Doctorkev’s Thoughts on the Winter 2022 Anime Season
Although it’s a quieter, weaker season than any from 2021, I’ve still somehow found plenty of anime to watch. It’s a weird season, with a handful of top-tier shows towering far above an ocean of mediocrity. Read on for my impressions of an improbable sixteen anime:
Finished shows:
Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc: Crunchyroll/Funimation: 11 Episodes
As ever, my feelings for Demon Slayer remain conflicted. It’s such a basic shonen show, with cardboard cut-out characters and dumbed-down humour. However, the unbelievably stellar production by studio Ufotable elevates it far above its boilerplate source material.
This is no more evident than in the penultimate installment of this season, Episode 10: Never Give Up. I don’t think I’ve ever sat so breathlessly, so completely captivated by a single episode of anime. Words can hardly express how incredible this episode looks, how fluid the action, how beautiful the explosions of colour. It doesn’t matter that the characters are as two dimensional as tissue paper, such concerns are crushed beneath sheer spectacle.
Never Give Up’s constant 24-minute barrage of extreme intensity outmatches even Mugen Train’s climactic battle. I can’t imagine how Demon Slayer can ever top this without breaking its animators into pieces in the process. Considering the way that anime production works these days, it wouldn’t surprise me.
By comparison, the final (extended) episode is something of an overly maudlin letdown, where Demon Slayer does its “let’s belatedly give the enemies some tragic backstory in a blatant yet pointlessly delayed attempt to wrangle some kind of sympathy for them”. Yes, it is emotionally effective, or it would have been six episodes previously. Here, it seems cynically calculated to provide an artificial emotional payoff. It’s very manipulative, but as it’s the third time this narrative technique has been abused by the show, it seems this is the only way the original creator can conceive to add depth to his antagonists. Well, I never said I was watching Demon Slayer for the quality of the writing. If it were animated by, say, Studio Deen, I wouldn’t touch it with a sharpened, weaponised bargepole.
The Orbital Children (Extraterrestrial Boys and Girls): Netflix: 6 episodes
A complex and thought-provoking hard SF adventure that just happens to feature some realistically annoying adolescents, I cannot recommend The Orbital Children highly enough. Written and directed by Mitsuo Iso (Den-noh Coil), fans of his earlier work will appreciate this cerebral but entertaining 3-hour story. Originally released as two 90-minute movies in Japan, Netflix has instead split it into six 30-minute chunks. Do yourself a favour and watch the whole thing at once. I recently wrote about it in much more detail at the link below.
Sequels/ongoing:
Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2: Crunchyroll/Funimation: Episodes 1–6 of 12 (Sundays)
So far, Attack on Titan’s final season has fired on all cylinders. Any initial worries about MAPPA’s ability to equal Wit Studio’s fantastic work on the first three seasons have all but sublimed away, like the bodies of defeated titans. Each successive episode ratchets the tension yet further, and it’s only at this late stage do the true stakes become clear — we’re heading for global holocaust. Whatever that means for the story I don’t yet know, as I’ve studiously avoided manga spoilers.
It’s pretty telling that in the recent Crunchyroll awards, nominal protagonist Eren Yeager was nominated in both best protagonist and best antagonist categories. Even now, what exactly is he? A war criminal? A sociopath? A sacrificial hero? All of the above?
Such ambiguity can make for head-scratching viewing, as the characters themselves are often confused regarding who to trust, as motivations and intentions are deliberately obfuscated. In a way that’s an accurate portrayal of conflict, of war — the little people are caught between the machinations of their governments and their enemies, and they’re never told the truth. With Attack on Titan, the viewer is dragged down into the confusion of the trenches, to watch in horror as monstrous abominations rend bodies limb from limb and crunch enormous teeth on screaming victims.
Attack on Titan’s refocusing of attention away from the previous central trio of Eren, Mikasa and Armin adds to the viewer’s general discombobulation. With the introduction of other characters with completely different viewpoints, the show hammers home its central thesis that war is hell for everyone. Until we reach the inevitably messy conclusion, at present I’m still not entirely sure what specific point it’s trying to make. I expect it may end up as conflicted and confused as its central characters.
