Anime Fall 2017: 10 titles to look forward to!

It’s almost time for fall already, but if you look at the weather in our cold country you’d think it was already Fall. Even with this weather, you don’t have to be bored with these 10 anime from the upcoming season which we are looking forward to!

Sengoku Night Blood (戦刻ナイトブラッド)

Type: Anime
Studio: Unknown
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Romance
Based on the eponymous smartphone game by Otomate, Marvelous and Kadokawa.

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

This anime is based on the recently released Otome smartphone game ‘Sengoku Night Blood’, which was unfortunately only released in Japan so far. It takes place during Japan’s Sengoku period. There are werewolf and vampire characters in this game and a female lead character who can pursue romantic relationships with the male characters, which makes it an Otome game.

Recommended by Yuki:
From what I could find of the game it contains stunning graphics. As I love to watch anime with a touch of romance in them and I like fantasy as well I’m pretty sure this’ll be an anime I want to watch. I do hope the anime will either make a definitive couple or will pursue different storylines in each episode, so that you can see all options play out. Personally, I’m not a great fan of anime that hint at relationships, where all the potential partners are interested, but nothing eventually happens.

Osomatsu-san 2 (おそ松さん 2)

Type: Anime
Studio: Studio Pierrot
Genres: Comedy, Parody

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

After the successful first season in the fall of 2015, the identical sextuplets Matsuno are back to have and make fun. The predecessor of this anime series is Osomatsu-kun, which was based on the eponymous manga that ran from 1962 to 1988. You could see Osomatsu-san as a spinoff, as it was made to celebrate the 80^th birthday of the, deceased in 2008, mangaka Fujio Akatsuka. The Matsuno brothers are now in their 20ies, still live at home, don’t go to college, nor do they have girlfriends, they don’t feel like working and if they try to apply for a job they don’t succeed. They have bizarre adventures and challenges to face and there isn’t much of a chronological order or advance in the series’ storyline.

Recommended by Fran:
The first season was a perfect anime to get you through the long dark days. The humour might not always be super easy to understand, but the adventures of the Matsuno brothers are so ridiculous at times that it does make you laugh. When I was in Japan last year, the anime had already been off the air for half a year, but all the anime related stores were filled with Osomatsu-san merchandise. You couldn’t avoid it and that was pretty fun to see. Especially because I look back to the first Osomatsu-san series with fondness, I can’t wait to see part 2!

Gintama (Shinsaku) (銀魂)

Type: Anime
Studio: Bandai Namco Pictures
Genres: Action, Comedy, Historical, Parody, Samurai, Sci-Fi, Shounen

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

Gintama takes place during the samurai time but it’s a lot different from what you would expect. The Amanto, a.k.a. aliens to us, have invaded earth which as a result swords have been banned. However, there are still several people who cannot stop their life as a samurai, one of them being Gintoki, the main character. Gintoki is the owner of a jack-of-all-trades company and together with Shinpachi, Kagura, and their big dog, Sadaharu, they take on many different tasks often resulting in big adventures.

Recommended by Kuro:
I don’t know anything about this new season but as someone who has watched all of the other Gintama seasons I can kind of guess what they’ll bring us this season. I have to be honest, first I thought Gintama would be your standard shounen anime, boy was I wrong! Gintama is more than just your average shounen anime and one of the reasons is it’s humour. This show is hilarious with all its jokes, the banter between characters, and sometimes even jokes about the anime itself breaking the fourth wall. Don’t get me wrong though I don’t only love Gintama for its unique sense of humour but also for its action! When there is a battle scene it gets serious real quickly and the scene will not disappoint you. The fact that Gintama has both humour and badass action scenes is what I love about this show and I’d recommend this to anyone who loves comedy and/or action anime!

Inuyashiki (いぬやしき)

Type: Anime
Studio: MAPPA
Genres:  Drama, Sci-Fi, Seinen
Based on the eponymous manga by Hiroya Oku.

