With over 50 new anime starting in the coming weeks, here are the five I am most looking forward to.
Image source: アニメ「逆転裁判 Season2」 on Twitter
Ace Attorney Season 2 (Gyakuten Saiban: Sono “Shinjitsu”, Igi Ari! Season 2)
Genre: Law Drama, Comedy
Studio: CloverWorks
Premiere Date: 10/6/2018
What it’s about: Ace attorney Phoenix Wright is well on his way to becoming a legend in the courtroom. Aided by his assistant Maya (and her shamanistic power to channel the dead), there’s no innocent defendant they can’t save. But now, Phoenix must face new challenges as ghosts from the past return to haunt him–both his own and those of his deceased mentor Mia.
Why I’m excited: Based on the third (and arguably best) game in the original Ace Attorney trilogy, this season of the anime concludes the character arcs of all those in the main cast. Not only that, but it explores the early days of Mia as a defense attorney and what kind of person Phoenix was before he passed the bar. Add in a mysterious murder with Maya at the center and Edgeworth trying his hand at the defense table and you have a fitting climax to everything that’s come before.
Watch it if you like: Ace Attorney
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Image source: 「ゴブリンスレイヤー」/ Goblin Slayer公式 on Twitter
Goblin Slayer
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Studio: White Fox
Premiere Date: 10/7/2018
What it’s about: A young priestess, straight out of the monastery wants to try her hand at adventuring. She signs up at the guild hall, finds a party of fresh, young adventurers like herself, and sets out on a quest to wipe out a nest of goblins. But their happy adventure doesn’t go as planned. Trapped deep beneath the earth with her companions dead, dying, or facing a fate far worse than death, the priestess is saved by an adventurer known only as “Goblin Slayer”–but is this a blessing or a curse?
Why I’m excited: Goblin Slayer takes a Dungeons and Dragons-style world to its logical conclusion. Adventurers level up, travel the world, and face ever stronger monsters. Anyone but the lowliest of newbies turn their noses up at the very idea of killing goblins, so goblins run largely unchecked–destroying villages, killing peasants, and kidnapping women as breeding stock.
Only Goblin Slayer continues to hunt goblins. A broken man, he has become genocide incarnate. He kills without honor or mercy. He spends day in and day out slaughtering them–goblin men, women, and children alike–and he thinks of nothing else. He lives in the world that other adventurers choose not to see. For he knows that every goblin left alive is another innocent villager left raped or murdered. And so, till his last breath, he will do everything he can to kill them all, one nest at a time.
Watch it if you like: Berserk, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Image source: アニメ ソードアート・オンライン 公式 on Twitter
Sword Art Online: Alicization
Genre: Virtual World Fantasy
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Premiere Date: 10/7/2018
What it’s about: Eugeo is a young woodcutter. Each day he takes his ax and chips away at the giant tree on the edge of his remote village–just as generations of woodcutters have done before him. But one day, he encounters a confused young man named Kirito. And while he doesn’t realize it at the time, Kirito may hold the key to granting his deepest desire: to travel to the capital city and find his long-lost childhood friend Alice who was taken away by the mysterious Synthesis Knights years before.
Why I’m excited: Alicization is the climax of Sword Art Online as a whole (and a critical step on the road to Accel World.) Everything in the previous arcs has led to this story–though it doesn’t quite seem that way at first.
The story begins with a major shakeup to the status quo, placing Kirito alone in a new kind of virtual world. This allows the story to shift away from the relationships between Kirito and his various female companions and instead focus on the friendship between Kirito and Eugeo–and the adventure that ties them together. And at the end of their shared path lies Alice, a young woman whose very existence will forever alter the fate of two worlds.
Watch it if you like: Sword Art Online, Accel World
Where to watch: Crunchyroll, Wakanim
Image source: 【公式】TVアニメ『転生したらスライムだった件』 on Twitter
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken)
Genre: High Fantasy
Studio: 8bit
Premiere Date: 10/2/2018
What it’s about: As a middle-aged office worker lays bleeding out on the street, he hears a voice. It comments on the random thoughts passing through his head in his final moments, interpreting them as wishes. When the man awakens again, he finds that he has been reincarnated in a fantasy world as the lowliest of monsters: a slime. And worse yet, he’s trapped in a cave with the world’s strongest monster: the Storm Dragon.
Why I’m excited: While That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is but the latest in the recent stream of “overpowered protagonist transported into a fantasy world” stories, what sets it apart from the others is the main character, Rimuru. From the start, Rimuru basically has one goal: get along with everyone. All he wants is for himself and his people to be accepted as peaceful denizens of the world despite their monstrous appearances.
While sometimes fighting is inevitable, it is never preferred. Likewise, backroom plotting and schemes within schemes will only serve to hurt his cause in the long run. He has no choice but to find other ways to get what he wants–and therein lies the fun of the series.
Watch it if you like: Overlord, Maoyu, Log Horizon
Where to watch: Crunchyroll, Funimation (dub)
Image source: やがて君になる【公式】10月5日よりTVアニメ放送開始！ on Twitter
Bloom into You (Yagate Kimi ni Naru)
Genre: Lesbian Romance
Studio: TROYCA
Premiere Date: 10/5/2018
What it’s about: Yuu is a girl in love with romance stories. However, when the day comes and the boy she likes confesses his feelings to her, she feels nothing–leaving her wondering if she is simply incapable of feeling love herself. It’s then that she meets Touka, a seemingly perfect girl who has the same problem. But no sooner has Yuu rejected the boy who asked her out then Touka announces that she has fallen for Yuu as well. And while Yuu doesn’t feel the same way, she decides to let Touka indulge her crush and try to win her over.
Why I’m excited: While Bloom into You is a love story, it is also a story about learning to love yourself. Yuu is so in love with the idea of love that when her feelings don’t explode like they do for characters in romance manga, she just accepts that something is wrong with her and that she’ll never find love.
Touka, on the other hand, is head over heels for Yuu for exactly this reason. Being in love with someone and knowing they will never return your feelings brings a certain kind of safety. And why this is so attractive to the seemingly perfect Touka is the main mystery of the story.
Watch it if you like: Sakura Trick, Citrus
Where to watch: HIDIVE
Top Image Source: 映画『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』公式 on Twitter
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