A new anime season has descended upon us like a cloud of apathetic smog, filling our hearts and lungs with a carcinogenic pathogen of forgettable animated nonsense. Side effects include vague delight in finding something mildly enjoyable and the constant groan of seeing the same tired tropes recycled ad infinitum. Four times a year we get the chance to dive headfirst into the murky waters and hope to surface with a handful of treasure – and this Winter season has some solid shows to check out.
The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady
Let’s start this list with the one I fully expected to hate and have grown to love. Isekai is a genre of anime where a person is reincarnated, reborn, or transported into a fantasy world. It became extremely popular following the release of Sword Art Online and has since become the go-to for studios looking to make quick money and authors with no original ideas breaking into the light novel industry.
This season gave us so many bad isekai and fantasy series that it almost felt like a prank was being pulled. The majority of these involve a main character who cannot use magic. The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World showed promise in its prologue then turned into GUY REBORN WITHOUT MAGIC IN A WORLD OF MAGIC. The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World will rule nobodies headspace as it coasts through twelve episodes before never being thought of again. Chillin’ in my 30’s After Getting Fired from the Demon King’s Army is about a demon kicked out of the demon king’s army and guess what…homie doesn’t have magic.
That leads us to The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, a reminder that isekai titles are terrible (if the last three mentions didn’t give you the hint).
The anime is about a girl who dies in real life and is reborn in a fantasy world as the Princess. She, surprise, has no magical ability but can use magical items. As far as princess duties go, she isn’t into them and prefers to go out and fight monsters and cause trouble. In fact, she’s renounced her royal title.
This girl, named Anis, winds up involved in political machinations after her brother publicly rescinds his marriage to a Prime Minister’s daughter to be with a commoner. Anis takes that daughter as her own and the two now go on adventures and develop the kind of technology Anis had here in our world.
Unlike other anime of a similar kin this season, Magical Revolution is very entertaining. Having that harder edge of the political aspect with the cute, peppy main character makes for an engaging premise while the animation and writing is solid. In two episodes I’ve grown to care for the main girls more than any characters this season. It remains to be seen if the yuri element will get in the way of everything else the show accomplishes but as it stands, this is the isekai of the season.
Revenger
If you need a palate cleanser from all the cutesy stuff, Revenger offers samurai action in a facsimile of Kurosawa. In it, a man whose entire family and clan has been wiped out joins an odd jobs group to get revenge on those who wronged him and led his wife to suicide. That group includes a child with a killer kite and a devout Christian man who uses gold leaf as a weapon. It remains to be seen how the plot will pan out – I don’t think this will reach the heights of Samurai Champloo or Rurouni Kenshin – but the series shows a lot of promise.
Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister!
Every anime season has a mid-budget comedy series that I can describe as “does the job”. Onimai is about a sister turning her shut-in big brother into a girl as part of a rehabilitation project she has created. The guy who hadn’t left the house in years must now navigate the outside world as a new gender and understand herself through a new pair of eyes. In a way the premise is interesting in a “fish out of water” scenario, but this being anime there is a lot of “Look how cute she is”. The season is also full of these genderbenders. Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire has an old king dying and being reborn as a female baby while fully conscious of who he previously was. We then watch her develop, growing into a sword-wielding waifu. It’s not as bad but nothing I will continue. And who can forget the egregiously terrible Ayakashi Triangle in which a male exorcist is turned into a female and a bunch of lecherous shenanigans happen in what can thinly be called “plot”.
Onimai has that lecherous element, don’t get me wrong. But the elements that do work; the humor, the idea, the characters, could make for a fine series. Not a memorable one, but one that “does the job”.
Buddy Daddies
And best title of the season goes toooooo….
If you’re a fan of Spy x Family and looking for something kind of similar, Buddy Daddies will scratch that itch. A pair of assassins (one a tidy cool guy, the other a shut-in murderous dude) are stuck raising a young girl while performing their contract kills. The solid pilot showcased a wonderful dynamic between our main characters, a very cute daughter who may not reach Anya’s heights but will definitely endear herself to viewers, and a story that has enough of an edge while being absolutely hilarious.
High Card
From the creator of Kakegurui comes a series about people who are granted bizarre powers by wielding magical playing cards. Opening with an explosive castle escape and quickly taking us to the neon streets of a fantasy Las Vegas, High Card is my pilot of the season. Our hero is trying to save an orphanage by making as much money as possible. He has one of these cards – which makes him a target for others with the cards. He fights a guy who can turn anything he touches into marbles which is stupid…but also in the context of a violent anime awesome. Animation is middling but the story and action certainly make up for it. I can’t wait to see where this goes in the coming weeks.
Those are my top picks for the season. There are some new drops of episodes for favorites like Bungou Stray Dogs and Vinland Saga to talk about but I’ll do so in a future article. If you need my takes on the obvious series I missed, I’ll end the article with controversy:
Trigun Stampede- Great CG animation can’t save a bad script and poor pacing. It’s a reimagining of the classic series but I’d rather just watch the original.
Tomo-Chan is a Girl- Oblivious main characters are one of my biggest complaints about romance anime and this is one of the worst offenders. The idea of a tomboy trying to confess to her best friend who is a male could be done well. But this goes beyond the pale of how anyone would act in this situation. Not comedic at all, just irritating.
Nier: Automata Ver1.1A – Animation is pretty and soundtrack is good (duh) but I could play the game and have more fun doing so.
MORE ON ANIME BY SEAN NEWGENT
