Anime roundup — Spring 2023
Originally posted on my Medium page on April 30th 2023
Want an overview of which anime series is worth checking out this season? This is a list for you.
Continuing on the tradition of post-event summaries from Twitter, yesterday me and some friends had our latest seasonal marathon, where we watch the first episode of each new anime series that started to air in Spring 2023.
This didn’t include any continuing series, and also none of the spin-offs that have semi-required main series to watch beforehand to get the full experience. While I maybe would’ve wanted to add something like the Konosuba spinoff, with 32 first episodes to go through we really had enough to watch as-is…
The following summaries are mostly based on each series first or first few episodes, and as they’re currently still airing, anything can happen to either elevate or screw up a show. These are just first impressions, and as always, just roughly in the order that we watched them:
Kizuna no Allele
Started off with one of the worst shows this season.
“Miracle” enrolls in an academy where she and others train to be come virtual performers, following in the footsteps of great performers like Kizuna Ai. (who was/is an actual vtuber with early success on Youtube)
If you like vtubers then maybe you’ll like it? Hard pass for us though.
My Clueless First Friend
Nishimura is being bullied in class, being called nicknames like “The Grim Reaper”, and with all the other kids behaving like anything she touches is cursed. That is, all the other kids except the new transfer student Takada, who thinks that being the Grim Reaper is just the coolest thing ever, and quickly stumbles head-first into being Nishimura’s friend.
It’s sort of hard to watch which just how accepted the bullying is at first, but the sweetness of the oblivious doofus that Takada is quickly dispels any unease. Highly recommend.
Too Cute Crisis
An alien army has locked in on Earth as their next target of destruction, but before they annihilate everything they send their top researcher to the surface to see if they can find anything worth keeping. As they attempt to try the local cuisine, they unknowingly go into a cat café filled to beings that just are impossibly cute.
It’s a very lighthearted show that go over the best aspects of all sorts of pets. Recommend giving it a go for some cute wholesomeness.
The Aristocrat’s Otherworldly Adventure: Serving Gods Who Go Too Far
Harem isekai, but more on the silly side.
Boy gets reincarnated as a noble’s third son, but as an apology (or a prank?) for why he died recieves super OP stats from all seven deities in this new world. It’s a typical “everyone and everything is fawning over protag-kun” series, but it’s all very self-aware.
Recommended, but really only if you haven’t tired of the genre yet.
Summoned to Another World for a Second Time
Another isekai.
This time our protagonist has already been to the other world and thought he had saved it when he was accidentally sent back to our world the first time around, but going back (this time with his entire class from school) he learns that’s far from the truth.
This is very middle-of-the-road at the moment. We’ll be giving it a shot, but our expectations aren’t exactly high.
Otaku Elf
Elda is a 600-year-old immortal elf, being enshrined in the Takamimi Shrine and served by a new shrine maiden, Koito, a 16-year-old girl who is the latest in her family to take on the role.
Elda however is not some graceful mysterious being — all she does is lounge around, eat chips, down energy drinks, and play video games.
Super wholesome and moderately funny. Go give it a try.
Hell’s Paradise
The high-octane brutal shounen show this season.
Brutal action, lots of gore.
Big cast, but we’re focused on “Gabimaru the Hollow” and his to-be executioner as they, alongside other criminal+executioner teams, travel to the island known as “Paradise” to retrieve the Elixir of Life. Whoever gets it back to the mainland first recieves a full pardon from the Shogunate.
Good potential.
I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in The Real World, Too
Guy basically stumbles into a Narnia-like door to another world, in which he finds and becomes the owner of an abandoned house filled with a bunch of OP skills and weapons. After using the skill points he gets there, his body transforms from his bullied fat body into essentially the hottest guy on Earth? And now everyone is fawning over him.
Beyond that first arc in the premise, we have no clue what it’s about though. Will likely skip?
Dead Mount Death Play
Retelling the first episode won’t do you any favours, but just go watch it. A reverse isekai which involves a lot of death and a surprising amount of sillyness.
It’s low-key good, and I’m hoping for it to keep it up.
