Fall Anime Season 2022 Quick Impressions

The year so far has seen some excellent anime series each season but hasn’t lived up to the amount of quality anime seen in the past couple of years.  Not counting any of the returning anime with new seasons for the year no matter how long it has been since the previous season (talking about you Devil Is A Part-timer), Winter had great new shows like My Dess-Up Darling and Akebi’s Sailor Uniform. In the Spring we got Dance Dance Danseur and, of course, Spy x Family (I’m not counting Sumertime Render because it isn’t available to watch in the U.S. yet. Get those VPNs, folks, because that series is incredible).

Many expected the Summer season to be the weakest of 2022 so far for new shows, but we got Call of the Night, Lycoris Recoil and Uncle from Another World as top tier new anime, with solid second row shows like The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting and the very surprisingly smart Parallel World Pharmacy.

Still, lots of anime fans were just holding their breath for Fall 2022, and the most hyped series adaptation in my memory, Chainsaw Man. With that new series and returning shows such as Mob Psycho 100, Golden Kamuy, Spy x Family, My Hero Academia and, of all things, Bleach, is there any hope for quality new anime this season? Below I’ll try to highlight some new shows that should catch your attention, and some that really shouldn’t.

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Akiba Maid War
One episode in and I already know this will be a contender for anime of the season. Hell, one minute in and I was hooked, by being completely knocked into left field from a tonal shift that was unpredictable and thrilling, based on all of the available descriptions.

I won’t describe the show any further, as it would risk ruining that surprise for you. So, you’ll just have to trust me when I say, watch this show. If the first episode doesn’t hook you, then there’s probably no reason for you to continue reading my opinions below.

I’ve Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a show with that lengthy a title is pretty much worthless, but hey, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai proved to be wildly better than its name suggests, so I gave Farmer-kun a shot. I made it through half of the second episode, before the fact that it brought nothing new to the “inadvertently OP main character” trope story had me bored to tears. This is I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level without the charming and endearing characters. To be fair, I dropped Killing Slimes after 6 episodes, so that charm only lasted so long.

Raven of the Inner Palace
Set in ancient China, this series is about the Raven Consort (Jusetsu in the Japanese dialogue, Shouxue in the subtitles) a mysterious young woman that all of the Inner Palace fears because of her rumored mystical powers. The story is mostly a mystical mystery tale, with a romance element and a backstory that connects the Raven Consort and the new emperor who came to power in a rather bloody manner. It’s well animated with good character designs and the mysteries are (so far) compelling. I’ll give this a full series watch, assuming it doesn’t pull a Wonder Egg Priority on us.

Bocchi the Rock!
The description of Gotou Hitori as a girl who took up the guitar in middle school to join a band and make friends makes Bocchi the Rock! sound like even more spot on of a K-On! clone than most moe shows K-On! inspired. But when Hitori reaches high school without having ever once played in front of anybody because of her crippling social anxiety it also starts to resemble Komi-san Can’t Communicate. While the show does draw inspiration from both of those series, it’s much funnier than either. I laughed out loud more from the first episode of Bocchi the Rock! than I did since the first episode of Uncle From Another World.

Reincarnated As A Sword
If you liked So I’m A Spider, So What?! you will like Reincarnated As A Sword. It shares a similar premise in that the main character dies in our world and is reincarnated as something other than human in a fantasy world. In this case, it is as a magical sword that just happens to be in a part of the world that has concentric rings of ever more powerful monsters the further away he travels from where he woke up. So by the time he encounters Fran, the slave cat girl being tormented by her slavers, he has become (of course) wildly OP. Despite that ridiculous premise, Reincarnated As A Sword is funnier than Spider, and moves at a much faster pace. Another similarity is that both leads from the two shows have no problem with excessive violence in their new forms, so that’s fun.

Chainsaw Man
Speaking of excessive violence… This series is so hyped that nothing I could say would deter anyone from watching it. And I would never say anything of the sort. Just one episode in, and I am as hooked as the millions of fans that have already read the manga. Studio MAPPA has taken the CG lessons it learned in Inuyashiki Last Hero and Dorehedoro, and the CG integration work with 2D from Attack on Titan: The Final Season and Jujutsu Kaisen and produced something that is every bit as smoothly animated as a Ufotable series, and even better looking. It’s gory, hyper-violent, wildly creative and I can’t wait for more episodes.