For this year at least, I hope anime is saving its best for last.

As the hackneyed old sports expression goes, “they don’t play the games on paper”. And anime seasons aren’t decided in previews. The best any of us can do is make an educated guess based on past experience, staff and cast lists, and source material. More often than not you can come pretty close if you’ve been paying attention, and my own reads on how a season would turn out have tended to align pretty well with the eventual reality. But it’s still just a guess in the end.

Still, Fall 2019 is the first anime season of the year that’s given me any indication that it might be at least average, if not better. The first three have all offered one or two top-end series to be sure, but overall volume of quality this year has been pretty weak. Fall by contrast looks (again, we’re just guesstimating) like it might offer if not the best, at least the “pretty good” of both worlds. There are certainly tentpole shows that seem almost certain to be outstanding, but there’s also a fair volume of promising series and even a few sleepers. That sets this season apart from Winter, Spring and Summer at preview time.

And boy, if it works out that way it’s just in the nick of time, because thus far 2019 has been a really mediocre anime year. One thing that Fall has in common with earlier seasons this year is that the overall volume of new series is way down. There are 48 new series this year as opposed to 58 last fall and 59 in 2017. That’s a decline of about 20%, though that’s still less than the 27-36% dropoffs we saw in spring and summer. As we get into 2020 we’re going to find out if this is an ongoing trend or an aberration. My preview rate, meanwhile, is pretty close to my usual – right in the 30-35% range, and I didn’t have to dramatically ease my standards just to scrape together enough shows for a preview.

Based on new series announcements my early read on Winter and Spring 2020 isn’t great, so this season has a lot of weight to carry where the future is concerned in addition to the past. Fortunately we have a mix of virtual sure things (some excellent sequels) and extremely interesting “A” prospects (anime visionaries returning after a long absence, much-revered manga finally being adapted) – plus a couple of genuinely intriguing wild cards. That would have been more or less a typical season three or four years ago, but in 2019 it’s definitely an outlier.

What about the trends beneath the headlines? I haven’t actually counted, but there seem to be an astonishing percentage of sequels in the schedule this season, including some huge names that aren’t even on my radar screen. Cop/detective shows continue their renaissance – I don’t ever remember a year when we’ve had so many as this one. The other genres are represented in fairly typical numbers by recent standards – a couple of sports shows and romances, a few sci-fi and fantasy, a lot of isekai and CGDCT (though arguably maybe a hair less than earlier 2019 seasons in the latter case). LNs continue to be a huge presence after a brief decline in 2018, and with the increase in game adaptations, manga adaptations probably represent a smaller overall slice of the pie than they ever have. Shoujo and (especially) jousei remain an extreme minority, while seinen once more clings to a modest but important sliver of the schedule.

That’s my best attempt at a status check – let’s get on the preview itself.  As usual, the poll is in the sidebar – please go vote!

 

 

Highest Expectations:

Hi Score Girl II – J.C. Staff: (PV) I won’t lie, it feels good to have the first slot in the preview not be a slam dunk for once. I seriously had to think about it this time, but in the end I had to go with Hi Score Girl II. Given all the agony fans of this series have gone through and the fact that it was a Top 3 show in 2018, I just couldn’t go in any other direction.

The fact that HSG ended up being quite successful commercially as an anime feels like a just reward in so many ways. As a coming-of-age tale and a romantic comedy, Oshikiri Rensuke’s manga is among the best of the 21st Century. The authenticity level is off the charts with this show, and the anime lost none of it in translation. Even the 3D-CGI element of it, certainly not my favorite aspect of the adaptation, ended up kind of working (especially in the depiction of the 90’s game environments). Hi Score Girl is a great series with a great protagonist and great romantic triangle, and even if it hadn’t been enthusiastically pissed on by fortune it would still deserve to get the complete anime adaptation it’s receiving. Justice is a rare thing in this world and it – like equally rare great series like this – should be cherished when the opportunity presents itself.

Hoshiai no Sora – 8bit: (PV) I admit it’s a reach to rank Hoshiai no Sora so highly when it’s a relative unknown in a season of sure-thing sequels. It’s not something I can entirely justify logically, but in terms of my own level of anticipation, this original sports/coming-of-age tale from 8bit and Akane Kazuki is honestly in the #2 slot. And Akane-sensei himself has a lot to do with that.

