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Dated 2 January 2024: The End of 2023 ~Air/My Purest Heart for Tired Evangelion Jokes~

Suletta
I don't mention Witch Gundam until the end.

I started out thinking about doing a "Best Anime of 2023" summary, considered a "Favorite Anime of 2023" post would be better instead, then briefly contemplated an "Underrated Anime of 2023" write-up next before settling on just highlighting a few series I enjoyed without constraining myself to any particular category. And here we are. Don't be afraid of your freedom.

Yamada
This is the face Anna makes when she overhears people speaking from the heart.

Foremost is BokuYaba (Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu | The Dangers in My Heart), which I'm front-loading because its second season begins on January 7th. Get on it, if you haven't already. This has been a hard sell on occasion because summaries describing it are so misleading. The irony is not lost on me that a series I praise for its authenticity deceives the audience at the outset with misdirection. As I've previously advised, Kyoutarou is not an "edgelord," he's a cringelord. BokuYaba is about the mistakes that occur when people make bad assumptions about themselves and others. Likewise, it's a mistake to make assumptions about BokuYaba.

Soyo, Raana, and Taki
MVP.

Second, I got to BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! late, but better late than never, eh. I had initially written it off as some sort of Cute Girls Doing Cute Thing show cobbled together as a vehicle for yuri 'shipping, but it turns out to be about DRAMA. Probably, technically, it's melodrama, but that bit when Best Girl Rāna starts backing up the singer (whose pockets may still be filled with rolly pollies) while she's forcing herself to bleed out on stage instead of packing up so everyone can get the Hell out of there? And then Rāna seamlessly transitions to The Forbidden Song that causes the Begging Bassist to go completely mental as The Quitter quits the venue and nearly banishes herself from the hero's party by piling down some stairs? That is some Good Shit right there.

Ganta and Isaki
Especially if the entire story includes telescopic sex.

Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (Insomniacs After School) was a lot better than I was expecting. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a couple of teenagers who spend a lot of time napping together might also fall in love, so, spoilers, I guess. Mostly I'm glad neither of them tragically dropped dead at the end of the anime or some bullshit like that. The manga did end recently, but the U.S. release is still 10 volumes behind, so I'm on the fence about reading it before it's caught up, considering how many other titles I'm still following. What they ought to do is make more of the anime and cover the entire story.

Umi
Not one Like!

The IDOLM@STER Million Live! was entirely too short considering how many idols it featured, but at least we got an Umi episode. If y'all ain't heard, I do love me some Umimi.

Frieren
I enjoyed how nonchalantly Frieren made this decision.

Beyond this list, there are a lot of really good shows that I watched in 2023 that you probably already know about. Like, is it necessary to say I'm enjoying Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End), or that Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury) was fuckin' great? The former is hugely popular and is continuing into the Winter 2024 anime season, and the latter is frickin' Gundam, so it's not as if anyone is going to forget about it. I certainly won't. Honestly, there is entirely too much capital-G Good anime each year, and 2024 doesn't seem as if it will be any different.

Dated 26 December 2023: The End of Otona Pretty Cure ~Air/My Purest Heart for Cure Wrecking Machine~

Cure Dream and Bunbee
Believe it, Bunbee.

Should Kibou no Chikara ~Otona Precure '23~ (Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom~) be examined through the lens used for every other iteration in the Pretty Cure franchise, or should it be viewed (and judged) by standards applied to shows intended for adults? The expectations and allowances adopted can either magnify or diminish both the flaws (3DCG monsters, I'm looking in your direction) and the attributes of the series. I won't attempt to comprehensively address them all, but I bring this up now to acknowledge I'll be leaving some things unsaid. My attitude towards Otona Pretty Cure is generally positive, but you might catch a few laments if you follow me on the 𝕏 née Twitter.

Mai and Saki
I'm shocked Saki ended up being the one with the best hair.

It still feels miraculous that Otona Precure exists at all. I also sort of got the sense that the production team shared this sentiment. Specifically, it seemed like I was watching a show being made by people who thought they only had one shot at this. That's not an unreasonable position to take. First Pretty Cure itself surely wasn't expected to launch a franchise that has run 20 years and counting. Maybe there will be more Otona Precure someday (the ending certainly leaves the possibility open), but it wouldn't be safe to assume there will be. Consequently, I got the impression there was pressure to cram as much as they could into the 12 episodes they had. (Yes, I'm aware there's some sort of Mahou Tsukai Precure! 2 thing planned, but I'm not expecting it to overlap with this.) Incidentally, there are spoilers the rest of the way out, so avert your eyes if you ain't watched this yet.

