Crunchyroll has announced a major strategic partnership with HAYATE Inc. and LINE Digital Frontier to bring approximately 15 webtoon titles to the screen. Revealed during New York Comic Con, the collaboration focuses on co-producing anime adaptations directly from the development stage, ensuring a streamlined pipeline for titles hosted on the LINE Manga platform.
This initiative formalizes the production of several previously announced projects, including The Boxer, The Remarried Empress, and Teenage Mercenary. While the full list of the 15 titles remains under wraps, the partnership signals a significant ramp-up in the adaptation of digital comics into anime, with Crunchyroll securing exclusive streaming rights for the resulting series across select global territories.
At the center of this production effort is HAYATE Inc., a Tokyo-based venture established in early 2025 by former Aniplex executive Masanori Miyake. The company, which recently acquired the studio Lay-duce, is specifically tasked with the planning and development of content for Crunchyroll. This move follows a broader trend for LINE Digital Frontier, which has aggressively expanded its animation output from just a handful of projects in previous years to a target of 20 adaptations for 2025 alone.
Why it matters: The involvement of HAYATE—a studio now backed by both Aniplex and Crunchyroll talent—suggests a more integrated approach to webtoon-to-anime production than previous standalone efforts. With the studio already overseeing the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima: Legends series, it remains to be seen how this partnership will balance the rapid release of these 15 titles with the production demands of their other ongoing projects.
