The 5 Best and 2 Worst New Anime from Winter 2017

From elaborate high school romances to demihumans.

By IGN Staff

2017 kicked off with fun comedies and a few more brutal anime that helped round out the season tonally.

Below is our list of the best anime from the winter 2017 season along with two anime you can avoid.

This list is for new anime series only, so as much as we enjoy Konosuba and Blue Exorcist, no follow-up seasons were considered for this list. Little Witch Academia is currently not available legally outside of Japan, so unfortunately it was also excluded from consideration.

Scum’s Wish

High schoolers Hanabi and Mugi are both in love with older people they can't have, so instead they pair up and try to fulfill their desires with each other. This drama takes high school sexuality to one of its darkest places while respectfully retaining its characters' agency. Scum's Wish offers a serious take on sex, manipulation, and obsession in one of the more beautifully animated shows of the season. If you're looking for possible Anime of the Year contenders, look no further.

Available on Anime Strike

Interviews with Monster Girls

Taking place in a world where demi-humans from legends and fairy tales are not only real, but have been normalized, Interviews With Monster Girls is an incredibly sweet show that explores what it’s like to feel different. The anime’s main cast consists of a vampire, a dullahan, a snow woman, and a succubus, each of which struggle with aspects of their monster sides that cause them to feel out of place in society. Fortunately, biology teacher Tetsuo Takahashi is there to help each of them come to grips with, and celebrate the aspects that make them each unique in one of the most feel-good animes of the season.

Available on Crunchyroll and Funimation

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

When office worker Kobayashi saves Tohru, a dragon from another dimension, the beast transforms into a human and decides to be Kobayashi's maid. Several other dragons (like the adorable dragon child Kanna) make their way to the mundane, magicless Japan and change Kobayashi's life forever. Dragon Maid's greatest strength is in some of its quieter moments where we see Kobayashi find acceptance and genuine happiness with her new companions. Its slice of life comedy is also wonderful. Dragon Maid has some unfortunate missteps with how it handles a few characters in sexual situations, but is otherwise a joy to watch.

Available on Crunchyroll and Funimation

Fuuka

Technically a sequel to 2004’s romance/drama, Suzuka, Fuuka tells the story of Fuuka Akitsuki and Yuu Haruna, two high school students who eventually become close friends due to their mutual love for music. As feelings start to develop past the level of friendship, matters are complicated when Yuu reunites with a childhood friend, Koyuki, who also happens to be a famous idol, and also happens to be Fuuka’s favorite singer. What follows is a fairly typical love triangle story that is bolstered by a fantastic soundtrack and a cast of lovable characters.

It’s worth mentioning that towards the latter end of the anime, the story takes a dramatic shift from the events that take place in the manga, which may understandably upset manga fans. But judged on its own merits, Fuuka’s anime still holds up well.

Available on Crunchyroll and Funimation

Saga of Tanya the Evil

Never anger a godlike entity. If you do, you may be reincarnated as a girl living through a World War like stubborn protagonist Tanya. Having been a businessman and all-round horrible person in a previous life, God or “Being X” teaches Tanya a lesson about faith by putting her through intense hardship. Saga of Tanya the Evil takes the extremities of war and shows an interesting perspective not seen in most anime. Even with Tanya’s shortcomings, her new lease on life makes for a crazy action-packed adventure.

Available on Crunchyroll and Funimation

While we try not to dwell on negativity, this season had two standout anime that were so poorly made it’s a wonder they were ever approved for production. The following two anime have few to no redeeming qualities and can safely be skipped.

Hand Shakers

There’s a chance that if you put a few stills from Hand Shakers into a slideshow it’d look like a nice, highly stylized anime. Upon watching it you’d find otherwise. This is yet another anime where a bland boy, Tazuna, gets powers with strange stipulations and must fight for the sake of a cute, helpless girl. Hand Shaker’s poor direction paired with awful CG effects and an inconsistent story make for an incredibly unappealing anime.

Available on Crunchyroll and Funimation

Forest Fairy Five

Imagine a commercial or ad for a chibi anime MMO game from the 2000s. Now imagine a bad kids show based on that chibi anime MMO game. That’s what you’ll get with Forest Fairy Five. The short 10-minute episodes of this anime showcase horrible CG animation and blinding light effects that’ll make even today’s kids switch the channel.

Available on Crunchyroll

What anime did you watch this past season? What are you looking forward to binging?

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