The A.V. Club's guide to summer anime

If you’re craving more lighthearted, escapist fare, then With You And The Rain (streaming weekly on Crunchyroll) is also a delight. It’s a calm show about a woman with social anxiety who adopts a tanuki that helps her get out of her shell, with vibes akin to settling into a warm bath on a rainy day. And considering all the flashy action series and horror anime this summer, it’s a welcome respite. The running gag of people thinking the tanuki is just a weird-looking dog never gets old, and the fact that the characters pass off his ability to write as just a circus trick is quite funny. It’s also frankly wonderful to watch an anime about an adult woman that’s not centered on romance of any kind.

Looking for some choice comedy in your escapism? Then City: The Animation (streaming weekly on Prime Video) might be for you. Produced by the beloved Kyoto Animation, it’s a quirky, surrealist, yet sincere show with gorgeous animation. Watching its protagonists navigate normal urban life shouldn’t be this entertaining, and some of City does what the medium does best: using animation to find the beauty (and, in this case, the comedy) in the ordinary. It’s a lovely little series, which does feel like a “manga come to life,” as director Taichi Ishidate intended, that can be silly but also respects the intelligence of the viewer. Think of it as a spiritual follow-up to My Ordinary Life, Kyoto Animation’s fantastic adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s manga of the same name from 2011.

And then there’s Secrets Of The Silent Witch (streaming weekly on Crunchyroll), which bridges the gap between tranquil slice-of-life and adventure. In the show, a powerful mage renowned throughout the land as a dragon-killing prodigy turns out to actually be a 16-year-old girl with selective mutism. She must go undercover at an elite school to protect a royal prince, even though all she wants to do is study the mathematics of magic alone in her cottage. It’s wonderful to see her open up, make friends, and pretend not to be as powerful as she is while discovering the hidden intrigue behind why the prince’s life may be in danger. It’s kind of like if The Apothecary Diaries met the BBC’s Merlin, with an adorable cat familiar.

After a long hiatus, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun (streaming weekly on Crunchyroll and Hulu) is thankfully back to finish out its second season. Its stylized animation and clear references to anime like Revolutionary Girl Utena have made it a favorite in some circles, but it still deserves far more hype than it gets. Hanako-san of the Toilet is a Japanese urban legend about the ghost of a girl named Hanako who haunts women’s bathrooms—but in this show, she’s actually a boy specter who becomes bound to the main character Nene through a hilarious yet wholesome turn of events. It’s a horror rom-com with a lot of heart. (Check out the spin-off After-School Hanako-kun too.) 

However, the most underrated romantic comedy of the summer is There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover, Unless…, which combines absurdly pretty animation with the inherent comedy of being a girl who likes girls and struggles to make friends. In a refreshing turn from traditional harem anime (where the awkward guy has a bunch of girls fighting over him), this one centers on an uncomfortable and probably neurodivergent girl. After struggling to meet pals in middle school, Renako creates a friendly, bubbly public persona for herself in the hopes of having fun in high school (and succeeds). 

But when she gets overstimulated by everything around her and goes to the roof to get some air one day, her beautiful and popular friend Mai misunderstands and confesses her love to Renako, throwing our heroine into confusion. With an adorable opening sequence and fun character dynamics, it’s a very enjoyable weekly watch, if only to see Renako go through the seven stages of young lesbian denial. (This is another series streaming for free on YouTube.)

If you’re looking for the classic heart-pumping action most often associated with anime, there are a lot of high profile series to try, like Gachiakuta, that should scratch that itch. But arguably the best of the bunch is one that’s still airing from last season, To Be Hero X (streaming weekly on Crunchyroll). It’s a Chinese-Japanese co-production (making it both anime and donghua, a.k.a. Chinese animation) that, from the mix of 2D and 3D animation to the changing focus on different heroes every few episodes, is a nice antidote to superhero fatigue.   

The overarching intrigue connecting all the heroes will keep you watching, the animation is eye-popping, and the characters are smartly crafted. The series is able to tackle social commentary, introduce an entire top-10 roster of superheroes, and fully immerse you in the world’s lore without ever feeling like it’s doing too much. It also comes off less like a traditional action story (despite its lengthy, impressive fight sequences) and more like a thriller. (This isn’t surprising as it’s from series creator Li Haoling, whose other ongoing original donghua, Link Click, is a stellar supernatural thriller.)

Last but certainly not least is Qubic Pictures and Studio Orange’s Leviathan (streaming on Netflix), which has painstakingly detailed and sweepingly cinematic CG animation that is in line with Orange’s Trigun Stampede. Based on Scott Westerfeld’s YA novel of the same name, with a score from the great Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi, Leviathan might be this season’s true unsung gem, telling an alternate history of World War I in which genetically engineered animals and steampunk mechas are the weapons of battle. 

But it’s the main characters, Alek and Sharp, who really shine and ground it all as two lost teens whose lives are ripped apart by war. Leviathan is also refreshing in how it delivers its world-building and surprisingly hopeful message. Its harkens back to some Ghibli favorites, including Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, Castle In The Sky, and of course, Howl’s Moving Castle. The work is also a global anime, produced by a U.S. company, animated by a Japanese studio, and helmed by a French director (Christophe Ferreira). But it’s a shame that Netflix chose to drop all of Leviathan’s episodes at once, as a weekly release may have given this beautiful series some more attention.