We were in the Honda Center when this one hit, and it may have been the loudest pop of the entire D23 2026 Disney Entertainment Showcase. Bigger than Avengers: Doomsday. Bigger than the X-Men reveal. Kingdom Hearts, the video game franchise that has spent over two decades building one of gaming’s most devoted fan bases, is finally getting an original television series.
“Kingdom Hearts” (working title) is an original anime series greenlit for Disney Channel and Disney+, developed in partnership with series creator Tetsuya Nomura and the creative team at Square Enix. The series reimagines the Kingdom Hearts universe with a new story, rather than adapting the games beat for beat, while keeping the characters that built the franchise’s fan base over the years. Disney made the announcement live during the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23 2026.
Ayo Davis, president of Disney Kids & Family, said the goal is a series that stays close to Nomura’s involvement while giving fans a new way into a world they already know from the games. The series joins a growing lineup of original animated shows for Disney+, alongside Dragon Striker, Phineas and Ferb, Big City Greens, and the upcoming Messi and the Giants, Warrior Cats, and Journey. No premiere date, voice cast, or episode count has been announced yet.
Kingdom Hearts has never had a straightforward path to mainstream recognition outside its own fan base, mostly because the games themselves ask a lot of new players before the story starts to click. A series gives Disney a much lower bar of entry, and judging by the reaction in the room last night, there’s a massive audience already waiting for it. It wasn’t the only Kingdom Hearts moment of the night either. Earlier in the same showcase, Disney & Pixar Games and Square Enix confirmed that KINGDOM HEARTS IV will include a world inspired by Coco, and the gasp that went through the Honda Center when that Coco-style world was teased was its own moment entirely. Two Kingdom Hearts reveals in one night, and both landed.
An anime series with Nomura directly involved is about as close to a guarantee of tonal accuracy as this franchise could get. It also signals that Disney sees Kingdom Hearts as a property worth building beyond the games, not just something to license out. For a franchise built on crossing Disney and Square Enix’s biggest characters into one story, a television series is the most natural next step Disney could take.
We’ll keep updating our D23 2026 Day 1 live blog with everything from the Honda Center as more details come out of the weekend.
