You always kind of know that a season with a lot of sequel seasons of more popular series is going to kind of be a throwaway season for everyone else. It takes a lot of gall to go against the surprise third season of Konosuba that everyone was sure would never happen, much less the all the other highly anticipated sequel seasons.
Honestly, I have nothing but sympathy for the new anime airing this season because it is so stacked with already largely popular series giving fans “more” and limiting their curious for “new.” That said, while all the fandoms washed things out, there are still a handful of good-to-solid watches in the Spring 2024 anime season.
Best Spring 2024 Anime
Go! Go! Loser Ranger
Over a decade ago, the Nefarious Monster Army invaded Earth. However, they were thwarted by the great protectors of humanity, the Dragon Keepers, who wiped out the army’s powerful generals in just under a year.
Now, the foot soldiers of the monster army are forced to put on a show every Sunday where they fight the Dragon Keepers and are killed for the entertainment of the unsuspecting public who don’t know that the war is long over.
Determined to put an end to their cruel farce, a foot soldier monster simply known as D infiltrates the Ranger Force of the Dragon Keepers in an attempt to get their powerful divine artifacts and take out the leaders.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
I enjoy that whomever decided on the official English title for Sentai Daishikkaku knew exactly what they were doing, because there was not an episode where I didn’t think about the Power Rangers song and get really into it.
Regardless, the concept of Loser Ranger is also a unique one. It is certainly not the first Super Sentai parody anime on the block, but it is doing something wholly original by focusing on the Rangers being the worst sort of people – and all of them being “the worst” in distinctly different ways.
If you love anime that twists heroes into actually being the bad guys, then this is a series for you. Furthermore, it is a series that puts effort into, not just some quality animation, but into keeping the unfolding story unexpected. There is a way you expect the story to go, and it masterfully dodges and weaves into other directions while still being a cohesive narrative. It is unique, and I love it when anime tells new stories with tropes and situations that audiences are more than familiar with already.
Kaiju No. 8
For years, grotesque giant monsters have appeared suddenly to attack Japan. To combat the destructive threat, the Defense Corps was established to fight them and the Professional Kaiju Cleaner Corporation was created to clean up the massive remains.
Kafka Hibino is a middle-aged man who works as a sweeper cleaning up remains despite his big childhood dreams of becoming a Defense Corps member with his childhood friend. While his friend thrives as a powerful asset in the Defense Corps, Kafka has failed the recruitment exam numerous times.
After meeting an ambitious new recruit to his sweeper unit named Reno, a kaiju attack leaves them both in the hospital where a small, parasitic kaiju embeds himself in Kafka and turns him into a monster.
With Reno’s help, Kafka is able to flee and eventually transform back into a human, but he is left with the ability to become a kaiju at will and has access to superhuman abilities that he can use to fight kaiju.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Kaiju No. 8 was the series anime fans decided to hype in the pre-season for Spring 2024, and, as usual, the anime is good!
It blows you away with stunning animation, but also does the thing that Loser Ranger does where it tells a new story from an old genre we already have worn into the dirt – in this case, fighting Kaiju.
Instead of following good guy Godzilla or a hyper agent fighting Kaijuu creations like Gridman, Kaijuu No. 8 follows a man that becomes a Kaijuu and joins a Kaijuu fighting unit. However, the charming bits of this series is, again, like Loser Ranger, how it dodges the unexpected plot progression. You think he’ll use his powers and finally pass that exam and finally get to be a hero, but things don’t go quite like that – and that, as well as how likable many of the characters are, is the most charming part.
Oblivion Battery
In middle school, Haruka Kiyomine and Kei Kaname formed a genius battery that crushed the dreams of anyone that played against them. However, Kaname lost his memory and decided to put playing baseball behind him.
Not wanting to leave his catcher and best friend behind for baseball fame, Kiyomine joined Kaname in entering Kotesashi High School, a public high school that doesn’t even have a baseball team.
However, the duo are not the only middle school baseball stars that chose to hide from the sport there, and they discover that a love for baseball may fade but it never completely goes away.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
I enjoy most sports anime I watch, but it has to be really special to make it worth mentioning on seasonal lists. Oblivion Battery is indeed very special, but not in the way you’d expect. It is special in that it tells a solid sports story, but also inject an above average amount of very solid comedy.
Now why did this series fly so low under the radar? I have a theory. People who watch sports anime don’t watch them for comedy, and people who enjoy comedy anime don’t go looking for it in sports anime.