Princess Connect Re:Dive Season 2: Crunchyroll: Episode 1–6 of 12 (Mondays)
Even if you don’t play the mobile gacha game this is based on, Princess Connect Re:Dive is a fun time. Directed by Konosuba’s Takaomi Kanasaki, with a similarly irreverent (but less mean-spirited) atmosphere, it follows (literally) brain-damaged protagonist Yuuki as he stumbles through a confusing fantasy world, aided and abetted by his fellow weirdos in the “Gourmet Guild”. Their main motivation is to travel the world searching for new and tasty food, so High Fantasy this is not.
Mostly episodic, each week the Gourmet Guild bump into a group of other (usually insane) gacha girls, but in general, prior knowledge about their personalities is unnecessary. It is fun though, to see your favourite game characters brought to shiny, vibrant life, especially as they usually embroil Yuuki and company in some truly demented escapades. There is an underlying, darker, more melancholy backplot that’s gradually growing in prominence, but in general it doesn’t impact too much on the goofy nonsense.
For what could easily be discounted as an extended game advertisment, Princess Connect is animated with astounding, virtuoso proficiency. Take this season’s episode four, for example. The centrepiece Rock Golem fight is nothing short of breathtaking in its fluidity and evocation of life and motion. The “camera” barely remains still as the viewpoint swoops up and down, around, in front and behind the characters as they leap into battle, climbing a Shadow of the Colossus-style monster. At least Cygames is putting those ill-gotten gacha dollars to good use. Come for the cute catgirls, stay for the unbelievable sakuga animation.
Ranking of Kings: Funimation/Crunchyroll: Episodes 1–17 of 23 (Thursdays)
It was the best show of last year, and it remains the best so far this season too. If, for some reason, you aren’t watching the story of undisputed Best Boy Prince Bojji and his loyal little shadow friend Kage, I’d like you go do that now. On you go. There are 17 subbed or 12 dubbed episodes to catch up on. I’ll be waiting right here for when you return.
You done?
Good. Now, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that Ranking of Kings is just an incredible anime that mixes cutesy character designs and a European fairy-tale aesthetic with dark, meaty material on familial love, betrayal, death and immortality. Not to mention the wonderfully-animated action sequences.
With a storybook appearance that belies surprising narrative complexity, every one of its deceptively simple-looking characters conceal hidden depths, multiple (sometimes conflicting) motivations and many secrets. Supposedly “disabled” Bojji rises above his limitations to become a paragon of simple, loving virtue, brave yet vulnerable, while his enemies become increasingly complex, sometimes even sympathetic individuals. I can’t wait to see where his story goes next. It’s a shame there’s only six episodes left.
The Case Study of Vanitas Part 2: Funimation/Crunchyroll: episodes 1–5 of 12 (Fridays)
I’m fairly glad I stuck with this increasingly bonkers alternate French history/vampire story. I really struggled to get through part 1 (from Summer 2021) and probably didn’t pay as much attention as I should have, so now I’m a bit lost as to what’s actually happening and why, but that seems to be something I have in common with most of the characters, so that’s probably fine.
Googly-eyed vampire goofball Noe remains exasperated by the exuberant behaviour of his companion Vanitas (a human), though for the majority of this season they’re been separated by the plot. I particularly like pink-haired vampire girl Jeanne, and her blushing interactions with Vanitas are alternately sweet, funny and sexy. I really don’t understand what she sees in the boorish and unpredictable Vanitas, as I find him the most irritating part of the show.
I also still don’t really understand what vampires are, the show’s lore seems somewhat vague, which makes some of the mystical mumbo-jumbo harder to parse than it should be. Or maybe that’s my lack of attention. Anyway, I’m having more fun with this second half than the first, but it’s never something I’m particularly looking forward to. I’ll put it on when I’ve nothing else to watch.
New shows:
Shenmue the Animation: Crunchyroll: episodes 1–2 of 13 (Sundays)
I was fully prepped to hate this. Crunchyroll Originals hardly have a great reputation, the vast majority being wastes of bandwidth and time. The timing itself isn’t great — why adapt a beloved (if poorly aged) game over 22 years after it released, especially after a poorly-received and belated sequel sullied its memory?
