Lenlo: Merry Christmas everyone! Or, depending on when you read this, Happy New Year! Some of you might be wondering why I am the only one on this preview this time. I’m wondering that to. Everyone’s pretty busy, yet I’m the one attending weddings and shit. Lazy bastards. Anyways, I won’t lie, this season isn’t looking to exciting. Part of that is that nothing would look exciting after that Fall season. From Mob Psycho to Gundam Mercury, Bleach to SpyxFamily, lots of big stuff there. Even things I don’t personally like, such as Chainsaw Man, are blowin up the internet. Suffice to say, Winter can’t match that. But it does have a few gems sprinkled in to at least make it worth checking out. Vinland Saga returns for its long awaited 2nd season, while Nier and Trigun are both making long awaited returns to the medium. On top of that, there’s a number of new contenders that have the potential to be great. Will any of them reach that potential? Probably not. But I can dream damnit! Enough with the preamble though, lets dive into some series shall we?

What the Hell

My Life as Inukai-san’s Dog

Studio: Quad
Director: Takashi Yasudo
Series composition: Unknown
Source: Manga

The Premise: Man who is horny on main gets turned into a dog so he can be pampered by his crush.

Lenlo: Now look… I will admit that this is purely on the list because of horny. It’s just curiosity I swear! I want to know just how horny this thing can get. Considering the PV has her stripping in front of him and putting her between her legs to bathe him, I’m imagining a lot. But can we go even further. Why do they blush? Why do they get all flustered? Are they going to fuck this dog? I don’t know! But I kind of need to know. I need to see just how god damn degenerate anime can get. Because the original creator for this series is a hentai artist. They make doujins, that’s all they do. So how the hell this got picked up for an anime I will never know. But I want to know… Fuck… Am I the degenerate now?

Middling Expectations

Spy Classroom

Studio: feel.
Director: Keiichirou Kawaguchi
Series composition: Shinichi Inozume
Source: Light Novel

The Premise: Conflict-ravaged nations now deploy covert waifu operatives instead of missiles. Follow a team of absolutely hopeless girls as they try their best to complete… the Impossible Mission.

Lenlo: I won’t lie, this looks like your pretty standard “What setting can we throw cute girls into this time” sort of show. The opening PV seemed more intent on making sure we knew all of our available waifu options than it did introducing any kind of plot or narrative. On top of that, it doesn’t even look that good visually. Lots of dark shots, flat lighting, standard anime designs. The only reason it’s on this list is because I like spies, and I think the spy setting has a lot of potential that anime isn’t really tapping into with all of these shows. Maybe, in some hope against hope, Spy Classroom will do something cool. But I’m not holding out much hope for it to be frank.

The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World

Studio: Studio Blanc
Director: Nobuyoshi Nagayama & Ryousuke Shibuya
Series composition: Touko Machida
Source: Light Novel

The Premise: An incredibly OP exorcist reincarnates into another world to, once again, become an incredibly OP exorcist. Isekai Y’all.

Lenlo: About the only thing this series has going for it is that instead of doing a classic modern -> fantasy isekai, it’s attempting a fantasy -> fantasy isekai. Will it work? Will it do anything interesting? Probably not. It honestly shouldn’t even be on this list. But as Ryousuke Shibuya’s directorial debut, I wanted to at least give him a shot. It’s possible that this new blood can come in and do something interesting and fun with an otherwise incredibly dull and played out premise. I don’t expect him to! Studio Blanc is not the place where creativity flourishes. But let’s at least try to call out someone’s first big shot, huh?

Revenger

Studio: Ajiado
Director: Masaya Fujimori
Series composition: Gen Urobuchi
Source: Original

The Premise: A master assassin hunts down another assassin responsible for assassinating an important samurai clan when he meets a survivor of one of the attacks, no doubt training him up to become his own avenging assassin. Assassin.

Lenlo: So Gen Urobuchi, assassins, samurai, why is it so low in the list? Well it’s simple: I have no idea how much Gen Urobuchi actually wrote and how involved he actually is. Is this a RWBY: Ice Queendom situation where his name is just on the box? What about this Ribenjiya person, what’s their involvement as the “Original Creator”? And what about studio Ajiado? There are just so many unknowns about it, with the only quantifiable thing being the Kemono Jihen directors involvement. I want it to be good, and I will certainly be keeping my eye on it moving forward. But this early into the next season, with so little information to go off of? Suffice to say, burn me once Gen shame on me, burn me twice shame on you.

