What I'll Be Watching During The Fall 2024 Anime Season

Ah, yes. The Fall 2024 anime post that I promised a couple of days ago is finally here. Not sure if I'll actually be able to watch them all, but I'll at least try! Sorry, but I'd like to get right to the list, okay? Okay. Let's a-go!

1. Acro Trip

Remember "Gushing Over Magical Girls"? Of course you do; it just aired earlier this year. I actually watched it as it aired just because I thought the premise of a magical girl fan becoming a villain fighting against said magical girls was a kind of cool concept, but it's definitely not for everyone, given its heavy amount of fanservice. I knew about Acro Trip before I knew about Gushing Over Magical Girls, though, and while I didn't really care about what it was about - I was just starving for new magical girl anime that wasn't Pretty Cure - it seems to have a similar concept. I feel like it might be able to be a good alternative for those who might be interested in Gushing Over Magical Girls's concept but don't want to watch it because of the heavy amounts of fanservice, but how can I know that for sure without watching it for myself? I'm even considering writing a review for it after it finishes airing; hopefully, that urge to do so comes up!

2. Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister

I'll admit, I was actually kind of indecisive on whether or not I should watch this at first. There wasn't really any reason behind that indecisiveness; the manga it was based on popped up everywhere I looked, but at the same time, it wasn't really high up on the list of manga I wanted to read. Granted, I did end up reading the pilot one-shot late last year.... Yeah, that's why I decided to give the anime adaptation a chance. I mean, I thought that said one-shot was just okay, but maybe the full story could be even better! Who knows?

3. Blue Exorcist: Beyond the Snow Saga

Okay, I'll admit, the Shimane Illuminati arc was probably the weakest season in the anime so far. I'd argue that the animation was more at fault for that than anything, though; it looked kind of awkward at places, and the action scenes weren't as thrilling as they could be. As far as the story goes, I'm still pretty interested in where it could go. Plus, the anime ended up going further than I've read in the manga so far, so I'm excited for truly new content (for me, at least)!

4. Blue Box

Like Amagami Sisters, the manga for Blue Box has popped up everywhere for me, although probably more for Blue Box, since it's a very popular Weekly Shounen Jump manga right now. Also like Amagami Sisters, there is a pilot one-shot for this manga that I read a while back, and I actually thought it was pretty cute - cute enough for me to actually be excited for the anime, anyway! From my understanding, the full manga has some differences from the pilot, like the characters' ages/school years and what sport the male lead plays, but that's okay; I'm sure that the romance is still cute, and that's all that matters to me right now! Plus, have you seen some of the promotional art and the animation from the trailers? It looks gorgeous! Overall, yeah, I'm pretty excited for Blue Box.

5. Bananya: Around the World

I wouldn't say that Bananya is my favorite short anime out there, but having watched the first two seasons, I would say that it's a fairly simple and cute short anime. Plus, you can't go wrong with only three episodes per episode, right? Yeah, I don't really have that much of a reason to want to watch Bananya season 3, so let's just move on to the next one, shall we?

6. Hamidashi Creative

Sorry, can I just rant for a minute?

This anime was funded by a crowdfunding campaign that ended up raising the equivalent of $800,000, which definitely shows that people want a Hamidashi Creative anime. That's all fine and good, BUT when the crowdfunding campaign started, it was revealed that each episode was going to be five minutes per episode. I thought that the campaign going way past its original goal would allow the producers to fund a full-length series, but no. Still five-minute episodes. I know I said earlier that you can't go wrong with three minutes per episode, but I take it back. Did Madosoft learn NOTHING from how bad the Wagamama High Spec anime turned out to be?! (Click here if you want to know more about how I feel about the Wagahai anime.) They don't even get the excuse of promoting an upcoming visual novel this time, since while the Wagahai anime started airing right before the visual novel was released, the Hamidashi Creative has already been out FOR NEARLY FOUR YEARS NOW! It even has a freaking Nintendo Switch port! If, when this anime airs next month, it turns out to be bad either because the producers try to cram a bunch of things from the visual novel into 12 five-minute episodes or do what the Wagahai anime did by just having its heroines get into random shenanigans that can be seen done better in other anime (with an Unappearing Protagonist-kun of its own), I have no pity for those who donated that large amount of money. You asked for this to happen.

Okay, rant over. Now, to the real sixth anime on this list.

6. Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Oh, would you look at that? Another magical girl anime! I first heard about the manga for this around the time the first volume was released in English, and although I haven't actually read the manga for myself yet, I do think the idea of a magical girl company is an interesting concept! Thus, when I found out it was getting an anime adaptation, I decided to give it a watch. Here's to hoping that it's as good in execution as it is in concept!

7. 365 Days to the Wedding

I still want more of the World God Only Knows anime, since I'm sure certain aspects of the Goddesses arc would be confusing to non-manga readers (looking at you, Tsukiyo and Yui), but with Manglobe shutting down in 2015 and, from what I hear, DVD sales for TWGOK not being that good, anyway, I doubt we're going to get more. Well, at least we get an anime adaptation for one of Tamiki Wakaki's other manga, 365 Days to the Wedding, instead! (There's also the 16bit Sensation anime that aired last year, but we're just going to sweep that away for later.) The whole concept of a fake marriage - especially one that results in a real romance - is nothing original, but I still think it could be cute! Plus, Saori Hayami gets to, once again, show off her voice acting talents. Granted, she's been showing it off pretty much everywhere lately, but whatever!

8. Kimi wa Meido-sama.

Remember "Mahoromatic"? It was about a combat android who decides to spend her last year-and-some-change of her life serving as a maid to an average middle school boy. Sure, Yuki may not be as robotic as Mahoro (in a literal sense, anyway), but the concept of Kimi wa Meido-sama does give off a similar idea of a girl in a dangerous line of work choosing to become a maid. I thought it seemed like a nice concept, so I'm going to give it a try. Not sure if it'll actually be good, but we'll see!

9. Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season

It's weird. Except with the second season of the Nijigasaki anime, I always tend to fall behind on the Love Live anime, even though I do like it. Well, since I'm caught up on Superstar, I'm not going to let that happen this time! Sure, Margarete was pretty annoying in season 2, but given that she's a part of Liella now, I'd like to see if she becomes any less annoying. I would like to see what the deal is with Natsumi's sister, too. So, yeah. I'm looking forward to more Love Live!

10. Maou 2099

Yeah, that's pretty much my only reason. I just thought it looked kind of cool, and next thing you know, it was on my "Plan to Watch" list. Again, I don't know if it'll actually be good, but hey, at least the setting looks promising!

11. The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors 2nd Season

Lastly, we have season 2 of The iDOLM@STER franchise's latest anime iteration. Admittedly, I still haven't seen any of the iDOLM@STER anime outside of the original (and Xenoglossia) and the first season of this, and....well, Shiny Colors wasn't exactly my favorite. It's not bad at all, but something just felt kind of empty about it, and I don't think it was just the CG animation not being that good. Maybe it's just that it's based on a mobile game, and mobile game anime isn't exactly good most of the time. Oh, well. I'm still going to watch it, hoping that it'll actually be better!

Aaaaand that's it! I'll be waiting patiently for all of these anime to come out. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go eat lunch and, at some point today, finish Na-Nare Hana-Nare.