What I'm Watching This Fall 2025 Anime Season

It’s a bit of everything this fall season: something old, something new, something really old... and something really crazy.

The something old isn’t that old, really, but it’s been around now for eight seasons. Now in its final season, My Hero Academia is ending in a shonen supernova of fighting.

I’ve written before that - while I appreciate that shonen stories can only end in one way, i.e., the fight against the last boss - I do wish that they didn’t all have the same feel to them. As in: the team defeats the last boss only to find that he’s not the last boss; the big villain looks like he’s been killed (but he somehow springs back to life); the final boss that keeps morphing into even bigger and more spectacular forms until he seems totally impossible to defeat in any human terms, etc.

When you bet your climax on the biggest battle ever, it tends to run along the same lines as all the other shonen climax battles. While My Hero Academia is a quality show and there have been standout episodes here toward the end (the “Final Boss” episode, featuring Bakugo’s rescue of All Might, was absolutely killer), I find myself waiting for the big battle to be over so I can see how all the characters end up.

The something really old is, of course, Gintama. I didn’t even know they were doing a spinoff series, so the appearance of this one in the fall season lists surprised me.

Gintama ended years ago. It had a few concluding movies, and then it seemed like it would pass into anime history without any more iterations. As might be expected, this season’s Mr. Ginpachi’s Zany Class is a side story, or rather, a vignette-type series where the characters are school kids with Ginpachi himself as their teacher.

Naturally, I’ll watch anything Gintama, so I’m watching this one. It’s great hearing all the seiyuu in their roles again, and I love that they brought back Prince Hata, this time as the school principal.

Prince Hata is played by seiyuu Kouichi Sakaguchi, who gives the character just the most hysterically funny voice. He’s the perfect character to bring back in the principal’s role, as he delights in thwarting Ginpachi in various ways, while always failing (since he’s... not too smart).

There’s always at least one series each season that falls into the “when I have time to watch it” category, and this fall, it’s A Mangaka’s Weirdly Wonderful Workplace, my “something new” anime series.

I’m partial to stories about the manga publishing industry. My favorite remains Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi for its BL couples and intense love dynamics between Takano and Onodera, but I’ll watch literally any series if it’s set in the industry.

Here’s the description from MyAnimeList.net:
New shoujo manga artist Nana Futami works hard every day while being supported by Kaede Satou, her female editor who is older than her, and Mizuki Hazama, her assistant. According to the girl herself, she sometimes drums up intense daydream delusions of occupational illness! A working girls comedy set in the entertainment industry, brought to you by an author who always draws various girls.

And finally... I’m not even sure what category this last one fits into. Maybe it’s a new category of anime on its own? The only certainty is that it’s completely crazy.

From MyAnimeList.net:
In the middle of a ball, Scarlet's fiancé, Kyle, suddenly calls off their engagement. She's falsely accused of being a bully and people unfairly call her a "Villainess." The aristocrats and noble families all denounce her. For years, she had to put up with his abuse and idiocy, but she can't take any more of it! At her wit's end, she asks for one last favor; to give him a good fist in the face. So begins Scarlet's story of revenge against Kyle and his cronies! A fantasy about an elegant yet rebellious fighter, who doesn't let anyone take advantage of her!!

And... that’s it. That’s the whole plot of May I Ask for One Final Thing? Scarlet is wronged by various people, and then she goes and punches them out with her magic-enhanced fist.

According to Anime News Network, May I Ask for One Final Thing? is actually isekai. I haven’t gotten that far in the series yet, but that’s kind of interesting. Until that fact is revealed, I’m fine with Scarlet meting out her particular brand of justice to the deserving, for any reasons she chooses. ;-)

What I'm Watching This Spring Anime Season

It’s another good anime season, with four series I’m currently watching.

Let’s get into it. :-)

I’ve been looking forward to Kowloon Generic Romance ever since I heard it was getting made into an anime. It’s an adult romance with a few off-the-wall elements that I didn’t expect.

The story is set in the Kowloon Walled City, a legendary set of buildings in Hong Kong - that’s “legendary” for many reasons.

Custody of the so-named walled city, originally a military fort, was eventually passed from the Qing Dynasty to the British. After WWII, the city got built up as refugees poured into Hong Kong from the Chinese Civil War. Buildings and multiple floors stacked on top of each other until neither the British nor the Chinese dared to police the place.

(I love the fact that the walled city was super densely packed - while two sides of it bordered completely empty lots!)

The anime (based on the manga of the same name) is about the romance of Reiko Kujirai and her co-worker Hajime Kudo. The two work as agents for a realtor that manages apartments in the walled city.

Kowloon Generic Romance has a great period feel in its character designs, and in the look of the walled city and its unique architecture - including the dark dank corridors with unknown liquids dripping from the ceilings.

There’s a central mystery as to the female lead, Reiko. She discovers she’s a dead ringer for Hajime’s ex, to the point where people simply assume that’s who she is. In addition, a strange metal octahedron-shaped structure hovers in the sky. People see it - they know it’s there - but nobody really comments on it, which is odd in and of itself. The structure is called “Gene Terra.”

My second favorite series this season is My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is MHA’s more adult spinoff. Set some time before the canon story in MHA begins, its hero is Koichi Haimawari, a nineteen-year-old conbini clerk. Unlike Deku in the main series, Koichi was born with a quirk. His problem is that it’s pretty dorky. He’s able to slide along the sidewalk like a four-legged creature, so long as three of his limbs are touching the ground.

