I Watched EVERY SINGLE NEW ANIME of the WINTER 2026 Season...

[00:02] I have sat down and watched every single new anime from the winter 2026 anime today, discussing how much of an impression they made with their initial episode. And new for this year, we're going to rank them. I got this fancy new

[00:15] tier system D through S, which should be mostly self-explanatory. D is just the worst that I regret even spending my time watching a thing. And S is that I regret not being able to experience my first time again. And then there's

[00:29] everything in between. Now, you may ask me, Tristan, how much is this different from your old keep, hold, skip system? And the answer is is that it's not that different really. Keep is now A. Hold is now B. Skip is now C. This just makes it

[00:43] so that I can separate things like this is excellent and I enjoy it from this is probably goated and it's best of year for me. It also means I can separate I don't like this from I don't know who could like this and I will give you a

[00:57] weird look until you explain to me yourself why you like this unironically. to be ranked. No sequels, prequels, or spin-offs. Let's jam. An adviser to a fantasy king finds himself inexplicably transported to a

[01:13] completely different fantasy world. A world that is the same but also ever so slightly different. This is a gentle nobles vacation recommendation which follows the nobleman Lizel who like a myriad of isekai protagonists before him

[01:27] wakes up in an alleyway in another world. He spends some time orienting himself selling some fancy items and hiring an adventuring companion all for what he now considers to be a vacation from his formal duties. At least until

[01:39] you know his former fantasy world finds a way to drag him back. Or he stumbles this world's magic. But until then, he high charismas his way through his new life, talking with people and getting the most out of his new vacation. What's

[01:52] interesting about this series is that it takes an uncommon avenue of making its protagonist a fantasy native himself. It cuts out the usual narrative supports that a modern from Japan protagonist might have. What this gains for the show

[02:07] is that the protagonist himself is a bit of a mystery to unravel. He's also from a fantasy world, but we just don't know what kind or what advantage that might give him as he interacts with this new fantasy world. What someone might also

[02:19] like about the series is the focus on male characters in a fantasy world. As barring some nameless bystandards, all of the main characters are attractive interacting in very playful ways that signal exactly what kind of audience

[02:33] this show is catering to. Despite me not being part of that audience, however, I still find the series intriguing and am interested enough to not toss it into the bin half-hazardly. Though, if we were to make a separate list of shows

[02:46] because I do not have the time to watch literally everything that is half thing that I add to that. As it stands, however, we're going to start off by however, we're going to start off by placing this one in C tier.

[02:59] What is human? A miserable pile of secrets. a lump of flesh that is greedy, selfish, and unempathetic. Demihumans want nothing more than to be more human themselves, or at least be seen as human by others. Welcome to a Missanthrop

[03:15] teaches a class for demihumans, where a former teacher, self-regulated into a solitary hikamorei life, gets pressured by his mom to go out and get a job. He gets tempted by a teaching post out in the middle of nowhere mountains that

[03:28] could be perfect because it's [music] a lot more quiet and potentially enjoyable than some other job in the city. He applies and gets hired to an allgirl private school. What he doesn't realize until arriving is that this school is

[03:41] for demihumans. Not just to learn like traditional people learn math and things, but also to learn how to be a traditional person to become more human. So now four girls have a new teacher who happens to hate humans and humanity due

[03:57] apparently why he's been a recluse. And this is who they have to learn about humanity from. Wondrous. It's something that sounds a lot darker than the show portrays it, like having a protagonist that actively hates being human and

[04:13] being alive in some cases. But this is a comedy slice of life romance possible harum series that while it has some fairly nihilistic views on humanity from our protagonist's perspective, they are not dwelt on as much considering the

[04:26] much more rosetinted view of humanity that the four girls currently hold. The potential. But honestly, with the show's leanings into some very tired tropes, I'm not optimistic about it actually trying to have a deeper message or tell

[04:41] an engaging story beyond what could be given out in a few sentences followed by some kind of cheesy fanervice gag. The designs of the characters are cute, and there is a sneaky chance for the show to surprise us, but I'm not able to devote

[04:54] the time to find out only to be disappointed later. This is a solid C. A single man and a little girl meet. That is the name of this show's first little bit of a worrying bellweather into some of the themes of the show,

[05:09] kind of thing you're looking for in your fantasy anime. This is an adventurer's daily grind at age 29, where our main character has spent his life as an orphan fighting for survival and almost getting mauled by a direwolf in the

[05:23] you think that this is going to be like a grim dark fantasy about survival and the horrors of this mysterious fantasy world from the eyes of an orphan. But that tone does not last long. We soon jump into present day when our

[05:37] a small fantasy town in need of some adventurers for mercenary work. And even with the elderly town's people, you can see that the series is a much more light-hearted one than it initially

[05:50] tried to be at first glance. Its tone takes even further turns when Hajime into a little girl. A little girl who is being engulfed by a slime. This girl is an orphan as well, giving Hajime flashbacks to his own childhood. So,

[06:03] after determining that the local church and adventuring guild can't take her in because she's not from this town and they're stretched thin as it is, you already have to take care of, Hajime takes it upon himself to unofficially

[06:15] adopt her and train her to work as he does. That on its own would be a fairly you know, the two of them going out and adventuring. But then the series has to make it weird by saying that, "Oh yeah,

[06:28] by the way, this girl is some kind of ancient racelike succubus thing who can grow into an adult body overnight for reasons. If that's your thing, well, now you know this exists. But for me, we're going to put this way down into D tier.

[06:45] A picturebook fantasy world where a socially introverted girl has lived alone as a witch for many years. She produces medicine and other alchemy products for an unsuspecting populace that shuns her for her powers. Her dark

[06:57] hair and ability have branded her as a black witch, someone that needs to be feared and avoided. But wherever she walks, poisonous mushrooms sprout in her wake. Champion witch does try to at least be a little sneaky with its title.

