As much to tell you right away, Attack on Titan will vampirize the news during this winter. But let’s still look at what else there is to see at the start of 2022!
Crunchyroll & Wakanim
Attack on Titan (final season, part 2)
The big novelty of this season is that, from now on, Wakanim no longer has the exclusivity of the broadcast of the series. Crunchyroll subscribers will also be able to take full advantage of it (as well as previous seasons). Fans will have been chomping at the bit for a full year since Reiner and the other warriors of Mahr launched the assault on Paradis. The wait was endless, but this second part is finally available.
12 episodes are planned, which seems short to adapt the remaining 23 chapters of the manga (5 volumes). Thus, the feature film rumors as a conclusion could be quite plausible. That would be the best idea. Note that special episodes telling parallel stories (including the youth of Rivaille) have recently been available on both platforms.
My Dress-Up Darling
Adapted by CloverWorks (Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai) from the manga Sexy Cosplay Doll, this series tells the meeting between Wakana Gojo, a high school student who wants to become a hina doll craftsman, and Marine Kitagamwa, a popular girl in her class who is passionate about cosplay. Together, they decide to create a costume… This rom com promises to be classic, but the manga (available from Kana) has a pretty good reputation. 12 episodes are planned.
Sabikui Bisco
In a Japan that has become an arid desert and ravaged by a pandemic, the young Bisco Akahoshi goes in search of a mushroom capable of curing this mysterious disease that makes the human body rust. Along the way, he decides to team up with a young doctor, Milo Nekoyanagi. Adapted from a light novel unpublished by us, Sabikui Bisco is one of the intriguing titles of this season. The series is produced by Studio Oz and will run for 12 episodes.
Tokyo 24th Ward
This original series is the second CloverWorks production of the season. The story centers on three childhood friends who lost touch after an incident. One day, they are reunited by chance and each receive a call from a friend believed to be deceased. Together, they will have to protect their island in Tokyo Bay, also called the 24th district. Naokatsu Tsuda, director of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (up to Golden Wind) is leading the series which is expected to run for 12 episodes.
Two series from the Wakanim catalog are now also available on Crunchyroll: the essential Ranking of Kings, as well as The Memoirs of Vanitas, the second part of which has just begun. Of course, this winter you will still be able to follow the second season of Demon Slayer (bow of District of pleasures) and the nanaresque Platinum End (also available from ADN).
Crunchyroll (only)
East
This is the adaptation of the latest manga by the author of Magi, Shinobu Ohtaka. We leave the universe of a thousand and one nights for the Japan of the 15thand century during the Sengoku era. Two childhood friends, Musashi and Kojirô, go on the road to fight the Oni, creatures that dominate the country. As much to warn you, you will not find the quality of Magi (no longer available on any platform, it’s a shame). manga East is basically much less successful and above all this adaptation, planned for 12 episodes, seems to have been carried out without an adequate budget. You have been warned.
In the Land of Leadale
One way isekai Sword Art Online where the heroine (for once, it’s a girl), placed on life support, wakes up in her favorite virtual reality MMO after a power cut (not terrible, the hospital). As usual, this is the adaptation of a series of illustrated novels started in 2019, already adapted into manga the same year. Nothing new, therefore, under the sun. To be reserved for lovers of the genre. 12 episodes are on the program.
Wakanim (only)
Fate/Grand Order Camelot & Solomon
After a marathon at the Grand Rex in Paris, the three feature films Fate/Grand Order are now available on Wakanim. Movies Camelot are respectively produced by Signal.MD studios (Platinum End) and Production GI (Ghost in the Shell). While solomon is the staff work of the series Babylonia, which is the sequel. Get ready to take in the sights!
Tribe Nine
This series is the new creation of Kazutaka Kodaka, father of Danganronpa and especially Akudama Drive. The story takes place in Tokyo in a dystopian future where gangs face off in Extreme Baseball duels… Liden Films is in charge of the animation, so it will inevitably be less clean than Akudama Drive. And this can be seen from the first episode (out of 12 on the program).
You can also follow this winter the second season of Arifureta, an “isekai revenge” which had not necessarily shone during its first season in 2019. Just the use of 3D was enough to give pimples.
