Seasonals of the Abyss - Fall 2025

 Seasonals of the Abyss

  * Fall 2025 *

I know what you're thinking - don't run away! Summer 2025 was a massive undertaking with the year's heavyweight champions of anime all taking a swing in the arena. Even for me, whittling down the prospective titles took significant effort and I was left with a larger chunk of shows to keep up with than the typical season. The schedule was packed tight with my own idiosyncratic sampler of shows that had to include slightly-above-median quality moe oatmeal among other things. I simply couldn't help writing paragraphs upon paragraphs of arguably readable blog fodder sealed together with opinionated fluff. It was important to drive home the fact that Summer 2025 was not an average anime season - it was a rare event where production schedules aligned in harmony and some of the best Japanese TV animation of this decade (so far) aired in tandem.

A season with so much heat is naturally followed by one that's noticeably chilled in comparison. Fall 2025 is a breath of relief and a rest period that is dotted with low risk sequels and palatable adaptations. As per usual, very few of the sequel seasons pertain to works I have any interest in. Sorry to the Boku no Hero Academia fans but I dropped the manga two hundred chapters in after it became painfully obvious that Horikoshi either had nothing interesting to say with his premise or his editor begged him not to try. I won't be viewing the final season of the anime, but I do hope you enjoy it! Similarly, the third season of One Punch Man... well, I don't think I need to convince anyone why I'm skipping that even though I did stick around for J.C. Staff's first swing at it with season two.

There were a few other interesting choices I mulled over, but the previous season fatigue combined with some pressing business in my personal life led me to the wise conclusion of keeping my queue light this time around. I was also determined to finish watching the anime necessary to write the first entry for Backlog Marathon (which you can read here) because, as I mentioned before, this blog was dying for a post that had nothing to do with currently airing shows. I figure the seasonal hype cycle will die down for a fair bit, but maybe that's naive thinking when Winter 2026 already has Oshi no Ko season three and Frieren season two on the docket. We'll see when the time comes!

My point is that this will be a short post in comparison to the other Seasonals of the Abyss entries on this blog. I'm only watching three anime - a noticeable decrease and a more honest representation of my average seasonal experience! Spring and Summer happened to be fairly strong this year and did much of the heavy lifting that got me back into doing this sort of writing in the first place. We were overdue for business as usual. One sequel, one new adaptation, and an original work from the fearless minds at P.A. Works that will redefine what we truly know about the concept of "dark woke". It's a three course meal, if you will.

Seasonals of the Abyss is a series of blog posts referencing an album by a band I don't like that much, and it's not even about music! Thanks for reading.

 

SPY x FAMILY Season 3

Produced by Cloverworks and Wit Studio

Over three years ago at my disgraced former business associate's platform, The Planet Escapees, I wrote a Seasonals of the Abyss entry for Spring 2022 that isn't all too different from this one. It covered three shows - one of them was a sequel, and two of them were fresh adaptations. P.A. Works was there, too! You know what else was there? SPY x FAMILY season one, part one. During a hot period where Anya face memes were plentiful, the debut season of SPY x FAMILY premiered in 2022 with a split cour airing schedule that concluded in the Fall season of the same year. There was a considerably positive reception to the first season at the time, but nowadays there's somewhat of a lull regarding the enthusiasm fans have for this series. This is a direct consequence of the bombastic establishing shot that was essential for selling the premise.

SPY x FAMILY is a such a genuine embodiment of a Saturday morning cartoon that it even airs on Saturday mornings if you live in the western hemisphere like I do. The series is firmly episodic, periodically nudging the boundaries of the status quo with brief narrative-driven arcs. These are infrequent stretches where the stakes reappear before drifting back into familiar territory where antics are inconsequential and slapstick is common. As someone who (albeit lazily) keeps up with the manga, this has been the ebb and flow for quite some time. The necessary work for setting up the pieces in this story required a dense barrage of events that shot off all-killer-no-filler for several volumes. Much of this material is what comprises the entirety of the anime's first season.

