Whether you know how it’s made or not, you at least want the sausage to taste good.

Spring was a good season, but in the final analysis it looks as if 2021 will go down as another pretty mediocre anime year.  Better than 2020 certainly, though with so many productions delayed last year that was an inevitable result.  There are plenty of shows being produced – more, clearly, than the infrastructure of the industry can support.  But diversity has tanked so much and the production committee system become so risk-averse that the pool of potentially good series seems to be shrinking all the time.

There are a lot of ominous signs for the industry right now.  Working conditions are at an all-time low, with no signs of improvement.  As the carping about the fifth season of Boku no Hero Academia shows, most fans have no interest in understanding these problems – they just blame the animators for everything they don’t like.  And with Japan potentially about to enter a phase of the pandemic more dire than any before and seiyuu left and right contracting COVID-19, it’s hard not to think another round of production delays is imminent.

Those are all unknowns.  Hugely important ones, but unknowns just the same.  What we know is what’s on the schedule for Fall 2021, so for today that’s what I’ll focus on.  Fall is traditionally anime’s second-biggest season after spring, and often that results in one of a year’s two best seasons.  The competition from this year’s winter and summer is weak, but I don’t see a lot here than excites me.  There are 49 shows listed as of this writing, and as usual right around a third made the cut for this preview. But not many of them immediately strike me as having the potential to be great.

As usual summer has few multi-cour series carrying over and several ending, so fall will need to carry its own weight.  In fact with Vanitas no Carte being a split-cour (unless Higurashi Sotsu pulls its rumored surprise and runs two cours) I have no carry-overs at all, which is unusual even for a fall season.  Even more unusual (I can’t remember the last time it happened) I have no sequels that I plan to follow.

I see basically one sure thing here (Blue Period’s adaptation would have to be a complete dumpster fire for it not to succeed), a couple of really interesting prospects (including one big wild card which arrived to the party extremely late), and a bunch of unknowns.  Looking at this season from a historical perspective, what stands out is the paucity of “Mid-tier” shows – only three. This is the level that normally drives a season, at least in terms of depth (and often a top series emerges from this pack).  There’s a bit of heft at the top, but this is a schedule that looks alarmingly soft in the middle.

With production levels running pretty steady over the past year (planned production at least), and the overarching trend of LN adaptations booming and eclipsing everything else, I don’t see a tremendous amount of change at the moment – this is more of the same for the most part.  Originals do seem to be a bigger slice of the pie this season and this year, and maybe sci-fi (and… horror comedy?) is up-ticking a bit – but I’m not finding as much in those categories to interest me as I used to.  Mitsuo Ito’s new sci-fi can’t get here soon enough.

Once again this season the LiA preview comes with a video companion (also embedded at the end of this post).  I’m very excited by the results this time – my RC colleague FJ Freeman is helping me out with the production side and the results are a big step up.  I’m pursuing the same strategy as with the first three videos – 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:

Blue Period. – Seven Arcs: (PV) There are no sure things in manga adaptation, but Blue Period. comes about as close as any. Yamaguchi Tsubasa’s manga is almost universally praised, and with good reason.  The story of a “normal” kid who longs to find an outlet for who he really is and does so in art, Blue Period. touches on many themes with intelligence and subtlety.  I love good stories about the creative process, and this definitely qualifies as one.

I wish Blue Period. had been paired with a truly great anime director, but in Masunari Koji it has a very good one with a wealth of experience.  And writer Yoshida Reiko (who monopolizes the Highest Expectations category this season) is one of the surest hands in the trade.  Together that should be all it needs to soar, really.  The only caveats – as is so often the case – are the series’ length, and the fact that this adaptation comes quite early (the manga has 10 volumes though, so I’m not crazy worried about that).  A one-cour adaptation would only give the merest teaser of how good this series is, and as with any ongoing series even it gets two cours it has to deal with the matter of a stopping point.  In the end, though, it would be a surprise if Blue Period. isn’t fall’s best new series.

Heike Monogatari – Science SARU: (PV) Heike Monogatari wasn’t even announced until after the first draft of this post was written.  But in one fell swoop it transformed the intrigue level of what looked like a pretty dull season.  There are so many interesting angles attached to this story that it’s hard to know where to begin.  You have a series streaming on Funimation before it airs in Japan (though it will stream locally this season too).  There’s the recent controversy regarding overwork and animator abuse at Science SARU, which this announcement only seems to exacerbate.  And there’s director Yamada Naoko, a Kyoto Animation legend, leaving that hollowed studio to work with a new one.

