Ah, spring, when a young fan’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of anime.

If it’s nothing else, spring is almost always a provider of one thing for anime – volume, volume, volume. Without exception since I’ve been blogging anime, spring has been the biggest season of the year in terms of number of series. It’s too early to know if that will be true in 2019, but if it is, it will provide strong evidence that we’re seeing an important change in the anime industry.

Here’s what we can say for sure. At 36 series, this winter was the smallest anime schedule for several years, and a sharp dip from 2018’s 50 – a dropoff of 28%. And spring is coming in at 44 series, after 2018 delivered 69 – a whopping 36% dip. And 2017 had 48 and 68 shows respectively, almost identical to 2018. This may be a blip, but these are huge gaps, awfully large to be written off as statistical noise. If indeed we are seeing a major ramp-down in the volume of anime production, it raises all sorts of interesting questions. Why is it happening, first of all, and what does it mean for the industry as a whole? Even as the number of series decreases, we’re seeing an indisputable rise in anime’s worldwide mainstream popularity. That it turn means more international money coming into the industry than ever before – though the production committee system means the studios see very little of it, and the animators who actually create the work almost none of that.

In a vacuum, there are two contradictory interpretations of what a huge drop in production volume means for quality. On the one hand, more series is the friend of the law of averages – if, say, 10% of shows are likely to be good, wouldn’t you want to bet on a larger pool to draw from? But given how overstretched animators seem to be – especially the younger grunts – less series means less of an overtaxed production schedule. It could also, theoretically, mean slightly bigger budgets if roughly the same pool of ¥ is spread out among fewer projects. But I very much doubt the latter is the case, in practice.

Anime is not a vacuum, though, and ultimately this is where the matters of “why” and “what impact” converge – which projects, exactly, make up that 30-35% drop? It seems self-evident that if the industry is going to produce fewer shows, it’s the riskier and more creatively ambitious series that will be chopped as “fat” rather than the safe and generic ones. That’s my fear, to be sure, and while there are reasons to believe it’s justified, the evidence is far from conclusive in either direction yet.  The fact is that it’s the more financially stable A-list studios like Bones and Production I.G. that are more willing (and able) to deviate from the standard commercial formulas, and far more tapped into the international market.

After that longest-ever preview preamble (I think justified, given this interesting data) what about Spring 2019 itself? Well, I’m certainly previewing more shows than I did in winter, a season which has proved excellent in terms of high-end quality while thin in terms of depth. But I don’t see much that looks on paper potentially as good as Mob Psycho 100 II seemed certain to be (and has been) and Dororo and even Doukyonin wa Hiza has turned out to be. In short spring looks like it may be better than winter in terms of depth but weaker at the top end – but there are definitely caveats to that.

What spring has in spades is uncertainty. The range of potential outcomes here is much wider than usual, it seems to me – the middle tier is packed with boom or bust series. There are certainly big-time directors on the slate – but Ikuhara Kunihiko is the very definition of erratic, and Watanabe Shinichirou certainly isn’t the sure thing he might once have been seen as. Seemingly safe sequels and remakes are likewise wild cards. One Punch Man has changed studios and rumors of production problems abound, and Fruits Basket is changing just about everything – studio, director, cast – and the more awkward elements of the manga that Akitarou Daichi smoothed over may be more of an issue this time around.

I don’t see a lot of change from the broad thematic mix of the past several seasons.  Lots of standard chaff, a few “art” series, fantasy perhaps again outpacing sci-fi, romance and sports continuing a long-standing decline in prominence.  Original anime are absolutely making up a bigger slice of the pie, that’s no longer a question – whether the growth of the international market is contributing that is hard to say (I would argue that it is).  Encouragement might be taken from the fact that there are only four light novel adaptations on the docket – may that trend continue in future seasons (though the early returns suggest it won’t, at least in the short-term).  Ironically one thing that stands out to me is that two manga adaptations this season – “Magmel” and “Hitoribocchi” – are not the Magmel(l) and Hitoribocchi manga I wish were being adapted.

