Doctorkev’s Autumn 2023 Anime Postmortem — Crunchyroll Part 1
It’s been one hell of a heavy season for anime, with such a high concentration of fantastic shows crammed into the last three months of the year, my expected top ten shows of 2023 have been thrown into utter disarray. I’ve finished watching 27 different anime this season, and as that’s far too many for a single article, I’ve taken the unprecedented step of splitting my postmortem coverage into three.
Crunchyroll offered a huge range of new anime, many of them sequels to shows I previously enjoyed. I was more proactive this season with dropping shows that bored me, but that doesn’t mean that everything I finished watching was truly unmissable. The following list comprises those shows I felt were decent, if not exceptional. My upcoming part 2 will showcase the Autumn 2023 Crunchyroll shows I felt were unmissable.
The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent Season 2: 12 episodes
A cosy romantic fantasy with a sweet central couple, I’m very happy with where this second season ended. Despite some late-game complications with alternative suitors, was anyone really in doubt that slightly clueless, yet adorable, saint Sei Takanashi would end up with her dashing and devoted admirer Albert Hawke? Of course not.
I’m aware that the light novels continue for up to nine volumes, and the anime cut out a huge amount of material in order to rush to adapt the conclusion of volume eight. However, I’m not sure I’m keen to see any more. Though at times interesting, this show was never particularly exciting, and I feel it has said and done everything it needed to. Together, both seasons get a solid recommendation from me as a satisfying self-contained story with charismatic adult characters, no awkward fanservice, and minimal awkward tropes — something worth watching with an anime-newbie wife or girlfriend perhaps?
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 : Shibuya Incident: episodes 17–23
Oh, how far has this previously promising shonen fantasy fallen. I enjoyed the first season, adored the prequel movie and the second season’s initial prequel arc. Then the over-long, noisy, disorienting Shibuya Incident arc stumbled onto our screens. What a disappointment that echoes Macbeth’s cynical assessment of life: “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Each episode veers wildly from one intense fight to the next, the disorientingly huge cast of characters smashing against each other like dementedly-mutilated looney tunes. It doesn’t help that I can’t recall who many of the characters are, nor why I should care when they inevitably die horribly. With storytelling so disjointed, emotional beats flattened beneath empty spectacle, and barely-finished animation testament to a sweatshop of a studio crushing its struggling animation staff beneath a heavy grindstone of unrealistic, unsafe expectations, I’ve never been so disappointed in, or in fact disgusted by, an anime production as Jujutsu Kaisen season 2.
It’s getting really hard to support anything studio MAPPA does — even though their most recent shows have all been great (Vinland Saga season 2, Attack on Titan The Final Season The Final Chapters, Chainsaw Man), their employment practices are so irredeemably shitty that finally the strain on their animators is beginning to show, in shoddy editing of incomplete and sloppy animation cuts. What’s clearly meant to be industry-leading action animation is sadly broken and malformed, echoing MAPPA’s management style. Bastards.
Dr Stone New World Part 2: 11 episodes
This was the storyline were Dr Stone got really silly, the point in the manga where I sighed and gave up reading. Thankfully the anime version remains a lot of daft fun, giving Senku and co. in the creepy Ibara a truly despicable enemy to beat with The Power Of Science. However, with the introduction of the “petrification device”, we’ve gone from sort-of grounded science into the realm of pure fantasy (though to be fair the petrification concept has been baked into the story since the very first episode).
The parts where Senku solves problems with inventing solutions using real scientific principles are still my favourite part, even if they’ve become less frequent due to the more prominent action/adventure storyline. I’ll definitely keep watching as they progress to the recently-announced final season, while Senku aims (quite literally) for the Moon.
The Ancient Magus Bride Season 2 Part 2: 12 episodes
I have really mixed feelings about the heavily serialised second season of The Ancient Magus Bride. The entire first half was all setup, setup, setup and I expected the second half to bring one hell of a payoff. Unfortunately that setup continues for most of the second half too, the storyline only coming to a boil with the last handful of episodes. I have to admit, I got really bored.
While the first season focused heavily on the odd relationship between psychologically damaged Chise and her magical buyer/protector/fiance Elias, season two adds a huge cast of characters that greatly blurs that focus. It’s yet another magic school story and honestly, it’s not that interesting. I can’t even name most of the characters, nor do I care about them.
Thematically, the season seems to be about Chise, who had previously been an abused child who required rescuing, becoming the rescuer of severely depressed and anxious fellow student Philomela. That’s all well and good, but Philomela’s storyline is stretched to breaking point, I really don’t like her as a character, and actively wished for the show to focus on anything but her. Her evil grandmother gets everything that’s coming to her though.
At this point, the anime has completely caught up to the manga, so any potential third season is likely years away. Perhaps I’ll give this second season a chance again in a couple of years’ time — it’ll probably work much better watched in larger chunks, because trying to keep the overly complex web of character relationships straight in my head week-to-week was exhausting.
Goblin Slayer Season 2: 12 episodes
What is there to say about Goblin Slayer Season 2 other than it’s basically more Goblin Slayer? If you’re not a fan, this won’t convert you, though apart from a needlessly lurid flashback in the first episode, the second season is refreshingly short of explicit Goblin Rape.
The titular Goblin Slayer himself remains very reserved in his interactions with others, but over time slowly opens up and even starts to mentor other characters. His obsessive focus on murdering as many goblins as possible continues to be his primary motivator, but the season branches out a little, even including a trip to a traditional elven wedding of all things!
Goblin Slayer acquired something of an unfair reputation following the widespread reaction to its first season’s overly edgy and shock-filled opening episode. If you can get past that, it’s an engaging and fun D&D-based fantasy campaign that isn’t as immaturely edgy as it’s often made out to be.
