Quantity?  We have that covered.  Quality is, however, still TBD.

By any obvious measure, anime production has returned to pre-pandemic normalcy.  49 series are on the docket for this Spring, a total which would have been shockingly low 5 years ago but is right on the spring average since 2019.  Even as the Japanese government seemingly continues to get every possible decision wrong in managing the pandemic, somehow the country seems to be avoiding the worst of it.  If their luck holds, I suspect this phenomenon will be studied in classrooms for decades to come.

What’s notable for me about this season is that I’m previewing 24 series – a substantially higher percentage than the usual one-third which tends to be eerily consistent.  Yeah, a few of these are total reaches, but that’s true with every preview.  The meat of the group is the lowest “Modestly Interested” tier (as it always is), and I actually had more “Highest Expectations” shows in Winter (three vs. two).  But there are a more-than-respectable nine series in “Mid-tier”, a level which encompasses a pretty broad range this time around, and more candidates to be keepers improves the odds if nothing else.

Some of the potential in this schedule lies in series that were supposed to have aired last year.  Fumetsu no Anata e (originally Fall 2020) is probably my top pick for the season.  And Kingdom Season 3, which has been on-hold all the way back to Spring 2020 (when the first four episodes actually aired) is one the season’s most important sure things.  But irrespective of when these shows were supposed to air, they’re airing now, and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Trends?  While I haven’t been counting exactly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the smallest-ever percentage of new series adapted from traditional manga – we have 12 originals and 10 LN adaptations on the schedule, plus a smattering of web manga and game adaptations.  Original anime continue to grow in number even as they collectively decline in originality, but there are a few interesting candidates among that group.  Roundabout a dozen sequels is a fairly low percentage by 2021 standards, but for my tastes this is probably the most buff sequel group in years and there are a few heavyweights (like HeroAca) in the bunch.  And the trend of remaking ancient shounen continues with the remake of Shaman King I didn’t know we needed.

Once again this season the LiA preview comes with a video companion (also embedded at the end of this post).  I’m basically pursuing the same strategy as in winter – more breadth in the written preview, more depth in the video one.  I hope you enjoy the video preview and find it useful and entertaining – as ever, I’m relying on your feedback to help me refine them over time.  Please let me know your thoughts in the comments, either here or over at YT.  And as always, thanks for your support.

 

Let’s move on to the preview.  As usual, the poll is in the sidebar – please go vote!

 

 

Highest Expectations:

Fumetsu no Anata e  – Brain’s Base: (PV) It’s been a long time since Brain’s Base was attached to a series this prominent on my radar.  Once upon a time they were my favorite studio (or at least close), though since the schism which resulted in the creation of Studio Shuka in 2013 they’re a shadow of their former glory.  I have very high hopes for this series, though, which as noted above was originally scheduled to air in Fall 2020.

Fumetsu no Anata e is Ooima Yoshitoki’s follow-up to the blockbuster Koe no Katachi, a series which I would call a deeply flawed near-masterpiece (not surprising given she was only 21 when it began serialization).  That received only a film adaptation from Kyoto Animation, which reduced the story to its core elements and virtually eliminated the rest.  The ongoing Fumetsu gets a 20-episode run, which should allow director Murata Masahiko (Baby Steps) and writer Fujita Shinzou to more faithfully bring the manga’s story to the screen.

For me this is a stronger series than Koe no Katachi on the whole, or at least considerably more polished (both narratively and visually).  The story of an immortal (It) who meets an orphaned boy in an abandoned village and their subsequent journey, Fumetsu is a melancholy and reflective piece of work.  It’s not perfect but it has the same spark of raw genius that Koe no Katachi did, and I’m anxious to see how it fares at Brain’s Base.  First-time seiyuu Kawashima Reiji (also debuting in Shadows House) is playing the lead.