Tomo-chan is a Girl!

Studio: Lay-duce
Director: Hitoshi Nanba
Series composition: Megumi Shimizu
Source: Manga

The Premise: A tomboy gets bro-zoned by her crush who only sees her as one of the guys.

Lenlo: I’m typically not a fan of most modern vapid romances. They run for seasons on seasons with no progress, every female character is just another stereotype that exists to hint at a harem and the lead is always a braindead moron who couldn’t pick up a hint if it straddled them. So why then am I just a liiiiitle curious about Tomo-Chan. 2 simple reasons. 1) I like tomboys, and getting bro-zoned sounds like a novel reason for the lead to be oblivious. 2) The director for Golden Kamuy is directing this, and that show is absolutely stellar. These two things combine to make me at least put it on my list to check out when the season starts.

GIANT BEASTS OF ARS

Studio: Asahi Production
Director: Akira Oguro
Series composition: Norimitsu Kaihou
Source: Original

The Premise: Fantasy Attack on Titan, except hopefully with less fascism.

Lenlo: Like the premise suggests, this is just high-fantasy Attack on Titan. Is that perhaps an unfair comparison since this has magic powers and the giant beasts are not nearly as insurmountable as Titans, as well as no one hiding behind giant walls? Maybe. But it amused me and got your attention so I’m sticking with it. There honestly doesn’t seem to be much here though. Asahi Production hasn’t done anything particularly noteworthy in the last 20 years, and the premise, despite being an original, doesn’t actually feel that original. Maybe if the beasts appeared to be more of a threat, toning down the magical powers, it could be interesting. But doing that just brings it closer to the Attack on Titan comparisons. The only thing really interesting to me in it is that it’s Akira Oguro’s directorial debut, and I always love to take a look at a new director’s first try in the captain’s chair. Hopefully the 1st episode will be able to ignite some more interest. At the very least it got its foot in the door.

Isekai Nonbiri Nouka

Studio: Zero-G
Director: Ryouichi Kuraya
Series composition: Touko Machida
Source: Light Novel

The Premise: God plays favourites by Isekai’ing terminally ill child into a new world with farming waifu’s and magical tools.

Lenlo: One day the Isekai genre will die, but today is not that day. The only thing of even marginal interest to me in this is whether or not it will truly stick to its chill farming premise, or if it will fall into the adventure power fantasy all isekai inevitably do. Beyond that, I got nothing. Even the PV knows what it’s about, with one bath shot of our leading man and…9 pointy-eared elf women, all of them gathered around him as they clearly don’t have any kind of personality or relationship that doesn’t revolve entirely around him. God damn you anime! All I want is a chill wholesome farming show with some fantasy spice! Why does it have to be a harem! Though from what I’ve read, they even have kids. So at least this MC actually gets with his harem. That’s a plus. I guess.

Handyman Saitou in Another World

Studio: C2C
Director: Toshiyuki Kubooka
Series composition: Kenta Ihara
Source: Manga

The Premise: gets Isekai’ed into another world! This time? Handyman!

Lenlo: Literally all of my interest in Handyman comes down to whether or not the MC is OP or not. If he ends up like every other Isekai protagonist, OP out of his mind with some weird loophole to unlimited power, then I’m out. I won’t care. But if Anime can hold itself back from making its lead the strongest male power fantasy imaginable for one goddamn second and let this guy just be useful and nothing more then maybe I can have some fun with it. It’s not that I dislike power fantasies, I think they can be a lot of fun. But the bar for “good power fantasy” has risen dramatically in the past decade, and so the basic Isekai formula just doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s why everyone has started coming up with these wild offshoots that fit their entire premise in their title with a single sentence. But none of them actually use that premise in an interesting way! Maybe Handyman will. But I doubt it.

Mou Ippon!

