With another new year comes more anime to watch as they get released month after month. 2021 gave us a great selection of shows across several genres, and here are the brand-new anime that you should be looking forward to in 2022.
Of course, new seasons of popular shows like Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, Kaguya-Sama, and more are on the way (or already underway), but this list won’t be mentioning any already established hits. Here are a few to keep on your radar that are just starting out this year.
Spy x Family (April 2022)
New Anime 2022
Spy x Family is an action-comedy that throws three otherwise unrelated characters together into a family unit where everyone is hiding secrets from each other — secrets that usually involve spy work, assassinations, and even psychic abilities.
Loid, Yor, and Anya make up the artificial (and aptly named) “Forger” family. When he isn’t playing the father role to hide his identity, Loid is an agent known as Twilight who’s working as a master spy to prevent major international incidents. Yor, the mother, is actually an assassin who uses her office job and family life as a cover.
And finally, Anya is the daughter Loid and Yor decide to adopt. But little do they know that she’s an esper who can read minds. This six-year-old knows the double lives her new parents are living but doesn’t reveal anything to either one of them because she thinks it’s cool.
This family unit has a lot going on, and, as expected, that leads to some expectedly hilarious circumstances.
Summertime Render (April 2022)
New Anime 2022
Summertime Render is much more serious than Spy x Family in terms of tone, as it deals with a murder mystery that initially looks like a tragic drowning accident.
Shinpei Ajiro lived with two sisters, Mio and Ushio Kifune, after the death of his parents. He eventually moves to Tokyo, but needs to return to his hometown after Ushio drowns trying to save a girl named Shiori Kobayakawa. When Shinpei comes back to pay his respects, he finds that not everything is as it seems.
Bruising is found around Ushio’s neck, and Shinpei has a vision where she asks him to save Mio. Summertime Render is all about Shinpei attempting to find the truth behind Ushio’s death while trying to keep his friends and family safe from the new dangers that have appeared.
Tomodachi Game (April 2022)
New Anime 2022
Tomodachi Game is another 2022 anime that’s on the serious side in terms of genre. This psychological thriller pits friends against each other while testing the strength of their relationships in a mind-bending game.
Yuuichi Katagiri’s circle of friends manages to keep him upbeat and positive despite the rough financial situation he’s been dealing with his whole life. However, tensions rise when the money that Yuuichi saved up for a trip goes missing, and he suspects two of his friends of stealing it all.
Soon after that incident, everyone in the friend group receives mysterious letters that cause them to meet up and get knocked out. When they awake, they’re told by an outsider that one of the friends gathered the group together to settle a huge debt. Yuuichi needs to figure out which friend is the traitor while being forced to play various games that test the group’s loyalty and resolve.
Call of the Night (July 2022)
New Anime 2022
Bringing things back into a more lighthearted genre, Call of the Night is a romance story involving vampires and a surprisingly interesting appreciation for just wandering around cities at night when life can be seen through a different lens.
Kou Yamori is a middle schooler who is tired of putting on a front in his regular life. Fed up with acting a certain way around classmates, he decides to quit school and wander around his small town at night after developing insomnia. That’s when things get a bit crazy.
Kou ends up meeting a vampire named Nazuna Nanakusa while roaming around aimlessly. She invites him to her apartment, where she goes to bite his neck while he pretends to sleep, as vampires tend to do. With her secret out and Kou enamored by the freedom of the night and supernatural beings, he decides that he wants to become a vampire himself.
Uzumaki (October 2022)
New Anime 2022
An animated version of legendary author Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is set to release in October, which would be perfect timing for this classic, mind-bending horror story.
The small town of Kurouzu-cho is just the right setting for a creepy, unexplainable horror story to take place. One day, while on the way to the train station, Kirie Goshima notices that her boyfriend’s father is staring at a snail in an alleyway. She mentions this to her boyfriend, Shuuichi, and he explains that this odd behavior has been happening often.
Shuuichi wants to escape the town, as it has been “infected with spirals.” And he seems to be right, as insanity spreads throughout Kurouzu-cho while terrifying and deadly spiral-related events become more and more frequent.
Chainsaw Man (Date TBD)
New Anime 2022
Chainsaw Man is likely the most well-known upcoming shonen series thanks to the popularity of the now-finished manga as well as the news that animation studio MAPPA will be working on the adaptation.
The story follows a boy named Denji who lives in poverty thanks to a debt he owes to the yakuza. They have Denji earn money by killing “devils” — supernatural creatures with terrifying powers — with the help of Pochita, the chainsaw devil. Of course, things go from bad to worse, and Denji soon becomes the wielder of Pochita’s power, becoming the titular Chainsaw Man in a bloody, dark, and, sometimes, oddly funny world.
MAPPA has brought us recent standouts like Jujutsu Kaisen, Dorohedoro, and the final season of Attack on Titan, so fans of the manga can rest assured that Chainsaw Man is in good hands. And if the recent trailer is anything to go by, this will be a wild adaptation in all the right ways.
Blue Lock (Date TBD)
New Anime 2022
Blue Lock is all about soccer, making it a huge change of pace from everything else on this list. Though, it’s soccer with a bit of a twist that makes it stand out from some recent feel-good, team-centric sports anime like Haikyuu.
The Japanese Football Association decides to hire an eccentric coach named Jinpachi Ego in an attempt to help Japan win the World Cup, but Jinpachi goes a bit overboard and begins the Blue Lock program to find a player that fits his idea of a selfish striker. The Blue Lock is essentially a prison facility that 300 high schoolers from all across the country have now entered to make their soccer dreams come true.
The students all need to compete against each other to become Japan’s striker but losing means that they’ll be banned from ever joining the national team. Yoichi Isagi joins the program to become the world’s greatest striker after failing to bring his school team to the national tournament by making an unselfish play.
Blue Lock is basically soccer with the shonen anime levels dialed up to 100%.
Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku (Date TBD)
New Anime 2022
Stepping away from futuristic soccer prison and going back in time, we have Hell’s Paradise. This is an anime about ninja, supernatural mysteries, and the will to live.
Gabimaru the Hollow is the main protagonist here. He’s a ninja known for his skill as a killer and his emotionless nature. He gets betrayed by his fellow ninja, which lands him on death row for past actions. His only reason for living, at this point, is seeing his wife again.
To escape the death row sentencing, Gabimaru must go on an expedition to an island that’s rumored to be “Paradise” alongside a team of other individuals who are also marked for death.
This is yet another MAPPA anime, so say another silent prayer for those animators as the studio takes on yet another show on top of Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man, a Kakegurui spin-off, and two movies this year.
Tons of anime come out every year, so we might’ve missed a few that you may be looking forward to. You can share some recommendations in the comment section below if you have any!
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