Spring 2024 anime

Sequels that have something worth commenting on

The irregular at magic high school

New director! Hasn't done anything in the position before, but has previously worked on the franchise in other capacities. Also he's named Jimmy Stone, but doesn't seem to be actually foreign

KonoSuba – God’s blessing on this wonderful world! 3

The main director is the guy that handled the Megumin spinoff, but the original director is hanging around in a supervisory position. Kind of odd

Laid-Back Camp

New staff. The new director... isn't bad, but the only TV anime he's previously directed (Regalia) featured him royally fucking up the release schedule for no real reason. So that's a concern

My Hero Academia

New director, and her only previous credit in the role (Koikimo) doesn't exactly inspire hope

Remakes

Bartender Glass of God

Most food series aim to be relaxing slice of life experiences... Bartender isn't terribly more dramatic than usual, but aims more for a sense of profundity

Spice & Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf

On one hand, it's been 15 years since the last season, so it makes sense to start over for the new generation. On the other, I've seen series keep going over longer gaps, and accessing old media is easy these days. On the gripping hand, there's a sequel series now and they could have just skipped to that

So, this features some fun character interactions, some fanservice, and a lot of focus on medieval economics. Was quite popular in the late 00s

Originals

Astro Note

Openly a goofy romcom with an SF twist. Not entirely sure what audience this is aiming for, though— The premise and PV makes it seem like it's leaning male, but the art style and writer suggest it has females in mind

Girls Band Cry

Reunites the main staff of Love Live Sunshine. The best Love Live. Fight me. This does look to be aiming more dramatic, but the writer can definitely handle that (the director has few other credits). I have some reservations about the animation (mostly the lighting engine), but I fully expect to be otherwise solid

Highspeed Étoile

They still haven't announced the staff, so I can't say much!

Holding off on announcing them isn't unusual, but taking this long is. I think they're waiting for the next PV for this announcement, but they've had enough finished animation to do PVs for nearly a year now, so I don't know why they're waiting on that. ...I'm still not entirely sure this is actually a bad sign, though

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night

Director previously handled Eromanga Sensei, writer is the original author of Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki. I do hear good things about Tomozaki, but script-writing isn't quite the same skill as novel writing

Rinkai

Staff is pretty bad. No hints of anything interesting in the promotional materials. Might surprise us, but I don't have high hopes

Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?

Staff previously worked together for Shirobako, but they do have pretty extensive histories individually. Writer in particular has been hit-or-miss for original works

Shounen romance

Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included

Harem manga. Focuses more on one girl at a time than them interacting with each other

The most interesting thing about this is that it feels like time is moving backwards— The mangaka's previous work, As Miss Beelzebub likes it, was pretty much a Reiwa romcom before they hit the mainstream

An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride

It has three major focuses: The main character being an awkward dork who covers it up by acting edgy, and actual plot, and the female lead being sweet and demure. Individually these elements are competent, though they don't overlap much from what I've seen

Oh, it should be noted that the main character isn't happy with his love interest being a slave, but the series is still pretty into the idea of a sexy submissive lady who lives for you

Shoujo romance

A Condition Called Love

From what I've seen of it, it's a slow-burn slice of life-ish romance. I understand it delves more into examining what obsessive love is really like in later volumes that are unlikely to be adapted

Vampire Dormitory

More of classic shoujo romance— Plenty of drama, a bit risque, possessive male lead, the works

BL

Tadaima, Okaeri

Despite being omegaverse, this is extremely sweet and fluffy

Yuri

Whisper Me a Love Song

Current standard-bearer of schoolgirl yuri. Good balance between sweetness and drama

Shounen action

Kaiju No. 8

It's a shounen battle manga, and a fairly well-regarded one at that. Aimed slightly older than most of what runs in Weekly Shounen Jump, but not nearly as much as the adult protagonist might make you expect. Fight heavy, with good monster designs, but not really anything mold-breaking

Mission: Yozakura Family

An action-comedy from Weekly Shounen Jump. It's... definitely not the worst thing I've seen from the magazine. The issue I have with it is that from flipping through it, it looked like the series was very intent on being action and comedy at the same time, preventing it from being full-on goofy or hitting true dramatic highs

Sand Land

Created by Akira Toriyama back in 2000. It's... fine. Definite retro vibe to it. Character archetypes are more 90s than anything

Wind Breaker

Delinquent fisticuff action, but, like, warm-hearted

Go, Go, Loser Ranger!

