Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26

Between the ages of 17 and 26, before Chainsaw Man made him one of the biggest names in manga, Tatsuki Fujimoto wrote these one-shots. Now eight of them have been animated as an ONA anthology, each handled by a different studio — P.A. Works, Zexcs, Studio Kafka, and others — which means every episode looks and feels completely different from the last. The first story drops you onto a post-apocalyptic Earth where an alien student named Yohei tends to two chickens in a ruined schoolyard, only for those chickens to turn out to be something much stranger than expected. The second follows Sasaki, a guy taking remedial classes mostly as an excuse to be around his teacher, Ms. Kawaguchi — until a gunman with a grudge walks into the room and the story shifts from awkward crush to life-or-death standoff. That tonal whiplash is the whole point. One episode is a mermaid story, another is about waking up in a different body, another is a prophecy narrative. If you liked the raw, weird energy of Look Back or the way Blue Period treats creative obsession, this is a chance to see where that sensibility came from. Eight episodes, eight completely different vibes, all filtered through the mind of a teenager-turned-young-adult figuring out what kind of stories he wanted to tell. It's messy and surprising in the best way.