Tag: frieren: beyond journey’s end

Animanga Releases of 2026

TiberiusLeave a comment

New Year, New Animanga

By the luck of the gods, I’ve returned to my post on the same day and I’m not terribly fatigued.

The Year of Cordis Die, the Year of the Snake, the Year CoD S[gunshots]t It’s Respect Out is out, and the Year of the Horse, the Uma 「馬」is in.

I don’t consume Umamusume anything, but it makes the rounds in my favorite spaces, so I can’t ignore it if I wanted to.

Now a bunch of these have been announced yonks ago and were set for debut sometime in December, January or much later in 2026. I can’t really count series that began in 2025 and will finish, at least, a season in 2026, but I will include those that will debut at some point this year. That’s pretty much my only criteria. As such, here’s the list:

  1. The Elusive Samurai Season 2 (July 2026)
  2. Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian Season 2 (2026)
  3. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Season 2 (January 2026)
  4. Akane-banashi (April 2026)
  5. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (January 2026)

All of these I’ve written about or mentioned in the past, and I hope to do so once again as the respective series’ all continue and when they eventually conclude, at least in animated form since Vigilantes’ manga wrapped up a few years ago. Keep in mind, this isn’t an exhaustive list as I want to see what else will come out this year, but for brevity’s sake I’m sticking with my bread and butter, starting with:

The Light-footed Hojo Prince returns to us with a stern endeavor against the treacherous Ashikaga clan who have since reneged on their deal with Emperor Go-Daigo. I’ve never been prouder to be a manga reader because I can take a wild guess on how far this season is going to go and who will join the previous season’s repertoire of opportunistic samurai. In the last season, the primary antagonists were Ashikaga Takauji, Ogasawara Sadamune, and Ichikawa Sukefusa, joined together in the latter half with the disgraced bandit daimyo Hirano Shogen and the merciless (if fruity) Kokushi of Shinano.

Slight History Lesson: sometime during the Kamakura Shogunate, the position of Kokushi (comparable to a provincial governor today) was established to manage the vast territory of the land. These Kokushi were personally selected by the imperial court, but come the late Kamakura era, they lost favor to the more powerful military/shogunate-aligned Shugo. Their duties typically boiled down to taxation and revenue among their most notable administrative duties, but with the Shugo came the shift from civilian rule to military rule that would define Japanese rule during the subsequent Nanboku-cho period, then to the Sengoku period all the way up until the Meiji Restoration.

I’m not gonna spoil it as heavily but I will say that both Hirano and the Kokushi return as enemies, and personally, being in the military in a support MOS myself, the parts of the manga I’m currently reading touch on more than just the infantry aspect to show that complex military operations are a time-honored tradition. There’ve always been chaplains, communications units (though mass communication is a recent concept), medical units (imperfect and sometimes deadlier than just dying on the field in battle), and others.

As for new enemies that have come on gone by the point that I’ve caught up to, as I recall, they were there near the beginning, but didn’t get a lot of panel time in the manga. The Ashikaga initially allied with the Nitta clan, distant cousins through Minamoto brothers, Yoshiyasu, who was the ancestor of the Ashikaga, and Yoshishige, the ancestor of the Nitta. In real life, only the Nitta stood by Go-Daigo’s side while the Ashikaga double-crossed the imperial court and it happens again in the manga.

For allies to the Hojo and Suwa Grand Shrine, fortunately Tokiyuki has another uncle that doesn’t betray him like what Godaiin Muneshige did to Tokiyuki’s half-brother, Kunitoki. The uncle in question is Hojo Yasuie and there’s something about him that harkens to Matsui’s previous work, Assassination Classroom in a way…

Not entirely sure if its the forehead writing gag or what, but something about him makes me think of Koro-sensei sans tentacles

After him, comes Sasaki Mima, the Kitabatake clan, and Ko no Moronao, not necessarily allies to Suwa or the Hojo (definitely not Moronao), but certainly leverageable as enemies against the Ashikaga. So far, I only see the Kokushi and Hirano Shogen coming back as well as more tasteful shots of Nitta Yoshisada and Prince Moriyoshi. Now, I’ve said before that in real life, the Kamakura never rose after Ashikaga’s betrayal and after that, Hojo Tokiyuki managed to eke out a resistance for the next twenty years until his head was on the ground. We’ve got until the end of the manga to see if Yusei Matsui is gonna do the same thing and I hope to every deity I’m able to pray to that it ends well, not unlike what Aka Akasaka did to Kaguya-sama and Oshi no Ko, allegedly.

