KINGDOM HEARTS is Officially Getting a Disney+ Anime Series and It’s About Damn Time

After more than two decades of Keyblades, Heartless, Disney worlds, Final Fantasy characters, and one gloriously complicated story, Kingdom Hearts is officially expanding beyond video games.

Disney confirmed during D23 that a Kingdom Hearts TV series is in development for Disney+, giving fans something they’ve been hoping to see for years.

The most exciting part about the project is that it will be an anime series, which is the perfect way to bring the franchise to life outside of the game.

The original Kingdom Hearts launched in 2002 as one of those ideas that sounded completely bonkers when you tried to explain it.

Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company brought together Disney characters and worlds with characters from the Final Fantasy universe and built an action-RPG around the unlikely crossover, and it turned out awesome!

The game introduced players to Sora and sent him traveling across Disney-inspired worlds alongside Donald Duck and Goofy, while characters from Final Fantasy became part of the larger adventure.

The strange mixture developed its own identity, and Kingdom Hearts grew into a massive franchise with sequels, spinoffs, prequels, remixes, collections, mobile games, and enough interconnected lore to keep fans debating timelines for years.

Disney revealed the news from the D23 stage, confirming that the Kingdom Hearts TV series will premiere exclusively on Disney+. There aren’t any other details available yet.

The visual style of the games has always blended Japanese RPG aesthetics with classic Disney animation, so anime feels like a natural fit for Sora, Riku, Kairi, Organization XIII, the Heartless, and the increasingly wild mythology surrounding them.

It also gives the creative team plenty of freedom when jumping between the dramatically different Disney worlds that have become such a huge part of the franchise.

Disney hasn’t revealed whether the series will retell Sora’s original adventure, adapt another part of the existing Kingdom Hearts storyline, or tell an entirely new story within the universe.

There’s also no word yet on the animation studio, creative team, voice cast, episode count, or release date. Still, the confirmation itself is a big deal.

The franchise already has another major project on the horizon with Kingdom Hearts IV, which Square Enix previously announced as the next main installment in the game series.

Adding a Disney+ anime means fans now have two very different ways to return to this universe.

There’s a ton of potential here. The big question is how Disney and Square Enix plan to tackle a mythology that has become famously complicated over the past 20-plus years.

Whatever direction they take, seeing Kingdom Hearts become an anime feels like something that probably should’ve happened a long time ago.

Now we just need to know which worlds Sora will visit, how closely this connects to the games, and whether Donald will actually heal him when he needs it.