Doctorkev’s Spring 2023 Anime Postmortem Part 1
It’s been another packed anime season, and as usual I’ve watched far too many shows to fit into one reasonable-length article. This time I’ll talk about the shows I thought ranged from “dull” to “ok” to “pretty good” and I’ll leave the best shows of the season to the second part that will hopefully come tomorrow. Quite a few shows left their final episodes right up to the wire. Normally I like to get this done before the next season starts but that wasn’t possible this time!
Otaku Elf: HIDIVE, 5 of 12 episodes — dropped
Sorry for all you elf nerd girl fans out there, but this soporific slice of life show just didn’t entertain me, and in fact bored me stiff. There’s only so many scenes I can take of an emotionally infantile immortal elf geeking out over stereotypical otaku shit, while her young female attendant rolls her eyes and complains. Plotless and directionless, dull. Next!
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts: Crunchyroll, 9 of 24 episodes — dropped
Similarly, this fantasy shojo manga adaptation started with an interesting premise, but I could not get invested in the characters. None of them rang true. The King of Beasts Leonhart seems like an ineffectual ruler, at turns wishy-washy and naive. Practically perfect but frail love interest Sariphi displays few character flaws, continually failing upwards despite being ignorant and completely out of her depth in situations that should require at least a modicum of background knowledge. Main antagonist Anubis with his barely-concealed dastardly plans and perpetual sneer is a stereotypical snooty civil servant too quick to suffer repeated commeuppances. Perhaps this is all in service of later plot twists or recontextualisations, but it bores me, with trite plotting and contrived, unconvincing character interactions. I tried to stick with it, I really did, but my time is too precious.
Magical Destroyers: Crunchyroll, 12 episodes
Hmmm. This one is very hard to pin down. Initially I thought this might turn out to be a fun, hyperactive Hiroyuki Imaishi-style action anime, but I think the production staff bit off far more than they could chew. After a few episodes, I really began to tire of the hyperactive and nonsensical weirdness, and it eventually became clear that there was no deeper meaning behind anything that happened, and therefore nothing really mattered. We learned almost nothing about any of the characters other than they were otaku who “liked things” and the main thesis of the show was that “it’s ok to like the things you like”. Well… ok…
With animation that couldn’t quite match up to the ambition of the direction, a garbled story, episodes full of tiresome diversions, endgame asspull twists and a lack of any kind of satisfying resolution, I can quite confidently say this will be a show that fades to the back of my memory well before the next season is fully underway. I don’t recommend it.
TONIKAWA — Fly Me To The Moon Season 2: Crunchyroll, 12 episodes
Although I greatly enjoyed the first season of this gentle romcom, by the end of this second season I was desperate for something — anything to happen. There is a background plot, and a mystery, mainly surrounding main female character Tsukasa, who appears to be immortal — or something — but the show is resolutely coy about revealing anything. Seriously, a huge tease in the final episode that finally — finally we’d learn something came to nothing.
Also I completely fail to believe that a couple who have been married and living together for months would continue to be so embarrassed about one anothers’ bodies. It really stretches credulity, and considering there are 23 manga volumes, likely all still very slowly teasing minute plot progression, I can only imagine that should the anime adaptation continue into a third season, the narrative (and for poor feckless groom Nasa actual, physical) blue-balling will likely tend towards eternity. I can’t be bothered any more.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Swordsmith Village Arc: Crunchyroll, 11 episodes
I’ve already written at length about my mixed feelings regarding the Demon Slayer franchise in my review of The Movie: Mugen Train and the theatrical release of To The Swordsmith Village. Demon Slayer is a very basic Shonen story stretched almost to breaking point by its well-intentioned but ultimately misguided, overly lavish production. Studio Ufotable almost always pull out all of the stops to make Demon Slayer look amazing. If only it wasn’t in service to such a thin story. Most of this season comprised of a couple of hugely padded, stretched out fight scenes. Entire episodes sludged on by with nothing happening. There was also little narrative reason for both premiere and concluding episodes to be (more than) double-length.