[07:12] Following Japan's habit of sometimes overadoring France and its people, Champion is the French word for mushroom. So technically, this series is translated as mushroom witch, which is quite apt considering the majority of

[07:25] power set. This is a series that likes to mess around with preconceptions, even with its protagonist. She walks around sprouting mushrooms everywhere like this is some sort of grim retelling of that one AA Mily short story, but with

[07:39] poisonous mushrooms instead of flowers, only to then have some spirit entity explain to the audience that her powers aren't to sprout mushrooms specifically, but rather to gather all of the poison and negative energy into a central

[07:53] location, which then manifests as mushrooms. So, her walking through town by just leaving poisonous mushrooms behind. But in reality, those mushrooms are gathering all of the negative energy and then sprouting due to how terrible

[08:06] your town is. Which now should make everything easier to be removed and mushrooms. Get rid of them. But because of prejudice, no one will know or care that this witch is helping to do that. Now, our witch here might eventually

[08:20] find love. However, as the local womanizer catches her eye and after accidentally making him a better person by drawing him, I think he becomes infatuated with her and she would respond in kind if she wasn't a nervous

[08:33] wreck and already so socially awkward. It's a cute series and one that I will cleanser throughout the season. But honestly, a part of me is worried about the quality of the production. You know when there are shots of our protagonist

[08:47] in the opening sequence that still has traces of white outlining her body like this is a bad Photoshop cutout. Not sure what's going on there. Anyway, let's hope for the best and prep for the worst. B tier.

[09:02] A young girl with super strength joins a prestigious academy. Why? Because Set Academy is famously known for its admittance process, which specifically weeds out vampires from joining their school, and our protagonist hates

[09:16] vampires. Shame she's about to be the main female in a reverse harum about a bunch of them who have somehow got accepted into this school. Anyway, this is Dark Moon: The Blood Alter, which sounds all dark and metal until you

[09:30] realize, which shouldn't take all that long, that this is a Twilightesque supernatural reverse harm romance. But Tristan, you might say, not every romance about vampires needs to be compared to Twilight. Yes, its first

[09:43] episode is called New Moon. Like I get that not everybody has originality when it comes to like moons and vampire lore, but the references whether intentional or not write themselves. So our girl joins this school and with just a glance

[09:58] from any of these hot boys, they can't explain it. They just now feel drawn to her. She's so enrapturing. Yes, so enrapturing that you decide the best way to introduce yourself is to go to her dorm room and walk in. No knocking, just

[10:13] open door walts in. Oh, but what if he didn't know that that was her room? the effort to explain to her and us that she got a room in the old building midterm and there wasn't space in the regular dorms. So, he had to go there to

[10:27] see her on purpose. Oh, but it was in the old building. Maybe he thought that that room was still being used for its old purpose. It's just a misunderstanding. Oh, then why does he do it again? There is just so much no

[10:41] you want to reverse haram with a mysterious pretty boy and have them be vampires, have at it, sure. But yeah, this is not for me. Dtier, what happens to your social media accounts when you die? They still exist.

[10:57] Their data is still taking up cloud space on some server somewhere, to be sure. But what if something else happened to them? something far more mystical and supernatural. A dead account is like a dead body. It

[11:11] account is like a dead body. It represents a person like a ghost. This is dead account. And I will give this series props for the idea. Just the premise of a dead social account having some kind of spiritual energy that needs

[11:25] to be cleansed. Especially if you add in all of the hate and bad vibes that just in general. Like a part of me is surprised that this take isn't more common and hasn't been explored before. Now, downside to that is that I don't

[11:38] feel like this series will end up being like the best flag bearer for this type of supernatural story. Like even the social arc in Inspector did a better that series, it was by far the worst part of the whole thing. Dead account

[11:53] tries to resuscitate things with the the rule of cool everywhere, but its character, looks like he'll end up being less of some kind of cool spiritual warrior or some kind of psychic monk and instead be more like some Genevio kid

[12:08] whose internal delusions seem to make him just far more cool than he actually is. And it's not just limited to him, though. The first spiritual fighter in the series pulls a literal banhammer out of his phone to deal with a ghost. And

[12:20] there's just like a level of cringe for them to be sticking so close to this idea that I I feel like it just misses the mark. C tier the mark. C tier cityb building economics busty maids.

[12:33] This series contains all of these things and how it utilizes them into something halfway entertaining. Well, that will be the question throughout this season. This is easygoing territory defense by the optimistic lord. Another series that

[12:46] uses its isekai protagonist as a quick prop to explain why a 2-year-old has the mental capacity of a 25-year-old and then immediately tosses everything into be considered a prodigy and be done with it. The fact that he is a reincarnated

[12:59] person matters little once he reaches 8 years old and is appraised to have an affinity for production magic and not the combat magic that his family is known for and that his father was assuming he'd have. As such, he gets

[13:11] banished to some backwater town as its new lord to get him out of the way and with his life out of sight of everyone else. And you know, the thought that production magic is useless since, you know, it just lets you create things

[13:24] that you can already make by just going and getting a craftsman to do it is slightly understandable. But as this is a city empire building plot, I'm sure that the narrative has ways to showcase just how OP our Lord is

[13:37] with both [music] his magic and modern knowledge, assuming he even uses his happen in the first episode for the most part. For a lot of people, this is going for me, I am a sucker for empire building narratives. And even if it does

[13:51] end up being a lesser quality one, it it's still something that I tend to enjoy. So for that, we're going to start it off in B tier. What would you do if you were an American student and found yourself

[14:03] infatuated with a Japanese high school athlete? Well, you would fly halfway across the world, crossdress, and infiltrate the all boy school where your crush goes to just to be that much closer to him. Obviously, this is

[14:17] Hanukkimi, a romance reverse harum where our protagonist is going to crazy lengths to be closer to her crush. Unfathomably crazy lengths. No one would of this. And perhaps that's why narratively it works so well. The

[14:33] downside, of course, is that now the series will just have to explain to us and justify to us why a character who is infatuated to such a degree in order to go through all of these lengths after her crush in the first place is now a

[14:48] interesting enough to follow as a character without coming off as some deranged zealot for their athletic senpai, but also b open-ended enough to would even for a fraction of a second consider hitching up romantically with

[15:02] literally anyone else because the show is also leaning heavily into reverse harm tropes. Sure, it could just, you know, be played out for fun or perhaps she realizes how insane her actions have been and changes her mind, setting

[15:17] course for one of the other male leads. And if that's something you want to see going to be your new favorite show. For me though, a herm is a harm, even if it's a reverse herm. So, hate me for being prejudiced against an entire

[15:31] genre, but this is an easy C tier for me. me. What if games for you were easy, too easy? What if you wanted to play in a fantasy world that was the hardest grind

[15:44] you could experience? What if the game was balanced terribly, making your experience even harder than it ever needed to be? What if that world was real and its god hearing your plight and desire for difficulty yked to you from

[15:57] your heikamorei life to be reborn into said hell world. Welcome to hell mode. The hardcore gamer dominates in another world with garbage balancing. I have

[16:09] very little to go off with this, at least, you know, with only the initial and narrative has been done before. reincarnated into a surf class. Gain due to reincarnation. The main difference is that apparently our hero

[16:24] has to grind 100 times more exp to level up than normal. But, you know, since the to start, I doubt that we as the audience will be watching that grind and the result from our perspective will be the same. Take the fact that the title

[16:38] describes our hero as dominating this world. then I don't imagine even with be all that difficult for him in the grand scheme of things. And plus, despite living the surf lifestyle, he seems to be having a great time. So

[16:52] really, everything is pretty standard here. It's got some fun moments, so I'm I can't say that my hopes are very high for this series to suddenly become for this series to suddenly become exceptional or anything. C tier.

