The Best Anime of Summer 2026
Back at Anime News Network HQ, we're hotly debating how many series from summer 2026 will make it into our Best of the Year feature when December rolls around. Science SARU's The Ghost in the Shell and Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia, alongside Kinema Citrus' Goodbye, Lara, were hotly anticipated before the season started, but which reigned supreme when the season closed?
Below are the top 10 anime of the Spring 2026 anime season. Let us know which ones you watched, made your top 10, and what anime you bounced off of in the comments.
11. Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 4
Finishing season 1 of Re:Zero back then left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the series a lot, but one thing left a strong bitter taste: Subaru during the Royal Selection Assembly(episode 12-13 of season 1). Somehow, that became the aspect I remembered the most, and it made me avoid watching Re:Zero altogether. Although I still read the episode reviews from time to time, I only started catching up when season 3 hit its climax. By the end of the explosive season 3, Re:Zero became one of my favorite af all time.
Since then, Subaru hasn't just been an anime character for me. He is a complete person with merits and flaws. I still remember jerk Subaru from season 1, but I don't see that as a bad thing anymore. I have seen him from many angles and perspectives, and I understand that he's grown a lot as a person. He's also grown from what I disliked into what I like most in the series. When I say I want to watch Re:Zero, it means I want to watch Subaru's story.
My liking for Subaru turns into a problem when the amnesia happens in this season. I worry that the story would throw away all that growth in favor of restarting Subaru and having him tread another route of personal growth. I almost dropped this season during the break. However, I powered through and was surprised. Subaru's memory returning genuinely feels triumphant.
The challenges that Subaru and friends face have been consistently intriguing. The writing keeps one-upping itself in world-building, tensions, and character interactions. Four seasons in, I am still engaged with the characters' struggles and triumphs. Everybody gets their ups and downs. The return-by-death ability hasn't become a sore point of the story; in fact, it is still one of the strongest points. I love Subaru's different experiences in each return, as they slowly flesh out the problems he and the other characters face. And they are never simple to begin with.
So far, Re:Zero has been a must-watch for me, and I believe it will continue to be. I'll follow Subaru's story to the end, and I'll enjoy it regardless of whether it's good or bad.
—Gunawan
10. Kaiju Girl Caramelise
What I love most about kaiju media is how monsters can serve almost any narrative purpose in the right hands. Do you need a harrowing and effective allegory for the horrors of nuclear war and the failure of the government to adequately protect its citizens? The original Godzilla and Shin Godzilla have you covered. Are you looking for a thrilling, character-driven mix of fantasy and monster-mayhem spectacle? Check out the excellent trilogy of Gamera films from the '90s. Is your brain crying out for a break from the world's complications and an opportunity to revel in cheesy, absurd, and utterly joyous rubber-suited wrestling matches? I have several choice seasons of Ultraman to recommend.
The point is, giant monsters are magnificently malleable symbols for any storyteller to play around with, and that's what makes Kaiju Girl Caramelise so special. Plenty of stories have used supernatural elements and genre-mashups to add flavor to otherwise typical coming-of-age narratives, but KGC tells all of the competition to keep their magical girl transformations at home, lock up their sexy vampires, and shove those fancy wizard schools straight where the sun doesn't shine. The thing that sets our heroine Kuroe apart from every other lovestruck and socially awkward goth girl who has struggled to make friends and confess her feelings to the cutest boy in school is that her body sprouts claws, scales, and tails whenever she starts to lose control of those hormone-addled emotions of hers. When things get especially crazy, Kuroe transforms into a giant-but-honestly-still-pretty-adorable dinosaur named Harugon who is just legally distinct enough from TOHO's King of the Monsters to let the anime get away with all sorts of fun references to the most famous kaiju flicks of all time. Her pal Manatsu is a Harugon superfan who dresses up like a colorful moth and begs to be stepped on. Her other bestie, Rairi, is a gorgeous gyaru who secretly hides the visage of a gorilla beneath layers of makeup. You get the picture, I'm sure.
