Dragon Quest & 9 Other Winter 2021 Anime You Might've Overlooked

Dragon Quest: Adventures of Dai was a sleeper hit for a lot of anime fans.  The original series was a fairly popular show from the 90's, and the remake seems to be determined to channel that unique art style along with high quality animation to make for a series nearly everyone should've given a chance last year.  But that's not the only series that didn't get it's flowers this Winter.

RELATED:  5 Ways Tournament Arcs Are The Best Anime Arcs (& 5 Ways Training Arcs Are Better)

While Dragon Quest was a hold-over from last fall, there were plenty of other series that might have gone ignored.  The Winter season brought a ton of heavy hitters back like Dr. Stone: Stone Wars, Log Horizon Season 3, and Reincarnated as a Slime.  With that, it can be easy for people to miss a few shows, and it's not likely most people will go back without knowing what to look for.

10 Dragon Quest: Adventures of Dai Is A Return To Old School Action Anime

Dragon Quest: Adventures of Dai is a remake of a popular Dragon Quest manga series that was originally made into an anime back in the early 90’s. The story is set in a world where a young man dreams of one day becoming a legendary hero. He trains on an island of friendly monsters, and is eventually pulled into the rest of the world where he’s asked to help save them from a new threat.

Originally launched in Fall 2020, Dragon Quest: Adventures of Dai is a big love letter to the Dragon Quest universe, from the spells to the distinctive and adorable monsters to the sound effects.

9 Shin Chuuka Ichiban! 2nd Season Is Great For People Who Need An Over The Top Cooking Anime

A return of this over the top shounen comedy series, the original series was from the late 90’s. It took place in 19th century China during the so-called Cooking Wars, where chefs aimed to become the top chef in China.

The main character is Mao, a young man who becomes a Super Chef and decides to follow in the footsteps of his mother to become a master chef. With the new series having the main character go against things like the Underground Cooking Society, this show is just the right amount of over the top for fans to have fun with.

8 Back Arrow Is A Solid Throwback To 2000's Mecha

Back Arrow is a revival of the 2000’s era mecha series. It centers around a young man who takes on the name “Back Arrow”. Back Arrow lands in the middle of the world of Lingalind, a world surrounded by a mysterious wall. All the humans of Lingalind believe there is nothing outside the wall, and so the world is split in into two neighboring, warring empires fighting over what’s inside the wall.

RELATED: 10 Best Taijutsu Battles In Naruto, Ranked

But when Back Arrow claims to have come from beyond the wall, he uproots everything their societies have known. Directed by the director of Code Geass and written by the writer of Kill La Kill, Back Arrow is a weird, awesome mecha series.

7 WIXOSS Diva(A) Live Is A Reinvention Of The Wixoss Franchise

Wixoss started out as an incredibly pretentious take on the card game genre. But the series has survived through multiple incarnations and is now basically a parody of the idol industry. Wixoss has become a card game where players can become the actual avatars and get involved in a game known as “Diva Battle”.

Winning is now no longer merely about winning the fight, but also about the group with the biggest amount of Selector Fans.

6 World Trigger Season 2 Brings Back A Fan Favorite Shonen Jump Series

It feels like it’s easy to ignore World Trigger since it’s been four years since the original series aired. For people who don’t know, World Trigger was about a world where suddenly a collection of alien creatures from another universe started appearing in Mikado City. Known as Neighbors, humanity has to create a way to defend themselves against this strange new threat—and wind up with a collection of special agents fighting against them.

World Trigger ran for seventy plus episodes from 2014 to 2016, and has recently gotten a second season with a third already confirmed.

5 Jobless Reincarnation Has Some Of The Most Beautiful Animation Of The Season

Mushoku Tensei takes the basic idea of isekai and goes all the way with it. Rudeus Greyrat was a thirty-something who had potential, but after being bullied his life fell apart and he was never able to get it back together.

Now, in a new world, Rudeus is determined to try as hard as he can at everything he does. What makes Jobless Reincarnation such a fascinating anime is rather than have one major time-skip, it’s all small tiny ones showing Rudeus as he grows up from toddler to ten years old and beyond.

4 SK8 the Infinity Brings Stylish Skateboarding To Anime

SK8 the Infinity is a stylish series from studio BONES about skateboarding. It features your usual odd couple pairing in Reki and Langa—Reki is a kid with tons of passion for skateboarding, and it constantly gets him in trouble at “S”, the underground skateboard group.

RELATED: The 10 Best Anime With Strong Female Role Models

Langa on the other hand spent much of his time growing up as a snowboarder, and quickly learns to adapt his skills to this new world of competitive sports. Directed by Hiroko Utsumi who’s known for her work on Banana Fish and Free, people should expect a beautiful series with adorably vulnerable male characters.

3 Wonder Egg Priority Is An Well-Written Series Balancing Psychological Themes With Magical Girl Tropes

Wonder Egg Priority turned out to be something of a sleeper hit. Ai Ohto is a teenage girl struggling with the loss of her best friend to suicide. After gaining an item known as a Wonder Egg, Ai is pulled into a world where she’s asked to protect other young girls for the sake of potentially bringing her friend back to life.

Animated by CloverWorks, Wonder Egg Priority is a series that any fan of psychological anime or magical girl shows should give a try at least once.

2 Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki-kun Sees An Anti-Social Gamer Learn To Socialize

Tomozaki is amazing at video games, but in real life he’s terrible at everything. He relates everything to video games and believes in real life things are simply unbalanced and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

Tomozaki becomes friends with Hinami, a classmate who’s amazing at everything...and the only rival he has in his favorite video game, Attack Families. With Hinami’s help, Tomozaki grows into a person who’s actually capable of properly interacting with the real world.

1 Last Dungeon Boonies Is A Hilarious Parody Of Overpowered Characters

Last Dungeon Boonies will make the most sense to RPG fans. Its main character is Lloyd Belladonna, a young boy from the legendary city of Kunlun. In his own city, he’d basically be a level 60 character amidst a bunch of level 99 characters. Eventually, he decides to become a soldier and heads off to the “big city” which seems to be full of level 10s and level 15s at best. Though he’s convinced he’s weak, Lloyd has inadvertently made himself the most powerful person in the city.

Meant to poke as much fun at the “overpowered hero” trope as possible, Last Dungeon is a solid fantasy comedy series.

NEXT: Double Date: 15 Romance Anime Where The Characters Actually End Up Together


Post a Comment

0 Comments