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

The story follows Ichiro Inuyashiki, a friendly man of barely 60 years old. He has a pretty sad and boring life, family members who don’t care about him and he is told he only has a few months left to live. One day when he’s visiting the park he, and a teenager who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, end up dead because of aliens crash landing. His body gets replaced by a mechanical body, from this moment on he is a cyborg. The teenager, Hiro Shishigami, finds himself in the same situation. Both leaf their new life differently, which eventually causes friction between them.

Mangaka Hiroya Oku might be more familiar to most as the maker of GANTZ, Inuyashiki (not to be confused with Inuyasha) is his passion project that came to be after finishing GANTZ. The manga has 10 volumes, with 85 chapters, of which the last was released in July. The series was completed and was a selection, selected by a jury, for the 18^th edition of the Japan Media Arts Festival Awards, but also an entry to win the Best Comic category during the 44^th edition of Angoulême International Comics Festival this year. The studio, MAPPA, is behind recent hits like Yuri!!! on Ice and Zankyou no Terror.

Recommended by Fran:
The teaser gives the impression that the emphasis is going to be on robots, but after reading the plot, I get the feeling that there’s more depth to the manga. It doesn’t come across as a story you’d run into in every manga. I’m curious to see how that will translate into anime and how much censorship there will be (since there is quite a lot of violence and more in the manga), but I have to say the computer graphics (CG) in the teaser are very appealing.

Osake wa Fuufu ni Natte kara (お酒は夫婦になってから)

Type: Anime
Studio: Creators in Pack
Genres: Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance
Based on the eponymous webmanga by Cristal na Yousuke.

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

A comedy about a wife, Chisato Mizusawa, and her husband Sora. Chisato loves drinking alcohol, a secret only her loving, and cocktail serving, husband knows about. Aside from her secret she is a reserved, but great assistant manager in her company.

Recommended by Yuki:
The style appealed to me and I think there’s potential for funny moments in this series, although I have to admit I’m not a huge fan of alcohol myself, so it won’t be very relatable for me.

Ousama Game The Animation (王様ゲーム The Animation)

Type: Anime
Studio: Seven
Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, School
Based on the manga by Nobuaki Kanazawa (story) and Hitori Renda (art).

Starts airing: October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

Ousama Game, or King’s Game, follows a high school class, existing of 32 students, who all receive a weird message on their phone. It welcomes them to Ousama Game, which tells them to complete certain tasks within 24 hours. In the beginning nobody takes it seriously, but after the tasks become more out of control, the students will learn that the consequence of failing will be death. How does it end and who will survive? Aside from the manga Ousama Game, which ran from 2010 to 2012, there was a sequel titled Ousama Game: Shuukyoku, which ran from 2012 to 2014.

Recommended by Fran:
The story reminds me of shows like television series 24 to the movies of Battle Royale. I wasn’t familiar with the manga, and while reading the story of the anime I became interested, since I do like the horror and mystery genres and I’m not afraid of a little blood and gore! And if I can believe the manga reviews, this’ll definitely be in store for this anime. Extra tidbit: the opening son is FEED THE FIRE by coldrain!

Mahoutsukai no Yome (魔法使いの嫁)

Type: Anime
Studio: Wit Studio
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Shounen, Slice of Life
Based on the eponymous ongoing manga by Kore Yamazaki.

Starts airing: 7^th of October 2017
Number of episodes: Unknown

Only 16 years old, Hatori Chise has had a hard life. No hope, no family, but then a chance encounter slowly turns her luck around. In her moment of need a magus appears before her, offering her a chance she couldn’t resist. He buys her from slavers and thus begins her life as his apprentice and future wife. Will her life be filled with peace and light or will Elias pull her even deeper into darkness?

Recommended by Yuki:
Although the first three episodes were shown on July 2^nd, for the visitors of Anime Expo, this series is being officially released in October and thus in fall. Elias, the magus, has a unique design and the sad background of Hatori Chise makes for an interesting story, in my opinion. I’m secretly also pretty curious whether there won’t be a little bit of romance in the series as well.

This series is the sequel op the OVA series Mahoutsukai no Yome: Hoshi Matsu Hito.

