With all the much anticipated subsequent seasons of anime this season, it should have been an easy banger. However, many of those ongoing series were underwhelming. When it came to the new anime premieres of the season, honestly it just seems like they were meeting the bare minimum in terms of what can be called “good” quality. Many of the shows are enjoyable, but none of them just absolutely stunning. If this is what the future of anime is, it would be fine, but no “anime classics” were made this season.
Melancholic ramblings aside, there is actually a lot to recommend from the Summer 2022 season purely because “pretty okay” tends to blend together.
Best Summer 2022 Anime
Lycoris Recoil
In order to cut down on crime and terrorism, an organization called Direct Attack was formed. They take orphaned girls and turn them into agents that protect the country in the Lycoris program. Takina is one gifted agent, but after a hostage situation leads to insubordination, she is transferred out of the main unit to a lower key branch of Lycoris ran out of a cafe. Despite being paired with a famed, but more easy-going Lycoris prodigy Chisato while there, Takina is determined to get back into DA, but her new partner is determined to prove that there is more to life than just taking lives.
Why We Recommend It? – This series had a good formula of being great looking and having two real strong main characters who proceeded to carry episodes with cute antics in lieu to building the plot in the first half. This is probably the best anime of the season by default because it does sort make sense why they put that much emphasis on the character relationship later, and it makes things more emotionally effective.
Call of the Night
After rejecting a confession from a girl at school because he doesn’t understand love, Kou stops going to school and starts wandering the night with insomnia. One night he encounters a mysterious girl who believes people that stay awake at night are dissatisfied with the way they spent their days. Following her into the night, she brings him back to her place and suddenly starts to suck his blood. Discovering her true nature, Kou now seeks to be a vampire, but to become one, you need to make a vampire fall in love with you.
Why We Recommend It? – As vampire anime tends to be either action-oriented or dramatically romantic, it is indeed nice to see a less intense sort of slice of life romance entry. However, it is the visuals that really carry this show into the upper echelon. Without those wonderful night shots and occasionally visually interesting shot of Nazuna, this show wouldn’t be anything special much of the time. However, the more you think of it as a lovely metaphor for new relationships, it adds another element of interest.
Yurei Deco
The city of Tom Sawyer is an augmented reality society where citizens buy and sell services and appearance augmentations with Love, a currency akin to likes on social media. The Decos implemented in their eyes from early childhood allows them to enjoy augmented reality and also allow the government to control it. One day, a girl named Berry with a malfunctioning Deco in one eye manages to see a boy invisible to everyone else. Following him, she ends up in a Love draining event pulled off by the mysterious Phantom Zero. After the government catches the boy beliving him to be Phantom Zero and she helps his friends free him, Berry begins to unravel a never-ending spiral of society’s secrets as she is pulled into the fringes of society where people live without Decos.
Why We Recommend It? – It is such an uncommon thing for me to seemingly have such a different opinion of an anime from the rest of the larger anime community. Maybe they just gave up after the overly long and confusing exposition in the first episode, but while it takes time to get there, Yurei Deco does become an interesting adventure in uncovering the dirty little secrets of a seemingly Utopian, social media indoctrinated society. Plus its one of those anime series that makes it hard to believe that some anime creators aren’t on some pretty amazing drugs.
Fuuto PI
In the city of Fuuto, criminals are making use of Gaia Memories that transform them into super-powered monsters called Dopants. However, there are also good guys like the self-proclaimed hard-boiled detective Shoutarou Hidari that also use Gaia Memories to fight these criminals. While the production of Gaia Memories have halted, sightings of Dopants still occur and Shoutarou and his Narumi Detective Agency are on the case.
Why We Recommend It? – I have absolutely no knowledge of a Kamen Rider save for what they look like, and this is a Kamen Rider thing apparently. That aside, I still was able to enjoy it without prior knowledge. It is a nice looking part-detective anime, part-super-powered battle show. It’s not being particularly innovative, but it was entertaining to watch.
The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting
Tooru Kirishima is known as the Demon of the Sakuragi crime family due to his overly violent tendencies. Because of his skill and loyalty, he has been selected by the boss of the family for an important job – the job of babysitting the boss’ daughter.
Why We Recommend It? – Oh, maybe I just have a soft spot for little kids who have had difficult lives finally getting to live the happy family life they deserve. I never get sick of those shows, and this is more of that. 11/10, very cute.
What would you recommend from the Summer 2022 anime season? Let fans know in the comments section below.