It’s that last angle which has commanded the most attention, unsurprisingly.  Yamada is synonymous with KyoAni for many, and is regarded by some as its most accomplished director (though my personal choice would have been Takemoto Yasuhiro, cruelly lost along with so many others in the arson attack of 2018).  Kyoto Animation isn’t like most anime studios – they train their own people and like to keep them around for a long time, so when a big fish like Yamada leaves the pond, that’s news.  But as big a story as that is, for me the headline is Heike Monogatari itself, because this greatest of the Japanese classics is a story which I hold in the highest possible esteem.

Maybe a year ago I tweeted my puzzlement that this gripping saga that’s such a part of Japanese culture had never received a proper adaptation in anime or even manga form.  The Tale of the Heike is a collection of oral fables, passed down by the (usually blind) Biwa Houshi monastic storytellers, chronicling the Genpei War between the Taira (Heike is another reading for the Kanji) and Minamoto clans.  Cast as Buddhist parables, these stories were told as musical chants by the monks for decades before being compiled in written form in the 14th Century.  While there have been many translations, this series draws its inspiration from the recent work of Furukawa Hideo, who for the first time told the stories through modern Japanese (Yuasa Masaaki’s upcoming Inu-Oh film is based on an original Heike-themed story penned by Furukawa).

That’s all well and good.  And make no mistake, this anime has a very strong staff – in addition to Yamada, the venerable Yoshida Reiko is writing the scripts.  My worry – as it always was whenever I thought about this day – is that rather that a proper adaptation we’d get an “inspired by” series.  And that looks like what this show is – its central conceit a completely original character (a little girl – historically all the Biwa Houshi were men) and subplot to tie the tales together.  Frankly, Heike Monogatari doesn’t need any of that – it’s a magnificent and heartbreaking work that deserves at least one faithful anime adaptation.

This series doesn’t look like it, and that makes me very sad.  It may in fact end up being great, but when you contemporize this of all works to appeal to a modern audience, I go in with a significant level of skepticism – I can think of few stories less in need of it.  But that is what it is, and whatever this show turns out to be, it’s the closest thing Heike Monogatari has ever gotten to a real adaptation.  That makes it the most interesting new anime prospect in a long time, one with a gaping chasm between floor and ceiling that few prospects have ever been able to match.

 

Mid-table:

Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu. – OLM: (PV) While it’s generally very well-liked, I’m a little leery of Komi Can’t Communicate.  The protagonist seems like a bit of a throwaway, the humor may be the type that’s difficult to translate to anime, and in general I tend not to vibe with this sort of comedy as well as I’d like.  But when you see Watanabe Ayumu’s name as the director, that counts for a lot.  He’s about as good as it gets, and has already proven he can handle romantic comedy with flair and elegance.

Basically, Komi-san is the story of a gorgeous high-school girl who has a terrible fear of communicating with others, and the plain yogurt boy who fate decides is going to be her first friend.  So much here is going to come down to tone and the sensibility of the writer – and as I haven’t read the manga that part is a mystery to me.  I did consider a survey of the material but I decided to go in clean and take my chances.  Definitely upside here for sure, but a bit of a blind leap for me personally.

Ousama Ranking – Wit: (PV) In the first place, I love the fact that Wit dropped Shingeki no Kyoujin for the opportunity to do stuff like this.  They’re one of the most interesting studios in the game, and seem genuinely interested in trying to maintain a certain standard of production and in pursuing interesting and worthwhile projects.  They’re resisted the urge to go the MAPPA route of quantity over quality, and I think they should be applauded for that.

As far as Ousama Ranking is concerned this too is something of a leap for me, though I’ve been seeing the manga covers in bookshops for years and thinking it looked like an interesting and quirky series. Now with a few chapters translated I’ve read a bit, and found them thoroughly charming.  The story of a deaf crown prince mocked and derided by most of his family and retainers, and his very strange friend, Ousama Ranking is not going to be for everybody.  It’s decidedly weird, frankly, but there’s a bittersweet quality to it that I really like.  I’m sure we’ll see some bitching from entitled fans about Wit “wasting their time” on this sort of material (especially if, as suspected, they’re off the second season of Vinland Saga), but who cares – anime needs more of these sorts of idiosyncratic shows desperately.