With the preliminaries dispensed with, let’s get on the preview itself. As usual, the poll is in the sidebar – please go vote!

 

Highest Expectations:

Kono Oto Tomare! – Platinum Vision: (PV) It says something about the relative weakness at the top of the table that Kono Oto Tomare! is the first series on this list.  It’s not that I’m not extremely fond of it, but I’m quite sanguine about the fact that it’s no masterpiece – just a very good shounen (with a very shoujo feel at times) about yet another interesting niche in Japanese culture, the koto.  Mangaka Sakura Amyuu is clearly passionate about her subject, and she tells a consistently engaging story while generally (though not totally) managing to avoid the narrative trip-wires too common to club-sports manga.

I do have some issues with Kono Oto Tomare! – it seems obvious that Sakura changed her mind at some point (or was forced to change it) about who the protagonist of this series was, and that transition has never stopped being awkward.  And it does fall into traditional gender stereotypes a bit too often for my liking.  But it’s heartfelt, with good characters, and the koto is an interesting subject for a series like this.  The club dynamic is certainly nothing new, but this series is a good take on it.  That the main staff and even the studio are relative unknowns is a worry, as is the fact that the manga is ongoing, but with two (split) cours I think it should be able to give viewers a good taste of the series’ charms.

Fruits Basket (2019) – TMS Entertainment: (PV) To say that I have a long-standing relationship with Fruits Basket is an understatement.  It’s literally one of the first anime I ever watched start to finish once I knew what anime was – I rented it on VHS from Japan Video in San Francisco’s Japantown.  When we’re that close to a series objectivity is pretty much out the window – it’s just human nature.  I recognize that there were issues with the first anime, most especially the ending – which wasn’t surprising, since the manga was still ongoing at the time.  That prompted me to pick up the manga after watching the anime, so I have a pretty thorough grounding in all the existing variations on this story.

It’s no secret that mangaka Takaya Natsuki was not fond of the Deen anime or the changes director Akitarou Daichi made, and that’s certainly her right.  My perspective (again, no claims to objectivity) is that the anime was better than the manga across the board – tighter storytelling, better pacing,  And how I loved that cast, especially Horie Yui.  Well, this reboot sees Takaya-sensei with a lot more say-so, and she clearly wants to erase all connections to the first one – new studio, cast, director – and again, fair play to her for that.  And we’re going to get a real ending this time, since not only did she finish the original manga years ago but even launched a sequel in 2017.  I have my worries – the staff this time isn’t especially distinguished (apart from Kishimoto Taku writing), and there are some quirks with the manga that Akitarou-sensei (who I consider the greatest shoujo director ever) wisely addressed.  And frankly, it’s going to be a challenge to accept new voices and new character designs when the old ones are deeply embedded in my genetic code.  But I sincerely, profoundly want to love this reboot, and Fruits Basket does deserve a complete telling in anime form. My state going in can probably be best described as “hopeful, but anxious”.

 

Mid-table:

Mix: Meisei Story – OLM: There are some seiyuu I like better than others, certainly.  But I think there’s only one who could take a show down an entire expectations level on their own, and that’s Kaji Yuuki, the Shaft of voice actors.  It’s not as though I haven’t liked series he’s appeared in, but it’s usually in spite of rather than because of his presence, and never when he was the clear protagonist.  Best case scenario is he’s a neutral influence, which is about where I’d put Shin Sekai Yori.  But Mix is a different sort of series, and Tachibana Touma a very different sort of character than Satoru.  He basically carries the series on his back – and I see almost no way Kaji isn’t going to be a huge liability for this adaptation.

