My Favorite Animated Series of 2025 Part 1: January-June
Well, it might be overdue yet again, but welcome to the first half of my favorite animated series of 2025 list.
It certainly had its own delays that held it back, the biggest almost certainly being the Jurassic Park retrospective (which finally, mercifully, ended in August) and that 2022 list I did. As I said in my last update post, I definitely don’t regret making that list, as plenty of obscure titles from 2022 deserved a signal boost. Still, given how time-consuming that list was, and given how there isn’t anything equivalent to the Pantheon situation that happened in 2021, don’t expect similar lists for that year or any others.
Still, I’m making better time with this list than I did with last year’s lists, since both the TV and film lists for 2024 came out this year. Of course, that’s entirely due to me deciding to split this list into two parts, as I did with the 2023 list, because I don’t want you guys to have to wait until 2027 for the whole list to come out, so I’ll let you have the January-June half of the list this year. If everything goes well, you can expect the full 2025 movies list sometime this November, so look forward to that, as well as the second “1001 Animations” Halloween special, which will come later this month.
But enough of all that. Let us now once again pick my favorite animated series of each month of 2025, starting with:
January
Distributors: TXN, BS TV Tokyo, AT-X, Crunchyroll
Production company: MAPPA
Director: Mitsue Yamazaki
Writer: Kimiko Ueno
Music: Yukari Hashimoto
Are you tired of 571,965th isekai anime about some random gamer who becomes the godlike hero of whatever Middle-Earth-style world he’s been reincarnated into? What if I told you there was an isekai about an animation director who is reborn into the world of the film that inspired her to become an ani-ma-mator and uses magic animation powers to save the people of that world? Yes, that anime is real, and it is glorious!
Her name is Natsuko Hirose (Anna Nagase/Madeline Morris), an animation director who is quickly becoming a rising star but has problems accepting help from her teammates (and has also let her hair grow so out of control that she looks like the unholy lovechild of Sadako Yamamura and Cousin Itt). She finds herself stuck with a case of severe writer’s block on the romance anime she’s working on, something exacerbated by the fact that she’s never experienced romantic love in real life and by the recent news that Kametaro Tsuruyama (Yoshiko Sakakibara/Wendy Powell), who directed her favorite movie, A Tale of Perishing, has died of food poisoning. Then she chokes to death on expired clams, and suddenly wakes up in the world of TOP. Natsuko soon joins the team of heroes defending their world from the insectlike Voids threatening to destroy it, using her animation skills, which manifest as sketchy, living drawings that prove effective at beating them back, at the cost of a three-day coma every time she uses them. As she falls more in love with the characters (literally so in the case of their leader, Luke Braveheart (Kazuki Ura/Ryan Negron)), she becomes determined to save them from the apocalyptic end of the film she remembers, even as a weird bird with an uncanny resemblance to Tsuruyama tries to convince her that “it’s no use.”
This series manages to set itself apart from the dozens of other cookie-cutter isekai series that seem to come out every season by eschewing the video game elements that constantly show up in them and instead bases its world on classic animated fantasy films from the 80s and early 90s. Appropriately enough, references to classic anime of old make frequent appearances, especially in the entities Natsuko conjures into existence using her newfound animation superpower (Yojimbo, Gundam, Gurren Lagaan, Macross, Tiger Mask, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, to name but a few examples), and the way the comic relief unicorn hero Unio (Rie Kugimiya/Luci Christian) is clearly just Sanrio’s Unico with one letter subtracted.
Zenshu also spends a lot of time giving even relatively minor background characters satisfying arcs, most notably Destiny Heartwarming (Manaka Iwami/Dani Chambers) going from a dainty and passive damsel in distress to a muscular wrestler thanks to her interactions with Natsuko, to the elven hero Memmeln (Minori Suzuki/Alexis Tipton) regaining her sense of purpose once Natsuko figures out why she became a Void in the original movie and takes steps to correct it. It all comes together in a story about how hope always triumphs over cynicism, even when things seem at their darkest and bleakest.
My only major complaint is that the conflict between Natsuko and Tsruyama feels a bit underdeveloped. I was expecting their fight to be more of an active battle between the representative of an older, more cynical generation and a younger, more idealistic counterpart. Instead, it plays out more like Tsuruyama passively heckling Natsuko’s attempts to improve the TOP world’s situation from the sidelines. It’s not that it isn’t effective, since she eventually induces a crisis of confidence in Natsuko that directly leads to the climactic battle. However, it still feels relatively underwhelming compared to the similar conflict between, say, Duck and Drosselmeyer in Princess Tutu.