He also needs to find his courage, which he does, along with two new companions. Pop Step is a young female idol who can “pop step” across rooftops. And Knuckleduster is a gruff older guy with a scarred face whose philosophy is to punch first and ask questions later, if at all. All three were not and are not candidates for the hero academy for varying reasons, so they are the next best thing: vigilante heroes with a conscience.

Spinoff series are fun. Characters from the main series make cameo appearances and the familiar setting means you can relate to everything right away. I also appreciate that the characters are adults. It doesn’t go overboard with the adult humor, but the humor is there, and it’s a different feel from the main story’s 16-year-olds and that shounen level of levity.

The final two series are light in tone and fit in the “when I can” category, meaning, I’ll watch them when I can.

Chika Suzugamori is a mangaka. She won an award for her work, but then hits a slump. The publisher rejects her next few manuscripts and she feels like an amateur again.

Slightly desperate, she polls her fans as to where she should journey in Japan for inspiration.

And so, she takes trips throughout the country, alone at first and then with various girlfriends. Zatsu Tabi is one of those gentle, meandering shows, slice of life I guess, which isn’t my favorite kind of anime. But I do enjoy the travelogue aspect and glimpses of the manga publishing life in Japan.

Finally, there is Apocalypse Hotel.

From MyAnimeList:
Many years have passed since humanity vanished from Earth, yet the Galaxy Tower hotel in Ginza, Tokyo, continues to operate. At the center of its staff is Yachiyo, a dedicated hotelier robot, along with other employee robots working tirelessly in various departments. Together, they spend what feels like an eternity maintaining the hotel, despite having no guests. As they await the return of their owner and the day humanity reappears. Now, a small miracle is about to change everything for Yachiyo and her robotic colleagues.

Apocalypse Hotel reminds me of series like Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san, stories where the unusual is the usual everyday reality.

Such premises can result in poignant moments. In the first episode, Yachiyo is shown laying a robot to rest, as they don’t have the parts or expertise to fix him. The next shot is a wide shot, showing that the entire room is full of broken robots - basically, old friends in eternal limbo.

It’s moments like these that keep me coming back to anime, season after season.

Mid-Season Update and Thoughts on Transformative Works

So I somehow missed the fact that My Hero Academia was returning this spring season.

Actually, I know exactly how I didn’t notice. They began in April with four clip shows that recapped the highlights of the previous 6 seasons. I saw that something was happening with the series but they seemed like OVAs so I didn’t watch them. Until Season 7 began on May 4... So I caught up with the first two episodes.

I think this may be the final season of the anime, unless some commenters I’ve read are wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me. The storyline has gotten dark the past few seasons and since it’s a shounen story, I think we have our final or at least next-to-final boss in Shigaraki/All for One. (The only other villain who needs a resolution would be Dabi. Given his importance to the family of one of MHA’s heroes, I expect Dabi will be handled last.)

My Hero Academia had such a bright, sunny beginning. I have to say that once the story got dark, it stayed dark. I still enjoy the characters and of course I’ll watch it to the end, but I kind of wish it had taken a different route.

As for the rest of the spring season, Unnamed Memory and Spice and Wolf are still lovely and Bartender Glass of God is still an adult viewer’s delight. Tadaima Okaeri is proving to be a bath of emotions, which I more or less expected given the premise (gay omegaverse couple with cute baby).

Kaiju No. 8 is a blast, just a straight-up action ride with fun characters and a lot of humor. All in all, it’s a very good anime season.

Every now and then I feel compelled to highlight certain fan works. The term transformative works applies to fan fiction, fan art, and the like. It doesn’t really cover, however, just how complex and richly nuanced some of these works can be.

Hetalia: Axis Powers remains a fertile story universe for transformative fan works, especially given its huge cast of characters, historical setting, and large female following. The amount of fan art alone is staggering (just Google “Hetalia” and hit “Images” for a small sampling).

Since the story at least tangentially deals with World War II, some of its fan works are dead serious in tone. Lately I’ve been enamored with the following YouTube (or I should say NicoNico) video.

The context is Germany’s relationship with his older brother Prussia. Before you watch, look out for:

1) The enormous level of effort put into this video. This is a fan-created video with fan-drawn art, fan-composed new lyrics for the Vocaloid RIN song “Kokoro” (“Heart”), a fan singing those new lyrics, and a fan video editor to cut it all together.

2) The beautiful artwork. In particular, note the faces, bodies, hands. Whoever drew this is a professional-level artist (and is also completely in love with these characters, you can tell from the detail work).

From concept to completion, this video must have taken months to create. It’s one of countless fan-produced things out there, drawings and fan fiction and doujinshi and videos and dolls and cosplay outfits and everything else you can imagine. All made out of pure love with not a thought of money.

Enjoy. (And hit the CC for closed captions.)

Video Credits (video is below the credit picture):

Fall 2023 Watchlist, Bleach, and Death of the Red Envelope

It’s fall and this blog is back from its summer hiatus! Hope everyone is well and thriving...

While I was off, I published a new book (The Female Gaze: Through a Different Lens), saw some movies, and tried to speed through my Netflix DVD list (more on that later).

If you read this blog, you know that I’ve been feeling a little distant from the anime scene and re-evaluating what anime and manga mean to me. Except for Bleach’s recent return I haven’t been watching anything regularly.

It got worse when I looked at the upcoming fall anime season and saw that there is still a ton of isekai series in the animesphere. I have to wonder: is isekai really that popular, or is it a trend that I simply don’t get the appeal of?