Anime Digital Network (DNA)
Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN-
Only exclusive of the season for ADN, the new anime saiyuki, which transposes the last arc of the manga Saiyuki Reload : Even a Worm Arc (already lightly covered in the series Gunlock in 2004). In just over 20 years, you will surely have lost track of the different adaptations of Kazuya Minekura’s manga, and that’s normal.
Especially since the latest, Saiyuki Reload Blast (2017) takes place after the events of this one. The advantage is that the story is always the same: our four heroes Genjô Sanzô, Son Goku, Cho Hakkai and Sha Gojyo travel west and fight the Yôkai. This time it’s the studio Liden Films (tokyo revenge) which takes care of it for 13 episodes.
netflix
Our youth in orbit
Mitsuo Iso’s first achievement, Denno Coil, had a lot of talk about it in 2007. The simulcast did not yet exist at the time and the series is currently only available on DVD and BR. We strongly recommend it. The director returns this year with a brand new SF project with a simple pitch: in 2045, children are trying to survive in a space station.
Our youth in orbit is the very first anime from the young Production +h studio, created in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic. We find, among the staff, the famous chara designer Kenichi Yoshida (Eureka Seven) and animation director Toshiyuki Inoue (Denno Coil). The series will be available from January 28 (6 episodes) and will benefit from a theatrical release in Japan (in two parts).
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean
Another exclusivity of the platform and not the least: part 6 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Indeed, ADN and Crunchyroll abandon (by force?) the franchise for Netflix, which has also since had the first 3 parts (in a censored version, however). In this new arc, we follow Jolyne Kujo, the Jôtarô girl, who finds herself unjustly sent to prison for a murder she did not commit…
The first 12 episodes are available and we will surely have to wait until next spring to have the next burst of episodes. But there is no official date yet. We would have appreciated a weekly simulcast, it’s a shame…
Super Crooks
Available since December as Stone Ocean, Super Crooks is the adaptation of the comics by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass). The story centers around Johnny Bolt, aka Electro Boy and his gang of supervillains. Together, they plan a blow, but realize that their target is a powerful crime lord. Super Crooks takes place in the same universe as Jupiter’s Legacy, live series also available on Netflix. The anime benefits from a nice staff since it is the Bones studio which produces with Motonobu Hori (Carol & Tuesday) to the realization and Dai Satô (GITS: Stand Alone Complex) to the scenario. 13 episodes are available.
At the movie theater
The year 2022 has started strong, since you may have already been able to see the film Sword Art Online – Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night narrating the very first arc of Aincrad, but from Asuna’s point of view. As it was an event release, the film will surely arrive quickly on Wakanim. But that’s not all :
My Hero Academia – World Heroes’ Mission
Another event release, this month, with the third feature film of the franchise My Hero Academia. Released in the summer of 2020, the previous film Heroes Rising had been a pleasant surprise. We are therefore confident for this new opus, where this time Midoriya will be sought by the authorities while fighting an organization that wants to eliminate the Quirk holders. The story is unpublished, but was overseen by manga author Kôhei Horikoshi. We also find all the staff of the TV series: Kenji Nagasaki in the realization, Yôsuke Kuroda in the scenario and especially Yoshihiko Umakoshi in the direction of the animation. Released January 26.
White Snake
Almost 3 years after its appearance at the Annecy Festival, White Snake is finally released in France and especially in the cinema! This Chinese animated film revisits the myth of the legend of the white serpent. Xuan, a snake hunter, saves Blanca, an amnesiac young woman endowed with extraordinary powers. Together, they go on an adventure, in the hope that Blanca regains her memory… China intends to compete with the United States in the field of mainstream animated films. That’s good: the country has an inexhaustible reservoir of mythological stories and booming animation studios. This is the case of Light Chaser, which has been producing since (New Gods and green snake, both available on Netflix).
As for White Snake, it’s a wonderful adventure film filled with swirling action scenes and endearing characters. The scenario is simple and without surprise, but the artistic direction does not have to be ashamed of the American productions. The humor is present, but discreet, and the romance of the two main protagonists has the merit of really existing on the screen. We are even surprised during a rather daring rapprochement sequence in a family animated film. You would have understood it, White Snake is a success and the ideal door to discover a little-known cinema, which still has trouble exporting itself.
Surprisingly, its sequel, green snake, has been in the Netflix catalog since the end of November. Yes, you have the right to find that absurd. But the important thing is that the first opus will be able to be seen in theaters from February 9th. The film of the winter holidays not to be missed.
