Each year, over a hundred new anime series will be launched, and fans only have so much time they can dedicate to watching them. Here are four of the absolute best new anime series to debut in 2022, and with many confirmed to continue, now's the perfect time to get on board.
Quality is obviously an important metric when it comes to establishing the best, and that applies to both the quality of writing and the quality of animation. Fan reaction also plays a big part; series that got a lot more buzz were more likely to end up on the list. Awesome opening (OP) and ending (ED) themes, cool characters and designs, and pure style are also factors that can help an anime series to rank highly. Without further ado, here are (in no particular order) four of the best anime series of 2022.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime was a highly anticipated project. A Netflix series, it's actually a spinoff of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, which is itself based on the Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing system. The story follows David, a poor kid in the dystopian world of Night City. David's mother works hard to put him through school, but David isn't really interested in becoming a suit and climbing the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, David's mother is killed almost immediately, leaving the young man on his own. Faced with an uncaring world that demands massive amounts of money from him, David meets up with Lucy, a "picksocket" who steals cybernetic bits off of people. He decides to become an "edgerunner," a type of cybernetic mercenary, using a scavenged military-grade implant to fight.
Animated by Studio Trigger, known for Kill la Kill and the Power Rangers parody SSSS.Gridman, Edgerunners really captures the grungy feel of most cyberpunk works, while simultaneously building up a setting that feels uncomfortably close to the modern day. Edgerunners is all about style and isn't afraid to use color, as evidenced by Lucy's rainbow hair. Still, the show does an amazing job at building up its characters into likable, relatable people despite the actions they're forced to take. It also takes full advantage of the incredible Cyberpunk setting, creating a world that hits every key tenet of the genre while giving many of them a unique twist. Even sci-fi fans who don't normally watch anime would do well to check the series out, as there are few other works quite like it. Be warned, though: the show can be quite graphic when it comes to sex and nudity as well as violence and gore.
Chainsaw Man
The Chainsaw Man manga has already been making waves for years, so the anime adaptation was sure to be hotly anticipated. The series follows Denji, a deeply indebted man who sells his own body parts and hunts devils for money. He does so with the help of a devil "dog" named Pochita, who has a chainsaw coming out of his head but is otherwise shockingly friendly. But when the men he was indebted to lure him into a trap, Denji nearly dies... until Pochita fuses with him, creating the devil-human hybrid, Chainsaw Man. As Chainsaw Man, Denji slaughters the Zombie Devil that was responsible for this but passes out from exhaustion. He's discovered there by Makima, an official Devil Hunter from a government organization, who recruits Denji and puts him to work killing devils.
Chainsaw Man is animated by MAPPA, who previously worked on Jujutsu Kaisen and Attack on Titan's final season, and its animation is quite smooth. The series revels in gore and violence but does so in a flashy, stylish way. The series has also made a name for its ending themes. The devils are suitably gross and inhuman, while Chainsaw Man's Denji himself remains a relatable character, always dreaming of the day when his life might suck a little less. While the gore may be a turn-off for some, those who can tolerate it will find that there's a lot more beneath the surface of Chainsaw Man.
Spy X Family
For something completely different, there's Spy X Family, read simply as "Spy Family." Spy X Family is about a spy with the code name "Twilight" from the fictional country of Westalis in the early 20th century. Twilight, better known to Spy x Family fans as Loid Forger, is given an assignment requiring him to build a fake family for cover in order to infiltrate a prestigious school. Loid adopts a child--the precocious Anya, who's also equipped with the ability to read minds, although Loid doesn't know it. He ends up meeting a young woman named Yor who agrees to marry him not long after meeting, but Yor also has a secret: she's the assassin known as the Thorn Princess. A family brought together by circumstance who each carry a secret from the others leads to all kinds of wacky situations.
Spy X Family uses its mildly zany premise for both comedy and action, which the series excels at. Loid and Yor both give off the impression of being trained and dangerous when doing their jobs, offering the show opportunities for cool action scenes. Anya provides most of the comic relief, as her psychic powers often leave her knowing things she's not supposed to know and leading to wild choices to conceal her secret. While the animation is good, where Spy X Family really shines is its music, which uses jazzy, big-band songs to highlight both the action and the era. For those looking for both a laugh and a fight scene, one can't go wrong with Spy X Family.
Lycoris Recoil
Lycoris Recoil is an action anime series with slice-of-life elements. Lycoris is a government assassination group that exclusively uses young orphan girls as their agents, who fight to keep the peace in Tokyo. The story follows Takina, a Lycoris agent placed on probation after going against orders to save another girl. This finds her reassigned to "LycoReco," a café run by the agency as a cover, to work with Chisato, another Lycoris agent famed for her involvement in a radio tower incident some time prior. Chisato's peppy persona contrasts with Takina's no-nonsense, work-focused demeanor, and the pair must learn to work together as they attempt to unravel a mystery involving hackers, arms deals, and terrorists.
Lycoris Recoil isn't based on a manga, but rather is an anime-original project by A-1 pictures, a subsidiary of Aniplex. The series is loaded with gunplay, leading to a lot of great action scenes being included. While Chisato and Takina's dynamic isn't the most original, it is well executed here, and both girls are likeable. The series did catch some flack from reviewers in the West for its portrayal of state-sponsored violence, but if that can be overlooked, there's plenty here to enjoy for fans of firearms-based action.