There were some major romances that anime fans got to see over the course of the Summer 2025 anime season, but the biggest one came to an end with the announcement that there’s a new final movie on the way. CloverWorks really took over the Summer with three major anime adaptations of romances that fans wanted to see. This not only included the debut of The Flower Blooms With Dignitybut also major returns of franchises like My Dress-Up Darling and the Rascal Does Not Dream saga. So as each of these series have reached their ends, it’s been an emotional couple of weeks of goodbyes.
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus officially debuted the final episode of its season together with the rest of the ending Summer 2025 anime schedule, but with it came a huge announcement that the anime is going to continue in an unexpected way. Rather than return with a new season of the TV series, the anime has officially confirmed that it’s going to be coming to its end with a new movie now in the works for a release next year. Check out the first look at Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend below.
Rascal Does Not Dream to End With New Movie
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend is a new movie for the franchise scheduled to release sometime in 2026 across theaters in Japan. A more concrete release window or date has yet to be revealed, nor have any potential international release plans confirmed. This teaser also sets up that this film is going to be bringing its story to its finale, and that makes a lot of sense as its title is the same as the final volume from Hajime Kamoshida’s original light novel series too. But ending with a movie isn’t the most surprising choice for this franchise.
Rascal Does Not Dream overall has had a wild anime history. First starting out with Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpaithe anime continued to tell its story with a theatrical feature film release, Rascal Does Not Dream of Dreaming Girland two OVA specials titled Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out and Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid. This all led to the second full TV season that aired throughout this Summer, Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Clausthat adapted nearly all of the University arc from the original light novel series.
How Will Rascal Does Not Dream End?
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus actually worked through three major arcs of the original Rascal Does Not Dream novels, Lost Singer, Nightingale, His Student, and the titular Santa Claus. Each of these Puberty Syndrome investigations have surprisingly been tied into one another in some way, and Sakuta Azusagawa has been trying his hardest to keep his girlfriend Mai Sakurajima from harm. It came to a head in the Santa Claus finale, but there are still big mysteries afloat.
With Rascal Does Not Dream of His Girlfriend and Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend being the final two volumes left to be adapted as of this time, these Puberty Syndrome mysteries are all colliding into whatever this final quest around Mai and the mysterious Touko Kirishima is going to be. A movie to end it all just makes sense, so make sure you catch up with all of the anime’s current episodes, movie and OVAs now streaming with Crunchyroll.
