After years of recommendations, comparisons and plenty of “this needs an anime” comments from manhwa readers, SSS-Class Revival Hunter is finally getting one.
The Korean webcomic will receive a TV anime adaptation in January 2027, with STUDIO fu handling the animation. Hiroaki Sakurai is directing, Sayuri Oba is handling the script, and Takahiro Yoshimatsu is responsible for the character designs. Takeo Otsuka will voice Gongja Kim, while Satoshi Hino plays the Sword Emperor.
Crunchyroll has also confirmed that it will stream the anime internationally when it premieres.
For readers of the manhwa, that’s exciting news. But the announcement has also created an almost immediate question:
Will the anime actually do the source material justice?
And judging by the first fan reactions, a lot of people are thinking about The Beginning After the End right now.
What Makes SSS-Class Revival Hunter Different?
The title doesn’t exactly help this series make a good first impression.
If you’ve never read it, SSS-Class Revival Hunter sounds like another story about hunters, rankings, absurd skills and an overpowered protagonist.
And to be fair, it does start there.
Gongja Kim is an F-rank hunter living inside the Tower, watching powerful hunters receive everything he wants. Eventually, he gains an ability that allows him to copy a skill from whoever kills him.
Then he discovers another ability: when he dies, he can return to the previous day.
That’s when things start getting interesting.
What makes SSS-Class Revival Hunter memorable isn’t simply watching Gongja become stronger. The story gradually becomes much more interested in what repeatedly dying, reliving events and experiencing other people’s pain does to him.
It can jump from action to tragedy, character drama and eventually even romance without feeling like the same hunter story repeating itself.
That’s also why the anime needs more than flashy fights.
The official English Tapas release currently has 154 episodes, so there is already a huge amount of material available for an adaptation.
How Many Episodes Will the Anime Have?
Right now, there is no confirmed episode count.
Crunchyroll’s announcement confirms the January 2027 premiere, cast, staff and studio, but does not say whether we’re getting 12 episodes, 13 episodes, two cours or something larger.
So any exact episode count circulating right now should be treated as speculation.
If it follows the usual single-cour format, however, 12–13 episodes feels like the safest expectation.
That would then raise another question: how much of the manhwa could it cover?
Our current guess would be roughly 30–40 webcomic chapters if the anime receives a standard cour.
But we’d actually prefer it to stay on the slower side.
The opening portion has to establish Gongja, his abilities, the Tower and why this story isn’t simply another Solo Leveling-style power climb. Rushing through that material just to reach a bigger action sequence would hurt the exact thing that makes the source worth adapting.
A good adaptation doesn’t always mean adapting more chapters.
Sometimes it means knowing which chapters need room to breathe.
STUDIO fu Is the Biggest Question Mark
This is probably where most of the anxiety comes from.
STUDIO fu was only established in January 2025, making it an extremely young animation company. Its official company profile lists 22 employees as of April 2026.
Understandably, that’s going to make people nervous when the studio is being handed a series with an already passionate international fanbase.
But there’s an important distinction here.
STUDIO fu might be young, but its staff hasn’t been sitting around doing nothing.
The company has previously provided animation-related support on productions including SAKAMOTO DAYS, Dr. STONE, Detective Conan, Takopi’s Original Sin and The Rising of the Shield Hero. It also provided production cooperation on the 2026 anime In the Clear Moonlit Dusk.
Those credits don’t mean STUDIO fu produced those shows.
They didn’t.
Providing animation assistance to another studio is very different from carrying an entire television production.
And that’s exactly why SSS-Class Revival Hunter will be such an interesting test.
This is where we’ll get a much clearer idea of what STUDIO fu can actually do when given a major project of its own.
The Staff Gives Us More Hope
The studio might be new, but the people leading the anime aren’t necessarily newcomers.
Hiroaki Sakurai is directing, with Crunchyroll highlighting his work on The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. in the official announcement. Sayuri Oba is handling the script, while veteran animator Takahiro Yoshimatsu is responsible for character designs.
That’s important.
Anime quality isn’t determined by the studio logo alone.
Directors, animation producers, character designers, episode directors, freelancers, schedules and production management can all have an enormous impact on the final result.
There’s another interesting name attached to the project as well: HAYATE.
HAYATE was established in 2025 as a joint anime-production venture between Aniplex and Crunchyroll, combining Aniplex’s production experience with Crunchyroll’s global development, marketing and distribution network.
None of this guarantees that SSS-Class Revival Hunter will look amazing.
But it does make the situation more complicated than simply saying, “unknown studio, we’re doomed.”
Fans Already Have One Major Fear: Please Don’t Be Another TBATE
This reaction appeared almost immediately after the announcement.
In one of the largest r/anime discussions about the teaser visual, a comment with hundreds of upvotes summed up the mood pretty clearly: fans weren’t necessarily asking for Solo Leveling-level animation — they just didn’t want what they considered “TBATE treatment.”
Another popular comment described the possibilities as essentially getting either the Solo Leveling treatment or the The Beginning After the End treatment.
That’s obviously an oversimplification, but it shows where the anxiety is coming from.
There are also readers worried about losing some of the visual quality that makes Korean webcomics so appealing in the first place. Others are much more optimistic, arguing that the story is strong enough that it doesn’t need Solo Leveling-level spectacle to succeed.
We think that second point matters.
Because SSS-Class Revival Hunter shouldn’t be trying to become another Solo Leveling.
Our Take: It Doesn’t Need Insane Animation — It Needs Good Direction
We’ve personally read SSS-Class Revival Hunter, so this is one adaptation we’re genuinely excited about.
And our biggest hope isn’t that every fight suddenly receives movie-level sakuga.
Of course we want good animation. There are absolutely scenes later in this story that deserve it.
But what would hurt SSS-Class Revival Hunter more than anything is bad pacing.
Gongja’s development is the heart of the series.
Some of its strongest moments work because the story slows down and allows him to understand another person’s circumstances instead of treating every problem as another enemy to defeat.
That means the anime needs good character acting, music, atmosphere and emotional direction just as much as it needs impressive action.
If STUDIO fu understands that, this could work extremely well.
If the adaptation simply races from fight to fight because Korean hunter anime are expected to look like Solo Leveling, it could miss what makes the series special.
So are we worried?
A little.
STUDIO fu is young, and there simply isn’t enough lead-production history yet to confidently predict what a full cour from the studio will look like.
But writing the anime off before we’ve even seen a proper full trailer would also be unfair.
For now, we’d describe our expectations as cautiously excited.
More Korean Webtoons Getting Anime Is a Good Thing
There’s also a bigger reason we’re happy this adaptation exists.
Korean webtoons have built enormous international audiences, yet there are still countless popular series waiting for proper anime adaptations.
Ask manhwa readers what they want next and you’ll quickly start hearing titles such as The Greatest Estate Developer, Return of the Mount Hua Sect and Pick Me Up: Infinite Gacha.
We’d love to see more of them get a chance.
But there’s one lesson the industry should take from the adaptations that worked — and the ones fans were disappointed by.
Getting an anime isn’t enough. Getting an adaptation that understands the original is what matters.
That’s why SSS-Class Revival Hunter feels particularly important.
The source already has the story.
It already has the characters.
And it already has readers waiting to see Gongja animated.
Now STUDIO fu has to prove it can translate all of that to television.
As readers ourselves, we’re excited to finally see it happen.
We just hope January 2027 gives Gongja’s story the adaptation it deserves.
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