Aww, darnit. Holidays and other things distracted me from the fact that I needed to get an anticipation post out! Plus, a year mostly on break and I’ve gotten out of the habit. I’ve got to fix that some, I never intended to go entirely off the grid.
But honestly, it’s pretty simple as I’m only actually anticipating two shows… As opposed to planning to check out, and there’s not too many high priority ones this season.
Those shows are:
Frieren
I mean, if you’ve watched my social media, you’ve seen me gushing over the first cour. I’m very curious about the new direction hinted by the trailer and the spoiler of the name of the upcoming arc. (Really folks, why do you do that?)
The Dangers in My Heart Season 2
I wasn’t too impressed with the first episode, but I stuck with it and it grew on me. I’m not super excited, but I’m definitely looking forward to it.
And those used to my title conventions will note those are both “us” shows. My wife initially dropped Dangers but eventually came back around to it. The show improved immensely around episode 3-4, when they dropped Ichikawa’s whole “messed up in the head” / “gonna murder the world” schtick.
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So, that’s it for anticipation… And I plan/hope to have the first part of the first impressions up Fri or Saturday.
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Also my otaku birthday and Christmas… Yeah, I’m getting into gunpla. Even though I can only do such detailed work in short spurts, it’s pretty fun.
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So, as usual, over to you! What are you looking forward to? How were your holidays? What’s kept you busy the past few months?
Drop a comment and let’s chat!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
For me, it’s the opposite. I’ve got a ton of shows and have to consider weeding them out without mercy. First off, I’ve got Frieren continuing, obviously, but also a season with two magical girl shows besides PreCure, Gushing Over Magical Girls and Sasaki and Peeps, which makes me happy as those haven’t exactly been falling from the trees lately, other than some experiments that use magical girls to explore other genres like otaku culture, reverse super sentai, reverse isekai, or whatever. It’s one reason that I was really happy to see Power of Hope: PreCure Full Bloom last season. Though, I do still maintain that Dark Gathering was a magical girl show, not unlike a horror version of Cardcaptor Sakura, though some people probably liken it more to Pokemon. It was lacking fun battle costumes, so maybe they have a point, though Yayoi’s daily wear is pretty enjoyable (as is Dorothy’s, once she becomes involved, but she’s an antagonist).
Next, there’s Ishura (on Disney+ of all things), which I’m checking out on spec as I haven’t really heard anything about it. A Sign of Affection will fill my romance quotient, I hope, though I’m not sure what it can bring that A Silent Voice didn’t already do. The Witch and the Beast is my other speculative flyer this season, maybe it’ll be good? It’s got a basic dynamic, right in the title even, that generally works for me. And then there are three other shows that are second seasons: Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside (I’m not usually a fan of LitRPG, but something about this show worked for me; probably the relationship dynamic that sold me on it: it’s an anime couple who have a healthy sexual relationship that isn’t beset by stupid, cliched, forced dramatics), Urusei Yatsura, and The Fire Hunter. So, busy season for me.
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And it’s worse for you IIRC as you do most of your watching in only 1-2 days. I don’t know if my season will be busy yet or not, but a quiet season would be kinda nice with all the stuff on my plate.
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This is without a doubt going to be a season dominated by three great carry-overs (Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Undead Unluck), which are different enough not to be competing with each other.
Then most of the shows I’m looking forward to are sequels (Dangers in My Heart, Moonlit Fantasy, and a lot of lesser ones).
I thought maybe Dungeon Meshi, but it looks pretty cheap and I think it would have needed execution (though cheap isn’t the same as bad; you can make up a lot with good priorities).
The one new show I’m really looking forward to is Sengoku Youko, from the author of Planet With and that disappointing but still fun Lucifer and the Biscuite Hammer. I’ve actually read the manga for once, and it’s a 3-cour, so they’ll get to the direction shift. The preview looks pretty good. I’m hyped for this one.
Other than that I’ll just let shows surprise me.
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Oh, yeah, I put Sengoku Yōko in my list of “I will get to this, but not yet”, so I’ll be watching it at some point in the future on my track of “old series and rewatches”.
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Yeah, carryovers and sequels top my list too… I think the only one I actually plan to check out is Hokkaido Girls Are Cute. But then you know I have a weakness for rom-com.
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As usual, I have a lengthy list of potential watches to check out but mostly I do not know which ones will make the cut until the maximum of three episodes (really bad shows might not even get through one episode though). My only three definites are Frieren, Shangri-La Frontier, and Moonlit Fantasy. I really enjoyed Moonlit Fantasy’s first series and am hoping for more of the same for season 2. I do note that for the second season J.C. Staff are producing so that should mean an increase in production values for this season.
In terms of new shows, there are a couple of sports shows – one on girl’s golf and one about mahjong. The golf one (Ooi! Tonbo) looks like its heading a little into Birdie Wing territory, which gives me some feelings of trepidation, given how flamboyant and wonderful Birdie Wing was. It is a tough act to follow. The other one, Pon No Michi, looks like it has got cute girls playing mahjong. What could go wrong?
The fantasy/isekai department looks like the normal mixed bunch and outside of the aforementioned Moonlit Fantasy, Banished From The Heroes Party series two is one standout. Since I liked the first season, that will be on my list again. I also watched Dungeon Meshi, a new Netflix series and the first episode was pretty good. There was some pretty solid dungeon building, good animation and an interesting twist. As a result, its unexpectedly made my watch list. I will be checking out at least one of the mahou shoujo shows too.
Oh, and there is a show about Hokkaido girls (Dosanko Gal wa Namaramenkoi) so I might at least check it out.
My other anticipated event is the early February release of the new Haikyuu movie, continuing the national tournament arc. I am a huge Haikyuu fan so I am excited by that news but worried also as anime movie releases in Australia are pretty sparse – which seems to have got worse since Crunchyroll took over local distribution. We shall see what happens I guess…
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I’m slowly working up a “considering” list on livechart.me… But mostly I’m just watching the buzz and reading the 1st ep reviews over on ANN. As I said in my post, I just got behind with the holidays. Looks like 12 shows overall at the moment, but not much overlap between us.
Pon no Michi looks to be this season’s main CGDCT, so yeah, it’s on the list. And of course you saw me mention Hokkaido girls above.
We’re lucky with anime movie releases, I haven’t seen a major one yet that didn’t screen somewhere in Seattle. More than a few also find their way over here out in the sticks. But it’s weird, SAO doesn’t – but the Euph (not Liz) and Quint movies did.
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