Best (first season) anime from Spring 2020
As I mentioned in the summer anime preview, I wanted to make a list of the shows I enjoyed during the spring anime season. I decided to restrict this list to shows that aired their first season, or were one season shows, because while I do really like Fruits Basket, Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and Ascendance of a Bookworm I don't want to have to tell people to watch a whole first season to possibly read why I liked season two.
I mean you should go watch those shows anyway.
Arte
Description (via Funimation):
Born into an aristocratic family in Florence, Italy, during the 16th century Renaissance era, Arte has dreams of becoming an artist. In an age of social classes, Arte is willing to cast aside her aristocratic lifestyle and stops at nothing to achieve her dreams. She finds apprenticeship in a painting studio owned by Leo, an artist who is strict but prioritizes ability over gender.
Arte was a show I hoped would be good when I first saw a trailer for it, and luckily ended up being much more charming than I expected. What makes Arte work as a show is Arte herself isn’t a genius artist, she’s good thanks to years of practice and enjoys it enough to try to make it her life’s pursuit. She’s fairly naive, but her strong will and gumption win her friends and people that want to support her. This is a series that could so easily be adapted into a Western live action without changing much, but it honestly doesn’t need to be.
Arte is 12 episodes and streams on Funimation and Hulu.
Dorohedoro
Description (via Viz):
In a city so dismal it's known only as "the Hole," a clan of Sorcerers have been plucking people off the streets to use as guinea pigs for atrocious "experiments" in the black arts. In a dark alley, Nikaido found Caiman, a man with a reptile head and a bad case of amnesia. To undo the spell, they're hunting and killing the Sorcerers in the Hole, hoping that eventually they'll kill the right one. But when En, the head Sorcerer, gets word of a lizard-man slaughtering his people, he sends a crew of "cleaners" into the Hole, igniting a war between two worlds.
I’m not sure what to say about Dorohedoro other than it is so fucking good. It’s weird and genuine, but also completely goofy and grotesquely violent at times. I actually miss the rapport all the characters have or develop with each other over the season. Probably because everyone is strangely endearing in their own way, especially as more is revealed about them and their histories. It’s a very strange setting full of people just trying to live their best lives, which is pretty relatable.
Dorohedoro is 12 episodes and streams on Netflix.
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
Description (via Crunchyroll):
Wealthy heiress Catarina Claes is hit in the head with a rock and recovers the memories of her past life. It turns out the world she lives in is the world of the game Fortune Lover, an otome game she was obsessed with in her past life... but she's been cast as the villain character who tries to foil the protagonist's romances! The best ending the game has for Catarina is exile, and the worst, death! She'll have to find a way to avoid triggering the flags of doom, and make her own happy future! The misunderstanding-based screwball love comedy now begins!
I’m always a little hesitant about isekai shows as they are often well trodden power fantasies, but My Next Life as a Villainess manages to be something different. It helps that Catarina is both a good person and a dumbass, who in attempting to prevent her terrible future ends up accidentally making the lives of those around her better just by being herself and helping them work through their trauma (although she’s not always aware that that is what she’s doing.) There isn’t a lot of drama, but what’s there keeps things interesting and helps to make the characters more well realized and not just otome game character tropes.
My Next Life as a Villainess is 12 episodes and streams on Crunchyroll.
Princess Connect! Re:Dive
Description (via Crunchyroll):
In the beautiful land of Astraea where a gentle breeze blows, a young man named Yuuki awakens with no memory of his past. There he encounters a guide who has sworn to care for him—Kokkoro, a lovely swordswoman who's always feeling peckish—Pecorine, and a cat-eared sorceress with a prickly attitude—Karyl. Led by fate, these four come together to form the "Gourmet Guild." And so their adventure begins...
Princess Connect wasn’t the show I was expecting it to be. I figured it was going to be like Konosuba, a comedy series about a guy that gets reborn into a fantasy world by a goddess and ends up dragging the goddess into the world with him that has some raunchy humor to it. Although from watching a few episodes I get the appeal of Konosuba, I didn’t really like it.
However that isn’t what Princess Connect is at all, as the best way to describe it is that it’s like the best version of a casual tabletop RPG group/campaign. There is something very serious going on, but the party is preoccupied with helping the ghost obsessed with pudding to really notice it. And the few times the show dips into those serious moments they hit, because you’ve already become quite endeared to these characters through their hijinks.
Princess Connect! Re:Dive is 13 episodes and streams on Crunchyroll.
Wave, Listen to Me!
Description (via Funimation):
On a drunken night out to complain about an ex, Minare Koda absentmindedly shares too much information with a stranger from the radio station. The next morning, she’s shocked to hear her voice on the radio. Bursting into the station with intentions to justify her previous night’s rant quickly turns into an interview on-air and the offer to share her chaotic life with an unsuspecting audience!
Wave, Listen to Me is a love letter to radio, and also about being in your mid to late 20s. When you are just trying to get by day to day and be an adult, while also needing to figure out what you are doing with your life. Mainly though Minare rules. She’s a hilariously quick witted fast talking mess of a human being, and is somehow incredibly endearing for it. Riho Sugiyama’s work voicing her perfectly captures Minare’s charm and flaws.
Wave, Listen to Me! is 12 episodes and streams on Funimation.
