Netflix has officially announced the production of “Record of Ragnarok” Season 3, much to the excitement of fans worldwide. The announcement was accompanied by a teaser trailer and visual, providing a glimpse into the upcoming intense battles between gods and humanity. 

This season will feature a significant shift in production, with Yumeta Company and MARU Animation taking over animation duties from Graphinica. Notably, Koichi Hatsumi has stepped in as the new director, and Yasuyuki Muto is now leading the writing team. These changes suggest a fresh creative direction for the series. 

The narrative will continue the high-stakes tournament where 13 human champions face off against 13 deities to determine humanity’s fate. Season 3 is set to showcase the seventh bout, a pivotal match between the legendary Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang and Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. This battle is crucial, as it will break the current 3-3 tie between the gods and humans. 

While an exact release date has yet to be announced, fans can anticipate more updates in the coming months. In the meantime, the first two seasons of “Record of Ragnarok” are available for streaming on Netflix. 

1. Your Lie in April (Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso)

Director: Kyohei Ishiguro

Writer: Takao Yoshioka (screenplay), Naoshi Arakawa (manga)

Animation Studio: A-1 Pictures

Genre: Romance, Drama, Music

Runtime: Approx. 22 minutes per episode

Number of Episodes: 22

Streaming Platform: Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu

Synopsis: A talented young pianist, Kosei Arima, loses his ability to hear the piano after his mother’s death. His world changes when he meets the spirited violinist Kaori Miyazono, who teaches him to embrace music and life again.

2. Fruits Basket (2019 Reboot)

Director: Yoshihide Ibata

Writer: Taku Kishimoto (screenplay), Natsuki Takaya (manga)

Animation Studio: TMS Entertainment

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Slice of Life

Runtime: Approx. 23 minutes per episode

Number of Episodes: 63 (3 seasons)

Streaming Platform: Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu

Synopsis: Orphaned Tohru Honda moves in with the mysterious Soma family, who harbor a magical curse: members transform into animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Amid unraveling secrets, she finds love and healing.

3. Toradora!

Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai

Writer: Mari Okada (screenplay), Yuyuko Takemiya (light novel)

Animation Studio: J.C. Staff

Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life

Runtime: Approx. 25 minutes per episode

Number of Episodes: 25

Streaming Platform: Crunchyroll, Netflix, HIDIVE

Synopsis: Ryuuji Takasu and Taiga Aisaka strike an unlikely alliance to help each other win over their crushes, only to discover their feelings for each other along the way.

4. Violet Evergarden

Director: Taichi Ishidate

Writer: Reiko Yoshida (screenplay), Kana Akatsuki (light novel)

Animation Studio: Kyoto Animation

Genre: Drama, Romance, Slice of Life

Runtime: Approx. 25 minutes per episode

Number of Episodes: 13 + Special + Movies

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Synopsis: Violet, a former child soldier, seeks purpose as a ghostwriter and learns about love and human emotion through her clients’ stories.

5. Snow White with the Red Hair (Akagami no Shirayuki-hime)

Director: Masahiro Ando

Writer: Deko Akao (screenplay), Sorata Akizuki (manga)

Animation Studio: Bones

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Drama

Runtime: Approx. 24 minutes per episode

Number of Episodes: 24 (2 seasons)

Streaming Platform: Crunchyroll, Funimation

Synopsis: Shirayuki, a herbalist with red hair, flees her kingdom after catching the attention of a lecherous prince. She finds a new home and love with Prince Zen of the neighboring kingdom.

The film is half a recollection of displaced Vietnamese kids who fled to America after the Vietnam War creating a community of their own around the super-popular New Wave music movement, and half a biographical journey of filmmaker Elizabeth Ai’s dive into her unexamined past and personal traumas. 

We all know the Vietnam War had a ton of repercussions, both in Vietnam and here in America, affecting soldiers and civilians alike for generations to come. What isn’t often discussed, much less even acknowledged likely due to vast amounts of shame, is the displaced Vietnamese children who, with their parents or not, escaped to America to flee the war. These children tried extremely hard to find some sort of place they belonged here in the good old US of A, and while their parents were carving out places for themselves by basically working themselves to death, the children had to build their own place to belong. This is where the New Wave music craze began, and these are their stories. 

There was no market for Asian singers in general, much less focused on Vietnamese performers, and so born-to-sing kids like the infamous Lynda Trang Dai took destiny into their own hands and began to cover the 80’s mega-hits from superstars like Madonna. The Vietnamese-language variety show Paris By Night began to showcase Lynda and others performing cover songs of the most popular hits too, and suddenly Lynda Trang Dai was at least a Vietnamese household name. 

DJ Ian Nguyen recalls his rebellious years as a teenager finding out about the New Wave scene being born and deciding he would be a part of it, a much larger part than he ever anticipated. A friend actually built DJ Ian his first real turntable and he would sneak out with his friends to hold impromptu New Wave parties where DJ Ian would spin for hours, sometimes all night, always for free, immersed in the music and freedom of it all. 

And somewhere in there, as the making of a documentary-style movie about the New Wave way of life and music scene stretched into years and filmmaker Elizabeth Ai birthed her daughter, uncomfortable questions about her own past traumas began cropping up. Why did Liz’s mother, a Vietnamese immigrant herself who came to America and unhappily became the sole earner for the entire family including those still left back in Vietnam, initially refuse to speak to her daughter about their shared traumatic past? Why would any grandma, regardless of nationality, not want to see her newly-born grandchild? In this instance, I suspect it was because Grandma wasn’t ready to face the very real problems her absence throughout Li’s childhood caused. But children, even the very young ones, pick up on far more than their elders think. And suddenly, the documentary Liz was making about lost Vietnamese-American kids and their musical therapy, was now being turned into a semi-autobiographical journey about Liz’s own personal journey into her past, to find a way to reunite with her estranged mother and a path together in the future. 

Uplifting and sorrowful at the same time, a meditation on lost generations of Vietnamese refugees and their stories of loss and redemption through surprisingly good music, plus a very personal story of trauma and reconnection, New Wave will make you want to sing, even through your sympathetic tears!