There’s almost nothing to cover this season, but at least we’ll get two shows with nudity and a lot of nudey OVA.
I put each of the notable shows this season into tiers below:
- Tier 1 represents series that probably won’t have much fanservice, but will have pretty girls and maybe some sexy outfits.
- Tier 2 is for series that are slightly more wildcard in nature, where nudity is highly unlikely but feels remotely plausible.
- Tier 3 is for series that had nudity in the source material, but for whatever reason I can’t guarantee it in the anime. Unfortunately in recent years we’ve had a rash of nude manga that got non-nude anime, so this is the cautiously optimistic expectations tier.
- Tier 4 is for series where nudity in the anime can already be fully guaranteed.
Tier 1
Plunderer
Geek Toys
Source: Manga
Source material eroticism: ?
Service level expectation: Lots of cleavage and sexy outfits
I honestly haven’t checked this manga out yet, but the promotional materials for this series give a pretty strong normie vibe.
Plunderer begins airing on January 9th.
Tier 2
(edit)
Hatena Illusion is based on a light novel with some ecchi material. The LN illustrations were done by Kentaro Yabuki and there are some faint nipples visible in the illustrations.
Tier 3
None!
Tier 4
Overflow
Studio Hokiboshi
Source: Erotica
Source material eroticism: Erotica
Service level expectation: R-18 anime
This is the usual R-18 anime for the season. This latest iteration still feels like hentai imitating anime rather than a real anime, but it does seem like the gap is closing bit by bit each season.
Premise-wise: two sisters + lots of bathing.
Overflow begins airing on January 5th.
Ishuzoku Reviewers
Passione
Source material: Manga
Source material eroticism: Sex and Nudity
Service level expectation: Some nudity but not a ton (unless they take liberties).
These days I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, but Ishuzoku Reviewers still found a way to surprise me. It surprises me that it even got an anime (the manga is only three volumes so far and hasn’t really established any story yet), it surprises me that these episodes are 24 minutes instead of short-form, it surprises me that the animation looks terrific, and it surprises me that it will have an uncensored broadcast with nudity being virtually guaranteed (AT-X airing with parental lock). And the biggest surprise might be the premise- a real TV anime about guys visiting alien brothels and rating the various sex workers within?
The PV for the show looks great, and there just seems to be this oddball vibe to the series that makes it feel entrancing, similar to shows like Manyuu Hikenchou.
In a lot of ways, this feels like an ecchi series found in a time capsule from a decade ago, which makes it a very welcome addition today.
Now lets just hope they don’t royally screw this up like some other series lately.
Ishuzoku Reviewers begins airing on January 11th.
Notable OVA
Tsugumomo OVA
Last year fans of the series successfully crowdfunded a stand alone OVA of this series, in fact they went more than twice (266%) over the stated goal. According to this, the episode comes out on January 22nd, bundled with the manga’s 24th volume. If memory serves this episode was meant to be extra ecchi, so it should be fun to look forward to.
Strike The Blood: Kieta Seisou-hen (OVA)
As you probably know, Strike the Blood is getting a 4th season (via OVA), this time going a full 12 episodes released two at a time from March of this year until the last day of June 2021. But before that they will also release a standalone OVA episode (see title above) on January 29th.
Since standalone OVA episodes are generally made without any serious story commitments they tend to be full of fanservice. Hopefully that is the case here as well.
Queen’s Blade Unlimited OVA 2
After a crazy long 18 month break, Queen’s Blade unlimited is finally back for a second episode. Will there be a third? Who knows. Hopefully so, the PV for episode two looks sexy AF. The second OVA arrives on February 28th.
Overall Thoughts:
We are a little bit less than 8 months away from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and it couldn’t get here soon enough. I don’t know exactly how much of an impact the Olympics are having on ecchi anime projects, but it’s hard not to notice that 2019 was probably the worst year for the genre in over a decade. And while this Winter 2020 season may still be remembered fondly if Ishuzoku Reviewers turns out to be a classic, it really stands out just how few anime this season are heavily featuring fanservice. I’m not the biggest fan of non-nude ecchi shows, but their absence this season is pronounced.
With all that said, I’m legitimately excited for Ishuzoku Reviewers and Overflow looks relatively interesting by R-18 standards. There might not be a show to cover every day but what does cover will be worth keeping tabs on, and there’s a lot of interesting OVA too. It’s really not bad when you consider that Winter seasons tend to be pretty quiet for ecchi anime- we’ve definitely had worse than this.
If the Olympics are a factor and we see a turnaround later this year or early next year, then at least this season will have been good enough to have helped pass time until then.
