Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, Frieren Season 2, and Golden Kamuy Season 5 are the Top 3 Most Popular TV Shows in Japan right now. See the complete list.
The 2026 anime season is now fully underway, hitting the ground running at full throttle, and unlike last winter, this season’s slate seems to be mainly defined by the return of long-awaited heavy hitters. Leading the pack is Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, whose highly anticipated Culling Game arc appears to have already built an almost unassailable dominance on the streaming landscape nationwide.
Since its return, Jujutsu Kaisen has not only been the Most-Watched TV Show on Netflix Japan but also the Most-Watched TV Show across all streaming platforms. More than half a decade after the first episode of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime aired, the series still has plenty of steam left, and its enduring global popularity is further proof that it may just be the biggest anime franchise in the world after Demon Slayer.
Shota Goshozono returns to direct Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 at MAPPA, with most of the major key players involved in Season 2 also returning in their respective roles for the anime’s latest outing.
According to GEM Partners, 37% of the show’s viewers are aged 20–40, while it also boasts an impressive 35% audience among older audiences aged 40–60. Frieren, which is currently the second most popular anime in Japan on streaming, has a similar demographic split, with 39% of its viewers aged 20–40 and 38% in the 40–60 bracket.
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Most Popular Anime in Japan Right Now: Detective Conan and One Piece remain strong.
Detective Conan is still going strong and is at the third spot, just beating out SPY x FAMILY and One Piece. The latest film in the franchise, Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback, was released in Japanese theaters in April 2025. One-eyed Flashback grossed ¥14.67 billion (~$93 million) in Japan and over $162 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing Case Closed film of all time in Japan.
Meanwhile, Season 2 of Hell’s Paradise has also enjoyed strong fanfare following the anime’s return after Season 1, which concluded in mid-2023, and currently sits among the Top 10 Most Popular TV Shows and Anime in Japan across streaming and VOD services.
There are no new anime in GEM Partners’ Top 10 overall streaming rankings. However, Jack-of-All-Trades, Party of None has been in the bottom half of Netflix’s Top 10 Most-Watched TV Shows since its debut. Sentenced To Be a Hero was the Third Most-Watched TV Show on Netflix during the week of its premiere, but has since fallen out of Netflix’s Top 10.
You can see the complete list below.
Top 10 Most Popular Anime and TV Shows in Japan Right Now (January 2026):
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
- Golden Kamuy
- Detective Conan
- SPY x FAMILY
- One Piece
- Stranger Things
- My Hero Academia
- Hell’s Paradise
- Kingdom.
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GEM Partners is a Japanese marketing firm that is centered around the entertainment industry and gathers data by surveying thousands of people every week, aged between 16 and 69, regarding what they watched that past week on Netflix, Hulu Japan, Disney+, docomo anime store, Amazon Prime Video, ABEMA Premium, Paravi U-NEXT, and dTV.
What are your favorite anime from the Winter 2026 Anime Season? Comment below and let us know.