The animation moves like nothing else on screen that year, every frame of combat designed to make you feel the weight of desperation. Characters don't sit behind walls waiting to die, they fight back with harpoon guns and raw fury, turning what could've been another siege story into pure adrenaline. By episode three you know if this is your show or not, and if it is, the art alone carries you through the thinner moments because watching Kabaneri move is watching mastery.

A plague of undead monsters ravages a world in the middle of an industrial revolution. These creatures, called Kabane, spread through their bite and can only be killed by piercing their iron-plated hearts. On the island of Hinomoto, people shelter in fortified stations linked by armored steam locomotives. Ikoma, a young man in Aragane Station who helps build these trains, has made his own weapon to kill Kabane and waits for a chance to use it. One day he meets Mumei, a girl who is exempt from the mandatory Kabane inspection. That night a runaway train whose crew has turned into Kabane brings the monsters into the station, and Ikoma finally gets the fight he has been waiting for.