One of the reasons I bought a Sega Dreamcast over two decades ago was to play Shenmue (and to play imported Japanese games like Ikaruga, Cosmic Smash, Border Down and Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Mix, complete with dance mat. Oh, Sega Dreamcast, how do I mourn thee…) I loved Shenmue, even with its glacial pace and obscure mechanics, forklift truck races and all. The fact the daily in-game weather was historically accurate (for the location and period in 1986 Japan that it was set) demonstrated that this was a game constructed not just with care, but with a dangerous level of obsession. I appreciated that. As a lucky European, I also got Shenmue II on Dreamcast, while the US languished, unloved. (We got a lot of late Dreamcast exclusives, almost all of them fantastic games.) By then I was a final year medical student and had no time for a sprawling open world RPG that gave me excessive choice-related anxiety, so I had to drop it. Maybe one day I’ll go back…
I digress. It turns out, at least two episodes in, that this isn’t the totally pointless, cynical cash-grab I feared. It doesn’t look great, but it isn’t awful either. So far, it’s done a reasonable job of compressing a couple of weeks’ worth of in-game aimless wandering into something approaching a coherent story. The fight scenes are pretty good. If anything, it seems a little generic. I’ll stick with it, though. The story gets more interesting later, if I recall correctly.
Tribe Nine: Funimation: Episodes 1–3 of 12 (Mondays) DROPPED
A new show from the creators of Danganronpa and Akudama Drive? Sign me up! It features baseball? Hmmm. Not a fan. But it’s EXTREME BASEBALL? Ok, that could be interesting. Spoiler: It’s not. What it is: an exceptional insomnia cure. Don’t bother. This show somehow manages to make cyberpunk life-or-death crazy baseball boring. You can read my tortured analysis of it in more detail at the link below. I don’t want to waste any more words on it.
Sabikui (Rust-eater) Bisco: Crunchyroll: Episodes 1–6 of 12 (Mondays)
Now this show bursts with the unhinged energy and bizarre escapism I expected from Tribe Nine. Red-haired Mushroom Keeper Akaboshi Bisco wanders postapocalyptic desertified Japan, searching for a magical mushroom that will munch away the rust plague devouring the country and its people. I suspect the premise itself was hallucinated following ingestion of multitudinous magic mushrooms.
Bisco recruits Milo Nekoyanagi, an oddly black-eyed, blue-haired medical doctor to join him on his travels. Milo’s terrifyingly edgy Mad Max-esque older policewoman sister has a grudge against Bisco so chases them down, while they encounter weird animals and strange people on their journey. For some reason, Bisco’s world is full of flying sea creatures, Bisco himself rides an enormous crab, and aeroplanes function by integrating gigantic animals into their structures. Like, you know, massive levitating slugs. Also, law enforcement officers ride iguanas.
As an accomplished archer, Bisco defends himself with arrows that explosively spawn enormous bouncy mushrooms from whatever they touch. This leads to much surreal humour, a cross between Monty Python’s unhinged animated segments and some of the stranger nature documentaries hidden in the depths of the National Geographic channel.
With a grimy, rusty aesthetic reminiscent of nineties anime like Trigun, there’s not much else that resembles Sabikui Bisco in modern anime. Every episode brings new insanity, and the main characters are fun and likeable. Definitely a highlight of the season.
The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt: Funimation: Episodes 1–3 of 12 (Tuesdays) DROPPED
I had hopes this might be like a medieval fantasy version of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, but it sadly isn’t. Episode one was ok, but the second and third episodes of this show about a smugly intelligent prince who improbably continues to fail upwards were deathly dull. I could not keep my eyes open. Boooooooooring. Avoid.
Life With an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout: Crunchyroll: Episodes 1–6 of 12 (Tuesdays)
I know I am a bad person for watching this (it’s fellow AniTAY podcaster Requiem’s fault), but I must be an even worse person for laughing at it. Not even Requiem admits to finding this funny, so I know my journey to irreversible brokenness is complete.
It’s another one of those shows with a stupidly long title that explains its premise, and it’s not even based on a light novel. No, it’s from a manga this time. Hinata Tachibana is a thirtysomething office worker who is completely average at everything in life, the opposite of his best friend Tsukasa Jinguji, a tall, handsome overachiever who never met a woman he couldn’t unintentionally charm with his good looks and refined personality.
Tachibana is bitter that every woman he ever liked fell for Jinguji instead. Jinguji despises women as he thinks they’re untrustworthy and superficial. When Tachibana drunkenly wishes he were a woman instead, a passing Love Goddess transports him (with Jinguji along for the ride) to a generic fantasy world, grants his wish, commands them to Defeat The Demon Lord, and leaves the two very confused friends to cope with the aftermath.
