Basically, Jujutsu Kaisen is the perfect show for long-time shonen fans who are looking for something that isn’t afraid to venture off the well-trodden paths of its predecessors and conjure up something a little bit darker, a bit stranger. Sticking around will show some of Studio Mappa’s finest work, as later fight sequences are some of the best animation to come from the studio yet. The characters - and its women especially - are presented with care, and the three main characters develop an endearing dynamic reminiscent of siblings who like to pick on each other. The show starts off a bit slow, but pays off to those who spend just a little more time with it.
Whereas other shows like it tend to focus on super-human protagonists who magically power up just when the going gets rough, Jujutsu Kaisen starts with Itadori’s own weakness and him begging for the demon inside to save him. Jujutsu Kaisen is a show that plays with the tropes of shonen anime. After consuming the finger, Itadori gets taken in by the questionable, but powerful mentor Gojo Satoru, who assembles a Naruto-like cast of three central characters who work together to defeat the monsters known as curses in their world. The story follows the young Yuji Itadori, a good-hearted school boy who one day eats an actual finger, which served as a vessel for a powerful demon called Sukuna. Jujutsu Kaisen was the breakout anime success of 2020 and continued strong in 2021. Horimiya is available to stream on Hulu and Funimation. Fun and light, Horimiya was just a rephrasing summer snack of a watch for me. What’s more is that you really don’t have to sink all that much time into, with a complete story starting and coming to a close after just one season. Sure, there isn’t some sort of big, satisfying resolution like there is in a show like Fruits Basket, but you are also spared the tears. The characters shy away from intense conflict, and embrace idyllic friendships that overcome conflict without a whole lot of development. Horimiya doesn’t do anything remarkable or groundbreaking It’s just really pleasant to watch. Overtime, we see the once lonely Miyamura develop a loving and supportive community around him. This pace allows the debut season of the show to quickly move away from showing just Hori and Miyamura’s relationship, and gives us space to learn about all the other people in their life. In Horimiya, we see them fall for each other in a matter of episodes. (We learn he has tattoos and piercings!) In other shojo, it’s not uncommon for a story to take entire seasons for the love interests to hold hands, and might not even show a kiss. The show follows Hori, a responsible big sister and confident student with friends, and her budding romance with Miyamura, a shy and quiet loner with a secret edgy look outside of highschool. Horimiya, a show whose namesake comes from combining the names of its two central love interests, Kyouko Hori and Izumi Miyamura, is about as darling as you’d expect a show named after its two lovers to be. Chris Planteīeastars season 1 and 2 are available to stream on Netflix. And like the works of Shakespeare, Beastars can be contorted into whatever else you want it to be. A sexy, violent, and often frustrating tale of star-crossed lovers kept apart by society. In that way, Beastars is like Romeo and Juliet. I enjoy the show best when I take its internal logic on its own terms. I know this is gauche amongst critics, but for me, Beastars works when I quit trying to make a one-to-one connection between our world and its city of horny teenage carnivores and herbivores. Frankly, I’ve stopped caring about what it’s about. Or perhaps it’s a coming of age story about a generation of young people disconnected from their parents by rapidly changing norms. Maybe it’s holding a magnifying glass to sexual violence on campus. Though it could be a cringey, misguided exploration of race. Beastars tells the story of a wolf who wants to have sex with a rabbit, but worries he will devour said rabbit.