Well, this was fun to write last time, so I’m going to try to do it again - an Anime Season Preview Post, this time featuring Autumn 2026. As before, skipping any sequels, since those are usually just The Second Season Of Thing. But before that:

Looking back

Which series did I actually end up liking that aired last season? In brief:

  • Jaadugar - Science Saru doesn’t miss. It’s beautiful, the (historically inspired) story is incredible. The presentation is just beautiful. If you’re going to watch one thing from this series, maybe make it this.
  • Yani Neko - If you’re going to watch one thing, or watch a second thing, and it is important to you to not appear too snobby and high brow, well, the drug addicted, discriminated against cat girls making poop jokes are here for you. It’s just really funny and occasionally pretty sharp.
  • The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows how to Game the System - Yes, it’s stat screen litrpg. But the clown girl is too charming not to like. Also, I’m a GoHands Appreciator. I love when they do some generational anime bullshit like clipping the camera below the floor to get a butt shot. It is what it is.
  • Liar Game - I didn’t have this in my preview post because it was a two-cour show that was already ongoing. It’s essentially a Kaijilike, play-increasingly-high-stakes-games-for-ridiculous-sums-of-money-or-debt style series. I liked the manga, I liked the live action version with the incredible Yasutaka Nakata / Capsule soundtrack, I liked this version too even if it is very uh, budget oriented. Naos character development is top notch, and you cannot not love Fukunaga. The animation is rough, but it’s not a show that suffers much from that.

That done, in no particular order except what flowed conveniently:

FX Fighter Kurumi-chan

Episodes watched: Two

Lets immediately start with a content warning. This is a slice of life show, but it deals with extremely dark subject matter.1

It’s 2008, and Kurumi is in middle school. Her mother loses 20 million yen doing Forex2 trading during the market crash, ends up in massive debt, and kills herself. 5 years later, now a legal adult and allowed to day trade, Kurumi VOWS to TAKE REVENGE on the market by MAKING SO MUCH MONEY because she is SMARTER and BUILT DIFFERENT and guess how that goes.

Having read some of the manga this is based on, I wasn’t entirely sure how they were going to turn this into a full 12 animated episodes. Having watched the first episode, I’m… still not sure, but I haven’t read that much of it. Maybe I’ll keep watching it, but it is a pretty stressful watch. It’s practically a morality play in how poorly everything goes. I wish our girl the best, but I’m afraid we’re not getting a happy ending. The ED is incredible, though. If you were thinking of maybe getting into FX or options, maybe this can be your cure.

Uncle’s Obsession with Cute Things

Episodes watched: One

This shows protagonist is the most He Is Literally Me Fr Fr except not really because while I’m also almost 40 I am in addition to that almost entirely immunte to cringe. I’ll go to the store to buy milk with an itabag and a Touhou baseball cap. I’m writing an anime season first impressions post that I probably will actually publish, for the second time. Are you gonna do something about that? Didn’t think so.

Mr. Oji4 likes cute mascot character goods (mostly, a funny fat yellow dog with a * shaped butt5), but has deep-seated trauma from girls calling him cringe for this when he was in school. The show is a slice of life show about what he gets up to as he tries to hide his liking cute things at work and from his nephew that’s staying with him at home (and I assume, eventually, hopefully, him being able to open up a bit).

It’s a cute show, it’s pretty funny, though I don’t know if the concept has legs. But there’s already a good number of characters that are at least a bit interesting, like our guys colleague, who things character goods are childish, but loves cute cats (cats are “real”, you see! it’s different!). I guess I’m going to see if it keeps being funny, or not.

KERORO☆

Episodes watched: One

Frog aliens have invaded earth and get up to various things, and are only being stopped by some highschoolers and also their own inability or whatever and I guess this is where I have to reveal that I never watched Keroro Gunsou as a no-good teen. And this first episode was… confusing? Apparently it was new material that would confuse you unless you already know who everyone is. Supposedly this show is a remake, but so far it’s not.

I guess I’m gonna watch another episode to see if they start from, well, the start, then? If not, well, I have no nostalgia for this.

Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship!

Episodes watched: One

We are now entering the Trash Isekai Zone.

First up in the Trash Isekai Zone: What if the standard issue Isekai show where our guy gets transported into a video game and he’s actually the strongest, but this time it’s sci-fi? That’s what this is.

Our guy has a Cool and Mysterious Space Ship, he immediately defeats some pirates (space pirates!), he acquires an Elf6 (future) Wife (a space elf wife!). He registers with a guild (a space guild!). He hasn’t bought a slave yet, but it’s part of the formula so I’m sure he’ll get to that posthaste (I think he might get a robot maid which is kind of like a slave if you think about it).

