Top Upcoming Anime 2021

Top lists are always an entertaining to make because it gives a way for people to look into the future and express an exciting of a forth coming work. I do first want to set certain regulations for what can make into the list.

First. I will exclude any sequels because any sequel will have a certain levels of exciting from people who enjoyed the first season. I want to avoid works like this because I want to highlight exciting for a show in itself not because it is a continuation of another one.

Second, I can not guarantee all shows in this list will be adaptation of works, so if they are original works I will only be able to base my recommendation on Preview Visuals and descriptions. 

Comedy

Jue Ding by Xiao Xin Yu

A great wuxia comedy series that people have compared to Cromartie High School. I can see why but there is a key difference, Jue Ding actually has a serious setting whilst Cromartie setting is wacky from the beginning. In Jue Ding in this serious martial arts world, the characters are goofy.  It is precisely this contrast between the serious setting and the cast of goofy characters that makes this a brilliant comedy. The main character is incredibly strong and is the leader of a fearful gang but he is insecure over his baldness. His baldness and overall presence means he is often mistaken as just a henchman and not the actual boss. A mistake that only serves to grow his insecurities. 

In order to resolve this, his right hand man a man with white long hair who is instead often mistaken as boss shaves his head and that of many of the gang members. This means people mistakenly believe they have become buddhist which is a joke in itself which is played in the boss when he visits a temple to speak to someone. To resolve this once and for all the main characters seeks a formula to grow his hair again and along the way meets many wacky characters in many different situations. In one for example a man seeks to challenge the gang leader and attacks the vice-leader instead who responds in a dramatic way that he is not the leader.

This is a surely to be a great comedy series in a genre that is not usually shown in anime. The art of the manhua is excellent and if the anime replicates that it is surely to going to be great. 

This is a chinese work and chinese studios are much newer but the one in charge of this is QI Ling Shi - or Seven Stone Entertainment.  They have done a lot of animation work for japanese works before and more recently have been in charge of a couple of chinese works themselves. Their latest works in 2020 were Wuxian Shaonu 48, Jieyao. The former was an fantasy idol shows with girls from different dimensions and with many powers whilst Jieyao was a boy's love drama series. Both seemed seemed perfectly decent shows so I do not think this series should have technical issues though we do not have any staff news yet.

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The Vampire Dies in No Time by Bonnoki Itaru

What can I say about a series where the main character dies at the drop of a hat. Draluc is a vampire but he is incredibly weak and dies easily in fact almost every chapter even multiple times sometimes to the level that a counter of his death is one of the running gags of the series. 

There are many wacky characters to match Draluc, one of these characters is Ronaldo. The vampire hunter and writer who is living with a vampire, Draluc. Ronaldo is usually the straight man but he often also plays along in many hijinks. His editor that carries a large axe with is usually involved in those moments as rightfully so Ronaldo fears him with all his heart. There are many others characters that are very iconic and wacky but i will leave it to the anime to show them off. 

The primary reason you should watch for this series if you like comedy is that most of the jokes in this series are visual. Hence, they will work even better than in manga form in the anime. In addition, to the voices and interplay between the straight man and boke and the vast amount of ridiculous situation involving vampire hunters and vampires will have your laughing out loud. A must watch for fans of gag comedy like Osomatsu-kun and the likes. 

The studio in charge of it is Mad House but most importantly it has an experienced director and other key staff members. So, in the technical side it should be a decent show as well.  

Action 

Ousama Ranking by Sousuke Touka

A incredibly peculiar series and a surprising one at that since it began first as a web serialisation in Manga Hack, a site where anyone can publish their series. This is probably part of the reason this series has such an unique aesthetics for manga. it resembles instead some western comics, in that it has a simpler art style but one that nevertheless meshes very well with its story. 

The main character is the first prince, Bojji who is deaf and spends his day playing and hence he is looked down by the king's aides. The setting itself might not sound specifically interesting but how Bojji is rather small and how huge much bigger the other characters are especially the kind showcases his weakness. However, this is not a story about him getting revenge or really going against the people who think little of him but of Bojji himself growing. It is not an underdog story of Bojji proving his doubters wrong but about how his shadow friend and Bojji trains himself and gets stronger, not just physically but emotionally to overcome the obstacles and become king. 

WIT studio will be in charge of animating this excellent work. Wit usually delivers good works but i am hesitant to affirm this without knowledge of the staff but the visual gives me hope. They have very good content to adapt in this series which goes a long way in itself, so this is one to watch out for. It is a very good series with a lot of personality that I feel a lot of anime nowadays simply can do hope to have. 

Rescue Academy by Gaina

Perhaps an odd pick since this is a original anime aimed at kids. It is project aimed at promoting the Fukushima prefecture that has been hit badly by the accident in its nuclear electrical factory in 2011. I do acknowledge that this might play a part in my interest in this series since it is an interesting way to promote a city or prefecture. It does seem like the series will showcase a lot of local landmarks and specialties which is of personal interest to me.  However, I am also interested in the setting and the story.

The robots aesthetics reminds me significantly of Medabots, a series from the early 2000s.  It is nostalgic for me because that was a series I watched in my youth but also robots are not present in anime all that often, there are many large piloted robots anime but series with actual partner robots are not that frequent. It is an interesting novelty in its own way. 

In addition, I am also looking forward to what this series promises, which is a story about budding friendship between people and robots. It is perhaps a bad reason to look forward to a series since it is purely based on nostalgia. But I am looking forward to seeing a series with a clear aiming which is to showcase the good points of a place through a simple story.

The studio behind this series is Gaina and its an original work. There is not much information to go as result so this is probably more so than the others series in this list a bet. 

The Blade of The Guardians by Xu Xian Zhe

A bloody manhua with a historical setting with some supernatural elements in the mix as well, it has also been published in Japan  in Manga DX. It features a man and a child travelling the world gathering bounty to pay his debts whilst looking for a man  whilst a deeper story unravels.

However, what I think is the big marking point of this series is the sword hacking action, the story is decent as well of course, but I believe the great point of the animation will really be how it showcases the fast and bloody sword fights. The first Preview Video showcases this well and hopefully the rest of the anime is as well animated as it promises. 

The studio behind this show is Coloured Pencil which has been in charge of The King's Avatar. The staff of The Blade of The Guardians has not been announced yet but Coloured Pencil has shown itself to be very competent. So if you are looking for some fast paced hack and slash action, this series is one to watch out for. 

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