Wooper: Summer’s barrage of trend-chasing fantasies and midseason disappointments has nearly reached its end, which means it’s time to look ahead to Fall 2021! This is one of the longer previews we’ve written in recent years, owing to some much-needed diversity among this season’s offerings. We’ve got fewer isekai adaptations airing than usual, and more original series (including a cluster of mecha titles that feels like a limited time revival). There are a handful of tentpole shows to ensure mainstream engagement, including new seasons of Kimetsu no Yaiba, 86, and Lupin III, with JoJo Part 6 beginning this December. Vampire fans will be eating (or should I say drinking?) good this fall, with three bloodsucking series to choose from. And there’s potential for an all-time classic in an adaptation of feudal Japanese literature, the first episode of which has already aired. If you’re intrigued by any of the above, read on to see what the upcoming season has in store (and drop your watchlist in the poll below!).
Middling Expectations
Deji Meets Girl
Studio: LIDENFILMS
Director: Ushio Tazawa
Series composition: Akane Marubeni
Source: Original
Short synopsis: An Okinawan hotel receptionist witnesses supernatural happenings after meeting a handsome tourist from Tokyo.
Wooper: I ended up overhyping last season’s “Ore, Tsushima” before learning it was a series of one minute shorts, and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice; I made sure to confirm that Deji Meets Girl had super small episodes before including it in the Fall Preview. There’s something pure about watching a director’s vision boiled down to such short runtimes – less anime bullshit to deal with, probably (unless you’re watching Teekyuu). This new show comes from occasional Makoto Shinkai collaborator Ushio Tazawa, who’s clearly taken some inspiration from his boss if the concept is anything to go by. Girl meets boy and starts to witness supernatural happenings? Sure, I’m down for some light romance paired with weird phenomena. I like the approachable solidity of the character designs (also provided by Tazawa) and the lifelike animation given to ordinary tasks like mopping and using an air pump in the PV. Deji Meets Girl is highly unlikely to imprint itself on the memories of more than a couple hundred people, but it does have a lot more promise than the average anime short, so I’ll happily give it a whirl.