Studio: BAKKEN RECORD
Director: Takeru Ogiwara
Series composition: Aya Satsuki
Source: Manga

The Premise: Cute Girls Do Cute Things: Judo Edition

Lenlo: To any of you who don’t know, I’m a big combat sports fan. I watch MMA/UFC, I practise boxing, and while Judo isn’t really my thing I find grappling a really interesting sport. So obviously I’m going to take a peek at any martial arts anime that come our way, even if it’s a CGDCT. And while my expectations weren’t very high after reading the premise, watching the PV did actually pique my interest a bit. It feels like, judging by the care and attention put into the few Judo animations shown in the PV, Mou Ippon cares more about the Judo part of the premise than it does the “Cute Girls” part. If that’s the case, then I might actually enjoy this a lot.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War

Studio: Funimation
Director: Hidekazu Satou
Series composition: Mao Emura
Source: Video Game

The Premise: Girl joins a vaguely European military in a fight against the evil Empire to try and redeem her family name after their grandfather betrayed their nation. It might also have mechs.

Lenlo: So really all of my interest in this comes from a group of friends who simply will not shut up about Trails of Cold Steel. Personally I think it looks like a pretty generic war story with vaguely European nations and a hackneyed revenge plot. But that’s not to say it can’t surprise me! Tanya surprised me, Eighty Six surprised me before the 2nd season ran it into the ground, Arslan didn’t surprise me but I did enjoy it. There’s room for Trails of Cold Steel to be good, enough that I’m going to be keeping an eye on it.

Shows We’re Anticipating

The Fire Hunter

Studio: Signal.MD
Director: Junji Nishimura
Series composition: Mamoru Oshii
Source: Novel

The Premise: A creepy forest filled with fire demons prevents a village from interacting and contacting the outside world. One day a young villager is rescued from these woods by an experienced Fire Hunter, setting off an unexpected chain of events!

Lenlo: The Fire Hunter intrigues me. As I’m sure many of you know, I’m a fan of rough and fading line work. I think it’s a really striking visual style, one I think fits this natural, rough, wild world that Fire Hunter seems to take place in really well. Meanwhile narratively, the fact that this began as a novel makes me much more interested in it’s story, as compared to Light Novels, novels have a certain… standard they generally need to meet before they get published. Combine that with Mamoru Oshii of all people working on the script, and I become really hopeful about Fire Hunter’s future. The only thing holding it down from the top of this list is the studio, Signal.MD, and its director, Junji Nishimura. Neither have really done anything all that notable, though some might disagree seeing as he directed last years Vlad Love. Now does this historic mediocrity mean they can’t make something great in the now? No, you can have that moment of inspiration at any point in your career. But it definitely makes me a bit hesitant to mark it as a must watch.

NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a

Studio: A-1 Pictures
Director: Ryouji Masuyama
Series composition: Ryouji Masuyama & Yoko Taro
Source: Video Game

The Premise: I’m afraid to get on Yoko Taro’s wild ride. I can’t explain Nier in a single paragraph. Please don’t ask me to try.

Lenlo: Look lets just cut right to the chase, this is a Nier anime done by A-1 Pictures and co-written by Yoko Taro. The director has worked stuff from Kill la Kill to Promare and Great Pretender, with this being his second full length TV anime after Blend-S. All of this comes together to mean that I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going to happen here. It could look gorgeous, with 2B’s ass drawn in full A-1 glory at Yoko Taro’s insistence and a nigh-incomprehensible storyline filled with more wild rule of cool happenings than an old Monty Oum video. Or it could be a sleazy cash grab meant to run entirely on brand recognition. We won’t know until we get something more than a 25 second PV. But what I can tell you is that I am going to be keeping my eye on this series no matter what happens, because Yoko Taro’s involvement at literally any level should at least keep it from being boring.

Tsurune – The Linking Shot –

Studio: Kyoto Animation
Director: Takuya Yamamura
Series composition: Michiko Yokote
Source: Light Novel

The Premise: Cute boys deal with inner turmoil and trauma by firing arrows in a school club.

Lenlo: So I’m not the biggest KyoAni fan out there. I think a lot of their stuff is vapid and rides entirely on the studio’s production. But by god is that production good. Like, no matter what happens with Tsurune in this 2nd season, it’s probably going to be one of the best looking, most consistent shows of the season. That’s just how KyoAni rides. As for if it will be interesting enough? Well I remember watching Tsurune’s first season like 4 years ago, and it was… alright. I liked it more than most of KyoAni’s stuff, partly because archery is just cool. But what I’m looking for in this sequel season is for something to actually happen. For progress to be made on their issues and for Minato to actually make me give a damn. If it can do that, it will be a good time. If it can’t? Least I get pretty gifs out of it.

