October - December • 218 anime
Fall 2019 felt like a quietly strong season — 98 anime across TV, movies, and online releases with a weird mix of originals and sequels. Violet Evergarden’s spinoff focused the series’ emotional center in a neat two-episode package, and Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia kept big-budget mythic action on the schedule. Stars Align surprised a lot of people with its grounded sports drama and real emotional stakes.
Fall 2019 wound up being one of those seasons where smaller bets paid off. Violet Evergarden Side Story condensed what made the original resonate — the quiet, letter-driven emotional beats — into a tidy spinoff that actually enhanced the franchise’s themes. Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia went big with clear stakes and cinematic set pieces that reminded viewers why large-scale adaptations still mattered. Stars Align quietly stood out as a sports drama that treated its teen characters like people, not plot machines, so its emotional beats hit harder than you might've expected.
On the original-content side, Hello World showed off gorgeous CG-forward direction and an intriguing time-travel hook, even if the script didn't always match the ambition. No Guns Life leaned into cyberpunk with distinctive character design and a grim atmosphere that set it apart from other noir-ish shows. Notable studios like J.C.Staff, Production I.G, White Fox, Arvo Animation, and Silver were all doing interesting work, and with nearly 80 new series that season there was a real sense of creative risk-taking.
