It’s a good start to 2025 with a solid winter anime season! Not only are some excellent series continuing on from fall 2024, but there are some choice new titles arriving soon.
But first... a wrap-up of the fall season.
Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War arc concluded with a bang-up episode. This was the third cour of four and it featured some of the best fight scenes in the series, including one with creepy Mayuri and an electrifying (pun intended) Yoruichi scene right at the end. And in case anyone actually thought a certain character had betrayed Ichigo and crew (... as if!), the final episode put that idea to rest.
The fourth and final cour of the Thousand Year Blood War arc, “The Calamity,” doesn’t have an air date set as of yet.
Blue Exorcist finished its Beyond the Snow Saga arc and last Saturday launched right into the new Blue Night Saga arc. Finally, the story is delving into Rin and Yukio’s parentage, a subject that has been a mystery up to now.
I’ll admit that I don’t normally find Blue Exorcist deep or hugely absorbing, but this arc will likely be an exception to that. The brothers’ relationship is the story’s most compelling element and what happened in their family’s past will explain a lot about their dynamics.
Alas, The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup Semi-Finals ended and the next season doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. PoT is an old favorite and I hope the next season won’t be too far off in the future.
I am slow-watching the Shinsengumi anime Blue Miburo, and I just finished Yakuza Fiance, which I wound up liking more than I expected. The characters are all violent and weren’t easy to relate to at first, but the main couple is engaging and there’s even a bit of love triangle energy between the girl, Yoshino, her yakuza clan’s big-brother type Shoma, and Kirishima, the semi-psychotic teenager from a different clan whom Yoshino is engaged to. There’s clearly more to the story than what was covered in 12 episodes, so there should be a second season coming along at some point.
And Dragon Ball Daima is continuing into the winter season! It’s wonderful to have a fresh Dragon Ball episode each week.
Which brings us to the new anime season.
Anime stories with tons of cute girls isn’t usually my thing, but I’m making an exception for Momentary Lily.
The reason is the animation studio. GoHands made K (aka K Project), one of my all-time favorite series, and on that basis alone I’m happy to at least give it a try. K featured a beautiful use of color in its production art, as well as some of the best male character designs I’ve ever seen in anime.
But the winter anime I’m looking forward to the most is...
Unnamed Memory was my favorite series of spring 2024. A romance story between a crown prince and a powerful witch set in a fantasy world, it featured solid romance, gorgeous character designs, interesting side characters, basically everything I enjoy in a story.
The anime’s first season reached its climax in episode 11, which should have been the happy ending, and it would have been if not for the episode that came after. I don’t want to spoil anything, but as a reminder magic is an element in the story and let’s just say that certain complications arose in episode 12 that necessitated at least a second season to put everything back the way it needs to be.
And finally, there’s a movie being released at the end of this month that I hope Crunchyroll or somebody has the good sense to license.
The original Rose of Versailles series has been on my to-watch list for about twenty years, or as long as I’ve been an anime fan. It’s a classic and I put it on my list because everyone said it was good, but I never knew until recently what made it different from any other shoujo/romance story.
The story description from Udon Entertainment for the manga:
“Oscar François de Jarjeyes is a young noblewoman raised as a son by her father. As commander of Marie Antoinette's palace guard, Oscar is brought face-to-face with the luxury of King Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. Joined by her servant André, Oscar is privy to the intrigue and deceit of France's last great royal regime.”
Yeah. Oscar is a woman masquerading as a man. It’s not just the gender-switch aspect that attracts me but also the seiyuu casting.
Oscar is being played by Miyuki Sawashiro, the sexiest female voice in Japan (as voted by the fans), and Marie Antoinette is played by Aya Hirano, one of my favorite seiyuu. She was Haruhi Suzumiya in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kaoru in Zettai Karen Children and its fantastic spinoff series The Unlimited, and Misa Amane in Death Note, among many other roles.
I’ve always admired Hirano’s talent and drive. She studied voice acting in New York and had her own rock band for a time. In recent years she has decentered voice acting, but hopefully Rose of Versailles will put her seiyuu career back on the map.
There are other new and newish anime series that are maybes to add to my currently watching list, but we’ll see how much time I have for them. I’ve got plenty to watch as it is. ;-)