HIGH CARD

Studio: Studio Hibari
Director: Junichi Wada
Series composition: Unknown
Source: Multimedia Project

The Premise: Man tries to save an orphanage via gambling, gets involved with local crime. Who could have guessed.

Lenlo: So this one is really just me being a sucker for gambling shows. Kaiji, Kakegurui, One Outs, I love them all to varying degrees. So High Card immediately caught my attention with its name and theming, even if Wada isn’t the most interesting of directors. But upon watching the PV… I felt a lot of my interest die. Because High Card seems more like a gambling themed shounen battle series than it does an actual gambling anime. My hope is that they are just highlighting the action to get people interested! Or that maybe the lead’s powers are gambling related, and thus turn every super power fight into one.I want this to be a high stakes gamble of some kind really! But if it turns out to just be a standard super powered battle series, I probably won’t stick with this for very long.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea

Studio: Polygon Pictures
Director: Hiroaki Andou
Series composition: Sadayuki Murai
Source: Original

The Premise: A world blanketed in an endless and ever-growing ocean of snow. The people eke out a living, either huddled around the roots of enormous trees dotting the surface, or high in the canopy, which spreads over the planet’s atmosphere.

Lenlo: You have no idea how much I want this to be a Made in Abyss without the pedophilia, or To Your Eternity but good. A fully realised, original world from the man who gave us Blame! and Knights of Sidonia? A world covered in ice and snow, where everyone is trying to survive these harsh winters? Yeah, sign me up. The only major issue I’m seeing so far is the incredibly jank CGI production the story has been attached to. While it’s possible for a narrative to shine through such visual issues, Ajin comes to mind as one, it definitely puts a damper on the experience. Hopefully what we saw in the PV is incomplete work, because if that’s the best Kaina has to offer, I think it’s going to end up being a poor viewing experience, even if the story is good. Like, at that point just go read the manga that’s being released alongside it, you know?

Highest Expectations

TRIGUN STAMPEDE

Studio: Orange
Director: Kenji Mutou
Series composition: Shin Okashima
Source: Manga

The Premise: The legendary gunman and pacifist, Vash the Stampede, wanders the land on a mysterious quest.

Lenlo: I’m really split on this new Trigun. On one hand, I love that we get more of it. Trigun is a fantastic 90s series I recommend everyone try. Were Trigun Stampede just a modern remake of that original series, giving it a new coat of paint, there would be nothing to worry about. It’s a proven concept, good times to come. The issue however is that everything I’ve seen, from the character designs to interviews to every synopsis out there, marks this as a completely new and original story within the Trigun world, with all the same characters. And my initial impressions are… not great. Vash was never a huge, strong guy, but this new design has him looking more like a boy band member then a roaming gunman, complete with the side fade. And the all CGI production doesn’t excite me much either, even with the incredible studio Orange being the ones doing it. Combine that with this being Kenji Mutou’s directorial debut, for anything more than a short at least, and you have a recipe that could be absolutely incredible. Or it could absolutely bomb and ruin Trigun for a new generation. Only time will tell.

Vinland Saga Season 2

Studio: MAPPA
Director: Shuuhei Yabuta
Series composition: Hiroshi Seki
Source: Manga

The Premise: Sold into slavery after assaulting a King, Thorfinn must learn the value of life and find a new purpose in the world through the only means available: Farming.

Lenlo: FARMLAND SAGA HYYYYYYYYYPE. This is, without question, the series I am most excited for this season. Vinland Saga’s first season was already fantastic. It had some visual blunders, but by and large Shuuhei Yabuta absolutely nailed the philosophy and style of the original series. Knowing that he is on board and doing the second season is a great weight off my mind, I’m glad to know we have someone we can trust working on it. My only concern is that MAPPA has taken over the production. I know some people swear by MAPPA, but I find them to be incredibly inconsistent and the amount of projects they have been taking on recently is staggering. Hopefully Vinland Saga gets the attention it deserves and isn’t relegated to 2nd string teams, but you can never know with MAPPA. As for the actual content, I have 0 concerns. Some of the action stans might be disappointed, as this arc has very little combat. But anyone that loved the series for its characters and narrative will be eating well, as the entire thing is all about Thorfinn becoming the same kind of man his father was: One who seeks to avoid violence rather than start it.