The Most Anticipated Anime of Spring 2025

Each new season brings with it a sense of anticipation. What new shows will wow us? Which ones will sound great on paper and then crumble under their own weight? Which will surprise us? Our review team gets into which series for the Spring 2025 season look like they have the most promise.

For our long-time readers, the seasonal Best Anime, Worst Anime, and Most Anticipated are now selected via ranked voting by our editorial staff. This will give you more variety in the overall picks to create our top 10. Occasionally, we'll have a "runner-up;" this is for anime that were just shy of making it in the top 10 but were nonetheless included on multiple ranked lists from our team.

Below is the list of the editorial team's most anticipated anime series for the upcoming season.

If an anime girl is wandering the post-apocalypse, I'm going to pay attention. It's not a perfect metric. Sometimes you get a Momentary Lily that makes you question the benevolence of the universe. However, sometimes you also get a Train to the End of the World or a Girls' Last Tour, and those are shows I'm willing to roll the dice for. Apocalypse Hotel doesn't look like much of a gamble, either. An android proprietress welcoming an eclectic collection of guests to an oasis of hospitality amid a Tokyo cityscape being reclaimed by nature—that sounds right up my alley. Throw some sad robot existentialism on top of that, and I'll be happy as a clam (assuming clams can survive Armageddon).

This quirky premise is anime-original, too, so it's important to look at the staff, and I see a lot of promise there. First, it's being produced by Cygames Pictures, which has a track record that includes my AOTY for 2024, Brave Bang Bravern! A studio isn't the final word on a show's quality, but Cygames have often used their gacha money to fund idiosyncratic projects, and I've enjoyed most of those results. Unsurprisingly, Apocalypse Hotel also shares some staff with previous Cygames series, like scriptwriter Shigeru Murakoshi who worked on Zombie Land Saga. And while this isn't related to Cygames, Murakoshi contributed some scripts to Train to the End of the World as well, so I know his post-apocalypse bona fides are up to code.

However, I'm most excited to see what director Kana Shundo has up her sleeve. She's been working in the industry for over a decade, but this is her first shot at leading a series, and she doesn't seem to be wasting it. The trailer looks gorgeous. I love the contrast between the neatly kempt hotel and the lively urban decay of the outside. The character designs are nice and soft, too. Those are being handled by Natsuki Yokoyama, another female animator and Shundo's longtime colleague. The two of them are also friends with Hiromi Taniguchi, who just handled animation direction on the excellent Negative Positive Angler. I'm bringing these connections up because I think it's very cool that talented women artists are getting the chance to flex their chops on unique projects like these. They're a breath of fresh air, and that's exactly what I look for at the start of each new season.

—Steve Jones

It has been the era of tokusatsu superhero anime for a hot minute now. We just got through a season with the delightful The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, proving that even the staid isekai formula can be livened up with a healthy helping of spandex-clad ideals. Go! Go! Loser Ranger! is set to return for a second season, proving those ideals are just as fun when they're torn down. It's great having a steady smorgasbord of Sentai send-ups, alongside irreverent in-betweens like the rom-com Love After World Domination. Anything to keep M.A.O. paying homage to her roots.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger! is effectively a complex suspense drama inside the setting of a Sunday morning superhero showdown; it's an anime that thrives on twists and turns and shake-ups. Say it with me: It's like The Boys meets Power Rangers, which wasn't something I thought I needed in my life until I first encountered its manga. It's escalating as seasons should, too, with the fallout of the first season finale seeing that irascible rascal Fighter D promoted to working with his own team of Rangers. The trailer for the second season already promises a big, heavy story arc seemingly set to start things off, and I can't wait to see how Keiichi Satō (who also brought us similar seminal superhero classic Tiger & Bunny) handles all this new material.

More than anything, though, I'm just happy to have Loser Ranger around as an arbiter of the ongoing Sentai aesthetics in anime form. The first season found a strong tonal use for the style, in things like the plain menace of the "heroes" that were the Dragon Keepers, and its commentary on how warped real-world stories could become between assumed hero/villain narratives and designated "losers" in settings. It also had a funky dancing ending theme featuring enemy combatants. Loser Ranger is, in all senses, peak TV, and I'm glad tokusatsu and Super Sentai riffs are enough of a commodity these days that we can see it continue.

—Christopher Farris

I've had mixed experiences with some of Geno Studio's previous releases, with series like Kokkoku and Pet starting with a lot of potential but ending up as decidedly uneven products. Still, nowadays, I value more interesting stories and the willingness to make risky choices in anime, even when the final result could use a little more polish or consistency. I'll take messy ambition over immaculate mediocrity any day.