In a fictional society located within legally distinct Europe, the rival nations Westalis and Ostania have overcome a brutal conflict and entered a Cold War era of sociopolitical tension. Westalian secret intelligence agency W.I.S.E. has been tasked with monitoring the reclusive Ostanian politician and former prime minister Donovan Desmond who is seeking to reignite war between the two countries. To establish a proper means of surveillance, the agency sends in their top spy - code name Twilight - to execute Operation Strix; a complicated and risky gambit to connect with Desmond through the prestigious Eden Academy where he makes a yearly public appearance. Twilight, a war orphan who discarded his identity to be man of a million faces, has to create a fake family in under a week that can survive under scrutiny in order to enroll his 'child' at the school.

And so, the Forgers are born. Twilight is Loid Forger, friendly psychiatrist and stern father. Yor Briar, an orphan turned assassin whose younger brother works for the Ostanian secret police, plays the quirky wife and city hall worker Yor Forger. But the real protagonist of this story is none other than the pink haired problem child Anya Forger, a young mind reader who escaped captivity as a human test subject. Thanks to her telepathy, Anya is the only person who actually understands her family situation. She's also five years old and habitually stupid, abusing her ability to pick the brains of those around her to cheat success. Later on the family adopts a dog they name Bond who, like Anya, has gone through unethical experimentation and can see glimpses of the future. Anya is the only one who can see these premonitions and it allows her to go on even greater misadventures as she seeks to have as much fun as possible while discretely helping Loid complete his mission.

I don't think I put any ink to paper in regards to the second season back when it was airing, but there's no doubt that my feelings about this new season are roughly the same. That's because this third season of SPY x FAMILY is structured almost exactly like the last one! The majority of the episodes are multi-segment affairs that are filled with action comedy fluff involving any number of characters from the wide ensemble the series has to offer. Some of these segments offer small developments but leave their threads hanging for what comes later. These all sandwich a multi-episode arc that with higher stakes and meaningful consequences to contrast the more slice-of-life comedy fare you get from the many Anya school segments chronicling her experiences at Eden Academy. In season two, this was the cruise ship arc with Yor having to fulfill a job as a bodyguard. Now it's the Eden Academy bus hijacking incident involving Red Circus, a known terrorist group in the series.

As always, this is a co-production effort between Aniplex's elite studio Cloverworks and The Guys Who Did Attack On Titan Before MAPPA, formally known as Wit Studio. The show still looks pretty good. It's colorful and animated well enough. One can easily tell that they aren't pulling out the same guns they had stocked for the first season's frequent action and dramatic tension. They instead saved that for the whimsical action-packed original film Code White which I did see in theaters and enjoyed well enough. Once again, this was pretty much par for the course for the second season barring the pretty sharp action sequences on the cruise ship with Yor. The current season has aimed for something a little more relaxed, first delving into Loid's shrouded past before bouncing between Anya segments and antics involving the other characters. Honestly, the bus hijacking arc doesn't even have that much action, so it's noticeably less grand in that sense than the cruise arc from the previous season.

This might seem like a cop out but I find it incredibly hard to write anything meaningful about this series. It's immensely straightforward, very charming, and has a distinct identity despite its broad appeal. I enjoy it but I don't think there's anything I could say that someone couldn't just come to terms with themselves by watching an episode or even just a greatest hits compilation video on YouTube. That's the real reason I didn't feel the need to write anything about the second season back when it was competing with Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries for attention. When you see a quirky Anya meme, you're essentially peering into a truthful perspective on SPY x FAMILY as a whole. I enjoy the characters and the situations that are presented but it is somewhat in the camp of popcorn media. This isn't to discredit the anime's quality. It's simply true, and it's very easy to watch in large part because of that.

Season three is sure to continue feeding the people who really enjoy this series but will largely frustrate stowaways waiting endlessly for it to go back to being like the first season. Anyone else got off the ride way before this. That's fine. I'll just keep watching this finely crafted junk food. My real complaint is that they need to start having fun with the openings again because I swear they just keep getting worse. They peaked immediately with Season One Cour One having a top tier OP with tight visual direction and a memorable track and now we're at wistful adult contemporary guitar music with visuals that seem like they're copying KyoAni's homework for CITY but the characters don't even hit the Griddy at the end. A good bit of this show is comedy so what happened to the energy? At least the endings have been consistent.

If I'm still writing these in a couple years when the fourth season drops, I'll let you know if they switch up the format at all. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just write two paragraphs and append a funny Anya face to the post and go on with my day.

