Review of Agents of the Four Seasons: Dance of Spring

This anime is based on a work by an author that has previously published a renowned work such as Violet Evergarden, it actually lasted for longer than it so although that could happen even if it was more niche, it also would mean that there is enough public for it to keep going as much as it did. The anime was in charge of a famous and beloved studio such as Wit, the staff was involved in recent fairly popular and praised shows, and even Kensuke Ishio was part of it, who’s a popular and respected composer of our times. It is visually well done and also combines fantasy, contemporary settings, action, comedy, romance and even some queer bait. On paper, it should have had all the ingredients to become an instant success. Well I don’t know how it fared in Japan, but it doesn’t seem to have caught up that much in the West. It’s not that talked about nor promoted and its rating is not that high on any site you search it up, why is that, what seems to be the reasons for that?

1-Too long for it to come out

The light novels and mangas this anime is based on have begun publishing while Violet Evergarden was finishing, so it’s not an issue as far as the source material is concerned. The anime however came out six years after its older sister ended, and as much as that one was one the most beloved and praised anime of 2018, if not the most, it had the misfortune of ending right before lots of more people got into anime during the pandemic.

2-The previous work seems to have fallen off from grace

Despite having some of the most streamed anime openings and endings of all time, Violet Evergarden itself wasn’t exactly hype material to lure newcomers in. You would probably think that it was very dramatic for it to get a lot of traction, but not even that level of cryporn seems to motivate people enough to check it out. Basically what I’m saying here is that people who watched that show as it was coming out still remembers it fondly of course, but for newer viewers, it had become a faded memory of its decade with not much legacy behind it. I blame the movie finale for that, which although it was mostly positively received, it met enough contrarian opinions for its reception to count as divisive, not exactly a glazed piece of entertainment to get more people to watch it.

3-Wit lost people along the way

What was once debated as the best studio of all times by casuals alongside Ufotable and MAPPA due to their animation and involvement on famous works, has lost a lot of respect after delaying and eventually dropping Shingeki no Kyojin and not adapting the second season of Vinland Saga, nor continuing any of their other famous anime from the last decade. In the meantime Kabaneri was mocked as a weak rip off, Great Pretender never managed to become mainstream as it was West flavoured and was initially review bombed by Shingeki’s fanboys, and also the sequel sucked ass, Ousama Ranking met divisive opinions near its end and came and went as far as popularity and praise goes, Vivy met a similar destiny, and Bubbles was one of the few times where pretty animation and famous names wasn’t enough to fool people about underwhelming writing. Their other more contemporary shows were Shikanoko, of which people got tired of, Isekai Suicide Squad, of which you only need the name of it to know it is bad, and Moonrise, which was considered a very disappointing series.

4-Their remaining worthy shows are very different

What carries the studio now is Spy x Family, not exactly a series for action junkies or fans of drama. Its combination of brief action scenes and mostly wholesome family comedy and Annya’s antics helped making it popular and viral exactly at the right time it needed, and even that one has met some more negative opinions since then on its following seasons and source material, and after it was revealed or at least rumored that its author doesn’t even like it nor doing it. Agents of the Four Seasons doesn’t promise that, it promises action, politics, romance and a lot of drama, not necessarily exactly a pleasant time. The other one is the fourth season of Honzeki no Genkokujou, and even then it is not as praised as previous seasons, it is the first season that the studio is working on, thus inevitably being compared with the previous ones, and has met criticisms for using AI in its production.

5-Wit is still not KyoAni

The fans of all the aforementioned shows follow those specific franchises, not the studio itself. It’s what happens with a still relatively new and inconsistent studio. KyoAni on the other hand is older, has a loyal fanbase, a distinctive style and is consistent with its frequency and quality (or lack thereof as far as I’m concerned wink wink). Plus, without intending to romanticize the arson incident caused by a madman that they went through, the fact that they came out from that and finished all their previous works and started other brand new ones while retaining their visual quality, provided them of a very inspirational image and story, thus gaining even more respect from the community, you WANT to support them, even with more with their undisputed visual quality, which brings the next point:

5.2-Wit is still not KyoAni. Visuals

The only thing Wit has KyoAni beaten on is in variety of styles in both visuals and premises. Otherwise KyoAni has a recognizable style, far more polished artwork and detailed motions and body language, not polemic use of CGI, and the likes. Let’s keep the point about visuals going to bring up the next point.

