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Dragon Striker quietly premiered on Disney Plus in June, and it’s one of the easiest recommendations I’ll make all year. Disney barely marketed the fantasy sports series to its Lilo & Stitch-enamored mainstream audience, but without exaggerating, it deserves to be mentioned alongside the best family animation on television.
Produced by Paris-based Chouette Studios, it’s a gorgeous blend of Eastern and Western storytelling sensibilities, pairing stunning 2D animation with a coming-of-age fantasy that feels like Avatar: The Last Airbender colliding with Harry Potter, My Hero Academia, and… the global obsession with soccer? Yes, somehow it’s also perfect for World Cup season.
If you needed an excuse to finally watch it, Disney just supplied one. During the 2026 Anime Expo, the company announced Dragon Striker will return for a second season in early 2027 on Disney XD and Disney Plus, giving one of the streamer’s most impressive original animated series the chance to build a much bigger audience.
If enough people watch Dragon Striker, it can achieve the true milestone of success: endless discourse over whether it’s technically an naime or not! And as we know, it doesn’t really matter. Chouette was founded by artists who grew up dreaming of making Japanese-style animation, and that passion comes through in every frame. What a joy to see expressive, fantastical animation produced by Disney, which invests most of its money at this point in live-actionifying so much of its legacy of beauty.
Dragon Striker follows Key Nagatatsu, a farm boy who dreams of attending Kal Asterock, an academy where students compete in gorotama, a magical sport that’s basically soccer. When Key accidentally awakens the legendary Dragon tama—a power once wielded by his late mother—he joins an abandoned banner called the Knights alongside his version of the Aang Gang. What begins as an underdog sports story gradually becomes something much larger, as the team’s tournament run obviously uncovers ancient conspiracies and unsettling truths about Key’s family. No spoilers for the end of season 1.
While Dragon Striker isn’t chasing the spiritual weight of Avatar, every character’s tama ability feels thoughtfully designed and the world has the cozy-but-epic feel of a classic RPG like Chrono Trigger — one of the creators’ stated inspirations. I am, if it’s not clear, delighted.
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It’s a bit like if Kazuya Mishima and friends were reimagined by late-’90s Cartoon Network
According to the news out of Anime Expo, season 2 will see the Knights contend with broken friendships, buried secrets, and an ancient evil as they fight to reach the Banner’s Helm final. Akshay Kumar, Rebecca LaChance, Yeukayi Ushe, Waylon Jacobs, and Evanna Lynch all return, alongside another soaring score from composer Kevin Penkin. If Disney gives the new season a bigger spotlight than the first, Dragon Striker has everything it needs to become its next great animated obsession.
