The summer anime season is always a weird time of the year. To wit: Anime broadcast seasons are divided into yearly quarters, which means that even though we’re deep into the summer season, the “summer” anime season doesn’t technically begin until July and end until the last day of September.
That weirdness aside, there’s tons of great anime primed for this season, including the follow-ups to 2013’s The Devil is a Part-Timer! and 2017’s Made in Abyss, Science Saru’s sci-fi riff on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Yurei Deco, and the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 standalone anime spin-riff, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, from Gurren Lagann director Hiroyuki Imaishi and studio Trigger.
We’ll update this list later once we have a clearer picture of everything the upcoming season has to offer, but in the meantime, here are ten new anime airing this summer that you should look forward to.
Spriggan
Spriggan follows Yu Ominae, a covert soldier known as a “Spriggan” working with the mysterious ARCAM Corporation to protect ancient alien artifacts from falling into the wrong hands. Based on Hiroshi Takashige and Ryōji Minagawa’s sci-fi action manga, the 2022 anime from director Hiroshi Kobayashi (Kiznaiver) and writer Hiroshi Seko (Attack on Titan, Mob Psycho 100) appears to cover much of the same ground as the 1998 anime film, albeit with a greater focus on the other Spriggan agents supporting Yu as he attempts to prevent the insidious MJ-12 from gaining control over Noah’s Ark.
Spriggan premieres June 18 and will stream on Netflix.
Bastard!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy-
Director Takaharu Ozaki and studio Liden Films’ adaptation of Kazushi Hagiwara’s 1988 manga Bastard!! is set in a dystopian world of swords and sorcery. After being imprisoned in the body of a young boy for 15 years, the powerful wizard Dark Schneider (yes, that is his real name — remember, this was written in the ’80s) is reawakened by a young girl named Yoko in order to wage war on his former allies and stop them from unleashing the dark god Anthrasax on the Kingdom of Metallicana. Dark Schneider, however, in true chaotic demi-god rock star fashion, couldn’t care less about saving the world; he just wants to test his strength, murder heroes, and sleep with as many women as humanly possible.
The original six-episode 1992 OVA (original video animation) was known for its explicit gore, violence, nudity, and, uh, let’s say questionable character dynamics, so at the very least it’ll be interesting to see how this new 24-episode adaptation approaches the original source material with modern audiences in mind.
Bastard!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy- premieres on June 30 and will stream on Netflix.
RWBY: Ice Queendom
Rooster Teeth’s long-running anime-inspired web series RWBY is finally getting a proper anime spinoff courtesy of Shaft, the Japanese studio behind Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Nisekoi, and the Monogatari series. Set in Remnant, a fantasy world beset by monsters bent on death and destruction, the series follows four girls: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long, who are training to become monster hunters. Though each of them is powerful on their own, they’ll have to work together to overcome the forces of darkness and become Remnant’s next generation of heroes.
RWBY Ice Queendom premieres on July 3 and will stream on Crunchyroll.
Yurei Deco
Loosely inspired by Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Yurei Deco is set in a futuristic world where augmented reality technology and digital avatars co-exist side by side with the physical world. The series follow Berry, a young girl who befriends Hack, a tech wiz and leader of a group known as the Ghost Detectives Club. When Berry discovers the legend of Zero, a mysterious figure said to lurk somewhere beneath the surface of their advanced society, she and Hack embark on a journey in search of them and the truth behind their world.
The latest original anime series from Science Saru, the studio behind hit shows like 2018’s Devilman Crybaby and 2020’s Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Yurei Deco will be directed by Tomohisa Shimoyama and written by Dai Satō, who is known for his work on such anime as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Ergo Proxy.
Yurei Deco premieres on July 3 and will stream on Crunchyroll.
Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun
Set in a world dominated by a vast, labyrinthine cave system known as the “Abyss,” where explorers and adventurers descend in search of precious relics and long-lost knowledge, Made in Abyss follows the story of a young orphan girl named Riko who meets and befriends a robot boy named Reg before embarking on a quest in search of her lost mother. The second season, The Golden City of the Scorching Sun, picks up after the events of the first with Riko and co. arriving at the sixth layer of the Abyss, a place where no human is said to have returned from.
Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun premieres on July 6 and will stream on HIDIVE.
