At the tail end of 2022, I really enjoyed keeping up with SPYxFAMILY and Chainsaw Man as it aired. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with watching seasonal shows, as I have a tendency to take on too many that I then can’t keep up, and I can’t manage to binge anything alongside.
You’d think that I would learn from that, but no. I haven’t, and there was just so many shows that looked really cool, so I couldn’t resist!
I’ve watched at least the first episode of each of these shows, and they’re making up my Winter 2023 roster. Here are my initial thoughts!
Tokyo Revengers Season 2
Tokyo Revengers has fast become one of my favourite anime. I love the whole concept of it, from the time travel to the gang wars, and the characters are really fun and well-written. I’m so happy we haven’t had to wait long for Tokyo Revengers season 2, and even more happy that things just jump straight into the action. There’s no recapping, no rehashing of the story, it’s just straight on with things. I’m so excited to see where the story goes this season, it seems like it’s going to be an eventful one!
Buddy Daddies
I’ve seen Buddy Daddies hailed on Twitter as ‘the gay SPYxFAMILY’, and whilst there are similarities, it’s a lot more than that. The two protagonists, Kazuki and Rei, are roommates who are the antithesis of each other. Whilst Kazuki is warm and outgoing, Rei is an introvert, preferring the company of cats and games than real people. It’s a really interesting dynamic, that though outplayed has a fresh perspective in Buddy Daddies as Kazuki and Rei are contract killers, working together as a duo to take out their hits. In this first episode, we see Kazuki and Rei taking out a contract who is a mafia boss specialising in human trafficking. Whilst on the job, Kazuki meets Miri, a little girl who is searching for her father, who is… you guessed it, the mafia boss he is there to kill. After taking out the hit, Kazuki tells Miri he is her father, setting up the whole series for a really cute family dynamic. I’m really excited to see where Buddy Daddies goes and how the trio develop.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War
As a massive fan of the Legend of Heroes games, I was really excited for this anime this season. I wouldn’t say I’m let down, necessarily, but I may have overhyped it in my mind because of my love for the games. Giving an alternative perspective to the conflict seen in the games, the premise of the show is an interesting one. Whilst the story feels quite compelling on first watch, and I’m interested to see where it goes, the show itself feels let down by the animation. Scenes feel a bit choppy, and some characters are given better treatment than others which is indicative of how important they are in terms of the show but it means that it lacks cohesion as a result. I’ll still keep watching due to my love of the Legends of Heroes series as a whole, but it won’t be the show I rush to watch every week.
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague
This is probably the show I’m least excited about at the moment. The concept seems really cool – the descendant of a yokai is an office worker, and when he gets emotional he loses control of his ice-powers. There’s also a normal human love interest, and what seems like a pretty colourful supporting cast. My worry is, as with all slice-of-life anime, that not a lot will happen and it’s just going to feel a bit flat, but I’ll give it a chance and see how it goes!
Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4
Another returning show this season, and I’m so excited to have Bungo Stray Dogs back. It really is one of my favourite shows, and imagine my shock, my joy, my excitement when the main focus of the season seems to be my (second) best boy Rampo-san. I was worried I had forgotten everything that happened in the prior season of Bungo Stray Dogs before I started watching, but it seems like it doesn’t really matter at the moment due to the season starting in the past. I can’t wait to learn more about Rampo-san, and hopefully remember things about the last season.
Well, that’s all I’m watching this season, along with continuing Blue Lock and IDOLiSH7, and trying to binge a few things. What are you watching this season? Anything you’d recommend?
I loved the first episode of Tokyo Revengers. It had everything I love in an anime – it was really suspenseful, it made me laugh a lot, and the cliffhanger at the end of the episode definitely left me wanting more. I got some real Erased vibes from Tokyo Revengers, which is definitely not a bad thing as it’s definitely up there in one of my favourite shows.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much at a show since Banana Fish, and this was only the first episode! To Your Eternity was beautifully animated, it felt so cinematic, and honestly just heartbreaking. The first episode was an incredible opener, and I’m so invested in it already.
I was really looking forward to Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro because I’d seen screenshots floating around on Twitter and I thought the character design for Nagatoro was really cool and that she looked really cute. Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything good to say about it. It was a really uncomfortable watch from start to finish, as Nagatoro relentlessly bullies her senpai – who is so bland I’ve forgotten his name entirely. It’s not even in a lighthearted making fun of someone because you like them kind of way, it’s just out and out bullying and not something I’m interested in watching.