As a tokusatsu superfan, I was obviously overjoyed to see Kaiju Girl Caramelise deploy weapons-grade fanservice with all of its nods to classic Godzilla movies and the like, and the show does a genuinely good job of mixing CGI and 2D animation to replicate the look and feel of its cinematic inspirations. More importantly, though, is the way that KGC succeeds at being a funny, sweet, and deeply empathetic romantic comedy about a kid who just wants to go out with her awesome new boyfriend and find herself a little without having to worry about crushing all of Tokyo beneath her feet every time her heart goes a little too wild with the doki-dokis. The earnest friendships Kuroe builds with her classmates give the series a wholesome atmosphere, and I'll always give credit to an anime romance that lets its central couple date and be in a relationship before the very last episode. Kaiju Girl Caramelise is the very definition of expertly crafted anime comfort food, and you don't even have to be obsessed with giant monster movies to enjoy it.
—James Beckett
9. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity
Wild to think that in the big 26, Bleach and shows by Rumiko Takahashi (MAO) and Hiromu Arakawa (Daemons of the Shadow Realm) have all been airing during the same season. It's always 2006 somewhere, I guess—not that I'm complaining. It's been a great season to be a 30-something-year-old with fond memories of staying up late to watch anime on Adult Swim. Even so, this isn't quite the same Bleach you remember from back in The Day, because this final season of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is Bleach at its most high-stakes, elevated, and above all else, evolved.
If there's one thing Thousand-Year Blood War has consistently excelled in every season, it's spectacle. Whether it's the explosive fights, incredible character moments, dynamic direction, the continuously upped ante, or the downright cinematic visuals, everything about it just screams excitement. This anime is basically one giant compilation of hype Bleach moments—it's everything you could want out of a battle shonen, and more. Manga readers and anime-only fans alike have had their expectations blown out of the water week after week, with this season in particular having some of the most memorable moments across all four seasons of this show. It's Bleach at its absolute best.
Admittedly, this season of Thousand-Year Blood War has suffered from some pacing issues, and not every loose end gets tied up as neatly as one would want. And silly as it sounds, it's “cursed” in that because this anime succeeds so much and so often at creating spectacle, it makes it feel all the more noticeable—and moreover, all the more underwhelming—when it doesn't hit the extremely high bar that it's set for itself. To emphasize: This is a problem every anime wishes it could have. The bar didn't get set that high for no reason, after all. At every turn, this anime has proven week after week—across all four of its seasons, but this one especially—what makes Bleach so legendary and memorable. I don't think it's at all hyperbolic to call Bleach a generation-defining anime, and Thousand-Year Blood War turns the idea of sending it out with a bang to its furthest extreme.
As of the time of writing, we're still waiting on the all-important final two episodes of this show, which are currently scheduled to air well into October. But it'll have to fumble its ending pretty hard for me to change my mind about this show—and even if it did, there would be something to say about how, in spite of the destination, the journey was nonetheless a ton of fun. Still, if they're anything even remotely comparable to what we've seen thus far, then this is going to be a truly spectacular finale. This anime knows it's at the absolute apex of battle shonen epics, and dares you to say otherwise.
—Kennedy
8. Though I Am an Inept Villainess
They say that the best way to understand someone is to walk a mile in their shoes. Though I Am an Inept Villainess takes that a step farther: Reirin and Keigetsu walk a mile in each other's bodies. The titular body swap, though, is only the surface of this story. Set in the inner palace of a fictional China-like empire, the story follows the desperate bid of a maligned, ignored young woman to seize a bit of happiness for herself, even if that means stealing it from someone else. But what she doesn't realize is that her target wasn't particularly happy either, and by changing places, both of them not only find a bit of validation, but they also uncover the real culprit in their lives: the Maiden Court system.
That's my favorite piece of this story. No one person is actually a “villain[ess],” it's the system that forces women into competition with each other for the love (or at least attention) of a single man, determining their entire worth based on who he's attracted to. Keigetsu goes from an abusive family situation to an equally awful one in the inner palace, where everyone is constantly comparing her to Reirin, the so-called paragon of virtue. But Reirin, for all her good cheer, isn't happy, either; she's constantly sick and has to spend her whole life just trying to be strong enough to keep breathing. She's in a situation where if she doesn't smile, she'll scream, and if she's not strong, she'll die. So when Keigetsu casts a spell that switches their bodies, Reirin has a new lease on life – literally. And Keigetsu finally has the chance to be taken care of and loved, even if it takes her a bit to get her “Reirin” act down pat.