Tokyo Mew Mew New
Ichigo Momoniya is a normal middle school girl with normal middle school girl problems. That is, until one day she gets hit with a mysterious beam, mixing Iriomote wildcat genes in with hers, turning her into an alien-fighting magical girl. Bad guy aliens are looking for a new planet to inhabit, and with her team of anime-themed magical girls, she has to take them down, all while hiding her secret identity from her crush and working at the cafe that serves as a base for the team.
Tokyo Mew Mew New is a remake of the classic 2002 magical girl show that served as many people’s introduction to anime. Whether you watched the dub, Mew Mew Power, on Saturday mornings, or the original Tokyo Mew Mew chopped up on YouTube in three-part segments back in the day, this series was everything to everyone. The characters, music, costume design, and (somewhat cliché but fun) storyline made up my childhood, and I cannot wait to dive into the remake. –Julia Lee
Tokyo Mew Mew New premieres on July 6.
Uncle from Another World
The premise of nearly every isekai fantasy anime goes something like this: A mild-mannered everyman, or some hapless layabout, finds themselves transported to an alternate world of myth and magic far removed from the mundanity of their own. Maybe they got hit by a truck and were reincarnated, maybe they fell asleep playing a video game, or maybe they got whisked through a portal — the “how they got there” doesn’t really matter. What matters here is that any isekai fan worth their salt knows that these types of stories usually end in one of two ways: The protagonist either remains in this new world and lives out the rest of their lives or, in true Campbellian fashion, they return to their own world having grown through this experience.
The new comedy isekai Uncle from Another World takes the latter scenario and flips it on its head, following a teenager named Takafumi whose uncle awakens from a 17-year-long coma believing he was transported to another world. Was Takafumi’s uncle really transported to another world, or is he just recovering from his coma? Either way, he’s got to get caught up on everything that’s transpired in the past two decades, from high-speed internet and smartphones to modern-day anime tropes!
Uncle from Another World premieres on July 6 and will stream on Netflix in Japan. US premiere date still to be announced.
The Devil is a Part-Timer! Season 2
The 2013 fantasy comedy anime The Devil is a Part-Timer! follows the mundane misadventures of the Demon Lord Satan who, after being defeated in his home dimension of Ente Isla, escapes through a portal that transports him to modern-day Japan. With no knowledge of this world and without his powers, Satan adopts the human identity of Sadao Maou and becomes a part-time employee at a fast food restaurant called “MgRonald’s” in order to survive.
The long-awaited second season will see the return of Sadao, his lieutenant Ashiya, and his frenemy Emi Yusa as they bicker and stumble from one misadventure to the next. They’ll be joined by a new character, Alas Ramus, a mysterious little girl born from an apple. Not returning, however, are studio White Fox and director Naoto Hosoda, who produced the first season of the series, as Daisuke Tsukushi and Studio 3Hz have assumed responsibilities for producing this new season.
The Devil is a Part-Timer! season 2 premieres on July 14 and will stream on Crunchyroll.
Kakegurui Twin
Set one year before the events of Kakegurui, Kakegurui Twin follows the story of Mary Saotome, Yumeko Jabami’s future nemisis turned ally, after she transfers to Hyakkaou Private Academy. Navigating the cutthroat social system of gambling that defines the school’s upper class hierarchy, Mary will have to overcome numerous obstacles and would-be opponents in order to survive and thrive. The trailer looks just as outlandish and implicitly lurid as the original Kakegurui, not surprising given that the series is helmed by returning director Yuichiro Hayashi and produced by studio MAPPA.
Kakegurui Twin premieres on August 4 and will stream on Netflix.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
First announced in 2020, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a 10-episode sci-fi action anime set in the universe of CD Projekt Red’s action role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077. The series follows David, a street kid trying to eke out a living in the technology- and body modification-obsessed metropolis of Night City. After crossing paths with Lucy, an elusive hacker, David chooses to pursue a life as an “edgerunner” — an outlaw mercenary-for-hire willing to go toe-to-toe with the city’s most notorious cyber-psychos and criminals if the pay is right.
The trailer is impressive, featuring the sort of highly-stylized visuals and explosive action one would naturally expect from the likes of director Hiroyuki Imaishi (Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill) and Studio Trigger. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will feature character designs by Yoh Yoshinari (Little Witch Academia, BNA: Brand New Animal), as well as a score composed by Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners premieres in September and will stream on Netflix.