Overall, though, Zenshu is undoubtedly one of the best fantasy anime to come out in recent years. With its colorful animation, vibrant cast of characters, beautiful music (the voice chanting the title during Natsuko’s “magical girl” transformations is positively sublime), and a story that celebrates the history of anime, the animators who brought it to life, and the wonders of creativity. Who knows? It just might convince you that ani-ma-mators are superheroes.
Honorable Mentions:
Sakamoto Days: The anime that dares to ask the question, “What if John Wick successfully started a family but kept having to deal with annoying assassins trying to take their revenge on him?” The result is a hilarious action comedy which features Taro Sakamoto (Tomokazu Sugita/Matthew Mercer) pulling off increasingly ridiculous superhuman feats as he fights off waves of gun-toting bad guys trying to pull him back into his former criminal lifestyle, all while trying to keep his promise to his wife that he will never kill again. Sakamoto’s design has become one of the most iconic in anime history, with his rotund figure and blank, bespectacled face. It’s even got a telepathic sidekick in the form of Shin Asakura (Nobunaga Shimazaki/Dallas Liu) (who constantly has to deal with Sakamoto’s fantasies of killing him whenever the latter gets annoyed), which may indicate some crossover potential with the Spy x Family fandom, perhaps.
Castlevania: Nocturne Season 2: The Belmonts’ eternal war against vampires and their hellish allies takes them to Paris right at the height of the Reign of Terror in a heartstopping new season that has all the tragic and triumphant character arcs, kinetic action, and stunning animation that we’ve come to expect from one of the greatest video game adaptations of all time.
February
Distributor: Adult Swim
Production companies: Green Street Pictures, Bandera Entertainment, Tell Me More, Williams Street
Creators: Joe Bennett, Steve Hely
Writers: Joe Bennett, Steve Hely, Emma Barrie, Jean Kyoung Frazier, Dave King, Jon Foor, Karey Dornetto, Dan Schofield, Sophie Kriegel
Producers: Joe Bennett, Steve Hely, Mike Judge, Greg Daniels, Dustin Davis, Dave King, James Merrill, Sean Buckelew, Benjy Brooke, Kelly Crews, Suzanna Makkos (executive); Max Minor, Susan Shi, Paige Boudreaux, Jonathan Roig, Jacey Bradley
Music: Nicholas Snyder
As one might expect from one of the creators of Scavenger’s Reign, this new Adult Swim hit is another adult animated series that doesn’t resemble anything else on television right now.
Amateur mycologist Marshall Cuso (Dave King) is in a tight spot. He’s discovered a mushroom known as the Blue Angel, with medicinal properties so absurdly powerful that they’ve even brought Marshall back from the brink of death multiple times. The only problem is that the pharmaceutical industry would sooner die than let the mushroom destroy its business, especially Reutical Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and its ruthless Swiss financier, Jonas Backstein (Danny Huston), who is pulling strings in the government to get Marshall imprisoned, or worse. The only person he can think to reach out to for help is an old high school friend, Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast), who, unbeknownst to him, works at Reutical as the assistant to its incompetent CEO, Rick Kruger (Mike Judge). The two friends soon find themselves at the center of a malestrom of betrayal and sacrifice as government and corporate interests converge to wipe the Blue Angel off the face of the Earth.
In an environment like American adult animation that always seems to be going for extremes, whether in the form of vulgarity or action, it’s nice to have a series like Common Side Effects that goes for a more grounded and low-key approach. It’s also one of the rare Adult Swim offerings that isn’t primarily a comedy show, but rather a quietly tense conspiracy thriller with some well-timed bits of comic relief. It’s less Rick and Morty and more Coen Brothers in its approach, using its magic mushroom as a vehicle for a story that includes incisive critiques of the American healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.
