This story first ran in the animation newsletter \u201cSketch to Screen<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to receive a new entry every Thursday.<\/em><\/p>\n Anyone who even vaguely follows anime<\/a> knows that the beginning of a new season is hectic. The Japanese anime industry operates on an extremely rigid quarterly calendar, in which shows generally all begin around the same time and wrap after three months of airing. This means that in the first week of a new quarter, you have upwards of\u00a050 or 60 shows airing their debut episodes in the same seven or eight days.\u00a0<\/p>\n With such a sheer volume of work coming out, the anime market can get crowded, and its easy for these works to bleed together into a vague blob of gag comedies, action-adventure shows, and sickly-sweet romances. After a relatively light Winter season, Spring has a lot of big-ticket shows, including returning series like \u201cRe:Zero,\u201d \u201cDr. Stone,\u201d and \u201cThat Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To help cut through the noise, here\u2019s a look at five new series premiering this April that I\u2019ve seen, and whether they\u2019re worth your time. This is just the shows I received screeners for and whose embargoes have lifted; I can\u2019t talk about a few others. Also of note is all of these shows will be airing weekly on Crunchyroll in North America, and I generally only received the screener for their first episode, so it\u2019s hard to come to a full verdict with just a small taste. With that said, what from this Spring schedule should you most be paying attention to?\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to judge whether a show will be worth jumping into based just on one 24-minute episode, but it\u2019s\u00a0especially\u00a0<\/em>difficult with \u201cAgents of the Four Seasons,\u201d a show about a group of people known as Agents who act as shepherds for the four seasons of Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. The first episode introduces the audience to precisely one of those Agents,\u00a0Hinagiku, as she returns after a 10-year-long, as yet unexplained absence to bring Spring back to the world.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very much a slow, slightly plodding prologue to whatever the show will become rather than a full meal, one that throws you into this world without much in the way of guard rails to ground yourself. I also wouldn\u2019t say the actual story told \u2014 about Hinagiku reckoning with the consequences of her hiatus from her duties after an encounter with a young girl who no longer remembers Spring \u2014 is a particularly strong or emotionally compelling hook for wherever the story will go from here. It\u2019s possible this show is operating on a slow boil that\u2019ll be worth it in the long run, and the animation from Wit Studio is good enough (particularly in the lushly rendered sequence where Hinagiku performs her ritual) to be worth checking out. But overall, it\u2019s not a series I came out of the first episode dying to see more of.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, \u201cGo For It, Nakumara\u201d is a show that establishes its premise pretty succinctly in its first 5 or so minutes. On the first day of high school, introverted Okuto Nakumara spots his classmate Aiki Hirose in the crowd of an assembly, and immediately falls head over heels for him. The problem is Nakumara, whose only real friend is his pet octopus, is way too shy to actually talk to Hirose. As the show picks up, he slowly works up the courage to talk to Hirose and try to befriend him \u2014 efforts that mostly lead to failure and humiliation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGo For It, Nakumara\u201d is based on a manga that I\u2019ve actually read, and it\u2019s fun, lighthearted, and very sweet, if a little insubstantial \u2014 quite literally, considering how it only ran for a single volume. Don\u2019t expect particularly deep character writing for the title hero or the object of his desire. But it\u2019s legitimately funny, executing its main gag of Nakumara\u2019s attempts to socialize failing miserably with some creative panache. The anime so far is a faithful adaptation of what makes the manga a pleasing comfort: the animation and art style nod to the puffy hair and simple line art of \u201980s anime while still feeling fresh and modern, the comic timing is sharp and farcical, and the intro theme song is a cheesy blast.\u00a0<\/p>\n The reveal in the first episode of \u201cDaemons of the Shadow Realm\u201d is embargoed and also shouldn\u2019t be spoiled, because watching the show and getting hit with the left-field turn it takes is honestly the best part of the experience. That said, this reveal isn\u2019t an end-of-episode twist, but a turning point that occurs around halfway through the episode, making it exceptionally hard to talk about.<\/p>\n One of the most anticipated shows of the season, the big selling point of \u201cDaemons of the Shadow Realm\u201d is that it\u2019s based on a manga by\u00a0Hiromu Arakawa, whose masterpiece \u201cFullmetal Alchemist\u201d is one of the most beloved manga of all time, and received an anime adaptation generally held up as the peak of the action\/fantasy shonen genre in the medium. Like \u201cFullmetal Alchemist,\u201d \u201cDaemons\u201d is a story about siblings: the opening shows the birth of two twins, Yuru and Asa, who are prophesied to one day master the control of spirits known as \u201cDaemon.