Interest Stacks

During their decade-long quest to defeat the Demon King, the members of the hero's party—Himmel himself, the priest Heiter, the dwarf warrior Eisen, and the elven mage Frieren—forge bonds through adventures and battles, creating unforgettable precious memories for most of them. However, the time that Frieren spends with her comrades is equivalent to merely a fraction of her life, which has lasted over a thousand years. When the party disbands after their victory, Frieren casually returns to her "usual" routine of collecting spells across the continent. Due to her different sense of time, she seemingly holds no strong feelings toward the experiences she went through. As the years pass, Frieren gradually realizes how her days in the hero's party truly impacted her. Witnessing the deaths of two of her former companions, Frieren begins to regret having taken their presence for granted; she vows to better understand humans and create real personal connections. Although the story of that once memorable journey has long ended, a new tale is about to begin. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Eccentric scientist Rintarou Okabe has a never-ending thirst for scientific exploration. Together with his ditzy but well-meaning friend Mayuri Shiina and his roommate Itaru Hashida, Okabe founds the Future Gadget Laboratory in the hopes of creating technological innovations that baffle the human psyche. Despite claims of grandeur, the only notable "gadget" the trio have created is a microwave that has the mystifying power to turn bananas into green goo. However, when Okabe attends a conference on time travel, he experiences a series of strange events that lead him to believe that there is more to the "Phone Microwave" gadget than meets the eye. Apparently able to send text messages into the past using the microwave, Okabe dabbles further with the "time machine," attracting the ire and attention of the mysterious organization SERN. Due to the novel discovery, Okabe and his friends find themselves in an ever-present danger. As he works to mitigate the damage his invention has caused to the timeline, Okabe fights a battle to not only save his loved ones but also to preserve his degrading sanity. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chiyo Mihama begins her high school career as one of the strangest students in her freshman class—a tiny, 10-year-old academic prodigy with a fondness for plush dolls and homemade cooking. But her homeroom teacher, Yukari Tanizaki, is the kind of person who would hijack a student's bike to avoid being late, so "strange" is a relative word. There certainly isn't a shortage of peculiar girls in Yukari-sensei's homeroom class. Accompanying Chiyo are students like Tomo Takino, an energetic tomboy with more enthusiasm than brains; Koyomi Mizuhara, Tomo's best friend whose temper has a fuse shorter than Chiyo; and Sakaki, a tall, athletic beauty whose intimidating looks hide a gentle personality and a painful obsession with cats. In addition, transfer student Ayumu Kasuga, a girl with her head stuck in the clouds, fits right in with the rest of the girls—and she has a few interesting theories about Chiyo's pigtails! Together, this lovable group of girls experience the ups and downs of school life, their many adventures filled with constant laughter, surreal absurdity, and occasionally even touching commentary on the bittersweet, temporal nature of high school. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Young Thorfinn grew up listening to the stories of old sailors that had traveled the ocean and reached the place of legend, Vinland. It's said to be warm and fertile, a place where there would be no need for fighting—not at all like the frozen village in Iceland where he was born, and certainly not like his current life as a mercenary. War is his home now. Though his father once told him, "You have no enemies, nobody does. There is nobody who it's okay to hurt," as he grew, Thorfinn knew that nothing was further from the truth. The war between England and the Danes grows worse with each passing year. Death has become commonplace, and the viking mercenaries are loving every moment of it. Allying with either side will cause a massive swing in the balance of power, and the vikings are happy to make names for themselves and take any spoils they earn along the way. Among the chaos, Thorfinn must take his revenge and kill Askeladd, the man who murdered his father. The only paradise for the vikings, it seems, is the era of war and death that rages on. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yearning to make friends and perform live with a band, lonely and socially anxious Hitori "Bocchi" Gotou devotes her time to playing the guitar. On a fateful day, Bocchi meets the outgoing drummer Nijika Ijichi, who invites her to join Kessoku Band when their guitarist, Ikuyo Kita, flees before their first show. Soon after, Bocchi meets her final bandmate—the cool bassist Ryou Yamada. Although their first performance together is subpar, the girls feel empowered by their shared love for music, and they are soon rejoined by Kita. Finding happiness in performing, Bocchi and her bandmates put their hearts into improving as musicians while making the most of their fleeting high school days. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda—the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has neither the desire nor the experience to handle even basic technology; yet, when the technophobe opens the email, it leads her straight into the Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down as she begins to encounter cryptic mysteries one after another. Strange men called the Men in Black begin to appear wherever she goes, asking her questions and somehow knowing more about her than even she herself knows. With the boundaries between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events where identity, consciousness, and perception are concepts that take on new meanings. Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Serial Experiments Lain is a psychological avant-garde mystery series that follows Lain as she makes crucial choices that will affect both the real world and the Wired. In closing one world and opening another, only Lain will realize the significance of their presence. [Written by MAL Rewrite]