As always the year flies by faster than I can believe. 2026 is already upon us! But that means another season of anime. The Fall Season was honestly one of the weaker ones for me in a long time. I enjoyed some shows like Digimon Beatbreak, but as a whole it wasn’t a season that grabbed me. In some ways that made it a very easy season since I only covered one show during it. But that also left me feeling a bit listless. That won’t be an issue with Winter being so absurdly stacked, but will go over that in the conclusion! The great thing about a new season is a fresh chance. Some shows might be a bit overshadowed by the heavy hitters, but I generally think there’s a show for everyone within a given anime season. These previews are just a good chance for me to get my head around the upcoming season and figure out how I’ll approach it.

As always, the preview will be referring to information listed on LiveChart and AniList. This certainly won’t be a comprehensive preview of what is coming up. It will just be a list of the shows I’m interested in. Everyone can feel free to talk about the shows they are hyped about in the comments, even if I don’t mention them here. There will be shows I don’t know that much about their source material so any discussion on what can be expected there (minus spoilers) sounds good to me.

Series of Highest Interest

These are the shows I’m the most excited about. Odds are that’s because I’m familiar enough with a previous season/source material. But I may just have gotten excited by the summary or trailer. If these don’t turn out to be good that will be rather disappointing.

This one is just a given. Frieren’s first season was truly excellent and fairly was considered anime of the year by many. It stands out thanks to doing so many things well and nothing wrong with a good fantasy series. The second season opened things back up to the cast and there’s so many directions things can go. I’m especially glad that Stark will be out of mage test purgatory where he obviously couldn’t be involved in anything.

This is just obviously going to be an anime of the year contender to say nothing about winter. Madhouse does amazing work and I fully expect to see that again. The trailer utterly set the tone. We’ll have beautiful music, animation, and just get to see a true journey unfold. There are few times a trailer will make me think “yes this is going to be special” but for this show? Yeah, the big trailer we got absolutely did that. If I’m not covering this it’s because the apocalypse has arrived!

Having this show back will be quite the experience. I do expect it to be top tier in terms of quality since Mappa does excellent work. The first season was spectacular in giving us a pretty emotionally charged series. And it was one where they didn’t mind killing some characters off along the way! I suppose having a good amount of fodder let them ramp up the tension for the characters we cared the most about. But they didn’t just let horrible people die, but some honorable and likable ones too. And there’s a high chance even more of them will die in this second season. It’s going to be an emotionally charged show that gives us both excellent action and a fear for what might unfold.

Here’s another anime of the year contender! I’m not even kidding either. The first season of Medalist absolutely caught me by surprise and left me invested in it. This is sports anime done right! You have this girl that loves to skate but starts out with such a low opinion of herself. And throw in a rookie coach that has his share of failed dreams…These two are truly perfect. This is the ideal coach and player kind of relationship for me. These two are just synced up and there’s a true desire to take Inori to the levels that she dreams of. The hard worker who started a bit late, but is charging forward to catch up to her rivals!

I have zero doubt that this will be good. ENGI absolutely nailed the first season. They also made perfect use CG animation. So often it looks alien and horrifying to some degree. Or it’s just being used to lazily make something that could be better done in regular 2D animation. But in this show they handled it great. Almost the entire show is normal 2D animation, but they bust it out for the figure skating performances. It lets them show off these great skaters in the best way and it looks good. Frieren is a tough show to topple. But I think Medalist will be a contender for the whole year.

Series of Moderate Interest

These are the shows I’m somewhat excited for. While not as excited about these as the category above, I’m still pretty interested in watching these. Some have intriguing premises that if done right could make for great shows. While some have source materials that I’m sort of familiar with, but not extremely interested in. Some of these could easily turn into my favorites. That uncertainty factor can turn into a positive surprise.

I’ll be honest in saying the main reason this show is at this tier is because of the franchise being connected in some form to Soul Eater. I still have no idea how or why that’s a thing. The moon is there obviously and Haumea looks like a kishin. But these worlds don’t feel at all similar. Whether the Soul Eater world leads to Fire Force or Fire Force leads to Soul Eater I’m not even sure honestly. My investment really is in figuring out where this is all going…and desperately hoping this series ends with an announcement of a Soul Eater remake that will adapt the entire manga!

This is a kind of preview so let’s get back to Fire Force! It’s going to look cool. David Production does great work on the visual side. Even though I think last season they had a hard time managing the passage of time compared to a manga where you might not notice that people are just kind of standing around doing nothing for way too long. But this show will give fantastic action and possibly wrap up this story. I’m not wholly sure on that one or if Fire Force needs another season beyond this one. But at the very least this will be crazy and action packed. Good enough to start there!