The grounded tone is reinforced by characters who feel much more like real-life humans than most adult-animated protagonists. Marshall’s paranoia about the pharmaceutical industry, while justified, leads him to trust people he really shouldn’t to help him get the Blue Angel out to the world, with his half-crazed former mentor Hildy (Sue Rose) especially proving just as shortsightedly greedy as the Reutical execs. Rick, despite being a callous and lazy CEO, seems to genuinely value his relationship with Frances to the point of consoling her over her grief about her mother, Sonia’s (Lin Shaye), worsening dementia. Frances goes on a whole arc involving introducing Rick to the Blue Angel against Marshall’s wishes, only to find that the success she gets from the betrayal gives her no satisfaction. Even Copano and Harrington (Joseph Lee Anderson and Martha Kelly), the goofy DEA agents who like to dance to oldies music while on stakeouts, get an arc where the latter cuts off the former when he discovers what Backstein is up to, not realizing until it’s almost too late that her partner was right about everything.
The only minor complaints I have are that the character designs, with their small faces on large heads, might be a little too cartoony for a story that takes itself so seriously, and that Jonas Backstein feels a little too close to the “greedy Jew” stereotype for comfort at times. Despite this, Common Side Effects serves as a great counterpoint to the common “anything goes” ethos of most American adult animation, being a slow-paced mystery thriller that treats its characters like actual human beings rather than exaggerated stereotypes. It’s a shame that there aren’t more animated properties like this from the West that feel like actual adult shows.
Honorable Mention
Invincible Season 3: We rejoin Mark Grayson (Steven Yuen) as he finds all-new challenges to confront him in his superhero life, from being a surrogate dad to his half-alien step-brother Oliver (Christian Convery) and developing his relationship with Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) to having his mother find a new partner in real-estate agent Paul (Cliff Curtis) and coming to falling out with Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins) over the latter’s morally dubious methods. He also meets many enemies, old and new, like Scott “Powerplex” DuVall (Aaron Paul) (who wants revenge against Invincible for family members lost in the big fight between him and Omni-Man(J.K. Simmons)), an army of Invincible clones sent by a still-living Angstrom Levi (Sterling K. Brown), and Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the strongest and most sadistic Viltrumite yet.
I don’t have that much to say about the third season. It’s every bit as good as the previous two, continuing what has made the show so beloved while introducing new moral dilemmas for Mark and friends to deal with. The biggest negative is that we don’t see much of Omni-Man, who completely disappears from the plot after Allen the Alien (Seth Rogan) busts him out of prison in Episode 4.
March
Distributors: Sentai Filmworks, Medialink, Tokyo MX, MBS, BS Fuji
Production company: Yokohama Animation Laboratory
Director: Kazuya Aiura
Writer: Deko Akao (based on the novel series by Moto’o Nakanishi)
Producers: Hiroyuki Aoi, Akane Taketsugu, Taisuke Hashiruyama, Gou Morita, Yuki Ogasawara, Fuuma Murakami, Tomomi Asai, Hirotaka Kaneko
Music: Ryuuichi Takada, Keiichi Hirokawa, Kuniyuki Takahashi
This anime can be thought of as a darker and more mature take on Demon Slayer’s general premise, with a time-travel twist to help it stand out. Be warned, though, that its slower pace and inconsistent animation might not be to everyone’s taste.
The story begins in the late Edo/Tokugawa period, in the mid-1800s, as step-siblings Jinta (Taku Yashiro/Aaron Campbell) and the half-demon Suzune (Reina Ueda/Juliet Simmons) flee from their abusive father and find a new and much kinder one in the form of Juzo (Masaki Aizawa/ John Gremillion), a demon hunter who trains Jinta as his apprentice. The siblings find a new home in a secluded mountain village called Kadono, where Jinta finds work as a bodyguard to the local shrine maiden, Shirayuki (Saori Hayami/Shanae’a Moore). Life seems idyllic until one bad day when, true to a dying demon’s prophecy, a series of misunderstandings causes Suzune to embrace her demon half and go on a killing spree, claiming Shirayuki as one of her victims. Meanwhile, Jinta, who has been forcibly converted into a half-demon by the demonic prophet, goes on a centuries-spanning journey to find Suzune and take his revenge, battling other demonic foes along the way and reckoning with his newfound immortality and why he chooses to wield the blade in the first place.
From all the online reviews I’ve read, the consensus seems to be that SOTDH starts well enough with its hour-long pilot but then loses its way as the story goes on, and I’ll be honest, I don’t find much to disagree with in that assessment. The animation takes a notable dip in quality as the series goes on; the plot becomes rather aimless with several demon-battling escapades that don’t have anything to do with Jinta’s hunt for Suzune; Jinta himself is a somewhat boring main character (being so stoic that he’s almost emotionless outside of the battle scenes); and the time travel elements are handled rather confusingly. At first, I thought it was a case of Jinta simply surviving into the 21st century due to his demonically-influenced immortality. But late in the season, a girl from the Heisei-era high school Jinta attends suddenly finds herself in the Edo period, and Jinta has to help her get back to her own time, which was quite confusing to try to figure out.
