Winter 2022 Anime Season
January 3, 2022 8:19 PM - Subscribe
Anichart, MyAnimeList, or Livechart. I was kind of surprised not to see the usual post here, so I figured I'd throw one up. :)
That's a lot of fantasy. I know we're still in the isekai glut but it still seems there's a lot more fantasy than usual.
I think I've lost my appetite for anime. I've only watched Higurashi in the past year. It all feels so unnecessarily horny to me now (even though I know it always has been.)
posted by charred husk at 12:06 PM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think I've lost my appetite for anime. I've only watched Higurashi in the past year. It all feels so unnecessarily horny to me now (even though I know it always has been.)
posted by charred husk at 12:06 PM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wow, it's already start of the Winter 2022 anime season - it just seems to have snuck by me this time. I guess it's an indication of how much I've been paying attention.
I found myself paying more attention to Chinese donghua of late.
> It all feels so unnecessarily horny to me now (even though I know it always has been.)
I think I know what you mean, and probably why I've been watching more donghua. Perhaps because of the Chinese censorship, there seems to be less of the unnecessary horniness.
Some anime from the past season that I thought avoided inserting pointless and random fan service were The Faraway Paladin and Ranking of Kings.
posted by needled at 4:51 PM on January 4, 2022
I found myself paying more attention to Chinese donghua of late.
- Juan Siliang (Island of Siliang) is beautifully animated, with interesting world building based on Chinese mythology and a mystery to be solved. The short summary on MyAnimeList doesn't do it justice. And, there isn't much romance yet during the 15-episode first season. A second season has been announced but there isn't an air date yet.
- Thousand Autumns - the animation quality leaves something to be desired, but the fight scenes are great, and that's what's important in a wuxia tale. Yan Wushi is a fascinating character, and his voice actor is excellent. The two protagonists, Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao, are older, in their forties and thirties, which appears to be a rarity in both donghua and anime.
> It all feels so unnecessarily horny to me now (even though I know it always has been.)
I think I know what you mean, and probably why I've been watching more donghua. Perhaps because of the Chinese censorship, there seems to be less of the unnecessary horniness.
Some anime from the past season that I thought avoided inserting pointless and random fan service were The Faraway Paladin and Ranking of Kings.
posted by needled at 4:51 PM on January 4, 2022
(Sorry for dropping the ball. December was pretty relentless here, I haven't caught up on anime stuff.)
posted by ardgedee at 6:17 PM on January 4, 2022
posted by ardgedee at 6:17 PM on January 4, 2022
Quickly skimming through the titles, this... does not look like a promising season.
Some second seasons for isekai that weren't all that good to begin with. "Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki" was considerably worse than it should have been (and it got so much worse as deadline crunch ground away at it that it became a kind of cringe comedy) so I'm both surprised and unenthused that there's more of it coming. "Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou" is inexplicably dull for an action/adventure story but likely popular because it hits all the standard chuuni tropes even if mostly to mock them.
For any hopeful comments I have below, please just assume I have appended "...as long as the studio doesn't try to make something with Bugatti-scale ambitions, Kia budget and Ford Pinto talent or turn every female character into a vehicle for fanservice and lewd victimization," because I'll be tired of repeating myself otherwise.
New isekai:
"Leadale no Daichi nite" is about a woman who wakes up as her character in the game she played; this is a gentle, occasionally wistful, comedy with minimal opportunities for fanservice, the studio recently made the "Let's Make a Mug" series and "Standing on a Million Lives" series, both of which were competently done I'm most hopeful about this among the new shows this season. "Kenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja" is about a male who wakes up as a female in the world of the game he played -- there is inventive and mostly light-hearted adventure going on around the occasional "hey, just realized I'm a girl!" moments, the latter which the anime may choose to either downplay or make the focus of the story oh who am I kidding the studio is probably going to trash it. "Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan" is a broad, slapstick comedy in which one of the two MCs becomes a woman; everybody is stupid, terrible things happen to all of them for laughs, and even though it's fanservicy as hell it's harder to get outraged about it here when the men are on the receiving end as often as the women, so this might go over well or might not. "Shikkakumon no Saikyou Kenja" is one of the stock isekai tropes, this one being "character who was OP in his previous world is even more OP in his new world"; cheap ego-gratification stuff even by the standards of isekai stories (cluetip: everyone else in his group of adventurers is female), but might be worth a watch when one is not up to the intellectual challenge of watching cat videos on Youtube. "Shuumatsu no Harem" is exactly what its title implies -- you don't need to know Japanese to know what 'harem' means.
So that's seven isekai out of 33 titles this season; 21%.
In non-isekai: Second season of "Princess Connect Re:Dive"; the first season was better than it had to be so I'm holding out a little hope that this will be just as good. If nothing else, the backer should have learned the value that a suitable-for-all-audiences anime has for promoting their game overseas and hopefully they maintain the spirit and quality of the first season. "Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saisei Jutsu" is about a prince trying to destroy his country so he can escape his responsibilities but repeatedly fails into successes instead; it might be fun. "Kaijin Kaihatsu-bu no Kuroitsu-san" I don't know anything about but the story summary -- hijinks in the back offices of the bad guys of a sentai adventure -- appeals to me. "Ousama Ranking" is really really good, but it was too emotionally intense for me last fall; I do want to catch up and watch it all the way through though.
posted by ardgedee at 7:53 AM on January 5, 2022
Some second seasons for isekai that weren't all that good to begin with. "Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki" was considerably worse than it should have been (and it got so much worse as deadline crunch ground away at it that it became a kind of cringe comedy) so I'm both surprised and unenthused that there's more of it coming. "Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou" is inexplicably dull for an action/adventure story but likely popular because it hits all the standard chuuni tropes even if mostly to mock them.
