Spring 2021 First Impressions

Hello everyone, and welcome back to For Great Justice! A couple brief weeks ago, Yata delivered some overdue final verdicts on the winter season solo, and with the turnaround to the start of spring being so quickly in tow, it’s once again just him covering this batch of first impressions.

But fret not—whether it’s due to prior COVID-delayed shows seeing the light of day or an unrelated uptick in interesting titles, this spring is stacked with hit sequels, reliable adaptations, and promising anime-original works alike, boasting one of the largest crops of Potentially Not Garbage synopses I’ve seen yet in my six and a half years of seasonal coverage.

Below are my first impressions on thirty—yes, thirty—premieres, and since the field is so large this time, I’ll give you an added bonus and tier-list them. Best of the best first, rest and the worst afterward. Keeping the explanations concise, here’s what I intend to watch this spring and why. A hellish schedule has never looked so heavenly.

Summer 2020 First Impressions

Hey, y’all. Yata here. On top of FGJ’s home country still completely fucking up this whole pandemic response thing, it’s officially Too Fucking Hot™ out, and you know what that means: summer is here! Normally staying indoors and bingeing some anime sounds like our idea of a fun time, but the mood turned sour twofold over the last few weeks; Haru has been feeling ill for the better part of a month and while his doctors have run tests concluding that what’s ailing him isn’t COVID-19, his top priority right now is getting rest and not stressing himself out over writing words about cartoons.

The second issue is that the anime industry itself got set back from when this crisis had its wave over in Japan last season. As a result very few shows—I haven’t run the numbers, but probably the fewest we’ve seen in about a decade or close to it—are airing weekly for the next 3 months, and that’s before taking into account how transparently mediocre most of the surviving batch is, or how two of the biggest hype-titles of the summer dropped in non-weekly formats. Masaaki Yuasa and Science SARU’s new adaptation Japan Sinks 2020 went live all at once, and I loved it so much I intend to give it a proper article of its own, so expect that within a few weeks. Studio Wit’s new title Great Pretender also seems cool, and I say “seems” because I actually haven’t gotten around to it yet; its first half came out in arc-length increments, but it likely won’t leak the second half until the fall, so I’m tempted to hold off for now and just watch it then.

What remains are slim pickings, but if there’s anime airing, someone’s gotta cover it, and here I am to answer the call. What’s worth tuning into weekly between now and September? Hell, what’s even airing, like, at all? Buckle up, ’cause it’s time for some first impressions.

Spring 2020 First Impressions

Born to die, world is a fuck. Spring anime are here. Or rather, some are, some were, and some were going to be, but this pandemic is wreaking havoc on the normal way of things, and Japan’s animation industry has found itself no exception. It’s at a weird time, too—this season had just gotten under way, and since aaaaalmost everything that had planned to premiere did (SAO, Oregairu, etc., we’ll see you eventually), we here at FGJ still have a lot to talk about. So yeah, the bad news: this anime season may be cut short. The good news? If enough series can weather the storm, a lot of great stuff has emerged this time around. Haru and Yata are both here, running down the 21 combined shows they peeped over the last week. What’s worth sticking around for? Find out on this chonkin’ big slate of first impressions.

Winter 2020 First Impressions

Between long-awaited greenlit adaptations and surprising sequel announcements, 2020 is already looking like a mighty exciting time to be an anime fan, and while the rest of the world is uh…mostly continuing to be a shitshow, not all of these shows are shit! Kicking off the year in style, Yata and Haru are back with their first impressions on 20 seasonal premieres. Which ones have passed the litmus test all easy breezy? Which ones we did we low-key accidentally not save our writing for? (Asteroid In Love. It’s Asteroid In Love. Haru’s sticking with it, though.) And which ones are getting thrown straight in the fire? Find out below on For Great Justice’s first seasonal rundown of the new decade!

Fall 2019 First Impressions

October has brought a nor’easter to Yata’s corner of the country and tornadoes to Haru’s neck of the woods, but neither could keep us from the better stuff this month had to offer: a whole new slate of anime to check out. It’s the final season of the year and the decade as well, so we each approached this crop of shows with some contemplation and a secret desire to free up some other time. That turned out to be more difficult than expected, however. It may not be quite as loaded as this winter was, but these fall shows aren’t slouching. Which ones have we thinned out? Which ones are our early favorites? Find out below on this update from For Great Justice!

Summer 2019 First Impressions

Right off the heels of one of the weakest overall seasons in recent memory, anime is back and summer is bringing the heat! By the end of this past spring, I think we here at FGJ had finished a combined like…6 shows? In comparison, we’re covering triple that in this loaded round of first impressions. But how many are we sticking with—and which ones? Some obvious choices and some oddball surprises alike made the cut. Let’s run ’em down!

Spring 2019 First Impressions

Thunderstorms are blowing through and allergies are ramping up, which can only mean one thing: spring is here, and with it, a whole new slate of anime to check out! This time around, notable premiering titles include Sarazanmai, Carole & Tuesday, and…

[checks the charts]   oh.               wow.

Okay, no beating around the bush, there’s not a whole lot else to watch this season, but that didn’t stop the two of us here at For Great Justice from giving most things a chance anyway and picking up a few surprises. Which other series struck our fancy? Which will be relegated to the Seasonal Anime Broiler? And is Sarazanmai really worth the hype? (spoiler: yes). Find out below on this batch of first impressions!

Winter 2019 First Impressions

We’re both back now! The Great Great Justice Hiatus is over, and what better time to return than the start of a new year? From the looks of it, this will be a pretty average season of anime, too: some favorites are back with new installments, some titles that slipped us by have started off on the right foot, and…uh…there’s plenty of unrepentant garbage floating around too, but all in a day’s work, right? No point beating around the bush, let’s jump right into our first impressions on this winter season!

Summer 2018 First Impressions

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another batch of seasonal first impressions! We’ve got a fantastic lineup for you all this time, with some of the most promising anime to debut in yea-

I can’t. I can’t say it with a straight face. Yata and Haru both concur: this is the weakest season of anime since FGJ began nearly four years ago, and our watchlists are in dire shape. It’s not completely hopeless, and a backlog season is always welcome, but prepare for a lot of disappointment below. We checked out a combined sixteen shows. We’re sticking with only a quarter of them. Which ones? Find out with this uncharacteristically harsh set of first impressions.

Spring 2018 First Impressions

It’s the first impressions roundup you’ve all been waiting for!

…that is, unless you’ve been waiting for one that enthusiastically covers all the reboots, spinoffs, and mega-franchise hits airing this season, because this roundup includes almost none of them. Not to worry, though—a couple of them are on our marathon backlogs, which just means we weren’t going to cover them weekly anyway, and there’s too little time to check the pilots of shows where a “hold” outcome is inevitable. Instead, Yata and Haru mostly had a field day with spring’s brand new offerings and wound up with one of their most selective weekly schedules yet, but not for a lack of trying. What’s sticking around? What’s out early? And why do these fucking horsegirls not overthrow humanity and become Earth’s dominant species? Answers to two of those questions lie below. Read on!