\u201d In a flash forward to their adolescence, Yuru is a hunter leading a humble life in a small village, while Asa is being held behind a cage in town for unclear reasons. From there, the show rather abruptly takes a pivot, so there\u2019s not much I can say about what journey Yuru will go on. But the first episode is promising: the stakes are clear, the animation by Bones is crisp, and the fight scenes are pleasingly tactile.\u00a0<\/p>\n Probably the most anticipated anime of the Spring, \u201cWitch Hat Atelier\u201d is an adaptation of a manga by\u00a0Kamome Shirahama, which has been running since 2016 and has received tons of honors in that time, including an Eisner Award here in the states. It\u2019s maybe not a surprise it\u2019s taken so long to receive an adaptation, though, as what makes the manga so acclaimed is also very particular to the medium. Shirahama\u2019s detailed etching and line work make the manga feel like an old picture book come to life, and her paneling and layouts are astonishingly detailed and gorgeous. For a story that\u2019s essentially a modern fairy tale, it\u2019s the perfect use of form and craft to set the tone.\u00a0<\/p>\n The anime, from relatively new studio Bug Films, can\u2019t really replicate that art style completely. The animation is crisp and gorgeous, and there are a few moments of stylization \u2014 such as when the main character Coco floats in the air with her mentor Qifrey and the world around them fades from frame \u2014 that captures a taste of what makes the manga such a visual triumph. Still, this is definitely a story best told in its original form, as for 90 percent of the time, the series mostly just looks like another very well-animated anime.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean the show isn\u2019t worth checking out. Set in a medieval, Art Nouveau-styled world where only those born with an innate use of magic can become witches, the show follows dressmaker Coco as she discovers the secrets of the practice. When she accidentally unleashes a spell that turns her mother to stone, she joins Qifrey\u2019s atelier as an apprentice to learn more about magic and save her mother. It\u2019s an open-hearted story about self-discovery and fulfilling your dreams that\u2019s appropriate for all ages \u2014 kids would\u00a0love\u00a0<\/em>this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019re someone who doesn\u2019t watch anime but has read this far: first off, thank you. Second off, you might think the title \u201cDrops of God\u201d and the general premise, about a competition for the inheritance of a world-renowned wine critic\u2019s estate, feels strangely familiar. That\u2019s because this anime is actually the second series adaptation of the manga by sibling duo Yuko and Shin Kibayashi; the first, a French-American-Japanese co-production, premiered on Apple TV<\/a>+ in 2023 and just wrapped up its second season this March. The live-action show is a rather loose adaptation of the original manga, presenting itself as a glossy prestige drama, a bit more serious than its source material.\u00a0<\/p>\n In contrast, the anime \u201cDrops of God\u201d fully plays the premise as the out-of-this-world soap opera it is. Following\u00a0Shizuku Kanzaki, the estranged son of a wine critic who has never so much as tasted wine but has such strong senses he can master the art of wine tasting almost immediately, the show sets up his rivalry with\u00a0Issei Tomine, a wine critic his father allegedly adopted a week before his death. To gain their inheritance, the two must solve the mystery of 12 wines known as \u201cthe Apostles\u201d and a thirteenth known as the \u201cDrops of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a wildly ridiculous story, but \u201cDrops of God\u201d embraces it, with such sincerity and unwinking earnestness that it wraps around to endearing. My favorite moments in the pilot are when Shizuku and Issei drink wine and experience near psychedelic visions of bright flashing colors and Renaissance-era art, describing the taste as bringing to mind \u201c\u201970s soft rock\u201d and \u201cthe opera \u2018Salome,’\u201d respectively. The animation is a little rough around the edges \u2014 there\u2019s a shot of wine being poured down a sink where the red liquid is depicted in CGI, for some reason \u2014 but the slightly retro style with the characters\u2019 prominent lips and sharp chins added to the camp appeal. I don\u2019t know if \u201cDrops of God\u201d will stay satisfying across a whole season, but the first taste was as satisfying as a nice glass of pinot noir. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Behind](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jury_Duty_Company_Retreat_S1_FG_108_00022116_Still035_3000.jpg?w=300&h=168&crop=1\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image.png?w=650\")
<\/figure>\n\u201cAgents of the Four Seasons\u201d (Premiered March 28)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image_9cea2a.png\")
<\/figure>\n\u201cGo For It, Nakumara!\u201d (Now Streaming)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image_a8e28c.png?w=650\")
<\/figure>\n\u201cDaemons of the Shadow Realm\u201d (April 4)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image_a407fe.png?w=650\")
<\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image_026c77.png?w=650\")
<\/figure>\n\u201cDrops of God\u201d (April 10)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n