While I'm still not entirely comfortable with the story's suggestion that Reirin was “rewarded” with a healthy body (and it absolutely can be interpreted that way, at least in early episodes), the more important theme is that both of these young women deserve to be happy, and they can achieve that better once they've switched bodies. Reirin yearns for independence, Keigetsu wants to be doted on. Swapping bodies is the only way they can truly make that happen in the society they live in. It finally gives them a chance they were otherwise denied, and that's beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, this show is absolutely gorgeous. From Reirin dancing the real-life Sogdian Whirl (did I mention this show does its research?) to the flutter of long hair to the downfall of the only person who might be properly termed a villain, this show is beautiful. The colors are rich, the animation fluid, and even the gross insects are rendered exquisitely. It's a joy to just look at, and given that shoujo titles don't always get that treatment, it's just the icing on what's already a very good cake.
Whether you watch this as a feminist deconstruction of inner court politics, a fantasy romp, a fun new interpretation of Becky Sharp from William Thackery's Vanity Fair (that's another essay), or simply a solid show with good world building and character writing, it doesn't matter. Just watch it, because this is one of the smartest, most fun series of Summer '26.
—Rebecca
7.The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 3
We have been blessed with a third season of The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You, which means it gets to grace ANN's seasonal Best Of write-up for a third time! Okay, technically this is the anime's fourth appearance on one of these since both AJ and Nick made the premiere season of the RomCom their runner-up favorites when it premiered in the Fall of 2023, but that was a different format, and I'm about to shower this show with enough praise that we don't need to get nitpicky about accolades.
The most striking element of 100 GF's third season is how none of these characters and their various schticks have gotten old. By the end of the first season of most anime rom-coms, I've had my fill of the cast and their will-they-won't-they shenanigans. 100 GFs side-steps this by having its entire cast date in what's sure to go down as the most precious and powerful polyclue in all of anime, but also by giving these characters new situations and adorable oddballs to play off of. For instance, just as Karane was starting to get a little tired as the tsundere straight man of the Rentaro family, the first new girlfriend introduced this season, Chiyo Iin, fills this niche with her compulsive need for order. Not only does Chiyo take some of the narrative workload off Karane, but her bouts of hypercompetence followed by helplessness also give Hahari a more willing recipient for her mothering tendencies. Though Kishika Torotoro, who picked up an age regression kink after co-parenting her younger siblings for much of her life, is an even better recipient for Hahari's maternal machinations.
Speaking of new characters, this season might feature the best batch of girlfriends that we've gotten yet! A healthy mix of more gimmicky characters, like the handsy Momiji Momi and the loli grandma Yaku Yakuzen, and characters more informed by social and personal themes like Chiyo Iin, Nadeshiko Yamato, Yamame Yasashiki, and Kishika Torotoro; this season brings as much hilarity as it does heart. While I wish Naddy got more time to shine this season, the screen time she does get is very fun, and the idea of a woman who feels so restricted by Japanese society that she makes her entire identity a stereotype of American culture — and is thereby roasting American culture with her every line of dialogue — is really compelling. I also appreciate that this season explores why various kinds of submissive intimacy are appealing to otherwise independent characters like Chiyo and Kishika, and I love that Yamame is actually tall! Sure, her being a farm gal with a Midwestern accent in the dub is probably having some kind of Freudian effect on me and my Wisconsin upbringing, but I'm so tired of media that makes “tall girl” characters shorter than I am (6'3) and appreciate any work that fully commits to depicting this body type.
I also struggle to think of any anime that manages to be this affecting and earnest while also not taking itself seriously. This season opening with a jump ahead in the continuity to the Rentaro Family getting interviewed by a human interest journalist was both a great way to introduce upcoming girlfriends and refamiliarize the audience with previous ones, and the meta gag of God yelling about the continuity error is one of the best anime-only jokes we've gotten yet.
This season of The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You opens with some of the best comedy I've ever seen in a RomCom, and closes with a deeply touching storyline in which Rentaro helps Shizuka stand up to and connect with her mother. This anime is a master of both the Rom and Com, and I hope we get many seasons; however, it takes on every possible gag, misadventure, and tender moment the human imagination can conjure with one hundred incredible girlfriends.
Also, the ending animation for this season is easily the best of the year, and I'm going to fight for it to be at the top of 2026 “Best Of” lists, denoting it as such as the year closes out!
—Lucas DeRuyter
6. Iron Wok Jan!
This is not the beloved 90's manga I thought I'd be writing a “Best of” entry for, but here we are.
At the end of the first episode, I thought the monologue about Iron Wok Jan! being one of the greatest manga of the decade, nay, of all time, was a bit overblown. And honestly, my opinion on that hasn't changed. However, I can't deny that reverence helped create an adaptation filled with unapologetic verve that I found myself addicted to watching every week, much like a panel of judges guzzling hallucinogenic soup.
