Anaconda and The Winter 2026 Anime Season
My wife and I watched Anaconda this week. Personally, I was not expecting too much from this movie and hoped that it would just be fun. January for movies is a movie dump month, where studios put out lower profile and less anticipated movies. However, there are always movies that are mindless fun that come out in these months, and thankfully, Anaconda fit the bill. This was a funny movie that did not take itself too seriously, nor did it have any social or political messaging. The jokes mostly landed, and it even had some heart and relatability with the characters as well along with a twist. The surprise cameos worked as well, but the trailer unfortunately spoiled it. Overall, this was a good movie to just turn off your brain and have fun with it.
This new season of anime has a lot of new and returning titles. Freiren, Jujutsu Kaisen, Oshi No Ko, Hell’s Paradise and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes are returning with new seasons, and many of these titles are highly anticipated. There are a lot of “mid” fantasy anime , which seems to be the norm these days, and they are all within some sort of genre or sub-genre. One sub-genre that is popular right now is the MC getting kicked out of the Hero’s Party. Isekai is still a big one, and this has sub-genres with being reborn as a noble, being reborn as a baby, being reborn as a non-human, otome game villainess, and trapped in some sort of RPG, and all of these are represented this season. One anime that stood out to me though is “Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table.” It is just haunting and artistic in its direction and execution.
Anime is definitely going strong heading into this new year, and there are articles out there saying that anime may be taking over Hollywood. I have been a fan since high school, so anime is just something that I grew up with and now use it as inspiration for my own writing. Hollywood though could come back this year, and when they make movies just to be fun that a general audience could enjoy, then the general audiences may very well come back to the theaters on a regular basis.