If you were unkind, you might describe this show as not very creative. I might put it on on a second screen while doing 3D modeling or whatever. It really is just the isekai show, but in space, which makes it better than the standard version of the isekai show which is not in space so it’s worse, but not by a lot.

Even Though I’m a Super Timid Noble Girl, I Accepted the Bet from My Cunning Fiancé

Episodes watched: One

Our girl Pia, in what constitutes really not a very good day, gets dumped by her boyfriend for some hussy because Pia is a stupid nerd who only likes rocks or whatever, where also all the research Pia did as a geologist is published under said boyfriends name7, and then to top it off she gets stabbed in the neck by a robber in the supermarket.

She wakes up having been reincarnated as a mob villainess in an otome game she played. Afraid that she’ll be used, dumped and subsequently banished by yet another man, she tries breaking it off with her designated fiance, but instead of letting her go, he makes her tell him why she wants to be gone so badly, and makes her an offer: If he should indeed dump her for another girl in 7 years, as she saw in her “prophecy”, he’ll give her ONE HUNDRED MILLION GOLD COINS.

I really have no idea where this series is going to go. The main couple are almost intolerable cute. The girl is a shy, socially inept, but sweet nerd, the guy is the very model of a White Haired Anime Boy. Is this going to be a cute romcom show? Is something terrible going to happen? Who knows. I don’t even know where I want it to go. I’ll keep watching to find out!

Magical Explorer

Episodes watched: Two

After all these Reborn Into An Otome Game series (either as the Villainess, or as some male background character), it is only logical that someone would make a series where our guy is reborn as a character in a for-men eroge - the titular “Magical Explorer”, and as a male side character in this case. He immediately begins messing up the plot, and starts getting All The Women, instead of the protagonist8.

Like the Reborn As A Mob Character Into An Otome Game show that had a pretty solid second season in summer, this show is part action (modern-world) fantasy, but mostly a comedy series. Unlike the Reborn As A Mob Character Into An Otome Game, it is unfortunately just not very funny. It had a two season premiere for some reason and there was maybe one joke in there that actually made me laugh. There is a skill to making “guy accidentally does something perverted and gets slapped in a comical way” and Ranma 1/29 can pull that off two to five times per episode while this show just… can’t. I don’t think I need to see much more of it.

So What’s Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin?

Episodes watched: Two

Guy gets reborn as a goblin in another world, becomes King Of The Goblins because he’s the only goblin that lives more than 7 days due to his Special Skill, becomes super strong because goblins absorb other goblins skills when those other goblins die, resolves and/or starts a conflic with the humans.

There was another goblin isekai show a few seasons back. This one is a lot more cutesy10, and lot less unsavory11. The decision of having all goblin side characters have a 7 day expiry time is certainly something. Other than that, there isn’t really much here. It’s a show where an isekai protagonist is the strongest because he can absorb skills. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one or more of those. Maybe it’ll keep my interest, probably it will not.

Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden

Episodes watched: One

We are now leaving the Trash Isekai Zone. Or are we?

Nia Liston, 4 year old noble daughter is, unfortunately, dying. Her parents hire a guy to do some magic to try and save her, but unfortunately, it’s too late - Nia is dead. Since the hired guy would still very much like a payday, he instead summons a soul (from another world? who knows! it might be isekai!) to attach to the dying girls body, tells her to please live long enough for him to collect his money and get out of dodge. Unbeknownst to him, the soul he summoned is that of a very strong, somewhat bloodthirsty fighter, who immediately heals her new body with warrior magic and then continues living on and planning out her new life of well-directed hyperviolence.

This is a bit of a weird show. It wastes absolutely zero seconds before getting to the point. We don’t even really learn much about pre-reincarnation Nia, beyond “very strong and good at violence”, and then it’s right to the reincarnation and into various bits of plot. Apparently the noble familys maids are “combat knife under the skirt” type maids, and the butler may also be combat-capable? There’s magitek TV broadcasts and our girl is now a TV star? Her not much older than her brother is breaking the hearts of girls all over the nation? There is so much going on.

Overall, it was a really fun watch, though maybe a bit too fast and a tad disjointed, but I’m hooked. I want to know if we learn more about Past Life Nia, and what else is going to happen to New Life Nia.12 If you want an at least slightly intriguing isekai show, or thought that May I Ask for One Final Thing would have been possibly funnier if the woman doing the punching was 4 years old, then you might have a good time with this.

The Worlds Strongest Witch

Episodes watched: One

We continue to be in the “Is it Isekai? Hard to say.” zone, because somehow there’s more than one show this season that fits in this.