Michiru and Kaoru
I wonder if all their paperwork is forged. I think they're technically illegal aliens.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is Otona Pretty Cure jammed a lot of stuff in here. Notably, Michiru and Kaoru finally got some recognition. As someone who has been constantly complaining about their omissions from team-up events and retrospectives, it was fantastic to see them return. Still, I'm on the fence about they way they were presented. Namely, I think they should still have at least some of the power they had in Splash Star. We did see them fly in the final episode, right? Possibly, they do have their powers, but chose to sit things out for the same reason Bunbee (who apparently does still have his powers) kept his head down and fled when pressed. But, yeah, this was a missed opportunity to officially confer upon them the Cure Bright and Cure Windy designations that they've long deserved.

Dream, Black, Rouge, White, Aqua, Mint, and Lemonade
The opportunity to bring back the original battle costumes was right there!

So, no, Cure Bright and Cure Windy did not appear in any form, but Cure Black, Cure White, and Shiny Luminous all did. This was hidden from the promotional materials and made their appearance a bit of a surprise, but much less so considering it was telegraphed the instant Honoka's grandmother appeared in Otona Precure. As glad as I was to see them again, I would have preferred keeping them out of this season entirely, instead focusing on them in a future installment. Admittedly, that's difficult to do when there's no guarantee there will ever be any more later.

Bloom and Egret
These two are so good.

I feel the need to point out the Max Heart and Splash Star teams were originally unable to unilaterally transform. They needed to be with their partners and their fairy counterparts. This would have been another reason to withhold first-generation Pretty Cure from Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom~. I would also have been okay with this limitation preventing Cure Bloom and Cure Egret from participating in the battles. Don't get me wrong, I love that Splash Star was included in this project, but Saki and Mai meant more to me than Bloom and Egret here. I think they could have still meaningfully contributed as regular adults who couldn't transform into Pretty Cure again, in contrast to the Yes! Cures who could.

Yuuko and Kenta
I wasn't expecting these two to be in the series at all.

Ultimately, the caveat expressed at the very start of Otona Precure (that there are many different possible futures, arguably making none of them capital-C Canon) ends up being the important factor. Maybe this is the possible future where Black, White, Luminous, Bloom, and Egret can all transform without their fairy mascot counterparts. Maybe this is the possible future where individual action can overcome industrialized irresponsibility. Maybe this is the possible future where the queen of Palmier Kingdom still works a day job in Japan. Oh. I'm going to have to address this, aren't I?

Milk
Otona Pretty Cure 2: Civil War.

I've never been a fan of the Nozomi x Coco 'ship, although I have to assume it's reasonably popular among the sort of audiences for whom Yes! Pretty Cure 5 was originally intended. In case you somehow still don't know, Coco is an adult who (we now learn) fell for Nozomi when he lured her into an alley met her by chance when she was 13. He was also her middle school teacher. Oh, and his human form is the alter ego of his real form, a ridiculous fairy mascot who is lucky to have Nuts by his side to make him look competent in comparison. And, yeah, he's the (a?) monarch of Palmier Kingdom, a country populated entirely by ridiculous fairy mascots doomed to fight an unavoidable water-rights war with the neighboring Donuts Kingdom. I expect losing this war will trigger the coup Milk has planned.

Nozomi and Coco
Was Coco in his fairy mascot form during the ceremony?
Did he include his verbal tic when reciting his vows?

ANYWAY, back in 2008, Coco and Nozomi (Cure Dream, technically) shared the first (and only?) on-screen kiss of the Pretty Cure franchise. Although Otona Precure did not feel beholden to pairing up Saki with Mai's brother, or Komachi with Nuts (Natts, whatever), or Urara with Syrup, it did not pass up the chance to goose the Nozomi x Coco 'shippers. So, now they're married (which really raises a lot of questions if you think about it even a little bit, but I recommend not dwelling on it at all), which explains why Coco was sort of hanging out for the second half of the show doing fuck all. He didn't need to be there, but I guess he did if he and Nozomi were going to get married. That didn't really need to happen during this season either, but I guess it did if "this season," is going to be "the only season," and there's no guarantee it's not. Maybe someday we'll get some more. Each tomorrow is but another possible future.

Dated 19 December 2023: I still don't know why PLUTO is written in all caps

Helena, Robita, and Geshicht
Not to spoil the moment, but can we workshop some other names?

It took me a while, but I finished PLUTO. This is not to say that it was slog to watch, bad, or uninteresting. Rather, it's a reflection of my lack of personal investment in the story and at least partially an acknowledgement that each episode is three times as long as they are for a more typical show. Now that I've finished it, my thoughts on the series haven't changed much. That nagging disconnect between my ambivalence and the very high praise I see everywhere else for PLUTO remains. What am I not getting?

Duncan
But are you pointing in the correct direction?