Taishou Otome Otogibanashi – SynergySP: (PV) For me the most striking thing about Taishou Otome Otogibanashi is that I can’t look at it and not be reminded of Ikoku Meiro no Croisee.  That comes down more to the visual dynamic between the leads than anything and probably isn’t fair – the premise here is quite different. It’s both a blessing and a curse – it piques my interest, but as much as I loved Ikoku Meiro I suspect this series wouldn’t be flattered by the comparison.

Taishou Otome Otogibanashi is the story of a wealthy youth (you can probably guess the time period) effectively disowned by his father after being crippled in the accident that claimed his mother, and the young girl his father sends to his countryside exile with a message that she’s to marry him.  I don’t know the manga, though it’s well-regarded, and the staff seems unexceptional.  I’m not sure what to expect here – I’m uneasily put in mind of one of these insufferably self-aware “healing” series than have seen a mini-boom lately.  Still, this series does seem to be punching in a higher weight class than the ones below it on the list.

 

 

Modestly Interested:

Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen – ufotable: (PV) Another late addition to the fall schedule.  To everyone’s surprise except, well- everyone, Kimetsu got a second season.  And of course it will get as many seasons as it takes, and movies too – it’s just a question of how the big players decide to maximize the profitability of the franchise.  I dropped the first season after 16 or 17 episodes, partly because I found Inosuke and especially Zenitsu (Shimono Hiro delivers one of the most annoying performances in anime history) insufferable, and partly because I found the writing to be pretty sloppy at times.  When I dropped it I knew this series was a big hit – I didn’t yet know it would wind up being the series that finally dethroned One Piece at the top of the manga sales pyramid and one of the biggest sensations in anime and manga history.

So why is it here?  Basically, because it bothers me that I can’t for the life of me figure out why Kimetsu no Yaiba was the biggest anime commercial success in at least three decades.  I don’t hate it – it would actually be easier if I did.  I just can’t find anything exceptional about it, and that’s what really irks me.  I mean, I have huge issues with it but I can understand why something like Shingeki no Kyoujin was a monster hit.  I can’t understand it here (or with JJK for that matter, and it’s almost as huge), so I’m going to give it another shot.  That will involve some catching up, obviously, and I may drop it again pretty quickly.  But I’m told Zenitsu isn’t a dominating presence in this arc, and I really want to try and grok this phenomenon on some level.

Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi – Doga Kobo: (PV) As noted, things drop off quite an expectations cliff at this point.  Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi is kind of a hunch bet for me, a romcom about a young woman whose much bigger sempai at work likes to tease her (for reasons, of course).  As far as I can tell this is basically a gag manga – the chapters are quite short, and those can be hard to adapt into full-length anime.  But I just have a feeling this could be pretty funny.

Platinum End – Signal.MD: (PV) You’d think an adaptation of a manga by Bakuman and Death Note’s “Ashirogi Muto” – Obata Takeshi and Ohba Tsugumi – would rank higher.  But, well – I’ve read a lot of Platinum End and it… has issues.  There are some interesting ideas at play here but the whole exercise has a crass and misogynistic air about it to me.  It also really loses the plot late in the game. OTOH,  Miyu Irino in a lead role is so rare these days that it’s kind of a significant value added.  We’ll see how Signal.MD deals with adapting 14 volumes in 24 episodes – the manga could actually do with a little trimming so that may not be a bad thing.

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child – Silver Link (PV): Silver Link’s top dog Oonuma Shin directs this sci-fi original about a mysterious disease emanating from the newly discovered world of Asylum, in Antarctica.  Quiz: do you remember the most important staff member with an original series?  That’s right, the writer.  In that case that’s Shimoyama Kento, who’s strictly done adaptations in anime but has done a lot of original writing in the super sentai industry.  There’s enough talent involved to make Deep Insanity (fittingly) a deep sleeper.

Gyakuten Sekai no Denchi Shoujo – Lerche: (PV) Uwah, It’s another sci-fi original, this time in the mecha vein.  An alternate Japan eternally stuck in the Shouwa Era (must be LDP higher-ups) invades the real Japan with humanoid mecha.  Of some interest because of director Andou Masaomi and writer Uezu Makoto, both of whom have done some very good work (and recently too).