Regardless, I did find a few series that I think I’ll try out.

Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions
(Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri)

From Anime News Network:

An unusual private investigator and police detective duo team up to solve a series of thrilling mysteries!

From My Anime List:

Despite lacking the skills suited for his role on the Metropolitan Police Department investigative team, Totomaru Isshiki wants to solve murders and help people. Following the advice of one of his seniors, he ventures out to enlist the aid of the reclusive Ron Kamonohashi.

Five years ago, Ron was the most promising detective from the illustrious Detective Training Academy Blue; yet for reasons unknown to the public, he sank into obscurity.

Totomaru expects a well-dressed, composed man; but what he gets is a messy-haired and uninhibited eccentric. After years in solitude, Ron barely resembles his former self and he refuses to even hear out the detective. However, as quickly as Ron rebuffs, he flips on a dime and dives headfirst into the current serial murder case.

The true reason Ron withdrew from the detective world was not from lack of desire, but rather from something out of his control - and Totomaru might just be the key for his return to his former calling. Together, the wide-eyed officer and deranged detective tackle each mystery that comes their way.

My New Boss is Goofy
(Atarashii Joushi wa Do Tennen)

From ANN:

Kentaro Momose’s new job may be stressful, but his new boss is more laid-back than he looks.

From MAL:

Momose, a 26-year-old office worker, recently changed jobs after being harassed by his former boss. He is concerned that his new boss will also use power harassment to make his life miserable. Momose tries to hide his concern about facing a similar situation with his new boss, Shirasaki. To Momose’s surprise, however, Shirasaki’s inherent airheadedness immediately alleviates all of his concerns, giving him a sense of relief.

By the way, there’s no BL overtones at all in that pic - none at all. ;-D

Heaven Official’s Blessing Season 2
(Tian Guan Cifu Er)

From ANN:

Xie Lian reunites with Hua Cheng when he’s sent on a mission in the Ghost City.

... Which reminds me, I still need to finish season one on Funimation. Another first season I need to finish is Spy X Family. The second season starts on Oct. 7, but as of this writing, Crunchyroll hasn’t announced that they have the license yet. I expect that will change soon.

Also, I thought My Hero Academia and Boruto were supposed to return this October. I looked into it and found that My Hero Academia is set to return with Season 7 in Spring 2024, while Boruto has a new manga arc, “Two Blue Vortex,” which began in August. However, no word yet on when the anime will return.

The second cour of Bleach’s Thousand Year Blood War arc, which began in summer, is winding down now, and it’s been great. The episodes have been my only weekly touchstone as far as having a regular anime schedule goes and I’ve had something to look forward to each Saturday because of it. It’s set to end on Sept. 30 with a doubleheader of the two final episodes.

And now for the end of something else. After 25 years, Netflix DVD is closing down its subscription service.

Before Crunchyroll was legit, before almost any anime you wanted to watch was legally available, Netflix DVD was one of the few ways you could watch anime legitimately and guilt-free. For a small monthly fee the whole universe of entertainment that was available on DVD discs could be sent to your door.

I watched more anime movies than series in the early days. (There was nothing worse than trying to binge a series when you had to wait for the U.S. Postal Service to bring you the next disc - it felt like forever, lol.)

But the anime movies more than made up for it. I’m pretty sure I first watched Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal via a Netflix disc, as well as Embracing Love: A Cicada in Winter.

The trend for or against DVDs went back and forth through the years. First, it was streaming will kill off discs. Then it was outsmart the expensive streaming services by rebuilding your disc collection! There was validity on both sides of the argument.

From the FAQ page at Netflix DVD:

Q. When is the last day you'll ship out discs?
A. On April 18th, we announced that after 25 years of shipping DVDs, this will be our Final Season, and we'll ship our last disc on September 29th, 2023.

I found two answers intriguing:

Q. Can I purchase discs from DVD Netflix?
A. We are unable to sell discs from our rental inventory.

Q. Do I need to return any remaining discs after the last shipping day?
A. You will not be charged for any unreturned discs - please enjoy them for as long as you like! If you do choose to return the disc, we will continue to accept returns until October 27th, 2023.

What are they going to do with their inventory of thousands of discs?? My first thought when I heard Netflix DVD was closing down was - Can we buy the DVDs? Apparently the answer is no. I hope that they’ll donate them to libraries, senior centers, retirement homes, etc.

And... “If you do choose to return the disc...” So the last disc is a freebie? I have Doctor Zhivago at home now. If I hurry up, watch it, and return it to Netflix and change my queue, maybe I can get a DVD I’d really like to keep...? I mean... that is what they’re saying, right?

There’s actually a serious consideration here. Besides the doomsday prepper aspect of what if the internet goes down and streaming disappears there’s a certain negative outcome that can be counted on to happen in these situations.

Every time technology changes and a new delivery mode of entertainment takes over, some art gets lost. When cassette tapes replaced vinyl records, not all of the music that was on records got transferred to the new technology. The same when CDs replaced cassettes, and when MP3s replaced CDs.

An example: through the years I’ve rented Kadokawa Mystery & Horror Tales, a series of Japanese short horror tales, from Netflix DVD. Each disc featured several creepy short videos that I would watch with English subs. I’m not saying they were Oscar contenders but I will miss them. Where else will I be able to watch something like this?

It’s not Netflix’s fault. They can close down their business if they want. But the loss of their huge DVD inventory, which included the foreign and the obscure, the indie and the exploitation movies - all the not-so-popular or weird things to watch - will make it more difficult to discover something unusual, or even just something that isn’t American.

