Kadokawa’s light novel imprint Fantasia Bunko held its Grand Thanksgiving Festival 2026 online on Sunday, and like any self-respecting festival it came bearing gifts. Hot on the heels of the news that Date A Live F Last Date will be a film opening in Japan next March, the event confirmed a third season of Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World and a 2027 date for the TV anime of King’s Proposal, the latest light novel from the Date A Live duo.
Our Last Crusade, or Kimisen to its friends, is Kei Sazane and Ao Nekonabe’s war-crossed romance between Iska, a swordsman of the technologically advanced Empire, and Aliceliese, a witch princess of the Nebulis Sovereignty, two people on opposite sides of a hundred-year war who have the poor manners to fall for each other. Think Romeo and Juliet, only with more magic and a significantly larger army. The third season is in production at Studio Palette and SILVER LINK, with Yuki Inaba returning as director and series composer and Kaori Yoshikawa back on character designs. Yusuke Kobayashi and Sora Amamiya return as Iska and Alice, alongside the rest of the season two cast, and the announcement came with the teaser visual you see above. No broadcast date has been given yet.
Given the history, “no date yet” may be the most sensible thing anyone has said about this show. Season two was announced in October 2021 for 2023, slipped to July 2024, was then paused after four episodes so that the quality could be maintained, and finally restarted from episode one in April 2025. Production delays are the true hundred-year war here. Still, a third season from the same team suggests the second one did its job, and the light novels, which Yen Press publishes in English, have plenty of road left in them.
King’s Proposal comes from Koushi Tachibana and Tsunako, the writer and illustrator who gave the world Date A Live, and its premise has a proper pulp kick. The world is threatened with annihilation roughly once every 300 hours, a fortnightly apocalypse that the world’s magicians handle with the weary regularity of the bin men. When Saika Kuozaki, the most powerful mage alive, is mortally wounded, she bequeaths her powers and her body to Mushiki Kuga, the ordinary schoolboy who finds her. He must then attend an academy for mages disguised as Saika while keeping his identity under wraps, which makes it a body-swap story with a magic school attached, a tradition stretching back through Freaky Friday to the final episode of the original Star Trek, “Turnabout Intruder”, in which William Shatner gave his all as a woman trapped in Kirk’s body.
The festival confirmed the TV series for 2027 and cast Rie Takahashi, the voice of Megumin in KonoSuba and Emilia in Re:Zero, as Saika. The teaser visual shows her with her hand outstretched and a tagline demanding that you swear obedience so she can make you her bride, which is quite the opening line. The studio and the rest of the staff have yet to be named. The light novels have been running since September 2021, with Yen Press handling the English editions and a ninth Japanese volume due in December, so there is time to read ahead before the world next ends, which at one apocalypse every 300 hours is never more than a fortnight away.
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