I doubt Akanae’s name carries much weight with anime fans these days, but I’m a huge fan of his 2005 series Noein. It’s flawed but at its best staggeringly brilliant, and while Akane has occasionally directed since then, Hoshiai represents his first original work since Noein. He’s brilliant, he’s had a lot of time to craft this story, and it looks really interesting to boot. Hoshiai no Sora is nominally a sports anime, the story of a middle school soft tennis club on the verge of extinction and the boy trying to save it. But knowing Akane and judging by the pre-airing material, the accent is going to be on the bildungsroman side here. This series certainly has the widest range of outcomes of any series in this category, but the potential is pretty exhilarating.

Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season – Bones: (PV) Boku no Hero Academia’s first three seasons all placed in my year-end Top 10 lists, the latter two in the top 5. So why isn’t this fourth season the first show listed in the preview? Quite simply because the material it will be covering isn’t collectively among my favorite parts of the manga (as much as I enjoy Tintin and his role in the story).

Let’s keep this in context – any BnHA is very good shounen. Bones has made very few mistakes in their treatment of this series and as you’d expect from one of anime’s best studios, the entire adaptation has been a first class treatment of one of shounen’s best and most popular manga. I fully expect this season to be another excellent one – I just don’t think it will be quite as good as S2 and S3 unless Bones make the sorts of changes they haven’t been inclined to make so far (and why should they really, with a show this successful). As always tastes vary, and some readers love the coming arcs – for them, Season 4 may end up being the best so far.

Beastars – Orange: (PV) The Beastars adaptation is going to be a fascinating one to watch play out in so many ways. Itagaki Paru’s manga is a chronicle of high school social politics – a cruel world of predators and prey, of packs and herding, The hook of course is that the characters are actual predators and prey animals here, and their species distinctions are both plot-relevant and the source for considerable cultural satire.

This is an adaptation I’ve been predicting for a while, of a manga I’ve been meaning to read based on its many awards and plaudits but decided to hold off on once the anime was announced. Orange is a CGI studio of course, but they’ve done some of the most impressive work in the medium on that score, and the previews have looked solid. The staff and cast isn’t awash in huge names – protagonist wolf Regoshi is played by Kobayashi Chikahiro, excellent as Sugimoto in Golden Kamuy but hardly a household name in anime.

My expectations are very high for Beastars based on the things people say about it and the people saying them, but the adaptation strikes me as a bit of a banana skin both tonally and technically. As well there’s the question of whether the series – quite popular but not especially commercial in manga form – can succeed well enough to be more than a one-and-done single cour manga advertisement. The range of outcomes is fairly wide here and I don’t necessarily expect Beastars to be fall’s best new series, but all those variables may make it the most interesting to follow.

Kono Oto Tomare 2 – Platinum Vision: (PV) Not a new series but rather the second of a planned split cour. As you probably know I’m quite a fan of the Kono Oto Tomare manga, and for the most part I think Platinum Vision has done a fine job adapting it. The first season was slightly inconsistent in terms of visuals but clearly saved its budget for when it was really needed (the performance scenes). One of those delivered what may be my favorite anime moment of 2019 so far.

It’s going to be interesting having Kono Oto Tomare airing at the same time as Chihayafuru, the series to which it is inevitably compared (not least by me). What I’m curious about is how the experience of watching the one impacts my perception of the other. I can say this much – watching and reading Chihayafuru made me more appreciative of KoT, in more ways than one.

 

 

Mid-table:

Chihayafuru 3 – Madhouse: (PV) That seems like my cue to talk about Chihayafuru. I don’t know what’s more surprising to me – that I have five series in “Highest Expectations” this season (which hasn’t happened in an age), or that Chihayafuru isn’t one of them. “Everything changes, everybody changes” as the first Fruits Basket 2019 ED says…

I hardly know where to start. One thing that stands out to me is the difference in my reactions when the second and third seasons were announced. The first was literally one of my happiest moments as an anime fan – pure unadulterated joy. But when S3 was announced I felt like an old girlfriend I know was bad for me but I never got over had called and said “I’m in town, let’s get together”. I know I’m going to go, but I have a strong suspicion I’m going to regret it. Yeah, the second anime season was not as good as the first, but it was still excellent – the real issue is what’s happened with the manga since then.

