UNION ARENA Drops Re:ZERO, “100 Girlfriends” and Other Major News
Seemingly out of nowhere, Bandai has dropped a ton of news for UNION ARENA players and fans including two new titles added to the English Version: The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really Really Love You releasing on July 10, 2026, and Re:ZERO with an unconfirmed release date. But that’s not all. We were also given a sneak peek at the next Rare Battle Season featuring NIKKE and Demon Slayer Vol. 2, additional spoilers for the next sets coming out: Evangelion and Sword Art Online Vol. 2, as well as an update on the 2026-2027 Championship series.
I was at a local UNION ARENA tournament when all of this news started to drop. And while I’ve updated the UNION ARENA Release Schedule on this site with some of the new title information, there’s still a ton more to unpack which I’ll be getting into below.
Was the 100 Girlfriends and Re:ZERO unexpectedly spoiled?
New title drops are one of the most anticipated and exciting moments for the UNION ARENA community, and they are typically teased with a ton of fanfare. However, in the case of both Re:ZERO and 100 Girlfriends, the news came seemingly out of nowhere.
However, it might not be so unexpected as it seems. Days before the official announcement that these two sets would be joining the game, UNION ARENA fans noticed that Bandai seemed to have aknowledged these sets as already being confirmed sets for the game.
An UNION ARENA survey spoiled Re:ZERO and 100 Girlfriends days before the official announcement.
This survey seems to inadvertently announce the two titles, and it was spread widely within the online UNION ARENA community. Perhaps with the news essentially already out there, Bandai decided to just drop the info alongside the rest of their end of 2025 slew of announcements that have been streaming in this week?
Chainsaw Man gets a release date
Another set that will now leave the “Coming Soon” status thanks to its confirmed release date is Chainsaw Man. And apparently July is going to be a very, very busy month for UNION ARENA enjoyers thanks to not one but two new sets entering the arena – 100 Girlfriends on July 10th and Chainsaw Man on July 31.
Typically a new major set is accompanied by a Vol. 2 and not another big set – the reasoning for which is that new sets tend to draw more attention than Vol. 2 sets which act more as upgrades to the original. But I guess that just means we have more to enjoy in July of 2026!
And of course Chainsaw Man is massively popular right now thanks in part to the new movie that released in 2025, meaning this set is probably going to be among the more hyped we’ve seen from UNION ARENA to date.
NIKKE and Demon Slayer Vol. 2 Rare Battles announced
Past the set announcements and release date information, the really exciting information that’s hot off the press for UNION ARENA is the announcement of a relatively small Rare Battle season which will be commencing at the end of January. And while this season will only include two titles to choose from, they are both massively popular ones: Demon Slayer Vol. 2 and NIKKE.
Demon Slayer Vol. 2 brings a ton of powerful deck strategies into the mix, meaning it should be a very fun and varied format. Meanwhile, NIKKE is a set that feels more built for Rare Battles than for store tournaments, and fans will certainly be eager to bag what could be the most valuable Rare Battle Winner Card of all time: the Gold Rapi.
UNION ARENA 26-27 Championship Series announced
The news just keeps on rolling, however, as Bandai also announced that there will indeed be a 26-27 Championship Series, this time with two waves that take place across the majority of the year, giving many many more players the opportunity to qualify for the National Championship in 2027.
Sword Art Online Vol. 2 and Evangelion Release Event info shared
The details for the release events for the next two sets getting released in the English Version have been shared, along with the gorgeous winner cards you can get from winning a release event.
Sword Art Online Vol. 2 Release Event promo card
While I’ll be adding this card and more to my Sword Art Online Vol. 2 card list, take a look at it below. This card is going to drive me absolutely nuts to go after, and I may just have to play at every Release Event in my area until I bag one.
Although, I may not have to attend that many as my release event track record is pretty solid – I’ve won the last three Release Events I’ve been to.
Bragging aside, I love the absolute Asuna overload we are getting thanks to Sword Art Online Vol. 2 – a store battle Winner, a Release Event Winner, and likely a Rare Battle Winner all with Asuna front and center makes me one happy SAO fanboy!
Evangelion Release Event promo card
Evangelion is going to be a huge set – perhaps the biggest to date for UNION ARENA at least competitively. There are a ton of powerful decks in this set that are dominating the Japan meta, meaning cards like this promo Rei should be even more valuable than just featuring a popular character would imply.
Sword Art Online Vol. 2 & Evangelion SR*** cards revealed
And finally we are at the end of this crazy roller coaster of an update from this week’s UNION ARENA news. And you could say I’ve saved the best for last year. While indeed even more was shared, including some gorgeous SR** cards and spoilers from each of the upcoming English version sets, the biggest spoilers by far were the SR*** cards shown for the first time in English.
Sword Art Online is getting two in the Vol. 2 just like it did in the first set, and they feature Kirito and Asuna, although this time in their Progressive outfits rather than their traditional Aincrad wear.
The Asuna SR*** is not just my favorite UNION ARENA alt card revealed to date, it may be my favorite trading card of all time. It looks so good and I want it so bad. It also doesn’t hurt that Asuna’s outfit from the Progressive films is one of her best looks to date.
It’s also a noteworthy chase for UNION ARENA collectors as the Asuna SR*** remains the most expensive UNION ARENA card to date.
Meanwhile, Shinji gets an SR*** from Evangelion. While this card isn’t likely to be worth the same kind of value as Asuna, it’s going to have 100 serialized cards, and those will be extremely valuable as all serialized UNION ARENA cards tend to be – think upwards of $1700.
I’m really glad that I put off cleaning my studio today as I had planned to in order to put together this guide on all of the incredibly exciting news coming out about UNION ARENA this week. It’s been a while since we’ve had so much info dropped in such a short amount of time, and I absolutely can’t wait for all the exciting stuff to come in 2026 for the world’s #1 anime IP brawler TCG.
