Well folks, the premieres have mostly crash-landed at this point, and it’s finally time to start sifting through the wreckage. My work on the ANN preview guide means I’ve personally watched basically every non-sequel premiere, and thus have a moral responsibility to share my knowledge, lest anyone else suffer this terrible burden. Every new season comes with somewhere around thirty relevant new productions, and it is absolutely not worth anyone’s (unpaid) time to watch all those shows, so today I’ll be breaking down this season’s premieres into vague tiers for your perusal. As always, I should clarify that this isn’t meant to be a hard, “objective” list or anything – I personally think I’m pretty okay at critiquing narrative/aesthetic craft and whatnot, but we all bring unique and valid perspectives to art, and so my list can’t really amount to much more than “I thought this was pretty cool.” Ultimately, if you’re a fan of some show’s given genre, most anime are at least watchable – but hey, you’re here and reading this, so you might as well check out my thoughts.
You can check out the full list of shows/reviews over at ANN, or just keep reading as we run through the season’s offerings. I should also mention that not everything actually has had its premiere yet, and thus last-minute challengers could still shake up the season (looking at you, Revue Starlight). And finally, this season I’ll be delegating the job of tier designation to Chitanda Eru, who I’m certain will do a phenomenal job. Let’s start with the season’s all stars and run through some premieres!
Chitanda Jumping for Joy Exuberantly
Angolmois totally blindsided me with its unexpectedly terrific premiere. Though its grainy filter is overbearing, basically everything else about this first episode is a pitch-perfect action adventure, merging excellent art design, thrilling action sequences, and fundamentally sturdy storytelling. I was astonished by how gracefully this episode built up its characters and general context – there were basically no scenes “dedicated” to character-building, but the course of this episode’s high-stakes fights and tense negotiations built up its whole cast all the same. When you match that propulsive and fundamentally accomplished storytelling to great character art and beautifully animated sword fights, you end up with a clear and unexpected highlight of the season.
Planet With was my top prospect entering this season, and its first episode did not disappoint. Written by the brilliant creator of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Satoshi Mizukami, this premiere is brimming with the evocative visual storytelling, off-kilter characterization, and profound interest in the human condition that made Biscuit Hammer such a treasure. From its intentionally surreal worldbuilding to its beautiful shot framing and unexpected emotional peaks, this episode offers an engaging balance of emotionally resonant drama and utterly bizarre mystery. Planet With is strange, exciting, and heartfelt, and I’m eager to see where it leads.
Chio’s School Road kinda feels like one classic Nichijou-style gag, “Chio must get to school, madness ensues,” somehow ballooned into an entire full-length production. The show matches its keen understanding of the parallel coziness and tedium of the suburbs to quietly hilarious gags about Chio attempting to cross neighborhood rooftops and throw rocks at mean people, with the deadpan absurdity of the first half eventually giving way to an almost too-realistic anxiety-focused segment in the second. By the time Chio threw herself into a garbage bag in order to avoid a conversation with a popular classmate, I knew this show understood me far too well.
Inject that delicious melodrama directly into my veins. Hanebado! brings as much visual bombast and personal drama to badminton as it possibly can, offering gorgeous match sequences and compelling character moments all through this premiere. Though its characters haven’t been that fully defined yet, their feelings are made vividly clear through Hanebado’s excellent character acting, shot framing, and use of color. Hanebado! is undoubtedly one of the prettiest shows of the season, and if it can successfully build up its characters into people worth rooting for, it could easily be one of the best sports shows of the year.
Chitanda Jumping for Joy Discreetly
Based on a beloved manga and directed by a quasi-acclaimed KyoAni expat, Banana Fish was clearly one of the major “prestige” projects coming into this season. So far, it’s mostly just been a sturdily executed crime drama, offering stylish and well-animated action along with a confidently told drug-running mystery. I haven’t been truly thrilled by Banana Fish yet, but it’s propulsive and well-realized, so if you’re in the market for crime thrillers, definitely give it a try.
Reactions to Asobi Asobase are certain to be polarized, but that’s an inevitable result of its fundamental nature. Asobase is one of those comedies about a group of “friends” who are absolutely awful to each other, and whose treatment of each other is only bearable because they all truly deserve it. From its ridiculous expression work to its merciless gag conceits, Asobase is energetic to the point of shrillness and as black-hearted as they come, but also extremely funny. This show’s tone is frankly too mean for my tastes, but if “awful people terrorizing each other” is your kind of humor, Asobase nails it.
Though it possesses all the trappings of a conventional reverse harem, Phantom in the Twilight is shaping up to actually be a generally engaging fantasy vehicle. From its confident supernatural worldbuilding to its strong-willed heroine and attractive visual design, there’s a whole lot to recommend here even before you get to the cute boys and potential romance. Phantom in the Twilight probably won’t shape up to a highlight of the season, but it’s still a pretty darn entertaining watch.
Holmes of Kyoto is predicated on a strange but ultimately natural combination of narrative concepts: Sherlock Holmes mysteries and pawn shop drama. Centered on a small Kyoto antique dealership, the show’s premiere mixed miniature antique lessons, Holmes-style deductions, and light drama of both the criminal and romantic varieties to arrive at an altogether satisfying and soothing combination. It turns out you don’t need a bunch of dead bodies to make for an engaging mystery!
