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Summer is almost here! In Japan, that means it’s almost time for fun summer festivals, wearing cute cotton yukata, chowing down on kakigōri until inducing brain freeze, smashing watermelons on the beach, and just generally lazing about the house with fans on full blast and complaining about the insufferable heat.

In the anime world, summer means a whole new season of shows to look forward to (and the obligatory “boobikinis-at-the-beach-swimsuit-episode”). In fact, popular anime informational website Charapedia asked 10,000 fans to pick their most anticipated anime show of summer 2014, and we’ve got the results.

Which series do you think made the No. 1 spot?

Charapedia asked 10,000 anime fans to choose the summer 2014 (July/August) anime series that they are most looking forward to on an online survey conducted between May 22-28, with the results published on the website on June 1. Here’s some background information about the survey respondents:

Sex
Male: 53.4%
Female: 46.6%

Age
Teens-20s: 85.2%
30s and above: 14.8%

Individual series rankings were calculated using a combination of the number of votes cast, the voting rank, and user comments.

The following list is the comprehensive summary of results. You can also view the ranking according to the sex of survey respondents–go here and click on the grey tabs at the top of the chart that say 男性 (male) or 女性 (female) to view the results in this manner. And for your information, yes, the chiseled-ab swimming men of Free! Eternal Summer made number one on the women’s list by a long shot (was there ever any doubt?).

Note: While the majority of the promotional clips below are official trailers, a few are fan-made productions.

1. Sword Art Online II [sequel]

This story is based on a popular near-future science fiction/fantasy light novel that has over 11,000,000 copies printed!

2. Free! – Eternal Summer [sequel]

You get one guess as to why the original series was so popular.

3. Monogatari Series Second Season “Hanamonogatari” 

Due to production delays, instead of airing over five consecutive weeks, all five episodes of this new show will air in a back-to-back marathon on Saturday, August 16.

4. Kuroshitsuji Book of Circus

5. Re: Hamatora [sequel]

[Video: first series]

6. Tokyo Ghoul

7. Sailor Moon Crystal

8. Persona4 The Golden

[Video: video game review]

9. Gekkan Shōjo Nozaki-kun 

10. Ao Haru Ride

11. Psycho-Pass [new edited/compiled version]

12. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! [sequel]

13. Bakumatsu Rock

14. Encouragement of Climb [second season]

15. Barakamon

16. Glasslip

17. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

18. Aldnoah.Zero

19. Space Dandy [second season]

[Video: first season]

20. Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha?! 

Here’s a snapshot of the list for our readers who prefer to see the titles in Japanese:

1-10 11-20

Which of the above series are you most eagerly anticipating this summer? Honestly, we were a bit surprised that Sailor Moon Crystal wasn’t higher on the list, but maybe that’s because the Japanese youngsters of today aren’t enveloped by a wave of nostalgia whenever they hear someone shout “Moon Prism Power Makeup!”…

Sources/Images: Charapedia via My Game News Flash