Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion - December 26, 2025

Hey guys - just curious if there are any more anime adaptations/interperetations of American/western properties - here’s what I know of:


Star Wars: Visions (2 Seasons)

Batman: Gotham Knight

The Animatrix

Blade Runner Blackout 2022


And then those 4 Marvel anime that came out in the 00s. X-Men, Blade, Iron Man, and Wolverine.

Any others? Love this particular subgenre.

EDIT: Forgot Terminator Zero!

I hope the recent trend of Remakes of older animes give us a new Ghost sweeper Mikami anime.

Sorairo Utility getting a [1st anniversary livestream with special announcements](https://x.com/sorairo_utility/status/2004507734662910224) followed by [1st season going free on youtube](https://x.com/sorairo_utility/status/2004508005132636347). Clearly this can only mean one thing...

pachinko machines!

Lmao, r/RuriRocks is banned. Is there a replacement sub?

With the year (and season) ending soon, I made [a topsters of my favorite anime series of 2025](https://files.catbox.moe/glodha.png)

Was originally going to be a top 20 but I kept going "ok one more row" and it ended up being a top 30 + 5 honorable mentions [](#teehee)

[removed]

I guess, barring *ChaO* somehow making it to the sites before the New Year, I can finalize my Top 10 of the year.

Should be pretty easy. It’s all Oguri Cap, top to bottom. Absolute Cin-Uma!

There was that one report about a ton of illegal practices in the anime industry and everyone in all the threads I saw were going “no shit”, but I think the biggest crime is the fact that 10-FEET has only performed two anime themes despite kicking around for so long.

*The First Slam Dunk* ED? Banger.

*Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray* OP 2? Also a banger.

I will personally fund more sports anime if it gets these guys on more OPs and EDs.

Hey guys, can you guys give me a list of anime with the best action animation other than mainstream stuff like DS, JJK, CSM...

Does anyone have a list of the movies that qualify for the awards this year?

Honestly the categories CR always seems to fuck up the most in their awards is the music awards.

It’s one thing when the anime people who get paid to watch anime don’t watch my preferred niche show, but is it really *that* hard to watch a minute and a half anime opening/ending? Like there is a non-zero chance that the best anime opening since *Mob* OP 2 doesn’t get nominated and if it does there’s an even more non-zero chance it loses to *Solo Leveling* or some shit. I will sacrifice a Miku Nendoroid in some satanic ritual if it gives Ishitani what she is owed.

But the real shit show is always Best Song. Now I’m not the most musically literate person out there, nor is anime music really the place to go for that, but surely we can at least try better, no? Surely we can do better than just copy the Best OP category, no? Like surely people who get paid to watch anime don’t subscribe to the philosophy that the OP is a time to go grab a snack and listen to a small snippet of song, no? Surely they at least somewhat care about lyrics, no?

Regardless, “Mirage” or “Iris Out” will probably win this year unless I’m forgetting something. “Kaijuu” will win if they’re not cowards who engage in *Orb* erasure. Neither are bad picks, in fact I’d probably give it to “Kaijuu” myself, but they will find a way to let me down.

Dream rotation for 2025 nominees:

- “Kaijuu” by sakanaction
- “Mirage” by Creepy Nuts
- “Glass Lines” by Tele
- “Spurt Syndromer” by 10-FEET
- “Rashisa” by Official HIGE DANdism
- “Iris Out” by Kenshi Yonezu

If at least one of “Glass Lines”, “Spurt Syndromer” or “Rashisa” make it, I’ll be happy. If none of them make it, I’m sure it’ll go to *Solo Leveling* or something.

I made a [Winter 2026 PTW](https://imgur.com/a/winter-hAo1EYJ) list and ordered it by priority. \[[Anilist](https://imgur.com/a/anilist-wAcDjUx)\] \[[Tier list](https://imgur.com/a/winter-hAo1EYJ)\]

**The Holy Grail of Eris**: I’ve read the LN and manga, so I’ve been keeping an eye on the adaptation. The anime visuals might not be great, but if they play their cards right, it could still be AOTS. The series really commits to high society setting, which reminds me a bit of The Rose of Versailles. And step aside, Punch Lady’s Scarlet. It’s the cooler Scarlett’s turn to shine.

It will likely be my most invested show of the season\*. And why is it always Winter? I was very active in the episode discussion threads during Winter 2025 with Ave Mujica, and it looks like I’ll be doing that all over again for this show.

**Fate/strange Fake**: I recently finished Baccano! and wasn’t blown away by Ryogo Narita’s script. It still had filler lines like “any last words.” Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files is much more my type of show if I’m being honest, but I’m saving it for after Fate/strange Fake finishes airing.