I put this in the action section, but it's really not that focused on it. Also got some drama, some comedy, quite a bit of edge...

One thing I have to point out, though, is that the manga is very slow. I don't mean that it's episodic and major plot events are spaced a ways apart, I mean that it takes ages for anything to happen

Other action

Viral Hit

On the dark and brutal side, with fairly grounded fights

Non-isekai fantasy

God's Game We Play

From the creator of Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World. From what I've read of seen of their work, they have some talent for creating interesting scenarios, but tend towards rather archetypal characters and interactions. I can't speak to this specific series, though

Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai

The most I can say on this one is that I've heard the series this is adapted from is something of a Genre Roulette, with the bonus that the books often masquerade as a genre different from their actual one. I have no idea how or if this will affect the anime

Mysterious Disappearances

One of those horror/mystery series. Not particularly scary, but does have a lot to say about the human condition. And the main character has massive breasts

Touken Ranbu Kai: Kyoden Moyuru Honnouji

Based on a stage play, which does raise some concerns about padding, though the playwright is doing the scripts here. Director has a decent history. Should be fine?

Unnamed Memory

A fairly traditional fantasy story. Most striking thing here is that the male and female leads get fairly equal focus... and the dude is pretty dommy. I find it kind of uncomfortable, honestly

Slice of life

Jiisan Baasan Wakagaeru

Ranges from pleasant to moderately sad. Biggest problem is that this is a twitter manga, so the stories are very short, and don't really flow into each other

Tonari no Youkai-san

Very much slice-of-life. I found it quite dull

Sports

Boukyaku Battery

Most sports manga about baseball skew heavily towards the dramatic side of the genre. The series does not. While not without it's dramatic moments, it's largely quite goofy, and features substantially higher octane matches than one would normally expect from the sport

Oi! Tonbo

So, the main character is not the cute girl, but the middle-aged dude. From what I was able to find, it comes off more as a low-key drama than anything else

Crime time

The Fable

It's basically a fish-out-of-water comedy about a thug trying to adapt to living like a normal person. Not going to look like this at the start, but it pretty quickly stops having action scenes. Whole thing has a mean edge to it that I didn't care for

Drama

Seiyuu Radio no Ura Omote

Not yuri, or even much in the way of subtext. It's a drama with what's actually a really cynical take on the voice-acting industry. If you like your cute girls to be doing cute things... this probably isn't for you

Gacha-game derivative

Blue Archive The Animation

Despite the fanart being almost universally lewd, I'm told the actual story is largely slice-of-life

THE iDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors

...I'd expect it to be a standard idol series, like the other anime from the franchise

Isekai and isekai-adjacent

The Banished Former Hero Lives As He Pleases

Pretty typical

Chillin' in Another World With Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

Mild twist with the main character having been isekai'd from a different fantasy world, and it apparently stays monogamous, but otherwise doesn't do much you haven't already seen

I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince

This seems to be taking more from the manga than the novels. The manga added a lot of visual flair to what started as a fairly generic overpowered adventurer isekai... and made it incredibly horny. Everyone is relentlessly sexualised, including the main character, who is drawn to look remarkably feminine

As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill

This is aristocrat isekai, not adventurer isekai. Lots of talking and politics, less fighting. And the main character himself is useless in a fight. ...I can't say I found it at all interesting

Re:Monster

Edgy TenSura. The protagonist isn't a full-on villain the way some of these stories can get, but he's not exactly heroic, either. And, uh, there's definitely sexual assault happening somewhere here. I've seen wildly different claims about what what exactly happens and how much the story approves of it, though. Everyone agrees that it's offscreen, at least

Also I should note that there is a ton of narration. This story was not written with a visual medium in mind

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics

From what I could find of this, it's a goofy, shouty comedy

The New Gate

This is one of the older isekai, and it shows— There's no real gimmick or anything else that makes it stand out. Fans say that it's one of best, but a) fans always say that and b) the stated reason is that it's slow and takes the time to flesh things out