After being mostly absent for a few years, 2023 saw the return of more regular anime viewing and reviewing. This year has brought a strong resurgence in romance anime, a favorite genre of mine, which kept me consuming more and more. Unfortunately there is still a deluge of droll isekai stories. But its hypocritical of me to be so harsh on them. In the end, lots of series that fall under specific genre's come out, most of them don't make much of an impact but there are those few that transcend the mundane to garner attention from the community at large, at least for the season. We all gravitate to the specific story types that are comfortable to us, I prefer low key slice of life stories above flashy battle oriented ones.
The best series for me this year though is absolutely Insomniacs After School. I ended up watching the anime twice and reading the manga, which completed its story a few months after the final episode of the anime. It was such a beautiful heart warming story. It brought me a lot of emotions and was an absolute joy to experience. I have a great desire to read the manga again and take my time, savoring it, as the artwork and story are beautiful and worth slowing down for.
What really took hold this year was my deep dive into the world of light novels. Since the anime adaptation came out I have been obsessed with the Rascal Does Not Dream story and finally read the original versions. Once I was caught up I moved on to the Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, which has taken me a bit long than I would like to work through. I have also bought a good amount of physical manga this year, given that my primary platform for legal e-reading, Crunchyroll, stopped hosting manga. Skip and Loafer and Even Though We're Adults dominated my physical manga focus but the end of the year saw me get the last two volumes of City, which I will finally sit down and read. I also need to resume my per tankoubon analysis of Kare Kano, that was stated near the beginning of the pandemic. 2024 looks to be a strong year for my consumption of physical manga and more e-edition light novels. Once Haruhi is concluded I will move onto to the fantastic fantasy series Grimgar!
The creation of the Netflix live action adaptation of One Piece had a profound impact on me. After avoiding the series for over fifteen years, I decided to return to the anime of One Piece and as of this writing am half way through its run. I would be further along if I had kept my daily pace of viewing but other things got in the way and I will return to that pace in the new year as well, hoping to catch up to the anime before the new arc begins. While I have a generalized distaste and avoidance of shonen titles, One Piece has proven to be an enjoyable journey that I hope can maintain its wonder and allure.
Here are my top 10 favorite anime of the year, going from 10 to 1.
#10
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
Whats not to love about an off beat comedy following a disillusioned salary man who suddenly finds freedom to live his life for himself, following the collapse of civilization at the hands of the ravenous dead. The artwork is great, the characters are memorable but this show was hit with significant production delays pushing the last few episodes all the way to the end of the year. Still a good show, but the massive delay hampers some of the joy when you watched it as it broadcast.
#9
Romance anime outside of a high school setting are hard to come by
and this one only partially does that, given its a story about feelings
blossoming between a college woman and a boy about to finish up high
school. If you ignore the idea of an adult woman who can legally drink
courting a 17 year old prodigy gamer its not at all disturbing. I feel
if the gender roles were reversed it might be a little more creepy...or
turn into a classic shojo story. Anyways, fun and easy to digest story
about a woman who isn't sure she's ready to be an adult who is trying to
reconcile heart break and rejection. With both main characters not
falling into the trope of unease, we get meaningful dialogue and less
indecision drama.
#8
The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today
A giant black cat resides in my house but is no where as cool as Yukichi. This was a fun slice of life comedy about a terribly unkempt woman and her super naturally normal house cat/caretaker. Animation oddities be damned, this was fun and comfortable and I would like to see more of it.
#7
I don't normally get into period pieces, but the animation quality and chatter around the first few episodes of this drama drew my curiosity. This retelling of Cinderella is amazingly beautiful and finely detailed. But by the time its super natural aspect unveiled its self i was too deep to back out. Yet, even with the down side of there eventually being conflict between 'wizards' over her hand the story remained strong and I can't wait for season two.
#6
In the beginning this felt like a story similar to my much loved Kare Kano, but morphed into something different and likeable. While not the most remarkable romance to come out this year it is a lovely and endearing story about two misfits and their navigation around each other. They spend the vast majority of the series not even considering romance and in the end of the anime that idea still seems ambivalent. Its a really nice slice of life story that has mild romantic tendencies that takes a good look at life in the modern world. It's cute, funny and lovable in all the right ways.
#5
This long needed adaptation of the fantastic manga series by Urasawa Naoki did. It disappoint. It is essentially hardboiled detective fanfic of a classic Testsuwon Atom arc.
#4
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
As I bring up anytime I can, I really don't like most fantasy anime. But something about this melancholy show about questioning ones own attitude to those around you is one of the best stories I have seen in quite a while. I have really enjoyed the characters, the way the story is told and the artwork.
#3
Unlike the disjointed followup series for Raniking of Kings that put dropped plot lines and side stories from the original season, Missing Pieces is a really lovely return to Horimiya and the characters you love from the original story. While it would have been amazing to get a continuation of the story from where it left off, this collection of loosly related side plots was fantastic and made me love the world of Horimiya even more. This is such a fun story with a large cast of agreeable characters.
#2
I am a sucker for Scott Pilgrim, deeply invested in the franchise since
the release of the live action adaptation. This new animated retell of
the story propelled my love of this world even further. With a fresh
take at the original material, charting a new course with the characters
while paying a lot of homage to the source comic, live action movie and
fantastic video game. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off may be the best thing to
come out of the franchise? Out of all of the east/west collaborative
anime projects, this one feels like the most sincere. It also doesn't
help I'm such a rabid fan of the story in general. But other notable
series like Afro Samurai seem hollow and devoid to any substance in
story and legacy. Oh and it also doesn't hurt that this new story made
incel talking heads explode when they suddenly forgot that Scott Pilgrim
is woke as fuck to begin with. Idiots.
#1
This is hands down my favorite anime of the year and I pretty much spoiled it earlier in the post. An amazingly lovely anime and equally lovely manga that ended too abruptly in my mind. The premise of the title gets pushed to the side when the main characters establish a strong connection. the side characters are enjoyable, the meandering plot is lovely...I can't speak bad about this series. I just hope they produce an anime to tell the second half of th story, the part that really gets the water works in action. I need to reread this lovely manga.
Overall it was a great year, I power through some of the back catalog, discovered some new gems from the past few years and pushed forward into the new world of current shows. Next year is shaping up to have a few interesting key shows, most notably the 4 part adaption of Uzumaki and the hopeful distribution of the second and third Rascal Doesn't Dream movies in North America!
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