Второй:

To tease Masachika Kuze once again, My Hafu-Russian Classmate Who Doesn’t Know I Understand her won me over so much that I regularly check the associated Discord server like the Eye of Sauron. My busy schedule doesn’t allow me to check up on the light novels or the manga as much as I’d like, but I’m not really in any hurry to get a drop on the series like some others. For that matter, regarding animanga, I usually just play it by ear. Not every series I follow gets an anime, but if it does, then great. If not, then c’est la vie.

Of the listings up above, Alya Won’t Stop Flirting in Russian doesn’t have a specific release date for the second season. In fact, it was announced very late in 2025 and we’re definitely gonna get our information through drip feed. Google-san’s swanky new clanker assistant tells me that a section of the second season will be dedicated to a summer vacation arc.

I don’t really have much to add with so little information available. The only thing of value I’ve got is, catch up on the first season if you haven’t already and if you feel so inclined, why not take a look at the source material? I’m not certain if there’s variance between the LNs and the manga, and I don’t think I have the space in my barracks to house all that manga. I barely had enough in my apartment back in New York. Fingers crossed I can build a library of whatever I goddamn want among other things.

This includes a closet’s worth of cosplays.

A Terceira:

I’m taking my time with this one, to be honest. It’s popularity has not waned ever since it was put on Netflix nor even when Viz Media licensed the manga for weekly scanlation. My binge-watcher days are behind me, but I do like the approach I’ve adopted ever since. From looking at others talk about the manga and describe it in a non-spoiler-y way, it’s very much dedicated to a posthumous character’s life when he was a hero. Yeah, I already know it’s Himmel.

My absorption of this series began with a bunch of out-of-context memes, which is still the case with Neon Genesis Evangelion, at least until I finally finish the damn anime and get a move on with End of Eva.

I don’t even know what I’m missing, but it’s absolutely crucial that I watch it all.

Same thing for Frieren. It’s a 2-cour anime for once and I’m certainly gonna watch it to completion and make my Netflix subscription feel known this time. The second season is gonna start in two weeks and is said to have a different director from the first season. AFAIK, Netflix doesn’t plan on moving it away from the platform, but if it does once Season 2 wraps up then Crunchyroll and Hulu and the Banner of Gen Z is always an option.

On that note, I’ve got some catching up on One Pace to do.

四番目：

Of all the anime debuting this year, this was the last I expected to ever get an adaptation, and truth be told, I stopped having expectations thousands of years ago. That’s why I was so surprised when Black Torch was greenlit for an adaptation and I wasn’t the only one to get slapped in the face with that news. The short version here is that a rakugoka practices night and day for a big performance only for the Rakugo Grandmaster to shut it all down in front of a live audience. The budding rakugoka’s dream now becomes to dream of his daughter, Akane Osaki, who will not rest until she’s the best of the next generation of rakugoka.

Mighty big geta to fill, especially since I think Akane-chan is only around 5-foot, and although I haven’t read the manga in ages, I recall there being one hell of a stiff competition between her and her dreams. Maybe one day I’ll play catch ups with this series, advance a bit further in Chihayafuru and compare the two in an efficient way. Ballpark estimate: Q3 2026. Why that time frame specifically? Because.

And lastly:

In Dragon Ball Z announcer voice: Last time on My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Knuckleduster had fought well against the Queen Bee Quirk puppeteering his daughter, Tamao’s, body. With the parasite dealt with, what is next for Knuckleduster, Koichi Haimawari, and Kazuho Haneyama? Find out now.

Going off of memory from the first season, Knuckleduster saved his daughter who was a host for the Queen Bee Quirk. In the manga, he vanishes for a time while Koichi and Pop-Step continue the investigation for the designer drug Trigger… in Japan. In the manga, Knuckleduster gets a lead that a distribution site could be Hong Kong, so he goes over there to dish out some two-hit justice not seen since Inspector Tequila saved a hospital full of newborn infants.

嗰個寶寶唔知，但係佢救咗龍舌蘭督察。[Hopefully Google Translate has improved over time.]