Boku no Hero Academia 5th Season – Bones: HeroAca continues both in anime and manga form, with the only real certainty being that whatever Horikoshi-sensei draws is going to be adapted.  One of the more interesting aspects of this 5th season will be looking for signs that it’s reverting to the visual style of its first three seasons.  Nagasaki Kenji stays in the ambiguous “Chief Director” role, and there’s another movie in production that will presumably demand most of his time.  So the guess here is that we see more of the same, with Mukai Masahiro and team’s more stylized “comic book” take on the material which emerged in Season 4 continuing.

As to the source material, we’re entering a fascinating and uneven stretch of the manga here, in my opinion.  Horikoshi takes some chances that don’t always work, and I expect S5 to be pretty divisive with anime viewers.  The “Joint Training” arc has dominated promotional material and we can expect it to last a cour, more or less.  It’s not among my favorite arcs in BnHA but some readers do adore it.  After that comes one of the most ambitious arcs and one that seems to especially elicit polarized opinions, but we’ll get there when we get there (this summer).

 

Mid-table:

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 2nd Season – Bandai Namco Pictures: (PV) Mairimashita! Iruma-kun would be on my short list of series I most regret dropping (I did pick it back up for the last few episodes).  So I’m even more heartily glad to have a second bite of the apple than I would have been anyway.  Simply put, it’s hard to find series that so convincingly project positivity as this one (Miira no Kaikata comes to mind).  The hero is a sweetheart, and actually has good things happen to him because of it.  For a series set in Hell the vibes are amazingly upbeat, full of hilariously weird but lovable characters.  I don’t know where the second season will take the story but I can’t imagine any huge shifts in tone (or quality).  This time I’ll be sticking around.

Kingdom 3rd Season – Studio Signpost: (PV) If you care to, you can go back and read my take on Kingdom S3 from my Spring 2020 Preview.  My thoughts on Kingdom and it’s (mostly) positives and negatives are on the record at this point.  We lost a full year thanks to the pandemic, the longest delay of any series as far as I know, but Kingdom is finally back.  NHK will repeat the first four eps (which I think is the right decision) starting April 6th before launching new material.

Nomad: Megalo Box 2 – TMS Entertainment: (PV) Given that Megalo Box was my #1 series of 2018, one might reasonably expect its sequel to place higher on this list.  So what gives?  It’s a tough question to answer.  In the first place ’18 was probably my weakest Top 10 ever (though last year would give it a run), and Megalo Box would rank lowest among all my #1 series of that decade.  I also didn’t really feel the desire for a sequel when it ended – I thought  it did a good job wrapping up the story.  I was satisfied.

For all that, Megalo Box was still pretty great, and Nomad has reunited all the key players from the staff (most crucially including writer Kojima Kensaku).  We don’t know a hell of a lot about the sequel (nor did we about the original, going in) apart from the fact that it’s clearly set in the same timeline and has a different protagonist ( or maybe not, going by the latest preview).  What role if any Joe, Sachio, and Nanbu will play is one of the many unknowns.  Nomad should be good, no doubt – but for whatever reason I’m not feeling a ton of excitement about it.  It may very well prove me wrong.

SSSS.Dynazenon – Trigger: (PV) SSSS.Gridman is my favorite Trigger series to date, and it’s not in any way close.  I went into that show with virtually no background with the Ultraman-Gridman franchise and ended up loving it anyway.  More than any Trigger series I thought it captured the beating heart of Gainax anime, while still playing as something fresh and different.  It wasn’t flawless by any stretch but it was consistently riveting visually and quite intellectually dense (in a good way).

Dynazenon is set in the same tokusatsu universe, and reunites the entire main staff from Gridman.  As far as I know the original cast is unconnected but at this point I have a fair amount of trust in director Amemiya Akira and writer Hasegawa Keiichi.  In their hands Gridman played as a loving homage to tokusatsu, mecha, and Gainax – a series by fans, but fans who were exceptionally good at their jobs.