Chitanda Hovering with Intense Curiosity
We’ve unfortunately arrived at the “basically just watchable” tier at this point, and Harukana Receive kinda exemplifies that. Offering infrequent beach volleyball highlights and a great deal more lukewarm character-building, Harukana Receive seems happy to sit at a comfortable, unambitious compromise between sports drama and slice of life. If you’re big into sports shows or shows about Friendship, give it a glance, but this one didn’t thrill me.
Given that its premise, “what if an isekai show was also Anohana,” sounds like a recipe for disaster, I was surprised to find that Re’Union was not just competent, but actually pretty darn engaging. The show takes a little while to get going, but I felt both its direction and its understanding of MMO spaces were unusually strong for the genre, making this the rare isekai I can actually recommend. I probably won’t stick with it, but this show definitely has a higher ceiling than many of this season’s offerings.
I’ll be frank: I don’t get it, at all. Cells at Work is essentially a faux-educational production about the human circulatory system, but why would adults want to watch a faux-educational production about the human circulatory system? This one gets a reasonable score purely on the basis of its excellent animation and relatively tight plotting, but I simply could not care less about the adventures of anthropomorphized versions of our white and red blood cells.
Music Girls is basically the opposite case of Cells at Work: I think there are plenty of fun ideas here, it’s just that this premiere’s execution is a total clusterfuck. Music Girls does offer some traditionally animated dance segments, but its greatest strength is its generally tongue-in-cheek approach to idol drama, with this episode’s plot largely amounting to “oblivious foreigner girl is ambushed at the airport and accidentally becomes an idol.” There are a fair number of solid gags throughout this episode, but the overall production is just too much of a mess to get an actual recommendation.
Chitanda is Profoundly Done Here
100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams
As we make our way down to the dregs of the summer season, we encounter our first quasi-harem, the suitably titled 100 Sleeping Princes. Princes isn’t truly awful in any way, it’s just deeply uninspired and lacking in real strengths in terms of either writing or visual execution. There are simply better shows than this one available pretty much regardless of what you’re looking for.
The Thousand Musketeers is one hundred percent an off-brand Kancolle or Touken Ranbu, answering the much-pondered question “what if a bunch of historical muskets were all cute boys.” There’s nothing actually noteworthy about this show, but it’s not actively unpleasant to watch, which puts it well above most of what comes next!
The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar
Alright, sweet, an isekai-slash-harem where our dashing male MC conquers a bunch of nations, forces their cute female leaders to call him “big brother,” and generally lords over the world due to his mastery of being able to google things on his smartphone? That’s the good shit.
Hell yeah, we’re really into it now. Insufferably shrill gag comedy that returns us to the simplistic ultraviolence and wincing fourth wall breaking of the early ‘00s? BACK THAT DUMP TRUCK INTO MY MOUTH.
Does This Look Like the Chitanda of Mercy
How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
Welcome to the bottom tier, where the “best” show can be accurately described in its totality as “the isekai for people with an extreme slave fetish.” It’s not getting any better from here.
It’s like Clannad rose from the grave to swing a bat at my kneecaps. Please, ghosts of subgenres past, haunt me no longer.
And here at the bottom, we have the functionally harmless but excruciatingly executed Angels of Death, which really, really, really wants you to know how hardcore and spooky it is. Thank you Angels of Death, we have your number and will be in touch.
ALRIGHT. That covers it for me, and as usual, there is not much left of me at this point. Please enjoy these hard-won anime takes! I am going to take a nap.
God Damn! I love Chitanda XDD I just laughed too hard at the “Chitanda is Profoundly Done Here” gif XDDDD
Waiting for Revue Starlight too.
Hanebado!’s second episode surprised me for the simple fact that it maintained its initial quality. Let’s see how it keeps up.
I get how Cells at Work don’t appeal to you personally, but I do know a reason why the show is quite popular at the moment:
…the Gijinka crowd is huge.
Anyway, that was really the only show that caught my attention this season, and I kinda share your sentiments about Harukana Receive. Not really sure what else to watch among these shows, but ah well, I can always catch up with other shows from the previous seasons. Also I’m still following Kitarou, so I’m fine with this.
THESE are the only Cells at Work I acknowledge:
https://programma.sorrisi.com/guidatv/uploads/media/cache/epg_program_large/uploads/epg/images/program/0/0/originale/179925.jpg
No, seriously, I need to watch this premiére because the premise interests me XD. I literally wrote a story about a white blood cell fighting disease when I was, like, 8, because I was that much of a nerd, so I’m going to be both its perfect target audience and an unreasonably harsh critic.
I just watched the first episodes of “Happy Sugar Life” and “Grand Blue” and liked them. The former’s relationship between the MC and her ward/girlfriend are toeing a line but the surprise (don’t watch the OP) twist could lead in an interesting direction (we’ll see).
The latter’s “college guys act like dumbass frat boys” is just fresh enough in anime and the timing of the gags was good enough for me to stick around for a few episodes. Since I haven’t latched on to anything yet this season I hope it turns out well.
It’s too rare to have a show dedicated to kids outside of high school, let alone one that features guys just being guys. I dug all the goofy faces the animators clearly had fun drawing so here’s hoping it stays fun.
Interesting to see what you think of Angels of Death episode 2. Will be awaiting the next few retrospectives!
Based on what’s presented here, the Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo Dorei Majutsu is the only thing that’s watcheable. Although, I could probably Chiyo, I just don’t want to.
Knowing me, I’m going to be missing out on all of the most popular anime this season; most of everything I watch is never the ones people talk about.
My favorite for the season is most definitely going to be Hanebado from what I’ve already watched.