Spring has sprung, but probably, so have your allergies. Stay inside. Drink some iced tea. Watch our remarkably good picks for this season’s anime.
Re:Creators
Genre: Magical realism
Studio: Troyca
Where to Watch: Amazon’s Anime Strike
Plot: Re:Creators is an anime that asks: What if anime was real? An everyday otaku is sucked into the world of his favorite anime through his tablet. But when he returns to the real world, he brings the anime heroine with him. There, she finds other fictional heroes from various games and anime and, with them, decides to confront her creator. Why would people dream up worlds where there’s so much conflict?
Why watch it? It’s a well-directed, easy-to-watch anime with moments of humor and high-adrenaline action.
The Anonymous Noise
Genre: Shoujo
Studio: Brain’s Base
Where to Watch: Amazon’s Anime Strike
Plot: The Anonymous Noise follows a girl, Nino, who always loved to sing. As a child, she had two musical collaborators, Momo and Yuzu, but after she parted from both, found her own footing as a choir vocalist. We meet her in high school, where she decides to join “band club,” a sort of punk act that inspires her to find a more raw voice. There, she re-encounters Momo and Yuzu. Anf, of course, they both have complicated feelings toward her.
Why Watch It? To be frank, I like this because I love Nana so much. It doesn’t have nearly the same depth or believability, but I want to know where the story goes and the music is killer. It’s got this cool Japanese prog/punk thing going on.
Sakura Quest
Genre: Comedy
Studio: P.A. Works
Where to Watch: Crunchyroll, Funimation
Plot: Sakura Quest is about a flaky, impulsive girl who fails to find work in Tokyo. She’s from a small town and, because she absolutely despises their slow culture, stubbornly refuses to leave the city. But one day, when she’s essentially run out of money, she receives a job offer to act as the small town Manoyama’s “Queen.” She takes it. It turns out that the townspeople had mistaken her for someone else, but she sticks around to be their Queen—whatever that means.
Why Watch It? There’s a lot of buzz around this one. Sakura Quest’s characters are just phenomenally likable and well-written. It also doesn’t shy away from depicting the tedium of small-town life while also depicting it with empathy and humor.
Kado: The Right Answer
Genre: Sci-fi
Studio: Toei
Where to Watch: Crunchyroll
Plot: In Kado: The Right Answer, a government official is taking off on an airplane when an enormous, psychedelic cube descends from the sky and absorbs the plane. The passengers are fine; but the world they enter is very, very strange. There, a mysterious man appears, who after he absorbs information off the government official’s phone, learns to communicate with the passengers. He says that he will keep them safe. And intervene in Japan’s governmental business. Meanwhile, the country’s top physicists are trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Why Watch It? I really do not know where this is going. Any I have not yet decided whether the CG animation is bad or actually very cool. But I am very, very intrigued by the story’s unanswered questions.
Honorable mentions: Grimoire of Zero, Tsukigakirei