Doctorkev’s Thoughts on the Spring 2023 Anime Season: Sequels and Ongoing Shows
Wow. Is it just me or has the halfway point of this season jumped up from nowhere and bit us all in the arse? No? It’s just me, then? Oh well, I’ve been really busy, what with “real world” things like attending bonkers heavy metal gigs, family weddings and finally getting around to dreaded home improvements. Sometimes watching anime and writing about anime has to make way for other distractions, such as keeping wife/children/extended family happy.
Anyway, I’m here now. It’s another packed season, and somehow I’ve managed to find time to watch nine separate sequels, plus a handful of new shows. We’ll cover the sequels today, and I’ll write about the new shows next time (when hopefully I’ve watched enough of them to justify a full article. It’s going to be a busy week…)
Uncle From Another World episodes 8–13, Netflix
So last time, after I complained about the lack of a release of the final six episodes of this accursedly delayed show in the West, Netflix went and shadow-dropped them at the tail end of last season without me noticing. Delayed by “COVID” not just once, not twice, but three times, this thirteen-episode show was stretched out to breaking point over three separate seasons — starting on July 6th 2022, its final episode barely limping over the the finish line on March 8th 2023. It’s the most recent, damning indictment of Japan’s broken anime production system. The director for episode 10 quit immediately once discovering he would be provided with no staff with which to produce it. Anyway, I’ve grumbled about this before and I’ve no desire to sound like a scratched record, so what about the show itself?
Thankfully Uncle From Another World maintains its endearing mix of high fantasy juxtaposed with mundane Japanese slice-of-life, with the deadpan titular uncle relating his improbable adventures to his exasperated nephew Takafumi and his female friend Sumika. Uncle remains clueless about the actions and intentions of his three main female adventurer colleagues, and it’s clear that Takafumi also inherited the family’s romantic obliviousness gene in regards Sumika’s blatant interest in him.
We empathise with Takafumi and Sumika’s desperation to see some kind of character development or evolution from Uncle’s story, but the main joke is how Uncle completely fails to act in a way expected of a normal, functional human being — usually succeeding only via the most bizarre yet direct means. It’s a particular type of cringe comedy that probably isn’t everyone’s cup of medieval mead, but I’d definitely welcome a second season, if the first’s terrible production difficulties haven’t killed any chance of it happening.
Vinland Saga Season 2 episodes 13–18: Crunchyroll, Mondays
Oh boy. If I drank alcohol, I’d make sure to have a stiff drink ready to accompany every episode of this depressing, uncomfortable, yet fascinating Viking drama. Unfortunately I’m not a drinker, so I have to suffer “feelings” un-numbed by the pleasures of Aqua Vita. Seriously, these poor characters just can’t catch a break. Everyone suffers, everyone is punished for trying to do the right thing by a broken social system that enforces systemic inequality, human ownership of other humans, and enables the most horrific abuse. Yes, slavery is still bad, and Vinland Saga sets out to ensure you never forget it.
Even supposedly “reasonable” characters like farm owner Ketil are corrupted by the act of owning slaves and treating them like property. The most recent episode 18 is painful in its brutality, as Ketil mercilessly beats the woman he purports to love (who also carries his baby), the woman who had tried to escape with her dying husband the week before. But slaves’ marriages have no legal status in this world. Ketil can rape her and imprison her, and even kill her as is his right as her “owner”. Let’s not sugarcoat his actions — keeping a woman against her will and having sex with her is rape, even if she appears to consent at the time. Given the choice, she would be anywhere but Ketil’s farm, and sleeps with him purely because he is her “master”, and to do otherwise would risk her life.
Such institutionalised horror is what nominal main character Thorfinn is beginning to wake up to. Having spent much of the season as a passive, guilt-ridden and broken man who has renounced violence, he’s expressed dreams of a world where war and slavery no longer exist. But how does one protect those whom one loves from others who do not hold to that ideal? Sometimes violence is needed to protect ideals, and this second season looks to explore that tension further. Yes, it’s been much slower than the action-packed first season, and some viewers have definitely been turned off by that, but I feel that if you’re coming to Vinland Saga only to see Vikings chopping each others’ limbs off, you’ve kind of missed the point. This second season proves that you don’t need constant balls-to-the-wall insane action spectacle to produce compelling, affecting historical drama.
The Ancient Magus Bride Season 2 episodes 1–5: Crunchyroll, Thursdays.
