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The best action anime of 2022 so far

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Anime has become far more mainstream in the last several years, but 2022 specifically has still been a worthy standout for the genre as a whole. On top of nearly every major streaming service under the sun packing its respective catalogs with beloved series, the year has already seen several new releases in both the film and TV spaces.

While the older-skewing seinen demographic has its share of noteworthy entries, shounen anime has unsurprisingly dominated the mainstream. On the theatrical front, the likes of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero have continued the upward trend of the genre’s growing influence in Western box offices, while series like Attack on Titan and Spy x Family have collectively proven to be TV sensations in their own rights.

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Jujutsu Kaisen 0

Promo poster for Jujutsu Kaisen 0 featuring a collage of the main cast.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Animation studio MAPPA has likely found its flagship juggernaut in the form of Jujutsu Kaisen, as the first season of the TV series has already been released to plenty of plaudits. Blending traditional shounen tropes with exhilaratingly animated action, modern dark fantasy, and horror, Jujutsu Kaisen effectively makes wat are normally tired genre conventions feel exciting again.

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The anime film adaptation of writer Gege Akutami’s prequel, Jujutsu Kaisen, expectedly rides that wave of success. Following the emotional story of protagonist Yuta and his overcoming of childhood guilt, the movie impressively executes a genuine coming-of-age story with nearly wall-to-wall action.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 will be available to stream on September 21 on Crunchyroll.

Attack on Titan season 4

Eren Yeager in key art for Attack on Titan season 4.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The anime adaptation of Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan was something of an anime revolution when its first season premiered in 2013. It helped propel itself — and the genre in general — to new heights in Western markets, with the series having become many anime newcomers’ first series. The final season has been stretching out longer than anticipated — with another part confirmed to resume next year — but this dark fantasy epic continues to ensnare audiences around the world.

What began as young Eren Yeager setting out for revenge against the Titans that murdered and ate his mother has turned into a rabbit hole of mysteries, centuries-old lore, gory action, and political intrigue that, at least on paper, are the things that glued Game of Thrones fans to their TVs for nearly a decade.

All seasons of Attack on Titan so far are available to stream now on Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation, and in a more limited capacity, Netflix.

Demon Slayer season 2

The Sound Hashira in Demon Slayer key art with a collage of the cast.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Demon Slayer skyocketed in popularity when the 2019 anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga debuted, and even more so after 2020/21’s Mugen Train movie. In terms of story, it’s a pretty typical and safe shounen series, but what elevates it in the anime format is Ufotable’s stunning animation and overall art direction. The way each fight is depicted as a striking visual spectacle is nothing short of masterful.

It’s not every day that a series has individual episodes that reverberate in the anime community as a whole (season 1, episode 19, and season 2, episode 10), and make Tanjiro and company’s adventures engaging and fun. Season 2 came on the heels of Mugen Train‘s acclaim, with Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke being sent with the Sound Hashira to investigate the disappearance of the latter’s covert ninjas after investigating demon activity in a Tokyo entertainment district.

Both seasons of Demon Slayer and Mugen Train are available to stream on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu, with only season 1 on Netflix.

Spy x Family

Yor, Anya, and Loid Forger celebrating with confetti in Spy x Family.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

While it certainly isn’t one of the most action-focused shounen anime series out there, Wit Studio and CloverWorks’ joint venture in adapting Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family has proven to be a viral hit. For fans who have been reading the manga since 2019, the sentiment has always been that the writing on the wall was saying an adaptation was an inevitability and, so far, it has brilliantly captured the upbeat and heartwarming atmosphere of the source material.

The story follows Agent Twilight as he’s tasked with a highly sensitive diplomatic mission to avoid the breakout of war, but has to overcome his biggest challenge yet to do so — being a family man. Lovingly blending 1960s and ’70s aesthetics with the modern age, Spy x Family avoids the over-the-top cheesy tropes of stereotypical sitcoms, while also being influenced by them, to tell a tasteful and sincere story about found family and anti-war sentiments. Punctuated by clever comedy, a lovable main cast, and some spy-thriller action, it’s a series that seems destined for the long haul.

Spy x Family is available to stream now on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Netflix, with the second part of season 1 airing this October.

One Piece

Key art for One Piece featuring the cast of the Straw Hat Pirates crew,
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The last surviving series of Shonen Jump magazine’s era of the “Big Three” — and arguably the one with the most consistently high quality — Eiichiro Oda’s pirate series One Piece is still going strong in both the manga and anime arenas 25 years later. The series began with young Monkey D. Luffy setting out to follow in the footsteps of Red-Haired Shanks to become the world’s greatest pirate, and it’s since evolved into a sprawling and colorful odyssey.