Yuukoku no Moriarty 2nd Season – Production I.G.: (PV) Yuukoku no Moriarty returns for the second of its planned split-cour.  I was immediately taken with the series’ premise of Moriarty as a subversive and revolutionary, but for me it stumbled for a few episodes after quite a strong start.  Things improved substantially when Sherlock entered the picture – not only did he provide the smarmy and arrogant Moriarty with the foil he so desperately needed, the Holmes subset ended up being more engaging than the Moriarty subset of the cast.  I would say Yuukoku no Moriarty has a higher uncertainty factor than is typical for a second cour, but I’m certainly curious to see where it takes these characters (including Mycroft Holmes).

Shadows House – CloverWorks: (PV) This is the first genuine unknown on the list for me this season.  But I certainly get some sleeper vibes off Shadows House, an adaptation of doijin creator Soumatou’s manga.  It’s the story of the Shadow family and the “living dolls” which serve as their faces and live out their mundane lives.  Weird, yet somehow intriguing – at least for me.

The staff (and cast) here isn’t dominated by big names, though writer Oono Toshiya has a resume full of obvious highs (and a few lows).  I love the visual style, and the manga seems to be quite well-regarded.  Definitely the biggest wild card going into the season for me, with all the attendant bust factor involved in that, but I feel fairly optimistic about Shadows House.

Tokyo Revengers – LIDENFILMS: (PV) Tokyo Revengers is an adaptation of a highly popular manga from Weekly Shounen.  A young man already in one of life’s dark patches learns his ex-girlfriend was murdered by a notorious Tokyo gang.  He’s transported back in time to his teen years and sets about climbing the ranks of the nascent gang in order to prevent her death in the future.

An interesting premise I think, and I quite like the art style both of mangaka Wakui Ken and the anime previews.  Director Hatsumi Kouichi is a solid veteran and the staff and budget both look pretty good from a distance.  I haven’t read any of the manga myself but Tokyo Revengers looks like a series with a lot of potential – the obvious caveat being that it’s probably only going to get one cour and the manga is ongoing.

Mashiro no Oto – Shin-Ei: (PV) This manga has managed to escape my notice despite a pretty interesting premise and a boatload of awards and nominations.  It’s the story of a high-school dropout raised by his recently-departed grandfather, one of Japan’s finest shamisen players.  His mother reappears in his life after a long absence and forces him to return to high school, where he ends up becoming passionate about the shamisen again.

There’s nobody too exceptional on the staff list here, but it’s solid enough.  And honestly Mashiro no Oto sounds right up my alley (it’s hard not to think of Kono Oto Tomare!, at least a little, when reading that synopsis). Mangaka Ragawa Marimo has a portfolio split just about 50-50 between shounen and shoujo, with some BL thrown in for good measure.  Most of these series are well-reviewed but little-known in English, though her 1991 (!) series Aka-chan to Boku received an anime back in 1996.  A lot of upside potential here, it seems to me, and this is one I’ll be watching pretty closely.

Fruits Basket: The Final – TMS Entertainment: (PV) Given that I only intermittently blogged the second season of Fruits Basket, it’s probably a bit of a stretch to include it in this tier.  But I have such a long history with this series that seeing it finally conclude in anime form is a pretty big deal.  There were some odd choices in the second season that lead to interesting questions about the final one, given that this adaptation was presumed by most to be extremely faithful.  I have a lot of curiosity and retain an emotional attachment – just not every week.

 

Modestly Interested:

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song – Wit: (PV) Any original series from Wit is an interesting prospect.  I haven’t been enthralled with the premise of previews here, but Vivy is a sure bet to look good if nothing else.  It’s a time-travel scenario, with a traveler arriving from the future to try and prevent an apocalyptic war between humans and A.I..  It’s basically the Re:ZERO writing team behind this, which I know will be a big draw for a lot of people but which leaves me pretty indifferent.  Big range in potential outcomes here but Wit originals are rare enough to demand considerable attention.