[17:06] A girl with long legs, a deep voice, short hair, and masculine face. In anime high school terms, she is the perfect prince, a bodily ideal to pine after while still being a woman. How does that reputation affect someone who just

[17:21] wishes that she herself could be treated like a princess at least [music] once in like a princess at least [music] once in her life? This is In the Clear Moonlight Dusk, and it is quite nice. a female protagonist who has the build and looks

[17:34] to make it seem like she is the one sweeping girls off her feet. You know, deflecting hooligan punches in the convenience store. But she's tired of convenience store. But she's tired of being seen as a guy by the other girls

[17:47] in her school until she runs into a guy who thinks that she is beautiful. And because who could possibly be able to look past her features when no one else

[17:59] could? And that is what is making this romance enjoyable to watch. Personally, it helps that we are not really beating around the bush all that much with the romance. Our male lead is actually quite forward. It's just that our girl's

[18:11] processing errors are the only thing that's slowing this train down, which is quite nice. Also, I mean, a part of me questions why she keeps her hair so as more feminine. But, you know, perhaps they'll explain that later. I don't

[18:25] they'll explain that later. I don't know. Until then, though, a tier you go. Getting isachied to a fantasy world is nothing new. Getting isachied to a world accidentally is also nothing new. Getting isachied as a corporate drone

[18:38] who is so conditioned to work yourself to the bone, so immediately you ask to be put to work and end up overhauling the entire kingdom's accounting department. Now that's something that at least feels new. This is Office Worker.

[18:52] The other world's books depend on the bean counter. And there are multiple levels to this series that are making it stand above most other isekai slop from recent years. Having a protagonist that has zero intention of being a hero, one

[19:05] who like becomes more of a scholar to help the kingdom that they're now a part of is uncommon to say the least. But he's not like doing it in a happy of danger that is continually present as our protagonist is rubbing up against

[19:18] rampant corruption and embezzlement throughout the royal court. Not only be summoned as this kingdom's holy maiden and tasked with saving everything and stopping the dangerous miasma that threatens the nation is also there. But

[19:33] our protagonist questions, why did they summon a stranger for this task? Is it because she's disposable? What are the kingdom's plans for her? Is she in danger? Oh my god, these restoration potions mean that I can work for hours

[19:47] great. So, there's a lot going on, and that's completely ignoring the fact that this series has a romance genre tag in most places. And the only thing even first episode is the interactions between our male protagonist and the

[20:02] leader of the third Order of Knights. Not a lot of buildup there, but I have been warned it goes from 0 to 60 real fast. And, you know, that's fine. I mean, I was kind of hoping for a slow burn there as our protagonist slowly

[20:15] addicts himself with restoration potions and breaks his body all for a kingdom tomorrow. But either way, you know, I'm still curious about it. So, I'm going to keep my eye on this one and put it in B tier.

[20:29] What if you were excellent at everything in a fantasy world where specializing is swordsman who buffed your own weapons, but the heroes party, you know, just wanted an enchanter who only enchants and then they kick you out? Well, you

[20:44] would have this. This is Jack of All Trades, Party of None. And I feel like I am going to need to continually specify that I am talking about Jack of All Trades, Party of None, because otherwise nearly everything that I say about this

[20:57] show could be applied to at least one other nearly identical show. The broadstrokes are all there. the red mage protagonist, the kicked out of the up with another group who suddenly

[21:10] the line we're going to get the old party crawling back and giving our with them again when they realize how great he was at his job and how much they suck. Now, what has been setting this series apart though is uh a

[21:24] mentality that others have while adventuring here. And that is that there there is a focus on the specializing of roles. Like usually in these anime, adventurers sticking to their jobs as it was is just kind of a fact of the world

[21:38] and not something that we focus on like so many other RPG tropes. But here there is like internal lore as to why this system has been set up. Mostly though, protagonist to show how he wants to be different for one reason or another. On

[21:53] the one hand, I agree with him. You know, you might be the healer of a party, but if everyone is healed, everyone has shields, everyone is buffed to heaven and back, are you just supposed to stand there? No. If your

[22:06] hitting the DPS. I don't care if your DPS is only like 20th second or something pitifully low, if you can down a boss any faster by doing something, even by a fraction of a second, then you should. The problem here is that I worry

[22:21] this Kyito looking mofo is going to take it a step too far into arrogant territory. Having party of none in the title kind of hints at this. Our protagonist might become a super adventurer who can do it all. The point

[22:36] of a red mage is to be versatile, but not to be specifically better than any of the specialized classes at those individual things. This however just seems to be like our protagonist wants to be able to do everything and also to

[22:50] be the best at everything which is just no C tier. A young girl who lost her parents. A writer who lost her sister. A family forced together by circumstance now has to coexist with one another trying to

[23:06] find their new normal while also dealing with their grief and expansive loneliness. or as the case may be, not dealing with it [music] at all. This is Journal with Witch, and in just the first episode, this series has

[23:22] frontloaded us with so much useful information that it's hard to parse through. And yet, I am not worried about missing something or forgetting details. It's the kind of series that very elegantly guides you along and lets you

[23:37] experience things about this world and these characters at your own pace. And I am very thankful for that because this series about two people navigating their own grief is not something you really want to be forced through. It's not a

[23:51] traditional story about grief or one that's in a way written before you even start by following a very similar template to the myriad of stories about grief which have already been written throughout the years. Here you have a

[24:04] girl Assa who lost her parents. We aren't shown really what they meant to her, only how she feels now. In these moments, she's not breaking down all the time or cursing the world for its unfairness. She just keeps walking, like

[24:19] traversing through a desert of loneliness trying to find some water. Furthermore, she is helped in a way by her aunt Mchio. And Mchio is the younger sister of Assa's mom. And from what we gather, they did not have a great

[24:32] relationship to the point where Makio will outwardly admit that she feels nothing for her sister's death and that in some ways she might be happy that she's gone. But it's also possible that this is just not true. She keeps seeing

[24:47] her sister around her on the subway or at the dinner table with a judgmental look. The look of someone who believes that the life of a recluse writer, which that the life of a recluse writer, which Mchio is, is something to be shamed.