Throughout its long run, One Piece has been lauded for its rewarding story arcs, an iconic cast of characters, expansive lore, and excruciatingly detailed worldbuilding. The anime adaptation has a jaw-dropping 1,031 episodes under its belt, and a highly- anticipated movie on the way this fall in the form of One Piece Film: Red.

One Piece is available to stream now on Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu, and Netflix. Meanwhile, Film: Red will be playing in theaters in the West in October.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

Promo still of Piccolo and Gohan fighting Gamma 1 and 2 in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The likes of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ballfranchise planted the seeds for the international mainstream hit that the anime genre would eventually grow into. It’s one of those series that the uninitiated recognize instantly merely by association, and given the success of the 2018 movie Broly, a follow-up was also bound to happen. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, like much of the franchise overall, isn’t a deep piece of media (nor does it pretend to be), but fans happily know what they’re signing up for — high-octane visual spectacles, slick character designs, and colorful new forms.

Super Hero finally gave a deserved share of the spotlight to fan-favorite characters Gohan and Piccolo by making them the outright leading stars. It delivers on all the action fans would hope to see, and it also serves as an impressive showcase of what CG animation can achieve when handled properly.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is now playing in theaters and will eventually stream on Crunchyroll.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean

Jolyne and the rest of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean's main cast.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure more than lives up to its name, with the manga getting a well-earned reputation in anime form thanks to studio David Productions’ consistently stellar adaptations. The series is delightfully ridiculous in premise, action, and its irresistible sense of style as it follows the generational battles between the Joestar family and several prophetic evils.

The concept of Stands — otherworldly spiritual entities used as combatants — has transcended its own source material into other works like Atlus’ famed Persona video games. And to no one’s surprise, the latest season, Stone Ocean, has been excellently brought to life so far. Jolyne Cujoh and comapny’s stylish prison-breaking exploits have been thrilling as the second part of the season recently dropped.

All seasons of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are available to stream now on Netflix, and in more limited capacities on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu, Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video.

Ranking of Kings

Ranking of Kings anime key art featuring Bojji and the shadow creature Kage.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s another case of an action anime that puts more emphasis on emotion than the former, but Sōsuke Tōka’s Ranking of Kings and Wit Studio’s anime adaptation might be one of the most emotionally profound shounen yet. this coming-of-age story is on a level of authentic intimacy alongside the likes of Mob Psycho 100 — which will see its third and final season premiere this fall as well.

This time, though, it’s set in a high fantasy world with the young protagonist Bojji, who is both deaf and mute, fighting to persevere and see the bright side of life despite being looked down upon by the public as being part of the royal line of succession. Bojji and his best friend Kage’s fantasy quest is among the most satisfying, rewarding, and heartfelt new anime available.

Ranking of Kings is available to stream now on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

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Guillermo Kurten
Guillermo Kurten
Freelance Writer, Entertainment
A University of Houston graduate in Print Media Journalism, Guillermo has covered sports entertainment and practically all…
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Vin Diesel looks cool in black goggles and a black tank top in a still from the movie Pitch Black.