And that’s a real shame, because this is the first Adachi Mitsuru anime since Cross Game, comfortably in my top 10 anime (and manga) ever.  And it’s a sequel to Touch, by many measures the most popular anime of all time (I actually thought it might finally get a reboot, to end when Mix began, but that was not to be).  Plus, Mix (the manga doesn’t have the “Meisei Story” subheading, but I assume the production committee insisted so there’d be no overlooking the Touch connection) is an excellent manga, vintage Adachi – not the masterpiece Touch or especially Cross Game are, but solidly (so far) on-par with most of his work.  It’s been placed in the hands of OLM, one of the oldest studios around and one who knows baseball (they did the excellent Major 2nd adaptation last year).  Staff is solid too, so even with Kaji as an albatross around its neck Mix should be pretty good.  What we don’t know is how long it’s going to be, and what it will do for an ending since the manga is still ongoing (monthly this time around).  It’s baseball, it’s Adachi, I even blogged the manga for a time – of course, I’m in.  But I can’t be unreservedly enthusiastic under the circumstances.

Carole & Tuesday – Bones: (PV) It’s always a big deal when Watanabe Shinichirou wades back into TV anime, an all too rare event these days.  He’s back at Bones, too, where he’s produced some of the best work of his career.  Why isn’t Carole & Tuesday in the top tier?  Honestly, it’s because Watanabe-sense’s last original series (Zankyou no Terror) was frankly pretty bad.

This time around the master is teamed with writer Watanabe Aya (no relation as far as I know), who’s fairly well-known as a scripter of dramas but has never worked in anime before.  Carole & Tuesday is something of a meld of two of Watanabe Shinichirou’s signature canvases, sci-fi and music – it’s set in a future where most culture is produced by AI’s and follows a poor girl who teams up with an ojou-sama to form a band.  The music – always a key in a Watanabe show but especially this one – is from Canadian composer Mocky, who I confess I know little about.  I should probably have this series ranked higher, but for whatever reason I have a kind of “anti-sleeper” vibe about it.  Sure hope I’m wrong.

7 Seeds – Gonzo:  I know folks who consider Tamura Yumi’s manga to be among the very best shoujo they’ve ever read.  But those same people seem to be generally pessimistic about this adaptation.  With numerous different timelines featuring different casts of characters, 7 Seeds sounds like an awkward series to try and adapt.  There’s also the whole Netflix thing, which makes it an awkward series for me to find time to blog.  And it’s just (literally moments before I typed this) been announced  that the premiere has been pushed back until June due to “delays in production”.  None of this inspires a lot of confidence.

For me, this one comes with a lot of curiosity but no real expectations since I’ve never read the manga.  Staff is experienced but nothing special, and Gonzo is pretty much a total crapshoot these days.  Survival after the apocalypse on an island with a group of strangers is the theme here – not especially groundbreaking, but more so when the manga was written (it started in 2002).  The nostalgia boom in anime shows no sign of slowing down, that’s for certain.

One Punch Man Season 2 – J.C. Staff:  (PV) I’m not as big a fan one ONE’s One Punch Man as of his Mob Psycho 100, but it is a very good series (the first season just cracked my top 10 in 2015). It’s a very interesting take on the superhero genre – a sort of companion piece to Boku no Hero Academia with a more adult – and mundane – focus. Most superhero series want to show you the sausage on the platter – OPM shows you how the sausage is made.

This sequel should really have been a slam-dunk winner, then. But after a gorgeously animated season from Madhouse, the series shifts to the less reliable J.C. Staff, with a new (albeit pretty solid) director and key staff. And the previews have looked more “pretty good” rather than great. There are also rumors of a problem-riddled production which is running behind schedule. I’m still on-board here, but there are definite reasons for caution.

Sarazanmai – MAPPA, Lapin Track:  (PV) Sarazanmai is here for one reason, and that’s Ikuhara Kunihiko.  All Ikuhara anime are fundamentally about Ikuhara, for better or worse.  His aesthetic is unique and his creative influence over his series comprehensive.  And all of them, successful or not, at least stand out from the crowd.

When it works (as in Mawaru Penguin Drum) Ikuhara anime can be exhilarating.  When it doesn’t (as in Yuri Kuma Arashi) it can be spectacularly bad.  Part of the excitement is never knowing which you’re going to get, but even the good Ikuhara shows tend to be erratic and frustrating as hell.  This one is about some middle school boys who meet a kappa who steals their shirikodama (Ikuhara didn’t invent this myth but I can see why it appeals to him) and turn them into kappa themselves.  In order to be restored they have to “steal the shirikodama of zombies”.  Yeah, this is weird even for Ikuhara and every time I see the title I think of either the “Italian” restaurant chain (if I go, it’s for the drink bar) or the kaitenzushi restaurant empire, but I sense this may be one of Ikuhara’s Jekyll shows, rather than Hyde.