Despite the stunning animation and smooth, kinetic fight scenes, I found my attention continually wandering. Without decent emotional stakes to ground the action, it’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing. I actually found myself dropping off to sleep during some particularly egregious extended battles. At least the last episode introduces a compelling emotional conundrum, though even that is spoiled by absurdly slow pacing that makes what should be a heartbreaking moment laugh-out-loud in its idiocy. I suppose this approach to Demon Slayer prints money, though, so I expect the next arc to also take more than twice as many episodes as it needs, and to be as unnecessarily bombastic as this season was. For some reason, Demon Slayer continues to be unbelievably successful.
Yuri is my Job!: Crunchyroll, 12 episodes
I started this one late, so binged most of the episodes over a couple of days. What a weird show! Animation studio Passione has produced a… variable slate of anime shows over the past few years, most notably the controversial Interspecies Reviewers, plus Higurashi — When They Cry Gou and Sotsu, and the recent Love Flops. Those are some varied titles, containing either substantial ecchi content or gruesome violence. Surprisingly, the attractive and polished Yuri is my Job! features little of either.
Based on a Yuri (girls’ love) manga, it’s a bright and colourful adaptation of an emotionally intense story made complex by layers of artifice and lies. Short and superficially cheerful protagonist Hime is a high school girl who is obsessed with making everyone she meets like her. She crafts an easygoing, cute persona that fools almost all of her classmates — however her true personality is more callous, anxious and selfish. When she is roped into working at the “Liebe Girls Academy” (a small, exclusive restaurant), she immediately gets off on the wrong foot with her senior work colleague Mitsuki Yano. Despite all of her best efforts, Hime cannot get Yano to like her.
Yuri is my Job is steeped in (and skewers) Class S tropes, and it helps if the viewer is at least somewhat familiar with the style and structure of both standard shojo and Class S school stories. The cafe is staffed by what is essentially a small improvisational drama troupe, with scenes set in an imaginary German girls’ school, featuring a substantially-more-than-subtext sapphic theme. Between serving drinks and food, each waitress acts out teasing interpersonal interactions with their fellow staff to excite their patrons. Such an emotionally charged atmosphere of course bleeds into real life, and even a serial liar like Hime becomes confused as to what is real and what is an act. Most of the fun comes from watching Hime, who is greatly out of her depth, squirm uncomfortably. I’d probably watch another season of this delightfully convoluted nonsense — there’s plenty of manga left to adapt.
Dr. Stone New World: Crunchyroll, 11 episodes
Postapocalyptic rebuilding story Dr Stone has always been a lot of fun, even if some of the “science” is complete hogwash. The animation is rarely more than rudimentary, and the slapstick is something of an acquired taste, as are the very peculiar female character designs. Unfortunately, this season ends halfway through a major narrative arc. Thankfully it’s due to return in October, so we don’t have that long to wait. I’ve already read past this section in the manga, and it gets really silly from this point onwards (if it hasn’t already done so). The manga at least is already finished, so it looks like they’re committed to finishing the adaptation, which is great, as despite its flaws, I still enjoy this very upbeat and entertaining slice of shonen absurdity.
Mashle: Magic and Muscles: Crunchyroll, 12 episodes
One of this season’s two big new Shonen Jump adaptations, Mashle is the more light-hearted. Think what if Harry Potter was a magic-power-less, body-building muscle-head, but still attended magic school and solved problems in the same manner as One Punch Man. That’s Mashle. And it’s pretty amusing, even if there are only a couple of (very) recurrent jokes, and all of the characters are mostly cardboard cut-outs with one or two primary character quirks.