Net-juu no Susume (ネト充のススメ)

Type: Anime
Studio: Signal. MD
Genres: Comedy, Game
Based on the eponymous ongoing webmanga by Rin Kukuyou.

Starts airing: 10^th of October 2017
Number of episodes: 10

Net-juu no Susume (Recommendation of the Wonderful Virtual Life) is about 30-year old Moriko Morioka who doesn’t work or go to school (NEET). She winds up in a net game of netoge. In this world she begins her new life as a good looking character named Hayashi. When she starts playing the game she runs into the character Lily who wants to help her. In the real world a meeting with a good looking man, blonde hair and blue eyes, awaits Moriko, who works in an elite company.

Aside from the series of 10 episodes, there will be a special included in the BD box set of the series. These will be released on the 8^th of December.

Recommended by Fran:
I’m interested in the anime for several reasons. The age of the female lead character is in her 30ies, and this is more around my age than I normally find in anime series, which often have high schoolers or characters in their early twenties. The story might be pretty predictable – I’m not familiar with the manga – but the way it was put together makes it interesting to watch. The list of voice actors is also very interesting, the female main character Moriko Morioka gets to be voiced by Mamiko Noto. We know her voice from, among others, Alex Benedetto in Gangsta., Ai Enma in Jigoku Shoujo and Sawako Kuronuma in Kimi ni Todoke. Takahiro Sakurai was chosen as the voice of Yuuta Sakurai, he also lent his voice to Osomatsu Matsuno in Osomatsu-san, Ruki Mikami in Diabolik Lovers and Misaki Takashi in Junjou Romantica, just to name a few. And I didn’t even list the rest of the voice actors!

Dance with Devils: Fortuna (Dance with Devils -Fortuna-)

Type: Movie
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genres: Reverse harem, Romance, Supernatural, Shoujo, Musical

Starts airing: 4^th of November 2017

If you have seen its predecessor, the anime series Dance with Devils, in 2015 then you know what to expect: a reverse harem existing of handsome devils and high schooler Ritsuka Tachibana with every now and then (unexpected) singing to make this anime cringe worthy, or fun for those of us who love musicals. But as opposed to the main character in the anime Diabolik Lovers (both titles are games by Rejet) Ritsuka isn’t a helpless girl who lets everything happen and seems to be an easy prey. She is very beloved by the devils, but that turns out to be for a reason, and we’ll find out soon that they aren’t the only ones interested in Ristuka. The anime ended after excitement and a bit of confusion, there was a serious fight between devils and vampires and it gave you the idea more was coming. Two years later there’s a movie that’ll be shown in Japanese movie theatres from November 4^th on.

Recommended by Fran:
The anime series Dance with Devils isn’t exactly the best series ever made, but it’s definitely entertaining. Despite not knowing exactly what to expect from this movie – maybe the story continues or they repeat the anime – I am very curious what they’re going to put into those two hours of film. We’ll have to wait and see whether this movie will be legally viewable for viewers outside of Japan.

Haikara-san ga Tooru Movie 1: Benio, Hana no 17-sai (劇場版 はいからさんが通る 前編 ～紅緒、花の17歳～)

Type: Movie
Studio: Nippon Animation
Genres: Comedy, Historical, Romance, Shoujo
Based on the manga ‘Haikara-san ga Tooru’ by Waki Yamamoto.

Starts airing: 11^th of November 2017

It’s the Taisho era and after losing her mother at a very young age tomboy Benio ‘Haikara-san’ Hanamura was raised by her father, who was a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. Unlike other women, she studies kendo, drinks sake and dresses in an outlandish-looking Western way rather than a traditional kimono. She prefers literature over chores and hates the idea of arranged marriages. She believes in a woman’s right to marry for love and have a career.

Recommended by Yuki:
The anime takes place in the past, in a time when women didn’t have a voice. Aside from my interest in historical anime, the circumstances are interesting. Since Haikara-san is totally not a traditional Japanese woman and I think it’d be fun to watch her love story unfold. On top of that, there will probably gonna be some funny moments because she isn’t very typical.