Doctorkev’s Autumn 2023 Anime Postmortem Part 3: Netflix/HIDIVE/Hulu/Disney+
In this third part of my assessment of the most packed anime season of 2023, we’ll look at some of the shows on streaming services that aren’t Crunchyroll. Sony don’t quite have a monopoly on anime distribution in the West, but they’re not that far off from it…
Netflix continued to do their own thing, mostly dropping whole seasons of shows in one go, as part of their binge model. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn’t. This season was particularly strong for Netflix, though a few of their shows I never found time to get to including apparently very disturbing horror Akuma-kun, VRMMORPG-set (a genre I’m generally allergic to) Good Night World and the PS2-era game adaptation Onimusha. I loved all the Onimusha games, however I was warned that the anime was mediocre, so onto The Eternal Backlog of Shame it went, along with the others.
HIDIVE continued to stream The Eminence in Shadow season 2, which I avoided because the first season didn’t do it for me. It often seems like HIDIVE gets Crunchyroll’s leftovers, though some of their picks are sometimes surprisingly good. I still find it hard to believe they bagged Oshi no Ko earlier this year.
Finally, Disney+ (Hulu in the US) continued to choose the most random shows to stream (probably as a result of their deal with Kodansha), and completely failed to publicise them. In the case of Undead Unluck, they failed to stream it at all outside of the US, relenting only after a 10 week delay, yet insisting on streaming the delayed episodes weekly. I just don’t understand their strategy here. There doesn’t seem to be one.
Netflix:
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off!: 8 episodes
What a wonderful surprise this was! I’m already a big fan of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 6-volume manga-influenced Scott Pilgrim graphic novels from the mid-to-late 2000s, and the subsequent 2010 film directed by Edgar Wright. This clever anime update may now be my favourite iteration. Honestly, I’d have been happy with a faithful page-to-screen adaptation, and initially that’s what Netflix seemed to be telling us to expect. For the entire duration of the first episode, that’s indeed what it seemed like, until that ending, when Scott Pilgrim quite literally takes off, leaving the viewer confused and main love interest Ramona Flowers to step into the protagonist’s shoes.
There’s something satisfying about seeing O’Malley’s manga-inspired work translated into anime by a Japanese animation studio as accomplished as Science Saru. The deceptively simple character designs remain intact, as does the goofy and sometimes subversive humour. It’s a match made in heaven, enhanced by the fact that in the English dub, every major character is voiced by the actor who played their live-action equivalents in the movie. Movie director Wright even appears as a parody version of himself named “Edgar Wrong”, plus his two long-time collaborators Nick Frost and Simon Pegg also cameo in minor roles.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is best experienced after first reading the comics, or at the very least watching the movie. It’s a story designed to deliberately subvert expectations and provide meta-commentary on the previous story, it interrogates its characters in mature and surprising ways, in particular fleshing out the backstories of Ramona’s “evil exes”. It also dares to suggest that when one woman has seven “evil exes”, and the only thing they have in common is that woman, then perhaps she may be the problem?
Ramona faces her own flaws, apologises for the way she mistreated her exes, and in turn they all develop into much better-rounded characters, rather than the relatively one-note antagonists they appeared to be in the previous version. When Scott himself returns later, it’s to battle with his own immaturity, to call out his own faults and take responsibility for them. To be fair, Scott himself was never portrayed as a particularly positive character, and it’s good to see him improve. It’s the kind of story you feel O’Malley has been itching to tell for over a decade, using his extra years of experience to reinterpret and redefine his biggest success.
The Scott Pilgrim anime is raucously funny, relentlessly-paced, and beautiful to behold. I am so delighted that this exists, and though some may be irritated that it’s not the by-the-numbers straight adaptation they thought they wanted, what we got was something far richer.
PLUTO: 8 episodes
Many years in the making, Pluto is director Toshio Kawaguchi and Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama’s labour of love. In production since 2017, it’s taken over six years for this ambitious project to reach our screens. Pluto is based on the Naoki Urasawa manga of the same name that ran monthly between 2004 and 2009, published in English by Viz Media between 2009 and 2010. Back when it was first released, it was one of my favourite manga of the time.
Pluto itself is based on a single one of Osamu Tezuka’s Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) story arcs from 1954, which you can read in Dark Horse’s third volume of the collected Astro Boy comics, still in print as part of their first omnibus collection. The original was quite a dark story for what could be dismissed as a “kid’s comic”, but Tezuka’s works have always been deeper and more subversive than first appearances would suggest.
Urasawa’s take on the material re-centres the plot around German robot detective Gesicht (Gerhard in the manga), and his investigation into the brutal murders of several of the world’s most powerful robots, and several of the world’s most pre-eminent robot scientists. As expected from the author of long-running mystery stories Monster and 20th Century Boys (both excellent, compelling reads), Pluto is a complex, multifaceted work featuring multiple apparently separate plot threads that coalesce later into a bigger, more coherent whole.
