With 2023 over and done with, it’s time for another new season of anime titles to watch! While the Winter season is typically weaker, there are plenty of strong titles to keep an eye on. With that being said, here are our most anticipated anime of the Winter 2024 season!
While there are a handful of sequels coming out this season, like a new season of Mashle: Magic and Muscles, Classroom of the Elite, and the long-awaited return of Blue Exorcist, I wanted to focus on a lot of the original titles that are coming out this season. Most of these titles are almost certainly going to be of high quality due to the pedigree of their production staff or the studio’s response to them. There’s almost always going to be a heaping pile of trash and isekai series, and while those can be entertaining in a so-bad-they’re-good kind of way, I just wanted to focus on the new shows that have the most potential to be great.
Solo Leveling
If there’s one title this season that I would say is the most anticipated anime of the season, it would probably be Solo Leveling. Based on a 2016 manhwa, or South Korean light novel/comic, Solo Leveling, at first glance, may seem pretty generic. We follow a low-ranking monster hunter named Jin-Woo in a world where monsters are invading our world, and hunters are hired to stop them. However, after surviving a mission gone horribly wrong, a screen appears in front of him, stating that if he completes a brutal training program, he can become the world’s strongest monster hunter.
Despite not being an isekai, Solo Leveling contains a lot of tropes that wouldn’t be too uncommon in a video game or isekai inspired by video games. However, its fairly unique execution presents a world that is both familiar and very dark. Solo Leveling comes across as a dark fantasy epic that is sure to have some highly satisfying action scenes as well as character moments. And the fact that manhwa fans sing the praises of the series to high heavens is enough to earn a three-episode watch at the very least to see if it can fulfill the potential that is clearly there.
Delicious in Dungeon
I love me some food, so a fantasy series where a group of explorers enter a dungeon and eat the monsters they find may sound morbid to some, but it’s right up my alley. The series, which is animated by Studio Trigger, the same folks who made Kill la Kill and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, are adapting a manga wherein a group of adventurers, strapped for supplies, decide to eat monsters as they adventure into a dungeon in order to defeat a dragon that has eaten the party’s spellcaster.
There’s obviously more to it than that, like how the spellcaster is the sister of the leader of the party, Laios, but with Studio Trigger involved, at the very least, you can be sure that the series will look wonderful. With some good comedic set pieces and a whole lot of inventive and creative meals to toggle over, Delicious in Dungeon will probably scratch that comedic itch you may need this season.
Metallic Rouge
Hardcore anime fans are almost certainly aware of Studio Bones. With shows like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Wolf’s Rain, Mob Psycho 100, and My Hero Academia under its belt, when Bones is doing an anime, you should pay attention. So when Metallic Rouge, an original series meant to commemorate its 25th anniversary, was announced and the trailers looked good, my interest was piqued.
Metallic Rouge is a sci-fi action series where its two lead characters, an android named Rouge and her partner Naomi, are tasked with heading to Mars and eliminating nine androids known as the Immortal Nine that are leading a revolution against society. It has all of the foundations for a solid sci-fi series, and I would call this my most anticipated anime of the season if only because of how well-produced the trailers for it are. Time will tell, but I’m always down for a solid sci-fi series.
Sengoku Youko
I’m going out on a limb here with Sengoku Youko solely because of how good the author of the manga is. The mangaka, Satoshi Mizukami, is an incredibly talented writer who is known for excellent series like Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Planet With. These series didn’t exactly receive amazing anime adaptations (ESPECIALLY Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer), but I want to believe that Mizukami’s longest-running series will get the anime it deserves. The series is a fantasy adventure that follows two siblings, one who, despite being a monster, fights to protect humans, and another who is a human who wants nothing more than to eradicate other humans. When the two discover a plan to turn humans into monsters, the two siblings put their differences aside to stop whoever is behind the plot.
What has me most interested about Sengoku Youko is that the show is slated to run for 37 episodes over the course of three cours. The studio behind Sengoku Youko, White Fox, isn’t exactly the most illustrious studio, but they’re relatively solid, and much like Solo Leveling, the manga the series is based on is very well regarded. I’m always interested when a series gets a complete adaptation, which is looking to be the case for Sengoku Youko. If this turns out well, expect it to be a hidden gem of 2024.
Gushing Over Magical Girls
Look, there’s trash, and then there’s Gushing Over Magical Girls. The 2024 winter anime season is no stranger to trash, but this feels like it’s next-level trash. It’s a dumpster fire of a show, and while I said that I would steer away from trash, sometimes, you just have to give yourself over to garbage. As of this writing, I’ve already seen the first episode of Gushing Over Magical Girls, and it’s… something alright.
The premise is that our protagonist, Utena, always wanted to be a magical girl, and when granted the power to transform, she instead transforms into a villainess who delights in the pain she inflicts on the magical girls who try to stop her. This is an Ecchi series with a capital E, and sometimes, you just need to watch some slop and enjoy the ridiculousness of it. At the very least, the series is bright and colorful, and while it’s most certainly not for everyone, if you’re interested in finding some enjoyment in something rude and crude, Gushing Over Magical Girls is the place to look this season.
And that’s our guide to our most anticipated anime of Winter 2024!