I have a good feeling about this show. I like the driving force. This isn’t a guy that happens to get involved with a bunch of girls and gets interested. He’s someone that got involved because he wants to find a specific person among this group of girls. It’s obviously going to be a bit of a challenge compared to a manga to both let us hear this “Apollo” and not make it clear which girl it is. But in general this is a romance series that feels like it could be rather strong. All four girls look great and are well voiced. I’m going into it with basically only hearing good things and seeing a trailer. But there’s something about this one that gives me hope that I’ll really enjoy it.

The only iffy thing is that Gekkou isn’t exactly a studio with huge hits and they have a couple shows airing this winter. Here’s hoping they do a good job.

It is kind of interesting coming to this season after the main franchise’s anime just wrapped up. The first season for this show was solid. It was kind of nice getting back to a version of this franchise that wasn’t quite as convoluted. Things were pretty straight forward in terms of the motivations of the main cast and what they were up against. And things were left off in a good spot at the end of the first season. Now we get to see what Kouichi can do as a vigilante without his mentor around.

There’s just a lot of room to tell a good story. Usually stories set in the past (relative to the main series) can be restrictive…this one doesn’t feel that way. Mostly since the scale here is much smaller as it focuses on a few people in one town. I’m not absurdly excited (the franchise has kind of lost me a bit over time), but I am looking forward to it.

One more ride for Golden Kamuy! I can’t wait to see what random thing the characters will eat this time! I know the series isn’t actually about just eating random things, but the show’s humor kind of made that what I remember most about it! There obviously is a lot of drama here in terms of the hunt for the gold and all the different people involved in that. Everyone wants it for one reason or another and will kill those in their way to get it. I have no idea how this will all work out, but it should be fun.

Something about this one leaves me rather hopeful. We’ve had a lot of villainess (or villainess related) adaptations over the years. But this show has an interesting approach. You have Scarlet who was executed for possibly false charges seeking revenge and basically possessing a girl of the present to get her revenge. Constance going from a girl who couldn’t defend herself from trickery to an agent of someone’s revenge. But the teamup here doesn’t feel that malicious. Constance will obviously be putting herself in danger for Scarlet’s revenge, but she may end up growing as a person as a result. If she doesn’t get killed along the way she’ll probably be better off than if nothing had happened. And for Scarlet it really seems to be a pure revenge thing. She’s presumably not coming back to life or taking over Constance’s body. A temporary team to score some revenge.

This could be a rather cute show. It’s a fun kind of ship to be sure. The invisible man and the blind girl. Throw that idea into a world where the supernatural seems to live normally with regular people and you’ve got a decent show in the making. Seems all the more fun since even in the trailer…it feels like this relationship won’t be stuck in limbo! They will just be going for it. It just seems like a cute and fun romance really. And having the guy be a detective should keep the show from getting boring. It also looks nice. Nothing over the top here, but good and solid animation.

Series of Minor Interest

These are the shows I’m still interested in, but it’s a lot weaker than the tiers above. Either the previous seasons were mixed bags for me or I just don’t have enough to work. They still get mentioned because I still think the potential is there to really surprise me. Which is more than the shows I’m not going to mention at all.

I’ll be honest in saying that this show kind of dipped for me as the second season went on. It’s a show with a lot going for it, but there are some elements in the story that leave me a bit frustrated. What I do expect is that Doga Kobo will bring it visually and that there will be some likable elements in here. Kana remains the shining star of this show while the mysteries keep piling up. It’s possible the third season will grab me back and get me invested in what is going on. But that’s a hope and the main reason that the show is at the lower tier of excitement for me. Will it be able to manage Ruby’s descend into darkness and handle Aqua’s arc nicely? I’m not sure, but part of me has doubts.

Admittedly I’m kind of keeping this on the lower tier because of frustration with the adaptation to this point. You give me years of releasing A SINGLE EPISODE of a show per year and nothing else and it gets kind of annoying. Just release a trailer and do nothing with it until the show is ready! I’m not 100% convinced this show is real and won’t just be 2 episodes and a “see you next year” message. While I’m being a bit silly here, it is honest that my excitement for this show has been drained by how they’ve handled things. Release a show or don’t.

It is Fate so again there should be some good action in there. If I can find a character that I’m invested in that will also help. While they’ve released a couple episodes…so far I don’t really care about anyone. If that doesn’t change then I’ll just lose interest in general.

Can’t have an anime season these days without someone getting kicked out of the hero’s party! You can almost guarantee the hero’s party is either totally evil or just incompetent. They often don’t make kicking the main character out at all a reasonable thing to do. But at least elements of this concept feel good. There’s the usual in regards to him being shockingly great in ways that no one could see. But in this case it appears to make sense. He started out a swordsman, went to an enchanter because it was needed, and is bringing some of what he learned in order to enhance himself as a swordsman. That’s not a crazy thing. Not expecting this show to blow me away. But it might just be good enough to keep up with as the season goes on.