Perhaps its a symtom of adapting a story whose concepts originated in the more naive, simple 1950s, but many details involving robots, their natures and role in society seem a little undercooked and inconsistent. For example, Gesicht and his wife are incredibly advanced humanoids who are almost completely indistinguishable from humans — they cry, sweat, get angry, confused — yet other robots are inhuman lumps of metal. One instance where Gesicht and his wife adopt a tiny misshapen lump of a robot “child” is probably meant to be heartbreaking but comes off as merely uncomfortably comedic. Then there’s Atom and his sister Uran who are robots in the shape of children, and are inconsistently treated as kids by others. Atom for one is a doomsday weapon given form, who previously served as a tool of war. It’s weird that people sometimes talk down to him when he’s probably been in operation for as long as “adult-shaped” robots.
There are some interesting situations where robots have adopted human children, orphaned by war, with some musings on the robots’ abilities to harbour feelings and be able to love. It’s quite obvious from context that these robots do indeed feel emotions, especially as later plot points hinge on robots who are forced to experience negative emotions like hatred and revenge.
Pluto’s worldbuilding isn’t as consistently well thought-out as more recent high-budget live-action dramas like Raised By Wolves or Foundation, and modern audiences more used to such glossy productions may find Pluto a little clunky in places. I know I certainly did, and my unanswered questions about the world’s inconsistencies ate away at my enjoyment of the show. The extremely on-the-nose references to our world’s Iraq War and subsequent middle eastern crises (weapons of mass destruction and all that), while entirely the point of the story, are so blatantly unsubtle I found them groan-worthy.
Apart from these quibbles, Pluto deserves to remain counted among the upper echelons of superior sci-fi anime. Its underlying mystery is mostly compelling, the extra-long episodes give it time to breathe (it’s essentially around the same duration as a full standard-length 24-episode anime season). The characters are varied and interesting, and the story emotionally affecting. Long-term fans of Tetsuwan Atom will be those most likely to get the most out of it, but it’s accessible even to those with no prior knowledge — though many little details will pass such viewers by. It’s an excellent, if at times logically clumsy series — not quite the animated revelation that many others on the internet seem to view it as.
Blue Eye Samurai: 8 episodes
Ok, so I know this isn’t anime by any stretch of the imagination — it’s a French/American CG animation, however it is set in 17th century Japan’s Edo period, and it is superb. Sullen, driven Mizu is our protagonist, a half-Japanese half-European samurai who is hated by almost everyone because of her cursed mixed-race status that is easily identifiable by her blue eyes. At this point in Japanese history, all European foreigners were expelled from the country due to Japan’s strict isolationist policies. As with all the best Samurai stories, Mizu is motivated by revenge — against four remaining evil Westerners, one of whom may be her father.
In order to proceed, Mizu conceals her gender and presents as a male samurai, embroiling herself in primary antagonist Abijah Fowler’s plot to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate. Along the way, she repeatedly clashes with former childhood bully Taigen and his fiercely independent fiance Princess Akemi. While Mizu eschews femininity and everything it entails, Akemi operates within more traditional gender roles, yet while still railing against them. The lot of 17th century Japanese women was either to be sold in marriage or to become courtesans or concubines. Akemi rejects all of these options, yet chooses a different path to Mizu’s way of the sword.
Produced by the Blue Spirit animation studio who assisted Marvel Animation with recent Disney+ series What If…?, the CG in Blue Eye Samurai is excellent. Smooth, detailed, expressive, impactful, it never looks anything less than beautiful — even when depicting at-times gruesome and intense violence.
Kenneth Branagh gives an excellent performance as dangerous, hateful and wily Irishman Abijah Fowler, while Masi Oka’s Ringo provides Blue Eye Samurai with its emotional core. Although it’s technically a spoiler to reveal that Mizu is female, her voice actor Maya Erskine can’t possibly hope to sound masculine enough to fool anyone.
One season in, Blue Eye Samurai has barely begun to spin its epic, compelling tale. It’s been renewed for a second season, so even if it doesn’t “count” as anime, it’s very much aimed towards those viewers who appreciate animated and live action Japanese samurai action cinema. Do please check it out, you won’t regret it.
HIDIVE:
Helck: 24 episodes
Helck finally got good! And then it ended. I worried this would happen. Most of the entire first cour was little but slow-paced setup, then half the second was detailed (though compelling) flashback, while the main story paused completely. In this final quarter of this two-cour season, stuff finally started to happen, as Helck squared off against the Army of Winged Soldiers and at least one of the high-ranking architects of his fate. Unfortunately just as the plot properly kicked in, this adaptation ran out of episodes and we’re left in limbo. Will there be any more?