There is a lot going on in Fairy Ranmaru, and honestly it just felt like a total mess. It starts off as a kind of isekai as the fairy characters are sent to the human world, then there’s a sort of magical boy element, and then it turns into a musical with a song halfway through. I honestly felt like I had whiplash watching this show, it just was all over the place. Its saving grace was that the male characters were quite interesting, otherwise it doesn’t have a lot going for it.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a girl’s sports anime, but Farewell, My Dear Cramer looked really cute so I thought I’d give it a go. It’s about girl’s high school football (I will not succumb and call it soccer!), and the first episode was mostly about the girls joining from their various middle schools and joining the club. It was a really interesting episode as it gives you some backstory about the kinds of players the main girls are, and sets up the premise for the series nicely.
I’m a little bit sceptical of this one. Playboy business man falls in love with and pursues his high-school sister’s best friend. I’m sure you’ll understand my reservations. That aside, I did actually really enjoy Koikimo. I thought it was really nicely animated and it made me laugh quite a lot. I’ll still hold onto my scepticism for now, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Another seasonal show with a huge age difference! Again, like with Koikimo I went into Higehiro totally wary and ready to bail at any moment, and honestly, I almost did. Yoshida is a 26 year old salaryman who takes in teenaged Sayu after seeing her on the street under a lamppost. She quickly propositions him and tells him she’ll sleep with him if she can stay which is how she has been managing to find places to stay. Yoshida rejects Sayu, which is the only reason I kept watching, but instead he offers to have her live with him in exchange for doing the household chores. Again, like with Koikimo, I’ll remain skeptical as I feel like there’s definitely potential for this to cross some boundaries. I’d really love it if Yoshida and Sayu’s relationship developed into more of a brother/sister one, but I fear that will not be the case.
I definitely didn’t expect a show about anthropomorphic animals to be so dark and mysterious. I’m so intrigued by where Oddtaxi is going, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Those Snow White Notes totally took me by surprise. I thought I’d be getting some sort of high school music club situation, and this is far from that. It’s actually quite dark and deals with some pretty serious themes. I was really pleasantly surprised to be wrong, and it’s definitely one I’ll try to keep up with.
Maybe I’m stupid, but I found 86 really hard to follow. I think by the end of the episode I’d sort of got the gist, but all the way through the episode I just felt baffled. It’s hard to say whether I enjoyed the episode as for a lot of it I felt totally lost, but I think by the end I can say I liked it. I’ll definitely give it another few episodes.
I love a sports anime, we all know it. Backflip!! is about men’s rhythm gymnastics. I’ve always enjoyed watching men’s and women’s rhythm gymnastics at the Olympics and such, so it’s cool to see an anime version! The plot hasn’t really kicked off yet, with most sports anime, this first episode was really just about the protagonist joining the club, but it looks to be quite promising. The animation of the performances looked really nice too, I was worried it might go full CG like in an idol anime dance, and whilst I think there was an element of CG it still looked pretty cool.
Another sports anime! This time one for a sport that I was entirely convinced was totally made up until I Googled it after the episode, and was shocked to realise that this contact sport version of tag is real. That aside, Burning Kabaddi was totally unique and chaotic, but in a good way. The protagonist doesn’t even want to be in the club, for one, but he’s basically blackmailed into joining. It made me laugh a lot and I’m really intrigued to see where it goes and how actual matches of this weird sport work.
This is a totally wholesome school club anime about a pottery club. Episodes are short, which is just as well because not a lot happens, and they’re surprisingly informative about the Japanese pottery scene. I’ll keep watching it because it’s quite sweet, but I can’t envisage it being a standout for the season.
I’d seen a lot of people hyping up The Pretty Boy Detective Club online so it felt like one I wanted to watch – who doesn’t like pretty anime boys, anyway? I’m not sure how I feel about it after the first airing, I like the premise of a detective club filled with pretty boys, but they all felt very shallow and there didn’t feel like there was a lot of substance to the plot, feeling almost like a knock-off Ouran. The animation choices were really interesting though, and there were some beautiful moments.
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