Welcome to Anime News Network's Spring 2021 Preview Guide! Here's how it goes: our team of critics write up their impressions instantly, to be posted here as they go along. Each critic will cover as many shows as they can handle, giving you alternate takes on most every show.
The guide is ongoing, organized by series and updated multiple times a day. Throughout the next week or two, we'll be updating as often as possible with new perspectives on new episodes from our team of critics. New reviews will be posted as soon as they're written, with each critic's name being added to the roster beneath the show's title. Check back a couple of times every day during the guide, and you're likely to see new shows pop up with multiple takes to enjoy!
Please remember that this is a preview guide. It is designed to give you a taste of the first episode of a show with a preliminary opinion and a few thoughts on whether or not the show has potential. These are not intended to be blanket judgments of these series as a whole. All reviews use the same ratings scale: 1-5, with 1 being the lowest.
Click on the survey at the top of each show's page to vote for your personal score and see how other people scored the show!
Jean-Karlo spoke with Makoto Shibata about the highly-anticipated Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE horror game.― Welcome back, folks! The 2026 Winter Olympics are up and running. As always, the Olympics are a great time to remember all of the Olympic video games we'd get every Olympic year. Such a shame we can't get new Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games titles! My fondest memory with an Oly...
This is the kind of material that’s bread and butter for screenwriter Mari Okada, who as usual, brings a sharp eye for what makes human beings tick.― The internet is awash with think-pieces discussing the “male friendship recession.” In our fast-moving, fragmented Western society, where once tightly-knit communities have been replaced by hyper-individualism, and face-to-face communication by digital...
Is it a death sentence when anime series stream outside of Crunchyroll? Kalai Chik looks at the numbers to see whether the common conception is true.― Over 250 anime titles premiered in the U.S. across Crunchyroll, Netflix, Amazon's Prime Video, HIDIVE, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max in 2025. To no surprise, series exclusive to Crunchyroll make up almost half of the anime that reach the U.S. market. Con...
Natsuyuki Rendezvous creator's story about girl time-traveling to late Meiji-era Japan― Kotowari announced on Friday that Haruka Kawachi's Rainy Day Serenade (Namidaame to Serenade) manga is inspiring a television anime in 2027. Kawachi drew the below visual to celebrate the anime's announcement. Kodansha USA Publishing licensed the manga, and will begin releasing the manga in two-in-one omnibus vol...
When I got the chance to preview the opening chapters of FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE, I was excited to be reintroduced to the familiar tale. What immediately struck me, though, was just how thorough and considered a reconstruction this really is.― If there is one thing that I can say has been uniformly great about surviving the 2020s (so far), it's that we've gotten to experience a new ...
Eroki, Shinko Konoshiro's manga debuted in 2020― An official X/Twitter account opened on Friday to announce that author Eroki and artist Shinko Konoshiro's Ushiro no Shōmen Kamui-san (Kamui-San Directly Behind You) manga is getting a television anime in summer 2026. WWWave Corporation's Deregula anime label is producing the anime. The account unveiled a logo and shared commemorative illustrations fr...
Anime based on Ichiko Ima's Beyond Twilight manga debuts in April― The official X/Twitter account for Asahi Shimbun Publications' Nemuki+ magazine announced on Friday that Ichiko Ima's Hyakki Yakou Shou (Beyond Twilight) horror manga is getting a television anime adaptation in April. The anime will be a series of shorts, and will also stream online. Aurora Publishing, Inc. had previously published t...
This is hands-down, one of the worst shounen series I think I've ever seen.― I was very harsh with the first half of this season of Tougen Anki. I thought this show was a by-the-numbers shounen that barely had anything new or inventive to bring to the table. Anything unique it did bring was vastly undercooked to the point where it barely mattered at all in the grand scheme of things. I thought the d...
Are you ready for some football? No, not that kind - Coop and Lucas are talking about the football you actually play with your feet.― Are you ready for some football? No, not that kind - Coop and Lucas are talking about the football you actually play with your feet. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.Spoiler Warni...
