If you’re anything like me, when you go outside, you go from zero to lobstrosity in 60 seconds. So avoid melanoma this summer by staying inside with a heaping helping of new anime! On today’s episode of The Dan Cave, I’m going to tell you all about the best new anime series you need to watch this summer.
Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes
Are you a sucker for detective stories? Were you dying for an excuse to find new ways to meme Pawn Stars? Did you live in Kyoto while studying abroad in college and can’t stop trying to chase the past like you’re in some kind of Proust novel? If you said yas to any of these questions, then congratulations…you’re me. And you will probably dig Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes, a show about a high school student named Aoi Mashiro and a dashing young appraiser named Kiyotaka Yagashira, who work at an antiques store in Kyoto and solve mysteries for their patrons on the side. One mystery they’ll likely never solve: who accidentally punched a hole in the paper wall in their sleep on the first night of staying with their host family? Spoiler alert: it was me.
Attack on Titan
Kidding aside, season three will feature 24 episodes and looks as though it will explore the manga’s “Uprising” arc, which focuses on growing political intrigue and dissent within the Walls, creating just as much danger for our heroes inside as there is lurking outside.
Satsuriku no Tenshi/Angels of Death
What would you do if you woke up in the basement of an abandoned building without any memories? Yeah, I’d probably just die too. But in the case of 13-year-old Rachel, she discovered a weird bandaged dude with a Grim Reaper-style scythe named Zack, and the two of them teamed up to kick ass, take names, and escape their crumbling prison in this new anime based on a horror game of the same name. If nothing else, this anime will evoke the same feelings your dog has every Fourth of July: abject terror and probably hunger too, because it’s a dog.
Tsukumogami Kashimasu
If you loved the weird monster-filled bathhouse scenes of Spirited Away, then Tsukumogami Kashimasu is for you. Set during Japan’s Edo period, the story follows two siblings who run a rental shop providing supplies to people in their disaster-prone neighborhood. But like a spooky version of The Flintstones, some of their supplies are actually sentient creatures, objects that have transformed into spirits over the years known as tsukumogami. To most patrons, they’re ordinary objects, but the brother and sister who run the shop can see them and talk to them, which sounds like a recipe for the supernatural historical comedy of my dreams.
Hataraku Saibou/Cells at Work
Remember that one episode of The Magic School Bus where they went inside Arnold’s body? Hataraku Saibou is kind of like that but fewer children’s lives are endangered! Also known as Cells at Work, the show is a workplace comedy about anthropomorphized versions of cells within the human body. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but most importantly you’ll finally learn something beyond the fact that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I’m lookin’ at you, Kyle Hill.
FLCL Progressive
It’s a good time to be a FLCL fan. After seventeen years–enough time to have conceived a new FLCL fan and put them most of the way through high school–the cult anime is back with the first of two sequels. The OG version was a wild acid trip of a show. To quote its director, “comprehension should not an important factor in Fooly Cooly.” (via Kotaku) Will that same spirit hold true for the sequel? Fingers crossed that the answer is yas. It’s a story about a teenaged girl named Hidomi who leads a normal, dreary life until one day a new teacher arrives at her school–one with a familiar shock of pink hair. Soon thereafter Hidomi’s life gets a whole lot weirder thanks to a cosmic conflict between two mysterious entities, a weaponized bass guitar, and a kickass soundtrack by the Pillows. Honestly, just trust me on this one and watch. You’ll thank me later.
Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger
Set in Tokyo during the 1930s, Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger tells the story of a mysterious group of musicians known as Jaegers who come to town not to rock out, but to hunt vampires. Among their number is a young man named Yuliy who has a terrible secret: not only is he a werewolf, but his entire village was massacred by vampires. If Yuliy wants to avenge his people, he and the Jaegers will need to find a holy ark known as the Arc of Sirius. Now honestly, all that exposition is well and good, but let’s call it what it is: 1930s supernatural mayhem from P.A. Works. And that, folks, is the silver bullet my boredom needs this summer.
Island
The weirdest story about people living on a desert island since Lost, Island tells the story of the once prosperous island of Urashima, which has fallen into disrepair and ruin after its three most prominent families suffered great misfortune. The key to restoring the island to its former glory lies within three girls from each of the great families, but like most neighbors who have petty disagreements, they don’t want anything to do with each other. All of that changes when a mysterious man claiming to be from the future washes up on the shore. Is he lying? Can he really save the island? Does he know what really happened in the finale of Lost? Only time will tell.
And those are the best new anime series you need to watch this summer. Which are you most excited for? What would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below.
Sources: MyAnimeList; Anichart; Livechart
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Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).
More new anime to check out!
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