5 Short Anime So Good, You Can Binge Them All This Weekend
It’s the weekend, and that means anime fans are on the hunt for fantastic anime to watch during that free period from work or school. Anime fans might devote the whole weekend to a moderate-length anime like Demon Slayer or the original Fullmetal Alchemist, but other viewers would rather mix things up with a few short and amazing anime to binge together. If the anime is short enough, they can form a whole package of weekend binge material.
All the familiar streaming platforms feature outstanding anime with limited length to join the weekend binge package. These anime cover a variety of genres and styles to keep things fresh, meaning any binge watcher can get the whole anime experience this weekend from the comfort of their living room or bedroom.
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty is About the Spirit of Competition in Music
Fans of musical anime and “cute girls doing cute things” have probably already seen the popular K-On! and the recent smash hit Bocchi the Rock!. The former is an easygoing slice-of-life anime that focuses on leisurely fun, while the latter goes all in with the outrageous humor and silliness. Right in the middle sits the underrated new anime Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, the third great anime about high school girls rocking out onstage. It may not be as prominent as Bocchi the Rock! and lacks the sympathetic angle of social anxiety, but Rock is a Lady’s Modesty makes up for it with its own tricks as a binge-worthy anime for this weekend.
Rock is a Lady’s Modesty isn’t quite as goofy and hysterical as Bocchi the Rock!, but viewers will still love the humorous contrast between the girls’ lofty ojou-sama exteriors and their punk girl inner selves. That style of comedy lends itself well to characters like Lilisa and Otoha annoying each other with tough love as they push each other to be even better at the drums or guitar. It’s how these girls unwind as their true selves while also fueling their passion, and viewers can’t get enough of it. Most importantly, this humor ties into the main reason to binge Rock is a Lady’s Modesty: the fierce competition between Lilisa’s new band and other, more established musical groups. Viewers will be eager to see if Lilisan’s cobbled-together band can take on serious rock stars in local music clubs, and all the while, Lilisa is having the time of her life.
Terminator Zero Creates All-New and Terrifying Stakes as Judgment Day Looms
Some anime adaptations of Western IPs, such as the X-Men anime, play by the same rules as the original material. Other projects such as Suicide Squad Isekai and Star Wars Visions take familiar material and remold it into new shapes, making the whole package more refreshing for fans of the original IPs, anime, or both. Projects such as Star Wars Visions do a fine job of this, but it’s Terminator Zero that does the job best. The key is how Terminator Zero created its own plot and characters for the story, freeing itself from the stale and circular storylines found in the original Terminator movies. That, and fans are probably tired of iffy movies trying in vain to recapture the magic of the original two films.
What fans get in Terminator Zero is 100% worth a binge this weekend because the anime feels just familiar enough with its classic stakes while also throwing open the doors to new possibilities. Fans anxiously watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day decades ago to see how John and Sarah Connor could stop the nuclear apocalypse of Judgment Day, but in Terminator Zero, the Connors and their friends are absent. Longtime Terminator fans will want to binge this so they can finally get a truly fresh and unpredictable exploration of the man vs machine clash that’s at the heart of the franchise. Best of all, Terminator Zero startles even longtime fans with Kokoro the AI’s questions about whether humanity even deserves salvation from Skynet’s wrath, an angle never before used in the franchise.
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is Scarily Open-Ended and Fun For Akira Tendo
Subversive anime titles such as Chainsaw Man and Oshi no Ko are fun to binge, so fans can watch all the familiar tropes and formulas march by on-screen to see how the anime will pick them apart. Such anime are a dissection of how certain genres or paradigms work, and the experience feels more entertaining and easier to follow when carried out in a single binge. The same is true for Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, a short horror comedy that’s begging for another anime season. Until more material arrives, Zom 100 is short enough and certainly good enough to be included in any anime binge package this weekend.
It’s worth binging Zom 100 to eagerly see all the zombie genre tropes arrive and get turned on their heads, such as the fact Akira Tendo is actually relieved to see society fall to the undead legions overrunning the city. That allows fans to explore the genre in unpredictable new ways with the humor and genre deconstructions, to say nothing of the commentary on society. Zom 100 makes a sharp point about how tough work life can make anyone feel like the living dead, though dealing with the actual living dead presents its own challenges as well. It helps that the zombie genre feels like a sandbox mode by nature, making it even more compelling for a binge. It feels like one big, immersive adventure when taken in all at once.
Grand Blue Is a Short College Comedy About the Messiness of Adult Life
Anime fans know there’s a flood of series taking place in high school, but everyone’s high school days must end eventually. There’s more to the coming-of-age concept than high school, and college anime like Grand Blue know it. This anime is a sorely underrated gem of a comedy title, one that gives fans a much-needed break from all the high school and junior high school series with slightly older characters. That freshness alone makes Grand Blue worth binging so fans can soak up a quality comedy slice-of-life anime that steers clear of the local high school. It also helps that Grand Blue focuses on SCUBA diving and seaside life, which is a delightful angle fans will want more of in a binge.
On top of all that, Grand Blue is a wonderfully honest examination of what it means to face adulthood for the first time. High schoolers are mere teens, while college students are new adults who are getting a feel of true adulthood. The process is exciting and liberating, but also a messy, embarrassing, and educational one that shouldn’t be taken too lightly. It’s great fun to watch Iori Kitahara figure all this out as he stumbles his way through college, a place of tough classes, beer, SCUBA lessons, and wacky attempts at romance.
Kowloon Generic Romance Taps Into the Wistfulness of Nostalgia
Kowloon Generic Romance is, among other things, a meditation on the value and trap that is nostalgia. The anime even takes place in a reconstruction of the notorious Kowloon, the walled city of darkness. This version of Kowloon is a sanitized and friendly one, allowing residents like Reiko Kujirai to immerse themselves in what was so they don’t have to think about an uncertain future. That sense of longing is paired with the longing for a past relationship with a loved one, which is the real heart of Kowloon Generic Romance. It’s a sweet and intriguing premise, one that’s worth binging because of the mysteries involved.
Kowloon Generic Romance is a tad clumsy with its own premise at times, but overall, it pulls through as a boldly experimental romance where the past and present collide in heartfelt yet baffling ways. That’s not just because love is a big mystery, but because the very nature of Reiko Kujirai and the new Kowloon is uncertain. Reiko’s male lover Hajime ,may be clinging too tightly to his past romance with Reiko, to the point Reiko is unsure of who or what she is, and it’s a cool personal mystery that’s worth unraveling over the course of a short binge this weekend.