Not everything is on streaming. It may feel like it sometimes if you go through Netflix’s or Hulu’s or Amazon Prime Video’s seemingly endless film and video offerings, but everyone who is my age remembers that small indie or foreign film from the 1960s or 70s that you can’t find to watch anywhere now. Maybe it was available on VHS but not on DVD, so it’s certainly never going to be available on a streaming platform. Essentially, it’s gone.

So Netflix DVD closing down isn’t just Netflix closing down its DVD division - it’s a loss of access to certain films and TV series and a narrowing of choice. I really do hope that they don’t simply trash those discs, because even creepy obscure Japanese horror stories have their place.

The Winter 2023 Season Ends With a Bang

The winter 2023 anime season is winding down, and the shows I was watching all ended on very intense notes.

Attack on Titan slipped in almost unannounced with the first half of its final final final we really mean it this time cour. The series will conclude with two one-hour episodes, the first of which aired this month.

And it was a marvelous, beautifully-crafted episode, perfectly balanced between action scenes and relationship moments. It may be taking literal years to finish this anime series, but if the concluding episode is as great as this one it’ll be worth the wait.

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is usually categorized as a shonen manga and anime. But I think the most applicable category for the series is horror.

When the story begins, we’re introduced to the Eldians who live in three walled cities and their adjacent farmlands. The civilization is medieval with most people either farming or working simple trades.

Outside the walls lurks incredible danger. The Titans are gigantic monsters that nearly wiped out humanity, and only the walls can keep them out. They resemble huge skinless human beings but with strangely floppy limbs and terrifyingly blank facial expressions. They eat humans.

The hero of the story is Eren Jaeger. His mother was eaten by a Titan and then his father, a doctor named Grisha Jaeger, disappeared. Along with his friends Mikasa and Armin, Eren joins the Survey Corps, a military unit that uses rappelling and jet pack-like propulsion equipment on their missions to survey the Titan population outside the walls.

The story is complex, involving politics and secret missions and betrayals within the unit and in the greater society at large. There are many twists and turns. Each turn of the story leads the viewer to ever darker truths.

The scenes where humans are eaten are shown in graphic detail. The horror is visceral and seizes your guts as you watch. Attack on Titan’s creator Hajime Isayama doesn’t mask the characters’ terror in any way; nor does he pull a “fade to black” before they’re eaten. You see it all.

As if that wasn’t enough, we see other gruesome and violent scenes including a child being torn to pieces by a pack of dogs (simply because she’s an Eldian), torture, maiming. The civilization is primitive and human suspicion of “the other” is on full display.

The characters go through a lot and by the end of the story - where we are now - they are spent and bitter. The layers of betrayal and all the awful revelations about who the Titans really are have worn them down. And in doing what they believed to be right, they’ve become killers and worse.

This first of two “special episodes” that will conclude the series includes a quiet scene in which the corps - friends who became enemies who now come together one last time for the final battle - discuss their plans to stop one of their own from destroying civilization.

In the course of the discussion all of their regrets come out. Apologies are made and accepted. They’re aware that it’s unlikely that all of them - or perhaps any of them - will survive the coming fight.

The weight of the past is heavy.

In this episode, one of the main characters sacrifices herself to buy time for the corps to escape the Titans and reach the battlefield.

There is one hour remaining in the Attack on Titan anime series. The second special episode is set to air sometime this fall.

Some surprising news about Boruto - it’s going on a long hiatus.

Boruto’s last two episodes were very intense. Although everyone narrowly survived an encounter with the villains Code and Momoshiki, the series’ first part ended before the much-anticipated timeskip.

The anime has caught up with the manga (more or less... apparently they could have animated a few more scenes from the manga and not stopped where they did, but whatever), so they’re now calling the first 293 episodes “Part 1” of the series. No announcement as to when Part 2 will begin airing.

So my mainstay anime is gone for now. I’ll be honest - there’ve been times when Boruto bored me. It was in fillers the entire year of 2022 and generally the storylines haven’t been as compelling as they were in the parent series Naruto.

But they are definitely leaving it on a high note, having set up the future conflict between Boruto and his adopted brother Kawaki. So I’ll look forward to it whenever it returns.

Finally, My Hero Academia’s sixth season came to a close with Saturday’s episode. This arc was called the “depression arc” by the manga fans and now I see why. After a massive failure by the heroes to defeat or even contain Shigaraki and his legion of villains, the public turned against the heroes.

It was a depressing arc, but public opinion began to turn back in the heroes’ favor by the end. The series returns for its seventh season in October.

Bleach returns in July with the second part of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. Until then, there’s not much that’s new that I want to watch. I’ve gone through Crunchyroll’s Spring 2023 guide and didn’t see anything that stood out.

So I’m going to finish the other series on my watchlist (Spy x Family, Heaven Official’s Blessing, Bureau of Paranormal Investigation) and then maybe watch some old favorites and then... we’ll see. There are a number of classic anime series I haven’t watched yet. Maybe it’s time to add them to the list. ;-)

2022 Anime Year in Review

For me as an anime fan, the year of 2022 had its ups and downs, with the year ending on a decided upswing.

As well as Attack on Titan (more on that below), the year began with - as always - eternally... Boruto.