Structurally, Iron Wok Jan! isn't too different from any battle shonen series, a genre I swore off years ago. Jan strides into Gobancho utterly convinced of his greatness, makes some friends along the way, including a less-skilled chef who can comment on his technique, enters into an intense rivalry, and even gets into a cooking tournament. I could say that what makes it special is that the genre hadn't yet calcified into the structure that every dang series of the genre these days follows, but I don't think that's quite it.
No, what makes the series special is Jan Akiyama himself. In any other story, Jan would be the villain. He scowls his way through life, pausing only to cackle maniacally (thank you, Kikunosuke Toya, for that laugh) about how all cooking is a competition that he's going to win. He backs up his arrogance with skill and usually comes out on top, creating innovative dishes from ingredients using techniques I've never heard of; if nothing else, this show has taught me how little I know about Chinese cuisine. At the same time, he's extremely vulnerable, crashing out at the slightest failure. His prowess as a chef, emotional instability, and the disfiguring scars covering his back are all the product of a childhood of abuse from his grandfather, who trained him to inherit the Akiyama techniques by beating the crap out of him every time he made a mistake.
Really, the character I wanted to root for was Kiriko. Jan's foil and a fellow teenage Gobancho chef, she operates under the philosophy that good should be cooked with love and care for whoever is eating it. Don't let this fool you into thinking she's a touchie-feely softie; she throws a mean punch and will go to the mat just as ready as Jan will. While the two squabble, moments of tenderness also surface, creating a sense of deep kismessitude. Even better, the show treats her with a respect that's still rarely shown to female characters.
Much like the Chinese cuisine that it venerates, Iron Wok Jan! is about balance. It balances Jan's villainy with his vulnerability, his harshness with Kiriko and Okonogi's kindness, extremity with groundedness. And, like the dishes the characters create, the result is addictively delicious. Here's hoping for another season.
—Caitlin Moore
5. Saga of Tanya the Evil II
Another chapter of Tanya in the books, another chapter of war, murder, mayhem, nationalism, authoritarianism, and ideology; every page, every dog-eared corner, dripped in blood. Tanya the Evil's sophomore season was already primed to become one of the most controversial anime of the year, but to also remain this involving and engaging after so much time between seasons and the movie is a monumental feat in its own right. This was a sequel that retained Tanya's delicate balance of the violent with the philosophical, delivering in all of the ways expected while still rising above.
I've brushed on this in the Summer Preview Guide, but it bears repeating. More than just the story of a reincarnated entity's ruthless fight for survival, Tanya the Evil is an unraveling of Hegelian philosophy to the most obscene degree; a world where its citizens are mere pawns played out to achieve historical progress, made to wage war with the world until the bloody end. But what end? Halfway through, Rudersdorf signals to Tanya that this war has no end goal other than victory. And it's a vague notion at best. Victory to these characters presents itself through mindless, senseless, pure destruction, and no justification of putting nation above ideology, or even being manipulated by Being X, can change that.
So Tanya's second season is just as gritty and thought-provoking as its first season was. It's not as perfect, and it gets too bogged down in its own violence at times. On a technical level, the gunfire, explosions, tanks, and airfights are as spectacular in this season as they were in the last season. Yet I felt that there were stretches of military warfare that were satisfying on an animation level but not so much on a narrative level, which at times felt like more of the same bout of explosions rather than anything truly revelatory. I'm also not the biggest fan of how the second season may or may not have repeated the movie's ending (“Haha Tanya, did you really think you'd get out of fighting that easily? Well guess what...!”). Still, the best scenes of Tanya's second season are the ones that happen off the battlefield, and there's still plenty of that: the behind-the-scenes chatter of ruthless men and women conducting acts of cruelty while burying themselves under the veil of power and esteem, remaining authoritarian fiends whose principles the world must reject.
—Jeremy Tauber
4. Chainsmoker Cat
If that were all there is to Chainsmoker Cat, I would find it an interesting show. A prestige-looking lowbrow comedy with the aesthetic inclinations of a cinephile (just peep the OP) is a unique specimen in the world of animation, and that alone would be worthy of scholarly analysis. However, Chainsmoker Cat also works extremely well as an ensemble comedy. In fact, once the premiere finishes its work weeding out the weak, the rest of the episodes and skits are largely character-driven, fleshing out the personalities and interpersonal dynamics of its cast of maladjusted oddballs. Individually, they may seem like one-note characters defined by their gimmick, but as a whole, they form a weirdly endearing found family of cat girls (alongside their token humans).