I actually stopped reading the manga about a year ago, even knowing we were getting close to the end (which Suetsugu-sensei had originally planned for the summer but pushed back to winter, delaying the anime in the process). I knew I needed a break because I just wasn’t enjoying it any more, but I still haven’t felt the urge to go back, and I suspect now I’ll let the anime finish the telling for me. There are so many reasons why I left – the most obvious being that the series has become endlessly repetitive. But there’s also the matter of how Suetsugu writes a certain Fukui-jin, which has made me hate him against my every wish. There’s her seeming sadistic approach to the series’ best character, and the general lack of growth for the protagonist. Indeed, none of the best arcs in the series’ second half have focused on any of the main trio, and that’s no coincidence. I just hope Madhouse doesn’t skip or rush through them.

But here we are, and here I am. Sadly there have been a couple of passings among the cast, including the great Ishizuka Unshou. Miyake Kenta will be fine as Harada-sensei but Ishizuka is not someone you can simply replace, and Harada is crucial to one of those arcs I referred to above. Asaka Morio and the rest of the staff and cast are back of course, and in a trip down memory lane the series is back on Tuesdays – which is certainly nostalgic for me as a blogger. Chihayafuru is a big part of my life as an anime fan and I’ll always love it, even when it makes me hate it. This final season won’t be easy to watch, but I’m in too deep emotionally to extricate myself now. That was my longest-ever single-show entry in a series preview post, but when it comes to Chihayafuru, it’s just that complicated.

Pet – Geno Studio.: (PV) Anime’s current trend of adapting long-finished source material is showing no signs of abating, and while it does frustrate me sometimes when I see so many great current manga crying out for adaptations, the obvious upside is that we get anime like Pet. I haven’t read Miyake Ranjou’s 2003 manga but it’s very well-regarded, and has already inspired a stage play. At 5 volumes, it should be a good fit for a single cour anime.

Pet is the story of a group of psychics who can effectively possess people and manipulate their memories. Use of this ability has a corrosive effect on the sanity of both victim and perp, and the users are exploited by nefarious types seeking to profit from their ability. With Oomori Takahiro directing and longtime collaborator Murai Sadayuki writing, there’s no reason to think this adaptation won’t bring out the best in the material, and while it’s a bit overshadowed by a few big names this season I think Pet has a chance to be one of fall’s best new shows.

Kabukichou Sherlock – Production I.G.: (PV) I’ve already previewed this series once, as it was originally scheduled to air in spring. As I noted anime is in love with cop shows and mysteries lately and Sherlock Holmes has been riffed on almost as much os Oda Nobunaga. But we have Production I.G., a capable director in Yoshimura Ai, and a writer (Kishimoto Taku) whose last original series was the superb 91 Days (plus two cours to work with, a relative rarity for an original series). I kind of wish Kabuckichou Sherlock had aired in spring because it would have had an easier time standing out in that relatively weak season, but there’s no reason to think it won’t contribute to Fall 2019’s efforts to add quantity to what seems almost certain to be real quality at the top.

 

 

Modestly Interested:

Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy – DEEN: (PV) Maybe against my better judgment I feel a certain sleeper vibe about Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy. We’ve certainly seen our share of chunni comedies before, the staff is not especially notable and there’s not much to be found in English about the novels this series is based on (or the manga adaptation). But most seasons there’s a show or two that I’m drawn to for no concrete reason apart from a gut feeling I get based on the art or synopsis, and this is one of those cases. The story is set in high school (which sort of makes a lie of the title, but never mind), and surrounds a sensible girl drawn into a social circle with a group of chuuni boys.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun – Bandai Namco Pictures: (PV) By contrast, Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is here strictly based on the fact that the manga this series is based on generally seems to be well-liked (plus it’s going to be 23 episodes). I’ve actually read a couple of chapters and sort of liked it. Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is the story of a kindly 14 year-old whose parents (damn, manga parents) sell him to demons. But the demon who buys him more or less adopts Iruma-kun as his grandson and sends him to demon school. It sounds silly and is, but the series knows that and has fun with it. Staff is sneaky good (and very experienced) and this show has a chance to be better than most expect (and it will be flying well under the radar).

