10 Years Later, A Forgotten Anime Finally Gets an Official Sequel
For years, Monster Strike stood as one of Japan’s great cultural juggernauts. It was a mobile game phenomenon so massive it once rivaled Pokémon GO and Puzzle & Dragons in revenue and reach. Yet despite its popularity, the franchise’s anime adaptation quietly slipped into obscurity, remembered mostly by loyal fans of the game and those who stumbled across its early YouTube releases.
Now, a decade after the original series premiered, Monster Strike is coming back with an all-new anime series, Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded. The official Monster Strike World YouTube Channel dropped a new Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded creditless opening video to celebrate the series’ official launch, which featured the new theme song “Monster” by the J-pop group Da-iCE.
Monster Strike Was One of the Most Popular Mobile Games of the 2010s
When Monster Strike first debuted as a mobile game in 2013, it became an overnight sensation in Japan. Developed by Mixi under its XFLAG label, the game combined RPG mechanics, cooperative play, and physics-based combat. Players launched monsters like pinballs to battle enemies, earning rewards and collecting new characters through a gacha system. The game’s cooperative mode lets up to four players team up locally, and its colorful roster of monsters kept players collecting, evolving, and strategizing endlessly.
Mixi capitalized on the craze through constant collaborations with other franchises, featuring limited-time events with Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, Evangelion, and Jujutsu Kaisen, to name a few. It would go on to become one of the most profitable mobile games in the world, topping billions in revenue and briefly overtaking Puzzle & Dragons as Japan’s most successful app.
With its success came a wave of adaptations. In 2015, the first Monster Strike anime premiered on YouTube, produced by Studio Pierrot. The series followed a new cast led by Ren Homura and his dragon-like partner Oragon, expanding on the game’s world while staying accessible to newcomers. The anime’s reception was largely positive; fans viewed it as a fun, accessible extension of a beloved game rather than a major anime in its own right. Despite a solid start and multiple follow-up seasons, the anime’s viewership declined outside Japan. Internationally, it was met with lukewarm reception.
Critics described it as watchable but ultimately forgettable, with flashy visuals and little emotional impact. When the English version of the Monster Strike game shut down in 2017, much of the international fanbase dissolved with it. The series continued domestically through films and online shorts, but by the late 2010s, it had largely vanished from the global anime conversation. However, the game’s new anime adaptation, Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded could put the series back on the map.
A New Heroine in the Strike Worlds
Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded is a darker spinoff from the Monster Strike game and original anime series. It follows Rinne, a girl born into a family of exorcists who cannot see people’s faces. Her condition isolates her from the world around her, yet she continues her family’s work and sets out on her first mission. When she encounters a strange and powerful enemy, she quickly finds herself outmatched and in danger. Rinne is rescued by a mysterious man named Jugemu, who reveals that every world, including her own, known as the “Strike Worlds,” faces destruction.
The voice cast assembled for the new series features several big names. Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Sword Art Online’s Kirito and Demon Slayer’s Inosuke, headlines as Jugemu, and Kana Ichinose, Frieren’s Fern and Honey Lemon Soda’s Uka Ishinori, voices Rinne. The supporting cast includes industry favorites Kana Hanazawa, Demon Slayer’s Love Hashira Mitsuri, as Yakumo and Inori Minase, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?’s Hestia, as Neo. The powerhouse lineup of VA talent indicates a big investment into the series and a possible comeback for the Monster Strike anime universe.
Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded is directed by Masao Okubo, known for his work on The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie, at Yumeta Company, the studio behind Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning and My Next Life as a Villainess, with Noriyuki Nakamura, serving as assistant director. The series composition and scripts are handled by Hayato Kazano (Classroom of the Elite) and Jin Haganeya (Guilty Crown), while Kazumi Inadome (The Rising of the Shield Hero) provides the new character designs.
Monster Strike: Deadverse Reloaded could be a full-scale revival of a franchise that helped define mobile gaming in Japan. Ten years after its first adaptation, the series is once again airing on Japanese TV, reintroducing longtime fans to a familiar universe with a darker edge. An international release has yet to be announced, but the renewed production quality and star-studded cast suggest Monster Strike is gearing up for a broader comeback.
