The Summer 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Dara-san of Reiwa

Clouds blacken the sky and sheets of rain turn the mountain forest into a treacherous maze... A landslide crushes a razor wire fence and buries a "NO TRESPASSING" sign... Two young siblings wander into a dark world where they do not belong, and a long, horrid shadow rears up to meet them. Anyway, so that's how we met Dara-san. She might look kinda scary, but just wait until you get to know her.

Dara-san of Reiwa is based on the manga series by Haruomi Tomotsuka. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

Let's talk about boobs. Jugs. Melons. The titular Madara of Dara-san of Reiwa sure has them! I mean, as a vengeful spirit made up of a murdered priestess and a primitive mountain snake god, it makes sense that she keeps them out. What struck me in the episode is just how casual the show is about that. She has the kind of nipples common for people with large breasts, i.e. inverted, with large areolae. The show's approach to her nudity is so casual that, up until the point Kaoru hands her his mother's frilly bra, it didn't really even feel like fan service. There was no wink-wink, nudge-nudge camera angles, and even the existence of her nipples made it feel more matter-of-fact, rather than when on-screen tits are mere flesh-bulges. And when she does put on a bra, it actually fits! Imagine that.

I'm not fooling myself that the intentions here are totally innocent. I know how many people out there want to bang the six-armed, big-titty snake lady with an identity crisis. Still, it's novel to find a series that doesn't handle nudity in a way that I find intensely alienating. It helps that Dara is a super-endearing character. She has felt isolated for centuries since she was murdered and doesn't quite know what to do with these two children who come barging in, totally unafraid. She's also changing – her desire for vengeance has ebbed away and she's not really interested in cursing people anymore. She doesn't know who she is now and I imagine much of the series will be about her figuring that out. Mutsumi Tamura turns in an excellent performance, flustered and a bit jaded.

While the visuals likely won't be the most fluid we get this season, they're bolstered by thoughtful storyboarding and character acting, with confident direction from Tadato Suzuki. Suzuki's previous big series was Gushing Over Magical Girls, and while I chose to stay far away from that show, I know it had its devotees. This confidence was essential to getting across the broad range of tones that this episode took—running the gamut from slapstick humor to horror to melancholy.

I didn't expect too much from Dara-san of Reiwa, conveniently ignoring all the positive word-of-mouth the manga has. It's my first pleasant surprise of the summer—here's hoping it's one of many!

You know, of all the “Yokai in the modern day” anime premieres we've gotten over the past few years, I think this one may be my favorite. Now, to be fair, Yokai aren't really my thing in general but I do like how Dara was portrayed in this show. She has all the trademarks of a vengeful spirit—she was killed and betrayed, vowed vengeance upon those who wronged her, and then merged with another supernatural creature to become a pseudo-deity of curses and revenge. But Dara-san of Reiwa goes on to ask the logical question: then what?

Dara has been on the mountain for hundreds of years. She long ago got revenge on the sister who killed her but she nonetheless continues to exist. It hard to be perpetually angry—especially when the object of your ire is long gone. Now she just kind of sits aimlessly on the mountain, unsure of her role.

This then leads into a question of identity. Dara was once human, then a spirit, then a mountain god. But now, without her need to spread curses and get vengeance on anyone and everyone, what is she? She was Yamatagi-Madara for centuries but now she is so different that the spiritual chains built to hold her no longer can—and the implications are weighing upon her.

This is where the kids come in. Hinata and Kaoru see Dara as she is rather than who she was. And even more importantly, they like what they see. They not only treat her as a god but also as a person—i.e., they bring her both traditional offerings and clothes to protect her modesty. (And can I say I laughed out loud at the gag of being shown how this Lamia gets her panties on.) Dara doesn't know much about herself but she does know one thing: she is friends with the kids and they accept her. It's not the end of her self-discovery but it is the start of it. So many works of fiction focus on revenge that it's great to have at least one story focus on what comes after.

Far too many anime aimed at degenerates about sexy monster-human hybrids begin and end their conceptualization at “What if big-titty waifu…but with monster parts?” Don't get me wrong, the degens of the world appreciate it when society acknowledges the inherent sophistication of our tasteful kinks, but there's more to it than just surface-level aesthetics. What I dig about this first episode of Dara-san of Reiwa is that it remembers that the monster part of the equation demands a certain amount of genuine spookiness. That's the whole point about monsters in general, right? They're meant to be scary. Folks didn't lose their minds over Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu just because she's nine feet tall and has the gothic stylings of a Hammer Horror Dutchess. She's hot because of all that and the fact that she can (and does) crush the skulls of pathetic mortal men beneath her fingers like over-ripened fruit.

Look, if you aren't the kind of viewer that likes it when an anime is just completely brazen about its particular fetishes, Dara-san of Reiwa will probably start setting off your red-alert alarms before the credits even roll. The show flaunts its lack of censorship by framing its titular snake-lady's exceedingly imposing areolas at the front-and-center of as many shots as possible, and the human main characters that she gets attached two are a couple of tiny boys, with the most feminine-coded of the two inexplicably sporting bleach-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The show is pretty tasteful with how it presents Dara-san and her relationship with these tykes; the camera doesn't leer over any body parts in an exploitative manner, and it's not like Hinata and Kaoru end up getting smothered in a booby avalanche or anything. Still, the show's key art on the landing page shows off the multitude of outfits that Dara-san will no doubt don throughout the season, including a sexy Santa Claus outfit and a daring négligée. The point is, we're all adults, here. We know the score.