Lorna is a girl of maybe noble birth, living in the standard issue diegetic stat screen dragon quest style monsters litrpg world, who for some reason or other that we don’t really learn about yet, unceremoniously banished from the family and abandoned in the woods by her brother. But she’s upbeat about it, because she’s just an upbeat kind of girl. Just unfortunate that she has such a useless, super weak “SSS-Rank”13 skill: “The Internet”, which lets her browse the internet. As in, the internet from our world. In which the world that she lives in is the world of an actual video game.

Lorna soon learns that this “Internet”, which isn’t really a thing she understands because she lives in a swords and sorcery type setting, contains a strategy wiki for the game slash world that she lives in, and so it’s off to the races with her newfound omniscient knowledge about every little thing about how her world works.

This is a lot of a weird show. The base concept initially looked like our girl knows everything about the world and so solve her problems playing it smart, except she also immediately finds the hidden super secret cheat item with her nap so now she is just unreasonably powerful and also she isn’t actually the brightest bulb in the hardware store. The jokes are in large parts “person who has never used the internet before and doesn’t even know what an internet is uses the internet, has many weird ideas about it”14. It’s a normal level of funny, and a normal level of interesting. That’s another one for the “side screen, maybe” pile, I guess.

The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage Enjoys a Second Lease on Life

Episodes watched: One

We are now leaving the Trash Isekai Zone, but we’re passing through the Trash Litrpg But Not Isekai Light Novel Zone on the way out.

Rein is an enchanter in a big guild. His boss, having decided that all the guilds gear is enchanted already anyways, fires him to save money. Not to be discouraged, Rein dispels all the enchantments, which allows him to take the bonus power he put into the gear back, enchants his own gear to like +10000, and lives a new, fulfilling life as an adventurer.

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember based on what I put this on my list of shows to check out. I could barely even make it through the first episode. This is a standard kicked-from-the-party, actually-the-strongest story. I think maybe because the background art looks nice? The background art looks nice15. That’s the best I got. I don’t think I want to keep watching this.

Even the Student Council has its Holes

Episodes watched: One

We are now leaving the Trash Isekai and Litrpg Light Novel Zone, this time for sure.

Our guy, a Normal High School Boy, is great at The Arts, but absolutely terrible at all the STEM subjects, and in danger of having to repeat a year. His chainsmoker disaster woman homeroom teacher, offers him a deal - join the student council instead, which will improve his academic standing (and make it so that she doesn’t get her annual bonus cut for having a student that is failing - win win!). He does, and it turns out the student council is all perverts of various types.16

Finally, some good low brow humor. Do you think people getting kicked in the nuts is inherently funny? Ever draw a penis on the shirt when playing Jackbox and consider this the peak of comedy? Do you have all the refined humoristic taste of a 13 year old? This show might be for you, and for me.

TETSURYO! Meet With Tetsudou Musume

Episodes watched: One

Misaki, a newly minted, slightly ditzy, doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life yet college freshman, gets roped into joining her universities Railway Club, where she gets up to many Iyashikei-Type Railway Enjoying and general railway based sightseeing activities with her 3 club friends.

Railfan show!

Railfan show!

It’s cute girls doing railway tourism. After Rail Romanesques second season unfortunately got very little subtitling attention17, it’s great to see that this is full length episodes and being translated. The first episode was very introductory, mostly focussed on introducing the main girl, but it’s quite clear where this is going, and I already like it18. It’s a relaxing show that wants to show you a bunch of cute trains and nice landscapes. Also, probably sell the toys from the franchise that the show is based on, but that at least doesn’t come through in any annoying way, so that’s okay as far as I am concerned.

Toaru Anbu no ITEM

Episodes watched: One

Mugino, a Level 5 Esper currently residing and stufying in Academy City19, moonlights as a special forces cop / secret government kill squad operator, with her 3 also superpowered murder girl friends. It’s another cute girls doing cute things show except this time the cute thing is legally sanctioned violence. I’m sure they’ll also eventually uncover some great and terrible conspiracy, though they haven’t gotten to that yet.

A new raildex20 series? In 2026? Great actually because here is my shameful admission I have never watched any of them to completion22. Maybe this will be the first one. Maybe this will finally make me get into it enough to close this hole in my learnings about the classical canon. The angry, violent and imposing main girl with the persistent scowl is certainly making a great case for it. The rest of the squad, and the action animation, are also pretty good.

Avatar: Seven Havens

Episodes watched: Three

Avatar is, of course23, An Anime.

It’s some unspecified time after the events of The Legend of Korra and the world has, gone to shit due to various cataclysms and natural disasters. As far as common knowledge has it, this was due to The Avatar - specifically due to Korra herself, but records and memories are spotty. Humanity persists in 7 sanctuary cities (“Havens”).

Our main girl, Pavi, is an orphan, who as you can probably guess from the moment she shows up, turns out to be the avatar, and no sooner than when this comes out, everything goes from bad to worse as weird energy creatures begin attacking the city.

