A new year, and a whole new four seasons of anime. Some upcoming shows will be ones that ended up getting delayed because of the pandemic, and were meant for 2020. Unfortunately (to some people here), I will not be covering the final season of Attack on Titan…for the same reasons I don’t cover each subsequent season of My Hero Academia; it’s a franchise I just did not enjoy watching. I could not care less what happens to those people in that big city…are they even still in it? I genuinely have no idea, and I couldn’t care less about those schoolkids with super abilities training to be real-life heroes. Yikes, aren’t I being harsh on those two franchises?
Sony’s purchase of Crunchyroll in early December has put a bit of a spanner in the works though. We’ll get the shows, of course, but seeing such a large monopoly will mean other streaming services (and the shows they choose to stream) will end up suffering because less people will think to turn to them. For this Winter season I have been able to pick out some shows that interest me enough to cover for Otaku Theater, and to my surprise, most of them are sequels. Yep, this is a first even for me…
Yuru Camp Season 2
Studio: C-Station
Begins: Thursday. January. 07
(Available on Crunchyroll)
A curious backstory here. When season 1 of this came out, I hadn’t initially planned to watch it. It was only when one show turned out to go to Netflix meaning I had to find something else, and it was this ‘something else’ that became one of the best slice-of-life shows I’ve seen in a long time. So you can imagine my elation upon hearing Yuru Camp was getting a second season. In fact, in researching this new season, I had found that this was also a part of another sub-genre: iyashikei. Tied to slice-of-life shows, it focuses a lot more on calming environments instead of the atypical school location. Other franchises of this can include Non Non Biyori, Flying Witch, Bunny Drop, and even Girls’ Last Tour in a sense. The more you know…
Season 1 ended with Rin becoming a part of the Outdoor Activities Circle…kind-of/sort-of. If you know the first season, or read the amazing manga, then you’ll know that Rin really prefers to go camping alone. Nadeshiko (who I’m hoping will be just as airheaded in this season as the last) had been coaxing her into joining Chiaki and Aoi, and be a part of that tight-knit group. Now I’m sure we’ll get to see plenty more antics here in this new season, and if some story does develop, then I’m more than certain that C-Station will be able to adapt it well.
I consider the Yuru Camp franchise to be pretty high-profile, but my next show pick is clearly the most high-profile one of them all; a show even I never expected to watch, if you asked me the same question this time last year. But curiosity got the better of me on this one…
The Promised Neverland Season 2
Studio: Cloverworks
Begins: Friday. January. 08
(Available on Funimation)
2019 was effectively dominated by The Promised Neverland, and how critically and commercially successful it became. It quickly landed on Adult Swim with an English dub, got a live-action movie, and is even getting a live-action English production coming soon on Amazon Prime. Surprisingly, I had just never got around to watching the show back then. So a good part of my Christmas was spent catching up on season 1, to prep myself for season 2. Call this yet another one of those shows I mean to watch but just never get around to them.
Season 2 picks up directly where season 1 ends: Emma, Ray and the rest of the children are on their own in the dark and expansive forest, trying to hide from the demons. However, as they continue to survive, they come across two mysterious beings who appear to be far more…’neutral’. Meeting these two reminds the children that no-one is coming to help them, and to survive, they have to learn how to fight. Are these two ‘neutral’ beings really on their side? Or do they have their own agenda?
This season really does have a high bar, considering how amazing the original season was, and so I imagine a lot of people will be watching this and trying to criticize every little detail. Big franchises were never really my thing, and so the fact that something as large-scale as this has caught my eye so much is quite something.
Otherside Picnic
Studio: Lidenfilms/Felix Film
Begins: Monday. January. 04
(Available on Funimation)
My regular yuri pick of this season, although this yuribait show is a strange one. Not an average high-school set show at all – far from it, in fact.
College student Sorawo Kamikoshi spends her time following wild urban legends and internet rumors via “doors” that lead to parallel dimensions that make these legends a reality. However, just as she is at death’s door, Sorawo is rescued by the mysterious and enigmatic Toriko Nishima. She herself is looking for a lost friend, and so decide to pair up to find her, in whatever parallel dimension she has landed into. And as yuribait shows demand them to, they find themselves more drawn to each other.
Yuri, science-fiction, action and adventure all thrown into one big cauldron, and here is what we are going to get. I really do get the feeling that this adaptation of the Otherside Picnic light novels is going to be really good, or really terrible. Just as curiosity has lead me to watch the new season of The Promised Neverland, it has lead me to want to get into…whatever this turns out to be.
Curiosity killed the cat, you know, and I may end up regretting all of this. I guess there’s only one way to find out…
My 3 seasonal shows. I think that these ones I’ve picked will do me fine. We could all do with a better year after all, considering everything that has happened to us in 2020. And so what about my out-of-season show? Well this one is a little different, because the show you folks picked is a 2-cour show, meaning I’ll be watching it through the Spring season too.
A Lull In The Sea
Studio: P.A Works
(Available on Funimation & Netflix)
Finally. I have an excuse to watch this in its entirety! A Lull In The Sea has been the one P.A Works that I’ve been meaning to watch, but never end up getting around to. I’ve had Angel Beats!, Hanasaku Iroha, Charlotte and Shirobako, as well as the movie Maquia, but this show has always alluded me. But now it’s time…and thank you for picking it for me.
If you’re unfamiliar with the plot, A Lull In The Sea revolves around the ocean world and the surface world. When their school shuts down, four middle-school students from a sea village (Shioshishio) transfer into a school in the surface. Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki and Kaname are a pretty tight-knit bunch, but even despite this, having to relocate to a school on the surface frightens them, especially since people from both sides have their own largely negative opinion of the other. But little do they know that their arrival on the surface ends up bringing about a lot of changes both on the surface and underwater.
I’ve already seen the first few episodes of this, and so I know for a fact that I’ll enjoy this show much more than my last out-of-season pick (BNA – Brand New Animal). I’ll be watching the Netflix version of this epic show, and with it running on 2 cours, this will carry on into Spring as well. So whatever seasonal shows I’ll end up watching in the Spring, A Lull In The Sea will be joining them.
This should be a trip alright. Two sequel seasons of two big franchises, a strange yuri show that could be…anything, and the one P.A Works show I’ve been meaning to watch but never got around to. But it’ll be a decent start to 2021, that’s for sure. We could all do with some positivity right now, and for some hope for the future. We can only look forward, and we fall so we can learn to pick ourselves back up. We’ll be getting some shows that were delayed, and some franchises will be ending for good.
But what will you be watching in this Winter season? And on that note, what else do you have in mind for 2021? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below! Sooo, here’s to 2021!