I’ve complained about Boruto before... that it hasn’t developed Konoha’s new generation as deeply as the original characters, and the plot arcs aren’t as compelling, and there’s a lot of filler episodes to boot. The filler aspect can’t be helped, as the manga is being created at its own speed and there’s nothing else to be done until the manga gets ahead enough in the story.

Boruto has been in filler episodes for the entire year of 2022. Most of the year we were in a filler arc that actually began at the end of 2021, believe it or not. Briefly, this arc had Team 7 on a mission in the Land of Water that involved a prison break on an island, pirates, a clan war, etc.

So many deaths took place in this arc that it became a downer to watch on top of being filler to begin with. The final episode was a surprise though, as Boruto offered to sacrifice himself in order to stop an ongoing bloody war between factions on the island. His rationale was that both sides - including the one he’d been on - bore responsibility for the conflict and that if his sacrifice would bring an end to the bloodshed, he was willing to do it.

It was a tense and thrilling episode, one of the best I’ve seen in the series. One thing that filler arcs can do is to deepen the characters if you put them in potentially life-threatening situations, and that’s what happened at the end of this too-long filler arc. I’m not sure I can say that it was worth it, but it did bring the character of Boruto further along and showed us his new maturity and leadership.

According to manga readers, when Boruto comes out of fillers we’re in for a treat. At some point thereafter the series will time-skip ahead and the new generation will then be teenagers.

This is exactly what the parent series did when it went from being Naruto to Naruto Shippuuden. Naruto went on a three-year training journey with his master Jiraiya and returned to the village at age 16, and the series’ most satifying storylines came after the timeskip.

If Boruto follows that same formula for success then I’m all for it.

As to movies, the only one I saw in the theaters was Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. It was a fun diversion and a decent addition to the Dragon Ball universe. It was especially nice to see Piccolo and Gohan featured as the main characters as they didn’t get a lot of chances to shine in the DBS series.

I also streamed a couple of My Hero Academia movies. I tend to forget about movies based on anime series, and in fact, there have been three MHA movies released so far.

In autumn two of my favorite series came back: Bleach and My Hero Academia.

Both series returned with really intense arcs. Bleach is covering the final arc of the manga, which includes Ichigo’s true origin story... which makes it even more amazing that it’s taken ten years for the arc to be animated considering its importance to the overall Bleach story.

My Hero Academia is currently in the middle of an enormous battle arc involving all of the superheroes, the students, and a near-unbeatable villain, Tomura Shigaraki, plus Shigaraki’s entire army of bad guys. A city has been destroyed and several heroes have died and the arc doesn’t even appear to be close to its conclusion yet.

This fall I also started watching Heaven Official’s Blessing, an example of Chinese danmei or boy’s love. I haven’t finished the first season yet even though I only have a few episodes left. I think it’s because I know there’s a second season coming and my binge instinct has kicked in. I’d love to roll from S1 right into S2, but that’s probably unrealistic since there’s still no date set for the start of the second season (though a trailer for S2 has been released).

Recently I added Spy x Family to my currently watching list. I’m intrigued by this non-shonen series that appears to be wildly popular. Well, that and the male lead is quite the biseinen, isn’t he? It’s been fun so far.

As to the industry year in review... quite a bit happened.

In-person conventions returned, including Anime Expo and the San Diego Comic Con, two of the largest. Funimation’s anime catalog began to be transitioned into Crunchyroll, a process that is still ongoing.

Kadokawa bought a majority stake in Anime News Network. And speaking of buyouts - Right Stuf was bought out by Crunchyroll. Shawne Kleckner headed Right Stuf for over 30 years and this one surprised me. I know the pandemic was hard on merchants but Right Stuf was one of those vendors that always felt solid to me. They even had their own in-house production company, Nozomi Entertainment. I’m sorry to see them get swallowed up.

The biggest industry news by far was Disney’s acquisition of Bleach. Since then they’ve also acquired the second season of Tokyo Revengers, but so far, nothing bigger than that. It could be that they’re waiting to see how Bleach does before making any greater inroads into the animesphere.

With all these ups and downs, this year is ending on a high note for me as an anime fan. I’m watching a lot of anime each week, just like the old days.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Attack on Titan.

You might recall that around this time last year they announced that the “final cour” of Attack on Titan would stream beginning in January 2022.

Well, it did. Half of it. The final cour was split in two, with the last episodes set to air in January of 2023.

Like everyone else, this past winter I watched the episodes expecting to see the end of Attack on Titan. Instead, rumors began to leak that the second half would be delayed, which was confirmed at the end of the last episode that aired in April.

Other series have had very lengthy delays between seasons: Haikyuu comes to mind and there are others. Attack on Titan though is a premier title and this delay really surprised me. It’s a series that has a huge international audience and the expectation was really high that the series would be concluded this year.

I say that, and yet... here we are at the end of 2022 with Attack on Titan set to stream its final - let’s hope - episodes starting next month. Because next month it’s January again, already.

Another year in the animesphere has passed and it was a good one. Next year looks good as well, so let’s get ready for it. :-)

The Fall 2022 Anime Season – What I’m Watching

It’s been a fun fall season of anime for me, what with the return of Bleach and My Hero Academia, and also with Heaven Official’s Blessing as my first experience with Chinese boy’s love stories.

But first... an update on the Bleach/Disney+/Hulu situation.

I successfully updated my Disney+ subscription to include Hulu (and ESPN, though who cares) in time to begin watching Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War, but it was a bit of a mess, starting with the subscription page itself.