 

Shuumatsu Touring

Produced by Nexus

 

Shuumatsu Touring (Touring After the Apocalypse) is the first anime to be about two girls riding together on a vehicle in a ruined world since the similarly named Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou (Girls' Last Tour) aired in 2017. It's the most green a post-apocalyptic anime has looked since GoHands produced Coppelion in 2013. It contains the most overt love for the Yamaha Serow since Bakuon!! featured the bike back in 2016. It's the third anime of 2025 (that I've seen) to contain moe heroines overcoming the collapse of human civilization following Momentary Lily and Apocalypse Hotel earlier in the year. Studio Nexus has produced less than a dozen TV anime since their formation in 2012, ranging from short-form CGDCT fodder like Wakaba*Girl to the more recent Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute (The Eminence in Shadow) which is a show I could not pretend to have any interest in. It's practically antimatter to be a metahumor drenched reincarnation isekai power fantasy light novel series. No thanks!

The studio has moved on to adapting a moe science fiction manga that also serves as domestic tourism propaganda. It's nothing new if you've watched past the first season of Yuru Camp, but this tour guide comes with its caveats! The world has been struck with a catastrophic event from space that left massive craters on the planet. Humanity's fate is unknown as the cities stand abandoned. After surviving in a high tech underground shelter, the spunky Youko and her companion Airi awaken to a desolated planet. Following the guidance of her elusive older sister Chitose, the duo ride a modified bike around the ruins of Japan and go sightseeing despite the risks of navigating a destroyed civilization.

Girls' Last Tour was a hopeful melancholy in a doomed world led by two girls trying to make the best of an unenviable situation. This series isn't so different, but the execution is what distinguishes the two. The former is a post-war tragedy where a once technological world has been blasted into a forever winter like a slightly more depressing Sora no Woto. The first episode of Shuumatsu Touring makes it clear that this show trends more toward conventional science fiction intrigue. For starters, Airi is not just a childish, dopey girl who likes to eat food. She's a cyborg built to navigate the apocalypse who can turn her arm into a railgun because autonomous killing machines exist and the animal ecosystems of the world have been twisted beyond repair.

Youko might just be the last human left alive, but it doesn't take long to reveal that she's no ordinary person either. Underneath her genki girl cheerfulness and bubbly personality lies someone who is well accustomed with peering into the carnage left behind by humanity's demise. She's an adrenaline junkie who revels in the life or death situations that crop up from weather anomalies to mutated wildlife. There's also something to be said about her accelerated healing abilities and mysterious dreams that allow her to live out memories of the old world before the disaster. Despite all this, she's always the most optimistic person in the room!

All that being said, this is still more of a slice of life tourism anime with seasoning than a point-to-point sci-fi thriller. Not to say there's lack of a substantial narrative within the show's mossy green confines, but it has yet to fully emerge past the teasing of certain ideas that expand what the viewer knows about the apocalypse and the society that preceded it. What makes up the rest is a journey of discovery as Youko retraces her sister's life through photos stored on an old smartphone and later an offline stamp rally application that miraculously still works. Airi serves as her emotional companion and cyborg guardian to ensure her continued survival.

One may wonder how an apocalyptic setting can properly convey the charm of a real world location when it's buried and mostly devoid of life. The flashbacks and the smartphone photography certainly help, painting a lively context for the crumbling main attraction in each episode. Otherwise, it's just the same old business as usual; get quirky with it! Youko and Airi eagerly comb their way through the relics of Japan, gathering historical knowledge while searching for lost treasures and food. They goof off in abandoned buildings and search for old landmarks like eager tourists who never realized the world ended. Along the way they run into echoes of humanity such as a full cyborg with a human brain who lost his memory and an AI radio program that is only capable of playing anisongs.

Much like Momentary Lily, this is a series that plays off the dissonance of cute girls having fun in a world fraught with existential danger. It gives the impression that their journey could be derailed at any moment. Even they seem to understand this, but neither killer self-driving tanks nor violent storms have managed to deter the pair from pushing onward on their road trip around the country! For what it's worth, they're still having plenty of fun in between. In one episode the duo spends the fist chunk of it just playing in the mud. They prance around Akihabara enjoying the dregs of otaku culture and find old doujinshi at a flooded Tokyo Big Sight. There's even an episode where they go camping after getting stuck in rural swampland.