Ultraman 2019 – Production I.G., Sola Digital Arts:  (PV) 2018 was a good year for the Ultraman franchise, with SSSS.Gridman proving a major commercial hit. Now production I.G. weighs in, partnering with Sola Digital Arts for their first ever full-CGI-production. And in doing so gives us yet another spring series featuring a big-name director (in this case two of them) that’s full of question marks. Kamiyama Kenji directed my favorite anime of all-time, and Aramaki Shinji is one of I.G.’s biggest names – yet here we are in the mid-table again. That’s definitely consistent with this season’s theme.

There are a few strikes here. First Netflix, which in addition to the scheduling factors already noted simply hasn’t impressed me with the quality of their anime productions so far. Gridman was really my introduction to this mythology, and my prior experiences with tokusatsu weren’t all that positive. And 3DCGI, well – I’m sure Ultraman will look good if graded on a curve (though frankly the previews are kind of unimpressive), but it’s still not my preferred animation choice. Ultraman is another total wild card for me this season.

Kimetsu no Yaiba – ufotable:  (PV) Kimetsu no Yaiba is just a notch or two below Weekly Shounen Jump’s elite “next gen” properties like HeroAca, Haikyuu!! and Yakusoku no Neverland in popularity. It seems to exist in a sort of grey area between Shueisha’s two main anime models – kid gloves and lavish budgets (like the above) and the “milk it for all its worth as fast as possible” approach to less popular stuff like World Trigger. ufotable is not a low-rent studio by any means, though, and we don’t know how long this season will be – if Shueisha wants to manage Kimetsu no Yaiba for the long term, it’ll be one cour.

I’ve intentionally refrained from reading the manga since the anime announcement, but as best I can tell it seems to be a well-executed but boilerplate demonslayer fantasy that doesn’t break much new ground. We have a young hero whose family is murdered by youkai, a quest, loyal companions and lots of gore. There’s nothing wrong with boilerplate if it’s well-done, and the previews look good. On a schedule dominated by boom-or-bust candidates, Kimetsu no Yaiba seems like the opposite – a low-ceiling/high floor prospect as we say in baseball circles.

Kabukichou Sherlock – Production I.G.: (PV) There’s certainly a novelty factor in an original mystery from Production I.G., even if anime has already riffed on the Sherlock Holmes theme to death (just like every other storytelling medium, to be fair). This one is set in Shinjuku’s Kabukichou, one of the more sketchy parts of ridiculously safe Tokyo, a district where anything goes on the fetish front. Yoshimura Ai is certainly a competent director, and the very busy Kishimoto Taku proved he can write compelling originals with the superb 91 Days. Some sleeper potential. (Edit: Apparently, this show has been bumped back to Fall 2019.  Never a good sign, but I’ll check back in on it then.)

 

Modestly Interested:

Kono Yo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo YU-NO – feel.: (PV) While there have been a few VN adaptations I’ve genuinely liked a lot over the years, the overall trend in quality has been downwards.  YU-NO seems to be among the most well-regarded of all of them in terms of story, though – and it’s over 20 years old.  That’s important because the storytelling in VNs has changed almost in much in that time as it has for light novels.  There’s also the fact the feel. has had a very solid run of success in recent years, though the top staff here wasn’t much involved in it.  The story sounds isekai at first glance – teenager traveling between parallel worlds – but it’s more of a classic sci-fi setup, as he’s searching for his missing father.  I have modest expectations for YU-NO but it won’t surprise me if it’s pretty good.