I’m so glad to see a second season of this wonderful, mysterious and magical show. It’s been five years since Wit Studio completed the first 24-episode season, and now production has switched to the new Studio Kafka, who also animated the recent The Ancient Magus Bride — The Boy from the West and the Knight of the Blue Storm three-episode OVA. Thankfully the studio switch has not affected the show’s dark, ethereal beauty. It’s one of this season’s most gorgeous productions.
One reason for the lengthy production gap between seasons was the wait for the manga to produce enough material to adapt. Season one covers volumes one to nine, this second season (if it is to be of a similar length to the first, although only twelve episodes have been confirmed so far) seems likely to cover volumes ten to nineteen, the entirety of the manga’s “College Arc”, which only very recently concluded. The manga is now on hiatus, pending a new arc beginning, so there may well be a very long wait for further anime once this arc’s adaptation is complete.
As the arc’s title suggests, main character Chise is now attending a college for magic users and sorcerers — it’s basically “Ancient Magus Bride does Harry Potter”, complete with enormous, ancient school, unsettling teachers with their own agendas, and a variety of messed-up pupils with multitudinous personality flaws and struggles. It’s a very different vibe to the first season, and it hits the ground running with very little in the way of recap. A refresher may well be advised if you can’t remember what happened towards the end of the first season — detailed knowledge is all but assumed of the viewer as multiple plot threads are referenced and progressed. I loved the first season, and so far I see no reason why I’ll love the second any less.
Dr. Stone New World episodes 1–5: Crunchyroll, Thursdays
Science in the new stone age continues! It’s been two years since season 2, with only a single double-length special episode in 2022. Sadly, this third season also looks to be only eleven episodes long. I’m unsure why both second and third seasons are so short when the first season was 24 episodes in length. The manga already finished publication over a year ago, so it’s not like there’s a wait for new material — as of the most recent episode, we’re only partway through volume 12 of 26! Unless we’re looking at another horrific Promised Neverland situation, they could keep drip-feeding us short seasons of Dr. Stone for years to come…
So far, New World is pretty much just more Dr. Stone, for better or for worse. If you already can’t stand green-haired smug science expert Senku, then you’re not going to warm to him now. The supporting characters are all similarly larger-than-life caricatures, each with one or two major quirks/obsessions, who exist to fulfil certain plot functions. There’s little emotional nuance here, but that’s fine! Dr. Stone is a far-fetched sort-of-sciency adventure where it’s important not to take it all too seriously. I find it bright, breezy and entertaining. It’s fun to see what random invention Senku rediscovers next. I’ll keep watching as long as they keep making it.
Ranking of Kings Treasure Chest of Courage episodes 1–4: Crunchyroll, Thursdays
Best Boy Prince Bojji is back, and far earlier than expected! Ranking of Kings was one of my top shows of 2021/2022, and I was under the impression there wasn’t enough manga source material for a second season, especially as the manga is currently on hiatus, so I assumed Treasure Chest of Courage would be a single OVA or something. Nope! It’s a ten-episode season filled with canon side stories that I expect are adaptations of previously-skipped extra chapters from the manga.
Instead of a chronological sequel, this season jumps around the first season’s timeline to give us a random selection of vignettes featuring a variety of characters, some more substantial than others. Most are fairly heartwarming, if inconsequential, though the superb fourth episode is a dark and disturbing flashback that depicts spooky immortal bad guy Oaken’s backstory in far more detail than the first season did. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the season has to offer. I’m very happy to have this unexpected collection of bonus episodes to fill the hole between now and any likely very distant second season.
Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story: episodes 14–18: Crunchyroll, Fridays
Rejoice! The lesbian golf girls are back, and as joyfully ridiculous as ever! Normally I can’t stand sports anime, but the first chunk of Birdie Wing was my second top show of 2022 (after Summer Time Rendering took first place). Episode 14 continues straight on from December 2022’s episode 13, which is just as well because the story left off in the middle of a golf face-off, which was not a natural season break!
Finally, familial secrets are revealed, swaggering teenage blonde bombshell golfer Eve finally discovers the secret of her parentage and her complicated links to secondary protagonist Aoi. It’s as stupidly contrived as anyone could wish for, and of course the golf mafia are involved, weirdo snake woman Vipere returns, as does the immortal phrase “I’ll kill you in golf!”
It’s a world far removed from anything mudane or sensible, a world where golf swings are genetic inheritances, where hitting a golf ball causes the eruption of rainbow apparitions visible to onlooking characters, where shouting “Blue Bullet” at the top of one’s lungs during a tense golf match doesn’t get one instantly disqualified. It is completely and totally absurd, and it knows it. Birdie Wing is to your father’s golf as Gundam is to your father’s Meccano set. Don’t ask questions, just watch and marvel at the insanity.