I'd say the show is more fun than it is thrilling, but I don't mind a little extra flavor in my slice of life. The author clearly enjoys injecting their own personal interests whenever they please considering the most recent episodes have the girls going to Honda's very own Mobility Resort Motegi where the Japanese motorcycle Grand Prix takes place. Well, I guess that's why he made these two heroines motorbike nerds in the first place. In the Tokyo Big Sight episode they were looking for motorcycles too! The doujinshi was just a convenient prize hidden at the end of the world.

This isn't a fantastic looking show but the highly saturated moe visuals mix well with the nature-bound urban architecture. The bike riding gets pretty garish when it shifts into CG but it reminds me of Rin riding her moped in Yuru Camp so it's fine enough to get the job done. Good thing there isn't a lot of action in this show because they've struggled to convey it very well in the few scenes where it's noticeable. I guess not every anime can be Tengoku Daimakyou! 

Funnily enough, I think the most memorable aspect here is the music. There are a few themes that play frequently from episode to episode and they all sound awfully similar to the work of Texan post-rock outfit Explosions in the Sky. It's tough to communicate the exact similarities in text, but they have very similar guitar work and the songs build in such a distinct fashion that it was the first thing I noticed when viewing the series premiere. This might just be a coincidence, but either way someone should call up Jun Maeda and make sure he gets the memo just in case he decides to write another character who is a post-rock musician in his future work.

It's not the best of the "Shuumatsu" shows I've seen recently (that award easily goes to Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? from last year) but Shuumatsu Touring is a romp on a bumpy road and I've been having fun seeing Youko and Airi carve their path from episode to episode. I'm interested to see how they plan on concluding this anime and whether it'll delve into more plot-oriented material as it approaches the finish line. Let's just hope they don't get eaten by a giant sea monster before then!

 

Towa no Yuugure

Produced by P.A. Works

What, you thought we were done with apocaslop? The slopocalypse? The slop beyond the end of the world? The Slop When the Earth Stood Still? You're dead wrong, my friend. We haven't even started talking about the real main course of this season and it's so much better and worse than you're thinking - possibly at the same time. Sure, humanity is still around and kicking in this one. Yet, maybe a lonely world created by a cosmic disaster is preferable to a society of maniacs who survived an event that is called, I shit you not, "The AI War". Welcome to Towa no Yuugure (Dusk Beyond the End of the World).

P.A. Works has returned to show everyone what they really mean by 'progressive animation' with a dark woke anime original that somehow feels ripped out of time despite artificial intelligence being such a hot topic in the world of today. But to say this show is about AI specifically is far from the truth despite it having a prologue style episode 0 that centers largely on the topic. It's also about incest, polygamy, slavery, and censorship. And if robots can have sex in this world. Oh, and cuckoldry. Did I mention the incest?

Our everyman protagonist Akira is an orphan who survived a parents-obliterating car crash and then won the adoption lottery when he legally became the child of a genius professor with a conventionally attractive daughter named Towasa. Foster sister be damned, Akira immediately decides he's in love with her and spends the next decade trying to win her heart as she inherits her father's genius intellect and wastes it to become a female tech CEO who is obsessed with AI. The world isn't ready yet for chatbot powered androids that ruin the job market and determine the fate of everyone's health insurance, so the Pope goes on TV and says "AI bad" while most of the audience applauds. Towasa tries to counter this by saying everyone should just get a Neuralink chip slotted into their brain. This causes the most relatable man-with-a-gun in anime to try and assassinate her, but Akira happened to be there to jump in front of the shot.

The next time he wakes up, Akira emerges from a stasis pod to see the world of two centuries later. AI has destroyed the world, but not too badly since there's still plenty of green and humanity is still alive! They've simply been obliterated enough that society's technological prowess has regressed ala Turn A Gundam where quaint villages are making a big comeback and people are driving the Model T again. All the old world technology has been hoarded by an oppressive global power known as OWEL. It becomes apparent after a single Japanese speaker says the name out loud that it's supposed to sound like "Orwell". Considering how frequently the concept of book burning comes up, you'd think they would've opted for a Fahrenheit 451 reference instead.

