Doctorkev’s Autumn 2023 Anime Postmortem — Crunchyroll Part 2
Previously, I covered a bunch of Crunchyroll shows from Autumn 2023 that although I thought they were decent, they weren’t exceptional. It’s a testament to how packed this season has been that there were enough excellent shows to populate an entire article of their own! Let’s get to it, first of all with a couple of very welcome surprise movies.
Psycho-pass: Providence
Crunchyroll dropped this latest Psycho-pass movie without much fanfare. It did receive a limited theatrical release in the West earlier in 2023, but unfortunately not in my city (despite trailers for it showing in my local cinema…) I’m a relatively late convert to the church of Psycho-pass, I only watched the first season and movie back in early 2020 in preparation for the Sinners of the System film trilogy.
For a while, it wasn’t easy to watch everything Psycho-pass because of complicated rights issues, Amazon Prime jail etc. Now Crunchyroll has everything, so here’s the correct watch order for those not in the know:
- Psycho-pass Season One (22 episodes, alternatively the 11 double-length episodes director’s cut version, there’s very little difference.)
- Psycho-pass Season Two (11 episodes, reportedly awful, and the only one I’ve not watched.)
- Psycho-pass The Movie
- Psycho-pass Sinners of the System Movies 1–3 (Crime and Punishment, First Guardian, On the Other Side of Love and Hate)
- Psycho-pass Season Three (8 double-length episodes)
- Psycho-pass: First Inspector (3 double-length episodes, providing the conclusion to season three.)
- Psycho-pass: Providence (two-hour movie set before season three, but to be watched after.)
Set in 2118, three years before the events of Psycho-pass season three, Providence explains all of the lingering mysteries surrounding Akane Tsunemori’s incarceration, and also provides some enlightening background information on the third season’s dual protagonists Arata Shindo and Kei Mikhail Ignatov. It features storyline elements that tie directly into First Inspector (namely the Bifrost organisation) and overall is an extremely satisfying narrative experience that should absolutely not be viewed before the third season, despite its chronological placement.
All of Psycho-pass’ large cast are present and correct, and long-term fans will be delighted that original protagonist duo Akane Tsunemori and Shinya Kogami share multiple scenes together. It’s a fast-moving, complex and disorienting story that probably requires multiple viewings to fully absorb. With each new installment, Psycho-pass seems to edge closer and closer to Ghost in the Shell territory, which perhaps is unsurprising as writer Tow Ubukata also penned Ghost in the Shell: Arise for Production I.G., Psycho-pass’ production studio. The use of the historical artificial island of Dejima as a place to process refugees/foreign nationals is a prominent plot point in Providence, much as it was in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, while multiple characters now have brain chips that are hackable by outside malevolent forces. Both franchises are serious, even dour, dark police sci-fi stories, and Providence is an excellent example of the genre.
It’s not only speculative procedural intellectualism, though — there’s multiple spectacular action scenes and an exciting multifaceted climax, before Akane makes her fateful choice that leads into the third season’s events. Providence is an absolutely essential watch and proves that even after losing its original writer (Gen Urobuchi) after the first season and movie, Psycho-pass is still going strong.
Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Star Sage
Next up is the movie conclusion to Winter 2023’s 11-episode Kaina of the Great Snow Sea from Polygon Pictures (wait — don’t run away!) and Knights of Sidonia/Blame’s Tsutomu Nihei. This one never got a theatrical release in the West, as far as I’m aware, but I’m happy that Crunchyroll was able to stream this fantastic SF story’s conclusion.
Nihei is one of my very favourite manga creators — his work is like almost no-one else’s, full of Big Dumb Objects, often only partly explained, and the comparatively tiny people that populate his bizarre worlds full of mystery and danger. Kaina of the Great Snow Sea is an anime-original story, but it’s full of Nihei’s signature creativity. The world is drowning in the Snow Sea, a less-dense-than-water liquid that floats down from The Orbital Spire Trees, massive miles-high organic structures that support The Canopy, a clear membrane high in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Kaina himself is a denizen of an Orbital Spire Tree who descends to the planet’s surface with Ririha, princess of one of the tiny countries clustered around the base of the trees. Together they journey in search of both water and the mythical Star Sage who may be able to offer clues as to the nature of the world, and how its water-starved societies might survive.
Apart from the always-distracting trademark Polygon Pictures CG character animation, Kaina’s world is jaw-droppingly beautiful and weird, with with majestic spire trees like something from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, bizarre mechas (a Nihei speciality), and exotic fauna both above and below the waves. The story is a simple adventure, with characters repeatedly being captured by and escaping from bad guys, and former enemies becoming trusted comrades etc. It harks back to a more traditional, golden age of exploratory sci-fi, akin to a 1950s pulp novel.