This is not a question I'm motivated to unpack, but I am willing to volunteer that the parts I liked best involved the blind composer. That arc was, frankly, rather sappy, but I think that's why I enjoyed it. Narrowing the story to focus on two characters provided for good moments as their interactions and exchanges evolved. I did notice—and this is not a complaint—that the composer was willing to occasionally use a mechanical conveyance. The practice clashed with his loathing of machines in general. True, there's no shortage of contradictory or hypocritical behaviors among the impulses that make us human, but I don't believe I was supposed to think about that in this case.

Atom
Would it help if I knew anything about Astro Boy?

I should probably give the manga another try at some point. I don't expect it to change my opinion too much, but there are at least indications I'll probably like it more than the anime. Most of these assumptions are based on this review of the PLUTO anime by a fan of the source material. (See also this one, while you're at it.) I'm more likely to re-watch and/or re-read Monster, though, if I'm being honest.

Dated 10 October 2023: BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! was the best anime from the Summer 2023 season

Tomori, Anon, Soyo, and Taki
What's in the bag? WHAT'S IN THE BAAAG?!

Regular readers of this blog may remember I listed Suki na Ko ga Megane wo Wasureta (The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses) as my top Summer 2023 show with only a few weeks remaining in the season. However, the word-of-mouth reputation of BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! (at least on the 𝕏-Twitter) convinced me to give it an eleventh-hour try despite my lack of interest in the franchise. (I dropped First BanG Dream! after eight episodes in 2017.)

Anon
Anon is so frustrated, she turned into a Force ghost.

The all-3DCG aspect of It's MyGO!!!!! also probably would have put me off a bit, were it not for Bubuki Buranki and Seikaisuru Kado (KADO: The Right Answer) getting me most of the way on board years ago. Honestly, though, it looks fine. My main issues with 3DCG in anime tend to involve scenes where it's combined with regular 2D animation while looking weirdly different in motion. No such problems here. But I digress.

Soyo and Saki
Begging always works.

BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! is about girls being self-absorbed, inconsiderate, manipulative, and deceitful with each other. Sometimes they're outright cunts about it. So, yeah, it's pretty good. There are a few characters who care more about music and bands than starting shit or being mean for no reason, but I like them anyway, too. What I like most about It's MyGO!!!!! is that the series begins on a low point and mostly stays in downer mode throughout. This is a departure from the uplifting narrative arcs that I'm accustomed to seeing in anime about A Bunch of Girls Who Like a Thing.

Taki and Umiri
I like Umiri even though she is not a cunt.

Viewers who form deeper emotional connections with the characters will likely enjoy the series even more than I did. However, don't expect things to get wrapped up in a tidy way by the end of the series. If you've heard about MyGo!!!!! before reading this, you've probably also heard about Ave Mujica (or have at least seen illustrations of their not-exactly impenetrable disguises). It seems that band is also getting its own anime, so we can expect more disastrous girl-band drama in the future, except gothic-chuuni flavored this time. I'm looking forward to it already.

Dated 18 July 2023: In re Marriage of Mercury

Suletta
Maybe tomatoes count as a Miorine surrogate.

Continuing from my previous post about Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo Season 2 (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2), I'm gonna go ahead and voice my primary beef with the way the show depicted Suletta's & Miorine's relationship. The short version is the series simply did not have enough episodes to adequately develop it. Or rather, it did, but it would have had to do so at the expense of something else. I suspect this is true of most of the areas that lacked sufficient elaboration for many viewers. (For example, anyone clamoring for more details about Miorine's mother, or about what tomatoes had to do with her Quiet Zero plans.)

Miorine
It's an act, but can you imagine Suletta doing something like this?

With regard to Suletta and Miorine specifically, nearly all of the slow, getting-closer parts that 'shippers might want occur almost entirely off-screen. Instead, we're treated to multiple instances of Miorine being distant, or cold, or outright cruel, and subsequent cathartic moments when she's realized she has fucked up and makes herself vulnerable to Suletta. All the less flashy (but still critical) incremental bond building occurs during time skips. It relies on the viewer to already be on board with the pairing, and willing to fill in the gaps with "head canon." Actually, not all of it was off-screen. A lot of it occurred during anachronistic dates across contemporary Japan shared on the Twitter.

Suletta
I guess this counts as a date.

I don't intend to belabor the point about these short vignettes that the @G_Witch_M account posted between cours, but I am serious about how these Suletta and Miorine Japan-tour snapshots are the clearest examples we have of the two actually going on dates or acting like a couple. This doesn't change the groundbreaking importance of their prime-time teenage lesbian marriage, but it is unfortunate that including regular romance material would have crowded out all the other Gundam-critical-type stuff that G Witch barely managed to include.

Dated 11 July 2023: There was more than one witch in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Elnora
I heard you liked helmets.