Despite centuries passing, Akira is still determined to find Towasa while unearthing the truth about the events that changed society forever. When OWEL attempts to capture him, a highly acrobatic killer android named Yuugure shows up at his defense. Not only does she look like a dyed-blonde version of his foster sister, but she also has the brain of the old AI assistant that the two used to converse with! After obliterating her enemies with a giant laser, this quirky android immediately asks Akira for his hand in marriage. Too bad for her as Akira is a hardline monogamist who is convinced that his one true love is still alive! This is complicated further when he learns that the old concept of marriage has been all but erased in favor of a polycule-like arrangement referred to as "ehlsea".

Towa no Yuugure is a batshit romantic comedy with too many extra steps to count. It is appropriately skilled in the art of presenting the idea of social commentary but not interested in expounding upon it. For example - shortly after starting their journey to Tokyo, Akira and Yuugure meet the aspiring picture book artist Amoru. She's part of an indentured slave class who were coerced into sacrificing their human rights to OWEL in exchange for absolution from criminal history or debt. They're provided the essentials to survive at the cost of their dignity and health as they're utilized for free labor. Akira almost tries to have an opinion on this topic before the most goofball ass Stereotypical Flamboyant Gay Man Villain appears just to make Amoru suffer by burning her parents' picture books right in front of her. It's enough whiplash to provoke the average viewer into reciting the ancient mantra, "what did they mean by this?"

I like to call shows of this nature 'book-loaded' as they stuff the book ends of the anime with loads of action and dramatic plot-driven sequences but leave the episodes in the middle to meander as they please. After being saved by the duo, Amoru joins them on their journey and quickly becomes infatuated. She wants nothing more than to form an ehlsea with them, but Akira and Yuugure are still imprisoned by their monogamist ways. This creates one of the dumbest love triangles in the world. Just put the damn harem in the bag, man. Who gives a shit. There's a two episode arc where the crew debates whether or not to help two prospective mafia bosses from the same family secure their, for lack of a better term, wincest ehlsea. Naturally they do because Akira realizes he'd be a hypocrite to decline considering his proclivities. 

Later the group gains a fourth member who is the most suspicious man on the planet - Yokurata. He's a bespectacled man who says ominous things and claims he quit his day job at OWEL but makes faces at the camera as if to indicate otherwise. The only thing of note he's done is seduce a crazy librarian who gets horny over books. He stays distant so the main trio can milk their romcom routine. Akira yearns for his potentially dead sister-wife and Yuugure demands his attention as Amoru gets jealous because she's the only one who wants to ehlsea. The NTR baiting gets intense with Yuugure getting fake drunk and hanging out with a mobster, Amoru's lack of romantic fulfillment, and then an entire arc about a failed wife guy who had an affair and wasted ten years trying to win back his wife who clearly hates him.

Did I mention that there are more androids and they also have Towasa's face? Two of them are captains of OWEL; one is edgy and the other one is a nun. They pretend to be enemies but haven't really done anything bad. That's why the show keeps throwing out buffoonish caricatures to do all the evil shit! Apparently there are more sameface androids but none of them have shown up yet except in the OP. Speaking of which, the ED is pretty good because Amoru is one of the only likeable characters in this show and most of the visuals are just her being cute.

But I gotta admit, you really can only get this kind of shitkino from P.A. Works. Maybe I don't really need to know what the writer believes. This is essentially light novel junk food wrapped in a sheen of vaguely outlined social commentary like "would you sell YOUR dignity for welfare???" and "what if you woke up one day and everybody was in a harem and incest was suddenly legal???" with a lead character who is dense as shit but can miraculously accomplish anything the narrative desires. He's weak to a pushy white woman but when a cute darker skinned artist girl wants a consensual joint partnership he is unfazed. This guy stinks!

They're dangling the big twist about Towasa's involvement in the war and all this AI shit like it's supposed to be appetizing, but all it does is make me think of Lazarus or even Metallic Rouge (which is considerably worse than this, I doubt the ending will change that). The aura of social consciousness is just a mirage to avoid writing pure schlock. Let's be honest here. One of the main cast members is a girl who basically runs around in her underwear all day. This is just a character drama filled with "made you think" type scenarios. There won't be any grand revelation at the end of this. Or will Akira ban all polygamy out of anger once he gets his way? I stopped guessing ages ago.