Bakuten!! – Zexcs: (PV) It still seems odd to me that NoitaminA is going all-in on sports anime lately, and the results have generally been pretty indifferent.  But here we are again, this time with an original about rhythmic gymnastics – a sport in which I have almost no interest.  It’s the second gymnastics series in half a year and I suppose these shows were greenlit when the Olympics were scheduled.  Bakuten!! does have a pretty good core staff in director Kuroyanagi Toshimasa and writer Nemoto Toshizou, which is probably the biggest reason to hope it might be decent given that the NoitaminA tag is now largely valueless as a leading indicator.

Shakunetsu Kabaddi – TMS Entertainment (PV): Well, let’s audition another candidate to fill the sports anime slot for the spring, shall we?  I sort of vaguely knew kabaddi existed before Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro memorably showcased it, but I couldn’t have picked it out of a lineup.  It’s a weird sport, maybe weird enough to be an interesting canvas for anime, and director Ichikawa Kazuya (Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun) has a quirky sensibility that could work here.  But I know as little about the web manga this show is based on as I do about the sport, so Shakunetsu Kabaddi is a total flyer for me.

86 – A-1 Pictures: (PV) This season’s lead candidate for “light-novel adaptation aggregator scores say doesn’t suck but probably does” is 86.  The premise here seems to be two countries engaged in eternal war where one side has developed “unmanned” weapons to make the war seem painless.  Of course this is a lie, and their pilots are the focus of the story.  I keep coming back hoping one of these series will win me over, which seems to happen about once every five years.  But with so much of current anime made up of LN adaptations it’s not easy to disregard them completely, no matter how often they disappoint me.

Shaman King 2021 – Bridge: (PV) Takei Hiroyuki’s Shaman King is surely one of the best-selling shounen manga that’s never received a full anime adaptation.  It did get 64 episodes way back in 2001-2, but the manga (even excluding the endless spinoffs) ran for 32 volumes.  Somehow I’ve managed to totally avoid any interaction with it over the years – not by design but chance, and the fact that nothing about it ever called out to me.  It’s not too surprising that two decades later most of the cast and probably the entire staff are new, but a few seiyuu from the original production do return.  It’s about time I give Shaman King a chance to show me what I’ve been missing, though I go in without especially high expectations.

Godzilla: S.P – Bones/Orange: (PV) I’ve found anime’s prior attempts to tackle the Godzilla franchise unimpressive to say the least.  But I’ve always had a soft spot for the big lug, and it’s interesting to see arguably TV anime’s best traditional animation and CGI studios team up to offer their take.  The focus this time is apparently on a pair of young geniuses and their team (of young geniuses, presumably) take Godzilla on – which seems to confirm that he’s the big bad in this version.  There’s no reason to suspect Godzilla S.P. is going to be especially noteworthy, but it presents a good test of the importance of studios in an anime’s success.

Gokushufudou – J.C. Staff: (PV) The Way of the House Husband would have ranked a lot higher on this list a couple weeks ago.  Oono Kousuke’s manga is quite well-regarded.  It’s the story of an infamous Yakuza enforcer who drops out of the underworld life to become a stay-at-home husband, which is a premise with a lot of potential.  But then came the trailer, which was an abomination – literally a montage of unmoving manga images.  Apparently this was a choice (the CGI bear was a choice, too), driven by a producer who ordered director Kon Chiaki to adapt this style.  Producers making creative decisions is never a good idea.  If the series itself is produced entirely in this style, I’ll probably be bailing before the end of the first episode.

Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood – Bakken Record: (PV) Everything from here on down is pretty much in the wing and a prayer category.  Jouran is mostly here because it has a cool trailer, an experienced director (Kudou Susume), and a relatively interesting premise.  That premise imagines a Japan in 1923 where the Meiji Restoration never happened and the shogunate was still in power, and follows its elite band of executioners and the rebels who seek to overthrow the government.  As blind stabs go, I’ve made them based on less.

