New Fall 2020 Animes To Watch NOW Part I

Fall is finally here and you know what that means…

It means that you’re staying indoors like the perfect little weeaboo N.E.E.T (Not Employed, in Education, or in Training) that you are.

What? Thought I was going to say having bonfires with your friends while you guys sip on hot coca and eat S’mores? Now, you know good and damn well you don’t have any friends.

So, what you’re going to do instead my N.E.E.T friend is watch some currently airing Fall 2020 anime for the next 3 months! With over 35+ anime shows including both original newcomers such as Akudama Drive and returning hard hitters such as Attack on Titan, you may be overwhelmed with the choices of anime to watch this fall as you sink further into your seasonal depression and escapist fantasies in hopes that 2020 will get better! (spoilers: it won’t.)

Luckily for you, I spent nearly three weeks of my otherwise productive life shifting through the trash

(*cough cough AssassultLily cough cough)

to bring you ten great amazing anime you should check out this Fall season.

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The Day I Became a God

Imagine this: you’re playing a pickup game of basketball at the park with your friend when suddenly, a middle-schooler in some weird nun cosplay outfit walk up to you. She claims that she’s Odin: an omniscient god who demands that you take her under your wing.
Naturally, you’d question if this goofy lost child who’s going through her chuunibyou phase needs to be returned back to her parents. You offer to do that for her, but she declines the offer; informing you that powerful gods like her have no need for useless mortal dwellings and parental supervision. Mind you, despite her statement against housing gods with their parents, she wants to stay at your house with your parents.
Don’t worry about it. Your parents are cool with letting some random strange girl whom they never met before stay at your house.

Just accept it.

As time progresses (and through the way of predicting the winners of horse races), you find out that Odin isn’t just some lost little girl who’s way into the cosplay thing. She’s actually a powerful all-knowing god to be feared by all.
Oh and she knows that your crush doesn’t like you. At all. She could have told you that upon your first meeting with her, but she wanted to see you suffer by watching you get rejected by her in front of your friends before the world ends in 30 days.
And it’s up to you and her to save it before the promised doomsday.
Good luck with that!

With legendary visual novel writer and music composer Jun Maeda of Key, the genius behind The Day I Became A God series, this show is shaking up to be a feels trip of connection and heart-warming events. Just pray to a god that this show doesn’t fall apart – especially given this is an original work and P.A. Work’s track recent track record is less than sterling.

[THE DAY I BECAME A GOD PRODUCTION STAFF]
STUDIO: P.A. Works (Angel Beats, Shirobako, Charlotte, The Eccentric Family, True Tears)
ORIGINS: Original anime production
CREATOR: Jun Maeda (Kanon, Air, Angel Beats!, Clannad+After Story)
DIRECTOR: Yoshiyuki Asai (Fate/Apocrypha, Charlotte as director)
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Na-Ga (Little Busters!, Angel Beats!, Charlotte)
SERIES COMPOSTION/WRITER: Jun Maeda
MUSIC COMPOSER: Jun Maeda (Angel Beats, Clannad, Kannon)

Talentless Nana

In the not too distant future, the world was under attack and nearly destroyed by those labeled as “the Enemy of Humanity”: human beings blessed with supernatural and superhuman abilities. In order to contain and control these supermen, world governments created schools for descendants of these uncanny humans.

These children would be known as “The Talented”; the next step in human evolution – and the most feared.
To save humanity from the Talented threat, anti-superhuman extremist Nana Hiiragi has infiltrated a Talented school in Japan; pretending to be a psychic.

In reality, Nana is talentless human. Her only power is that she is a cruel, calculated and callous assassin with an uncanny gift of reading body language and logical thinking on a superior level.
She’s willing stop at nothing to wage her one-woman genocidal war against The Talented.

Truthfully, I was going to drop this show. It felt like an My Hero Academia clone with pseudo protagonist Nanao playing the role of Deku (an underdog hero with no powers) who’ll overcome the odds.

This couldn’t be further from the truth as it was revealed towards the end of episode one that Nanao had powers since birth; he was lying about it.

Nana also lied about her background and murdered Nanao by throwing him off a cliff so they’re even.
Speaking of Nana, it’s clearly obvious from the OP that something happened to her as a child that was Talented related; therefore, that trauma from childhood is her fuel for the hatred.

While it’s too early to say which direction the story of Talentless Nana will go, we do have slight hope for it as series composition writer Fumihiko Shimo has a solid track record with hits such as Clannad, Higurashi: When They Cry Kai, and Kyoto Animation hit film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Just ignore the fact he worked on the disaster that is the anime adaption Umineko: When They Cry.

[TALENTED NANA PRODUCTION STAFF]
STUDIO: Bridge (Fairy Tail, Shaman King 2021)
ORIGINS: Manga
CREATOR: Looseboy (Sharin no Kuni, A Profile, G-Senjou no Maou)
DIRECTOR: Shinji Ishihira (Fairy Tail, Air Gear, and Log Horizon as director.
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Toshihiko Sano (Fairy Tail, Heybot!, Shaman King 2021 as character designer)
SERIES COMPOSTION/WRITER: Fumihiko Shimo (Air, Clannad, fate/stay night, Higurashi: When They Cry Kai, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya)
MUSIC COMPOSER: Yashuharu Takanashi (Naruto Shippuuden, Fairy Tail, Hell Girl)

Moriarty the Patriot

Acting as a prequel to the iconic author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes villain, Moriarty the Patriot follows a young Williams James Moriarty’s rise to power as the world’s first and only criminal consultant in late 19th century Britain.
A member of British Empire nobility, Moriarty has been blessed with living a simple life of luxury. His gentleman demeanor and unmatched intellect attracts both commoner and noble alike.
Despite those traits, there’s an inner darkness to Moriarty: He wants to destroy the old world and build a new one upon the old world’s ashes.
If you’re a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, enjoy seeing gentlemen tap into their dark side or even helping common man find the darkness of their own heart, Moriarty the Patriot is something you should check out this Fall.