Your Forma is Geno Studio's latest crack at adapting a popular light novel series, another show that I hope lives up to its potential because it's checking all the boxes for me. The (relatively) mature story doesn't seem to revolve entirely around teenagers, video game worlds, wizarding schools, or getting reborn in another world. It's tapping into what seems like a soft techno-noir aesthetic, what with its android detectives and cyber-procedural mystery angle. The production values look rock solid, too, with the kind of clean character designs and impressive setting details that inspire a lot of confidence (at least so far as trailers nowadays can).

Of course, Your Forma's buddy-cop sci-fi thriller angle isn't groundbreaking by any means. The whole dynamic shared by investigator Echika Hieda and robo-gumshoe Harold Lucraft is a slight twist on what was already a familiar formula when Will Smith beat up all of those Alan Tudyk androids in I, Robot. These are genre elements that I personally never get tired of, though, even if they haven't been served incredibly well in recent years. I'm still smarting from how underwhelming Metallic Rouge ended up being, and I'm sure we'd all love to forget how Psycho-Pass fell off after that spectacular first season. Your Forma feels like it can live up to the grand tradition of crackerjack airport-novel escapades that are more geared toward an audience of adults instead of attention-starved teenaged boys. We only get a handful of those kinds of shows every year, so you can be sure I'm savoring the opportunity to dig into the adventures of Echika and Harold to find out what kind of dystopian mysteries they'll be forced to solve together.

—James Beckett

If you were to ask someone what the secret MVP is of the current Shonen Jump lineup outside of obvious headliners like One Piece, Sakamoto Days, Kagurabachi, or Ichi the Witch, you'd likely get a bunch of different answers. The correct answer, of course, would be Akane-banashi or Blue Box, but the next best is Witch Watch. Kenta Shinohara has been working with Shonen Jump since 2007, having made both the gag series/school drama Sket Dance and the space opera, Astra: Lost in Space, and Witch Watch takes the best parts of both and combines them into one unique package.

At first glance, Witch Watch seems like a simple rom-com with the emphasis being on comedy, as it involves a teenage witch named Nico shacking up with her childhood crush, Morihito, who is an ogre tasked with serving as her bodyguard. In time, they're joined by a couple of other boys of various supernatural races who also serve as her bodyguards and try to keep her from causing wacky hijinks with her magic. Do not allow yourselves to be deceived. Witch Watch is several things at once, including but not limited to: a cute romantic comedy, a satire on pop culture and the manga industry, a semi-reverse harem, an elaborate battle manga parody, and an actual secret battle manga with solid character drama, with all that just being the tip of the iceberg. This may come off as an unassuming comedy, but I promise, if you give it a chance you'll be well-rewarded, and if you're a person with a Gintama shaped hole in your heart, this is the closest any modern series will come to filling it (especially considering Shinohara was one of Hideaki Sorachi's former assistants). With how many hats the manga wears, it's hard to know how well the anime adaptation will capture each of those aspects, but the previews seem promising, and if it can nail the material, I have no doubt this will be one of the highlights of the Spring season.

—Jairus Taylor

Trust me when I say that you don't want to know how many times I've read L. M. Montgomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. The 1985 mini-series was practically required sick day watching, and, for my money, still the best adaptation. But there's a special place in my heart for the original World Masterpiece Theater anime version as well, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly excited about this new adaptation. Montgomery's series, set in the fictional Prince Edward Island town of Avonlea, is remarkably timeless, and despite belonging to a past century, both the plot and the characters lend themselves to retellings. Anne Shirley herself is the right kind of plucky – adopted by accident (siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert wanted a boy to help with the farm), Anne never lets anything get her down for too long. Montgomery initially wrote her to subvert the “orphan Ann” trope popular in fiction at the time, and the sign that she did it well is how many modern heroines owe their roots to her Anne – with an “e,” thank you very much.

From the teasers and trailers we've seen so far, it appears that character designer Kenichi Tsuchiya is taking a lot of inspiration from the original 1977 designs of Yoshifumi Kondō, retaining Anne's childlike look and the flame-red hair. All of the imagery has a charmingly old-fashioned, pastoral feel that should be familiar to anyone who's seen any of the various Avonlea-set media that's been committed to film, and that's a definite bonus. Anne's adventures may be simpler in scope, but there's still plenty in them that's analogous to any childhood anywhere and when. We've seen glimpses of some of the most famous scenes flash by in the teasers – walking the ridgepole, swanning into church with a hat full of wildflowers, and, of course, the all-important breaking of the slate over Gilbert's obnoxious (at the time!) head. Presumably, that means that Diana and the “cordial” and the entire Lady of Shalott sequence will also be present since I can't imagine having the gall to cut either of them out.

