For the final discussion thread of the year, I think it makes sense to talk about the year in review. 2023 brought us many things from the actual, final, for real this time, finale of Attack on Titan, to a long-anticpated anime adaptation of the Pluto manga. I want to hear what your favorite and least favorite shows of the year were. Here are the seasonal lists of shows in case you need to jog your memory:
As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).
tl;dr:
If you had asked for my anime of the year prior to the Fall season, it would have unquestionably been Oshi no Ko. However, Frieren’s adaptation has been so excellent over this past season that I am hard pressed not to give it my AOTY. I know Frieren is still airing for a second cour, but it has a full cour’s worth of episodes to compare to other seasonal shows, so I think it is fair for now. I think that Oshi no Ko has definitely left a strong impression on me though and I will always remember the first episode and episode 6 as extremely impactful. Few anime have ever had me as invested in a character’s story as episode 6 of Oshi no Ko did for Akane.
As for my worst anime of the year, this one is tough. I watch my fair share of bad anime so it is tough to pick. I think I will have to award it to “Am I Actually the Strongest?” The show was horribly paced and narratively confused. Large sections of important story were seemingly glossed over almost nothing was explained. Having watched 12 episodes of the anime, I still don’t think I can give any kind of explanation for the MC’s abilities. Just avoid this one, it isn’t so bad it’s good, it’s just bad.
Finally, in my quest to pretend to still be young, I thought I would also give a mid award. This one goes to a show that was so bland and generic that it wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it just exists. That goes to Atelier Ryza for me. I have heard that the game series this show was based off of is actually quite good. I have a friend that has played a ton of them and was hyping up the show to me because of it. However, watching the show being unfamiliar with the source at all, it was extremely boring. Things happened extremely predictably. I actually felt that watching the show was like being stuck in an unskippable, long tutorial cutscene in a game. Things were overexplained, drawn out, and the game’s quest -> reward structure was very obvious. There were never really any stakes it felt like. I don’t know if the entire game was adapted or not, but I certainly hope there is more to the game. The show felt like it was adapting just the tutorial levels.