Welcome to my Spring 2020 anticipation post! Some choices are easy, sequels, continuations, adaptations of material I’m familiar with… The rest, working from ad blurbs and PVs on YouTube… Sometimes it’s like reading tea leaves. Through the wrong end of a telescope.
Anyhow, hit the jump and let’s take a look at the upcoming season!
As is my usual habit here at the Lounge, these aren’t necessarily in any particular order. It’s pretty easy to sort by broad bands, but kinda pointless to sort in details.
The shows that I am anticipating are in bold, shows my wife and I are anticipating together are in bold italics.
That being said… Let’s dive in!
Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld Part 2
Not going to lie, because anyone who knows me knows this – I’m mainly anticipating this for one reason only… A chance to see Asuna in action. We’ve endured 36 episodes, and it has not been SAO’s best outing ever.
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU 3rd Season
Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Kan
The first series has been sitting in my Crunchyroll queue basically forever… When the 3rd season was announced, there were a lot of people over the moon. The other week my wife and I finally sat down and started watching and we’ve been quite enjoying it. That puts SNAFU firmly on the anticipation list.
Fruits Basket: 2nd Season
Loved, the first season… the second has been on my anticipated list since closing credits rolled on the last episode.
Appare-Ranman!
Though my memories of it are dim (hey, the late 60’s/early 70’s was a long time ago), I remember looking forward to Wacky Racers on Saturday mornings.
The story is set at the end of the 19th century and on the eve of the next one. After a certain mishap, the brilliant but socially inept engineer Sorano Appare and the shrewd but cowardly samurai Isshiki Kosame find themselves drifting on a boat from Japan to America. Broke, the two decide to compete in the Trans-America Wild Race to win the prize and return to Japan. The two battle crazy rivals, outlaws, and the great outdoors itself as they race through the wild West from the starting line in Los Angeles to the finish line in New York — in the steam-powered car they built.
So, when I read about the basic plot of Appare-Ranman!, I was hit pretty hard with nostalgia for those days so long ago. It’s tagged historical, but the PV shows steampunk(ish)… so who knows? It’s also a P.A. Works original, which can be hit or miss, but are always worth checking out.
I think much will depend on the personalities and interactions between the odd couple leads.
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As I’m scrolling through the season chart… No idol shows this season. It’s been a long dry spell for idol shows.
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Tamayomi
Girls and baseball… Seems right up my alley. But is it just me, or do those character designs seem a bit oddly… dated?
Houkago Teibou Nisshi
Diary of our Days at the Breakwater
The story centers on Hina and her group of three other female high school students. Hina is an indoor-oriented girl who likes crafts and moves to a seaside town to continue with her high school education. She meets upperclassman Kuroiwa as she walks along an embankment and joins the mysterious “Embankment Club.” Hina dislikes sea creatures, but she fishes with her fellow club members and eats their catches. She gradually starts to appreciate the appeal of the ocean.
CGDCT, SOL, School Club, childhood friends, and it seems a bit of fish-out-of-water… I dunno, could they have a made an anime that’s more likely to attract my attention? They probably could, but until they do I’m looking forward to Breakwater Diary.
Note: When I mentioned this show to my wife and rattled off the list of genres… She commented “well, all they seem to have missed is idols”…
Yesterday wo Utatte
Sing “Yesterday” for Me
Rikuo has graduated from college, but has zero ambition or direction and works in a convenience store. A strange high-school dropout, Haru, keeps coming around with her pet crow. Rikuo still has a crush on his senior Shinako, who is beginning a teaching career, and who shows up in the store one day. Rikuo’s relationships with the girls, and his feelings about his life, keep changing as the story evolves, bringing in other important characters—Rikuo’s co-worker, the coworker’s sister, and a childhood friend of Shinako’s, etc.
If you were to ask me what attracts me to this show… I couldn’t answer you. Somehow, the PV just speaks to me. Maybe I should add “coming-of-age” or “strange relationships” to my list of preferred genres/story types? Maybe.
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Well, I could rattle on for half a dozen more shows, but what’s left is in the “sure why not” category… And I usually check out most everything that gets a legal stream anyhow, so let’s save something for the first impression posts shall we?
Anyhow, check out the season chart and then drop a comment and let me know what you’re anticipating!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
I haven’t even looked yet! It’s that late already?