**Sentenced to Be a Hero**: Watched the PV multiple times, and the only takeaway I have is… there’s a lot of action. Action-heavy shows almost always set off a red flag for me. This feels like it might fall into the “it’s only good because of the action” category, like Wistoria or The Elusive Samurai. I hope I’m wrong, because I need more than that to stay invested.

*\*Almost every season, there’s one or two shows I get so invested in that I’m watching them the second they drop.*

*Examples from past seasons:*

* *Winter 24: Dungeon Meshi*
* *Summer 24: Makeine & Mayonaka Punch*
* *Winter 25: Ave Mujica*
* *Spring 25: Maebashi Witches*

Overall, I’m pretty anxious about Winter 2026. Four of the fifteen shows feel like wild cards. They could end up being the ones I’m most invested in, or instant drops.

It was long forgotten and it wasn't as big advertised as r/pokemonanime during the r/CartoonNetworkSaturday Morning time slot. So bad it was pulled from schedule with an incomplete English dub.

Looking at getting both Vampire Hunter D and Bloodlust as well as the Inial D full series on Bluray. I am in the UK. Would like all to be English dubbed. Best place to get all the physical Blurays. Thanks

I’m running a special Future Boy Conan full-series marathon livestream on RetroCrush Anime!

https://www.retrocrush.tv/livetv

[Ah *Fruits Basket*, so this is what you meant by being sure to make me cry.](https://i.imgur.com/iySqcBD.jpeg)
Funniest thing I've seen all week.

(I'm also crying sentimental tears though, a lot of them. Like, jeez, some of those episodes just come out of nowheere and hit like a truck)

 

Entirely unrelated, but *[TenKuro](https://myanimelist.net/anime/58146)* has [a new character song out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_eTPHeqxm8), and it fits as well as always. This series is using them a lot within the actual anime itself as BGM, I can't really remember the last time I saw a show with a comparably literal usage.

In a twist of fate, looks like *Lupin* is showing near me and *All You Need is Kill* is an hour away :P

Was hoping to see the former dubbed, since that’s how I watched the last three, but subbed is the only thing that fits into my schedule. I’ll put a pin in *All You Need is Kill* for now and see what the situation is looking like in a few weeks.

It’s also looking like my Winter 2026 schedule isn’t gonna be too terrible (I hope). If I’ve got my math right, I’ve got 1 Thursday, and 2 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shows each.

Not too terrible until I start falling behind.

Ranking shows kinda stresses me out, but I think [this is how I'd order the top 25 anime series](https://imgur.com/a/Zsknk51) of the 100 or so that I watched from this year.

It's frustrating how I can't really put the shoujo series up higher because their productions are so mediocre. Like, Mechanical Marie and The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess could've been top tier romcoms, Pass the Monster Meat, Milady could've been a delicious food anime, and One Final Thing could've been a fantastic action-comedy. Alas.

And I see everyone putting Uma Musume: Cinderella Grey at the top of their year end lists, but I'm just not going to watch it. Every year people swear the newest Uma Musume installment is great, fantastic, and better than before, and every year I watch it and roll my eyes. I've watched the entire franchise up to this point. I've given it more than a fair shake. It's time to move on.

I checked out Spring 2026 and I’m excited for Kamiina Botan and Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana. But I noticed a lot of shows that season, including Kamiina, aren’t really “strong writing” types. They mostly focus on visuals, which feels a bit meh. The Amazon JP reviews for Kamiina (source material) are very high, but MAL gives the writing a 7/10 and an overall score of 6.8.

Maybe the universe is just telling me to stick to chill shows like Maid-san wa Taberu Dake in that season.

Finished Rock is a Lady's Modesty. Solid over-all, but it kind of ignored the elephant in the room that I thought was going to provide the drama for the final arc. Instead it went in a completely different direction. Not necessarily a complaint, but it felt weird leaving the one thing unaddressed.

The CGI models were on the basic side at times, but I did think it was cool that Band Maid [provided Mocap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x9mTF-u91o) for the performances. Also, as spotty as the show looked at times in previous episodes, holy shit, the studio really seemed like they went all out for the final episode. Most of that performance sequence was incredible.

I feel like I could do with a little less monologuing during the performances, though. I'm sure this is a holdover from the manga, but the music and (most of the time) the animation could speak for itself and get the intention across without the girls talking all over it. The censorship was also odd. The dub had multiple uncensored uses of "fuck" in it, but then also there were times when stuff was still bleeped out.

---

Completely unrelated, sometime in the last month or so, Hidive updated their Roku player app and it's actually not half-bad now. It finally remembers which episode I'm on within series, they improved the short skip function (used to be like 1 minute, now it does 10s jumps) and many shows have skip op/ed buttons.