Now that Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo Season 2 (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2) has finished, I should probably capture my concluding thoughts on the series while they remain somewhat fresh. However, I get the feeling that would result in a long blog post, so maybe I ought to break things up into multiple entries despite the risk I might simply lose interest in writing more before completion. Anyway, the first post in this series (?) is about Elnora. If you've been following me on the Twitter, this should surprise you not at all.

Elnora and Dr. Cardo
Notably, I never stopped seeing Elnora as the girl she used to be.

Many viewers (if not most viewers) seemed to regard Prospera as the main villain of the series. This is not an incorrect perspective, but I think it's incomplete. I take the position that she is both an antagonist and a protagonist. This is not to say that I thought of her as the protagonist—that's clearly Suletta—but I do see her as a protagonist. (Fuck your deuteragonist and tritagonist nonsense. You're reading an anime blog, not a fan wiki.) That's not a controversial position for me to take, is it?

Elnora
Maybe she'll start calling you Mom without sounding sarcastic.

I'll need to put more thought into this, but my initial impulse is to suggest Elnora embraced the forgiveness aspect reflected in (or constrained by) The Tempest a lot more readily than I expected. Like, she had already forgiven Delling during the scene where she's fucking with Miorine's head to get her to aspire for the Benerit leadership role, right?

Elnora
I wonder how soon Elnora realized she was going to end up in this chair.

I also found Prospera's Quiet Zero plot to be a lot less sinister than what most people were assuming. (Never mind that I still have no idea what Notrette's original Quiet Zero plan—or Delling's intentions for the project, for that matter—were meant to be.) Now, I'm not part of the "Prospera Did Nothing Wrong" faction, but I do view her actions from a position that is decidedly more favorable to her than most seem willing to adopt. Let's just say I'm grading on a curve.

Dated 27 June 2023: You might think Golden Kamuy is about gold and kamuy-type things

Asirpa
Asirpa is short.

The fourth season of Golden Kamuy was supposed to finish at the end of 2022. A staff member's death delayed production, and the cours restarted as a Spring 2023 show. As with other long-running anime (well, longer-running, relatively speaking), there's not much I can tell you about this series if you're not watching it already. Read the manga. It's great. I would tell you to start watching the anime, but that's probably a harder sell now that there are nearly 50 episodes (more, if you count the OVAs). You should have started already.

Tsurumi
Don't stare. It's impolite.

This is one of those series that does everything well. There's comedy, there's drama, it's wacky, and it's serious. There are a lot of characters, and most of them are mental cases, but you'll also spend enough time with them (well, the ones who don't suddenly die) to appreciate what they've got going on and what motivates them. We already know the anime will cover the entire manga, so it's at least something newcomers can start without worrying about it being incomplete. There are honestly still some rough parts where the scenes or action are clearly difficult to animate, but we're at least well past the immersion-breaking 3DCG bears and fire from the first season.

Dated 4 April 2023: There's a new Setsuna in town

Kusunoki Tomori
Kusunoki Tomori welcomes her successor.

31 March 2023 marked Kusunoki Tomori's final day voicing Yuuki Setsuna in the Love Live! franchise. Hayashi Coco (alt: Koko) assumed the role beginning April 1st. This is hardly the first time anime characters have been recast, and this particular handover seems to have been handled well, but part of me wonders how necessary it really was. As far as I know, Kusunoki Tomori is still doing voice work and has only stepped down as the voice for Setsuna because health issues make the physical requirements of the live performances too demanding.

Hayashi Coco
The handover between Hayashi Coco and Kusunoki Tomori was posted on the YouTube.

Despite still claiming—even now—not to be a Love Live! fan, I consider Setsuna to be the franchise's best idol. (Shibuya Kanon is "only" its Best Girl and best character.) Of all the different Love Live! iterations, I regard Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club) as having the best music. This is in no small part due to how much I enjoy all of the Setsuna songs. Would I like them as much with someone else in the role? That remains to be seen, but I do know the Kasumi version of "CHASE!" from the Shuffle Festival album isn't quite as good as the original Setsuna one.

Setsuna and Kasumi
Nijiyon Animation was okay.

Personally, I think simply not having Setsuna appear during the live events ought to have been a viable solution, but this likely reflects a lack of appreciation on my part as to just how important those live events are to the franchise and its real fans. The production powers-that-be (not to be confused with the School Idol Deep State) surely fully explored every possible option and concluded that re-casting the role was the right decision.

Setsuna and Lanzu
Second-Generation Setsuna appears briefly in the Next Sky PV.

I don't know how many Nijigasaki-type things there will even be going forward, but I know there's one OVA already announced (Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai: Next Sky). I presume there are a lot of live events planned too. Thankfully, the reception to "Setsuna 二代目" appears to be very positive, so the newest Love Live! member at least shouldn't be facing an uphill battle for our hearts and minds.