TONIKAWA — Fly Me To The Moon Season 2 episodes 1–5: Crunchyroll, Fridays
Surprisingly, this most blush-inducing, sweat-producing, loin-bothering, bodily-fluid-drenched, orgasmically groaning, practically-so-hardcore-hentai-it-hurts anime was renewed for a second season, after the first subjected us to such terminally lewd activities as — gasp — hand-holding — and — shudder — kissing with tongues — between a newly married couple, no less. Yes, of course I’m kidding.
This is the most G-rated anime romance I’ve ever seen, and the central couple get married in the first episode. It does kind of stretch credulity that the most they’ve done is kiss despite months of marriage, and that they still blush at the thought of seeing each other’s bodies, but it is what it is. As much as certain members of a certain AniTAY discord subculture demand “full-frontal rawdogging on screen”, or whatever that means, that’s never going to be what TONIKAWA is about.
TONIKAWA is a gentle romantic comedy where the central couple gradually come closer together ever so sloooooooowly, while wacky hijinks ensue and weird peripheral characters both help and hinder the course of true love (and eventual rawdogging, as I’m sure won’t ever be depicted, much to my colleagues’ bitter disappointment.) I have to admit I’m getting a bit bored, but I’ll stick with it for now. Maybe they’ll eventually explain why main female character Tsukasa is apparently immortal?
Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc episodes 1–5, Crunchyroll, Sundays
My feelings regarding Demon Slayer remain conflicted. Ufotable’s incredible production work remains utterly stunning, with stupendously smooth, detailed and exciting action animation that pops with colour, motion and weight. The music is incredible, especially Man With a Mission/Milet’s opening and ending songs. Unfortunately all this wonderful shine and superhuman effort is in service to the most mind-numbingly banal basic-ass shonen story filled with tonally awkward slapstick humour and irritating cardboard cut-out characters.
The double-length first episode (that was released theatrically in March, along with the final two episodes of the preceding second season in what I witheringly described as a “blatant cash grab”) is tiresome and bloated. It tries to build up hype and excitement but ends up overblown and dull. Despite the aforementioned incredible production and visuals, the subsequent episodes have really struggled to keep my attention and I find myself losing consciousness during the action sequences. Shiny visuals alone aren’t enough, and I feel like I’m only following this show out of empty obligation now. Hey, at least there was a pink fiery blood-sword in the latest episode, and “Love Hashira” Mitsuri Kanroji continues to breast boobily in every scene she appears in, so I suppose there’s always something arresting to gawp at.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Season 2: episodes 1–5, Crunchyroll, Sundays
After last season’s bonkers (and bloody!) conclusion, I was hyped for the return of the only Gundam show I have bothered to watch since Gundam Wing in the early 2000s. Thankfully, Suletta, Miorine, Aerial and co. continue to deliver with a labyrinthine plot involving corporate infighting, manipulative parents, brutal violence and cruel plot twists. Suletta’s mother Prospera continues to be the most machiavellian parent since Gendo Ikari, and the Evangelion similarities don’t end there, with the upsetting truth behind Suletta’s beloved Gundam Aerial. When Suletta said her mobile suit was “like family”, she wasn’t exactly lying…
I still find the complex politicking and factional infighting difficult to follow, but the central characters are interesting and sympathetic, even if the main duo barely haven’t had much of a chance to interact so far this season. At least the fallout from the “tomato incident” was finally addressed between Miorine and Suletta, only for the most horrible betrayal in episode 17… And of course next week’s episode is a recap, twisting the knife yet further. I heard that being a Gundam fan is pain, perhaps I didn’t quite believe it until now…
So that’s all the sequels I’ve had time to watch so far. One day I’ll watch the horse girls of Uma Musume Pretty Derby seasons one and two so I can catch up to see the newest four-episode short series Road to the Top that’s randomly streaming on YouTube, of all places. I’m also gradually working my way through the first two seasons of Konosuba on blu-ray so that I can watch the current spinoff Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World! When I first tried Konosuba a few years ago I decided I didn’t like it much, so gave up after a couple of episodes, but on giving it another chance, it’s growing on me.
Finally, the latest Psycho-pass movie Providence premieres on Friday 12th May in Japan, bit there’s no word on when it will make it West or indeed who will licence it. The preceding third season and concluding movie (First Inspector) were streamed by Amazon, but as they seem to have given up on anime, who the hell knows? I’ll be back again soon to talk about this season’s new shows, and some of them are spectacularly good, so look forward to that!