Tearmoon Empire: 12 episodes
What a fun piece of fluff this turned out to be. It’s essentially “What if The Irresponsible Captain Tylor was Fantasy Marie Antoinette, reincarnated back into her child self’s body after being guillotined to death, now determined to prevent revolution at all costs.” That must have been one hell of a pitch meeting with the anime production committee.
Whether you enjoy Tearmoon Empire will rely entirely on whether you can empathise with selfish spoilt brat Mia Luna Tearmoon or not. During her first crack at life, she lived selfishly and lavishly in her stately home, while the poor people of her kingdom suffered. Viewed as a symbol of the decadent bourgeoisie class, she’s executed at the age of 20, her mind full of confusion and regrets. Suddenly awakening in her 12-year-old self’s body, she realises she’s acquired a second chance to prevent her kingdom’s bloody revolution and salvage her reputation.
Mia is one of those comedic protagonists whose dumb self-interest and random decisions somehow always seem to work out the best for herself and the others around her. Somehow she builds a hospital, prevents famine, opens a school, and fosters political peace between countries, all the while blundering cluelessly from one crisis to the next. She’s adorably base in her desires, yet doesn’t present as a bad person. It’s completely understandable that she wants to keep her head attached to her body! I found the show extremely silly, and while the humour doesn’t always land, it’s very entertaining.
SHY: 12 episodes
I was late coming to this one, binging the first ten episodes over a couple of days recently. It’s a pretty decent superhero origin story, solidly told, with some surprisingly emotional heft. Based on the 22-volume SHY manga by Bukimi Miki, it follows 14–year-old Japanese middle school student Teru Moriyama who is just starting out as Japan’s new Hero Representative. Her official hero name “Shy” reflects her extremely timid, shy nature. She lacks confidence in herself, and this tends to cause problems both with her abillity do her job, and with her perception by the media and populace.
When the villainous organisation Amaraririku (led by creepy boy “Stigma”) starts turning people into monsters by corrupting their hearts, Shy teams up with other heroes from other countries to fight this threat. Pre-eminent among the other heroes is the Russian Pepesha Andreanova (hero name Spirit), who becomes close friends with Shy, acting as a mentor and confidante. Spirit has issues of her own, not only is she essentially a functional alcoholic with a little too much love for hard liquour (vodka) but the five-episode arc that closes off this first season focuses heavily on Spirit’s childhood trauma and loss of her mother. It deals with much more emotionally mature issues than SHY’s closest anime equivalent, My Hero Academia.
It’s a pretty good-looking show with interesting characters who have depth and complex motivations. I’m not completely sold on the bad guys yet — female antagonist Kufufu is overly goofy, cartoonish, and a little too cliche, while we don’t know enough about Stigma to gauge what he’s really up to. A fairly average superhero anime, it’s entertaining enough, I’ll no doubt check out the recently-announced second season whenever it returns.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Visions of Coleus
A three-episode OVA slotting in between the first and second seasons of Slime, this is a fun if inconsequential digression, in much the same vein as the previous Slime movie. There are appearances from the primordial Violet (who also shows up in the movie) and Demon Lord Luminous, which I suppose does kind of tie this otherwise standalone story into wider continuity.
I haven’t read ahead in the light novels, so I have no idea if the other characters introduced in this turn up later in the story, or if this is another one of those Shonen Jump Movie-style things where the movie-only characters are never referenced again. If you’re planning on watching the upcoming season three, probably best not to miss this effortlessly entertaining three-episode piece of fluff.
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead episodes 10–12
Finally, the concluding three episodes of this Summer 2023 show went live on Christmas day. For a story that calls out so-called “black companies” and their terrible employment practices, it’s a sad irony that Zom 100’s amibitious production degenerated into such a disaster as it did. I hope their animators didn’t suffer as much as their compatriots at MAPPA.
Over the preceding nine episodes I’ve swithered over whether I like Zom 100 or not. I think, considering the strength of this final arc, that I do. The central cast of four weirdos doing their best to survive and have fun during a zombie apocalypse have gelled together as an entertaining quartet. Akira as main protagonist is by turns intelligently resourceful and desperately dumb. His chance to reconnect with his family and work through his feelings of inferiority and and indebtedness to them gives him extra depth and helps to explain his personality. I especially like his father’s dismissal of Akira’s desire to somehow “pay him back” by sacrificing himself. All a parent wants of their child is for them to grow up happy and fulfilled, and now Akira understands that.
Bonkers blonde Japanophile Beatrix is an absolute delight, a bundle of energy and positivity who brightens every scene, while the more serious Shizuka and the light-hearted Kenichiro provide extra colour. Kenichiro’s most recent strategy to avoid zombification by confusing the zombies’ sense of smell by immersing himself in fermenting human faeces from a cesspit, is both vomit-inducingly gross and hilarious.
These last three episodes have perhaps been the highlight of the season for me, not least because of the presence of Akira’s dark mirror Higurashi. Higurashi and his horrible friends also have their own bucket list to complete, but instead of a wholesome collection of objectives like Akira’s, these are all nihilistic, selfish and destructive desires. Higurashi’s group are all terrible people who blame their own deficiencies on others, deluding themselves that their shitty lot in this world isn’t their own responsibility to fix, instead focusing their blame and ire on the innocent people around them. I wasn’t sad to witness their demise. Anyway, I’d be very happy to see more of this oddly dark-and-light comedy in future.
That’s it for this segment of Crunchyroll’s Autumn 2023 shows. I’ll be back later in the week with more!
