Shangri-La Frontier anime‘s official website unveiled a new key visual for the 3rd season that confirms January 2027 release date.
Shangri-La Frontier is a Japanese web novel penned by Katarina [ja]. The story first appeared online on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō platform starting in May 2017. The manga version, drawn by Ryosuke Fuji, began running in Kodansha’s Weekly Shōnen Magazine in July 2020 and has reached 25 collected tankōbon volumes by January 2026.
The plot centers on Rakuro Hizutome, a high schooler passionate about conquering “trash games”—outdated, buggy titles that attract only a niche crowd. Having overcome the extreme challenges and glitches in these flawed games, he shifts gears to try the massively popular full-dive VR title Shangri-La Frontier, which boasts 30 million registered users. He logs in as Sunraku, his signature bird-masked avatar, bringing along all the unconventional skills and expertise gained from those tough, broken games to tackle this new world.
An anime adaptation by studio C2C broadcast from October 2023 through March 2024 for its first season. The second season followed from October 2024 to March 2025. A third season is scheduled to debut in January 2027.
As of April 2025, the manga had exceeded 12 million copies in circulation (with more recent reports indicating it has surpassed 15 million). The series earned the 47th Kodansha Manga Award in the shōnen division back in 2023.
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