[25:00] Though, in some ways, maybe her sister had a point. And perhaps that's what makes it even more painful. In only one episode, I have been captured by the series in a way that I wasn't expecting a new series to do. I don't know how the

[25:13] series plans on continuing the lives of these two characters, how they will struggle or support one another. But however they do, I can say that I am willing to watch them every step of the way. This gentle viewers is an S tier

[25:28] opening of a series. I hope the rest of it stays that way. A kindergarten kid playing on the swings. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing scary about that. But what if it was scary? What if there were ghosts

[25:43] everywhere infecting and affecting everything? That would be scary, right? Well, not if you couldn't see it, but if you could. If you could defeat them one-handed, that wouldn't be so bad, right? This is Kaan isn't scary, a

[25:59] series about the narrator claimed strongest psychic Kayachan, who can beat up ghosts with her fists. She is otherwise a normal kindergarten-aged girl who ends up upsetting all of her supervisors due to her unexplained

[26:13] actions. But one day, the newest sensei actually sees the ghosts haunting the swings and then Ka's wrestling style execution of said ghost. And from then on, she keeps a much closer eye on this young girl and begins to listen to her

[26:27] when she says that something shouldn't be done or that something should be avoided. This isn't a normal toddler who is acting selfish and just wants to use things for themselves. This is a child who knows how dangerous these ghosts can

[26:40] be and just wants everyone to avoid them. There are some setting questions I do have, like why is her kindergarten literally littered with ghosts and other paranormal entities that have such strong effects? Are they attracted to Ka

[26:55] common elsewhere, you'd think that all of society would have crumbled by now, unless there's like some secret school of jiu-jitsu sorcerers hanging around somewhere. Overall, it's a reasonably decent series, but there's a careful

[27:08] balance between like supernatural horror and comedy, and I'm really not sure that Kaya here is the best at striking that balance. Usually, it ends up attempting to be more comedic. And sure, if you want to see some faceless purple ghost

[27:21] get one shot by a kindergarter, then I doubt any other series this season is going to do it better. But if you want something that like balances the ghost aspect better than this, well, this might not be what you are looking for.

[27:35] might not be what you are looking for. So, I'm going to put it in C tier. You live in a fantasy world. You have the ability to use magic. In fact, you learn about water magic at an astounding rate. Faster than your teachers, better

[27:48] and more advanced than anyone. But even as the descendant of the legendary hero, you have one small problem. You can't see. This is Kunan the sorcerer can see,

[28:01] which might be a perplexing title about a blind protagonist, but his vision and quest to gain some semblance of sight is indeed key to this story. He is the son of a noble family. He gets tutors. He has a personal maid who showers him with

[28:17] affection. Perhaps a bit too much of it actually. And he's engaged to a princess. But what he cares about more than all of that is that he wants to see to experience the world as everyone else does. And he's confident that if he can

[28:30] get that much better at magic, then he can do it through making his own eyes or by some other method. Magic must have the answer. Really though, I'm not sure

[28:42] Personally, I think I would much prefer Kunan to find like his own way of experiencing the world in a way that others can't to use his magic to enhance his other senses or be able to otherwise interact with the world without vision.

[28:58] will be exactly where the story is towards those things, but I'm just not personally content with the constant desire for something that he doesn't have because it's like he doesn't seem

[29:13] to be able to appreciate what he does have, which makes it difficult to cheer him on in his goals, even if he does succeed. because well, if he does, he'll just end up as a superpowered magician, identical to all of the other

[29:26] superpowered magicians and magic users out there. But perhaps my own view on things is is what needs fixing. In any event, between our protagonist and the very oddly written maid at his side, I'm going to put this series in C tier.

[29:41] A child is reborn and appraised [music] to have near the highest ranking of water magic, even so shortly after his birth. But this child has other advantages as well, such as the memories of his former life and also a whole

[29:55] mansion full of capable people to help him in whatever goals he sets for him in whatever goals he sets for himself. This is noble reincarnation. Born blessed so I'll obtain ultimate power, [music] which if you've been

[30:07] around the block for a while like I have, it doesn't have much original to it. On the surface, a reincarnated noble who is dealing with his noble status and attempting to use it for good, while also dealing with outsiders and a family

[30:20] who would otherwise act selfishly despite their responsibilities over the people they rule over. It gives me a lot of similar vibes to a show that I do rather enjoy called Reincarnated as an Aristocrat in that while our protagonist

[30:33] here is appraised to have super high water stats, he himself is the only one that can see that his stats are the way they are because of the people he has command over as this apparently affects his ratings. So, he deduces that if he

[30:46] gains the right land and the right subjects, his stats can increase even more. It's not too dissimilar to a noble who can appraise worthy subjects and then utilize them for the benefit of the land that he rules right now. Whether I

[30:59] find it worthwhile as the season progresses depends entirely on where the show wants to go. If it leans more into its empire building side, finding good places to develop and doing just that, then I'm quite intrigued. Even if we get

[31:13] like. But if it ends up just a straight power fantasy with noble flare, I'm far less interested as we have countless shows like that already. As such, we're with the knowledge that it could quite easily move to A. It just depends how it

[31:29] goes. Quickly though, let's take a break for a myself before we continue on with the next section because I wanted to give shoutouts to supporters of this channel over on Patreon. This video is not

[31:42] get over there, the less sponsors. the glass reflection we'll need at any given especially to patrons like Ry and Bonapart, Omar Showman, Ross [music] Emerson, Hector Monttore, Aiden, and City Yamako. We can't continue this

[31:55] without your support. And however much you are able to help, I am eternally grateful. Have you ever heard of a sword that can cut a flame? I haven't either, and this show doesn't try to do that, but instead

[32:07] it asks, "What did samurai in the Edeto period do to combat fires?" This is Odo Fire Slayer: The Legend of Phoenix, which sounds very cool, very heroic, but

[32:20] I can't say that the series itself lives up to that coolness. The basis of the plot here is that the local firefighting group is on track to disband. But if only they were able to convince our protagonist to join them and train their

[32:33] group, and combat fires from an arsonist who seems keen on burning the whole be saved. I mean, it's like an interesting cone of paint on that whole narrative trope of like a high school team trying to convince the miracle

[32:46] but instead of high school kids and sports, this is the Edeto period with adult samurai and firefighting. Thing is though, what makes those high school stories work is how they're able to take the sport in question and make that

[33:00] interesting for an audience. Get you invested on both the sport and everyone playing it. But here, I can't say that there's much to make me interested in watching some samurai try to fight fires, especially since the show itself

[33:12] doesn't even seem all that confident in what firefighting actually involves. I well, but you know, with a narrative setup like this, even with good animation, I'd have a hard time ranking it very high. As it is, yeah, Dtier.

