The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

MAO

When she was seven, Nanoka was the sole survivor of a car wreck when a sinkhole opened up beneath the car she and her parents were traveling in. At the time, Nanoka remembers being pulled from the vehicle and seeing what looked like a shopping street burning, but there's no mention of the fire when she goes back to look up the accident. So when she hears girls in her class discussing ghosts at the location where the accident happens, Nanoka returns to the scene for the first time in years – and somehow finds herself standing on a street in the early twentieth century. She meets a strange young man named Mao, who claims that she's an ayakashi.

MAO is based on the manga series by Rumiko Takahashi. The anime series is streaming on SERVICE on Saturdays.

It has been ages since I've sat down and watched a Rumiko Takahashi show that wasn't a throwback adaptation of a decades-old classic… and that was when I reviewed Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, the misbegotten InuYasha sequel that I couldn't even finish on account of how terrible it was. Even then, so far as I know, the legendary Ms. Takahashi only contributed some character designs and maybe the basic story concept, which is for the best. This means we can all collectively pretend that the series never spat on the good name of InuYasha and move on to new, original series that truly represent the vision of this industry titan.

Well, “original” is maybe putting a teensy bit of spin on things. As anyone with eyes and a cursory knowledge of some of the most famous anime of the last thirty years, MAO definitely reads as a RUMIKO TAKAHASHI: GREATEST HITS collection. This goes beyond the simple, inescapable fact that her art style basically defined an entire generation's perception of what romance and adventure anime looked like. Quick, stop me if you've heard this one before: An everyday girl from modern Japan is spirited away by magical circumstances and finds herself in a version of the olden days filled with all sorts of beasties and bad guys threatening the land. Thankfully, our heroine also finds herself a cute boy with a penchant for monster slaying and stylish white hair to serve as her guardian and partner in adventure.

So, yes, you could easily accuse MAO of being a flagrant rehash of Takashi's own previous works, with InuYasha being the most obvious inspiration. However, I would counter that perfectly valid criticism with a few key points in MAO's favor. First of all, InuYasha rules, and we just don't get enough of that shojo-flavored fantasy adventure these days. I don't see many folks complaining that Hideaki Anno has spent the last thirty years making Evangelion and self-consciously faithful remakes of all his favorite childhood TV shows. If Takashi wants to plagiarize her own work for a lark, then I say let her. She's one of the greatest artists to ever put pen to paper in this industry. She's earned it.

Also, MAO does at least differentiate itself from its forebears by using the Taisho-era setting of Nanoka's adventures to give this story a slightly more horror-tinged edge. When you combine that with Sunrise's solid production work, which makes MAO feel just like a lost Toonami classic that an entire generation of anime dorks would have obsessed over, you get a product that is honestly just a lot of fun. Does it have an original bone in its body? No, clearly it does not. That's okay, though. Sometimes you just want to see a classic formula executed with confidence and style.

Plus, I appreciate that Nanoka feels like a slightly more modern heroine who will play better for audiences in 2026, especially here in the West. Don't get me wrong, I'm not throwing shade at our girl Kagome (especially since Yashahime already did the poor girl so dirty), but she's very much a product of her time. Her personality feels a bit more forceful and direct, which makes sense since her co-lead is less of an edgy dog-boy with an attitude problem than a mysterious warrior with that enigmatic flair that will need to be unraveled over the course of the series.

In short, I feel confident that MAO is going to make for a darned entertaining anime this season. It may play better if you don't have much experience with Rumiko Takahashi's most classic stories, or if you've at least held off on rewatching InuYasha in the last ten or twenty years, but there's enough to enjoy in this premiere that even old-heads like me should get a kick out of it.

I may have been joking when I threatened to spend 200 words talking about my kitty Maya in this review, but she was watching the TV very intently when they were talking about the Byouki in this episode. Does she know something? Could it be that… she's the Byouki? This little thing that's curled up next to me?

Jokes aside (because I never pass up an opportunity to talk about my cat), I've fallen off Rumiko Takahashi's work with the last couple of long-running series. While I still have fond memories of InuYasha and will maintain that parts of it were great until my dying breath, the whole supernatural battle schtick has started to feel repetitive compared to the variety in her earlier works. I'm not just counting the big three of Ranma ½, Urusei Yatsura, and Maison Ikkoku, but also her shorter series like Mermaid Saga and One-Pound Gospel (to say nothing of her enormous library of shorts). I've wondered often if I was being unfair, that I was just prejudging Rin-ne and MAO because I assumed they were just rehashes.

So, this marks the first time in a couple of decades I've taken a serious look at a new Takahashi series, and I don't feel like I was entirely wrong. A lot of the beats were similar: a high school girl stumbles into a supernatural version of a bygone era of Japan, encounters a buglike foe, is rescued by a cursed young man with supernatural powers, and discovers that she has something strange and special about her as well. It's even animated at Sunrise like its predecessor. The thing is, Takahashi does do this kind of story well, which may have to do with why her last three long-running series are all variations on a theme. I do want to know more about what's going on with Mao and Nanoka, and how their destinies intertwine. I firmly believe that Takahashi's character writing is underrated, and I'm curious what she has in store for these two.

There are some notable differences, of course: Mao is taciturn and serious, while Inuyasha was a loud-mouthed jerk to cover up his sadness and loneliness. Nanoka's condition is more transformative and scarier than Kagome being a reincarnation of Kikyo with a gem inside her body. It also has a more serious tone. But the biggest difference is, I think, that I'm no longer a fresh-faced preteen excited to discover a new medium that would go on to be one of the defining elements of life's path.

I'm not exactly the biggest Rumiko Takahashi fan. While I don't dislike her work in general, InuYasha really burned me out on her style of storytelling in the early 2000s, and I have yet to fully recover. It doesn't help that the work associated with her that I like the most is Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, which is basically the antithesis of her Urusei Yatsura manga, thanks to Mamoru Oshii, both writing the screenplay and directing the film. So even as newer accosiated works of hers like Yashahime and Rin-Ne have gotten anime—and old classics like Ranma ½ and the aforementioned Urusei Yatsura have gotten remakes—I've just never really jelled with any of them. However, MAO just may buck this trend.

Oh sure, the old staple of a female protagonist traveling back into the past is back (though, this time through a dilapidated shopping street rather than a well), but there is enough mystery around the familiar setup that I can't help but find it interesting. Clearly, something happened to Nanoka in the accident where her parents died—likely, she either became merged with a yokai or was replaced by one. Moreover, it's obvious her grandfather knows about it and is suppressing her mystical nature (so much so that it's putting her well beneath normal human levels).

Then there's the question of how Mao and his curse fit into the whole situation—and why the shopping street acts as a time portal. Oh, and why is everyone in the past but Mao, his assistant, and the evil yokai a ghost? What I'm getting at here is the episode does a great job of creating mysteries and making the answer for each feel just out of reach.

As for the actual characters, Nanoka feels like just the right balance of headstrong and totally freaked out. Something weird is going on with her, and she wants to get it figured out. Meanwhile, Mao, while coming off callous at first, genuinely thought she didn't need help—and was more than willing to help her once it was clear she did. In this episode, they make a good pair where much of their mistrust for each other comes from the fact that neither is being truly open.

All in all, I'm surprised to say this, but I will be giving this one at least another episode or two.