Tangentially related to Knuckleduster’s past, a sycophantic villain attempts to emulate the man even down to the scar on his face and it unleashes a new flavor of hell. And here my memory of this arc starts to break down. I remember how it’s resolved and Knuckleduster’s secret, but out of respect for you, the reader, I will not reveal it until the second season concludes.

The year just began, and this list is probably gonna get an update come springtime. The list of topics I have lined up so far only goes to the first week of April, set to be added onto by March ideally if life doesn’t get funny by then.

Final note: an honorable mention:

July.

Anime I Haven’t Seen (Will I?)

Tiberius3 Comments

Onto something somewhat related

This blog is dedicated to various forms of entertainment. The default is the Japanese medium known as animanga — a portmanteau of anime and manga, or Japanese animation and comics/graphic novels — joined together with movies, video games, and more. Since I’ve begun this blog two years ago, it hasn’t deviated very much from this promise and so far I’ve given my opinions and recaps on all the series I’ve seen, games I’ve played, etc. But for something slightly different, there’s the subject of anime I have heard of through the grapevine (read: dedicated subreddits) but have yet to watch myself.

Not anime I have in the pipeline, mind you; anime I haven’t seen and don’t have concrete plans to do so. Now this isn’t an exhaustive list of animanga series. There’s always gonna be series being produced and adapted. Even as I type this, some madlad in Japan is hard at work crafting peak fiction. Whether that series becomes a hit, I cannot say. I’m not Shueisha, or Kadokawa, or Dark Horse Comics. So here, I’ll talk about series I’ve heard of and whether or not I may view them based on a variety of factors. If your favorite happens to be on here, forgive me if I’m not immediately convinced to give the viewing it deserves. Also, expect a few jabs here and there; it won’t color my opinions on the series in question. Keep in mind, the factors that play a part — fanbases included.

1. My Dress-Up Darling (2022-)

      Between The Saga of Yukana Yame and So, Like, Tokyo Ain’t the Only Place to Find a Gal, Ya Know?, I’m far from immune to the gyaru aesthetic and on my radar and my Reddit feed came The Gyaru That’s into Cosplays by none other than Shinichi Fukuda. To be fair, I checked out the more recent chapters on a whim after randomly delving into the dedicated subreddit. I was desperately curious to learn if there was more to the opening scene than just “introvert origin story” and sure enough there was. Not gonna spoil that, just read the manga or check it out on MangaDex if you’re impatient like moi.

      The basic gist is a young Wakana Gojo takes up hina doll sewing; a girl who thinks he’s cute discovers this and tells him he’s cringe and he learns to never share his passions again. A moment of silence for our star lead. Fast-forward to high school and a gyaru cosplay queen (who may or may not bare a striking resemblance to Sydney Manetapho (née Poniewaz)) named Marin Kitagawa discovers Wakana’s passion for sewing and requests his expertise to craft perfect cosplays. Over time, they fall into the “gradual lovers” trope from their own perspective, but slight spoilers from recent chapters, it evolves into the “everyone knows but them” trope. As in, they hang out so much that the surprise was that they weren’t dating prior to Kitagawa’s announcement of love, and it was inevitable that Kitagawa would let that cat out of the bag, as Gojo would be too embarrassed to tell the truth about how he feels. Not that he doesn’t want to be seen with a pretty girl like Kitagawa, more like if he’d confess, immediately slam his mouth shut, then pray to what he calls God to change the subject in .5 milliseconds.

      Channel: Crunchyroll

      It’s sweet, romantic, and one that I’m not too certain if I’ll ever get around to viewing. What kept me away was the hype. Audiences tend to be fickle and malleable and only those dedicated to a medium are gonna stick around long after the final episode of “Season 1” airs. The rest will move on because they can’t read. Now that the hype is at rest, I’m at a better position than I was to view it after clearing my current list (that perpetually expands like a f[bricks falling]king brick in the wall). Giving Light-footed Hojo a rewatch dubbed and watching Cute Girls Playing Music Cutely, whichever one I finish first (the former), I’ll have to replace it with Dress-Up My Gyaru Bestie.