That said, if you are thoroughly desensitized to (or even intrigued by) the “Scare me to death with your giant gazongas, Sexy Snake Mommy!” freakshow that Dara-san of Reiwa is so proudly flaunting, you will find a surprisingly endearing little campfire story that has snuggled cozily right next to all of the smut. It's funny to hear Dara-san's anecdotes, like how she learned about cell-phones and the internet by stealing a smart-phone from an unsuspecting hiker she attacked back in the day. Conversely, the show plays Dara-san's tragic and violent backstory straight, and I think this too was the right choice, tonally speaking.

As any dyed-in-the-bloody-wool horror aficionado will tell you, the best stories blend scares, laughs, and titillation to maximize their emotional impact. While I would never go so far as to claim that Dara-san is up there with the best horror anime after just one episode, this preview has made a good first impression. If you're down for a spooky show and you don't mind several varieties of niche smut tags being thrown into the mix, you might also enjoy your time with the snake goddess.

I don't often say this, but good job, Crunchyroll. I'm proud of you for letting this air with Dara-san's prominent nipples on display. For those who want to see it, rejoice, and for those who just think it's stupid to leave nipples out of the picture, you may rejoice as well. This is a rare day.

That aside, there's something delightful about this episode's combination of irreverent children, Japanese folklore and folk horror, and fanservice. Dara-san is a Yamatagi-Madara, a sort of snake/spider/woman combo who was created when her human self was murdered by her apparently insane sister priestess hundreds of years ago. She spent decades as a creature hellbent on vengeance, but by the time siblings Kaoru and Hinata find her, she's over it. She seems over a lot of things, frankly, and it's hard to blame her – not only does she have an awful backstory, but she's been without meaningful interaction with anybody for a long, long time. It's not hard to see why, even though they confuse her, she's willing to engage with the kids, and even to wear a bra and undies when Kaoru supplies them. Being with the kids is helping her to reclaim her humanity.

The delivery here is part goofy banter and wordplay and part horror story, and it works surprisingly well. The way that Hinata, with the curiosity of a middle schooler for all things sexy, slyly asks who Dara was “straddling” translates surprisingly well – “yamatagi” has the word for “straddle” in it, and Dara is quick to tell Hinata that the “ya” is for houses: she wraps her snake body around houses, not straddles the people in them! It's the sort of gag I wouldn't have expected to carry over, but the episode pulls it off. Same for the scene when Kaoru hands over the underwear; it could have been very sleazy, but instead is just a little boy trying to help…with, yes, some fanservice for the audience inherent in the scene, but also with the horror on display, since in her human form, the bloody stumps of Dara's cut-off legs are visible. It's basically a distillation of the episode in one thirty-second sequence.

If you're not a fan of kids interacting with sexy snake women or fanservice in general, this may not be your thing. It also jumps rapidly from scene to scene, which could be disorienting for some viewers, and did throw me a little bit. There's also something really weird about the way Dara's six arms and three sets of shoulders work; the middle ones don't look like they're attached to her body at all. But despite these issues, I had a good time with this episode – and since I was expecting the opposite, I think that's saying something.

Holy tonal whiplash Batman, this episode was a lot to take in despite the fact that a majority of it was just a naked snake god talking to two small children. There are a lot of shows out there that like to play with this idea of contrast, setting up a very specific tone only to immediately introduce something or follow up with a scene that plays as the exact opposite of that set up. That was a majority of what this premiere was filled with, and while some moments got a genuine laugh out of me, I can't help but walk away from this first episode wondering exactly what kind of tone this series is supposed to be going for. Am I supposed to feel bad for the tragic circumstances revolving around Dara the snake god who fell into the role after being betrayed and now seems to be going on this path of self discovery? Or am I supposed to laugh at the kids having no real sense of imminent danger when confronted with said horrible snake deity? Is it both? I don't really know.

I will commend the show for committing to its sense of contrast so thoroughly that it even was willing to play with the expectations of the kids' genders. That was kind of fun and there were some moments that, while predictable in their set up, did hit me with a legitimately interesting punchline. Probably my favorite joke in the episode was when the snake deity removed her snake parts to reveal dismembered legs from when she died, but the only reaction that the kids had was that they could see her private parts. That's the kind of risque humor that I can laugh at, and I think the kids really do sell it. As someone who has worked with elementary and middle school kids, there are some of them that just really aren't phased by things no matter how dangerous they might appear, so the fact that these kids are just willing to roll with whatever weird supernatural thing that gets explained to them is funny.

The problem is that outside of the inconsistent tone, I wonder if the humor is going to be able to last throughout the entirety of the show's run. Like I said, there were some creative punch lines that did make up for the predictable set up, but others I could see coming a mile away. Plus, when you play with that idea of contrast too much, it makes it difficult to get invested in any sense of drama because my brain is subconsciously expecting it to be followed up with a joke. When this episode literally has a scene of a woman getting brutally murdered and dismembered only for it to be followed up with a lukewarm reaction from the kids, I wonder how much I'm actually supposed to care. That's probably gonna be the biggest hurdle that this show is going to have to overcome moving forward, but I hope it does because I do enjoy the chemistry between these three characters and I'm curious to see what kind of shenanigans they get into.