The Winter 2026 Anime Season Reviewed

This is turning out to be an anime blog more than anything else, but that's okay, I do watch a lot of anime and honestly, it might be fun to check in at the end of each season. It's certainly a guaranteed post every quarter. I just checked, and my last post was in February. Oof, and I was doing so well at the beginning of this year.

So here's how this will work. First, I'll list the seasonals I've been watching that have ended with my thoughts, then the seasonals that are continuing (there are effectively none this season, but when that happens, it'll go after), then the status of the classic shows I've been watching, then I'll talk about next season's shows, then we'll have a life update at the end. If I'm going to do this every quarter, might as well also make it a general check-in.

Completed Seasonals

Sousou no Frieren S2: I loved the first season, and I still love the second season. Frieren was at its weakest last season when it was trying to be an action show, and this season's action wasn't exactly super strong, but it didn't bother me nearly as much as the demon diplomacy arc from last season. Other than that, it was just more of a thoughtful, fun, gorgeously animated, and at times hilarious show.

Jujutsu Kaisen S3: Yet another excellent season. Apparently, people hated this arc in the manga. If this adaptation were any less premium, I probably would've hated it, too. There's a lot of exposition dumping in this one. There was even an entire episode where they literally stand around in a white room talking about the rules of the Culling Game. At least in the anime, they had pretty motion graphics and good sound design to keep your eyes from rolling out of your head. I can't imagine the pain of reading this in a manga.

Sentenced to Be a Hero: This show was a lot of fun, with really good animation and a cool, super interesting premise. The title is something I'd like to compliment, it's very striking, although I can tell the Japanese title is very different. I think I said in my last post about this season, I could see the protag going down a very dark (and brooding) path, but halfway through the series, he does change a little. Thus far, while I wouldn't call the show feminist, it at least doesn't get grossly sexualized with its main female characters, which is something I was kinda dreading. My favorite character was the guy who thought he was king, he was hilarious and I loved how he actually kinda got a following.

Oshi no Ko S3: This show has been consistently pretty great. In the last episode, the main characters finally put two and two together, and the reveal was deeply, deeply touching, but then the girl was like, "Doctor, I haven't forgotten that you promised to marry me when I turned 16, and I'm 16 now!" I can't even with this. I love this show but hot damn. I know in the manga they kissed and everybody hated that. I don't know when that happens, but in the anime, it didn't happen here. Maybe we'll get lucky and they decided to tone that down? I'd hate to see this one crash and burn.

You and I are Polar Opposites: This show was so funny and adorable! Just a lot of fun to watch, great animation, and probably my favorite OP of the season. The characters are so much fun, my favorite was Taira and his dynamic with Azuma. Just a good time all around.

Journal with Witch: Possibly my fave of the season, and deffo my fave out of the four originals I saw this season. At the start of the season, I compared this show to Bunny Drop, but they're very different shows to be sure. The production values are just right for the scale of this show. It never looks bad, although it never looks super extravagant, either, but it's a gorgeous little story about a girl trying to find her way after suffering the loss of her parents with an aunt who's trying to figure out how to handle what's happened. Highly, highly recommended.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes S2: Speaking of shows crashing and burning, holy fuck, what happened here? Last season was pretty good and I was looking forward to seeing more of these characters. Well, guess I'll go fuck myself, because this season isn't about the main three characters. It concerns itself way more with characters from the main show. Right in the middle of a 12 episode season, they devote three episodes to Eraserhead's backstory. This could've been an OVA, or at least contained to one episode. Then, when we finally get back to the new characters, we find out that Captain Celebrity isn't actually a womanizer who cheated on his wife, he's just easily misunderstood! Way to make the character significantly less interesting, assholes. Maybe I should've dropped this one, except last episode was actually super fucking cool because Knuckle Duster finally came back into the story and had a really kickass fight with this season's villain, where it's revealed the villain has Knuckle Duster's stolen quirk and idolizes his old persona! THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE WHOLE SEASON! What were they thinking? There's technically one more episode left, but I don't think it'll change my mind. I doubt I'll return if there's another season. EDIT: Before I completed this post, I watched the last episode, and yeah, I was right. I did not change my mind at all, and I'm even more convinced I should just skip next season if it even happens at all. It's very clear this show has no faith in its cast, so why should I bother?

Champignon Witch: I dropped this one, unfortunately. In a lot of ways, I really did appreciate what this show was trying to do, at least, but it was so horribly let down by its poor production values. The reason I dropped it is because I was really far behind, like four episodes behind, and I finally thought, you know, if I'm having this hard of a time keeping up with this show, do I really need to keep watching it?

To Your Eternity S3: Speaking of being behind, I'm still playing catch-up with this one because they took a two week hiatus and I forgot about it when it came back. Completely ruined my rhythm. This show's production really suffered after they switched studios. This season definitely looks at least a little better than the second, but it's still not great compared to the first. I still loved the story in the second season, though, but I nearly dropped it this season because holy shit, did I hate this one character that they really focused on earlier on in the season. I did manage to get past that, and a lot of people have said this is the manga's worst arc, so I'd like to try and stick with this one. You know, I just realized, this is kind of the opposite situation of Jujutsu Kaisen. That show is a premium adaptation that elevated its source material's worst arc so that even the worst parts are at least bearable. This show is definitely not a premium adaptation and its worst arc is probably just as painful as its manga counterpart. Again, even though I'm behind, there's still a couple weeks left on this one, but I don't think it'll change my mind.

Continuing Shows

Beasters S4: Remember how I said this category would be empty this time? I lied. Netfux decided to be bastards and just kinda randomly drop the episode all at once. Yeah, this is kinda what they do, but they're still bastards. Also, I'm calling it season four, fuck you. I'm only two episodes in, but I hope to finish this one in the time between seasons. I might write something about the whole series when I'm done, but I really do love this show. The show's MAL score is pretty low compared to previous seasons, so I guess a lot of folks didn't like the ending, not that MAL scores really matter that much.