I don't hate it though. P.A. Works has some stinkers and even this trainwreck is preferable to Narenare which had dialogue so unnatural it could've been written by space aliens. This is just stupid enough in the humorous way that it outweighs the pseudo-intellectual thought exercises it insists upon presenting. There's a universe where this is just a battle harem with androids and it is far more honest with itself. Not much point having a productive conversation about artificial intelligence when the attractive robot women are in the room. A show like this would end better with a punchline, but I get the feeling it'll pretend to take itself seriously in the last couple of episodes. I think original anime productions about androids powered by AI are cursed. Just go watch an episode of Metallic Rouge or Renai Flops and you'll see what I mean. It would be better if you didn't, though.

 

The regularly scheduled Seasonals of the Abyss outro is being truncated because I don't have anything to reflect on with this season. This may or may not be the last thing I write in 2025 since I'm gonna be spending the next couple of weeks moving to a new place. Let's just skip to the postmortem for last season because I watched more than a handful of anime over the summer.

Takopii no Genzai - I don't have anything to add because it was already finished when I wrote the original post. The anime would be sad if I excluded it from the list, so here it is again!

Nukitashi the Animation - I dropped this before writing the original post but I'll take the time to acknowledge that they made actual hentai OVAs for the BD release. It was a sensible choice and I respect it. One day I'll play the original eroge and judge this series properly.

Game Center Shoujo to Ibunka Kouryuu - To be honest, I had to double check to see if I actually finished watching this one. Apparently I did! Well, what can I say. It was moe cotton candy that spun its wheels for twelve episodes and I started zoning out for the last few. No regrets, but it doesn't get a glowing endorsement from me either.

Yofukashi no Uta Season 2 - I stand by my criticisms of it but I do think it's a perfectly fine season. Anko is great but I can't help but feel her situation ended way too clean. There's a struggle in my heart between someone who loves a challenging narrative and my bias for older anime women who wear glasses. The first season was stronger overall but this is a decent continuation. If season three ever happens I'll probably watch it despite my apprehension for what comes next in the story.

Dandadan 2nd Season - Science Saru set this up perfectly for another cliffhanger ending and it definitely caught me off guard. The kaiju battle segment was a lot of fun, especially with Kinta trying to pilot the house mech while making Gundam inspired remarks. The new alien girl is cute but I can only imagine what her story is going to be. Either way, I'll be back here again for season three.

Ruri no Houseki - Shingo Fujii does it again. Is there anyone who dares claim that Studio Bind doesn't have the sauce? It's been months and I still see fanart of these characters and it's not just from the Japanese artists either. This is a moe ICBM penetrating the stratosphere where even the average person will admit to watching anime about cute girls and mineralogy. A show this charming and brimming with color is tough to pass up. Who needs Mushoku Tensei with friends like these?

Turkey! - They didn't become bowling's answer to Timesplitters but this is still a wildly underrated show. Was the drama a little contrived? Sure. Did the resolution involve bowling plot magic? Yeah. It was still a slice of life anime about bowling for more episodes than it wasn't. Tourism dollars could be going toward a lot worse. The cast was great and there was plenty to like about its absurdity. I'll miss those bowling girls.

CITY The Animation - One day I will give this a proper rewatch because hot damn is it dense with detail. This isn't an experience that you can discard in the back of your mind afterward. The level of detail in the boarding, animation, gag sequencing, etc. was astounding and some episodes demand more attention than others. KyoAni showed up with something to prove and they were serious. I don't think it'll ever have the wide appeal of Nichijou due to the more abstract humor, but anyone who enjoys this is bound to be infatuated with it.

New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt - I knew those cheeky bastards would do another "TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SEASON" meme ending but they definitely caught me off guard with the execution. Really, it's just liberating to see how successful this new season has been. Trigger did what Gainax could never do - find a way to appeal to a broader audience while still keeping the core qualities of the series in tact. Merch for this series was so scarce during the first season that now much of it is rare. A new season two merch collab seems to drop every other week and another live event got announced after the previous one. Am I season three believer? Of course I am. Imaishi promised me eleven seasons and a film. I've still got a few decades left on this planet, so I can afford to be patient. Trigger can save anime a few more times before then.

And that's all I've got. Until next time (which might be 2026, so a tentative happy new year) - stay moe, friends.