There is an interesting story buried under all the production mishaps, but it had a hard time holding my attention. It might be that the anime is doing a poor job adapting the novels, which is the view expressed in at least a few of the other reviews I’ve read.
If it seems like I’m being a little hard on what is supposed to be my favorite animated series of March 2025, it might be because March was a rather slow month for new TV shows. The only other one of note was the Adult Swim series Oh My God…Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances, whose brand of chaotic absurdism was far too confusing for me to get anything out of. At least the first episode of Sword… had an interesting story to hook me in.
There might be an audience out there for Kijin Gentosho’s darker and slow-paced take on the demon-hunting premise, but as for me, I already have Demon Slayer, so I probably won’t be tuning in for season two.
April
Distributors: Cartoon Network, HBO Max
Production companies: Lion Forge Entertainment, YouNeek Studios, Impact X Capital, Forefront Media Group
Creators: Roye Okupe, Brandon M. Easton (based on the graphic novel series Iyanu: Child of Wonder by Okupe and Godwin Akpan)
Writers: Brandon M. Easton, Kerri Grant, Roye Okupe, Ivory Floyd, Matt Wayne
Producers: David Steward II, Kirsten Newlands, Stephanie Sperber, Matt Heath, Roye Okupe, Erica Dupuis, Ryan Haidarian, Doug Schwalbe (executive); Kathy Page Cowan
Music: Yemi Alade (theme song); Femi "Fem D" Agunbiade, Andrew "December Moon" Johnson, "Kariz" Marcel Martin, Oladele "7g" Kiambu
If Samurai Jack isn’t already Cartoon Network’s answer to Avatar: The Last Airbender, then this series certainly is, while trading the former two’s East Asian cultural influences for a much more Afrocentric perspective.
Indeed, the series takes place in a Nigeria-inspired fantasy world called Yorubaland, which is still reeling from the effects of a war between the gods that ended the Age of Wonders hundreds of years ago, the worst of which being that all the animals have become bloodthirsty beasts that will attack any human on sight. As such, it causes a great stir in the walled city of Elu when a barefoot orphan girl named Iyanu (Serah Johnson), who lives in a forest on the outskirts with her secretive guardian, Olori (Adesua Etomi), uses magic to save several local children from a rampaging beast, which puts her in the crosshairs of Nuro (Femi Sowooli), the corrupt chancellor to King Oba (Paul Utomi). Now a fugitive, Iyanu gains companions in the form of two other teenage boys: Toye (Samuel Kugbiyi), a bookish kid who thinks knowledge can better help people than violence, much to his father General Kanfo’s (Blossom Chukwujekwu) chagrin; and Biyi (Okey Jude), an adventurous youth who lives in the Riverlands Settlement governed by the wise matriarch Sewa (Stella Damascus). Together with their giant leopard mount, Ekun (Babajide Oyekunle), the trio set out on a journey to find out all they can about the evil threatening their homeland before it’s too late.
While I will admit that this series didn’t quite impact on me an emotional level the same way ATLA did, it’s still a very good action-fantasy cartoon in its own right. Much like ATLA, Iyanu never forgets that its teenage heroes are, y’know, teenagers who still have to deal with first-time crushes and strained family relations even as they’re trying to prevent the destruction of their world. The dynamics between Iyanu and Olori and Toye and General Kanfo are especially compelling. Iyanu’s relationship with Olori gets tested when Iyanu learns the secrets her guardian has been keeping from her, and it takes several episodes after their reunion to get their old relationship back. Meanwhile, Toye has to deal with his father pushing him to become a soldier rather than a scholar, as the latter cannot see how knowledge can be just as useful as force in solving conflicts.
The series also isn’t afraid to wander into more political territory with some of its conflicts. Elu is portrayed as a highly stratified city on the verge of a workers’ rebellion, with foreign minister Uwa (Femi “Bakes” Olugbade) trying desperately to convince his brother, the king, to pay attention, only to be thwarted by a power-hungry Chancellor Nuro’s bad advice. Later, in Season Two, the characters have to deal with the warlike People of the Deep and their queen, Adura (Gesiere Faith Agua), who are descended from a prince exiled from Elu and are determined to wipe every trace of the Age of Wonders from Yorubaland. They demonstrate how forcing people into out-groups can backfire horribly in the long run.
