It’s summertime, schools are on break, and people are on holiday but the anime doesn’t stop and there are a number of notable new shows coming out during the Summer 2022 anime season.
Now that we’re a good few weeks into the summer season, a number of shows have made headway within the anime community with the return of old favorites and a couple of surprise new shows. Here are six anime that you might find are worth a watch as we make our way through the summer months of 2022.
Devil is a Part-Timer Season 2
After all these years, The Devil is A Part Timer makes its long-awaited return with season 2. In an age filled with run-of-the-mill gimmick isekai, the series feels all more excited as it’s essentially being a reverse isekai.
The devil of an alternate universe and his minions are transported to our regular human worlds and without powers, status or money, he must now work at a fast food joint as a part-timer. Soon after, he learns that his mortal enemy, The heroine of the other world has also crossed over. She’s now just a normal office lady but still wants to kill him. In this second season, a young girl has entered into the character’s lives and claims that the Devil and The Heroine are her parents. Hijinks ensue.
The first season was a fun comedy which a fantasy twist and the second season seems to continue this going forward. Watching the character stumble around with how to take care of a toddler is surprisingly sweet. Can the devil stand up to the challenge of being a working parent? With great characters and exceptional gags, I look forward to finding out.
Made In Abyss Season 2
The first season of Made in Abyss is one of the best fantasy anime to come out in recent years. Behind the cutesy art style is a disturbing, tragic story about two young children exploring an expansive eldritch abyss, and encountering both the beauty and horrors within. This series is certainly not for the faint of heart but if you can sit through it, you’re met with one of the most rewarding fantasy anime in recent years.
It should be noted that this season takes place after the events of the movie ‘Made in Abyss: Dawn of The Deep Soul’ which in itself is a fantastic and heart-wrenchingly sad film. At this point, our brave explorers Riko, Reg, and Nanachi are entering the sixth and lowest layer of the Abyss and learning the fate of the many explorers who’ve been there before, and how none of them seem to have come back to the surface.
After the Made in Abyss movie, I didn’t think this series could get any more sadistic but I was soon proven wrong within the first three episodes. Regardless, it all serves the tight world-building and keeps you invested in seeing the heroes overcome these challenges alive and safe. There are still many mysteries of the Abyss to uncover and I’m excited and somewhat terrified, to see how they unfold.
Call of The Night
So how about a slice-of-life show about a vampire girl who thinks the main character’s blood is the tastiest liquid on the planet? Every anime season has its premier waifu and Miss Nazuna Nanakusa from Call of The Night is certainly in the running for this summer.
Kou Yamori is a student who has trouble sleeping so he ditches school and spends his nights wandering around the empty streets of the city where he soon comes across the vampire Nazuna. From there he decides he wants to be a vampire but in order to do so, he has to fall in love with her.
Considering Nazuna is a lewd, beer-loving monster girl who wants to sleep with the protagonist and suck him, that doesn’t so too hard, but nothing can be simple in a comedy anime. Regardless watching two make small talk is fun and even a little relatable in a lighthearted way.
The visuals of the anime are also gorgeous with one of the most thrilling depictions of the night I’ve seen. The late-hour night sky lit up with neon blues and purples. If a cute vampire girl flying across a lit-up night sky sounds like your cup of tea, this is one that’s worth checking out. Also, the opening slaps:
Overlord IV
Ainz Ooal Gown returns once again to set his sights on conquering the land with Overlord’s 4th season.
Overlord Season 4 has come out four years after season 3, meaning that anime has quite a lot of expectations to live up to from its eagerly waiting fans, especially as the previous two seasons were criticized for feeling a little rushed.
Thankfully the first few episodes of the new Overlord season have already proven to be a real crowd pleaser with the series adapting The Ruler of Consoriacy and The Craftsmen of Dwarf arcs. These consist of some of the most celebrated moments from the original light novel with a great emphasis on world-building and politics. It’ll be interesting to see how our boney hero will get out of this one.
Tokyo Mew Mew New
A remake of the classic magical girl series, Tokyo Mew Mew New sees the return of Ichigo Momomiya and her merry gang of animal girls fighting against a group of evil aliens and their chimera animals.
I’ve been enjoying this show simply because you don’t really see a lot from the magical girl genre nowadays. It sort of feels like after Madoka Magica, all of them need some sort of subversive or dark twist. Tokyo Mew Mew however plays the genre refreshingly straight.
Cute girls, transforming into colorful costumes to save the world and maybe falling in love with a bland pretty boy on the side. It’s sweet and simple fluff that is easy to watch after a hard day. What more could you want?
Lycoris Recoil
You know when Hideo Kojima is praising your anime you’re doing something right. It makes sense as well since Lycoris Recoil feels kind of like Metal Gear was mixed with K-On.
The anti-terrorist organization Direct Attack (DA) raises orphans to be professional assassins under their ‘Lycoris’ program. After performing an act of insubordination, top recruit and perfectionist Takina Inoue is transferred to work at LycoReco alongside her new partner Chisato Nishikigi. Chisato is the opposite of Takina, she doesn’t take her work seriously and would rather drag her partner around the city doing odd jobs helping people in need. Takina wants to get reinstated into Lycoris, and Chisato wants to show there’s more to life than being an assassin.
Have you ever felt that slice-of-life shows were cute but could get a little boring with how slow-paced they are? Well, Lycoris decides to fix that problem by having the girls fight in a number of high-stakes gun battles and it’s great. The choreography is well put together and are buddy cop duo really brings each other up with their contrasting yet complementary personalities. This is the surprise hit of the season, a lot of people didn’t see it coming but it’s certainly made in impact.
That was our look at some of the anime currently this summer 2022. There are of course several other notable anime releasing this season but these five a some of the more popular that are worth keeping an eye out for.
Watching them is also a lot easier now as there are far more options to watch anime in Malaysia and the Southeast Asia region. Aside from Netflix, we now have MuseAsia, and most recently BiliBili has launched its platforms in the country, giving us a wider catalog of anime to choose from.
It’s a good summer to be an otaku.