Shin Chuuka Ichiban! – Production I.G, Nihon Ad Systemss: (PV) Yet another old chestnut gets tossed into the fire, this time Ogawa Otsuhi’s Shin Chuuka Ichiban!. This was the sequel manga to the original Cooking Master Boy – which already got an anime adaptation over two decades ago. I confess to knowing almost nothing of this franchise but it is regarded as something of a classic, and I have an opening for a cooking anime since Shoukugeki no Souma jumped the shark in spectacular fashion (but seriously, where the hell is Dungeon Meshi?).

Keishichou Tokumubu Tokushu Kyouakuhan Taisakushitsu Dainanaka: Tokunana – Unannounced: (PV) Pretty much a total shot in the dark here. If digging up old chestnuts is one of the big trends in anime then detective shows is certainly another, and this one is about a bunch of ancient dragons taken human form and the special police unit dedicated to researching and protecting them from being used for evil purposes. It’s an original which had a stage play at Anime Japan, which may be a first. Also, while I haven’t counted this may be the longest title for any anime not adapted from an isekai light novel. The series also boasts character designs by Nanae Chrono of Peacemaker Kurogane fame and a prequel manga.

Babylon – Revoroot : (PV) What, another hard-boiled mystery series?  Hard to believe, I know.  This one is based on a seinen LN series by Nozaki Mado (Sekaisuru Kado, the upcoming film Hello World) and concerns political corruption, the pharmaceutical industry and the prosecutor investigating them.  This is another shot in the dark, more or less, but the premise at least sounds fairly interesting and not especially anime trope-driven.

No Guns Life – Madhouse: (PV) Another property I’m not personally familiar with, but it’s a seinen manga adaptation and hope springs eternal.  It’s another of the sort of sci-fi/fantasy plot we seem to be getting a lot of in anime these days – ex-soldiers engineered into a super-race (in this case cyborgs called “Extended”) by corrupt governments dealing with life after the wars end and society abandons them.  The protagonist (who has a gun instead of a head – or at least, a gun for a head)) makes his living as a sort of – what do you know – hard-boiled detective.

Radiant 2nd Season – Lerche: (PV) After a pretty promising start Kishi Seiji’s adaptation of French mangaka Tony Valente’s Radiant mostly went off the rails.  Under different circumstances the second season might not be on my radar despite the fascinating backstory, but it seems that S1 was largely anime-original material, and the parts taken directly from the manga were easily the strongest.  That gives me some hope for the follow-up, and there were certainly elements of the first season I quite enjoyed.  I’m rooting pretty hard for Radiant to succeed, because there’s a wealth of interesting French comic material that could potentially find its way to anime if it does.

Ahiru no Sora – Diomedea: (PV) A traditional sports anime is always of interest to me, given how few of them we get as compared to several years ago.  The fact is that the source manga Ahiru no Sora isn’t exactly considered to be a classic, but I’ll give the anime a shot.  The theme is basketball, and a short but plucky (hard to believe, I know) kid who joins a hoops club that’s been co-opted by the school yankees in order to try and live out his mother’s dreams for him.  The staff is experienced but not possessed of especially distinguished track records, but then there is an OP from The Pillows to set Ahiru no Sora apart from the pack…

Mugen no Juunin: Immortal – LIDENFILMS: (PV) Yes, it’s yet another remake of an old franchise – this time around Samura Hiroaki’s Blade of the Immortal manga.  It’s already seen a couple of anime adaptations, the last one in 2007-8.  An immortal samurai who must kill 100 evil men for every good one he’s killed teams up with a young girl on her own quest for revenge – yes, this a pretty dark tale.  I wasn’t exactly asking myself why no one had rebooted this series, but it has a decent staff and cast and I’ll certainly give it a chance to make an impression.