I'd like to give special mention to Kansai Neko in particular, who is the most well-adjusted of the group. Her only addictions are to terrible jokes and outdated pop culture references, so she is a neko after my own heart. I also appreciate the irony of the try-hard comedian acting as the “straight man” in her group of feline disasters. Yaku Neko also deserves a shout-out for having the most interiority. After her addiction to harder drugs is introduced and thoroughly lampooned, the rest of the show drops hint after hint about the troubles in her personal life that likely led her down that path. These are broad strokes, but they paint a surprisingly compelling portrait.
The phrase “surprisingly compelling” applies to the worldbuilding as well, as it quickly becomes apparent that the beastfolk are the narrative's vehicle for social commentary. As a generalized stand-in for marginalized populations, the series mixes plenty of metaphors (sometimes beastfolk are stand-ins for foreigners, sometimes for indigenous populations, sometimes for the poor and unhoused, and even sometimes for trans people) to varying degrees of success. But the big picture is that of a societally and legislatively enforced underclass who are segregated, appropriated, and fetishized by the masses, which makes it no wonder why so many of them turn to various addictions to cope. It is exceedingly rare for an anime to take a direct and unvarnished lens to this slice of society, and even rarer for one to do so alongside talking boner jokes. That, to me, is the quintessence of Chainsmoker Cat.
—Sylvia Jones
3. The Ghost in the Shell
While I have a lot of fondness for Mamoru Oshii's 1995 Ghost in the Shell film, and I especially adore Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex in all its forms (yes, even iSAC: 2045 since it at least gave us Purin), Masamune Shirow's original manga was a work I never quite managed to get around to, so when Science SARU confirmed they were working on a more manga-accurate iteration of the franchise, I was pretty curious to see how it compares to its looser adaptations. The differences don't take very long to show themselves, as where Mamoru Oshii and Kenji Kamiyama's visions of The Major portrayed her as a generally stoic super soldier, this version of Motoko is a bisexual gremlin who can be a bit of a disaster both on and off the clock, as she approaches her work as a special agent with all the energy of working a 9-5 job that she barely tolerates. That tongue-in-cheek approach to the show's otherwise bleak cyberpunk dystopian future permeates nearly every second of its runtime, and Science SARU's visual presentation does a wonderful job of matching that aesthetic. Much of the usual exquisite mechanical design that Ghost in the Shell tends to be known for is balanced out here with extremely bouncy animation and a buffet of wacky facial expressions, which all come together to set a tone that can feel as humorous as it does darkly cynical.
However, for as different as a lot of that sounds from either of its most iconic anime counterparts, this story is still very much Ghost in the Shell. Even if it approaches all of GitS' usual topics with a sardonic sense of humor, all of those musings are still very much here, whether it be commenting on the general stuffiness of Japanese bureaucracy, the harsh realities of what kind of geopolitics our modern society is built on (though perhaps not quite as real as it could have been in that regard since this sadly ended up having to dance around which countries it's criticizing), and of course a few philosophical musings about what being human even means in a world that's become increasingly cyberized. Similarly, while Suzie Yeung's dub performance as Motoko is a pretty noticeable departure from what Mary Elizabeth McGlynn was doing in Stand Alone Complex in terms of style, it's still every bit as charismatic in a way that immediately grabs your attention, with a lot of that energy extending to the rest of the new English cast, who all turn in excellent work across the board. Being someone who leans pretty heavily towards anime original works, and likes when anime adaptations are allowed to take notable creative liberties with their material, I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish Science SARU had gotten to do their own unique version of Ghost in the Shell, but if we had to get an adaptation that was truer to the text at least once, it's clear that it couldn't have ended up in better hands.
—Jairus Taylor
2. Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia
Science SARU has always been a remarkable studio. Founded by auteur director Masaaki Yuasa back in 2013, they've since been responsible for such incredible works of animation as Yuasa's own INU-OH (one of my top anime movies of all time), Naoko Yamada's wonderful film The Colors Within, plus justly acclaimed TV anime like Dandadan, SANDA, and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. This season, especially, they've been firing on all cylinders. Not only did they produce a definitive new version of The Ghost in the Shell, which would have been revelatory enough, but they also graced us with the aforementioned chief director Naoko Yamada's gorgeous Jaadugar, a series I've been hotly anticipating since I first saw the beautiful preview months ago.
