While the summer has its perks with warm weather, sunny skies, bright green foliage, and refreshing chilled treats, it can be exciting to anticipate the changing of seasons into cool fall breezes and rainfall, the leaves changing into a gradient of yellows and reds, and bountiful harvests and tasty warm sweets. And a good anime binge on a chill movie night can be just the thing to ring in a new season!
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With students returning to school, summer vacation may be coming to a close, but the autumnal good times are just getting started! Enjoying the last bit of warm weather before having to bundle up and ending the season off with a bang with festivals and fairs, there’s so much to look forward to! In the meantime, these anime picks are great to fill any down time while anticipating all that’s to come!
7) Anne Shirley
Having spent the majority of her young life moving from family to family, eleven-year-old orphan Anne Shirley is yet to find somewhere she can call home. That is, until she’s sent to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert at the quiet farm of Green Gables. Although the elderly siblings had originally requested to adopt a boy to help with farm work, the mistake quickly turns into a happy accident as Anne charms Marilla and Matthew with her vivid imagination, dramatic flair, and surprising intelligence into not only happily allowing her to stay, but take to lovingly raise her as their own kin. Settling into her new family and life in Avonlea, the series follows Anne as she attends school, makes friends like Diana Barry, and navigates both the joys and hardships of growing up.
Through the literal and metaphorical seasons of life, with all her quirks, emotional tribulations, and clever problem-solving skills, Anne’s maturity into a young lady is a journey of mundane, yet moving, relatability.
Anne Shirley can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
6) Kiki’s Delivery Service
As part of her training, thirteen-year-old Kiki must undergo the entrepreneurial venture of living independently for a year in order to become a full-fledged witch. Flying out on her broom with little besides her radio, pet cat Jiji, excitement for adventure, and hopeful optimism, Kiki decides to settle in the coastal town of Koriko. But struggling to find her place in the bustling city, she eventually runs into the owner of a bakery, Osono. After demonstrating her aptitude for flying, Osono offers Kiki boarding in exchange for making deliveries for her bakery. Opening her own courier service, though Kiki faces her own set of struggles, she comes to find fulfillment in her work and grows to cherish the community of Koriko.
With bright, summery scenery in the setting of a coastal town mixed with charming witchy vibes, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a perfect Studio Ghibli film to transition from warm summer days into chill, spooky movie nights.
Kiki’s Delivery Service can be streamed on Netflix or Max where available.
5) The Ancient Magus’ Bride
Chise Hatori, a young girl who has faced ridicule from her peers and abandonment from her family because of her strange abilities, holds onto one last trickle of hope for a place to call home by selling herself in a mysterious auction after being at the end of her rope. Having been sold for five million pounds to a tall masked gentleman, she finds herself magically transported to a picturesque cottage in rural England. Learning that she’s a prized being called a Sleigh Beggy, her buyer, the magus Elias Ainsworth, also intends for her to be his apprentice and bride. With a new perspective on a world full of fae and monsters, Chise is finally able to embrace her magical side and learn to connect with others.
With a backdrop of magical fantasy creatures roaming about a cozy, rural setting as Chise studies as Elias’s magician apprentice, The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a series ripe for verdant summer giving way to that magical time of year (no, not Christmas, the other one).
The Ancient Magus’ Bride can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
4) Laid-Back Camp
Pitching a tent, collecting firewood, and eating simple meals, Rin Shima enjoys going on solitary camping trips as a hobby. But when Nadeshiko Kagamihara falls asleep on her way cycling to see Mount Fuji, she stumbles into Rin’s campsite to seek help after being stranded after dark. After a wonderful experience of sitting around a campfire, eating ramen, and chatting, Nadeshiko takes it upon herself later at school to invite Rin to join the Outdoor Activities Club. With club members and friends, Chiaki Ōgaki and Aoi Inuyama keep the good camping times going.
Just like the title, this is a great laid-back watch with picturesque scenery, low-stakes problem-solving, and cozy camping atmospheres — this slice-of-life lays on the iyashikei genre thick for those seeking an anime with the chillest of cute girl vibes throughout the changing seasons and just soaking in the simple pleasures of camping.
Laid-Back Camp can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
3) Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf
As Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant, makes a stop in the pagan village of Pasloe, the town is in the midst of its annual harvest festival. As legend has it, one of the villagers made a promise with the wolf deity Holo centuries ago, with the wolf blessing Pasloe with bountiful harvests of wheat year after year. As time passed and the villagers became disenchanted, the legend became merely tradition as the townsfolk ceased worshipping the now considered fictitious deity. But when Lawrence finds a nude woman with animal ears and tail sleeping amongst his pelt wares, she claims to be Holo, the wolf deity herself. Wishing to return to her home in the north, she convinces Lawrence to allow her to accompany him in his travels, vowing to earn her keep via her quick wits and negotiation skills in the economic opportunities that they happen upon.
Featuring scenes of sprawling fields of wheat and roads traversing rolling hills, Spice and Wolf especially brings the harvest season vibes with the Pasloe harvest festival and Holo shoveling bushels of apples into her pie hole.
Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
2) Summer Ghost
They say that fireworks can calm the souls of the dead, but the Summer Ghost can only appear in a specific place and only to those at death’s door to answer questions pertaining to death. Tomoya Sugisaki, Aoi Harukawa, and Ryou Kobayashi venture to the former airport grounds runway where it’s believed that fireworks (sparklers) will allow them to meet the Summer Ghost, the spirit of a young woman who committed suicide, Satou Ayane. Though the three aren’t the most alike personality-wise, there is something that allows each of them to meet the Summer Ghost. With the prospect of death hot on each of their heels, the three friends would like to know more about the concept. But although they initially expected to learn more about death itself, they also learn about themselves and the Summer Ghost herself.
Summer? Ghost? Heck, with just two words, the whole concept of this list is practically in this pick’s title. As a bittersweet, shorter film, Summer Ghost takes on introspective, thought-provoking themes of life after death, sort of akin to the hopes of spring being just around the corner after the summer of life gives way to the late fall, that in turn gives way to the quiet, cold death of winter.
1) Dandadan
When feisty gyaru Momo Ayase defends the meek, geeky Ken Takakura from bullies, he mistakes her kindness as wanting to befriend him and an interest in his obsession — aliens and the occult. Telling him that she’s not into aliens and UFOs but does believe in ghosts prompts him to chuckle that ghosts aren’t real. Initiating a rivalry, Momo and the newly dubbed Okarun both set out to prove the other wrong, landing them in a series of odd events that not only prove that they were both right, but requiring them to team up against those very supernatural forces they’d bickered about. Thus, beginning their unusual friendship and endeavor of retrieving Okarun’s family jewels from the very things they initially questioned existing.
With the second season’s recent debut, Dandadan is a great rom-com pick to watch the love magically blossom between Momo and Occult-kun as you also prepare to fall in love with the mystical, chill air of the supernatural spooky season. Just be careful to watch out for aliens, ghosts, and other paranormal entities yourself!
Dandadan can be streamed on Netflix, Prime, Hulu, or Crunchyroll where available.
What anime makes you excited to transition from hot summer greenery to the cooler autumnal season? Let us know in the comments!
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