How to add Hulu to an existing Disney+ subscription looked easy at first. I clicked on a button to “Add Hulu,” which took me to another page where things began to get difficult. After reading the instructions a few times, I hit a button that I thought would subscribe me but which instead took me to yet another page.

I eventually had to give in and do live chat. The operator suggested that I go to the Hulu site itself (not Disney+), so I did that.

I began to suspect that signing up at the Hulu site might confuse matters with my already-existing Disney+ subscription, so after looking at the Hulu site, I returned to Disney+ and tried to pull the trigger on a promising-looking “Add Hulu for $6.99” link.

However, just as I was about to get the Disney+ bundle (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN), I noted the fine print: at this price you would get Hulu with ads. The price was $13.99 and an annual subscription - which presumably would be discounted - didn’t appear to be available.

... Which left me with my only real choice – the Disney+ bundle including Hulu with no ads at $19.99/month, with no option for an annual subscription at a discounted rate. The fine print continued on, stating that if I had an annual Disney+ subscription that this monthly amount would be pro-rated against what I’d already paid for the month.

After I upgraded, to my surprise, I immediately received a Disney+ email documenting not only my new upgraded subscription but also the fact that the monthly charge had been pro-rated, complete with the calculation and total amount they’d just charged me right there in the email.

My annual subscription to Disney+ expires on the twentieth of this month. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens. Complicating all of this further is the fact that Disney+ is about to introduce an ad-sponsored tier. This should mean that they will receive a lot of advertising revenue - eventually. But they could definitely raise prices for subscriptions in the meantime, because the ad business will take a while to ramp up and show fruit. In other words, the situation remains in flux and no one really knows what the subscription tiers will look like in the near future.

On to the fall 2022 anime season, starting with Bleach.

To say the Thousand-Year Blood War arc is dark would be an understatement. There’s been a huge number of shinigami deaths already and just today, in episode 4, carnage in Soul Society itself.

After Soul Society massacred the Quincys hundreds of years ago, the Quincys are back to return the favor. They have developed the ability to steal bankai from everyone: everyone except for Ichigo, that is. Ichigo is now on his way to rescue Soul Society but much damage has already been done. Four Gotei 13 captains have already had their bankai stolen: Soi Fon, Komamura, Hitsugaya, and even Byakuya Kuchiki.

Aside from touches of humor with Ichigo and little Nel, this arc has been completely grim. It makes sense given the subject material, but still. Ichigo and his friends are now 17 year-olds, but there’s no hint of school-type humor or lightness here.

The action scenes are great. I have a feeling that fights and battle scenes will be the highlight of this arc. There’s also the general intrigue between the shinigami and the Quincys that I’m looking forward to learning more about.

Also very enjoyable this fall season is My Hero Academia, now in its sixth season.

The student heroes, along with the licensed heroes led by Endeavor, battle Shigaraki’s Paranormal Liberation Front at their mountain villa headquarters and at Jaku City Hospital, where Dr. Garaki is tending to Shigaraki’s healing.

Shigaraki awakens and unleashes his Decay quirk, causing the near-destruction of Jaku City. And we’re only on episode 5. The sixth season of My Hero Academia is looking like a real barn-burner and every bit worth the wait.

Finally, a few words about Heaven Official’s Blessing.

The story is about Xie Lian, a prince who ascends to god status. Despite his best efforts, his human kingdom fails and he begins a kind of shuttling back and forth between the heavenly realm, where he is ridiculed for failing, and the mortal realm, where his once-followers have abandoned him.

Despite this, Xie Lian is a good-natured soul who cares about human beings, and he continues to do his best on each mission that heaven gives him. While journeying on earth he keeps coming across a mysterious figure, a handsome man who appears to him in the beginning as a ghost.

Later, this same man appears as a wanderer riding in the same hay cart as Xie Lian. Robed in red, he seems friendly and unassuming, but is observed to have supernatural powers. Xie Lian learns that this being is Hua Cheng, an ancient and powerful ghost king.

So far, Heaven Official’s Blessing has been a pleasant diversion and an interesting introduction to Chinese animation. The animation style resembles Japanese anime, particularly in the character designs. I’ve especially enjoyed the background art of mountainous terrains, small villages, and Chinese dress both opulent and simple.

There’s been little to no hint of physical attraction between the two men as of yet. It may simply be that it’s a slow-burning relationship story, or perhaps what I’ve heard about Chinese stories is true; that they are more conservative in terms of showing sexual content. I would also guess that “boy’s love” or yaoi as such is not viewed as favorably in China as it is in Japan, so maybe the creators need to be more cautious.

I actually have the first light novel so I could check the story myself, but I would prefer to just keep watching the anime (can I call it ‘anime’ if it comes from China?). Like the fall anime season itself, Heaven Official’s Blessing has been a return to the kind of entertainment and storytelling I like best. I don’t mind if it takes a while to get to where it’s going. ;-)

The Return of Bleach – and My Hero Academia!

It’s been ten years since the Bleach anime ended without animating The Thousand-Year Blood War arc, the final arc of the manga.

I never read the manga, so my assumption was that after the Aizen arc there was a little denouement type of “Ichigo and his friends finished high school and everyone lived happily ever after” ending to the series. I didn’t realize that there was literally a whole other storyline before the manga ended, something substantial enough that it was a complete story arc.

And now... it’s here.

Trailer: THE THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR



This arc looks fantastic. I don’t want to read too many spoilers, so I’m just going on what I’ve seen from the Viz trailers, but... seriously. It begins airing on October 10 and I can’t wait.