I’m not going to reveal the twist here, because honestly, I really liked it. After the mediocre live action remake, it seems to have some genuinely new and interesting ideas24 that expand on the original material, which for this kind of followup is genuinely unexpected. Also, and this is the best description I can come up with, the soundtrack is Mass Effect Music. It seems to be going for a sort of Ancient Aliens vibe, that I’m really enjoying. Anyways I think you should watch it, especially if you already like Avatar generally, but maybe even if not.

  1. The show itself starts with a large disclaimer stating that Forex trading is extremely high risk and you can end up in debt, a lot of the trading depicted in the story is with shady brokers and actually illegal in Japan, and to generally probably not do it. Don’t do Forex trading. This is financial advice. ↩

  2. Forex, or FX (“Foreign Exchange”) trading, in case you don’t know, is trading currencies against each other, e.g. trading Japanese Yen for US Dollars, then waiting for the price to change ideally in your favour, then trading back into Japanese Yen3. It is often done with very high leverage (i.e. you put in 20 dollars but you trade as if you had 20 times that amount - so there is a potential for huge gains and also massive losses), and short term FX trading is effectively closer to gambling than to an investment strategy. ↩

  3. That’s right, I’m footnoting my footnote. This is conceptually what happens but in reality your broker doesn’t actually go and buy yen or dollars for you, that would be impractical and Not The Point Anyways. Instead, they keep track of entry and exit prices and settle the loss / gain, possibly hedging your trades if their overall exposure from all their clients skews too much in one direction. ↩

  4. That is actually his name. He is Oji-san. ↩

  5. It’s pretty clealy off-brand PomPomPurin. ↩

  6. Elf ears are just better! ↩

  7. Say it with me, everyone: No dating your research supervisor ↩

  8. Both this guy and the space ship guy are just entirely fine with being suddenly reborn into another world. Used to be that the protagonists in isekai series were all like „oh no, I was transported to another world where I am a Powerful Hero Loved By All and now i am stuck here, woe is me“ now it‘s all „well, I might have been transported into the Death Murder Video Game World as Expendable Guy 3, but at least i don’t have to go to my shitass job come monday so who can say whether it’s good or bad“. I’m sure it’s nothing. ↩

  9. Season 3 this season! Maybe watch that instead! ↩

  10. Though also, unfortunately, blue, which makes them have Smurf Vibes. ↩

  11. The goblins, and the show specifically says this, fuck like rabbits, but it’s all very fluffy. ↩

  12. Okay, sorry, I don’t know where else to put this. I have an extremely specific nitpick. At some point our girl does something cool with a sword and her maid asks where she even learned this, and she says she saw it in a book. The main points out she can’t even read, and Nia says it would have been a picture book, upon which the maid points out that they don’t put violent stuff like that in picture books. Except! They do! Kind of! Fencing manuals were often very thoroughly illustrated! They’re picture books for learning how to do sword violence! Anyways I just thought that was funny. ↩

  13. Which everyone thinks is weaker than the previously thought to be worst “G-Rank” which, you know what, fair. It is unobvious that “SSS” rank is actually the best if you don’t already know. It’s a bit of a weird convention. ↩

  14. Everything on the internet is true! ↩

  15. Also, for some reason, this show uses sound effects that sound like the default sound effects that come with RPGMaker? I think? Am I hallucinating? Someone tell me whether I’m right or wrong about this please. ↩

  16. We got the outwardly softspoken treasurer who when challenged in any way reacts with Extreme Violence, the shy student council president who is just horny in a normal way mostly, the PR guy who is, best I can describe it, Femboy Nagatoro. The light music club is for yuri. The homeroom teacher smokes and drinks on the job. The list goes on. This is only episode 1. ↩

  17. Though, to be fair, it didn’t really need it. ↩

  18. Especially since Jet Lag The Game: Japanorama just ended, meaning I need a new place to get my Japanese Trains Fix ↩

  19. Every time I hear that name I have to remind myself that it’s raildex not Blue Archive. They even look the same! ↩

  20. Or rather, raildexverse, I guess. Even though it is apparently contemporary with the other series, it doesn’t seem like Mikoto Misaka and the gang show up in this except cameos, and the main girls power is anyways very similar to Misakas. A bit like the Nanoha show last season. I guess we’re around that time in the Nostalgia Cycle21. ↩

  21. You can tell it’s a nostalgia show because it has eyecatches. I will not be taking questions ↩

  22. This may or may not allow me to then understand why in this show they’re doing their mission briefing in the sauna, which as a sauna liker myself I of course in any case support. I turned my own sauna on for a quick round right after finishing the episode. ↩

  23. Just like Touhou, my other favourite anime. ↩

  24. Plural! ↩

tagged: anime media preview
filed under: mr president a second aniblog post has hit the towers