Yokoso Scooby-Doo: The Franchise Gets Its Anime Moment on Tubi
TL;DR: Warner Bros. Animation just dropped a Scooby-Doo anime series on Tubi, free with ads. Frank Welker and Matthew Lillard are back, the show's set in Japan with mythical monsters instead of rubber masks, and it's produced by OLM — the studio behind Pokémon for the last 25 years. No premiere date yet, but this is a genuinely different take on a 57-year-old franchise.
Here's what's actually happening: Scooby-Doo and Shaggy are accidentally releasing hundreds of Japanese mythical monsters during a food-tourism trip. Chaos follows. That's "Yokoso Scooby-Doo!" — and it's not what you'd expect from a franchise that's spent five decades in haunted-house basements.
The series launches on Tubi (free, ad-supported). Frank Welker voices Scooby-Doo. Matthew Lillard voices Shaggy. OLM handles animation production in Japan. Warner Bros. Animation produces. Director Itsuro Kawasaki is steering the ship. No release date has been announced yet, though Tubi has positioned this as part of its 2026 animation slate.
That's the headline. But the interesting part is why this exists at all — and why Warner Bros. chose to put it on Tubi instead of Max.
Why This Matters: The Franchise Play Nobody's Talking About
Frank Welker has been the voice of Fred Jones since 1969. Since 2002, he's been Scooby-Doo, taking over the role after Don Messick's death and holding it for more than two decades. That's not a guest star situation. That's continuity.
Matthew Lillard's path is different. He played Shaggy in the live-action films, both the 2002 original and the 2004 sequel, and then moved into animation work with the character across multiple series. There's something genuinely rare about an actor bridging live-action and animation within the same franchise across 20+ years. He's not nostalgia casting. He's the throughline.
What's striking is the studio choice. Warner Bros. Animation could've landed this on Max, HBO's flagship service, which already carries the Scooby-Doo animated library. Instead, it's on Tubi, a free ad-supported platform that reported over 80 million monthly active users according to Fox Corporation's latest earnings disclosures. That's not an accident. That's a calculated bet on FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) channels and the idea that families don't want to open another subscription just to watch something animated.
Movie OTT's platform tracker has been following these distribution shifts — free streaming is reshaping where catalog IP lands now.
The Creative Team: Why OLM Matters
OLM has been producing Pokémon animation since 1997. Twenty-eight years of continuous output on a single global franchise, including the 1,200-plus episode run that made it the longest-running anime adaptation of a video game property (a record OLM still holds). That's not a cost-cutting hire. That's a statement about production ambition.
Director Itsuro Kawasaki and co-producer Francisco Paredes are handling the creative side. The setup is that Scooby and Shaggy accidentally release monsters while touring Japan for food content (which, honestly, feels like the only setup that makes sense for a pair of characters whose entire motivation is eating). New characters include Daisuke-Doo (Scooby's uncle), Yume (a magical girl), and Takumi (the gadget specialist, basically Fred's role, reimagined).
The anime format is doing real work here. You can't hide a rubber-masked villain in anime the way you could in live-action. The format demands something different, which means the mystery structure probably can't rely on the old "unmasking the local businessman" template. Most coverage is treating this as a novelty, a fun genre mash-up, but the real question is whether Warner Bros. is willing to let OLM actually make an anime or whether it'll sand down every edge until it's just another Scooby show with shinier backgrounds. The track record on Western IP handed to Japanese studios is mixed at best. Whether Kawasaki's direction actually executes on that promise is the open question nobody can answer yet. No trailer has dropped publicly.
The Tubi Play: What Free Streaming Means for Franchise Expansion
Tubi doesn't operate in India, the UK, or most of Europe. Blunt but important. If you're outside the US, you don't have official access to this series yet (and might not for months, depending on regional licensing deals).
For US audiences, though, the Tubi placement is worth thinking about. Subscription fatigue is real. Parents looking for something to put on don't always want to add another $10–15 to their monthly stack. A major franchise title on free, ad-supported streaming changes the math. Tubi's been making this move deliberately, positioning itself as the platform for animated content that doesn't require a subscription barrier.
Compare this to what Netflix did with "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts" (available on Movie OTT's Netflix tracker) or what Adult Swim did with "Unicorn: Warriors Eternal." Both of those series leaned into anime aesthetics with genuine creative investment. "Yokoso Scooby-Doo!" appears to be operating in that same register, not the cheap-nostalgia space.
Meanwhile, Netflix is separately developing "Scooby-Doo: Origins," a live-action series, which means two major Scooby-Doo productions are in motion simultaneously at competing streamers. That's an expansion strategy. The franchise is testing whether it can sustain multiple formats and platforms at once.
Where to Watch: Geography Matters
United States: Tubi, free with ads. That's it for now.
India, UK, Europe, Australia: Not confirmed yet. Warner Bros. Animation will likely negotiate separate deals, possibly Netflix India, JioCinema, or SonyLIV for India; possibly other platforms for Europe. Scooby-Doo has aired on Cartoon Network India for decades and has a solid regional fanbase. Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs aren't unprecedented. A Japan-set adventure with new characters could perform well with regional language tracks, especially given how fast anime is growing with Indian audiences.
Hard to say when those deals will be announced. Check Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker as distribution solidifies; they update availability across regions as announcements come in.
What Happens Next: The Premiere Timeline
No premiere date. No episode count. No trailer. What Tubi has confirmed is the voice cast, the creative team, and the basic setup, which tells you the series is in production but not yet at the point where marketing can spin up.
Watch for: a full trailer, likely timed to San Diego Comic-Con in July. That's when Warner Bros. typically previews major animated projects. Episode count disclosure will tell you whether this is a limited series or an ongoing one; that determines whether Tubi's treating it as a tentpole event or a series component.
Any announcement of regional licensing deals, particularly for India, the UK, and Europe, will determine how wide the actual audience ends up being. Right now, this is US-only, which limits the franchise impact significantly.
The Netflix "Scooby-Doo: Origins" live-action series is also in production. The two projects will inevitably get compared. Hard to say if the market can sustain two simultaneous Scooby-Doo launches, but Warner Bros. is clearly betting that the IP is elastic enough to handle it.