It’s incredibly clear from Jinguji’s thoughts that his friendship with Tachibana is underpinned by something… more, in that he intentionally sabotages Tachibana’s romantic prospects in order to maintain their friendship, because spending a lifetime together as guy friends is somehow better than settling down with female partners… Yeah, Jinguji has one hell of a repressed gay crush on his friend. That his best friend is now an attractive, young, blonde female who is apparently cursed to cause every man who gazes upon her to fall in love with her leads to some rather unwelcome awakenings…
Yeah, so it’s essentially gay/trans panic: the anime, and I’m sorry, but some of it is funny. I can’t help myself. It’s also very clear that the now physically female Tachibana recognises all of Jiguji’s attractive stereotypical masculine attributes, such as his physical strength, reliability and practical skills. Tachibana’s stubbornness won’t let the relationship progress, and they both swear not to allow the Love Goddess’s “curse” to dupe them into falling in love. Many wacky hijinks ensue.
There’s no deep interrogation of gender norms, dysphoria, sexual politics or sexuality here. Everything’s played for deeply insincere laughs. That may bug a lot of people, it certainly isn’t very politically correct, and I could never imagine a western media outlet ever producing something like this… But this is one of the reasons we like anime though, isn’t it? Because it’s different? Um…
Tumbleweeds…
Anyway. I won’t say you should watch this, but I also won’t say you shouldn’t watch this. I also won’t say you shouldn’t not watch this either, so make up your own damn mind. Oh, I’m so confused.
In the Land of Leadale: Crunchyroll: episodes 1–6 of 12 (Thursdays)
Yet another generic fantasy isekai show, I chose to watch this after dropping Tribe Nine and Genius Prince. This is also Requiem’s fault. I really need to stop going to that guy for recommendations. This one at least sounded interesting, as the main character is a terminally ill woman who is paralysed and spends her time in a VRMMORPG. When she dies in the real world, she’s reincarnated in the game, though two centuries later in game time, oh, and none of the people she meet realise they are NPCs in a game. It’s essentially like Overlord but slightly less demonic and evil.
Unfortunately, Leadale almost completely wastes its intriguing setup. Main character Cayna seems to suffer no existential crisis about her apparent death and reincarnation/soul transfer, I mean she’s essentially undergone the anime version of Black Mirror’s San Junipero. (An episode I found existentially horrifying, despite general opinion being that it’s one of the show’s more upbeat episodes. Sorry, uploading my soul to Amazon’s cloud for it to be duplicated, commoditised, packaged and exploited for eternity is my idea of the innermost circle of Hell, not digital Heaven.)
There’s so much fertile material to be mined from such a setup, but nope, it’s off on another jolly isekai adventure! To be fair, there’s an interesting wrinkle in that her in-game adopted “children” (ie user-generated NPCs) are still alive and even had children of their own. That they’re all so terrified of her is funny the first couple of times it’s mentioned, afterwards the joke quickly becomes stale.
Cayna herself also seems like something of a sociopath, immature and unpredictable. It’s hard to root for her. Perhaps she really will end up as twisted as Overlord’s Ainz Ooal Gown after all. So this probably means in future seasons we can look forward to explicit lizard sex, war crimes and indiscriminate murder of innocent adventurers. Yippee!
Slow Loop: Funimation: Episodes 1–2 of 12 (Fridays)
Cute Girls Do Cute Fishing. That’s about it. There’s a vaguely interesting family subplot that touches on the grief of parental loss, but really this show is only interesting if you like fly fishing, or you’re a die-hard fan of this particular genre of show. Yuru (Laid-back) Camp is the epitome of the genre, and I love that to bits even though I’ve little interest in camping. So far, Slow Loop has failed to engage me, and I’m uncertain if I’ll bother to watch any more than the first couple of episodes.
My Dress-up Darling: Crunchyroll/Funimation: Episode 1–6 of 12 (Saturdays)
By far the very best new show this season, My Dress-up Darling is an utterly delightful, heartwarming romantic comedy that sometimes (no — often) strays too far into leery fanservice for me to offer a wholehearted blanket recommendation.
Quiet, introverted 16-year-old high school student Wakana Gojo loves making and dressing traditional Japanese Hina dolls, and wants nothing more than to equal his grandfather at mastery of the craft and take over the family business. As a child he was traumatised by a female friend’s toxic rejection of his hobby, and since then he has withdrawn from others his own age and has no friends.
By chance one day, fellow classmate and “gyaru”, the pink/blonde-haired, confident and gregarious Marin Kitagawa discovers Gojo’s skill with a sewing machine, and she begs him to sew her a cosplay costume. So is born a strange, but beautiful mutually beneficial friendship.