Next Season

Dr. Stone: Science Future P3: Consistency is for viscous substances. Really looking forward to the ending to this series! Truthfully, I think this series kinda peaked in the New World season, but I still really like it and I'm happy to see it through to the end.

Witch Hat Atelier: I've heard so many good things about this manga, but I just can't get myself to read manga for some reason. What little I have seen of it looks gorgeous, and from the previews I've seen, this looks like it'll be a premium adaptation. Probably gonna adore this one.

Akane-banashi: I actually don't know much about this, I just saw somebody raving about the manga on Discord and decided on a whim to add it to my PTW as I was looking at the seasonal charts just now. The studio doesn't seem to have a great track record judging by the MAL score, but I hope I'll enjoy this one.

I don't know if I'll pick up more shows later or not, nothing else is really jumping out at me from the charts, but that's fine, more time for classics! Speaking of...

Classic shows

Turn A Gundam: Still following, still really good! I'm currently past episode 18.

Kyousou Giga: I watched one episode, and got so caught in playing catch-up I never got around to watching the rest. I hope to finish this one alongside Beastars before the spring season goes into full swing. If I end up sticking to just the three shows listed above, I should have plenty of time even if I can't finish it before that, I hope, especially because I really liked the first episode!

Digimon Adventure: I finally got around to watching this one with my friend. We've been watching five episodes at a time and we've got 15 episodes under our belt. It's definitely a baby anime, but in the same vein as live action Sonic rather than Animal Mechanicals or something. It's alright, but I probably wouldn't watch it alone, and I honestly have a lot less nostalgia for it than I thought.

The Rest of My Life

I'm finally getting back into 3D printing after a bit of a hiatus. The unfortunate thing is I was also supposed to get into electronics and soldering and stuff along with that, but never did, so the things to do with it outside of that often don't interest me. Like, I don't play TTRPGs (unfortunately), I don't need a dice tower. Something I've been slowly printing is a Cray-1 model. I think I have to reprint the cable panels, I thought translucent blue would look cool, but it doesn't stand out against the black background. I'll have to just use regular blue. I also need to clean up the grill fins, I think I can just go at it with a craft knife.

I also recently got a traveler's notebook! I got the passport size one from a company called Wanderings that came with three blank notebook inserts, a craft folder insert, a plastic card holder and zip bag insert, a rollerball pen with pen loop clip, and a binder clip. Not sure what people use the binder clip for, but the pen loop clip ain't great. It slides around and creates impressions on things around it. I decided to take matters into my own hands and design a sort of pen loop card that goes into the craft folder insert. There's like a little slot in the folder flaps you can shove cards in. I designed it so I could sew some elastic band to it and 3D printed it in PLA. I don't know why I thought I could sew, but that didn't exactly pan out for several reasons. First of all, as you may have inferred, I can't sew. Second issue, I made the holes in the card that I was supposed to use to sew the elastic to the card too small. I could poke through them with an awl to make them bigger, but after realizing I couldn't figure out sewing, I decided to improvize and just duct taped the band to the card. It actually works, though, that's the pen loop I'm using right now. I also wish it came with more than just blank notebooks, because I'm certainly not an artist, I need line ruled, or at least dot ruled, or even graph ruled. Something to keep my text straight.

Speaking of awls and notebooks, I'm slowly getting into book binding, starting with making pocket notebooks for my traveler's notebook using cardboard from pop can boxes and paper from old spiral bound notebooks I had laying around. Side note, fuck spiral bound notebooks, I suffered all through school with them when I should've asked for composition notebooks. Has anybody else had trouble with these fucking things having their metal spirals get bent and coming undone, and not just getting undone, getting tangled with your other shitty spiral bound notebooks? Fucking hate that shit. Anyway, I got a kit with some waxed thread, a metal ruler, an awl, some bone folders, and some sewing needles for less than nine bucks on Amazon. Kinda regret that because it came with a bunch of other stupid bullshit I don't need, but it's no biggie. I also printed out a book binding jig that has a lot more holes than I need, I only poke three holes to make these, but might be more useful as I get deeper into this rabbit hole. It's good I'm making my own notebooks as well, because I thought this traveler's notebook was Field Notes size (3.5 x 5.5 inches), but it's not, it's half an inch shorter. Not a fan of Field Notes, never used them, but I'm not paying that much for a pocket notebook, especially when a WalMart Jot and Pen notebook of the same size is 77 cents and is stitch bound rather than staple bound. Maybe the paper's better quality, but I doubt it. In any case, those don't fit. I bought a whole bunch off Amazon that are the right size, but they suck. The paper has major ghosting with the pen that came with it. The notebook paper I'm using isn't much better, but I already have it. Maybe someday, I'll buy higher quality paper or something. For now, I'm having fun making these little guys. I'll just keep the ones I bought in case I run out of the ones I make and don't have the time or energy to make new ones.

In terms of writing, if you've talked to me lately, you've probably noticed I keep bringing up that story about James Joyce despairing because he only wrote two lines that day and his friend telling him it was better than yesterday. I started two new projects because not only do I have video game ADHD, I also have writing project ADHD. I think it's due to the fact I have regular ADHD.

Lately, I've been involved in the Golden Butterflies Podcast, a podcast for the artist collective Discord I'm in. I'll have to make a separate post for that, but so far, I'm only in the (third) introductory episode. I'll be hosting an episode on VTubers that I think will be recorded this coming Sunday, so look forward to that.

Overall, this anime season has been excellent and I hope for even more good shows the rest of the year. I also hope to actually finish some projects at some point. We'll see.