6-Too much competition

As far as visuals and animation go, and despite being an overall good series in that regard, Agents of the Four Seasons doesn’t compare to the level of polish and quality of contemporaries like Frieren or Atelier, nor works with distinctive visual styles like Dorohedoro 2, Jaadugar, or the retro-styled anime that are airing right now, like Ghost in the Shell and Sayonara Lara. And well, there’s Red River too but that one is considered mostly bad on every front. Heck, even a josei show from a previous season like Ikoku Nikki had a very atmospheric style for a slice of life show. Agents of the Four Seasons has a lot more going on but its presentation is more limited and boring somehow. And although I began this point talking about animation, this anime also has too much competition as far as its core elements are concerned. What genres did I say that it combines? Action, fantasy, comedy, romance and drama, in a year with all the aforementioned options and many more, like a new Re: Zero or the dark horse Nippon Sangoku which won the serious and mature anime title of the season, and all the other actual romcoms that Spring 2026 was so full of.

The previous points explain why Agents of the Four Seasons didn’t manage to become as big as it should have been on paper, but doesn’t say much about its actual quality, could it be that despite all of that going against it it is in fact a good show? Well, if my score was to be an indicator, the answer would be no, and that’s because of poor handling.

Not in terms of visuals though, since despite not comparing to the aforementioned competition, it is still a very solid production. The artwork does not suffer from quality drops, the motions are fine, the backgrounds and special effects are well done. The issue is that nothing stands out. Despite the combination of hair colors and clothes, the character designs and figures don’t stand out much, the perspective is so focused on them that you don’t see the sceneries all that much, the action sequences are good but few and scattered, and the seasons theme is underutilized not only in writing but also artistically, how many scenes do you recall where the agents affected the land with their seasonal powers? 10 throughout 14 episodes or something? And even then those are more abilities than change in sceneries and do not always reflect their season all that much nor affect their users in any way. Katanagatari played around with the seasons more and it used the theme as nothing more than a running gag for the backgrounds. So yeah the directing wasn’t the most captivating.

The sound is also ok for the effects and voices but the music is far from Ushio’s best, it’s mostly there. The in-story important songs appear once or twice per agent, that makes 8 times total at most, so it’s another underutilized aspect. The opening and ending are typical jpop stuff, I listened to the full versions a few hours ago while I was writing this and didn’t feel them much, I even had to listen to the opening a second time because I couldn’t remember anything from it after the first time. I prefer the outro by the way, because I don’t like how high-pitched the voice gets at the chorus and end of the intro. The animated sequences for both are fine and they are pretty looking.

The problems come in the form of the writing and pacing and once again underutilizing the genres and elements, and even more during the initial episodes. Although initially the anime appears to follow the semi episodic structure of its older sister series, there’s actually a clearer plot progression in here after the third episode. Solve this one issue here, go there, survive an attack or two on your destination, go on and do your things, which is bringing the seasons across the country but, again, happens on screen like once or twice per agent, thus not even the main element of the story is used much.

There isn’t much of an end goal to claim that there’s progression either, and even if there was, the pacing suffers a lot in the middle to final episodes because like half the series is flashbacks, the main characters remembering a tragic event, which for a rational person isn’t even that tragic because the characters are alive and well and a lot happier in the future, the present time in the anime, essentially coming off as cheap emotional manipulation. Showing sad character backdrops is one thing, filling it with scenes about the characters wanting to die because of how they are mistreated and manipulated, while the audience knows that they will be fine, is another.

Speaking of which, the tone during the initial episodes is quite light at times. The anime uses shoujo-ish comedy and chibi-like artstyle for comedic scenes, about the guardian of the main character being more than honoured to be alongside her agent in a suspiciously more than platonic way, or the quarrels of two sisters. It clashes a lot if you expected non-stop drama like in Violet Evergarden. The middle episodes are a lot more dramatic, too much I would say, with the characters crying and yelling all the time, which doesn’t work on me because I know they are fine and silly in the future.

The series has some really gay lines for two same sex pairs of characters that would make fujoshis and whatever the yuri equivalent of it is go crazy, but then chickens out by forming two cishet couples…with like zero chemistry and on-screen interactions, besides the flashbacks, on which still they barely interact with each other and don’t sell you on their relationship much. Like many romance anime and fiction in general, the actual romance isn’t the main appeal, it’s the yearning, and in this case is freaking boring and scattered.

