Time for my final post about 2023’s anime! Or final planned post, at least, maybe I’ll find some reason to revisit the year in future, I certainly skipped enough series to be able to do it all again. 😛
Here are my top 12 series from last year (that have fully finished airing), along with a few honourable mentions, and some series I definitely want to give another look at some point.
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12: Spy x Family S2
Starting with a series that’s still relatively fresh in my mind! S2 gave us the cruise ship arc, easily the longest and most action-packed story we’ve seen so far from Spy x Family, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It never forgot that it was supposed to be a comedy either though, with Anya’s antics and Loid’s failed attempts to keep her happy providing plenty of laughs. Other episodes, mostly made up of mini side stories and with no furthering of Operation Strix, didn’t all stand out so much.
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11: My Home Hero
Dead last (in this list, as well as its season) if we’re talking about production values, but likely #1 for cliffhangers and suspense! A refreshingly different plot and premise, I loved watching the husband and wife duo of Tetsuo and Kasen outwit organised criminals in order to protect their family life. I thought the anime storyline ended in a decent place, but apparently the manga it’s based on is ongoing at 22+ volumes, of which only 6 got adapted here!? I might have to check that out at some point.
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10: Buddy Daddies
Similar in many ways to Spy x Family, focusing on a found family where the two adults were in a very dangerous line of work! But I preferred Buddy Daddies, it felt a *little* more realistic in that Miri was no psychic, just a kid who Kazuki and Rei wanted to provide as normal a life as possible for. It relied on A LOT of plot armour towards the end, but I’ll let it off since the conclusion was satisfying.
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The Hidden Inventory / Premature Death Arc that made up the first five episodes provided some great backstory for Gojo and Geto, but after that it was back to the present for the Shibuya Incident Arc, which was mostly one long series of battles. It says a lot about my love of action that this made my Top 12 at all, but even then I missed the the lighter-hearted, more comedic moments of S1. At least Todo was able to provide both those things at once, in the later episodes!
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8: Revenger
By far the lowest rated by others out of my Top 12, according to Anime-Planet statistics, and also one of the least viewed, despite being out for longer than most of the others. Maybe I’m overrating it, but I enjoyed the story of the stoic Raizou and his Revenger colleagues – very edgy and violent, opting for style over realism with its ridiculous assassination techniques, but it had some good plot twists and a solid ending, perfectly paced for its 12 episode run.
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Summer 2023 wasn’t the strongest season for anime, but Undead Girl Murder Farce stood out by far in terms of the non-sequels! The characters were a riot (especially Tsugaru’s overly-theatrical movements and rakugo-style storytelling), while the mysteries were interesting, and their solutions weren’t overly ridiculous or convoluted for a change.
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Typical – you spend four years waiting for a new series of Bungo Stray Dogs, then two show up at once! 😛 Winter’s S4 set up the story brilliantly, and provided some great character moments for Ranpo and Yosano, but summer’s S5 delivered the climax, which saw the battles (both physical and mental) reach absolutely crazy heights, throwing time travel and a vampire apocalypse into the mix.
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A fun post-apocalyptic road trip, with great character development, exploration, mystery, action and adventure. I really got invested in Maru and Kiruko’s story, while the events surrounding Tokio and the other children in the facility got both increasingly weird and terrifying. Definitely the series I’d most like to see get an anime sequel, though I believe there wouldn’t be enough of the still ongoing manga to adapt just yet.
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4: Migi to Dali
Top of the recently concluded autumn season, and out of all the non-sequels for 2023! The late Sano Nami has to have created one of the strangest series I have ever experienced. The twins were so odd, but you had to side with them given their sad past. Great pacing for a single season run, and a satisfying ending that wrapped it all up perfectly.
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I very nearly skipped this due to it starting so late, only going back to it after Golden Kamuy S4 got delayed (more on that series shortly~), but I’m glad I did! Fushi’s already considerable powers were pushed to their limits, but not without some major side effects. Big plot twists, tragic partings, and another time skip that has me very interested in how S3 will turn out!
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Golden Kamuy has never failed to score less than 2nd in my end of year lists. The perfect blend of weird characters, bizarre and crude humour, fantastic setting + incredible storytelling is hard to beat, even if the animation wasn’t so good at times. I hope the conclusion in the fifth and final series will do it justice, and maintain the same high rankings!