For any hopeful comments I have below, please just assume I have appended "...as long as the studio doesn't try to make something with Bugatti-scale ambitions, Kia budget and Ford Pinto talent or turn every female character into a vehicle for fanservice and lewd victimization," because I'll be tired of repeating myself otherwise.
New isekai:
"Leadale no Daichi nite" is about a woman who wakes up as her character in the game she played; this is a gentle, occasionally wistful, comedy with minimal opportunities for fanservice, the studio recently made the "Let's Make a Mug" series and "Standing on a Million Lives" series, both of which were competently done I'm most hopeful about this among the new shows this season. "Kenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja" is about a male who wakes up as a female in the world of the game he played -- there is inventive and mostly light-hearted adventure going on around the occasional "hey, just realized I'm a girl!" moments, the latter which the anime may choose to either downplay or make the focus of the story oh who am I kidding the studio is probably going to trash it. "Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan" is a broad, slapstick comedy in which one of the two MCs becomes a woman; everybody is stupid, terrible things happen to all of them for laughs, and even though it's fanservicy as hell it's harder to get outraged about it here when the men are on the receiving end as often as the women, so this might go over well or might not. "Shikkakumon no Saikyou Kenja" is one of the stock isekai tropes, this one being "character who was OP in his previous world is even more OP in his new world"; cheap ego-gratification stuff even by the standards of isekai stories (cluetip: everyone else in his group of adventurers is female), but might be worth a watch when one is not up to the intellectual challenge of watching cat videos on Youtube. "Shuumatsu no Harem" is exactly what its title implies -- you don't need to know Japanese to know what 'harem' means.
So that's seven isekai out of 33 titles this season; 21%.
In non-isekai: Second season of "Princess Connect Re:Dive"; the first season was better than it had to be so I'm holding out a little hope that this will be just as good. If nothing else, the backer should have learned the value that a suitable-for-all-audiences anime has for promoting their game overseas and hopefully they maintain the spirit and quality of the first season. "Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saisei Jutsu" is about a prince trying to destroy his country so he can escape his responsibilities but repeatedly fails into successes instead; it might be fun. "Kaijin Kaihatsu-bu no Kuroitsu-san" I don't know anything about but the story summary -- hijinks in the back offices of the bad guys of a sentai adventure -- appeals to me. "Ousama Ranking" is really really good, but it was too emotionally intense for me last fall; I do want to catch up and watch it all the way through though.
posted by ardgedee at 7:53 AM on January 5, 2022
You know, I rather liked Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki. Yes, they tried to pack progressively more into later episodes than should fit, and that hangs on the Series Composition director. But, the basic idea of the story kept me coming back. One good thing about it, the protagonist isn't completely milquetoast. I mean, he looks it, and sometimes sounds it, but he is written to genuinely care about stuff. To me, that puts this show ahead of a lot of isekai whose MCs seem to often be stamped from the same cookie-cutter.
posted by Citrus at 3:10 PM on January 5, 2022
posted by Citrus at 3:10 PM on January 5, 2022
I enjoy the "Genjitsu Shugi..." manga adaptation and really wanted to like the anime series, for the reasons you mentioned (dude's isekai'd superpower is to be a bureaucrat, and they manage to wrap a decent adventure story around it). But between the complete collapse of the artwork and animation and some absolutely bizarre moments of fanservice (such as women negotiating between themselves on how to be his harem; which iirc to be fair is also in the manga but as a digression that took far less narrative space), I watched through the end more through effort than eagerness. Maybe they have more money behind the production now and can do a better job this time (after all, the second season of "Bookworm" was better produced than the first season), but I just don't feel like money was the only problem with the show; they just didn't have the talent there to make the show that could have been made.
Anyway. First ep of "Leadale" dropped today, and... it's good! promising! Fun for the whole family! Apparently Bilibili has licensed it for broadcast in China which is a kind of passive endorsement that the show will continue in this vein.
posted by ardgedee at 7:19 PM on January 5, 2022
Anyway. First ep of "Leadale" dropped today, and... it's good! promising! Fun for the whole family! Apparently Bilibili has licensed it for broadcast in China which is a kind of passive endorsement that the show will continue in this vein.
posted by ardgedee at 7:19 PM on January 5, 2022
Anime Feminist's premiere digest is out.
posted by one for the books at 12:04 PM on January 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by one for the books at 12:04 PM on January 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is new for me. I already have three drops.
* Tribe Nine - Too much time explaining things, and no real payoff. The characters are generally unlikable.
* Orient - The storytelling is just grating. Way too much time beating us over the head with why the main characters have their opinions, and too little of basically anything else.
* Dolls' Frontline - I didn't exactly have high hopes for this, but there's really just nothing to recommend it at all.
Guess I have more time to do other things. :-D
posted by Citrus at 1:16 PM on January 22, 2022
* Tribe Nine - Too much time explaining things, and no real payoff. The characters are generally unlikable.
* Orient - The storytelling is just grating. Way too much time beating us over the head with why the main characters have their opinions, and too little of basically anything else.
* Dolls' Frontline - I didn't exactly have high hopes for this, but there's really just nothing to recommend it at all.
Guess I have more time to do other things. :-D
posted by Citrus at 1:16 PM on January 22, 2022
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Baraou no Souretsu - Love me some Richard III. Helps that Mrs. Citrus is an unabashed Yorkist.
Tribe Nine - I don't usually do "weird sports" series, but I'll watch anything that comes from the mind of Kodaka at this point.
Sabikui Bisco - Sounds like some unhinged creativity here.
posted by Citrus at 8:23 PM on January 3, 2022