We really can’t get a season without someone getting kicked out of a hero’s party! This one a good deal more dark than the last one I talked about! This girl wasn’t just kicked out of the hero’s party…she was sold into slavery! There’s evil and there’s…this! I’m not sure if she always had crazy potential or if simply getting her hands on a cursed weapon did it. But either way I like the concept. Having someone really betrayed by the hero’s party is different from just getting kicked out and stumbling into a harem. There does seem to be a yuri romance at work here. If nothing else I’m down for someone betrayed to this level getting some revenge.

If we’re going to have an isekai story…throwing in a cute romance is a good way to get me into it. I like the idea that this guy was put in the spot of reincarnating into the demon lord’s faction and just rolling with it. But all that getting dropped when he meets a cute cleric and falls head over heels for her! From the trailer it sure seems like he wasn’t that attached to the demon lord’s side since he goes all in with becoming a “human” adventurer. Cecilia seems cute and having HanaKana voicing her just means she’ll be especially cute! I can’t blame Youki for basically going after this girl right away. The trailer did show his confession getting shot down, but it seems like there’s still a good chance for him. Give me some action, a bit of romcom, and I’ll generally be down with that.

This is one that I can either see being a huge win for me or just a big miss. I’m always a bit iffy on premises that try to turn something generally seen as good into a negative. In this case “heroes” are just prisoners that are being sent to the front lines in a war. It’s not really a story about heroes and demon lords and instead they just replaced normal terms like prisoners, weapons, and enemies with “heroes”, “goddesses” and “demon lords.”

But that’s all the impression I get from the premise and trailer. It’s possible that this story of war and revenge will actually be really engaging. The leads might be really enjoyable and seeing them triumph will be a treat. The show looks good which is a nice start. But it’s just lower on my list since I’m a bit uneasy if it will actually work out.

We definitely got a romantic comedy here. It kind of feels from the trailer that it’s more comedy than romance, but we’ll see how that plays out. Parts of it make me think I won’t get too much into it and I’m not huge on the art style in this one. But at the same time…there’s something cute about it. This kind of show from the female character’s point of view feels right. She’s the more expressive character and is chasing someone that is far more calm and stoic (or at least appears that way). It does leave me rooting for Miyu which is a good spot to be in going into a show. I’m not sure how invested I’ll get since this season is absolutely packed…but I’ll probably check it out.

This has a solid concept to it. You have a rather gifted young mage who is blind and seeks to use his magic to overcome that. There’s not enough in the summary and trailer for me to tell how into this show I’ll get yet. How good will the supporting cast be? What kind of stories will be told? I’m not sure. Obviously the main character has a specific goal, but what will he get up to along the way? This show is just down here because I’m intrigued, but will have to see more.

This show could be a wild card! You have some supernatural badass…who is a small child. She’s just dealing with the troubles that pop up, but since no one can see them…it just seems like she’s a problem child. I kind of feel for Kaya depending on how the show handles that side of it. And I think a key figure will be Chie who is overseeing her at the kindergarten. She’ll presumably be dropped into this supernatural chaos and kind of need to support Kaya along the way. I’m generally not huge on horror so this show might not land for me regardless. But the absurd concept could very much work out.

Another isekai for the heck of it! This does seem like a solid enough idea though. It goes along with the whole category of isekai where people are reincarnated into non-human creatures. But this could work out reasonably well. For one dragons are generally cool so if the main character eventually turns into a crazy powerful one…that could be entertaining in and of itself. But the key with this show will be the balance between him and the female lead. They both need to be reasonably likable for that to be a good move. Haven’t seen enough to be sure if I’ll get into this one.

Sometimes can be nice to insert a bit of ecchi into a new season of anime. The concept of two characters being brought together because their parents remarried is of course nothing new. But this one definitely seems to be having a bit of dirty fun with it all. The leads are certainly full of personality and are rather different people. But for that reason it might end up a fairly fun show to keep track of. How the two characters grow closer and balance things out will make or break the show. At the very least the show looks ok and the voices are good. Beyond that…will just have to wait and see.

Conclusion

It’s an understatement to say that Winter is going to be an excellent season. The past few years I’d say that winter has been bringing it and that looks to continue. We have the return of Frieren which is already a fantastic series to get back. That alone would make it a solid season. But on top of that there’s a lot of big sequels landing this winter. Medalist will be amazing, Hell’s Paradise is back, Fire Force and Vigilante are both going to be strong returning series as well. There is a crazy amount of quality that’s going to be there just in terms of sequels. I’m always more familiar with those than the new shows, but there’s no question we’ve got good content this winter.

In terms of action? Oh boy we are in for a show. Frieren may not have constant action, but it lands when the time is right. Basically everything I already mentioned besides Medalist will be excellent action series. To say nothing about getting another Fate series and those tend to be good on the action side. We’ve got sports anime, romcoms, isekai, people getting kicked out of hero parties, and just some quirky concepts.

Winter will be a total blast. Not sure what I’ll cover 100%, but there’s going to be a lot of shows grabbing me. I look forward to hearing what people are excited about in this season. There’s some obvious hits, but lot of under the radar picks that maybe didn’t make my list at all.