Opus.COLORs
In a future world where “Perception Arts” (basically Augmented Reality art but you can feel it as well) has become a phenomena, two brothers and a family friend has enrolled in a school to pursue careers in the field. For some reason they’re divided now and the two sides of the school hates each other though.
Extremely meh. If there wasn’t so much else great then maybe this would be worth seeing if it goes anywhere, but not this season.
Mashle: Magic and Muscles
Think One Punch Man in Harry Potter, and you get the gist.
Mashle is born without magical powers, but has been trained his whole life by his adoptive father, and has somehow achieved supernatural strength. He’s not quite good with reading a room though.
10/10 cream puffs.
The Dangers in My Heart
Kyoutaro sees himself as very edgy and “wants to kill his classmates”, but maybe his heart beats faster every time he looks at the class beauty for other reasons…
It starts of very edgy, but it quickly becomes a familiar rom com sort of thing. But a good one, so definitely recommended.
The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses
Love Hina, but not as good. Protag-kun is an asshole. Animation is stiff at best.
There’s a grain of potential, maybe, but yeah no. We’re skipping this one.
Oshi no Ko
If you watch just one show this season, let it be this one.
One of those series that are best to go into blind. Don’t read up on the synopsis, don’t watch the OP and ED on Youtube beforehand, just go experience the 1h20m first episode as it is. Yes, the first episode is 1h20m.
Go watch it.
Heavenly Delusion
Post-apocalyptic sci-fi with visuals usually only found in feature-length animations - it is a real treat to watch. We get to see the perspectives of both a group of kids kept safe in some sort of facility, and of two young adults roaming the overgrown mostly abandoned cities of Japan in search of a place called “Heaven”. However, other people as well as deformed monsters also roam the landscape, so the journey is dangerous.
I’m on the edge of my seat each episode. Probably my favourite new show this season.
Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers
This will really not be for everyone.
An absurd visual spectacle reminiscent of Gainax series, in which all things Otaku was banned by the government in 2008. It is now 2011, and “Otaku Hero” along with his three magical girls and revolution army of all kinds of otaku are fighting back to be able to once again enjoy the things they all love in peace.
Just utterly insane and I love it.
Loudness warning in the OP (shown as an ED in the first episode)
My One-Hit Kill Sister
The first episode has no right to be as well-animated as it is.
Protag-kun is isekai’d, and loves it. Has read all the light novels about it and it fully ready to embark on an adventure. However, on his first quest, he stumbled upon a giant dragon that is way too overleveled for him, and in an act of desperation he summones his older sister to protect him.
This is just silly, with a side of bro-con perverted older sister that will put most people off from continuing this. But if you can look past that, then it seems like silly fun.
The Legendary Hero is Dead
Not an isekai, but equally a lewd-ish fantasy adventure setting like the previous one. Here Protag-kun is just a creep though, but his soul ends up in the rotting corpse of the Hero, and now he’s tasked with saving the world in his stead.
It’s very dumb, but if dumb fun with a side of fan service is what you’re after, then look no further.
A decent OP though.
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999
Cute rom-com with plenty of adorable chibi faces throughout. And for once they seem to be young adults in university and not just high-school kids.
Recommended.
The Reason Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke’s Mansion
Not your typical otome-game isekai. Maybe because this time the world is based on a novel with murder and intreague, and Protag-chan is embodying a character who is supposed to get killed off early on in the story. Using her knowledge of the world, she manages to get an in with the Duke to hopefully at least delay her destiny, but at what cost?
Has potential. Recommended.
A Galaxy Next Door
Main-kun is a moderately successful mangaka who is also running a small apartment complex and taking care of this two young siblings after their parents passed away. Before a big delivery, an assistant is sent to him to help him out, but we quickly learn that there is much more to her than she lets on.
Very quirky and weird in some regards, but the overall feel is very much that of a cute and normal rom-com — just with some fantasy elements to it.
Recommended.
The Marginal Service
Something something secret government force of rag-tag individuals tasked with dealing with “Borderlanders”; aliens and the like that are living among us in secret.