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It topped my winter rankings. It topped my spring rankings. Its music topped my OP and ED lists, potentially twice if I’d allowed more than one entry per series. Most amazingly of all, it topped its own first series, despite that being full of the action I love, and despite people having warned of how slow and dull ‘Farmland Saga’ would be. Seeing the young, warlike Thorfinn go through a long state of depression in his new life as a slave, before finally finding a new reason to live, was stellar character building, and the invasion of the farm near the end was gripping too. This was always going to be #1.
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Honourable mentions:
2 – Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto
3 – Dr. Stone: New World Parts I & II
5 – Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid S2
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Series I probably should have watched last year, but didn’t:
4 – Trigun Stampede
5 – Kimi no Koto ga Daidaidaidaidaisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo
AngryJellyfish's Blog 
Out of those, with the exception of Undead Girl Murder Farce, all my favourites are sequels. It was a very sequel-heavy year. I find that rather hard to take into account when making a list of my own, I tend to focus on new shows. Here’s what I watched out of your list, roughly in the order I’d put them:
1. Vinland Saga
2. Bungou Stray Dogs
3. Fumetsu no Anata e
4. Golden Kamuy
5. Undead Girl Murder Farce
6. Spy X Family
7. Revenger
8. Tengoku Daimakyou
9. Jujutsu Kaisen
The three shows I didn’t watch, I tried but dropped. None of them were bad, but I was just too busy.
Also, out of 9 shows, that’s 6 sequels and 3 new shows.
I’m sort of curious what would make it on my list if I only counted new shows that finished that year. Only real favourits, so the list is as long as it gets:
11. My New Boss Is Goofy
10. Cool Doji Danshi
9. Reborn as a Vending Machine
8. Suki na Ko ga Megane wo Wasureta
7. Tomo-chan Wa Onanoko
6. Dekiru Neko Wa Kyou Mo Yuutsu
5. Dead Mount Deathplay
4. Disgraced Noble Lady/Lessons in Naughtiness
3. Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu
2. Benriya Saitou-san
1. Skip to Loafer
Eleven Shows, huh. I’m tempted to fit a 12th in just for the heck of it, but, well, those are my favourite new shows. It was a really good year, and I’m sure the four shows that carried over the new year would all be fairly high up (Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Undead Unluck, Shangri-La Frontier).
Interestingly, I sense a tier border between Dead Mount Deathplay and Dekiru Neko, but it’s… very porous. What I would never have expected when the year started was that both GoHands shows would end up on my list. I had to skip the openings and first episodes for both shows (motion sickness), but from episode 2 on the shows were mostly watchable.
Skip to Loafer is the easy number one; it’s my second favourite PA Works show (after Eccentric Family) and has earned a place among my alltime favourites.
Benriya Saitou san was probably the biggest surprise: I liked it from the beginning, but I still underestimated the show. After episode one I thought it was going to be slice-of-life adventurer vignettes; after episode two I thought it would be the dungeon explorer version of Wacky Races; some time the show revealed it had a plan all along, and it was really a warm-hearted found family story; whether it’s our main party; the King and the Demon Lord; the Assassin, the Witch, and the obese fairy; or the wolves… There’s so much going on it’s the easiest show to talk about on the list.
It was a really good year for Romcoms, too. Four of them are on my list (3, 4, 7, 8) and there some others not quite as good that were fun, too. Probably on avarage the most successfull genre of 2023.
Now if I were to add sequels… This was a packed year full of high-quality shows. Any other year shows like Undead Girl Murder Farce (and Ningen Fushin, and Jigokuraku, and Oshi no Ko, and, and, and…) would likely make the top ten. This year there was just too much, even without sequels. And 4 definite top candidates didn’t finish so aren’t eligible.
Yeah, I’m happy with anime 2023.
My list was half sequels, so if I were to exclude them and make a Top 12 with only the all-new series, it’d probably be something like this:
12: Bullbuster
11: Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri
10: Oshi no Ko
9: Skip to Loafer
8: Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia
7: Zom 100
6: My Home Hero
5: Buddy Daddies
4: Revenger
3: Undead Girl Murder Farce
2: Tengoku Daimakyou
1: Migi to Dali
Looking at your favourites list reminds me of just how much I skipped over last year, as aside from the couple that I watched in full (Skip to Loafer and Dead Mount Death Play) plus Suki na Ko ga Megane wo Wasureta (which I gave a look out of curiosity for GoHands’ wild animation), I haven’t seen a single episode of the rest. Plenty to go back to, eventually!