[33:30] it very high. As it is, yeah, Dtier. One day you die. old age, illness, truck remember your previous life anyways, but you wake up in an egg and what do you do now? This is reincarnated as a dragon hatchling, which means largely the title

[33:45] is now making the show self-explanatory. Have you watched any other series that has a title which starts as reincarnated as a blank? Because if you have, you already know like 80% of the plot. Human wakes up in an egg. Can't do much except

[33:59] fall over and roll around. They have a voice in their head that guides them sort of. And eventually they dig evolve into a slightly larger dragon with legs. They fire punch some stuff and then run into some humans who slice their chest

[34:12] open. Whoops. But the girl was nice and then healed them. Aw, shame that there's now also a giant dragon who wants to kill the humans. So, what's our hatchling to do? There really isn't much interesting here. I'm going to be

[34:25] honest. If it follows the normal course, then our protagonist is going to be overpowered inside a few episodes, ruling over the area by the end of the we're going to have people making posts on Reddit about how the show is nothing

[34:38] but a bunch of fantasy races having meetings around a table for every single episode. All of that to say, I'm passing on it and placing it in C tier. A girl blessed by God and tasked with joining the hero's party to save the

[34:52] world. She is cursed by an affinity of reversal, an ability that causes all of her stats to be zero. An affinity that causes conflict with the other members of the hero's party. This is roll over and die, I will fight for an ordinary

[35:07] life with my love and cursed sword. It's a different take on the whole banished because usually banishment from the hero's party does not involve getting sold into slavery and then finding a cursed sword that instead of melting the

[35:22] flesh off your bones like it does for everyone else, it heals you instead power, so everything does the opposite that's supposed to. It's opposite day. And then, you know, our protagonist makes an escape and takes a slave girl

[35:35] with her. Will she get revenge against the party that sold her into slavery? Will she curse the god that sent her down this path? Or will she just take the good fortune when she can and escape with her new slave partner to live

[35:47] quietly somewhere? Well, I doubt it's the last one, but you never know, right? So far, like, I've already listed all of the possible endings based on, you know, It's not like our protagonist can rejoin the hero's party for the purpose of

[36:00] the demon lord is already dead and the up the scraps, which is probably why the strategist of said party saw it fit to sell our protagonist off into slavery despite her divine mandate to be in the

[36:13] party in the first place. Shame no one knew what her reversal skill does, though, because it might look useless, but it's actually overpowered. Where have I heard that before? All of that to say, we're putting this one in B

[36:26] tier on the slim hope that it can do something unique and interesting with its narrative, but it is teetering on the edge into C tier, if I am being honest. A biological agent full of something

[36:39] called ether has been developed that gives people supernatural powers. Of course, this can be used for good and for ill. And in Tokyo, that means either being a member of the mafia and using the injections to become a demon lord or

[36:54] to fight against the mafia and become a brave. There is no in between in roles only in personalities. This is scum of the brave where yakuza/mafia

[37:06] fighting is mixed with misplaced comedic beats and magical shenanigans. Our protagonist is a brave who's kind of like a grizzled veteran, a guy who is barely making ends meet, but is good at fighting. So that's what he does. He

[37:19] gets wrapped up in the rescue mission of a teenaged girl by two other teenaged braves themselves. The leader of the girls is the most ganky and upbeat girl you can possibly imagine. So it's her task to break through the stubbornness

[37:33] of our protagonist and recruit him to fight the evil demon lords of the Japanese Yakuza. On the surface, the show is interesting enough, but really the problem that I'm having here is the lack of consistent tone. Like, you can

[37:46] have the old Bones shows like FMA and Soul Eater that balance serious shownen action with sudden comedic beats, but it takes a particular kind of finesse to do properly. A kind of finesse that does not exist here, at least not yet. And

[37:59] the result is a more comedic series that more often than not robs any serious plot beats of any real stakes or emotion. Could that change as the series progresses through its full 24 episode run? Sure. Will I be around to see it?

[38:14] run? Sure. Will I be around to see it? That one's less likely. Ctier. A jaded warrior, an anxious thief, and a goddess desiring praise. The three of them exist in a world continually plagued by unexplained demonic elements

[38:27] that corrupt all in their path with little hope given to victory or even extended survival. But this world goes much deeper [music] much deeper [music] than that. This is sentenced to be a

[38:40] [music] a bad thing. Heroes here aren't renowned in a positive light. In fact, being a hero is a punishment. If you perform a crime bad enough, you get locked into an eternal contract of sorts that forces

[38:55] you to do heroic acts [music] at the behest of either the local entirely clear which one in just the [music] first episode. But what is hammered home in this initial episode is that heroes have no escape from their

[39:07] new title. Even death is meaningless as they can apparently just summon your soul back from the afterlife and throw you into whatever available body they have continually for as long as they want. This is eternal punishment. But

[39:22] doing that reincarnation apparently [music] takes heavy mental tolls on the heroes and it's not something desired or recommended. So, our protagonist not only avoids that fate for himself, but is also trying to do it for his fellow

[39:35] hero accomplice. The pair accidentally wake up one of this world's 13 goddesses, [music] women who hold unimaginative powers, but only when they are in a contract with a mortal. So, despite our hero's vocal distaste for

[39:47] the goddesses, he still ends up forming a pact with this new one because no other option manifests itself. And then alongside his accomplice, who steals a powerful bomb on a whim, they defeat a newly spawned demon lord, only for the

