Yowamushi Pedal, also called Yowapeda, is a show based on the anime of the same name. Yowapeda ran its first season in October of 2013, and has had a long run of additional seasons and movies until as recently as August 2020, when the live action movie was released. The show also has a fifth season expected in early 2021. Yowapeda flew under a lot of radars at first for a couple of reasons. To start, it was an anime about competitive cycling – something that not a whole lot of people have a specific interest in. Second, it was released a few months after Free! which came out in…

The Promised Neverland, or TPN as I’ll call it here so I have to type less, is an anime based on the manga series of the same name. The manga started in August of 2016, and just recently finished in June of 2020. The anime series started in January of 2019, and is still ongoing, with the second season rumored to be available to American audiences in April of 2021. However, with the Coronavirus pandemic still ongoing, it’s unclear whether or not the series will need to be delayed, as has happened with many other series lately. TPN is hard to define with one genre. It has elements of drama…

Kuroko’s Basketball is the English name for the anime originally called Kuroko no Basuke in Japan. This name is commonly shortened to KNB, which is what I’ll be calling it for this review. KNB is a sports anime based off of the manga of the same name. The manga ran from 2008 to 2014, while the anime ran from 2014 to 2016. It was a popular show, but came out at a time where it was impossible to dominate the anime market. There were some huge shows running at the time, and KNB ended up falling to the wayside somewhat when running against titans like Kill La Kill, Tokyo Ghoul,…

Haikyu (yes, I’m settling for that spelling, because I can) is a show that can be closely compared to Free! in the way that it exemplifies what a good sports anime can be if given the right characters, chemistry, setting, plot, and art direction. Haikyu was released in April of 2014, and has been running since, with the show currently in the fourth season. There was a long gap after the third season ended in December of 2016 – while the previous three seasons had released one after the other, fans had to wait a full three years for the first episode of season four. Season four debuted in January…

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, also known as KNY, burst onto the anime scene in April of 2019. The show is based on the manga series of the same name, which ran from February 2016 to May 2020. The manga had been highly reviewed for a variety of reasons, including its unique art style and engaging storyline filled with relatable characters, all with a sense of real depth. The anime was highly reviewed just as the manga had been, and has won a host of accolades. The most notorious of which being Polygon‘s choice for the best anime of the 2010s, even though the series came out in 2019. This…

Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, or as I’ll be calling it, Free, is a fantastic example of how a sports anime can appeal to a demographic it usually doesn’t target: the female weeaboo. Free made waves (haha) when it first came out in 2013. Anime fans were shown shots of some beautifully drawn anime boys stretching and showing sculpted muscles in a trailer that became somewhat viral on sites like Tumblr. I remember not even being in the anime scene at the time and seeing countless gifs and screenshots of the trailer for Free. It was a massive hit, and not just for the obvious reasons. Free follows the story of…

Neon Genesis Evangelion. NGE. A titan in the world of anime, considered by many to be one of the great classics. It was not entirely original for its time, but the way it handled its subject material was dark, gritty, and was something that hadn’t been seen much if ever during the time period. The original TV series was first broadcast in October of 1995, and ended after 26 episodes in May of 1996. The story follows Shinji Ikari, and a convoluted plot line that boils down to “robots fight giant monsters.” Of course, the plot is much thicker than that. It’s a masterful coming of age story that challenges…