Hot new trends in anime!

Vashdaman

Vashdaman

Cardcaptor
This is one of many slightly different thread titles I've been pondering over posting for months, others included "new trends in anime that excite you" or "new trends in anime that worry/depress you". So I thought I'd go with a more neutral and all encompassing tone, though we can create those other threads too.

But to get to the point, I guess I've realised that while I've never really had my finger on the pulse of anime, I've come to know less and less about what that state of anime in 2026 really is, what are its predominant or not so dominant new trends. The only thing that really clues me in are the AUKN season roundups, but as I hardly ever watch new things I still only have the vaguest picture.

And so I'm interested to hear from those who do keep up more than me. What's the state of anime? What things do you like? What gives you hope? What do you despise and what do you fear?
 
In a nutshell I've watched (and will continue to watch) anime for the last 26 years because it has never failed to entertain me. I think there's too much copycat anime today but there are a lot of new ideas that are constantly coming out. I don't like yaoi, most giant mecha, shonen ai and sports anime.
 
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No micro trends getting anyone hot under their anime collars?
Is Isekai still in slow decline? Are the genres we all know and love (or might not love) evolving in any interesting ways?

One new thing I recall seeing a while back from AUKN was that whole Omega verse thing. That was genuinely something new that I didn't understand or particularly like the sound of if I'm honest, because the whole obsession with congenital predispositions towards dominance and submission and power dynamics in general is just massively disquieting and off putting to me. BUT, I kind of liked that feeling of "WTF even is this..." and mild disgust mixed with intrigue that I got while reading the omega verse wiki page. I feel like anime used to make me feel that way all the time. So I guess I'm saying, I'm into the Omega verse??
 
Omegaverse isn't especially new but it's definitely rising in popularity. It's not something I'm personally into. The isekai genre is still eating itself but clinging on, together with its weird cousin, the lazy fantasy series set in a world where everything works exactly like a cheap mobile phone game. The moment somebody utters the words 'I'd better go to the adventuring guild' before rudderlessly entering an AoT-style walled town in a new fantasy series, I'm out.

I'm also very much over the trend of CG magic circles to show spellcasting. It was cool the first time. Decent the next few times. And now it's just boring - shows where they actually bother setting up an interesting magic system or think about how spellcasting might look instead of copy-pasting the generic pop-up magic circles are so much better.

Another thing which isn't new but has started to instil a gag reflex in me is the scene every anime/manga of a certain type has where the perfect, idealised girl is jilted by her ugly, high status (usually royal) fiancé in public, often on a staircase or in front of a throne and always in front of loads of stooges, thus triggering the girl's personal quest to find herself. The stories themselves vary but that one scene is so ubiquitous, lazy and stupid that series have started phoning it in, making the moeblob lead as pathetic as possible and the ex-fiancé super-dumb and evil in a way which robs the scenario of any sense of plausibility or entertainment value. I've had a lot of ads for different manga lately, all of which prominently feature the exact same thing in a shorthand way of quickly making the reader feel bad for the main character, and it's slowly driving me bananas. Please, writers, can we move on?

I tend to only follow the series which ignore the current trends because I crave originality and/or emotional stimulation in my entertainment, so I don't know what the current fashions are until they become so stifling that I cannot avoid them. I guess another which I'd like to see people moving away from is the cynical and/or unpleasant main character; I know they're trying to make characters the target audience can relate to or self-insert into, but enthusiastic characters who are hungry for what life has to offer are so much more enjoyable! I do like that we have a few of those in currently-running shows (Iruma-kun, Rimuru from TenSura and Rentarou from 100 Girlfriends, off the top of my head) but while the occasional misanthrope is interesting, when it becomes the standard it does end up feeling rather bleak.

R
 
Great post, Rui! I haven't seen many of any of those sorts of shows but even I'm sick of all those things you mentioned. The misanthropic main character thing really is such a depressing trend and seems to capture what an era of all around societal pessimism we're in.

I think you also bring up an interesting and important point in your post's implication that all trends are actually bad as they tend to kill originality, and become cynical and uninspired and shallow. I think this is very true, especially in commercial products like anime. Maybe even more so in anime where trends seen to last a reeeeealy long time.
 
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