Vin Diesel in Pitch Black USA Films
More than almost any other movie star working today, Vin Diesel seems to think only in franchises. Skim the last two decades of this muscle man’s filmography, and you’ll see almost nothing but sequels or movies designed (not always successfully) to spawn sequels. Once Vin got a taste of life in the fast lane, he never really looked back. Maybe he was always just destined to become a Hollywood action hero: When you’re built like a bullet and talk like a subwoofer, the Italian Stallion career path makes a lot more sense than anything else.
Of course, like Sly Stallone, Vin didn’t start out making multiplex cash grabs. Before he was Dominic Toretto, Xander Cage, and Groot, Diesel was a hungry young actor, more focused on honing his craft than bulging his biceps. In the ’90s, he even dabbled in writing and directing, penning his own gritty, calling-card starring vehicle; it was that indie drama, Strays, that caught Steven Spielberg’s attention and earned Diesel a breakout role in Saving Private Ryan. To watch him there or in the late Sidney Lumet’s swan song, Find Me Guilty, is to be reminded of a time when the big guy aspired to a little more than bankable machismo.
What’s wild is that you can pinpoint to the day the pinnacle of Diesel’s time as a dramatic performer as opposed to a box-office draw. Said day was 25 years ago tomorrow, when not one but two movies featuring the future star hit theaters nationwide. There he was as a likable off- Wall Street stock broker in the financial drama Boiler Room, and there he was again as a mythic outlaw in the deep-space creature feature Pitch Black. Diesel has never been better than he was in these two very different movies, which kind of makes February 18th, 2000 the best day of his career — and also the last moment before that career changed directions.
Boiler Room (2000) Official Trailer #1 - Vin Diesel Movie HD
Of the two films, Boiler Room is the more obvious acting showcase, though Vin has a much smaller part in it. Written and directed by Ben Younger, this Martin Scorsese-indebted procedural essentially fictionalizes the true story the actual Scorsese would later dramatize with The Wolf of Wall Street. Younger looks at the fraudulent practices of brokerage houses like Stratton Oakmont from the perspective of one of the cold callers, a Long Island entrepreneur played by Giovanni Ribisi. Maybe fourth or fifth booked in the cast is Diesel, who steps in as one of the more experienced brokers who takes Ribisi’s snake-oil salesman under his wing.
“He’s like gravity —everything gets pulled to him,” is how someone describes Diesel’s most famous character, Dominic Toretto, in the following year’s franchise-launching melodrama The Fast and the Furious. But he’s much more conventionally magnetic in Boiler Room as a slick but approachable young millionaire swindler. Vin’s first big scene in the movie puts his signature bravado to good use, as he gregariously coerces a doctor into buying a bunch of shares over the phone — a hard sell that he makes look effortless. It’s a kind of initiation, laying out the seductive thrill of how these chop-shop frat boys make their fortune. They’re really just actors, playing a part for the clients they unscrupulously exploit.
Diesel’s Chris Varick, like Toretto, is as much teddy bear as shark, though. Boiler Room positions him as a big brother for Ribisi— the warm alternative to Nicky Katt’s jealous, competitive bullpen prick. The script’s pages of shop talk (the kind of industry exposition that Scorsese waved off with a fourth-wall-breaking wink from Leo) go down smoother when delivered in Diesel’s low rumble and New York accent. And Chris becomes an unlikely figure of redemption at the ending, confronted by both the impending collapse of his livelihood and the opportunity to do one noble thing before it all comes crashing down. That makes Boiler Room the first in a long line of movies that find the conscience burning within Diesel’s bad-boy routine.
Pitch Black Official Trailer #1 - Vin Diesel Movie (2000) HD
A secret flicker of decency also defines Richard B. Riddick, the apprehended mercenary Diesel plays for the first time in Pitch Black. In terms of temperament and vocabulary, he’s a much different animal than Varick: a stony Western archetype unleashed onto the final frontier, like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name airdropped into an Alien knockoff. Writer-director David Twohy builds Riddick up, establishing his fearsome bona fides by keeping him chained, shrouded in darkness, and silent for the first act, when the ship carting this dangerous fugitive crash-lands on a planet with three suns and some deadly nocturnal wildlife. Beyond the opening voice-over, Diesel doesn’t utter a word for the first 30 minutes of the movie.
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Less blockbuster than glorified sci-fi programmer, Pitch Black didn’t make boatloads of money. But it was a successful proof of concept; what it sold the world was Diesel’s suitability for action-hero duty. Those who caught the movie in theaters, maybe even on a double bill with Boiler Room, could clearly see into his future as a post-millennial Rambo. But few of the big Hollywood projects that followed better capitalized on his rugged, monosyllabic qualities. No wonder Diesel returned to the film’s treacherous star system, reprising the role in two sequels — the goofier, more expansive Chronicles of Riddick and the back-to-basics Riddick — even after he had moved on to more lucrative multi-picture engagements.
Boiler Room Prospecting Scene - Vin Diesel Closing
In retrospect, 2000 was as much a last hurrah as it was a highpoint for Vin Diesel, the actor, not the brand. A year later, he’d buckle in for the comparably low-key first entry in a series he’d eventually makeover into a multi-billion-dollar vanity project. There was really no turning back from the road Fast & Furious put him on. It’s been basically all intellectual-property bids since, as Diesel has balanced his cash cow franchise with attempts to develop new ones. You have to strain to see any real artistic ambition in any of the work he’s done since the day the multiplex served up double, clashing doses of his cowboy swagger. Besides a supporting role in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, it’s been one star sleepwalk after another.
Maybe Diesel never had a character actor's range. As a performer, he mostly offers different shades of macho — brooding, sentimental, or arrogant as needed. But on one winter day at the start of a new century, he demonstrated that his particular steroidal charisma could be stretched a little, and applied to projects with wildly different aims. February 18 was a crossroads for this modern tough guy. He took the path to marquee immortality that Pitch Black opened up before him, while leaving us wondering how many Boiler Rooms he bypassed along the way.
Boiler Room and Pitch Black are both available to rent or purchase from the major digital services. For more of A.A. Dowd’s writing, visit his Authory page.

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