Has potential to be more interesting than its first episode, but as-is it’s just meh.
Working for God in a Godless World
Another trashy lewd isekai.
Protag-kun reincarnated into a fantasy world that doesn’t have the concept of Gods, but as he is about to be killed by the reigning government, he prays to his former dad’s crazy cult’s god one last time, and she answers the call.
Now they must increase her following to increase her powers.
Insane in a not-good way. Can easily be skipped.
Insomniacs After School
Classmates Nakami and Magari discovers that they’re both suffering from bad cases of insomnia, and form an unlikely bond around their shared situation.
I’m really worried that we’ll be bawling our eyes out at the end of this series, but I’m 100% on board all the way there. Highly recommend.
Skip and Loafer
Cute slice-of-life following Mitsumi, who is starting high school in Tokyo, far away from her small little home town. She has her life all planned out, but life has a way to interfere with those, and after getting lost on her way to school her very first day, she is rescued by the aloof Sousuke.
Really cute. Highly recommend.
My Home Hero
Not exactly a sakuga-feast, but you’ll be on the edge of your seat, wanting to know what will happen next.
Set in our world, a father learns that his daughter is being abused by her boyfriend, and after hearing him planning on killing her, attacks and kills him. What he didn’t know is that the boyfriend has ties to the Yakuza, and his disappearance sets off a series of events of trying to get away with murder.
Brutal and dark. Recommended.
Blue Orchestra
Boy loved to play music, but after his father — a successful violinist — got involved in a cheating scandal he doesn’t want anything to do with it. But of course he’s being dragged back in by others.
Not great animations. Not sure where the story will go. Pass.
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts
In a fantasy land where humans and beasts live on a fragile truce, every year, a child is presented to the King of Beasts as sacrifice. But this sacrifice has a foul mouth and an attitude, and we get to learn that the newest King of Beasts as a secret…
No clue where it’s going — could just as easily be trash as it could be something fun. A maybe.
Yuri is My Job!
Self-proclaimed cutest in the world, Hime Shiraki is going about her day when she suddenly bumps into another girl. This results in Hime taking over the girl’s shift at a local themed café, where the all-female staff roleplays as students at a prestigeous academy. But although they’re sweet on the outside, Hime quickly finds that they’re anything but on the inside (from her perspective).
Silly comedy. It’s kind of cute I guess. A maybe.
Rokudo’s Bad Girls
Rokudo is constantly bullied by the delinquents at his school. But after recieving a mysterious scroll from his late grandfather, he is marked, and seemingly every “bad girl” around him is now charmed by him, including the strongest delinquent of them all — Ranna Himawari.
“WTF” is the general consensus about this series. The only reason I’d keep watching would be just in pure disbelief over the show existing.
World Dai Star
Protag-chan wants to be the star on the big stage plays. That’s it, that’s the show. Drama and friendships ensues.
She also has either a ghost friend or a schizofrenic side to her. It’s weird. Pass.
Run For Money :
The Great Mission
Infinite Runners — The Anime, basically.
And it’s just as not-interesting as that sentence makes it out to be. Something something mega city where the top part is good living, the bottom part is bad living. Delivery boy wants to get into competition to get ticket to live in good living area. He manages to get into competition even though he normally wouldn’t. Bla bla bla boring.
Pass.
And those were the series! Overall not that much ‘trash’ as there usually is, but rather it’s hard to find time to watch all the shows that you want to follow!
Before we wrap up, here’s a short-list of the shows I think are worth picking up or at least trying an episode or two of (depending on your own preferred genres, of course):
Oshi no Ko (again, don’t look it up, just watch the 1h20m long first episode)
Heavenly Delusion
Skip and Loafer
Hell’s Paradise
Insomniacs After School
Mashle
Magical Destroyers
Dead Mount Death Play
My Clueless First Friend
The Dangers in My Heart
Otaku Elf
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999
with honorable mentions My Home Hero, A Galaxy Next Door, and The Reason Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke’s Mansion.
Now go watch some good anime!
