Late getting this out as busy but still a good season. Isakai came back in force and a few good heavy hitters, as always disclaimer, I am human so haven't watched everything and not fully caught up with every one of the shows listed but at least past 3 episodes on each. Without futher a do:
The Heavy hitters:
Solo Levelling S2: They went HARD this season, spectacular fights nearly every episode, the MC already at the 'I'm him' stage plus him collecting bodies, literally, for his army.
Shangri-la Frontier S2 Cour 2: Just the start of this season with the showcase of the move armageddon to now we in the pro leagues, it's still a fun ride especially for gamer weebs.
Re Zero S3: It's back and still brutal as fuck in deaths only now some of the bad guys get to die horribly too.
Zenshu I put this new one here as it feels like a passion project for anime artists, an animation artist dies at work and wakes up in a fictional world she once saw as a kid, only she has the power to draw scenes from OTHER work to help her like Valley of the Wind. It's nice just seeing childhood anime scenes be displayed in this work.
Dr Stone: Science Future: Senku returns only he's travelling to America so you know what that means...guns in the stone world! lol.
Isakai zone
Headhunted to another world: from Salaryman to big four!: A looked over but highly skilled salaryman is summoned by the Demon Lord to be his new General. What I like about this is he's summoned BECAUSE of his skills in our world showing the most powerful skill in any world, understanding logistics!
I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, so I might as well try mastering magic: Nothing spectacular, guy wakes up in a fantasy world in the body of a young noble, learns he can use magic and makes ut his focus. It's just average and good filler anime.
The Daily life of a middle aged online shopper in another world: The title speaks for itself but what I like about this is: A: inventive use of his shopping ability like using a magic tool in this world to make biofuel for his vehicles and generators B: He fucks the catgirl.
Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of all time: Our MC gets caught in the path of an illegal summoning so unable to return home, the goddess gives him a new body and the powers to create using magic. What stands out is that the goddess was smart and planning in that she gave the MC a blessing effectively giving him a tutorial mode to reduce danger for a while and plants him a year BEFORE the guys who were summonded.
The Red Ranger becomes an adventurer in another world Title speaks for itself only this ranger runs of the power of relationships so lots of marriage and friendship jokes in his moves plus main girl has very big plot..
Aquired taste
I may be a guild receptionist, but I'll solo any biss to clock out on time: Channeling the feeling of every support and healer main,her nice job is being ruined by adventurers unable to take down a boss resulting in overtime for her so she gets a disguise and onshots the bosses the weaklings can't cope with so she can clock out!
100 girlfriends season 2 After the baby feeding scene I saw, I'm just going to say it's still 'cultured' and move on...
I left my A-Rank party to help my former students reach the dungeon depths: This one gets a higher rating than average as the guy LEAVES himself knowing his worth and the BRUTAL retaliation he does against those that wrong him later on.
Bogus Skill <<fruitmaster>>: This one is weird, it's not particularly good but it's not bad, its a weird middle ground where you can enjoy watching it but know it's lacking
Even given the worthless Appraisal class I'm actually the strongest This does a Goblin Slayer bait and switch in that the first episode is brutal but it doesn't go to that level again really. Not bad, but be aware of that.
And that's what I can talk about, feel free to add in the stuff I couldn't catch up with as there's still A LOT to chose from.
It seems this generation's big shounen was Demon Slayer and Chainsawman. If those didn't appeal to you (and they didn't to me, at least after part 1 in CSM) then I think you just grew out of them.
Because I do think they were better than the Naruto/Bleach generation, but they are still just shounen series doing roughly the same things with the same cliche archetypes.
Maybe I'm biased cause I grew up with them but chainsaw man and demon slayer didn't look like could lay a glove on Naruto/Bleach. Both series had their flaws, but were way more interesting and cool. I thought I'd like chainsaw man but got bored quick and demon slayer didn't interest me at all, feel like that's a chick show idk. I still haven't finished the second season or kept up with the manga, but JJKK feels like the closest thing to me. But I keep expecting to hear about some new big battle anime and it hasn't happened for a while.
Demon Slayer is very popular with women so it might be more chick oriented, but it was the biggest seller in the world for a while during its run. So I think that means both of us are just out of touch with what kids like these days.
CSM was really good and had a solid definitive end with part 1, which makes it leagues ahead of all the shounen zombies. I have ignored the entire second half and felt no worse for it. Though I'll admit it takes like 50 of the 100 chapters of part 1 to really make you be hooked. Not that its bad early on, but its a lot of setup.
Unfortunately for most series, they have to compete with the big battle anime in Dragon Ball outshining them constantly right now. Even if Super is shit and Daima is just okay, its still fucking massive and makes it hard for anyone to compete against it. If they even want to, because you also don't want to try and beat your own childhood nostalgia that most of Japan probably has for it too.
The late 90s until the early 2010s had that huge gap without any Dragon Ball being made (besides the joke movie with Vegeta's brother), and that's when all the other big battle shows we can think of were happening. Once it came back with BoG, you can almost hear them all rushing to isekai instead.
Yeah probably lol, it didn't appeal to me but I know it was massive. Feels like it came and went fast though. For someone who grew up with DB, then the big 3 when I was in highschool, it's weird to see a manga come and go so fast. I want another epic 600+ chapter, multi arc battle manga.
Interesting, I love DB but I didn't realize it was still so big. You'd think people would be tired of it and want some fresh blood in the genre. Probably doesn't help that OP is still going strong too. But I would love to see a new one pop up in the next year or two, I feel like anime needs it, it feels stale to me. Isekai needs to die ASAP too, fucking bored and played out, don't get the appeal.
Well it did actually end. The manga was already ending when the anime started and it didn't really get big until the anime itself. Compared to all the other "big" shows which limp on forever, that certainly makes it feel like a flash in the pan.
So most people who were really into it probably stopped waiting for the anime and just went and finished it with the manga.
I think One Piece and Dragon Ball will need to end before anyone else can show up and not be choked out of the area. We've listed all the big ones (except MHA and AoT) and all of them barely reached the level of the Narutos or Bleaches did back in the day in terms of mass popularity. They sold more but the market is like triple the size it used to be too.
Like, One Piece is about to have four fucking ongoing forms. Two anime, a live action and the manga. Fans of it will have a full time weeb schedule on it alone.
But its also not my arena. I retired to SoL, comedy romance manga a while ago. That's area is in its renaissance and I'm eating good almost every few months with a new series coming in swinging.