Last Updated: 1:41 p.m. 6/24/26
Welcome to my seasonal Guide! The debut schedule can be found here; it should be updated for the current season by 6/27.
I expect to cover every full-episode series that will be debuting this season and is available in streaming form, including many of the sequels/returning series. Sequels/continuations that I will NOT be covering (because I’m not caught up on the franchise) include Hana-Kimi, Bungo Stray Dogs Wan!, Hell Mode, You and I Are Polar Opposites, Grand Blue Dreaming, Yoroi-Shinden Samurai Troopers, Trapped in a Dating Sim,and The Elusive Samurai. The new Bang Dream! title may be covered if it proves to be a stand-alone. Goodbye, Lara will also not be covered here since its first episode was reviewed in its own feature article.
As always, titles are generally presented in debut order by day, with the most recent debuts being on top; some variance to this may occur when titles are not initially licensed for legal streaming.
The Preview Guide will likely largely end on 7/12 with the debut of Though I Am an Inept Villainess. However, the return of Bleach is two weeks later and that will be added on when it happens. There are also at least three titles which don’t currently have specific debut dates listed, so that could change things if their debuts are late ones.
Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)!
Streams: Crunchyroll on Wednesdays
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)
Celesty McMarden had admired maids from a young age, so her resolve to become the ultimate maid upon her mother’s death triggered the awakening of her immense magical powers. That did not, however, change her all-consuming desire to become a maid, to the point that she actively avoided her other possibility: to seek out the count who was the father she never knew. She changed her distinctive hair color and started going by Melody Wave (thus unwittingly dodging the count’s men who were seeking her out) and traveled to the capital, where she jumped at a chance to be an “all-works” maid for the downtrodden but still noble Rudelberg estate. Both the estate and its mistress, teenage Luciana, were in desperate need of help with the retirement of the estate’s one other servant, so Melody stepped in to right the ship. It was, after all, the perfect task for a girl who had been an incomparable genius in her previous life but only found color in her passion for maids.
I may be a bit biased on this one, as I’ve read the first five novels and first volume of manga for this series and thus considered this one of my most-anticipated new series of the season. Despite some odd choices (like waiting until near the episode’s end to reveal the title’s isekai status, which is hugely integral to the story as a whole), this is a largely satisfying debut for the series, one which delivers vibrant colors and generally inviting visuals. Most importantly, it retains the novel’s narration, which is nearly as important character in the story as any of the characters actually depicted (the first hints of its biting snarkiness appear in this episode) and provides the first evidence of the absurdities it traffics in (Melody’s offhand comment about how her maid uniform is more protective than armor). This episode does not even suggest that the series is largely about Melody unwittingly turning an otome game scenario completely sideways, but that’s coming. This should be a fun, lighter-side view for this season.
USA Anime 