest for Love (Manga)
Creator: Hadajuban Yamada
Release Date: February 2027
“Set in a wildly chaotic romance-comedy fantasy overflowing with eccentric heroes, unconventional love, and nonstop mayhem, this riotous adventure proves that saving the world was only the beginning. Because once the Demon King is gone, the greatest threat to world peace isn’t evil anymore… it’s the unemployed heroes with far too much free time!”
The world has already been saved… perhaps a little too well.
Thanks to the strongest Hero Party in history, not only has the Demon King been defeated, but wars have ended, racial conflicts have vanished, cities have made peace, medicine has advanced, education has flourished… and just about every problem imaginable has already been solved.
Unfortunately, that leaves one group with nothing left to do: the other heroes summoned from another world.
Robbed of their destiny, these aimless heroes have gone completely off the rails. From hopeless romantics with impossible dreams to eccentric oddballs with the strangest obsessions, they’re less “heroes” and more walking disasters.
Strongest Hero, please save the world… from its own saviors!
Emma and the Eyes that Bid Farewell (Manga)
Creator: Higure Sakino
Release Date: February 2027
“With deadly magic, mystery, and assassination colliding beneath the academy’s grand halls, Emma and the Eyes That Bid Farewell is a spellbinding academy romance-fantasy where every friendship is tested and every spell could be your last.”
Emma has dreamed of attending the prestigious Royal Academy of Magic her entire life. There’s just one problem. She can’t use magic.
On the day of the entrance ceremony, Emma’s dreams seem destined to shatter… until a chance encounter with the aloof and sharp-tongued Phyllis changes everything. After the two unexpectedly take the entrance exam together, they’re assigned as a provisional pair, much to their mutual dismay.
But surviving academy life soon becomes the least of Emma’s concerns. As she struggles to awaken the mysterious power sleeping within her, a deadly conspiracy begins to unfold. Someone is lurking in the shadows… and they’ll stop at nothing to assassinate her.
Where Sea Meets Shore (Manga, Creator Original)
Creator: Al Chiaki
Release Date: September 2026
“A tender, bittersweet story of love, longing, and two souls reaching across the boundary between land and sea.”
A young photographer finds himself captivated by the mermaid displayed behind the glass of an aquarium, and longs to speak to her despite the barrier between them.
Unable to do so, he returns day after day with his sketchbook, filling its pages with words that he shows her in the hope of reaching her.
While he is free to come and go, she remains imprisoned behind the glass, forever separated from the sea she longs to return to.
As their quiet bond deepens beyond words, he begins to wonder whether he can simply leave her behind… or if some encounters are destined to change lives forever.
Doomsday Requiem With You (Studio Hearts)
Creator: Studio Hearts
Release Date: April 2027
“A sweeping shoujo romantic fantasy weaving magical academia, supernatural mystery, and the looming shadow of the apocalypse into a captivating adventure, where every forgotten legend hides a piece of the truth, and every answer comes at a price.”
In a kingdom where a noble’s worth is determined by the blessing they are born with, Lady Cellestia Varst has spent her entire life branded as the one thing no aristocrat should ever be.
Blessingless.
Mocked by her peers but unwilling to surrender to fate, Cellestia forces her way into the prestigious Academy’s Special Curriculum, an elite programme reserved for the kingdom’s most powerful blessed students. There, the strongest prepare for the return of the Enigma, an ancient calamity that awakens once every thousand years, plunging the land into darkness and reducing its victims to living flames.
Cellestia has no intention of becoming yet another soldier.
Her father has already begun to combust, and she has but one year left to save him.
Whispers speak of twelve forgotten curses scattered across the kingdom, each concealed within an ancient myth, folktale, or riddle. Break all twelve, and the Enigma may disappear forever. The first curse is said to lie somewhere within the Academy.
Determined to uncover it, Cellestia slips through forbidden corridors, follows whispers no one else believes, and chases secrets that could see her expelled before she ever finds the truth. Instead, every clue seems to lead her back to Crown Prince Julius, the kingdom’s golden heir blessed with the sacred power of light.
Julius is everything Cellestia expected… and nothing she can understand. Warm one moment, infuriating distant the next, he leaves her questioning whether he’s mocking her, testing her, or hiding secrets of his own.
The closer they grow to the truth, the more impossible it becomes to ignore each other.
Can two unlikely partners unravel a thousand-year-old mystery before the kingdom is consumed by the very curse it was built to contain?