Sports anime always has some comedy in there, but is always minimal. It is never the Gintama-esque affair of references to other series and low-brow stuff like nipple hair jokes that Oblivion Battery enjoys. So unfortunately, the audience that would enjoy this show would not organically watch it.
Mission: Yozakura Family
After his family died in a car crash when he was young, Taiyo Asano became increasingly socially inept. Now in high school, the only person he is able to really connect with is his childhood friend, Mutsumi Yozakura. However, one day he discovers that Mutsumi is actually the future head of a family of the world’s strongest spies, despite having no special spy abilities herself.
With her eldest brother ultra-protective of his little sister ever since she got injured as a child, he has marked Taiyo for execution. The only way to survive his lethal spy skills is for Mutsumi to marry Taiyo, thus making him part of the family.
While Taiyo resists at first, he eventually agrees to marry Mutsumi as well as to train to become a world-class spy himself to ensure her protection.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
In a very Spy X Family sort of way, Mission: Yozakura Family got a bit of pre-season hype – which promptly dropped off a cliff.
It isn’t that Mission: Yozakura Family is bad. It certain has some flaws, but it is lacks the same sort of unique likable appeal that Spy X Family has because Yozakura Family dares to be a little more about the action and less about world-weary spies, assassins, and a child experiment building a family together.
However, what makes this series so charming is that despite its flaws, it always brings the episode together by being so cute as well as sometimes dodging really tired and obvious tropes.
The show is hard to appeal to people who want a shounen action anime. It hard to appeal to those that want wholesome romance or family slice of life. However, for the smaller amount of people that want both – it has actually been a lot fun to watch.
Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night
Mahiru Kouzuki had a gift for art from a young age, but after her classmates ridiculed a jellyfish mural she worked so hard on, she gave it up. In front of that aging mural years later, she meets an unexpected fan of it, Kano Yamanouchi, a former idol who has a troubled past in the industry.
Kano enlists Mahiru’s help creating a mascot for her new music project, JELEE, a V-Tube idol. Recruiting a reclusive V-Tuber and a gifted musician, the four girls set out to make JELEE a global sensation while working through their own troubles.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
It’s a big season for what I’m calling “Girls in a Band” anime. And by a “big season,” I mean that there are two series that are exactly the same plot – maybe three if Whisper Me a Love Song focuses more on the band element and less on the girl’s love, which seems unlikely, but possible.
Regardless, Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night actually lacks a lot of the marketable insert songs that generally fuel the Girls in a Band genre and probably fuel their profitability. However, what you get instead, and what makes it worth watching, is the incredibly modern character drama it explores.
The characters aren’t in a band, technically, they are creating music to upload online for their V-Tuber idol persona. This means Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night is more than just making music, but creating art, marketing, and getting them clicks, ya’ll. In the age of – not so much social media – but video media like YouTube and TikTok, it is actually great to see a series that explores it, and explores it in a way that feels like it knows the modern cultural zeitgeist.
Girls Band Cry
After growing up in a small rural town with strict parents, Nina Iseri leaves it all behind to start over in the city. With her time in the city off to a rough start, she ends up going to a street concert for Momoka Kawaragi, a small musician whose song inspired Nina to move to the city in the first place.
Getting to know Momoko, and discovering that both of them are at odds with the disappointing, dream-crushing nature of the world, she talks Nina into forming a band with her as a way to vent their frustrations.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Girls Band Cry slid firmly under the radar of seasonal fans due to two reasons, primarily.
First, it wasn’t picked up by the streaming platforms like HiDive or Crunchyroll, assuring that it would go unnoticed and unsampled by a large swathe of the broad audience. Second, Girls Band Cry has the kind of shoddy CGI animation of low-budget, low-effort anime that most wouldn’t even bother to sample in the first place. You know, like High Speed Etoille.
However, what Girls Band Cry doesn’t have is a low effort story, and, upon giving it a chance, you see the animation isn’t actually low effort either. The story and the characters shine because they are likable, flawed, and have relatable personal problems and aspirations. If Girls Band Cry had been given the Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night shine treatment in terms of animation, it would have been just as popular.
As it was so egregiously overlooked, it I wanted to make sure that it got put on the radar of the tens of people who read my seasonal recommendations. Givign it a shot, you see the charm in the story immediately, and the small subtle animation put into the CGI actually wins you over, too. If this is the future of Toei Animation, and they can refine that CGI style a bit further, I look forward to it.
As a final note, since they are so similar, Girls Band Cry has the better bops and more fun-to-watch characters. Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night has the better character drama and animation.
What were your favorite anime from the Spring 2024 season? Let fans know in the comments section below.