Complementing all of this is the show’s colorful animation and unapologetically African aesthetic, from the cultural artifacts and fashion to the soundtrack, including a wonderfully catchy theme song. Here’s hoping David Zaslav doesn’t get any more funny ideas about tax write-offs, because Iyanu is definitely a show that deserves its spot as Avatar’s worthy successor.
Honorable Mentions:
Kowloon Generic Romance: Strange days are afoot in the infamous Hong Kong neighborhood of Kowloon Walled City, at least from real estate agent Reiko Kujirai’s (Haruka Shiraishi/Lauren Landa) point of view. Kowloon was supposed to have been demolished years ago, yet people still live and work there. It’s always midsummer, with the buzz of cicadas being nonstop. Most perplexing of all is that her coworker and secret crush, Hajime Koudou (Tomokazu Sigita/Ben Balmaceda), has a photo of himself with a woman who looks just like her, and she has no memory of it being taken. What could all of this mean?
What results is a fascinating blend of nostalgic slice-of-life and mind-bending sci-fi mystery as secret pasts come to light and Reiko learns the truth about who she really is. Some fans of the original manga may complain about the truncated story, but the anime is still an engrossing story about identity and self-actualization.
To Be Hero X: This donghua (the Chinese equivalent of “anime”) sets itself apart from other entries in the superhero genre with its faith-based power system, in which the heroes’ powers are determined by the public’s trust in them, and a nonlinear, anthology-style storytelling approach which shifts between several different protagonists and hints at a larger mystery that may answer why Nice (Gu Jiangshan/Branden Loera) committed suicide and left low-level marketing expert Lin Ling (also Jiangshan/Mauricio Ortiz-Segura) to replace him.
The shift between animation styles (starting with an Arcane-style painted CG look before shifting to more traditional 2D) might be a bit jarring at first (although it does make sense when we finally meet the titular hero X (Wei Chao/David Matranga) and learn what his powers are). Still, the complex plot and excellent character studies more than make up for it.
#1 Happy Family USA: Life isn’t easy for the Egyptian-American Hussein family. Youngest son Rumi (Ramy Youssef) has a crush on his teacher; father Hussein Hussein (also Youssef) is running a halal cart despite being a trained doctor; mother Sharia (Salma Hindy) is agonizing over the sudden death of her strict and conservative father (Azhar Usman) in the midst of an argument between the two; and older sister Mona (Alia Shawkat) is a closeted lesbian who is struggling to find a way to come out. Here’s the thing, though: all of this is taking place on September 10th, 2001. As you can imagine, things are about to become a whole lot more complicated for the Husseins.
It’s an excellent hook for this new Prime Video sitcom, and it only gets more darkly hilarious from there. While a Muslim family living in post-9/11 America seems like an odd premise for a comedy show, Youssef makes it work with his uproariously satirical look at the absurd irony of the whole situation. Hussein starts to worry his family with his obsessive attempts to prove he’s one of the good Muslims by code-switching and doing his damnedest not to stick out, whereas Sharia decides to double down by wearing a hijab in public.
Probably the only negative thing I can say about it is that the animation style certainly looks a bit ugly at first glance, like many American adult animated sitcoms. Still, the writing and characters are so fun to watch that it’s really hard to care once you get into it.
May
Yeah, turns out there weren’t any animated series of note to come out at any time in May this year, or at least none that made it into any of the “top animated series of 2025” lists that I Googled while researching my own lists.
Absolutely no new anime premiered that May, and the only Western series of note that I could find that premiered that month were a revival of the Mr. Bean animated series, the fourth season of Love, Death, and Robots, and the third and final season of Netflix’s Blood of Zeus (both of which which I should definitely catch up on sometime soon). Okay, so maybe the first paragraph was a lie, but who cares? Maybe it’s better to take a quick break and add some comic relief before we wrap up the first half of the list, because there’s a very notable anime that came out in June. Prepare yourselves, because this one’s gonna hurt…
June
Distributors: Crunchyroll, Medialink
Production company: Enishiya
Director/writer: Shinya Iino (based on the manga by Taizan 5)
Producers: Kei Igarashi, Kotaro Sudo
Music: Yoshiaki Fujisawa
Don’t let that cute pink octopus-thing fool you: this anime ain’t for the faint of heart. Trigger warning for scenes of parental abuse and neglect, bullying, depression, suicide, and murder. Yeah, it’s that kind of show.