Back in the day, Bleach was my No. 2 favorite shonen anime after Naruto. I was addicted to both shows and when Crunchyroll finally licensed them for the U.S. audience, I was simply thrilled.

Before then, watching your favorite anime was catch-as-catch-can since most shows were unlicensed. It took searching all over You Tube and weird websites that have since disappeared. I never did the tor sites, but I did utilize the weird sites when I couldn’t find episodes on You Tube.

For example, there was a site where I watched Naruto episodes that had the URL of “watchnarutoepisodesonline[dot]com.” I sincerely hope it doesn’t exist anymore... seriously, you can go to Crunchyroll now and watch Naruto legally, even for free with ads. But that was how desperate I was sometimes to watch the next episode.

Naruto edges out Bleach in my view because it presents a complete fantasy universe: the ninja world with its different lands and villages and clans. You can get lost in that world because it’s presented as an all-enveloping universe.

Whereas with Bleach, Ichigo has one foot in the mundane real world as a high school student and his other foot in Soul Society. Bleach is also set in modern times. Ichigo’s going back and forth between the two worlds is fun, but it takes away from a feeling of complete immersion in a different universe.

But I loved both Bleach and Naruto - and still do. This final Bleach arc is a meaty one: they’ve announced that it will be four cours with breaks in between each cour. Since a cour is usually 12 episodes, this means that Bleach will be airing for at least one solid year.

So it’s far from being a little wrap-up arc like I’d thought. It’s going to be a real blast from the past. Watching the Viz trailers for this final arc has brought back those heady early days of my anime fandom and I am completely stoked for this.

Another fun aspect of this final Bleach arc is that the Quincys are major players!

Uryu Ishida has always been one of my favorite Bleach characters. He started off as a rival to Ichigo, but eventually just became one of Ichigo’s crew.

I’ve always thought that Uryu was underutilized. Maybe he’s featured more prominently in the manga than the anime - I don’t know. But as a Quincy who - along with his father - was the last of his kind, he always seemed set up to seriously challenge Ichigo and the Shinigamis.

It’s hard because I don’t want to spoil it for myself, so I can’t read up on what this final arc is about, but the trailers hint at the Quincys finally rising up in some way. Meaning Uryu versus Ichigo might become a reality at last...

... and in addition, Uryu’s hot silver fox father Ryuuken Ishida will return for what looks to be a substantial appearance in the story.

And if the great news about Bleach wasn’t enough, guess what’s coming back on October 1st:

It’s Season 6 of My Hero Academia! After marathoning the first five seasons on Crunchyroll earlier this year, I found myself in the same bereft state as everyone who’d watched the series as it aired. Season 5 ended in November 2021, so it’s been a while. But this coming Saturday the wait is over!

It’s like my anime dance card is full again. Autumn really is the best season for anime. ;-)

Anime Hidden Gems – Three That You Probably Missed

Japan produces a lot of anime each year, and only a fraction of it gets licensed for streaming in the U.S.

It’s easy to miss some good ones despite the fact that the number of series released in America per season is fairly manageable. Throw in one’s own preferences for certain types of stories and genres and a kind of tunnel vision sets in. We don’t even notice the series that are outside our comfort zone.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of not enough time. The descriptions of this or that anime don’t appeal, so you don’t give them a chance.

It’s understandable. Also, the anime seasons come and go so quickly, don’t they? It’s summer now but soon enough it will be fall, which will morph into winter, and then it’s spring again.

So here are three anime series that you probably missed when they were first released. None of them are flashy action stories or made a huge splash when they debuted, though I think all received good reviews, especially the one I’ve placed at No. 1.

In any event, I can wholeheartedly recommend all of them. At the very least, they’re something to watch while we wait for the return of My Hero Academia and the concluding arc of Bleach to air this fall. ;-)

3. Blast of Tempest (Zetsuen no Tempest)

Put a shonen story together with a looming apocalypse, supernatural powers, and a fantastic murder mystery - and you have Blast of Tempest.

Hazake Kusaribe, a powerful female mage, gets stranded on a desert island by her traitorous lieutenant Samon. She puts a wooden doll - a magical communication device - in a bottle and sends it over the waves. The bottle reaches Mahiro Fuwa. Mahiro is a rich kid whose parents and adopted sister Aika were murdered the year before. He agrees to help Hazake escape the island in exchange for the mage’s help in solving the mystery of who killed his family.

Mahiro teams up with his best friend Yoshino Takigawa to aid Hazake in her fight against the members of the Kusaribe clan who betrayed her. Compared with Mahiro and his rough attitude, Yoshino is the good kid and nice guy of the pair. He does, however, keep one secret from Mahiro - the fact that he and Aika were dating behind Mahiro’s back.

Huge eyes appear in the sky above Japan and start turning people into metal. This event is connected to the Tree of Exodus, which Samon is working to resurrect. Hazake says that they must stop this from happening in order to save civilization.

Hakaze’s Kusaribe clan - Samon’s original clan - is supported by the Tree of Genesis, which opposes the Tree of Exodus’s awakening. As Mahiro and Yoshino get swept up in the conflict, they must decide which side is the right side for the fate of the world.

Some elements of the story hark back to Shakespeare’s Tempest, hence the name. Blast of Tempest is a quality production with beautiful, fluid animation and a memorable music score.

But what really makes Blast of Tempest stand out for me is the mystery surrounding Aika. Aika (in flashbacks) and everyone’s memories of her haunt the story from the very beginning, creating an underlying tension that increases with each episode. The question of what happened to her informs Mahiro and Yoshino’s every action, all the way to the final episode when the answer is revealed. The mystery gives Blast of Tempest that extra edge that makes it truly memorable.

