Okay, so the next season actually looks
quite promising. Just in time for the quarantine!
First off, we finally get the adaptation for the holy grail of Korean webtoons:
Tower of God—which is something that hasn't really happened before aside from the few
very cautious steps. This isn't the only webtoon slated for a 2020 adaptation, either: The God Of High School and a full adaptation of Noblesse will both air in the second half of the year. All of these are big guns, and if they are received favorably, it means other good webtoons may have a chance for a TV series in the future. Imagine Bastard or Home Sweet Home! (And no, not Solo Leveling; that's just Sword Art Online all over again.)
Then we have
another Koji Kumeta adaptation—that's the author of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei and Uchouten Kazoku / The Eccentric Family. Definitely an interesting writer, and the new show has an interesting premise, so I have high hopes for this being the sleeper hit of the season.
Then there's
the new original Trigger show which, if the last few were any indication, will likely generate a lot of hype and end up a disappointment. :D Hopefully this one will not suffer as much from self-plagiarism and contrived endings. That being said, the director previously worked on Little Witch Academia (also as a director) and a
whole bunch of certified top-tier productions as a key animator. So if anything, I suppose we can at least expect excellent visuals.
Suddenly, a
new 24-episode Ghost in the Shell anime directed by foremost cyberpunk specialists Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki! In 2020! After 16 long years! Exclamation mark! No, seriously, this is big. Super high hopes for this.
And I just noticed a
show based on Hiroaki Samura's latest manga. That is the author of Blade of the Immortal and a
bloody excellent artist. As it usually happens, there's a high chance none of that glory will be present in the TV series, but a man can dream, right?
There are also a few more potentially interesting, somewhat more adult-oriented new shows, both original and adapted (e.g.
Arte,
Yesterday no Utatte,
Appare-Ranman, etc.), but it's probably too early to be excited about those. We'll see.
And of course, the low-hanging fruits of the season: the
edgy bloodfest and the
usual isekai. I expect these to be trainwrecks, but who knows? I've been wrong before, though unfortunately not too often when I'm being pessimistic about a show.
And if all of that wasn't enough, we also get a whole bunch of sequels! Of which I'd like to note the
second season of Kaguya-sama and the
third season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, both among the very best romcoms to come out from Japan. The latter in particular is very a pleasant surprise since the second season aired a long five years ago. Then we have the
third season of Kingdom—also coming after a long seven-year break—and
the arc that finally got Food Wars axed (for a
very good reason).
All things considered, this season brings a lot of long-awaited shows to the table and has a very high chance of being the best season of the year by a solid margin.
And a special note to AngerFist (and everyone else for that matter): watch Dorohedoro! It's turned out to be a
really good adaptation of a fun, wild, and original action manga. One of the few cases where a dystopian setting is used for a good purpose and not just to be edgy.
And also watch Castlevania, though it's not really an anime. It's quite good! Both are/will be on Netflix (Dorohedoro only on Japanese Netflix so far, so either wait for the English version or watch the fansubbed version).
