Anime 2022 Year in Review

Anime being mainstream still blows my mind being from a generation of closet anime fans so it brings me great pleasure to run down 2022’s top animes. Normally there are metrics to these decisions but honestly, this time it was just about what felt right. There will be some squabbles as always with any decision someone makes on the internet, but I do hope you enjoy the list below as much as I have (with the suggestion of Jojo’s coming from others on staff.)

Spy x Family

Spy × Family is a brand new anime series released April, 2022, and adapted from the outstanding manga serialized on Shonen Jump+ since 2019. The popular spy-themed comedy anime adaptation is created by Wit Studio and CloverWorks. Spy × Family focuses on a counterfeit family consisting of an experienced spy Loid Forger, a first-rate assassin Yor Forger and a little psychic girl Anya Forger.

Spy x Family is arguably the anime with the most obvious mainstream appeal this year. Season two continues Spy x Family’s momentum as one of the most wholesome, action-packed shows with the newest addition to its counterfeit clan, the cuddly pup named Bond.

Spy x Family follows Loid, an other worldly spy charged with ensuring clashes between nations don’t escalate into Armageddon. To preclude this cataclysmic event, Loid must gain access to a prestigious school and persuade favor with a politician’s son. To do so, Loid assembles a makeshift family, who unbeknownst to him each have skeletons of their own. Chief among them are his fake wife’s double life as a deadly assassin and his daughter’s mind-reading power. Spy x Family’s second season is more of the good stuff from season one. Papa Loid maintains his status as a paragon among men, Yor continues to be the archetypal fail wife who doesn’t know her own strength, and Anya the meme queen is still an adorable little gremlin with a menacing grin.

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan, one of the greatest anime series in a few decades, is coming to the end with the Final Season Part 2. The first part of the final season was broadcasted between December, 2021 and March, 2021. And, the second half began in January, 2022. The original manga series was completed in little earlier, while lots of mysteries related to the Titans and main characters still remain for fans of the anime series.

Attack on Titan is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous Walls that protect them from Titans, gigantic humanoid creatures who devour humans seemingly without reason. The story centers around Eren Jaeger and his childhood friends Mikasa Ackermann and Armin Arlelt whose lives are changed forever after the appearance of a Colossal Titan, which brings about the destruction of their home town and the death of Eren's mother. Vowing revenge and to reclaim the world from the Titans, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin join the Scout Regiment, an elite group of soldiers who fight Titans outside the Walls.

What is scarier now what’s inside the walls or what’s outside the walls?

Chainsaw Man

As the most promising new anime series, Chainsaw Man should be added to your bucket list for 2022. The dark fantasy was originally published as manga serialized on Weekly Shonen Jump from 2018 to 2020, which is made into the first anime adaptation by the trendy studio Mappa. It has been announced to be released within 2022. A protagonist named Denji, who can transform himself into the Chainsaw Devil, fights against various Devils with Public Safety Devil Hunters.

There was virtually no way one could make a best anime of 2022 list without mentioning the powder keg of hype “peak fiction” that is Chainsaw Man. No anime since Attack on Titan has been the catalyst of online discussion among anime fans quite like Chainsaw Man since it began airing this fall.

The anime’s overwhelming popularity is not only a credit to the show’s provocative use of film techniques and superb performances from both its English and Japanese voice actors, but also to each episode culminating in its own unique and imaginative ending theme. What makes Chainsaw Man special is that it makes you lean forward in your chair during both its action-packed fight scenes and the discussions among its characters in the show’s quieter moments. Chainsaw Man lived up to its own hype and is easily one of the year’s best anime.

Mob Psycho 100

With its expected third season, Mob Psycho 100 is one of the best anime series that has given the fans satisfaction in the autumn season of 2022. Like the first season and second season in 2016 and 2019, the latest season is made by the reliable anime studio Bones, as well. The supernatural comedy anime is expected to come to completion this season. Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 keep presenting exciting youthful days of Mob including his love and friendship.

Mob Psycho 100’s third season has been a spectacular culmination of the supernatural anime—outside of the controversy of longtime main character English voice actor, Kyle McCarley, not returning after Crunchyroll refused to discuss future anime being under union contracts. Ahem. Much of the appeal to Mob Psycho 100’s final season comes from how understated its stakes seem in comparison to prior seasons. That isn’t to say that Studio Bones mailed it in this time around. If anything, this season hits so hard because its lowered stakes allowed for its stellar character writing to take center stage.

While the overall conflict of the season revolves around Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama fighting off a giant psychic broccoli that the townsfolk have been worshipping (don’t worry about it), the majority of the season focuses on tying up loose ends from the anime. These escapades focus on Shigeo’s evolution into a young man with his own autonomy and control over his previously volatile emotions while also allowing the show’s colorful cast of side characters to have a proper send-off as well.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Having become a big hit all over the world recently, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is entering the new part after the first season in 2019 and the sequel movie in 2020. The greatest dark-fantasy anime series re-started with the season 2 titled Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc from December, 2021. The greater part of the season airs in winter of 2022, so this list includes it. You can see the new adventure of Tanjiro and the emergence of a new Hashira.

It is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotōge, and it is about Tanjiro Kamado, a young boy who becomes a demon slayer after his family is slaughtered and his younger sister Nezuko is turned into a demon.

This is another anime that easily could fight for most main stream of 2022 like Spy X Family. There is something about fighting for family that really resonates with the every viewer.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

For every fan of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure manga series published since 1987, the new season of its anime adaptation is one of the most anticipated anime in 2022. The latest season 5 titled JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean starts in January, 2022, which was distributed with 12 episodes on Netflix in advance and with additional 12 episodes in the autumn. It is set in Florida centering on Jolyne Cujoh, who is the daughter of the Stardust Crusaders’s protagonist Jotaro Kujo.

Despite JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fans usually being notorious for not shutting up about the anime online, no one seemed to notice that the second and final cour of Stone Ocean was soon to release on Netflix. Still, the show packed one hell of a punch as the emotional climax of the series. David Production continues to do a masterful job of adapting mangaka Hirohiko Araki’s popular anime with wacky musical references, and the studio got to the point where the show references itself with its stylish CG animated intro.

Stone Ocean offers a perilous odyssey that’s just as bizarre an adventure as its contemporaries while delivering a heavy gut-punch of an emotional climax to the series. Albeit, with a couple of copyright strike-worthy name changes and omissions from the manga to keep a certain steamboat-steering rat from knocking on Netflix and Warner Bros. Japan’s doors.

Even though 2022 is coming to a close, amazing anime seem to keep popping up on the horizon which makes many fans cheer with glee. We will run into a few stinkers, but I think we are all fortunate where anime is nowadays that the pacing and story telling are in sync and we can only hope that that change is here to stay.