The Top 10 Most Anticipated Anime of Spring 2021

With the final days of March also comes the final days of the Winter 2021 anime season, and this means it’s time to look ahead to the new releases of the Spring 2021 schedule! It’s a huge season as it’s a much different looking schedule than from the same time last year. Last year was the peak of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the Spring 2020 season was hit the hardest. Series were postponed until months later, others stopped airing for a few weeks, and the amount of shows that made it through the chaos had to bear the weight of that schedule all on their own.

It’s a completely different world a year later as Spring 2021 is the most packed schedule in the year yet, and potentially the most packed for the year overall depending on the rest of the line ups. This season includes some returns of fan favorite series for new episodes, sequel seasons to bring current releases, franchises coming back for new adaptations, and of course, brand new anime making their official debut.

With so many new releases vying for fan attention over the next few months, ComicBook.com has compiled a list of the ten series you should really keep an eye out for this Spring. Read on to see our picks for the ten most anticipated anime releases of Spring 2021, and let us know your picks!

There are too many to list all here, so let us know which anime you’re looking forward to the most in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!

My Hero Academia Season 5

Premiere Date: March 27th (Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu)

Leading the way for the strong Spring 2021 season is one of the biggest anime comebacks of the year as a whole. Following the massively successful response to the fourth season (especially the second half of it), the fifth season of the series will be hitting quite hard as it picks up from a massive One For All cliffhanger from that Season 4 finale.

Featuring a joint training exercise between Class 1-A and 1-B, the fifth season is going to show off quite a bit of fun and unique battles. Expect this one to dominate most of the conversation. 

SSSS.Dynazenon

Premiere Date: April 2nd (TBA) 

SSSS.Gridman was one of the most surprising anime releases of 2018. Tsuburaya Productions and Studio Trigger teamed up to deliver a fresh take on Denkou Choujin Gridman, and with this new anime makeover had a fun new take on a classic Tokusatsu tone and style. That series might have had a conclusive end, but now the franchise is expanding with an entire “Gridman Universe” of projects that include SSSS.Dynazenon, which will bring a new version of Dyna Dragon and God Zenon into a new era. If it’s anything like the predecessor, we’re in for one wild ride. 

Fruits Basket: The Final

Premiere Date: April 5th (English Dub with Funimation after release) 

Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket kickstarted its new anime reboot with the promise it would follow a lot more closely to the original manga release than the first adaptation released over 20 years ago. The problem continued to deliver with the second season as it brought several major moments to life through the anime for the first real time. Now we’ll see that in action even more so with its third and final season.

This will be the first real anime adaptation of the manga’s ending as Takaya intended (who remains the creative supervisor for its final outing), and fans of the classic series will finally be able to close the book on this one at last. 

Megalo Box 2: Nomad

Premiere Date: April 5th (Funimation) 

Megalo Box was one of the other major surprises of the 2018 slate of releases as it brought a whole new kind of vision to a classic series. With that first season being the 50th Anniversary celebration of Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba’s Ashita no Joe, and it coming to a pretty narratively fulfilling end, this second season of episodes are all the more intriguing.

Considering itself more a “sequel” than anything, this new season will be jumping seven years into the future and centers on a version of Gearless Joe who has lost his way in the years since his Megalonia win. If it has anything close to the character work in the first season, Megalo Box 2: Nomad is bound to be a knockout. 

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Omega

Premiere Date: April 8th (Crunchyroll) 

It’s admittedly difficult to recommend a series with fan service elements at its core, but it’s honestly not difficult to say keep an eye for How Not to Summon a Demon Lord’s second season. The first season has a lot of attention to detail when it comes to that fan service, and that same amount of quality in the production is paid to how its action plays out. Couple this with a fun main character, and you’re set up for quite a good time. But this is likely only going to be a major fit for those looking for this sort of anime! There are worse kinds out there, for sure. 

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Premiere Date: April 8th (Crunchyroll, English Dub with Funimation after release) 

Another member of the 2018 anime class coming back for a sequel season is also one of the breakouts of that year as well. Zombie Land Saga introduced fans to an incredible new take on the idol genre of anime, and it was a fun gateway into that world for new fans. The second season will be reuniting fans with the main zombie idols of Franchouchou once more, but this time they’ll be building on the recognition they were able to obtain in the first season! This means all sorts of new challenges (and most importantly, songs) are coming our way. 

Tokyo Revengers

Premiere Date: April 10th (Crunchyroll)

Ken Wakui’s story of school delinquents with a time travel twist has been a big hit ever since it made its debut with Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine a few years ago. Tokyo Revengers is the kind of series that’s absolutely perfect for anime, and will likely find a whole new audience once it makes its debut. Not only is the central mystery compelling, but over the course of the series fans are treated to the kind of nostalgic delinquency tale that isn’t as common in manga and anime as it used to be. Tokyo Revengers will be hitting at just the right time. 

To Your Eternity

Premiere Date: April 12th (Crunchyroll) 

Yoshitoki Oima’s A Silent Voice is one of the most beloved manga releases of all time, and the creator’s follow up series is shaping up to be just as well remembered. Taking on science fiction once more (but with more of a fantasy spin this time around), To Your Eternity follows an immortal being whose main purpose is to learn and grow as it takes the forms of beings and objects it meets along its journey.

It’s a little more complicated than that, and the anime reflects this with a huge boon to its presentation with the studio behind hits like Baccano, Durarara, and In/Spectre and even a theme song from Hikaru Utada, who’s contributing her first anime theme ever! This one’s going to be big. 

Shaman King 2021

Premiere Date: April 1st (Japan Only) 

Unfortunately, two of the biggest releases of the season are going to be only in Japan (and select other territories due to licensing) as of this writing. Hiroyuki Takei’s Shaman King will be getting a brand new anime adaptation following that first series from 20 years ago. This time around, however, it won’t be coming to an original ending and instead will be more closely adapting Takei’s now complete version of the series released in the years following that first adaptation.

This new series will feature all sorts of voices from that first anime, but will be bringing the action classic to a whole new era of fans. It’s just going to be in Japan for a while before it hits North America, unfortunately. 

Edens Zero

Premiere Date: April 10th (Japan Only)

The second of the major releases currently only hitting in Japan this Spring is the highly anticipated new anime series taking on a new work from Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima. Edens Zero is Mashima’s first real take on crafting a science fantasy world, and the manga release of the series has been a huge hit with fans already. This anime is poised to take it to a new level, and this should strike a chord with fans who had no idea that Mashima already had a Fairy Tail follow up running so strongly. 

But once again, this is going to be enjoyed by just fans in Japan and select other territories for now as Netflix will be releasing this series in North America at a much later date this year.