Said octopus creature is named Nueinukf (Kurumi Mamiya/Abigail Blythe), and he’s come to Earth from Planet Happy to spread happiness throughout the galaxy. After dodging capture by the Japanese military, he meets nine-year-old Shizuka Kuze (Reina Ueda/Emily Fajardo) and, noticing she seems sad, Nueinukf (dubbed “Takopi” by Shizuka because he resembles an octopus) decides to become her friend and make her smile. He’s got his work cut out for him, though, as Shizuka is going through a lot right now. Her father is absent, her mother spends much more time at the hostess club than she does at home, and her classmate, Marina Kirarazaka (Konomi Kohara/Jill Harris), is a vicious bully. Her only comfort is her Border Collie companion, Chappy. When Chappy is taken away after biting Marina, however, Shizuka does something horrible with one of Takopi’s gadgets, and the confused, horrified alien decides to rewind time to stop the tragedy. But every time he rewinds time, another tragedy seems to be waiting just around the corner. Will this extraterrestrial emissary ever find a way to make his new human friend smile?
Yeah, hopefully you can see why TOS is probably not for everyone. We see these grade schoolers go through practically every type of abuse (except sexual, which likely would have driven it over the edge into complete unwatchability). In addition to the horrors inflicted on Shizuka, we see that Marina lives with a severely mentally unstable mother and that her dad left because he’s having an affair with Shizuka’s mother, hence why Marina is so violent toward her classmate. We also see into the home life of Shizuka’s other classmate, Naoki Azuma (Anna Nagase/Ciaran Strange), who suffers emotional abuse from his mother for not living up to her perfectionist standards. All the while, they get no help from the apathetic authority figures around them, and Takopi is the only one who tries, though his childlike naivety often gets in the way (also Naoki’s older brother, Junya (Ryoto Osaka/Kieran Regan), who proves to be much more sympathetic than his mother when Naoki opens up about his struggles).
Indeed, it’s Takopi himself who makes this show worth watching even through the darkest moments. Despite his bumbling screw-ups as he tries to figure out a solution to the complex situation he’s found himself in, he’s so painfully sincere in his efforts that it’s easy to root for him, even when a happy ending seems impossible. The solution he does come up with at the end of the anime has even divided viewers over how realistic it is and whether it’s too easy given the bad blood that existed previously between the characters (I’m not going to say what it is, though, because I don’t want to spoil anything). Personally, though, I was relieved these kids got any respite from the never-ending horror show that was their existence up to that point.
Maybe the assurance of a somewhat happy ending will convince you to check this one out. Then again, maybe the sight of grade schoolers going through the kind of things no child their age should ever go through is too much for you to handle, especially if you’ve personally suffered what Shizuka, Marina, and the others suffered. Ultimately, though, once you pierce through all the darkness and misery, Takopi’s Original Sin is a life-affirming story about second chances and the healing power of friendship. It might be much rougher around the edges than many similar stories, but I would argue the journey is worth it.
Honorable Mention:
Lord of Mysteries: Zhou Mingrui finds himself in the body of Klein Moretti (Yang Kaiqi/Joshua Waters), a young man living in a fantasy world resembling Victorian England who has just committed suicide. As Zhou searches for answers as to what drove Klein to that state, he discovers that people in this world can harness magical powers to become Beyonders, and that he’s going to have to dodge the secret police and the various Lovecraftian horrors that look over this world to get to the bottom of all this.
It might take a while to wrap your head around the complex lore presented by the other major donghua distributed by Crunchyroll this year, as it’s trying to adapt a web novel into a TV series format. Still, it’s worth it for the well-done mystery plot and gorgeous animation, especially the almost lifelike CG backgrounds and the excellent tracking shots during the fight scenes. The horror elements might also help make for a good Halloween watch, especially for fans of cosmic horror.
And that’s all I have to say about the 2025 series’ for now. You can expect the second half of the list sometime early next year, probably January or February (or however long it takes for me to get through the rest of the list). I’ll start the film list once I finish the Halloween special, and I’ll definitely be hard at work on the second half of the TV list once the second 1001 Animations Christmas special is finished.
For now, though, have a fun and safe October, enjoy the fresh autumn air if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and stay tuned for the second 1001 Animations Halloween special. I promise that it will be one to chill the bones!
