The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Haibara's Teenage New Game+

When socially anxious college senior Natsuki Haibara thinks back on his high school life, all he has are fleeting fantasies of a happy adolescence that could have been. Imagine his bewilderment and surprise, then, when he inexplicably finds himself seven years in the past—one month before his first year of high school. He'll need all the help he can get to succeed, from a workout regimen to online how-to guides, a childhood friend, and plenty of sheer willpower.

Haibara's Teenage New Game+ is based on the light novel series by author Kazuki Amamiya and illustrator Gin. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

My philosophical issues with Haibara's Teenage New Game+ should be obvious, right? Bro, you're about to graduate college and by your own admission, you had a pretty good time. Why are you obsessed with going back to high school in order to experience “rainbow-colored teenage years,” a phrase that gives me intense ick? I have little patience for stories that romanticize high school as a halcyon period, especially when college is right there. However, I have a much bigger issue with the writing.

Remember Daria? The whip-smart series about a disaffected teen who thinks she's better than anyone else but over the course of the series learns that maybe her above-it-all attitude isn't super healthy? In the first episode, there's a joke where on her and her sister's first day at a new school, someone comes up to her sister and says, “You're cute. Want to be friends?” That's how everyone in this show talks. Natsuki's big change is less about using the social skills he developed over the last four years and more about losing 50 pounds in the space of a month, getting a better haircut, and wearing contacts instead of glasses.

I'd think for a second that maybe it was an intentional commentary on how differently people respond to you when you're thin and attractive, but there is absolutely no way this show is that smart. About half the dialogue consists of teens commenting about one another's looks on the first day of school as a form of introduction. “Nice to meet you! Wow, you're fit!” Walk into a room and screech, “I spy someone cute!” All they talk about is clubs and how attractive they are. They're boring. And for no discernable reason, Natsuki gets appointed the center of the group, as the girl he likes insists on calling their groupchat, “Natsuki-kun Family.” Because being idolized by superficial, boring teenagers is somehow this guy's dream.

And if you, too, are superficial and only care about pretty pictures, too bad! The episode is plagued with the foggy, washed-out animation that haunts me the same way haphazardly-applied glow filters did five years ago.

I don't want to make assumptions about the artist based on the art, but Haibara's Teenage New Game+ has a lot of psychology wrapped up in it.

Well, someone drank the Kool-Aid about what high school is supposed to be like. I get it – high school isn't fun for a lot of people. It certainly wasn't for me. That's why stories like Honey Lemon Soda or this season's The Ramparts of Ice exist: they reassure viewers that they aren't alone and that there is a way out of misery, even if only as a fantasy. But Haibara's Teenage New Game+ takes the approach that if you're not one of the fit, pretty people, you have no chance, and if you miss out on your rainbow-colored high school years, you'll be a miserable adult. That's the opposite of reassuring.

It certainly doesn't help that after Natsuki manages to go back in time to the start of his high school career, the first thing he does is become conventionally attractive. He knows what he did wrong the first time around. None of it was “be plus-sized and wear glasses.” It was that he tried too hard to fit in, as we see when he remembers his original self-introduction. But according to this episode, he just wasn't hot enough, and the minute he makes his little sister blush in the bathroom, everything's coming up roses. Suddenly, as one of the pretty people, girls are feeling him up and guys all want to be his pal. And you'd better believe that everyone mentions his good looks at every turn, as well as virtually everyone else's. These people are obsessed with being attractive. It's one dark reveal away from a YA novel.

I tried to find something I could latch onto in this episode. But somehow watching every suddenly accept Natsuki because he's handsome when before they rejected him for plot reasons just made me angry. The intense shallowness of the concept perhaps isn't a problem in and of itself, since everyone's entitled to their wish fulfillment, but its execution is just so bland and its message so blatant that it becomes worse. This is far more irritating than it needs to be, not even a solid piece of history rewriting. There are better stories about getting through high school, and I'd suggest you go find one of them.