This Week in Anime

What Manga Should Become Anime Next?

Nick
Listen, Steve. We all have to compartmentalize to a certain extent, and there's no better way to do that than speculate on the future. After all, nobody can prove things won't improve and be good forever. So take all that wariness and pattern recognition, zip it up in a suitcase, and let the airlines lose it while we go to AnimeJapan!

(Note: we are not actually, physically going to AnimeJapan. That's a job for our boss to get jetlagged over.)

I'd tell you to lighten up, but these trade shows aren't complete without a grumpy peanut gallery. Before E3 went extinct, half the fun of watching that whole mess was seeing which multibillion-dollar company beefed it live on stage each year.

It's easy to get cynical, but I find it useful to keep an ear out for exciting or surprising announcements, and AJ is probably the most bombastic by volume. I've mentioned it before, but watching the sheer confusion that spread across the internet when Uma Musume was first announced remains one of the greatest nights I've ever spent online.

You can't get shit like that anywhere but the anime industry, man.

That's where the fun of this whole thing comes in. It's a shotgun blast of news, announcements, and trailers that exist solely to get anyone and everyone hyped for something. Granted, most of those are adaptations or long-awaited sequels, but there's also room for less familiar stuff. Personally, I'm looking forward to finding out what new ways Mari Okada has concocted to hurt me.

Well I don't see that anywhere on the website, but also that site has a listing for Votoms in the year of our lord 2024, so who knows what to expect from that.

Oh boy, does that mean I have to try to explain what the hell happened with Kagurabachi?

Okay, so do you remember last year when somebody made a joke about the movie Morbius, and that somehow turned into a meme so widespread and powerful it tricked Sony into re-releasing that piece of crap in theaters?

Kagurabachi basically had that happen to it before it even released. Some early pages of the first chapter leaked online, and the English-speaking manga fandom got so hot that people declared it the greatest thing ever to be crafted by man. In turn, that got adopted into an ironic memetitude where everyone was talking about Mr. Kagura Bachi taking out his sword and kaguraing all over those bachis. People made fake anime openings and then made reaction videos about those fake openings. It was a fustercluck that made me feel old in ways I didn't think were possible.

The wild thing is that it actually might. Personally, I think that series is a 6/10 on a good day, but unlike those that Morb'd before it, Kagurabachi is actually selling quite well for a new series, placing near the front of the magazine on a regular basis. Six months after the meme wave, it still performs excellently on MangaPlus' public metrics. Kagura really did Bachi all over those guys.

I don't pretend to understand it, but I am happy to see the enthusiasm! I'll certainly take it over Nue's Exorcist, another Jump title on the poll list that is frankly so embarrassing that I hesitate to bring it up because I don't want to talk about it.

Do not ask me to explain why this one is popular; I don't get it. It's like Bleach without any style, charm, or impressive artwork.

So what did catch your eye then?

As out of touch as some of these titles make me feel, I take solace in the fact that I could never miss the boat as hard as Cipher Academy, which published a story about the value of cryptocurrency in November 2022.

That nonsense made the original English translator resign so I can't imagine what a potential anime would do to the people working on it.

Un(?)fortunately we'll probably never find out since after the poll was announced, Cipher Academy called it a career, and Shueisha isn't exactly in the business of adapting a short-lived series that they canceled. So we'll probably never see what horrors this particular brand of Nisioisin could inflict in motion.

I knew you'd like that one the moment the main character killed a man for saying he skips the credits when watching movies.

Having read most of the series, I can confirm it's a good time. I'd prefer a Sakamoto Days anime first because I prefer its particular brand of John Wick meets Looney Tunes. Also, it has more hot women smoking on motorcycles.

Oh, hell yeah. That's another one where it's just a matter of time, but I look forward to everyone discovering this unfortunate bit of terminology.

Steve, down. Please don't make me get the spray bottle.

While the Shonen Jump extended family of publications is heavily represented there and the bulk of what's available legally in the US right now, there are also some interesting titles far outside that bubble. For instance, I was happy to see I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl.

It's a fun series that, while not what I'd call revolutionary about gender or sexuality, plays with themes of identity and presentation in a cute and relatable way. Whomst among us has never been here before?

When it comes to romcoms about dead girls, my established stance on Sankarea and Dusk Maiden of Amnesia speaks for itself.

There are almost certainly some other pleasant surprises in this list, though finding them is complicated by the fact that most aren't licensed or officially translated yet. Sadly, one of the other reasons fans often want anime announcements is that they're really helpful in getting licensors to sit up and take notice.

Hell, for all we know, none of these series are going to get jack and/or shit announced this year. That's the wild ride of speculation and expectation! We're like football fans putting up mock drafts for comics we'd like to see made into cartoons while desperately hoping the cruel hand of fate doesn't ruin the final product. Which I guess makes Gokurakugai the Caleb Williams of manga.

That's just the nature of the game. Even before the current overproduction bubble, getting an anime adaptation of something you love was a gamble. Nowadays, the stakes are just a whole lot higher, and the odds of getting a Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer are a whole lot higher.

At the same time, speculation is fun. It's exciting to imagine what could be, might be, or most likely won't be. This time two years ago, I don't think any of us expected to get a film adaptation of an Inio Asano work. Yet Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction is right around the corner.

It just goes to show that, even when being cynical is easier than ever, passionate folks are doing their damnedest to make cool shit happen. So long as you keep believing, nobody can tell you it can't happen. Just ask all the Psyren fans who have been putting it in the poll for over a decade.

But also keep in mind that if they screw up the Witch Hat Atelier anime, I will end up on a no-fly list for how I'll respond. So tread carefully.