[40:00] hero is a hero in the first place is authorities or some other such person and ended up killing one of the 13 goddesses to save her from corruption. But, you know, since the goddesses can't

[40:12] possibly be affected by the corruption, saying that they could is blasphemy, so a hero he must become. It would be wrong of me not to acknowledge the craftsmanship of this series. From like how it weaves its opening narratives to

[40:25] how it slowly drip feeds you its character details over the initial 58minute first episode. Its cinematography is top-notch. It blends fast-paced action with firstp person perspectives and does very very well at

[40:38] showcasing just how bleak the situation is for our characters. Like if I was to put any knock on this show in any way, it's just like to [music] state my current distaste [clears throat] or maybe aversion for narratives that are

[40:51] more depressing, grim, and sometimes grotesque for the sake of it. I do not normally find myself necessarily enjoying those things from a watching perspective, but I can't do anything but recommend it regardless due to the

[41:04] quality here on display. [music] If you want an easy shoein for anime of the season based on just episode one heck contender for anime of the year already, you can add this one to the list. S tier.

[41:18] This is a story about a deranged world. One where girls are put into death games for the enjoyment of others. At least that's what we think. What we know is that some join these games by choice with the reward of prizes and money if

[41:33] you survive, but also that some are forced to play this game for one reason [music] or another. These death games, games where everyone wants to survive, but not everyone will be given the chance to.

[41:47] This is Shibuyugi, playing death games to put food on the table. It's a thriller series about Yuki, [music] a professional death game player. She has played and survived over 25 death games due to her analytical ability and skill.

[42:02] She's confident that she will play and eventually win 99 death games, and she will do it by following her own rules. She doesn't lie to anyone. She as many people survive the game as possible. But she also knows that the

[42:17] games are not designed for everyone to survive. Some will die. This is inevitable, but it's always a matter of whom and why. The first episode of this phenomenal. It's probably one of the best singular episodes of the whole

[42:33] season. But also, what worries me is that much of that enjoyment that I based around misdirection and utilizing the audience's lack of knowledge about this world to tell its story. So, with

[42:46] 11 episodes total, can it keep up? Will the final episode of the show be as gripping and as nerve-wracking to watch as the [music] first? That I can't say, but I'm willing to stick it out. Almost S tier, but very easy. A tier.

[43:02] Picture this. You are a high school girl who does what all obsessed high school girls do. Obsess over your Oshi. You managed to secure tickets to their concert, but oh no, they're expensive. Guess you'll have to work extra hard at

[43:15] your job to make up for it. Your job in the hospitality industry. You clean if they pay well enough. And you have a new assignment today. A boy whose name is the same as your oshies. Could it be?

[43:28] Yes. This is Tamong's Bside, a story about a male idol suffering from heaping amounts of self-doubt, imposttor syndrome, probably depression, anxiety, and a whole bunch of other things. But in work mode, he is the super hot and

[43:42] sexy male idol of face, but only in work mode. Otherwise, he is just curled up into the fetal position, unable to do much due to his poor living habits that required the services of someone in the hospitality industry. Someone like our

[43:55] protagonist. I mean, a part of me has a mini eye roll at the whole coincidence of it all. Even the show itself has our protagonist doubting the whole situation because, hey, in her own words, what is this, a self-insert fic? Well, it might

[44:10] as well be. But I'll be honest, the dynamics at play here are super cute. And even though I am worried about the future of our pairs relationship since, you know, like idols are famously not allowed to date, I'm still very curious

[44:23] to see how it's all going to pan out. How this super fan is able to bury her poor guy out of his shell in a way that just isn't [music] for his work. This is an A tier for me.

[44:37] Vampires, werewolves, witches, and necromancers exist. Or do they? If they did, they would solve supernatural mysteries and fight supernatural crimes. Or would they? This is the case book of Arn Arnal

[44:54] mystery series about a super amazing vampire lord who is more powerful than other vampires, but for some reason has taken to solving mysteries at a detective agency with a young noble's daughter following him around. What kind

[45:06] of mysteries are to be solved? Well, we start with murder. But as with most anime mystery that I watch, the result is not great. At least for episode 1, the mystery is not something that can be solved by the audience beforehand. So

[45:19] it's more of the show just going from setpiece to setpiece until someone in information than we do spits out the solution. Except here the result is even more nonsensical than that. Like we briefly follow a young boy whose

[45:31] was probably too close to catching a serial killer. Okay. But then with this guy's dying moments, he leaves a message to his son. This message is just a handkerchief that he uses his blood to dye the embroidered flower of the

[45:47] handkerchief. And this apparently sends a message to his son that the killer must be someone who dyes flowers with blood, you know, which the son notices by seeing that the flower on the handkerchief is blood red. How does he

[46:01] there? I'm not sure how that connection was made. Plus, like the killer dying flowers in blood is a bit specific for such a vague message, isn't it? Wouldn't you just assume that, hey, my dad's blood got on his handkerchief? That

[46:16] that's the kind of thrilling mystery you can expect here from this series. Halfbaked explanations and good characters killed off, while our main beyond a brief monologue about why he is so awesome. C tier.

[46:31] What if you lived in a society where torture was legal? Where there were companies whose job it was to torture people and gain information about whatever and all of this was above board? Now, what if this was also

[46:45] supposed to be a comedy? This is the daily life of a part-time torturer where some professional torturers go through their daily slices of life that just slices of other people's lives. This series more or less has all of the usual

[46:58] trope markings of a workplace anime comedy. Though I'll put comedy in air quotes because that's so subjective. And being honest, nothing here landed for a normal workplace comedy is that instead of being set, you know, in a

[47:10] workplace where you can relate to the variety of white or blue collar work, the job here is torture. They torture people with a smile because their job is fun for them perhaps, but it wasn't necessarily fun for me. So, I'm dumping

[47:25] this one in D tier. The world of science has either created a miracle or a monster. It has made a being that is half human, half chimpanzee with some of the best characteristics of both. But when the

[47:40] science lab gets raided, this human gets sent to be raised by human parents. sent to be raised by human parents. [music] And he is now 15 years old. This is the Darwin incident. And I'm sure someone is thinking themselves doubly

[47:52] clever for not only just making a reference to famous biologist Charles Darwin in the title, but then also by naming our main character, the human Z, Charlie. There comes a point in attempting to write an original story

[48:06] where it's very, very hard for people to be able to predict what could possibly happen next. I don't know what this story is about. Is it just about the story is about. Is it just about the life of Charlie and how he lives? Maybe.