      2. Fullmetal Alchemist (2003-04; 2009-10)

      The darling of anime with all the awards to prove it, like Gigguk I have yet to see this masterpiece for myself, but unlike Gigguk, I’m not waiting on an arbitrary moment in the far-flung future before I sit down and watch Halfplastic Wizardry. It lives on through the same tired-old memes about a girl and her dog, but more to the point, I would have nothing of value to contribute to the consensus. It’s like yet another European Theater WWII game. It’s not gonna stand out unless it does something extraordinarily unique and I doubt I’m the man to deliver. People love it, people hate it, people aren’t the most enthusiastic about it. That’s a lazy man’s consensus and much like my eventual venture into Pokémon decades later, I’m gonna find stuff I like and don’t like but otherwise not have strong opinions on Hiromu Arakawa’s masterpiece.

      Aside from praise for Winry, of course.

      3. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (2023-)

      Outside of living like an emperor on anime forums and subreddits, The Tale of the Racist Elf is known for doing a few things differently as hinted by it’s subtitle. Beyond Journey’s End as in, the story didn’t end after the DM declared the evil king dead. Acknowledging the after-story with engaging characters, Frieren runs with the concept and builds on as a sequel to a nonexistent story. Anyone can start a DnD campaign and see it through to the end, but I haven’t heard of anyone continuing long after the story has finished.

      Will I ever watch such a phenomenal show? If I was writing this before the adaptation was announced two years ago, probably yes. Now that it’s lived up to its promise, there’s no reason for me to put it off. Maybe I’ll do it by the Spring or Summer. Who knows?

      4. Redo of Healer (2021)

      Its reputation precedes it. It gained notoriety for various scenes involving emotional abuse and sexual deviancy, things I’m not opposed to in fiction, but the shark that keeps me away from the water comes from the fanbase. Outnumbered by the majority female fanbase, if what I’ve heard about the corrosiveness of the fujoshi community is to be believed, then in a nonsexual way, any man who wanders into territory where women are the majority (not necessarily target) demographic will be eaten alive.

      Contrary to the blog’s name, I avoid rocking the boat because it’s a damn good boat and as I said, there’s f[nom]king sharks in the water. Let me enjoy my limbs before I get tired of them. Now, there’s probably gonna be a few who recall the horny trio post from October and wonder why I’m drawing the line at Revenge of the Cock Slap. Well, between Rias’ boobs (where miracles happen), Anna Nishikinomiya’s legs (where Niagara Falls can be found) and Monster Musume (where slime girls exist), all of those have fun with the concept. White Mage Do-Over takes itself more seriously with the subject matter and while I’m not a kink-shamer, for once I have to put this image of Our Lord and Savior to address the fanbase.

      I’ll still keep my mind open if someone can convince me that How Dare You Boot Me from the Party is more than just a ginormous Lady Boner.

      5. Oshi no Ko (2023-)

      Another series with an interesting reputation online, I’m the furthest thing from the target audience for this. I barely keep tabs on western celebrities (except for some legacy names), I clearly have no business attempting to break into East Asian idol culture. And from what I know, I’ve seen enough of the business side. Oversimplifying the business of idols, they’re held to impossible ideals under sweatshop conditions to present a falsified image of themselves manufactured by their higher-ups for a worldwide audience. What makes this dangerous (apart from Oshi no Ko’s first episode) is that a select few deranged fans have learned the truth and, sucked in by the parasocial activity, took matters into their own hands; homicide, suicide, damn near terroristic threats when they learn that the idol in question was hiding children or a family or was probably a victim of sexual assault. I’d say, “what were they expecting,” but to add onto this, this can happen to anyone. You’ve definitely listened to a podcast and vibed so much with the hosts that you imagined they were beyond the screen or headphones. But they’re not.

      The insistence on perfection in idol culture and the “rug pull” at the lack of perfection keeps me looking in from the outside with disbelief and disappointment, and that’s just at the content. As for the fanbase, well, incest jokes are king in that corner, but unlike The Twisted Graves Siblings, there’s nothing close to dark comedy here. Again, I make known my normie status and I highly doubt I’ll check it out for myself, unless someone Saul Goodman’s an argument for this courtroom judge.

      Without malice or enthusiasm, I want to be convinced.

      Once again, there are other series that cross my path that I’m either on the fence about or fully committed to avoiding or not depending on multiple factors. I entrust fans of X to persuade me to join their creed, perhaps by presentation or whatever else works. They’re clearly convinced that their series of choice has merit, as am I so inclined to watch Lady Rias in action after so long, and I want to see what the hype is or was about. Maybe I can decide then if the series speaks to me with certainty.