And now... I need to say a few things before I talk about the next anime.

There’s a missing genre when it comes to anime released in the U.S. Think about it. We have shonen, shojo, action, fantasy, historical, isekai, and quite a few other genres.

So what’s missing? It’s a genre called josei.

Josei is stories for adult women, usually with a woman as the main character. It’s often romance, though not always. It’s not shojo for girls, or magical girl stories such as Sailor Moon or Madoka Magica. I would define it as stories for women with a woman main character who has agency and the ability to determine her own destiny.

There are so few josei anime that make it to the U.S. that it’s hard to think of one off the top of one’s head. There’s Nana, and possibly Fruits Basket would fit in this category. There’s also an older josei anime called Diamond Daydreams that I can recommend.

I’m going to guess that there’s a lot of josei manga in Japan, but that most of it never gets translated into English or made into anime. It’s basic sexism... the belief that stories about women just aren’t as exciting as stories featuring men (a belief hardly unique to Japan - Hollywood has it too).

And - too often - even josei focuses on romance stories. Nothing wrong with romance, but as the automatic default genre for ‘a woman’s story’ it gets a little tiresome.

My point is this. I would love to see more josei stories from Japan. We’re in the 21st century now and past the point where we should be required to justify why stories about women are worthwhile.

2. Hanasakeru Seishonen

Oil magnate Harry Burnsworth proposes an odd challenge for his teenage daughter Kajika. She is to choose her future husband from among three candidates. The catch is - he won't tell her who they are. Her job is to find that out for herself.

I know... romance again. But Hanasakeru Seishonen only uses this marriage game as a starting point. The story actually turns into a political thriller, at the heart of which is Kajika and the choices that she makes.

The three men Harry referred to are: Eugene, an heir to one of Burnsworth Oil's subsidiaries; Prince Rumaty, the grandson of King Machaty of the fictional oil kingdom Raginei; and Carl Rosenthal, the son of the oil magnate whom Harry Burnsworth beat out for control of Raginei's oil export market.

As Kajika becomes involved in the three men’s lives, she begins to discover secret information that links her family to the Raginei kingdom.

Kajika is a strong female lead. She makes her own decisions and doesn’t look to others to rescue her. She’s also genuinely likable and someone you can root for.

Despite its reverse harem look, Hanasakeru Seishonen has more to offer than just that. All of the important characters are interesting and given character arcs of their own, and the international political intrigue angle really spices up the story. It’s also a nicely multicultural mix of East Asian/Southeast Asian/white characters, all of whom are equals playing on the same level in a non-forced way.

I really recommend Hanasakeru Seishonen, especially if you’ve never seen a josei anime before. Maybe - like me - you’ll wonder why we don’t see more anime like this in the U.S.

1. The Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku)

The Eccentric Family is a charming story about humans, tanuki, and tengu in contemporary Kyoto.

The main character is Yasaburo Shimogamo, who appears to be a teenage boy, but who is actually a tanuki.

Actually, his entire family are tanukis. Tanukis are raccoons, technically raccoon dogs, and in Japanese folklore they are considered to be tricksters and shapeshifters.

The Shimogamo family is the eccentric family of the series’ title. The mother of the family dresses in prince drag, while the eldest son Yachiro bosses Yasaburo (the third son) and little Yashiro (the fourth son) around. The second son Yajiro currently lives as a frog at the bottom of a dry well. (In other words, he’s a tanuki pretending to be human who is now pretending to be a frog.)

Yasaburo looks after Professor Akadama, a gruff elderly tengu who - like the Shimogamos - masquerades in human form. (Tengus, in Japanese legends, are supernatural birds of prey, like flying yokai.)

Benten, a beautiful human woman, is an ambiguous figure who may be a friend or a foe. Prof. Akadama taught her how to fly like a tengu when she was young. Yasaburo is wary around her as she is rumored to have had something to do with his family’s great tragedy.

The tragedy is that the father of the family was cooked in a hotpot years ago by the Friday Fellows, a social group that celebrates the year-end by eating tanuki hotpot.

The Eccentric Family is a slice-of-life fantasy show told with wry humor, and it has some genuine laugh-out-loud moments that catch you unawares. The writing has that quality I really appreciate where all the characters take responsibility for themselves and their actions and the unique makeup of each person - their personal history, character, and conscience - is given its due.

The first season is full of quirky and gentle humor, but underneath the fun you can feel that the father’s death has cast a long shadow over things.

Particularly as to Yajiro, the brother who lives in the well. We get the feeling that he’s running from something; that he feels guilt. Though he’s pleased when his brothers visit and bring him fried chicken, there must be a reason why he stays in frog form and isolates from the family.

(Yajiro is clearly stretching the limits of shapeshifting here, as he is a tanuki pretending to be human pretending to be a frog who is eating a piece of chicken.)

The mystery of who was really responsible for the father’s death is revealed at the end of the second season of The Eccentric Family, bringing closure for the family at last.

The Eccentric Family is just a delight on so many levels. It’s a comedy, a paranormal fantasy, and a tribute to accepting the weirdness in people. The Shimogamo family is strong together because of their tolerance of everybody’s quirks and strangeness. The inescapable conclusion is that eccentric families make the best families. If you watch The Eccentric Family, you may find yourself agreeing with this conclusion as well. :-)