Chiaroscuro (Studio Hearts)
Creator: Studio Hearts
Release Date: April 2027
One blessed by the Sun. One cursed by the Night. Neither can save the world alone.
For a thousand years, the kingdom of Esteria has lived beneath one impossible law.
When the bells toll, every soul must sleep before night falls. For the darkness does not merely hide monsters. It belongs to them.
Princess Lanasia has spent her life confined within ivory halls, raised to become the next Sun of the Empire, the prophesied savior destined to prevent the Eclipse. Yet the goddess has never answered her prayers, her divine power refuses to awaken, and she is the last heir anyone expects to inherit the crown.
Then, during a royal ceremony, an ancient relic shatters. A phoenix rises. The emperor crowns Lanasia. Soon after, a haunting melody that only she can hear draws her beyond the temple’s forbidden halls and into a hidden world that should never have existed.
A world where the night still lives. Where monsters dance instead of slaughter. Where the people she was taught to fear laugh beneath a sky she has never seen. And where a black-haired boy with crimson eyes, cursed by the darkness itself, turns to meet her gaze.
The kingdom believes the Eclipse will bring its end. Yet the greatest lie was never about the darkness. It was believing the light could survive without it.
Soul Guiders (Studio Hearts)
Creator: Studio Hearts
Release Date: April 2027
“Perfect for readers aged 14+, this epic shounen fantasy blends expansive worldbuilding, unforgettable characters, and ever-rising stakes into an unforgettable adventure for fans of One Piece, Inuyasha, Naruto, and The Case Study of Vanitas, while forging an identity entirely its own.”
When Princess Yuzarinne awakens to a power she never asked for, she is thrust into an unlikely partnership with Zeo, a demon vice-commander as infamous for ignoring orders as he is for surviving them. Together, they must recover the scattered shards of the Orb of Salvation, an ancient relic said to hold the power to plunge the world into chaos, before they fall into the hands of the radical idealist Veydris, whose vision of peace demands the world’s destruction.
But they aren’t the only ones hunting them.
Wardens who safeguard the world’s balance. Demons with kingdoms to protect. Possessed beings struggling against the monsters within. Spirits bound by forgotten promises. Wandering souls searching for the one wish that might finally set them free. Every faction races toward the same prize, convinced their cause is the one worth saving.
As the scattered shards draw closer to becoming whole, so too does the end of the world. Can Yuzarinne and Zeo outrun fate and stop the world from tearing itself apart before the final shard falls?
Blending high-stakes fantasy, explosive action, supernatural mystery, and a slow-burn romance, the story unfolds through a richly woven ensemble cast whose lives gradually intertwine around a single question:
Who deserves to decide the future of the world?
The Devil in Me (Girls’ Love Manga)
Creator: Crosswise
Release Date:March 2027
“A captivating girls’ love Thai manga about a priestess and a vampire, where faith, blood, and fate entwine in an unforgettable love story.”
In a world where hope has all but vanished, two broken souls discover that even the darkest fate cannot keep them apart.
Danielle Godin is a priestess devoted to God, or so it appears. Behind her unwavering smile is a woman who has long since lost all hope, simply enduring the world one day at a time.
Then she meets a vampire with blood-red eyes, a woman just as broken as she is, surviving in the hell Earth has become.
Drawn together by the quiet weight of their shared despair, the two find an unexpected refuge in one another. As fleeting moments of warmth blossom into something deeper, they begin to discover a reason to keep living in a world that has forgotten mercy.
Some destinies are written in blood. Others are written in the hearts of two women who refuse to let each other go. When faith meets immortality, can a priestess and a vampire defy a world determined to keep them apart.
Addicted to You (Boys’ Love Manga)
Creator: Penguin
Release Date:November 2027
At the boundary between angels and humans, 11 has one problem he cannot make sense of: his own heart.
His complicated bond with 3 has already left him tangled in feelings he would rather not name. Then a chance encounter with a human girl introduces an entirely new complication, teaching him that liking someone and loving them may be far more troublesome than he imagined.
Humans, however, are not meant to last forever.
When 11 meets the girl again after her reincarnation, memories of her former life collide with the person she has become, rekindling a connection that should have ended with death. Yet the closer he grows to her, the harder it becomes to ignore the feelings that have always drawn him back to 3.
With one love transcending lifetimes and another refusing to be neatly defined, 11 must finally unravel the desires of his own heart.
Between 3 and the girl fate returned to him, whom does 11 truly love?
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from Anime NYC’26.