The only annoying thing that still remains is that it doesn't do onscreen text when you are watching dub with no subs, but I think that's a Roku limitation rather than Hidive, because the app is just using the Roku global subtitle settings, and onscreens will show if you have subs turned on.

---

Still have three episodes of Final Thing to watch. I ended up doing The Thing That I Do where I fall off of nearly every show mid-to-late-season. This time I completely fell off the wagon, only getting up through episode 10 of Final Thing and everything else ended up on hold around episode 4 or 5, not out of disinterest in the individual shows but due to a general lack of time. Anything from the season that was good and finished strong? I was interested in Apocalypse Touring, Dusk Beyond the End of the World, Star Brighter than the Sun, Monster Wants To Eat Me, and a few others that I can't recall by name off the top of my head.

Stealing Ridley's format, I did a personal [Top 25 of 2025](https://imgur.com/a/zFG1y8e) as well. Usually I only do a Top 10, but giving nods to the shows I consider to be my 11-25 felt right, and the Anime Bingo site is convenient as hell to use, so might as well.

* Honorable Mentions: Mikadono Sisters, Maebashi Witches and Ninkoro (didn't quite make the cut)

* Ordered left to right and top to bottom

* Titles in the 3rd row are extremely close and pretty much interchangeable with each other.

* Including movies, because why not.

* Not considering 2-cour shows of Fall since I count those for 2026, otherwise Gnosia would've made it in as well.

* Strong chance 100 Meters would have made it in, but haven't watched it yet and didn't want to wait until the 31st with this list.

* Overall a good year of anime in my book. Not as good as the monster that was 2024, but I still got a new 10/10 (and new all time favorite movie ~~final count: 6~~) in CSM this year, so I can't complain.

Extra rankings for fun:

Top 10 OSTs of the year:

1. Chainsaw Man - Reze Arc
2. Orb
3. Honey Lemon Soda
4. Watatabe
5. Medalist
6. Sanda
7. Lazarus
8. Hanashura
9. Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider
10. Cocoon

Top Seiyuu of the year: Reina Ueda

OP of the year: Mirage (Call of the Night S2)

ED of the year: Jane Doe (CSM Reze Arc)

I think at this point, I don't really want to talk to anime fans whose entire media hobby focus is only on Japanese pop culture.

More than halfway through Amagami SS+ now. In a bit of a reversal Tsukasa's arc has been relatively weaker while Ai, Rihoko, and Kaoru's arcs have all been good sequels and a step up over their SS counterparts.

I'm most interested in seeing how Haruka's arc will go since it was my least favourite in SS but Haruka grew on me a lot after her arc. Also the narrator better return for Sae's arc.

[](#mugiwait)

Hi, I'm fairly new to anime and would love some recommendations if anyone has anything that is sort of magic/fantasy based.


So far I have really enjoyed Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Solo Leveling, and Campfire Cooking in Another World. I also watched Rising of the Shield Hero and Chillin in Another World. I watched Black Clover a long time ago and liked it too, but usually don't like shows where the characters are yelling at me all the time. 


I started watching Spy X Family and it was good, but not the vibe I am interested in right now. I watched the first few episodes of Secrets of the Silent Witch but just couldn't seem to get into it. 


I see lots of shows in the fantasy genre, but ideas that narrow down the selection would be great. Preferably nothing too dark. Thanks in advance!

A kyo ani post, hinting for an anouncement on the 28th, is really making the rounds, sparking a lot of speculation. As it is December, people are high on Haruhi copium. Anyone has any speculation?

https://x.com/i/status/2004492396021895660

I know Sorairo Utility will get a sequel because the director has such a passion for drawing Haruka’s feet and thighs I know he won’t stop at one season and an OVA.

[***#Haruka Thighnk***](#harukathink)

I didn't realize this but KyoAni's output since 2010s was much more comedic and lighthearted than I remember. For some reason I thought they were the "heavy drama studio" but Nichijou/City and Dragon Maid are much more representative of their style than Violet Evergarden.

IDK about my top 25 of the year to match that trend, but I *did* throw together a top 10 list at least:

1. Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX

2. 3-nen Z-gumi Ginpachi-sensei

3. Apocalypse Hotel Spring 2

4. Solo Leveling Season 2: Arise from the Shadow

5. Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

6. The Summer Hikaru Died

7. Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray (counting both parts together here)

8. My Dress-Up Darling Season 2

9. Gachiakuta

10. Zenshu

Hilariously enough, thanks to CinGray and Gachiakuta both being two cour *and* their second cours both being Fall shows, this means that my top 3 shows of each season are all on here (Solo Leveling S2/Orb/Zenshu for Winter, G-Quacks/ApocHotel/CinGray for Spring, The Summer Hikaru Died/My Dress-Up Darling S2/Gachiakuta for Summer, and Ginpachi-sensei/CinGray/Gachiakuta for Fall). [Really funny how that worked out.](#azusalaugh)

1. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
2. Monster
3. Cowboy Bebop
4. Vinland Saga
5. Ranma 1/2

All of Amagami SS+ done

[my genuine reaction](https://i.imgur.com/i5KpkB3.png)

Overall a good follow up to SS. My harem romcom quota for the next year has been filled.