[48:19] Is it about the school that he goes to, the girl that he meets up with and develops a friendship with? Also, maybe like, you know, you don't really want a predictable series. I'm not saying you should have that because, hey, it's not

[48:32] fun to always know what's going to happen before it does. But the flip side of that is not knowing where anything is going at all to the point where you don't even know if it's going somewhere that you care to watch and then you drop

[48:46] that you care to watch and then you drop it, which is where I'm at with it. D tier. The demon king. A being feared throughout the land for his fearsome powers and destructive capability. He is

[48:59] without a doubt the most evil and despicable being ever created. His though. Welcome to The Demon King's Daughter is Too Kind, a fantasy comedy about a demon king's daughter who is probably the most happy, upbeat, and

[49:14] series follows our young girl's adventures, or misadventures, alongside her father's right-hand subordinate, a female demon named Jawahi. Jawahi has been tasked with awakening the girl's demonic and cruel tendencies. But, you

[49:29] know, this girl would much rather just play with everyone instead. Now, this is how you do a comedy. Like, you have situational humor with slapstick and characters who are so simple it's nearly impossible to do them horribly, but also

[49:42] part of the joke. Like, I don't know though if this is a series that I would season. That remains to be seen. But I can at least say that I enjoyed I very girl running around singing about playing hideand- seek while actually

[49:57] playing hideand-seek with a handler who just desperately wishes that the girl would want to torture some woodland animals instead. Great start putting animals instead. Great start putting this at the top end of B tier.

[50:09] A young woman is at her engagement party, but surprise, her fiance is snogging some other woman out in the garden. And then said woman has the goal to attempt to frame our protagonist for thievery in order to continue her

[50:21] illicit love affair out in the open. This sounds like the traditional start of a villainous anime, doesn't it? And you know, it might turn out that way, but here at the start, we have a new angle that is in fact quite villainous.

[50:35] This is the holy grail of Aerys, where the ghost or spectre of a witch or some otherwise scorned woman executed 10 years past has come back to the world to enact her revenge. Now, with the help of a willing host, our protagonist,

[50:49] Constance Grail, the ghost possesses our protagonist to not only showcase her dominance in the social field, but to slowly begin to enact her revenge against the idiot nobles who executed her. It is quite possible that even the

[51:02] female ghost Scarlet is not a villainous herself and that most of her villain history paints her after she failed to convince the world of the wrongs done to

[51:14] her and then was rewarded with execution for her trouble. But her methods are not quite what one would consider to be virtuous, especially when you see the results of those who are caught on the wrong side of her sharp glare. So, this

[51:26] could just be a very traditional villainess show, but it could also be something very different. Not sure how the title ties in yet since we haven't met any character named Aerys. Unless Aerys is another name or title for the

[51:39] ghost character Scarlet, in which case, ha, I bet Aerys pads her chest. A tier, easy. A detective agency in a modern fantasy world with a myriad of fantasy and even science fiction races all mingling

[51:54] together. But what this detective agency does or who they investigate is not the fascinating oddities, we focus on the head of the agency itself, an invisible man and one of his assistants, a young blind woman. It's a romance between two

[52:10] who seem perfect for one another. This is the invisible man and his soon-to-be wife. A title that kind of gives the game away a bit, doesn't it? Not only that, but it puts a deadline on when the story is going to end. Like you can't

[52:24] very well have a title where a protagonist is called soon to be wife would just be a little odd. But you know what? For the moment, that's perfectly fine. This is a supernatural romance

[52:36] with slice of life elements to showcase this rather fascinating world, but also has been great so far. The way that our leads are able to interact given their because our main protagonist is invisible. But that doesn't matter to

[52:52] the girl that he likes because she's blind and couldn't see him anyway. Like I am legitimately excited to see to experience how their romance builds and develops even if we already know the outcome thanks to the title. Solid solid

[53:07] A tier. A woman gets reincarnated into an atto game that she played in her previous life. She's now a noble woman engaged to the crown prince. A prince who decides to publicly call off their engagement

[53:22] due to her alleged treatment of another woman who the prince immediately engages himself with. This is a description that fits more anime than I can currently count. But we aren't talking about those anime today. We are talking about this

[53:35] one. This is the villainess is adored by the prince of the neighbor kingdom. a series that I hope I desperately hope is only leaning on the established narrative tropes for the introduction of this series and then plans to diverge

[53:48] from the norm beyond this point. Because after getting her engagement so publicly broken off, the prince of the nearby nation immediately sees what is going on, sees his chance, and swoops in to not only take the hand of the woman he's

[54:01] apparently been pining over for years, but also to embarrass the local prince and his new fiance in one fell swoop. I would be impressed if I hadn't actually seen all of this before. Actually, no, I am impressed because usually such

[54:13] humiliation happens far later once everybody realizes what a mistake the prince has made. And the fact that we got all of that out of the way in episode 1 is actually quite efficient. So now our local prince has banished our

[54:26] villainess for her alleged crimes against his new fiance and she needs a new place to live. Fancy that the neighboring prince is offering her his hand. So here's my thing. I have been a sucker for these stories. Even if it's

[54:39] like called a villainous story with a protagonist who acts not villainous like single show that has started out this way to completion. As such, you should watching this series all the way to the end as a judge of its actual value. That

[54:56] one off in B tier and raise it if it becomes a unique entry into the genre, but also lower it if it if it doesn't. Simple. Yeah. Let's say you get reincarnated and you

[55:09] are now in the body of a powerful demon, even more powerful than the demon lord himself. You could defeat him and take over his throne, but nah, you don't want to do that. Ruling is hard work and a real pain. But the existing lord can't

[55:22] just have you roaming around. So, what do you do? Well, you take up a guard wannabe heroes from coming in and slaying him. It's a reasonably good gig until you knock out one of the parties of adventurers and then get knocked out

[55:35] yourself in the heart. This is There was a cute girl in the hero's party, so I tried confessing to her. The story of a reincarnated S-class demon who falls in love at first sight with a beautiful priestess. He lets the hero's party pass

[55:49] him in order to defeat the demon lord in exchange for the chance to confess his feelings only to get instantly rejected. But that's not enough to get him down. Now, with the demon lord defeated, if only our protagonist could gain the

[56:01] reputation of a powerful adventurer who helps humans instead of someone who kills them, maybe he might have a chance to marry the girl that he loves. And I mean, even by the end of episode 1, her mom seems into the idea, so why not?