Senryuu Shoujo – Connect: (PV) Senryuu Shoujo is half-length and based on a 4-koma manga, so you’d figure almost by definition it’s going to be a bit lightweight. And Connect is hardly a legendary studio. But I get a good vibe about this one, an adaptation of a manga about a girl who talks only in senryuu (a kind of haiku) and an ex-banchou boy with whom she forms a high school literature club. The manga seems very charming, and director Jinbo Masato’s resume is kind of sneaky interesting. Another one with sleeper potential.

Shingeki no Kyoujin Season 3 Part 2 – Wit: (PV) One of anime’s great commercial and cross-cultural powerhouses lumbers on, much reduced from its once kaijuu-sized stature but nevertheless still formidable. The first part of Season 3 was surprisingly good, the best since the first cour, and a more measured tone and focus on political intrigue was at the heart of that. But we’re creeping closer and closer to the point where the story takes what’s frankly one of the ugliest and most offensive turns in manga history, and Isayama Hajime throws off all all pretense about the vile beliefs at the heart of Attack on Titan. And knowing that moment is coming casts a pall on what comes before it, to the point where it’s really just a matter of deciding when to jump ship, not if.

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san – Doga Kobo: (PV) A stab in the dark to be sure, but this web manga about a salaryman who hates his life suddenly being visited by a caring 800 year-old kitsune has a good reputation. There is a danger of cute for cute’s sake hanging in the air, but Sewayaki seems to have the potential to be a decent slice of life in a season that’s generally light on those.

Fairy Gone – P.A. Works: (PV) I was a modestly big PAW fan at one time, but I don’t have a lot of faith in them these days.  At least as far as original series are concerned, and they’ve always been a bigger part of the equation at P.A. Works than any other studio.  Fairy Gone could be the one to break the string of mediocrity (and Glasslip) I suppose, and my residual affection for PAW is enough to earn it a trial run – that, and the fact that any PAW will at least look pretty.  The plot sounds a bit of a jumble – faeries can possess animals and give them superpowers, or transplant their organs into humans to give the humans the ability to use faeries as weapons.  Or something.  I honestly expect very little here but at least it’s a bit of a stretch from the increasingly generic PAW oeuvre.

RobiHachi – Studio Comet: (PV) Another sci-fi original, another flyer. It’s an odd premise – a 30-something down on his luck reporter has his bag stolen, an 18 year-old catches the crook but later ends up chasing the reporter as a debt collector and they eventually… go to space in search of a legendary paradise planet? Well, whatever – with Takamatsu Shinji directing you know things are going to be irreverent anyway. As always with originals the writer is key, though, and there’s not much cause for optimism on Kanesugi Hiroko’s resume.

Kenja no Mago – Silver Link: (PV) Among this season’s thankfully light crop of LN adaptations, Kenja no Mago strikes me as the one with the best chance to be pretty decent. The novels themselves being well-reviewed doesn’t mean much, but there seems to be a general consensus that this series is relatively dignified and deliberate in terms of pacing. Still, it is an isekai – the story of a boy reborn in an alternate world as Merlin’s son – and the staff at Silver Link doesn’t exactly shock and awe, so the most likely scenario is that this show ends up being pretty mediocre.

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai – Silver, Arvo Animation: (PV) We’re getting close to the bottom of the barrel here, but every show has a chance to be decent at preview time. This one is a joint production from two studios that don’t seem to have done much of anything else, which is sort of interesting, and the manga seems pretty well-liked. Still, it’s another premise about a high school loser tutoring hot girls, and to say that’s kind of tired would be an understatement. But hey, you’ve got the director of Love Hina and the very underrated Wagaya no Oinari-sama, which isn’t a bad sign.

Gunjou no Magmel – Studio Pierrot: Maybe it’s about time for Pierrot – who had a great couple of years in the middle of the decade – to pop out another good show? I have no special reason to think Gunjou no Magmel will be it (I had a brief moment of exultation when it was announced before realizing it wasn’t Magmell Shinkai Suizokukan), but at least the premise is a bit unusual. We have a new continent mysteriously appearing from nowhere, full of weird and undiscovered plants and animals, the exploration of which is apparently the meat of the story. Also adding a note of distinctiveness is that the source material is a manhua, still a relative rarity on anime adaptation lists.