Marin might seem at first glance to be a stereotypical manic pixie dream girl, but that’s an unfair assessment. She’s a driven, fully rounded character with strong desires that exist outwith her friendship with Gojo. That she values him for who he is, and accepts his interests and skills is exactly what Gojo needs to give him self-confidence, that much is true, but conversely Gojo’s reliability, determination and self-sacrificial nature is what attracts Marin to him. The moment she realises she’s fallen in love with him is adorable enough to make your heart burst.
The only downside is the extremely prominent fanservice, some of which you might expect from a show where people regularly take their clothes off to be measured for costumes. It’s so incredibly horny though, almost to the point of parody. Marin is fully aware that she has a fantastic body, and is almost exhibitionistic with it in a way that I’m not completely convinced is entirely realistic… I definitely relate to Gojo’s discomfort in some scenes… Episode two is particularly full of fanservice, but it does calm down a bit afterwards… until a very uncomfortable bathroom scene in episode six I could have done without.
Multitudinous heaving cleavages and strategically-constructed panty-shots aside, I do very much enjoy this show, and I’m hoping to watch it again with my cosplaying wife once there’s an English dub. I expect she’ll want to cover me eyes during the more suggestive bits. (Too late, darling, if you’re reading this, I already watched the thing…)
Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department: Crunchyroll: Episodes 1–5 of 12 (Saturdays)
So this is like Heaven’s Design Team mixed with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Mr Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues. The titular Miss Kuroitsu works for an Evil Organisation in the monster development department, where she… develops… monsters. First and foremost, it’s a light-hearted workplace comedy where the real antagonists are the out-of touch executives and their idiotic company rules and bureaucracy.
Most episodes revolve around Kuroitsu’s attempt to make a new monster, though her efforts are usually hamstrung by budget cuts, executive interference, disagreements with other departments, or material shortages. It’s all very relatable. Her poor wolfboy is forced to become a wolfgirl against his will after an edict from above demands he be “made cuter”. That’s the second show I’ve watched this season with a forced gender transition from male to female… Is this a new, disturbing trend?
Always amusing but rarely laugh out loud hilarious, Miss Kuroitsu is a fun, inoffensive way to spend 24 minutes. It’s probably even better for fans of Super Sentai shows, as I suspect most of the jokes skewer well-known tropes that I’m unfamiliar with. Even so, the humour is broad enough to be enjoyed by almost anyone.
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform: Crunchyroll: episodes 1–3 of 12 (Saturdays)
A late entry to my list of shows, I’ve only just finished watching the first three episodes of this beautiful-looking slice of life school anime. Animated by Cloverworks (who are also on top form with My Dress-up Darling) this season, it depicts the gentle, colourful life of peppy middle schooler Akebi at the start of her first year at her new school. She was focused on attending this particular elite girls-only school because her mother once attended there many years before, and she fell in love with the idea of wearing the pretty school sailor uniform. So her mother makes her one, and she proudly wears it on the first day to discover that the school’s uniform has changed and she looks incredibly out of place…
Akebi’s School Uniform very accurately portrays the anxieties and neuroses of teenage girls and their desire for friendship and acceptance. It’s very upbeat, and perhaps overly saccharine and optimistic. So far, the other girls have been improbably accepting of Akebi’s eccentricities, and although that makes for pleasant viewing, it seems more of a fantasy than a true slice of life. Perhaps this will change as it evolves.
Episode one has an uncomfortable fascination with 12-year-old girl feet — lovingly detailed, animated and almost fetishised. It’s… weird to say the least. The third episode also has a strange section also involving feet and legs, and I wonder if this will continue to be an odd, somewhat out-of-place fixture? I’d like to like this more, but sometimes the behaviour and framing of these very young teenage girls seems just a little voyeuristic and unnatural to me. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and stick with it, but alarm bells ring in my head about what sort of viewer this show is actually for, because I really, really don’t think it’s teenage girls…
Thanks for reading to the end of this not-so short summary! I ended up watching far more seasonal anime than I originally intended, though a significant quantity of it is of poor or only mediocre quality. The top six shows of the season are undoubtedly Ranking of Kings, My Dress-up Darling, Attack on Titan, Princess Connect, The Orbital Children and Sabikui Bisco, with the rest languishing far, far below. By all means check them out if my descriptions have piqued your interest, but you won’t go far wrong just watching the best shows, you’re not missing a whole lot otherwise. See you again at the end of the season!