I’ll be watching lots of sequels, it seems. Yesterday wo Utatte looks pretty good, too. And Appare Ranman looks fun – PA Works doesn’t always deliver, but when it does you can’t afford to miss it. Breakwater could be good, the character designs are okay, the CGI octopus isn’t, and the music is cute; we’ll see.
Of the shows you didn’t mention my stand-out is Kakushigoto – I’ve so far liked every anime made after a source by Kumeta (Zetsubou Sensei; Joshiraku). And the production looks good.
I’m also sort of curious about Otome-game. Back when this was announced people were praising the source material.
Really, it seems almost half of what I’m watching next season (if not more) is a sequel of some kind.
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That’s not always bad… Two out of three look pretty solid from here.
For both Kakushigoto and Otome Game, much is going to depend on characters and execution… Both comedies and isekai have so many ways to go wrong or just miss, I often hesitate to anticipate unless there’s something in particular attracting me to them. But they are both on my “will definitely check out” list because they do have possibilities. If that makes sense..
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Lots of sequels doesn’t make for a bad season, but it does make for a rather unexciting season start, since one of my main pleasures comes from sampling new stuff.
If Kakushigoto is anything like Kumeta’s other shows, he’ll have over-the-top and one-note characters, cleverly designed around whatever concept he’s using to provide fairly sharp satire (and some of it, if not a lot of it, will go over our heads, because we’re not Japanese and don’t catch the reference). The PV looks a little more story-like than I usually expect, so I’m not sure. Ignoring sequels, it’s the show I have the highest hopes for.
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I’m super excited for the second season of Fruits Basket! From here on out the series will be covering content from the manga that wasn’t part of the original anime and I can’t wait to see what the new show will do with it.
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I’ve never seen the original (was just about to start when the new one was announced), so I don’t have a basis for comparison. But the new series, and what I’ve heard from my wife who has read the manga, I’m certainly looking forward to it!
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This is one of the best seasonal rosters I’ve seen for myself in quite a while. I definitely want to keep going with Fruits Basket and Oregairu, and I didn’t know about that Breakwater one but that looks good too. Not sure about Tamayomi…it’s a Manga Time Kirara series and that’s usually good stuff, plus girls sports is usually my thing, but I don’t know. There’s something about it that’s just not getting me as excited as I should be.
For shows you didn’t mention, naturally I’ll be watching season 2 of Kaguya-sama. I was interested in Listeners, but it looks like Funimation’s getting that one, and I haven’t decided about Shin Sakura Taisen yet. I do want to see SST since I’m a longtime fan of the franchise and this is its first new installment in over a decade, but the new video game it’s adapting won’t even be out in the US until the end of April, so I might just wait until after I’ve played the game first.
It’s kinda too bad the season isn’t starting right now, actually. I’m on paid leave for the next two weeks with my workplace shut down for Coronavirus, so I suddenly have a lot of unexpected free time on my hands and the only shows I’m watching from the current season are Eizouken and FGO/Babylonia. Would be the perfect time to get a jump on the new offerings. Oh well….
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Looks like a fun line up! We keep talking about dropping Funi, but they keep picking up one or two shows we want to be watching.
The PV does seem a bit off, and the description is kinda generic…. So I get it. It’s on my list mostly because the “girl sports” and “baseball” angles are reeling me in. Also because the interest curve is skewed this season, tons of stuff on my “to check out” radar, just below the “anticipated” cut-off.
Surely you have a backlog?
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Of course. There’s no shortage of stuff I can watch, but being able to keep up with the seasonal stuff would mean I can chat about them online, and you’ll notice I haven’t done a whole lot of that lately because I’m perpetually behind on everything.
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I’ve been going through the list for next season since it’s almost time for me to compile and post my lists and there isn’t a lot that really stands out in terms of new content. I’m looking forward to SAO as well but also Sing “Yesterday” for me. I would also add Gleipnir to the list. It looks like it’ll be quite something.
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As I’ve said a couple of times in the replies… Yeah, tons of stuff to look forward to if not quite anticipate. But most seasons, there’s usually at least one unexpected breakout. That’s kinda the fun part, when something you’re just checking out turns out to be all kinds of awesome.
Sing Yesterday… If only I could articulate what’s attracting me. Or maybe it’s better than I can’t and thus don’t overload it with expectations.
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Yeah, I’m hoping something will surprise me from the ones I’m thinking of watching.
Same here, I can’t quite pinpoint what it is about that anime but it seems like something I’d enjoy. Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint!
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