Even then the series ends with a line so lesbian not even the yuribait moments of KyoAni combined can match. Something along the lines of “despite the love for a boy that I have for him, you’re the girl I love the most and that I always will” or something like that, while the characters hold hands…so what’s gonna be? Are they cheating on the guys? Are they bi? Are they in a polyamory bisexual threeway relationship? Did we forget that the protagonist said she considered her friend her sister 9 episodes before? Are they in a disgusting incestuous relationship? Spiritually and emotionally I mean, not biologically obviously. If so bring out the doujins I mean no, it’s all bait, it’s just the yurishippers on suicide watch for the nth time for wanting LGBT stuff on a bait of a show instead of supporting actual LGBT fiction, as there were some varied examples of in the same season.

So the series with action, romance and queerbait isn’t about anything of the like, and the powers of the characters are underutilized. Is it worth watching for the comedy? Well no, it goes away in the middle of the show for all the drama, which in turn is not impactful because you know from the start that the characters are fine. Plus, as much as we are told (keyword) that the characters suffered a lot and wanted to die because nobody wanted them to live, not only do we see them alive in the future/present, there are no visible effects on them.

I mean the protagonist is heavily traumatized for almost (I think) getting raped, which affected her speaking and made her talk almost like the fucking annoying witch from Goblin Slayer if you remember her, but this girl sounds cutesy, not like that woman that seemed to moan and exhale all the time. But compare that to Violet, who was also a human weapon, and lost both arms, had to learn to use mechanical ones, and was so broken inside that couldn’t even socialize in normal ways, she seemed more like an android than a human. In here, because of how she acts in the present time, whatever happened to Hinagiku does not impact the viewer in the same way, the tearjerker isn’t tearjerking. But I gotta say that’s probably a good thing on her case, poor girl.

But what about the politics? We are told the different ways the villages handle their agents and what they intend to do with them or even if they plan to abandon them, it is supposed to make us think that the agents are used as dehumanized human weapons and make us feel sad but again, the four affected characters combined didn’t have it like Violet. Noticed how I said told instead of shown for a second time? That’s another thing, most things in this anime are told instead of shown, the people behind the villages don’t even get names nor faces, they aren’t given screentime on their own. Whatever we get to know about Sakura and Hinagiku’s families is the same, told instead of shown, and not given much exploring.

Not even the terrorist groups are fleshed out. As ridiculous and pretentious and far worse the terrorists in Darwin Game were, we get to know a lot about them, not in here until near the end, and only for the leader, who by the way gets a reasonable reason to hate the world and men in specific, but whatever compelling backdrop the show tries to give her is lost the moment she speaks pretentiously about killing a god, inexplicably seduces and manipulates men, and worst of all did those horrible things to the protagonist. But ok not every villain needs to be understood, some just want to see the world burn, quite literally in this case, but even so she lacks presence and screentime and her showdown lasts very little before ending and for the buildup as a mastermind she had, she was played around the whole time without even noticing the out of nowhere last moment save until it was too late and couldn’t do anything.

The actual writing is kinda bad and the established rules aren’t consistent and the pacing is too fast in the last episodes. The agents travel alone with their guards, the other security is far away or pretty much useless, the agents need to sing and dance to use their abilities? No, just recite, actually don’t even do that, what for? The character died and is replaced as an agent like it was previously said? No, they get revived within literal 5 minutes. Also near the end there are new plot twists and hidden terrorists with changing motivations at every episode, there’s just no organic presentation and follow up to anything.
The ending is solid for the conflicts presented but the novel is quite longer which makes me question what more is even left to tell, not show.

I already talked about the characters but they are defined by an archetype and have sad backdrops and that’s it, forget about any kind of development. There’s no long term objective to say there’s any kind of catharsis either. On a deeper level Hinagiku has some sort of personality disorder and Sakura is conflicted about her capabilities and feelings, but it’s not like either thing is looked into much, and the latter was hard to watch for most of the duration, until she realized how childish out of jealousy she was but still didn’t get over that as we see at the end.

And that’s how we ended up with a show that isn’t horrible but still pretty bad, and that despite that, it feels like it should have been a success, but ended up on a middle point in the scale of popularity, at best. The only thing I ever liked from this author in anime is the divisive Violet Evergarden movie, and most likely because I watched it back in 2020, when it was easier to like anything that meant doing something that wasn’t an obligation and let you focus on something else than the pandemic, even more so if it was an emotional product like that. But aside from that, I think this author goes into my (not literal) black list of authors not worth checking out anymore and this series is one of my most disliked anime in quite a while. My not enjoyment aside, I still think it’s not worth watching nor remembering because of how much it fails to appeal in any way and how much better competition is out there, without even having to go that back to find it.

4/10