[MORIARTY THE PATRIOT PRODUCTION STAFF]
STUDIO: Prodution I.G. (Pyscho-Pass, Haikyu!!, xxxHolic, Cromartie High School)
ORIGINS: Manga
ORIGINAL CREATOR: Ryosuke Takeuchi (All You Need Is Kill, ST&RS)
DIRECTOR: Kazuya Nomura (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood as key animator, Black Fox as director, Joker Game as director)
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Tooru Ookubo (Sengoku Basara, Koukaku Kidoutai, Phantom of the Kill)
SERIES COMPOSTION/WRITER: Taku Kishimoto (Fruits Basket 2019, Haikyuu!, 91 Days)
MUSIC COMPOSER: Asami Tachibana (Darling in the FranXX, Haikyuu!!, Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign)

Jujutsu Kaisen

Despite being gifted with superior physical strength and talents, high-schooler Yuuji Itadori spends his time hanging out at his weirdo outcast friends’ supernatural club at school by day and visiting his sick grandfather at the hospital by night.

On one fateful night, a member of the club brings a sealed talisman linked to the legendary dreadful demon Ryomen Sukuna and manages to break the seal. However, unbeknownst to the club member, they have unleashed unrivaled demonic terror unto the world.

A project headed by Jujutsu Kaisen’s production team, the anime appears to be a promising hit for the Fall 2020 anime season.

MAPPA is the studio that gave us hits such as Kids on the Slope, Dororo, Kakeguri, and Zombieland Saga to name a few. However, I do have some minor concerns given that MAPPA is in charge of the final season of Attack on Titan; a Shonen Jump legacy series that will more than likely (I assuming) have higher priority over Jujutsu Kaisen in terms of production quality.

[JUJUTSU KAISEN PRODUCTION STAFF]
STUDIO: Mappa (Kids on the Slope, Kakegurui, Zombieland Saga, Punchline, Dororo)
ORIGINS: Manga
ORIGINAL CREATOR: Gege Akutami (Tokyo Metropolitan Magic Technical School)
DIRECTOR: Seong-Hu Park (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brother as Key Animator, Garo: Vanishing Line as Director, Terror in Resonance as Key Animator)
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Tadashi Hiramatsu (FLCL, Jin-Rou, His and Her Circumstances)
SERIES COMPOSTION/WRITER: Hiroshi Seko (Ajin, Bananafish, Mob Pyscho 100)
MUSIC COMPOSERS: Yoshimasa Terui (music producer of idol group sora tob Sakana, Ribbon as theme song composer), Arisa Okehazama (The God of High School), Hiroaki Tsutsumi (Dr. Stone, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Hyperdimension Neptunia The Animation)

Akudama Drive

Question: Let’s say you’re a young girl just wandering around the streets of Kansai, Japan. During your wandering, if you saw someone drop cash on the ground near a food vendor on the streets of Kansai, you pick it up, try to give them back to them, but they tell you keep it they don’t want the money they dropped because it’s bad luck, would you:

A. Take the money and buy some food from the food vendor who only accept cash and continue your day as normal
OR

B. Refuse to pay for your food with the dropped cash in an failed attempt to track down the guy who dropped the cash, have the food vendor call the cops on you to refusing to pay for the food, which now you’re in jail for the unforeseeable future. Oh and by the way, you now unwitty joined seven criminal assassins known as “Akudama” and to order to save your life from being killed by one of them, you lie and say you’re an Akudama known as “Swindler”.

And you have a talking cat by your side who might be the mastermind behind this new project you joined.

Obviously, the correct answer is B. Always choose the fun answer.

Akudama Drive is the new original anime production by Kazutaka Kodaka and Rui Komatsuzaki: the two creative forces behind the hit legendary visual novel and video game series Dangaronpa.

Alongside iconic anime studio Studio Pierrot (I really hope you guys know what works they have done in the past 40+ years of their existence), the Dangaronpa creator duos bring a new series into this world that is heavily influences by American films such as Kill Bill and Blade Runner.

[AKUDAMA DRIVE PRODUCTION STAFF]
STUDIO: Pierrot (Naruto, Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, Black Clover, Great Teacher Onizuka, Yuu Yuu Hakusho to name a few)
ORIGINS: Original anime production
CREATORS: Kazutaka Kodaka and Rui Komatsuzaki (Dangaronpa)
DIRECTOR: Tomoshia Taguchi (Digimon Adventure 2020, Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World, Twin Star Exorcists)
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Rui Komatsuzaki
SERIES COMPOSTION/WRITERS: Kazutaka Kodaka, Norimitsu Kaihou (Neppu Kairku Bushi Road, Astra Lost in Space, Dandaronpa 3)
MUSIC COMPOSER: Maiko Iuchi (Waiting in the Summer, Rewrite)

If any anime you enjoyed hasn’t made it on this list don’t be worried, because:
I will either have your suggestion included in part II. or I have yet to watch the show at the time of this writing or I was never a fan of the series.

Keep in mind you could also just have horrible taste in anime

Let us know in the comment section what anime are you watching this Fall season and feel free to provide any suggestions for shows our staff should review!

Later.

-Benjamin Snow is an executive producer and co-writer for the Swarthy Nerd podcast