2023 Anime Year Review
Written by Rei Caldombra 12/31/2023 Video version: https://youtu.be/9XOWcb651Oo
Happy New Year! I'm gonna start by doing my best to list all the anime I watched this year. I felt like putting them in alphabetical order, so I did.
The anime I watched in 2023 are: Attack on Titan Final Season, Buddy Daddies, Crash Course in Naughtness, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc, Don't Toy with Me Miss Nagatoro 2nd Attack, Dr. Stone: New World, Frieren Beyond Journey’s End, Helck, Hell's Paradise:Jigokuraku, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, Mashle: Magic and Muscles, My New Boss Is Goofy, My Hero Academy, Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage, Reborn as a Vending Machine I Now Wander the Dungeon, Spy x Family Season 2, Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead.
For manga I have been keeping up with Bocchi the Rock, Bocchi the Rock Hiroi’s Story, Call of the Night, Chainsaw Man, Demon Girl Next Door, Don’t Mess With Me Nagatoro, Mieruko-san, and Shimeji Simulation.
Now I'll be giving some thoughts on the year as a whole and mentioning specific ones in categories. There will be no spoilers.
It definitely looks like a lot, but I know I have watched more in the past. It's tougher finding as much time for anime now, but I desire to give more new shows a shot in 2024 like I usually would. There are a lot of sequels that I watched this year! The new shows were pretty good, with most of them fitting into the realm of being pretty good but not extraordinary. While the continuations on the other end had a lot more extremes, with most of the mainstream shows fitting into the realm of having moments I really liked in between stuff that was lukewarm or frustrating.
My single favorite is Dr. Stone: New World. Dr Stone continues to be very consistent and have a bit of everything, providing good visuals, fun characters, and interesting applications of science. This season really stepped it up when it came to the story. The climax of this season is the best I've seen this year. It really keeps up the intensity and leaves you guessing what happens next. It got me very excited for what’s next. It’s great on all fronts.
Most underrated I would give to Reborn as a Vending Machine. I think it's very solid and on the better end of isekai shows. It’s truly a unique premise and worth checking out if you like fantasy and slice of life shows.
Biggest surprise hit I would go with Mashle. I had not heard of it before this and went into it just thinking it was going to make fun of Harry Potter over and feel like a rehash of One Punch. I figured I’d enjoy a few episodes then drop it when the schtick got old. But it's genuinely funny outside of its magic parody, and does do some genuinely cool magic stuff at the same time. I liked it a lot more than I expected to.
Biggest disappointment I will give to both Demon Slayer Swordsmith Village Arc and Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, specifically the Shibuya Incident Arc (yes they are the same season but they are fundamentally separated in the story and in release). Reason being that their issues are very similar. They both have some really cool moments that are surrounded by boring and frustrating shonen action style tropes. Such as dragging fights out dialogue and flashbacks, emotion baiting, and convenient power ups that don’t feel satisfying or earned. Both of the primary villains in these arcs are not very interesting to me. Neither of these shows are terrible, as they still had the core aspects that made me like them initially. But for me they have many disappointing and frustrating aspects.
What new shows I’m looking forward to in 2024 as of now: Mashle season 2, Dungeon Meshi, Konosuba season 3, My Hero Academia Season 7, Yuru Camp season 3, Sound! Euphonium 3, Solo Leveling, and the new Spice and Wolf. I do want to watch some anime in 2024 that have been on my list, which are the following: Baki, Honey and Clover, and Chihayafuru at least. Baki I know is super fun and super up my alley. Honey and Clover is by the same author as March Comes in Like a Lion (one of my favorite anime), which is enough for me to watch. Chihayafuru comes highly recommended, and from what I know I am confident I will enjoy it. I've wanted to watch these for a while but with following the seasonals it's hard to get to them.
One anime I’m still holding out hope for is Dorohedoro season 2. I do still think we will eventually get it, but I really hope it's soon. An announcement in 2024 would be SHOCKINGly lovely. Another announcement I'd love would be an anime adaptation of Shimeji Simulation. The manga just recently ended and is very good (a post on that is coming soon- future Rei jumping back in time to put it here- Shimeji Simulation Manga Review- A Strange and Sentimental Story — Blog Under a Log).
I really enjoyed this year of anime and manga! I hope you did as well and are looking forward to next year as much as me! I'd also like to mention that I started blogging about anime this year and have really enjoyed doing it! I plan to continue to please stick around! Thank you for reading!
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