Unusually for a Nihei work, the world’s state is fully explained and eventually resolved — and the conclusion is extremely satisfying, although the final antagonist himself is a bit of a thinly-drawn cliche. I definitely recommend watching this show and its concluding movie, it went somewhat under the radar this year.
Spy x Family Season 2: 12 episodes
Sadly we only got a single cour of this wonderful slice of life/spy caper, but perhaps that’s because there’s also a movie that’s just been released in Japan. I’m sure Crunchyroll will bring that West sooner rather than later. This time, anime’s closest equivalent to Marvel’s Black Widow (Yor Forger) gets a storyline to herself where she proves that she’s still our pre-eminent Murder Princess. No other show mixes such goofy comedy with such brutal, bloody violence as Spy x Family, and I love it so much. Yor is a force of nature, at times innocent and childlike, at others terrifyingly efficient.
Shaggy dog Bond continues to be Best Boy (Borf!), though his transformation into skinny Wet Bond in the latest episode is both hilarious and pitiful. Anya is the best-written child character in the entire medium — even though she can read the minds of the adults around her, that doesn’t mean she has a clue what’s going on, and her misunderstandings are adorable. I did particularly like the episode where her school friend Becky’s barely disguised lust for Anya’s adoptive dad Loid Forger leads Anya to cheer Becky on, mainly because if Becky became her new mother, Anya would be fed gourmet chef-cooked meals every night. Poor Yor can’t help being such a terrible cook…
Thankfully we didn’t have to suffer much of irritating little brother character Yuri and his super-creepy sister fixation on Yor. He’s easily the weakest part of the series and the one thing that non-anime fans are likely to be rightfully squicked out over. Those complaining that the central plot barely moves an inch in season 2 really don’t get the point of Spy x Family. The plot is background colour, nothing else. This is pure character-based comedy, spiced up with the occasional dash of loopy spy drama. Long may it continue!
I’m in Love with the Villainess: 12 episodes
I’m in love with I’m in Love with the Villainess! I wholeheartedly wish this continued for another season, it’s so much fun. The dub continues to be fantastic, especially the voice actress playing main character Rae as an unhinged disaster lesbian. They made a slightly odd choice with adapting the entirety of the first novel and only the first part of the second. This does leave us with an emotionally satisfying climax, but leaves much of the underlying plot completely unresolved.
So far we’ve heard nothing about an anime continuation, but I can confirm that the second novel (which I have read) is absolutely superb, especially when the plot takes off like a rocket when the flames of revolution are ignited. For once this is a yuri romance that isn’t just teasing and pandering — the central characters very clearly care for one another, and their relationship develops organically. Despite the cheap-looking production, this was one of the shows I anxiously awaited each new episode every week.
Extra kudos should also go to the music producers — the opening song Raise Y/Our Hands!! is catchy and fun, but the ending song Optimum Combination is a work of mad genius and exists in four different versions. The lyrics take the form of a text message conversation between main characters Rae and Claire, and they are constructed from two separate monologues. Therefore there is a solo version (Side Rae) sung by Rae and another solo from Claire (Side Claire). Both function well as monologues, however there are two completely different duets spliced together from alternate chunks of the monologues to produce two completely coherent dialogues that accurately reflect the personalities and mental states of both protagonists (Side by Side and Reverse). It’s frankly stunning songwriting and an amazing effort by a team that clearly loves the source material.
Migi & Dali: 13 episodes
If there was one show this season that I wished more people had watched, it would be this stunning complete adaptation of sadly-departed author Nami Sano’s manga Migi & Dali. I have never seen an anime like this, so it’s hard to describe, and perhaps that’s why it never found a wider audience. This is a tragedy, as it’s probably one of my top five anime of the year.
Migi & Dali is an unhinged horror/comedy/murder mystery/drama with an offbeat tone similar to Twin Peaks and a sense of deep wrongness reminiscent of Junji Ito’s less grotesque works. It’s full of deeply awkward moments where the titular identical twins get themselves into bizarre situations that only sometimes work out in their favour.
Migi and Dali are precocious 12-year-old twins who inveigle their way into the loving Sonoyama family as their lone adoptive son “Hitori” (requiring them to strategically swap places unnoticed on a frequent basis), with the intention of investigating their biological mother’s suspicious death. This investigation brings them into contact with a cast of deeply weird neighbourhood characters, including the bird-obsessed Shunpei, beaver-like Maruta and the terrifying Mrs Reiko Ichijo.
