I’m not sure if this season is jam-packed or if I’m just busy these days but it feels rough trying to keep up with everything this time around. I saw a good amount of anime that I want to pick up but can’t commit to spending the time (I’ll go ahead and say sorry to that one skating anime). We have a lot of ground to cover so let’s dive right into it and explore what winter 2021 has brought us.

The Promised Neverland Season 2

Ay baby now I’ve been waiting for this one. The first season of this anime immediately caught my attention with its premise of kids trying to play “escape room” or die trying. Now that they’re out in the wild it’s time to switch gears to a survival show and safely make it to their target destination without being caught or killed along the way. The new season has already introduced two new characters to spice things up and I’m excited to see how they develop. I still miss Norman but I ain’t no fool, no body no death that kid is coming back one way or another. In the meantime it looks like Don and Gilda are gonna have to step up and judging from the opening that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Man we got some bangers returning this season. Dr. Stone’s fusion of science with a mysterious plot and a large cast of characters working together has mixed well to form a fun ride every episode. In this season we’ll be witnessing the conflict between Senku and his science kingdom and Tsukasa and his cavemen kingdom of strong people. In these early episodes everybody keeps saying “we’re gonna win a war without killing anyone! hell yeah guys, with science we can avoid murder!” but little do they know that science is actually murder incarnate. It keeps making me think we’ll be observing some bloodshed this season, however the rest of the show has been very tame so I’m not sure. Either way, I know I’ll be ten billion percent glued to my screen every episode to see how the gang strategizes and acts to take down Tsukasa.

Horimiya

Okay moving on to an entirely new anime for this season. Now listen here, the romance/comedy genre has beaten me into a pulp recently. Adachi To Shimamura from last season was the biggest waste of time I’ve committed since, well, since summer season when I watched the absolute hellscape that was Rent-A-Girlfriend. Before that I wasted my time on Sing Yesterday For Me. God dammit, I just want a decent romance fellas is it that much to ask for? Luckily we’re off to a good start. This anime is going fast as fuck so far in terms of character introductions and events occurring and most romance anime don’t know the meaning of the word “fast” so that’s something. I’m also starting to like the characters and jokes which can’t be said for the other titles mentioned. At this point all Horimiya needs to do is simply avoid the classic trope of every character refusing to say their true feelings like they’re going to receive a million dollar prize for not confessing. If it can do that, it’ll be the best romance anime I’ve seen in a long time by default.

Mushoku Tensei

The isekai to end all isekai according to some people. This anime follows the story of a young boy who is actually a reincarnated pathetic loser virgin. In this second chance at life he claims to want to change and live a life he can be proud of. These first few episodes were pretty strong in my opinion to quickly get you invested into this new world. Watching Rudy and his tutor Roxy was quite a treat. At this point my only complaints are that Rudy’s backstory is unrealistic, and his perviness can be overbearing at times. My man legit got captured by a bunch of students, stripped naked, and strung up so the classmates can take pictures of his naked body and make fun of him? Is this supposed to be Satan’s School for the Sinful or some shit? We’re early in the journey so it could be revealed that Rudy was exaggerating down the line. It didn’t seem like it though. Regardless I’m still curious to see where this is headed and what new characters we’ll meet now that Roxy has left.

Beastars Season 2

Furries rejoice, your anime has returned. Mystery fans rejoice too, because it looks like we have a case on our hands. You see, in season one an animal got murdered and viewers thought “oh, so the plot will be trying to solve the murder?” and then that shit was slapped to the wayside. The other events were interesting too don’t get me wrong, but I’m hyped that season 2 appears to be focusing on two aspects: Legoshi using his sniffer to uncover some clues and Louis killing people with his new glock in his new gang. Perfectly balanced.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Second Half

Get out of here Jujutsu! Everybody already knows I said to watch your godlike ass. Let these other anime have a chance.

Redo of Healer

I might get some flack for this one, but so far I don’t think the anime is bad at all. Sure this story about a guy who gets fucked over and then fucks over the people who wronged him with rape, torture, and more probably won’t be receiving a Nobel Prize or literally any award for that matter. That being said, I’m still interested to see how exactly he plans to enact his revenge and the fact that these episodes are coming out nice and uncensored is a huge bonus too. Not every anime has to be an epic masterpiece that redefines a genre, just don’t be a boring piece of shit that wastes everyone’s time. So far it’s achieved that bar for me. 

Project Scard

*sigh* It was my own damn fault for giving this one a chance. The first episode was somehow strong as hell. It was fast paced, introduced characters and their relationships, and set up for what I thought was going to be an epic bromance ride filled with some hype action along the way. Then *SPOILERS* the coolest character dies in episode 1 and everything after that has felt empty and lifeless. GoHands certainly have their own distinct animating style for better or worse, and the style can be summarized as “fuck background art, cut that shit out and spend the money on fight scenes and music”. I have to say, that formula does work for making me skip through each episode to find the conflicts but I couldn’t give less of a shit about these characters or the plot.

This season is stacked up so I’m sure I didn’t manage to cover what everyone’s watching. I know a lot of people are hyped for Attack on Titan and Re:Zero as well so shout out to those bad boys. Plus you got sneaky shit like Sk8ters or whatever that sounds awful but apparently is charming and animated well. What anime are you watching this season? Have a different impression than me? Slap a comment below and say hello to winter anime 2021!