If not, I suppose this is a reasonable place to leave it. Vermillio and Helck have confirmed their relationship with one another as trusting and supportive friends. Helck, who has suffered so much, was willing to destroy the mutated, maddened remnants of humanity for the promise that the Demon people would become his new friends. Vermillio being Best Girl of course realises that she can’t expect Helck to do this — she’d be a terrible friend. Instead, in a climactic and emotional moment, she vows to help him save all of his old friends, and the entire race of humans too. This was a great scene, at least twelve episodes too late. I don’t imagine that many viewers stuck with Helck, which is a shame because despite the lethargic pacing, there were some great concepts and wonderful scenes. I guess I’ll have to wait for the manga volumes to all eventually release in English. (The anime adapts up to chapter 70 of 106, so there’s enough manga to fill an entire third cour, should the production committee be willing…)
The Vexations of a Shut-in Vampire Princess: 12 episodes
I probably should have listened to my gut about this one. The first episode was all over the place in terms of tone and plot, and I can’t say it got much better. Despite the first few episodes looking great with some really cool character designs and nice animation, the whole thing falls apart by the last episode with some really shoddy off-model drawing and slide-show animation. It also has some really creepy non-consensual yuri fanservice stuff that doesn’t further the plot and only makes certain characters less sympathetic. I’ve written a more full review of this series elsewhere.
Dark Gathering: 25 episodes
Dark Gathering was quite literally a scream from beginning to end. It’s quite difficult to make anime properly “scary”, but even with its cutesy simplified aesthetic, Dark Gathering succeeded in unleashing episode after episode of deeply unsettling, often gross, always creepy horror. Poor Keitaro isn’t just haunted by visions of grotesque spirits but he’s also ensnared by just-as-terrifying girlfriend Eiko, she of the not-quite-sane terminal fear addiction. Polycoria (multiple pupil)-afflicted Yayoi maintained a no-nonsense businesslike demeanour despite the continual madness and evil spirits she and her two hapless friends kept battling.
It seems with the end of episode 25 we’ve barely even begun this story — most of the major subplots have barely developed, let alone resolved. Starry-eyed Ai is still marked for non-consensual spiritual marriage by a selfish god, there’s a conspiracy of terrifying spirits who possess the bodies of the living to further their nefarious goals, and there’s still a huge, growing spiritual blob that looks like a levitating fertilised ovum surrounded by flagellating skeleton-shaped spermatozoa… Yes, that is just as nightmare-fuelling as the description suggests it is. So we’re left at a transition stage, with Yayoi and friends off to Kyoto to subjugate more spirits in an unholy game of real-life satanic Pokemon (or maybe Shin Megami Tensei?). I desperately need there to be a second season now.
Disney+/Hulu:
Tokyo Revengers S3: Tenjiku Arc: 13 episodes
I enjoyed this season of Tokyo Revengers a lot more than the previous— it’s a shame it’s almost totally disappeared from current online anime discourse. It seems that its shift from Crunchyroll (where the first season streamed) to Disney+/Hulu did it few favours. Now the show has reached 50 episodes in total, it’s covered all but the coda to this arc and then the final arc. We so far haven’t heard if its been renewed so the story can be completed. The final episode does end quite abruptly, though with the explosive resolution of one particular long-running plot thread.
This season, the stakes seemed much higher. Although the pacing remained painfully slow at times, the story was more interesting and at times quite tragic. Takemichi finally sharing with his girlfriend and then with his friends about his secret as a time traveller was the right choice for the story. Again, I’ve written a more full review of this season elsewhere.
Undead Unluck: 3 of 24 episodes
It’s a little hard for me to offer any detailed opinions on Undead Unluck because despite the US having up to the thirteenth episode available to stream, Disney+ in the UK has only three. Why, Disney? Why? This could be a massive international megahit for you, it’s the latest big-name Shonen Jump adaptation. But… no. Disney gonna Disney. It’s just anime, isn’t it? None of the big execs give a shit, so stupid decisions are the order of the day.
Anyway, so far this has been a lot of mad, anarchic fun. The “undead” guy of the title can’t die. At all. He merely grows back lopped-off limbs, and even if his head gets chopped off, he grows an entirely new body from the neck down. He can use severed body parts as projectile weapons that disappear after 30 seconds once separated from his body, and he can even use his gushing blood like rocket fuel to fly. No wonder 18-year-old Fuuko Izumi is thoroughly disturbed by this strange, ancient man who asks her to help him to finally die… by having sex with him???
Yeah… this one’s a wee bit lewd in places. See, it turns out that Fuuko has an “unluck” power that activates when another person touches her bare skin — this causes the other person to experience sudden bad luck. The magnitude of the effect generated depends on the emotional “intensity” of this contact, not merely duration or location. This bad luck could result in something as simple as a minor injury, or being crushed by an enormous meteorite. Our nameless undead hero then figures that if he can touch Fuuko in the most emotionally intense way possible, then the resulting surge of catastrophic unluck that strikes him will almost certainly end his long life…
So far the animation has been excellent, the pace relentless, the action madcap, and the humour ribald but hilarious. I’ll definitely stick with this, as I’m sure each episode will add more wierdos and complications to our bizarre heroes’ journey.
That finally brings us to the end of this season’s mammoth postmortem! I’ll be back shortly with a look back at the year 2023 as a whole, before moving into the sunlit uplands of 2024!