Anne Shirley herself is an icon of rural childhood, right up there with the heroines created by Astrid Lindgren and Kate Douglas Wiggin. Even if you never felt the need to try balancing across a ridgepole because surely you could pull it off (I admit nothing) or tried to act out your favorite story in an ill-considered way, Anne's commitment to just being herself and no one else is inspiring. If this series can pull off even half the charm of its source material, it should be something really special.

—Rebecca Silverman

I like that there's enough anime—especially recent anime, in particular—about girls joining or forming rock bands that you could arguably call it an entire emerging subgenre of anime. Examples include (but aren't limited to) Ave Mujica, Bocchi the Rock!, Girls Band Cry—and soon, by the looks of it, Rock is a Lady's Modesty. This show follows Lilisa Suzunomiya, who gives up her love of rock music when she's enrolled at an all-girls school for rich young ladies. But it's reawakened in full, glorious force when she meets a skilled drummer at her school named Otoha Kurogane.

If the trailer and character videos showing off the incredibly stylish animation and sick, sweat-drenched guitar riffs combined with intense, Whiplash-like drumming sequences are indicative of anything, we're in for a wild time with this show. And if none of that gets you excited, the staff list might. Among others, we got Shinya Watada (Aikatsu Stars!, The IDOLM@STER Million Live!), Ōri Yasukawa (Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Separation, Migi & Dali), Shogo Yasukawa (Food Wars!, A Certain Scientific Railgun T), and more.

-—Kennedy

One of the most interesting things about My Hero Academia is the world. We have a system of heroes in place where people feel safe against villains. The main story follows Deku as he strives to be the world's greatest hero. I always found this setting full of possibilities. The idea of following different characters who tackle different problems in this society was always appealing, so I'm glad there's a spin-off manga that somewhat plays with that idea.

We know that heroes are heavily regulated, as you need a license to perform hero duties. We have seen numerous examples of people who were told they could not be heroes either because they were quirkless or because they didn't have powers that society deemed as capable of performing heroic duties. Vigilantes focuses on a protagonist who seems to fit into that mold, a college student with a very basic mobility quirk, but still wants to perform duties. What happens when we have somebody who seems to have a similar spirit to Deku follow his instincts outside of the law? In a lot of ways, this story almost feels like what would have happened if Deku never got All Might's backing.

Another reason why I'm looking forward to the show is the style. I was always a little bit disappointed that the anime adaptation of My Hero Academia didn't lean into a more comic book aesthetic outside of a few scant examples. Vigilantes seems to be playing with the presentation more by using brighter colors and thicker outlines. Based on the preview, everything visually seems a step above what we got in the early seasons of My Hero Academia, so I am very much looking forward to embracing this world before we fully round out the finale of the mainline story.

—MrAJCosplay

Nostalgia isn't only a form of melancholy comfort for those who idealize their past, but a trap that prevents unaware sufferers from progressing with their lives. Such is the sweet nostalgia that ensnares Hajime Kudou in a subtly wrong version of Hong Kong's unique Kowloon Walled City. He can't tear himself away from his co-worker, the elegant, beautiful main protagonist Reiko Kujirai, a 32-year-old Japanese realtor. As Kujirai enjoys her life in the bustling and beguiling city of packed tower blocks and maze-like streets, she finds herself falling for the strangely familiar Kudou. Why can't she remember her past, and why does Kudou sometimes look at her with such pain in his eyes? Who is Kujirai, and why does she feel like her life isn't her own? She sets out to become her “Absolute Self.”

Kowloon Generic Romance is a manga by Jun Mayuzuki, who previous work, After the Rain, became a gorgeous, if sometimes misunderstood, anime from Wit Studio back in 2018. There's no potentially problematic age-gap romance in this, however – both Kujirai and Kudou are full-grown adults – and that makes this adaptation something of rarity among the anime romance genre. But what sets Kowloon Generic Romance apart from its peers, other than its impeccably gorgeous art, is its deliciously mysterious atmosphere, the very definition of “immaculate vibes.”

Mayuzuki's Kowloon is as much of a character as the people who inhabit it. She imbues it with a meticulously-researched sense of place, concrete yet ephemeral. In our world, Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1994, existing only in the nostalgic memories of its former residents, yet in this story's unspecified future, it somehow still stands.

Kujirai is accompanied in her progressively more labyrinthine identity crisis by a cast of delightfully diverse supporting characters, from perky seamstress Youmei to the multi-talented Xiaohei, while mysterious former bartender Gwen and his ex-lover, the snake-like Dr Hebinuma, provide glimpses into a darker, mysterious world behind Kowloon's seemingly idyllic façade. This isn't merely a quirky romance – there's a constant, uneasy SF-tinged undercurrent hinting at the unsettling truth of this oddly-preserved world.