The same things that will inevitably make this game more tedious for some players will also scratch a hyper-specific itch for others.― Monster Hunter is one of those game franchises like Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, where it's not totally uncommon to find people who get super into it, have encyclopedic knowledge of it, and have save files easily exceeding 300 hours. I… am not one of those people. ...
Time for our annual reader survey. As a thank you for filling out this massive survey, we're giving away ANN subscriptions to 100 randomly selected people who fill it out.
Actor played Dawson in Dawson's Creek, Pazu in Castle in the Sky― Actor James Van Der Beek's wife Kimberly Van Der Beek revealed on Wednesday that the actor has died following his battle with stage 3 colorectal cancer. Van Der Beek died peacefully on Wednesday morning. He was 48. Van Der Beek revealed in November 2024 that he had been diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in August 2023. He was b...
In a brutally cold New York February, there’s a warm home for yuri fandom at the Yen Press Yuri Café― In 2025, The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't A Guy At All by Sumiko Arai, often referred to as the “Green Yuri” among fans, saw incredible success. Named Best Manga of the Year at the American Manga Awards, it has opened doors for other yuri manga, including inee's Love Bullet, to get full merchand...
Everyone is dead, everything is destroyed, let’s go on a road trip!― In the early volumes of Sakae Saito's post-apocalyptic landscape bike tour, we met Youko, a young human, and her companion Airi, an artificial humanoid of some kind, who are traveling around Japan on a Yamaha XT225, known as the Yamaha Serow. This small motorcycle allows for off-road and street riding. With no people to repair infr...
"I have no time for those who uncritically submit to authority. If one senses that the direction their group is heading is misguided, I believe they should have the courage to cry out that it is wrong."― Writer Ryū Kamio and artist Yu Nakahara's newest work available in English is Stray, a twisty crime drama that follows Hachiya Ken, a man who just finished serving time in prison for a crime he did ...
I wasn’t expecting a game that looked like this to have potentially darker implications!― The Pokémon franchise has always toyed with the idea of utilizing Pokémon in creative ways outside of battling. In the anime, Pokémon are sometimes used to help out with infrastructure or power cities. In the video games, Pokémon abilities can be used to alter terrain in order to access new areas or solve puzzl...
China removed My Hero Academia series in February 2020 for using controversial character name― The Shanghai Character License Administrative Company issued a statement on January 31 after Chinese social networking sites criticized Gosho Aoyama's Detective Conan series for doing an illustration collaboration with Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia series. Chinese digital platforms had removed the My ...
If Jujutsu Kaisen's ups and downs are giving you whiplash, check out Shiboyugi, a consistently high-rated little surprise. Find out what else is worth your attention in our weekly user rankings.― Let's have a look at what ANN readers consider the best (and worst) of the season,
based on the polls you can find in our Daily Streaming Reviews
and on the Your Score page with the latest simulcasts. Keep...
Is Scarlet Mamoru Hosoda’s best film? No. But is it an above-average film worth watching? Absolutely.― It's obvious from nearly the first scene of acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda's newest film that Scarlet draws from the Shakespearean play Hamlet. Character names and basic plot points are ripped straight out of the play—and Scarlet herself is an obvious female proxy to the titular prince. However, ...
It's the Winter K-Comics Guide for all of you manhwa and webtoon needs! Come find your new full-color favorite!― Welcome to Anime News Network's Winter 2026 K-Comics Guide, the companion to our manga guide! Every included manhwa was published in December or January, although some are ongoing titles without a physical release. This guide focuses exclusively on series premieres, i.e., only the first ...
Is anime art? Where does the line between "art" and "pretentiousness" get drawn? Or is all art quite useless? Sylvia and Chris explore these erudite issues.― Is anime art? Where does the line between "art" and "pretentiousness" get drawn? Or is all art quite useless? Sylvia and Chris explore these erudite issues. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are n...
A zany story and over-the-top characters, along with an avant-garde and polychromatic presentation, clash with somewhat simplistic combat mechanics and camera issues.― Suda51 is a Japanese game developer who needs no introduction. Known for games like Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, and Shadows of the Damned, his studio Grasshopper Manufacturer continues to take the enigmatic approach in storytel...