Cestvs: The Roman Fighter – Bandai Namco Pictures: (PV) There’s a pretty old-school look to this boxing manga adaptation.  I guess that makes sense, since Wazarai Shizuya’s manga ran from 1997-2009, and is set in ancient Rome.  Cestvs: The Roman Fighter follows an orphaned slave who begins to train in bare-knuckle pugilism in order to gain his eventual freedom.  Director Kawase Toshifumi is very, very experienced and should be able to put together a coherent and competent adaptation at the very least.  A big caveat – the newly-released PV shows this to be full CGI, and not the best CGI either.  Measure expectations accordingly.

Mars Red – Signal.MD: (PV) Anime never seems to tire of vampires, though it’s hardly alone in that regard.  Mars Red is another period piece set in 1923 (why two 1923 originals in 2021, I wonder?) Japan, where an elite (they’re always elite) army unit is formed to take down vampiric hordes by using vampires.  Key staff is experienced though not obviously brilliant.

Odd Taxi – OLM, P.I.C.S.: (PV) Odd Taxi is (fittingly) a weird prospect, an original series with a little-known (in anime at least) writer and director.  It does however have a big-time cast, with two of my favorite seiyuu (Yamaguchi Kappei and Kimura Ryouhei) in rare central roles.  I rarely trial shows based on the seiyuu but that’s probably my single biggest reason here.  That said the premise has potential in a Midnight Diner sort of way – a loner taxi driver who only ever talks to his regular customers (who are, naturally, eccentrics).

Edens Zero – J.C. Staff: (PV) I rather liked Mashima Hiro’s Fairy Tail for much of its run, though the anime did lose me by the time of the final season.  I haven’t read any of his semi-sequel (Happy at least is along for the ride) Edens Zero, though I know reviews have been mixed.  Since the best part of Fairy Tail was the first half maybe the same is true here, and I’ll give Edens Zero a shot, albeit with very limited expectations.

Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou. – Project No.9: (PV) Another stab in the dark on a LN adaptation, this time an age-gap romance about an office worker and his co-worker’s (and crush) little sister.  To say Hige wo Soru. is a longshot is an understatement, but there’s at least some opinion that the novels are fairly dignified, and the author also wrote the not-awful HaruChika.

 

Will Definitely Blog: Fumetsu no Anata e, Boku no Hero Academia 5th Season, Mairsimashita! Iruma-kun 2nd Season, Kingdom 3rd Season, Nomad: Megalo Box 2, SSSS.Dynazenon, Yuukoku no Moriarty 2nd Season, Fruits Basket: The Final.  Yes, that’s eight, even if seven are sequels – and without checking probably the most I’ve had in this category in more than a few seasons (maybe way more).  A little scary to be honest, given my time constraints.  

Sleepers: Shadows House, Mashiro no Oto, Odd Taxi

 

OVA:

Meager here again, as is usual these days.

Eden – 05/2021: 4 episode miniseries about a pair of robots in the far future who find a human baby and raise it in secret.  Director Irie Yasuhiro isn’t super well-known but is quite well-respected in the industry.  Maybe some rare ONA sleeper potential with Eden.

 

Theatrical:

Cider no You ni Kotoba ga Wakiagaru – 06/25/21: (PV) Love story about two teens very poor at traditional means of communication who meet at a local shopping mall.  Director Ishiguro Kyouhei is well-established but probably the most interesting name attached to Cider no You is writer Satou Dai, for whom this material seems like a bit of a departure.  Might be interesting.

Gyokou no Nikuko-chan – 06/11/21: (PV) The often impressive Studio 4°C brings us elite director Watanabe Ayumu’s latest.  It’s an adaptation of Nishi Kanoko’s novel of the same name.  All I know about it is that it’s the story of a mother and daughter who live on a boat (Watanabe seems to have a sea fetish lately) but with Watanabe and legendary animator/designer Konishi Kenichi on-board, I’m paying attention.