Protagonist Mash is obsessed with cream puffs for some reason, so many jokes revolve around this. It’s repetitive and I don’t find it that funny. The ending song goes all in on the cream puff theme though, and it’s kind of adorable. Otherwise this fits very neatly into the Basic Shonen Mould, possibly even more so than Demon Slayer. Mash attends magic school, but he can’t do magic. Oh no! What should he do? There’s usually some way he can wing it using his overdeveloped musculature. There are sub-Slytherin nasty wizard students bullying Mash’s friends. Oh no! What should he do? Mash generally wins by hitting things. He usually appears clueless and unprepared, but perhaps this is part of Mash’s strategy as sometimes he does appear to use his brain, when the plot requires him to.
Mashle is real “put your brain in neutral and relax” entertainment, which is completely fine. There’s already a second season planned for January 2024, I’ll no doubt watch it. It’ll never be high on my priority list, but it’s a fun diversion at the end of a hard day. I’ll take it.
Hell’s Paradise: Crunchyroll, 13 episodes
The second new Shonen Jump adaptation this season is the darker, but weirder of the two. Hell’s Paradise is a MAPPA production, so of course it looks superb — they don’t chain those poor underpaid animators to their desks without sleep or food for weeks at a time for nothing, you know. MAPPA TREAT YOUR STAFF PROPERLY, DAMMIT.
Anyway, Hell’s Paradise has only gotten stranger the further nominal protagonist Gabimaru and his colleagues penetrate the cursed island in search of the Elixir of Life. As befits its shonen origins, there are endless fights upon fights where the almost unbeatable enemy flower-people keep getting back up again, regenerating body parts, heads, changing forms, coming back more powerful than one could possibly imagine, etc etc. The fights are flashy and fun, but they’re getting tiresome now. We’re not quite at Demon Slayer levels of overindulgence, but I’d like a bit more plot and character progression now, please. The final episode does end on a tantalisingly downbeat note following the (eventual) climax of a fight that takes up almost the entire duration of two episodes.
Gabimaru himself has been fairly sidelined the past few episodes, as we’ve focused more on the peripheral characters, some of whom are very interesting and fun. I particularly like untrustworthy ninja Yuzuriha, who for some reason covers herself in glistening slime when she fights. This is not the reason I like her, honest.
Once more, this is based on a manga that’s already complete at 13 volumes. I can only hope this means we get a complete adaptation that doesn’t screw us over like that second season of The Promised Neverland that never ever happened at all, honest, it only got one perfect season and the fans weren’t utterly betrayed, nope. As I’m writing this, a second season of Hell’s Paradise has indeed been confirmed. Rejoice!
Insomniacs After School: HIDIVE, 12 of 13 episodes
Finally, this chilled slice-of-life high school romance show really grew on me throughout the season. I think the fantastic vibes from the wonderful ending song definitely helped — it’s reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkins’ dreamily nostalgic 1979 and its equally evocative follow-up Perfect. Insomniacs follows perennial insomniac Ganta Nakami who struggles to stay awake at school because he can’t sleep at night. He befriends the utterly adorable and similarly sleepless Isaki Magari, and together they reform their school’s astronomy club, with the initial purpose of using the observatory as a place they can sneak off to to nap during the schoolday.
Using the camera gifted to him by his father, Ganta begins taking astronomical photography more seriously, and Magari accompanies him on trips to the countryside in search of the perfect picture. Although I found some of the mundane school club stuff that clogged up the middle few episodes tiresome, the show gradually narrows its focus back to the central relationship, and these two very shy but clearly made for each other teens inch just a little closer to one another. As of writing, the final episode hasn’t yet shown, so I’m unaware if there’s some horrible tragic twist awaiting at the conclusion, but I hope not. It’s generally a sedate, relaxing and warm, fuzzy show, with just a hint of underlying anxiety, self-deprecation and conflict to keep it interesting. It’s a worthwhile watch!
Thanks for reading my thoughts on this portion of Spring 2023’s anime shows. I plan to return tomorrow with an appraisal of a bunch of incredibly superior anime, many of which are likely to broach my annual top ten list. See you then!
