Watching

Anime

Everything anime: where to look things up, what’s worth reading about the medium, and what I’ve actually watched.

Reference

  • MyAnimeList (Website) — the standard database and tracker: seasonal charts, staff credits, and community scores. The series links below point here.

Writing & video essays

  • mocha (Channel) — anime video essays with an unusual specialism: sports anime. 181 videos at 20–45 minutes, arguing why Kuroko no Basket isn’t a sports anime, what makes the greatest tournament arc, and how Dandadan saved shounen — plus a long detour into Fate lore.

For the craft side — animators, directors, and how a show is actually made — see Animation.

Completed

Series I’ve finished, with a rating.

  • Black Lagoon (Seasons 1 & 2) — 8.5/10 — Rei Hiroe’s manga animated by Madhouse and directed by Sunao Katabuchi: Rock, a Japanese salaryman abandoned by his company, joins the Lagoon Company — Dutch, Revy and Benny — smuggling out of Roanapur, a fictional Thai port run by crime syndicates. Two 12-episode seasons aired in 2006 (the second as The Second Barrage), with the gunfights staged like Hong Kong action cinema; the five-episode Roberta’s Blood Trail OVA followed in 2010.
  • Dandadan (Seasons 1 & 2) — 9/10 — a sci-fi occult action-comedy where a girl who believes in ghosts and a boy who believes in aliens both turn out to be right, and get dragged into both worlds at once. Gorgeous animation, unhinged energy, and genuinely funny.
  • Link Click (Seasons 1 & 2) — 7.5/10 — a Chinese donghua from Studio LAN about a photo studio that takes an unusual kind of commission: Cheng Xiaoshi dives into a client’s photograph, wakes up inside the photographer’s body, and has twelve hours to find whatever they came for. One attempt per picture, and nothing in the past may be altered — a constraint the show keeps tightening until obeying it costs more than breaking it would. Season one is 12 episodes; a third season began airing in August 2026.
  • Sakamoto Days (Parts 1 & 2) — 8/10 — Yuto Suzuki’s Weekly Shōnen Jump manga animated by TMS: the greatest hitman alive retires for love, gets fat, and runs a corner shop, until the trade he left comes looking for him. The fights are the draw — choreographed around shop shelves and whatever’s on them, with Sakamoto refusing to kill anyone. Aired in two cours across 2025 and was Netflix’s most-watched anime worldwide in that year’s first half; a genuine second season follows in January 2027.
  • Sentenced to Be a Hero — 8.5/10 — Rocket Shōkai’s light novels animated by Studio Kai and directed by Hiroyuki Takashima: “hero” is a criminal sentence, immortal and endless military service against demonic faeries. Xylo Forbartz, a wrongly convicted former knight, leads Penal Hero Unit 9004 and ends up contracted to the sword goddess Teoritta while digging into who framed him. 12 episodes aired January–March 2026; a second season is confirmed.
  • Vinland Saga (Seasons 1 & 2) — 9/10 — Makoto Yukimura’s Viking-age manga, animated by Wit Studio for season one and MAPPA for season two. Season one is a revenge story: Thorfinn fights for the mercenary band led by Askeladd, the man who killed his father, waiting for a chance to kill him. Season two drops the war entirely and puts Thorfinn on a farm as a slave, clearing stumps beside Einar — the same show, re-pointed at what violence costs the person doing it.