 

Will Definitely Blog: Hi Score Girl II, Hoshiai no Sora, Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season, Beastars, Kono Oto Tomare 2, Chihayafuru 3 (and that’s the biggest list in this category for quite a while)

Sleepers: Kabukichou Sherlock, Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy, Mairimashita Iruma-kun

 

 

OVA:

Not a huge haul here, but that doesn’t sting so much when the TV schedule looks halfway decent.

Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin: Hitoribocchi no Kyuuketsuki (10/25/19)/Fukurokouji to Ano Ko to Ore to (11/22/19):  (PV) LIDENFILMS underrated Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin gets three extra episodes, which is certainly a welcome development.  “Hitoribochi” is a double episode release, and “Fukurokouji” will be bundled with thr 12th manga volume.  The first two are anime-original – the third is from the manga as best I can tell.

One Punch Man 2nd Season Specials- 10/25/19: Six shorts bundled with the Season2 BD/DBD volumes.

 

 

 

Theatrical:

Remarkably enough a pretty interesting season here, too.

Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hito yo – 10/11/19: (PV) The feels dream team of Nagai Tatsuyuki and Okada Mari, having delivered AnoHana and Kokoro ga Sakebitagatterunda already, is back for another go-around on the big screen.  To say that my opinion on Okada as a writer is conflicted is a massive understatement.  But it would be fair to say I tend to like her best when she’s going for straightforward emotional impact over snark and irony, and her past work with Nagai certainly passes muster.

As you’d expect from this lineup, it’s magical realism and emotional trauma at the heart of the story.  We have a girl who gave up her dream of going to Tokyo to become a musician to take care of her sister after their parents died.  Her boyfriend at the time comes back into their life 13 years later – as does the high-school version of that boyfriend, who’s somehow apparently traveled forward in time (and I’m assuming will be romantically linked with the younger sister).  It’s all guesswork at this point, and any time Okada is involved you should always keep a fire extinguisher close to your dumpsters.  But Nagai is as solid as it gets for relationship drama, and he and Okada seem to be good muses for each other.  High hopes to be sure.

Human Lost: Ningen Shikkaku – 10/22/19: (PV) Ningen Shikkaku is known in English, of course, as No Longer Human – and Dazai Osamu’s novel is one of the most famous literary works in Japanese history.  It’s already seen anime form as part of the Aoi Bungaku series, and too many live-action and stage adaptations to count.  This film has shifted it to the future and given it a sci-fi facelift, and of course coming from Polygon it’s going to be full CGI.  I have a suspicion this isn’t really going to work (these sorts of things rarely do) but there’s an undeniable curiosity factor.

Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising – 12/20/19: (PV) The second big-screen release for Boku no Hero Academia figures to be a Christmas blockbuster.  Last year’s “Futari no Hero” proved to be a surprisingly big hit overseas (especially in the U.S.) and overall, the popularity of Horikoshi Kouhei’s shounen institution continues to skyrocket.  It’s now one of the most popular media franchises in the world, showing just how far we’ve come from that RC podcast a few years ago when I suggested you should keep an eye on this little-known “next gen” Weekly Shounen Jump title.

An interesting element with “Heroes: Rising” is that Horikoshi-sensei has said that it features some of the plot elements he intended to use in the series ending, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.  Not a lot of plot has leaked out but Horikoshi will once more be supervising the script, so I think we can assume whatever makes the screen has his blessing at least in the broader sense.  Hopefully the production of the film will wrap early enough that it doesn’t drain a lot of the talent from the production of the TV anime’s current season (which was a bit of an issue with the first movie).

Bokura no Nanokakan Sensou – 12/2019: (PV) Ajia-do is a studio that’s been around seemingly forever – they did the Yokahama Kaidashi Kikou OVA and one of my all-time favorites, Zettai Shounen – but hasn’t been much of a presence in recent years. Bokura no Nanokakan Sensou is a massively popular children’s book by Souda Osamu, the story of the mass disappearance of every boy in a junior high school, the prelude to a “war of independence” against the adults.  Our Seven Day War has had a popular live-action film (in 1988), a manga, and numerous spinoffs and sequels over the years (Souda-sensei is almost 90 now).  I’m not sure it’s a story that needed yet another adaptation but it’ll be interesting to see what Ajia-do can do with it.