Jaadugar is immediately striking in its distinctly non-anime "look", with a style much more reminiscent of European cartoons. With its almost cutesy, rounded characters, it reminds me a lot of another great show: Ranking of Kings. Yet while that fantasy show's hero, Prince Bojji, lives in a world of magic and bizarre creatures, Jaadugar's Sitara's situation is grounded more in meticulously researched real-world history. Not many anime protagonists are thirteenth-century Persian slave girls, and few other shows explore ancient Central Asian cultures in such detail.
Although Sitara is a slave, she feels her life in Persia is happy - and in fact she idealizes this past life, as once the Mongols invade and murder her essentially adoptive family, she's dragged into a nomadic existence on the expansive Mongolian steppe, filled with resentment for her captors. Initially powerless, her continued safety depends on the whims of a succession of mistresses, each with varying degrees of prominence within the Mongolian hierarchy. Interred in a strange land, enmeshed in an alien culture with its own unfamiliar language, she endeavors to find a niche, while never allowing herself to forget her fury at the Great Kha'an and his family.
Adopting the more acceptable alias "Fatima", her progression to eventual political prominence is fuelled by a mixture of dumb luck, cowed obedience, and fierce intelligence. She begins the story as a trembling slave girl, but concludes the season as a woman of grim, burning determination. Accompanied by a fascinating cast of complex characters, almost all of whom are based on real, historical figures (as is Sitara herself), it's a stunningly told drama that unfortunately ends just as the tale gets really interesting.
Author Tomato Soup's manga is still ongoing, so I live in hope of a second season sooner rather than later. Having read about Sitara's real-life fate, however, I dread witnessing the rest of her story, as much as I long to see this studio depict it.
—Kevin Cormack
1. Goodbye, Lara
From the theatrics of Revue Starlight to the horrors of Made in Abyss, Kinema Citrus and director Takushi Koide have shown they can bring to life stories that mirror the fantastical and frightening nature of old fairy tales. So it feels only appropriate that the studio's big anniversary project would tackle a classic of fantasy literature. The Little Mermaid, in its original form, famously does not end nicely. Here, Koide and the crew took the chance to interrogate what might happen after the mermaid's unhappily ever after, as well as pontificate on what the storybook conceit of "true love" even actually means in the real world. What they arrived at was a story not about a mermaid falling in love with a human, but falling in love with being human. And over the course of it, I fell in love with Goodbye, Lara.
Falling in love is easy at first sight. There's charm for days in Lara, both the series and the title character herself. She's a marvelously endearing merfailure, likably described as "dumb and silly" by her roommate Mari. And for Lara's part, it's easy to see why the water behind her splooshes up for Mari—whoever at Kinema Citrus had the idea to assign the secondary main character a subplot involving girls' boxing has a brain the size of a planet. Mari is basically running a whole other anime inside this anime on her own, and threatens to run away with the show itself multiple times. The one keeping her on track: Grace, the sea witch? Another runaway hit of a cast member who could carry a whole series herself.
The characters are inherently appealing, yes, but the way they interconnect and surround Lara's story embodies the love it examines and expresses. The series thrives in everyday experiences touched with magic, whether through transformed sea creatures walking around or the ominous giant fish-knife hanging over the proceedings like a finny sword of Damocles. Life goes on; Lara gives and collects so much love- that's the real purpose laid out as early as the anime's opening animation.
That opening is a labor of love, jazzed up with actual, physical cel animation. Kinema Citrus is just showing off here, and why shouldn't they? It's their anniversary. The anime's presentation is similarly bold, with contrasting strong colors, and Lara's red highlights her while also sharing palettes with pieces like Mari's boxing gloves. Opposite that is a vibrant background blue shade that I fell in love with even as it threatened to swallow everything. Goodbye, Lara plays with design, framing, and symbology in ways that will reward repeat viewings.
But even just on this first pass, it's a series I found rewarding. Sure, I could guess the way Lara's journey might ultimately lead—her departure is right there in the title, after all. But the beauty in fairy tales is in how they're told. The most lovable people, fish, and all those in between in Goodbye, Lara lived for what was most important to them, not for the preconceived notions any authority or audience had for them. That makes it a noble effort from a storied studio, director, and so many others. For me, that makes Goodbye, Lara a story that lands and walks on its own two feet.
—Christopher Farris
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