Mieruko-chan – Passione: (PV) “Horror comedy” based on a manga about the titular girl, who starts seeing gruesome things in her school but goes on pretending everything is fine.  The general consensus is that the manga is pretty good, so it gets a shot.

Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu – Madhouse: (PV) Vampire comedy manga adaptation from Madhouse, chronicling a vamp named Draluc who loves gaming and turns to ash every time to gets startled (which happens often).  Another one here mainly because of the staff, featuring Koujina Hiroshi, who directed Hunter X Hunter 2011.

Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa wa Yoru – Zero-G: (PV) Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa wa Yoru is an actual shounen-ai, which is a genre label you rarely see these days.  It’s the story of a guy who sees ghosts (and hates it) who teams up with a psychic with no tact, forming a sort of odd couple supernatural detective agency.  Could be fun.

Muteking the Dancing Hero – Tatsunoko/Tezuka Productions: (PV) One of the more intriguingly offbeat entries this season, Muteking the Dancing Hero is a remake of a 1980 Tatsunoko (they were already big then) series.  I know nothing whatsoever about this franchise, but the setting is apparently based on my old haunt San Francisco in the 1980’s (way before my time there).  For some reason the hero fights evil-doers with dance moves, and I think there are roller-skates involved somehow. If all that weren’t oddball enough the production has 85 year-old Sasagawa Hiroshi – who worked on the original series 41 years ago – and 78 year-old Takahashi Ryousuke on-board as co-directors.  I can’t help but think of Tribe Cool Crew a little here, and that was a series that was really fun and charming.

Sakugan – Satelight: (PV) So this one was originally called “Sacks & Guns” and was supposed to be released in 2020 but got pandemic-ed (no idea why the title change).  It’s based on a novel (not light, apparently) about a future where humans live packed into an underground refuge called Labyrinth.  There’s some pretty standard-sounding plot about a little girl searching for her mother on the surface, but nothing that sounds especially distinctive.  Director/writer Wada Jun’ichi is experienced if nothing else.

Megaton-kyuu Musashi – OLM: (PV) Another mecha sci-fi, this time based on a game.  Dystopia, earth ruled by aliens, humans mostly wiped out… It’s all pretty generic by the sound of it.  There are a few fairly big names involved, including Youkai Watch and Inazuma Eleven creator Hino Akihiro.

Kyoukai Senki – Sunrise Beyond : (PV) Another mecha sci-fi, another original – maybe this actually is a trend.  This time around it’s 2061 and Japan is now ruled by four global “trading factions”, and it’s up to a boy and his autonomous A.I. to save the day.  You always worry that this sort of premise is a platform for nationalism, though I don’t see anything specific in the resume of the key staff to suggest that.

 

Will Definitely Blog: Blue Period., Ousama Ranking. There will be others of course (Komi seems a likely bet) but nothing I feel 100% certain about (and that includes Heike Monogatari).

Sleepers: A few possibilities here at least, though nothing I feel super strongly about.  Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi, Deep Insanity: The Lost Child, Muteking the Dancing Hero.

 

OVA:

Cupboard is almost bare here, unless you stretch the calendar a little..

Star Wars: Visions – 09/22/2021: Technically this Disney-funded Star Wars anthology should have been in the summer preview, but to be honest I forgot.  Nine separate Star Wars one-shots from seven studios (Science SARU and Trigger are  each doing two), it’s an interesting project.  There are some big-time directors involved – Kamioyama Kenji, Imaishi Hiroyuki, Eunyoung Choi, Gainax vet Ootsuka Masahiko – and perhaps most interestingly SARU’s Spanish animator Abel Góngora (foreigners – especially Europeans – rising to the director role is very rare for anime).

Given: Uragawa no Sonzai – 12/01/2021: I still haven’t seen the Given movie but now it’s joined by an OVA.  This one covers a side story about the two mains, apparently.  One day I’ll make time to catch up on all this.

 

 

Theatrical:

A seriously spartan fall schedule in the theatres, which tend to see most of the big anime releases in summer for obvious reasons (though we are getting the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie).  It’s worth noting that Shika no Ou has been delayed yet again – no new release date has been announced but if it hits before the end of the year that would be a boost to an otherwise very weak season.

Koukyoushihen Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 3: Eureka – 11/26/21: (PV) The Eureka Seven movies have been pretty much a whiff for me, and there’s no real to suspect this final one will be any different.  It may be time for Bones to put arguably its most recognizable franchise to bed.