[56:13] general, you know, I'm not a fan of overpowered protagonists, and this seems to be a narrative set up in a way where our guy's power level doesn't really matter. He could defeat all of the world's demons, but that still would not

[56:27] be enough to win his maiden's heart. He can't cheat skill his way into making her love him. And I love that for him, cuz she's also not like repulsed by him or anything. So, you're saying there's a chance. And that chance is what is

[56:41] making this series interesting amid all of the social complexities that are being introduced in this world [music] that is suffering from a power vacuum in Especially when there's like nothing stopping our protagonist from just

[56:54] taking the demon throne if he wants it. But really, we know that he'll only want it if his angel wishes it of him. Oh, this is going to be sappy and in some ways trash, but it's the kind of trash that I'm interested in. We're going to

[57:07] that I'm interested in. We're going to put it at the top end of B tier. You are in middle school, the heir to a powerful and influential Japanese conglomerate, and the pressures that are placed upon you is immense. The only

[57:19] solace you get is that every night at midnight, a radio show is playing. There's barely any listeners. Some nights it's only you, but the voice of a girl your age is the one thing you are excited about on the dayto-day to hear

[57:31] her say at the end of the broadcast, "I love you." This is Tune In to the Midnight Heart, a series about a guy who has been searching for the girl behind the voice of his favorite radio show since she stopped broadcasting and

[57:45] internet. He uses the information he does have to track her possible location down to one specific school and then barges into the broadcasting club to find the girl that he has been searching for, only to find four girls there, each

[57:58] with their own aspirations and each with a voice that is in some ways similar to On the one hand, this is an interesting take on the mysterious girl harum tropes that have been around for ages. On the other, a harm is a herm is a herm. We're

[58:12] going to spend all 12 episodes of this show learning about these four girls and at the end be disappointed that the one that we like best is not the one who's up with some bull about how they were all the girls somehow considering how

[58:25] similar each of them are to various parts of the voice he's looking for. Like I can give it a lot of points for being excellent at what it does, but I that's usually not something that I'm all that into. All of that being said,

[58:38] due to its quality and interesting setup though, we are still going to put it in B tier. A picturesque Japanese town. [music] A simple job at a self-run cleaning

[58:50] business. A young woman named Wakana will clean and iron all of your clothing professional smile and small [music] town charm. This is Wash It All Away, an

[59:02] anime series that is not exceptionally deep, not all that complicated, but when you are in the mood for something calming and stress relieving, this is this is a slice of life series, not about our protagonist specifically, who

[59:15] just runs a clothing business, but because it's also about all of the town's folk who she ends up helping. the old woman who makes pasta for her family. The biker whose husband brings home sweets from his work trips, the boy

[59:27] that our protagonist sees when she goes for a run. It's all of these little stories combining into one fascinating blanket weave of a narrative that gets cleaned and ironed so well and in such a relaxing fashion. Obviously, if the slow

[59:43] nature of these things is not to your taste, if the idea of watching someone steam clean some pasta sauce out of a sweater does not strike your fancy, you may rank this lower than I do. But for my part, I am absolutely going to add

[59:55] this to my watch rotation for this season. It is an easy A for me that might even make it to S by the end of the season. Suzuki is an overly cheerful and outgoing kind of gal. Tani is a stoic,

[1:00:09] quiet, and otherwise background character kind of guy. Suzuki is in love idea how to communicate with someone who barely talks. This spikes her anxiety. What if by talking too much she turns him away? What if he would never like

[1:00:22] her in the first place? What if ah he's held her hand? That is this kind of show. This is You and I are polar opposites. a romcom revolving around two people with very different public personas [music] somehow forming a

[1:00:35] relationship that has the potential to be extremely heartwarming and lovely. that I feel the show is lying to us about. For example, Suzuki has bright pink hair, cares a ton about her appearance, and in almost all cases fits

[1:00:49] the mold of an extremely outgoing and extroverted person. But we are also shown that such things tire her out extremely such that she ends up finding refuge in the bathroom for a while to cool down and decompress, you know, like

[1:01:01] an introverted person. So really though she does have little idea of how best to communicate with the guy she likes, they may be more compatible than you'd think at first glance, which I suppose is the heart of the story and why it's probably

[1:01:13] of the season. [music] That said though, I don't think that there was enough with just the first episode to put it on the higher echelons for the season in the fourth place for me as far as the romances go, but I certainly could see

[1:01:26] progresses. Until then, however, we're going to start it off firmly at the top end of B tier. A high school boy who has spent not an insignificant amount of his life reading romcoms, at least enough to know that

[1:01:40] all of the tropes around childhood friend characters have no basis in reality. This is real life. And if any of those situations were to happen, he socially excommunicated from his peers.

[1:01:52] two beautiful childhood friends who want nothing more than for him to pin them down and have his way with them. This is one of those shows. Welcome to you can't be in a romcom with your childhood friends. A title that makes me respond,

[1:02:05] yes, you can. Absolutely you can. Have you read romcoms? A childhood friend love interest is in a not insignificant portion of them. Oh, but do the other go through the hassle of waking up early, sneaking into the protagonist's

[1:02:19] arm, and then stealthily position themselves to give a perfect panty shot to him all before he's gotten out of bed. I mean, probably. But this show it's unique to have female protagonists who will just continually throw

[1:02:33] themselves at our male protagonist. He's too afraid of any social consequences and then just doesn't make a move. That's the show. That will be the whole episodes of these two probably expanded to four girls doing all but stripping in

[1:02:47] them, and let's be fair, one of them is probably going to strip at some point. Then have at the might be your favorite show of the season. But for me, I'd like my romance to have a little bit more than just one gag extended ad nauseium.

[1:03:00] Thank you very much. Down in the C tier you go. But that's it for our show idea of what from this season you yourself might be [music] interested in. yourself might be [music] interested in. some possible gems, some pieces of utter

[1:03:14] trash, and now [music] we know them all. I hope that at least one or two of them up watching them all the way through. And if not, well, there's always next and find a way to link in the description all of the places where you

[1:03:28] if possible. But if that fails, just Google the show name and add streaming you. So, subscribe if you haven't. Hit the like button if you enjoyed the video. And until next time, whenever that may be, watch more anime and stay

[1:03:42] that may be, watch more anime and stay [music] frosty.