In manga form, the story unfolds achingly slowly, as Mayuzuki holds her narrative cards close to her chest, with the resolutions to mysteries only drip-fed, teasingly, to readers over many chapters. It's unclear if this adaptation will adapt the complete tale, After the Rain-style, but with the manga seemingly heading towards a climax in its most recent installments, I'd be surprised if it didn't. Studio Arvo Animation produces the anime, and I'm cautiously optimistic – I did enjoy their 2021 adaptation of the novel series Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut, and their 2019 We Never Learn: BOKUBEN has plenty of fans. Kowloon Generic Romance is unlikely to provide pulse-pounding action or laugh-a-minute hilarity, but if adapted carefully, could become one of the year's most compelling, beautiful, and life-affirming series.

—Kevin Cormack

Choo choo! Everybody aboard the hype train! Lazarus, the newest Adult Swim coproduction, has received heavy promotion for over a year and a half now. That's no guarantee of quality; if anything, it's likely to make me feel a little suspicious. American media companies' hostility to creativity and giving budgets higher than a shoestring to anything other than remakes sabotaged the last highly-anticipated Adult Swim production, the ill-fortuned Uzumaki, despite passionate staff.

But trepidation be damned, I can't help but feel excitement for anything with Shinichirō Watanabe's name attached. He doesn't strike a perfect ten every time, but he's come close more often than not. The man can make a passion project like nobody else. He's returning to his roots this time, pulling in musicians, voice actors, and other staff members who have worked with him before or have been influenced by him to contribute to the show. He's also cited that he wants this work to pay tribute to his frequent collaborator and friend Keiko Nobumoto, who passed away in 2021 and was noted for her humanist, feminist approach to character writing.

What's more, Watanabe is possibly the most globally-minded anime director working today at a time when that is sorely needed. With diverse casts of characters, he touches on systemic issues that affect people around the world, including racism and other forms of inequality; with an international audience in mind, he doesn't shy away from themes that affect people different from himself. He's cited several current events as his influences, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a creator who does not shy away from creating political art, and there are few places in the world where times are not troubled.

Plus, it just looks like fun. Every trailer featured high-energy action as protagonist Axel, voiced by Mamoru Miyano, leaps and bounds off buildings, runs up walls, and flawlessly executes parkour moves. While the promotional features have focused on the pulse-pounding acrobatics and gunplay, the central concept and the writing staff, including Watanabe and his longtime collaborator Dai Satō, offer potential for cerebral exploration of rich themes as well. Watanabe insists Lazarus will be his masterpiece – with a resume like his, I'm eager to see if will live up to this.

—Caitlin Moore

It's somewhere between impossible and disingenuous to talk about GQuuuuuuX without getting into spoilers. Its original trailers were specifically crafted to hide the true nature of the anime and its plot—hiding the existence of the entire first half of its theatrical, three-episode premiere Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning. If you don't want to know the twist, this is your last chance to back out.

While there have been numerous alternate universe Gundam TV anime, GQuuuuuuX is a special case in that it takes place in an offshoot of the original Gundam timeline. This anime is set in a world that asks what if Char Aznable found the Gundam instead of Amuro—and then Zeon went on to win the war because of it? The start of the story takes us step-by-step through this thought experiment, showing the new fates of numerous Gundam characters before the explosive end of the war. In the end, we are left with a world both familiar and different—and completely captivating.

It's in this new-yet-old setting that we get introduced to Machu, a seemingly normal high school girl who finds herself caught up in the hunt for Char's missing Gundam. Machu is a newtype with no concept of what that truly means. Climbing into Gundam GQuuuuuux's psycommu cockpit gives her a tease of the world of thought and emotion that lies beyond our own. From that point on, she is almost like a junkie chasing a high. Guided by brief glimpses of the future, she is willing to dive into seemingly any danger to get her next psycommu fix.

She is joined in her adventures by Shuji, the young pilot and now owner of the original Gundam, and Nyaan, a refugee girl working as a smuggler on the space colony they all live on. Their unlikely friendship leads to Machu and Shuji competing as a team in an underground mobile suit fighting ring—even as both the local police and Zeon's military are hunting the pair.

All in all, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is both a coming-of-age story and a twist on one of anime's most famous fictional worlds. While it is perfectly watchable for those who know nothing of the original Gundam, the more diehard of a fan you are, the more there is for you to enjoy in this one. Moreover, with Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL, Rebuild of Evangelion) in the director's chair and Yōji Enokido (FLCL, Neon Genesis Evangelion) penning the story with some help from Evangelion-creator Hideaki Anno, there is some serious pedigree behind this anime. Add on top of all this some amazing animation and music, and you have an anime you should not skip this spring season.

—Richard Eisenbeis