Shoumetsu Toshi – Madhouse: (PV) IBID.  This is a mobile game adaptation about a courier who teams up with the sole survivor of a city which has mysteriously disappeared to look for her father.  No reason to expect much here, but it’s Madhouse and Miya Shigeyuki is certainly a director with a rock solid track record.  Also, the music is provided by Kawai Kenji and that’s always noteworthy.

Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin – LIDENFILMS: (PV) I don’t know much of anything about this one except that it’s a shoujo fantasy/cop thriller set in Tokyo, the protagonist may be the reincarnation of Abe no Seimei, and that youkai are involved. Director Watanabe Tatsuya is a veteran who’s worked on some very good series, but apart from that the staff is fairly anonymous. An absolute shot in the dark.

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki – Creators in Pack, Saetta: (PV) Another total heave-and-hope here. Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki is a comedy that serves as a travelogue for Nagoya – which is notorious for finishing last in surveys of Japan’s most interesting city with astonishing regularity. Having never gotten further than the JR station I can’t attest to that, but it lends a note of irony to this story of a Tokyo transplant who learns about the charms of Nagoya through joining the photography club.  A note in this series’ favor is casting the always wonderful Tomatsu Haruka, an Aichi native, as the female lead.

 

Will Definitely Blog: Kono Oto Tomare!, Fruits Basket 2019, One Punch Man Season 2.

Sleepers: The upside to a season with so much uncertainty is the revival of the sleeper category, at least in terms of quantity.  I’d say Sarazanmai, Kabukichou Sherlock, Senryuu Shoujo, and YU-NO all have some vibe.

OVA:

Barren pretty much on the OVA front – another indication of a decline in production volume?

Hi Score Girl: Extra Stage – 03/20/19: (PV) Technically this is a winter release, but I didn’t cover it in the last preview so here it is.  3 more episodes of Hi Score Girl is obviously hugely welcome, but I’m mostly focused on whether they’re a precursor to a full second season that finishes adapting the manga.  The first is selling decently but not spectacularly on disc but there has been a decent amount of cross-promotion and merchandising, so I’m not totally without hope.  As for “Extra Stage”, it focuses on an arc in the manga that heavily features Hidaka, which I consider to be a good thing.

 

Theatrical:

Promare – 05/19: (PV) As we get further removed from TTGL any anticipation regarding an Imaishi-Nakashmia team-up gets harder and harder to muster.  Their recent work has been awful but this is the writer of both Gurren-Lagann and Oh! Edo Rocket, so on some level hope springs eternal I suppose.  This one also features mecha design by Koyama Shigeto and music by Sawano Hiroyuki.  Very little is known (well, has been disclosed) about the premise but frankly I think it’s silly not to expect the worst, even while hoping for the best.

Kaijuu no Kodomo – 06/07/19: (PV) Yes. this is one I’ll be going to the theatre and paying my exorbitant ticket price to see raw.  I really liked the Children of the Sea manga, though I never thought it’d see an anime adaptation (there’s that nostalgia boom thing again).  Watanabe Ayumu (who may just have taken over the title of anime’s top directing Watanabe) steps up to the big screen, and the score is from the rightfully legendary Joe Hisaishi.  The story of two mysterious boys raised in the sea by dugongs and the girl who befriends them, Kaijuu no Kodomo is a strange, disturbing and enchanting head trip of a series and in Watanabe and Shiraishi’s hands, could just end up being the best anime film of 2019.

Kimi to, Nami ni Noretara – 06/21/19: (PV) Another possible contender for that designation is the latest from Yuasa Masaaki, who must surely be the busiest of anime’s A-list anime directors.  This one chronicles the romance between a surfer girl and a firefighter, who learn from each other and confront their own demons in the process.  Yuasa isn’t necessarily a slam-dunk for me but I like him best when he’s least pretentious and “auteur” and most down-to-earth, and Kimi to, Nami ni Noretara seems to be in that mode.