[](#tiredfate)

I wonder why they adapt the spinoff for Girls und Panzer instead of completing Das Finale first. Or maybe they want to pad up time before the next Das Finale comes out?

I have done like 10 rewatches this year and ngl, its refreshing, especially in these trying times of Fall 2025. Its good for your mental health and soul, recommend. Anyways, have you guys heard of **Gakkou Gurashi**?

I read the manga a few years ago and came out thinking that while different, the Gakkou Gurashi anime still had its strengths and was a solid entry on its own. I think that the same goes for source readers at the time of the anime airing that would point out that the adaptation was pretty different but good regardless. Or at very least, I could swear the reception of the anime was mostly positive with some outlier of ‘they removed the EDGE’, because I really don't recall any noise about this adaptation. But now after rewatching the anime myself, I am the one having doubts.

I won’t start this with a mini-synopsis as usual because its synopsis is by itself a spoiler. I feel only few people check it out completely blind faithfully, even for a single episode it seems tough to sell blind. But let’s just say that the english title ‘School Live’ and they have a school living club is a big hint.

Anyways, Gakkou Gurashi is considerably slower than I expected at the start. Some episodes feel like an 18 minute waiting room to see the next teaser to the plot will be (the mall episodes being the exception). It's funny because I’m the guy that consooms CGDCT like a maniac and my friends were like ‘Episode 1 was actually pretty good’ and I’m just like, that was just really w/e outside the twist. Back when this aired I had actually considered dropping it just before the twist and still think its a bit underwhelming.

Things start picking up pace until episode 8, after that it is more like I remember it. Definitely the better part of the show. Its just more stuff happening at a good pace and good character moments.

Enjoyed it slightly less, but overall it was still good. 7/10.

------

Manga comparison time. I think the anime skipping some of the overarching hints made it less interesting, other choices were odd, but hey, the anime did end just before it all went downhill. You win some, you lose some.

[Of the bigger changes]>!probs the more popular is the dog. The dog in the manga is like a 5 panel affair vs being a constant presence in most of the anime run. But the biggest change is the nature of Yuki's delusions. The anime goes leans into her being truly delusional as a coping mechanism and doesn't really snap until the climax. I know we get some hints that she is aware like in the mall, but I feel it is too ambiguous. Compare that to the manga that has a full chapter dedicated to Yuki confessing that she has been feigning all along. I would say I prefer the manga route as everything being more intentional drives the point that Yuki is the most courageous one of the group.!<

[Then there is more general stuff like]>!Anything that hints to a more overarching plot (thinking of the helicopter chapter mainly) being removed, and imo the reason why I felt like so little was happening. The reveals and discussions of these events were p much replaced with more SoL content. Also Miki being considerably more abrasive, especially towards Yuki. Like there instances where I thought the other girls would get violent with Miki lol.!<

[As for why I think it goes downhill]>!the university arc is classic "laughably evil goons ruin everything" that happen in zombie apocalypse media, not very good. The sister stuff with Yuri is kinda weird and feel doesn't serve her. The cause and solution to the infection is really dumb and contrived. The writing isn't this manga's strength imo.!<

That said, I still felt a bit moved by the ending. It was really nice, and appreciate the love the author has for school life. But it is still an underwhelming manga ngl lol.

Feels like I tend to rate shows from my backlog generously while rating seasonals harshly.

[](#seasonalthink)

I've made it a point to not watch anime with those long ass light novel titles. Am I missing out on any masterpieces?

[Summer Pockets episode 22] >!For reasons I can't explain Key's particular flavor of drama driven by supernatural forces just doesn't work for me. After the start of this episode I was wondering what the rest of the show was going to be but oh right, we need to have the happily ever after future where Shiroha doesn't die. [](#mugiwait)!<

[Key please](#elves)

I should revisit WataTabe after a few years and see how I feel about it in time.

[Ao no Orchestra S2]>!It seemed like the story had no intention of going down the love triangle route in S1 but now it looks like it's full steam ahead.!<

[](#bigthink)

It's pretty dumb how people call Evangelion a deconstruction of mecha when it's obviously a deconstruction of harem romcoms

Is tale of wedding rings a complete adaptation?

[](#harukathink)

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Does anyone have a recommendation for a cute/cozy anime?