All the News and Reviews from Anime Expo 2025

Ninjas, Cats, and Roosters Abound at Viz's Anime Expo Panel

As far as panels go, there was nothing earth-shattering in the way Viz presented itself and its products at its Anime Expo panel this year. What you expected is exactly what you got: a big company advertising their licensed anime and manga, some of which had been announced for a while now, while another batch had some new things making their way out of the woodwork.

The people at Viz would showcase their brand of DAN DA DAN merch, a trailer for the Ranma 1/2 reboot's second season, streams of RWBY, a trailer of One Punch Man's upcoming third season, and a few tips regarding Yaiba: Samurai Warrior. Out of everything they showed in the first half of their panel, it seemed that Viz was especially proud of Yaiba, as they devoted what was probably a good third of their panel to it. They announced that Erica Mendez, Rebecca Wang, Christopher Corey Smith, Alan Lee would be featured in the dub as Yaiba, Sayaka, Musashi, and Onimaru respectively. They also showed some cool behind the scenes commentary from Studio Wit, and a moment I found interesting is when they discussed Yaiba's opening—Blue Encount were the ones performing on it, and as someone who got to see their brand of pop punk mayhem in Boston just a little over a month ago, I felt that it was accurate when the Viz representatives said that the music made the animation feel more frantic and faster compared to most anime.

In terms of newer things, there were two noteworthy things. The first of which involved the anime adaptation of Black Torch, which was announced at this year's Emerald City Comic Con, but now came packed with a trailer and a confirmed list of the cast, who got to introduce themselves to the audience via video message. Before the trailer played, the Viz representative introduced it as, “Ninjas and cats. That's all I'll say right now.” He wasn't kidding either, since Black Torch's trailer displayed the perfect combination of both things. The second came during the climax of the panel in the form of their latest series Rooster Fighter. After showing a trailer for it, a girl in the audience acted out her best rooster impression by screeching a “COCOCOCOOOOOOOO” to the audience, which wowed everybody in the room. No really, it did; I even met up with her after the panel ended to compliment her insane yet amazing ability to imitate anime chicken noises.

After just a little bit more advertising of Rooster Fighter's manga via reading it on the Viz app, they showed off a special sneak peak of roughly half of the anime's first episode. With a concept like a rooster fighting against legions of mutants, the show is about as ridiculous as you can expect it to be. Just imagine those Family Guy bits where Peter has to fight a giant chicken, except now the chicken's the main character of a seinen and he has to fight something more monstrous than some shlubby ex-toy factory worker. And that concept in and of itself is certainly absurd enough to get my attention.