Fall 2026 First Episode Awards

Wooper: If you’re down with the increasing sequelization of anime, this autumn probably doesn’t look so bad. The Apothecary Diaries is back, JoJo has finally returned to a weekly schedule, and plenty of other shounen continuations began this October, too. But if (like me) you’re always looking for something new, boy, this season is rough. We had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to pick winners in some of these categories, so there was very little consensus between Mario and myself. Thankfully, there are web-only releases like Cyberpunk and Fool Night to look forward to in the coming days and weeks. It’s also been a strong year on the whole, so whatever posts I make over the next couple months might look backward rather than forward. For now, though, you can click through to see what meager fruits this fall produced in its first two weeks.