Mrs Ichijo in particular is a profoundly unsettling character with very strange parenting practices guaranteed to make most viewers squeal in utter disbelief. The story’s climax ramps up the horror tone with overt references to classic films like Fatal Attraction and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, not to mention themes similar to The Handmaid’s Tale.
With a beautifully satisfying ending that cements Migi & Dali as a magnificently-constructed narrative masterpiece, what I’m trying to say here is please give this amazing show a chance. Yes, it will deliberately make you cringe and feel uncomfortable, but the payoff is more than worth it. It’s the most perfect combination of horror and comedy I’ve ever seen, enhanced by an incredibly atmospheric soundtrack. Go watch it and join me in my profound sadness that we’ll never again experience a new story from the wonderful Nami Sano. Sometimes life (and death) is so cruel…
16Bit Sensation: Another Layer: 13 episodes
This wonderful show wasn’t even on my radar until fellow AniTAY member Reikaze recommended it to me, and I’m glad he did. It turned out to be one of my very favourite shows of the entire year. Admittedly, its content is quite niche, and with so many obscure geeky references, it’s aimed at fans of 1990s Japanese visual novels. I think it’s still perfectly enjoyable without this arcane knowledge, however — I had to look many of the references up myself.
Protagonist Konoha is a delight — she’s perky, upbeat, energetic, and completely focused on doing what she loves — producing narrative video games featuring detailed art of beautiful ladies. That’s a dream I can get behind. So when Konoha is unexpectedly transported back to mid-1990s Akihabara at the beginning of Japan’s Bishojo game boom, of course she wants to get involved and make the game of her dreams, at the height of her chosen genre’s popularity. Her energetic enthusiasm is infectious, and drags in a cast of entertaining videogame developer oddballs, who originate from 2-volume manga/doujin 16Bit Sensation.
The anime loosely adapts the manga up until about its halfway point when the plot hurtles way off the rails (in a good way) with time paradoxes/alternate timelines/aliens/evil megacorporations draining creativity from captured humans/Artificial Intelligence replacing people for videogame production. With a dramatic final story arc directly referencing Steins;Gate and featuring plot elements similar to Back to the Future Part II, I think I was genetically predisposed to completely adore this anime. Konoha certainly won my heart, and the whole story is marvellously compelling from start to finish. I’m so glad something so odd as this got made.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: 16 episodes (of 28)
The season’s undeniable hype show and serious contender for Anime of the Year, Frieren is an example of when everything comes together to make a production practically perfect. Studio Madhouse have outdone themselves with their incredible effort at bringing an already excellent manga to life. Every episode looks pristine, with stunningly smooth, detailed animation and wonderfully expressive character designs. There’s a reason that “smug Frieren” (as seen above) has become a meme.
I can see why they crammed four episodes together into the premiere now, it was so they could fit sixteen episodes into this season, bringing us almost to the end of manga volume 4, and leaving the final twelve episodes to (hopefully) cover the entirety of the upcoming comparatively lengthy Magic Exam arc.
Frieren’s multiple strengths include its complex, multifaceted characters. Long-lived elf Frieren herself is perhaps the best, and most tragic, example. She’s lived so long and become almost numb to emotion and the short lives of the humans around her that it takes her decades to process her experiences as part of the Hero’s party many years before. It’s clear that her human friend Himmel was in love with her, making overt gestures that she only belatedly begins to comprehend the meaning of. Her mismatched priorities compared to her current travelling companions are funny —Freiren: “Let’s stay here for a decade or so”. Fern: “You’ve got at most one week.”
Purple-haired Fern is entertaining because her upbringing really hasn’t prepared her at all well for the world. Yes, she can unleash devastatingly powerful magic thanks to her training under Frieren, but prior to that she lived in the forest with a retired priest and has little idea how relationships work. That leads to frequent misunderstandings between her and sweet, innocent boy Stark. Often when watching this show with my son he’ll comment “poor Stark” at least once per episode as he endures the undeserved wrath of either Fern or Frieren.
Every episode works on multiple levels, testament to clever and heartfelt writing. Usually current events prompt Frieren to recall her experiences decades before, comparing and contrasting her relatively naive reactions then with her nuanced behaviour now. Of course she’s still often completely clueless and her warped priorities are a great source of comedy. Although it’s a funny show, it’s shot through with a deep melancholy — though Frieren herself is essentially deathless, the story centres death and loss, as Frieren only very slowly comes to recognise the impact her friends’ relatively short lives have had on hers. A quiet yet spectacular triumph of an anime.
Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me: 12 episodes
It’s surprising how good this romantic drama turned out to be. Emotionally intelligent and even quite realistic, it explores some sensitive and difficult relationship problems via its central couple and their closest friends. Unlike many inferior anime romantic shows, Our Dating Story almost always avoids using prolonged miscommunication as a plot crutch. Ryuto and Runa do often misunderstand one another’s intentions and motivations, however they resolve these differences by measured discussion and honest attempts to get to know one another. This straightforwardness is refreshing, and despite some truly wild plot twists, their relationship endures.
Ryuto himself is a fairly standard anime geeky self-insert protagonist, at least at the beginning, but he matures and becomes more relatable and responsible as his relationship with Runa progresses. Runa may seem like a confident and happy girl outwardly, but she has deep insecurities and negative self-beliefs that threaten to sabotage her happiness with Ryuto. That Ryuto struggles at first to understand this is expected, but together they work out their differences like adults and become a couple that’s easy to root for. Even the supporting characters gain a lot more depth towards the end, even Ryuto’s irritating male friends.
If it’s a relatively serious romantic drama you’re after, give this one a shot. It’s a lot less formulaic and tropey than it looks like it should be. Just as Runa isn’t the empty-headed gyaru she appears to be, and Ryuta isn’t the wet blanket potato-kun he initially presents as, this show is much better than it initially appears — don’t judge on first impressions, and give it at least three episodes.
The Apothecary Diaries: 12 episodes (of 24)
A big favourite amongst my AniTAY colleagues, The Apothecary Diaries is appointment television, and I’m delighted it’s continuing through Winter 2024. A period drama set in an analogue of medieval China and set in the imperial Rear Palace, it follows 17-year-old Maomao, daughter of a former court apothecary. She’s learnt much about medicine from her father and uses her knowledge to act as food taster/poison detector for the emperor’s courtesans, while also investigating mysteries Dr House-like with head eunuch(?) Jinshi.
It’s a show that rewards close attention, as there are many subtle hints in each episode about subterfuge and machinations within the palace in which Maomao will no doubt become further embroiled in later episodes. The period setting is fascinating, especially in regards to the role of women in society. Maomao is essentially resigned to the fact that she must be owned by someone — whether it’s by her father, the owner of the brothel to whom she is indebted, the palace who paid her kidnappers for two years of her life in service, or even Jinshi himself. She does her best to rail against these restrictions by simple acts of rebellion such as giving herself “unsightly” freckles so as to fend off unwanted male attention, and to try to fade into the background and draw as little attention as possible. Unfortunately she finds herself (often due to Jinshi’s meddling) in the centre of events.
The animation and character designs are excellent, as is the general production design in terms of evoking an exotic sense of place and mystery. Jinshi and Maomao have an interesting and funny combative dynamic, especially when she recoils like a cat to his attempts at physical closeness. They’re a duo to keep an eye on next season.
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: 12 episodes
Who’d have thought I’d find this ridiculous polyamory comedy so funny? After I hated the similarly-themed Girlfriend, Girlfriend, I did not have high hopes for this one. Thankfully 100 Girlfriends is so gleefully divorced from anything resembling reality that any moral objections I may have to the premise are blown away by its sheer insanity.
It helps that Rentaro Aijo is a thoroughly decent chap. It’s not really his fault that he’s been rejected by 100 girls, and definitely not his fault that, in order to make up for his unluckiness in love, an incompetent god has blessed/cursed him to have 100 female soul mates, and that he’s forced to reciprocate their love to him or they’ll die of broken hearts. That’s pure existential horror right there.
Starting with a couple of relatively tame character archetypes as his first two girlfriends (one tsundere girl who struggles to communicate her feelings, and one extremely horny girl barely able to withhold her overwhelming libido), each successive addition to his harem gets progressively more bonkers. By the time we reach a mad scientist type who accidentally transforms the rest of the harem into love-crazed “kiss zombies” we’re so far off the rails we might as well be on a different planet. And that’s even before Rentaro gets involved with his girlfriend’s mother…
100 Girlfriends is deranged, it’s the harem genre turned up to 100, it thrives on consuming tropes, grinding them up and spewing them out in confused, twisted and crazily multicoloured ways. I have no idea if the original manga author can sustain this insanity, but I find it hilarious and can’t wait for the second season. Now if only my kids didn’t keep walking into the living room at the absolute worst possible moments when I’m watching this show…
That’s everything notable from Crunchyroll this season! Did you agree with my selections? I’ll be back soon to cover Netflix, HIDIVE and Disney’s offerings!
