NieR: Automata Ver1.1a might be one of the most successful adaptations of a video game into anime form in recent memory. It achieves this by taking an approach to its adaptation that has become more popular over the years; that being the pseudo secret sequel, as illustrated by works like the Evangelion Rebuild films and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. NieR doesn’t go to the same lengths as those, but does operate on a similar wavelength where it is at its most interesting in the ways it slightly twists and bends the original story. While the overall narrative conclusion is still the same, the details have been changed enough to make a distinctly different experience from playing the game, and I think that’s a neat way to approach adaptations. A 1-to-1 remake would have bored me as someone who had already played that game. To its credit, the source material does a lot of heavy lifting here. NieR Automata is one of the greatest stories ever told, so I suppose no matter what form it ends up in, Keiichi Okabe’s soundtrack is always going to shoot me straight in the heart.

I wish Trigun Stampede had been better, hell I wish I could like the type of Trigun it was trying to represent. I hate to be an old man who complains about the newfangled remake not being as good as the old thing I like but there’s no way around it; Trigun Stampede just kind of sucks. I’m glad it isn’t just a straight remake considering they only had 12 episodes to work with but the weird truncated version they gave us wasn’t much better. It tries to shove 19 volumes of storytelling, pathos, and character development into a show shorter than the already truncated 1998 anime adaptation and it simply doesn’t work. The reveals about the characters, their personal struggles, none of it works when you’ve only known them for less than an hour. Even Studio Orange’s stylish presentation falls apart toward the end, the fights turning into generic shounen power clashes instead of the rough and tumble gunslinging Trigun was known for. Any kind of full anime adaptation of Trigun was always going to be impossible. It’s too long and doesn’t have the cultural cache to get a FMA: Brotherhood style treatment. Perhaps Stampede is as much as Nightow could have hoped for, but it doesn’t remove the reality that I kind of wish it didn’t exist at all.

Also goddamn what an awful OP compared to the original.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. An anime original with an impressive first episode bowls us over and has us excited for more, only for the subsequent episodes and lackluster finale to leave us wondering why we ever bothered in the first place. You’d think after the likes of Appare Ranman and Sakugan, we’d learn, but I believe I’ve finally crystallized why we chase these anime originals with initially interesting premises and a wide cast of seemingly likeable characters.

On some level everyone here was tainted by how good Blood Blockade Battlefront was and we’ve been chasing that high ever since. It seems like such an obvious formula right? Fake setting based on real world time or place, interesting power sets, cast with obvious chemistry, and a premise that allows for both episodic and serial storytelling. High Card operates on that level maybe three times its entire 12 episode run, which is maybe even more maddening. It proves the writers and animators were capable of operating on that level and then chose not to, in favor of meandering storytelling and hackneyed drama. Well surely we won’t fall for it again right?

I can’t tell if I would have loved or hated this anime 10 years ago. It’s so blatantly aimed at my personal preferences that it verges on feeling cynical. I think broadly I can appreciate a show like this existing because it proves we are now past the era of the all encompassing anime It Girl. There is no obvious archetype of anime love interest that is so culturally mainstream that it ends up being the default template of every anime romance. Tomboy, menhera, gyaru, mesugaki, whatever, there’s probably an anime that caters to you now. The tyranny of Shiori Fujisaki is no more.

This is it folks, the payoff on everything season 1 built up. A dramatic departure from the first half, the oft-nicknamed Farmland Saga arc which season 2 covers, is as good as it gets. When I was trying to convince people to stick with Vinland Saga, it’s because I knew this story was on the horizon. Season 2 is such a gripping upending of the status quo. What was subtext in season 1 demands to be acknowledged and reckoned with.

Thorfinn killed and enslaved people. So many he can’t remember the totality of it. He managed to morally dissociate, convinced by the delusion that it was all in the name of the greater good of avenging his father’s murder. Thorfinn’s quest leaves him reduced to a slave and forced to contend with the reality of what his revenge amounted to. Vinland Saga uses its backing of medieval Europe to explore the depths of humanity, leveraging the extreme misery inflicted on those who lived through it to further highlight the moments of compassion and empathy that shine through the darkness. Vinland Saga is unashamedly about the struggle of human kindness in even the bleakest moments. Someone must take the higher road. Thorfinn’s story of growth, atonement, and pursuit of meaning is one of the most compelling character arcs in fiction. Of all the iconic seinen manga of its era, there is no singular arc more emotionally fulfilling than Thorfinn’s.

Not an anime strictly but I wanted to give a shoutout to the extremely cool stop motion short film that aired earlier this year. I don’t know what to tell you man, a wooden puppet man who is an in-universe carpenter violently chopping up other wooden puppets is just cool as hell. It’s not that long so you might as well give it a look. Their kickstarter to begin producing a full length feature based on the short film was a resounding success so hopefully this means we get to see more puppet based violence in the future. After all, Thunderbolt Fantasy season 4 is nowhere to be seen…

Arguably the super heavyweight of this season with its impressive movie length premier episode. Oshi no Ko is one of those shows that I liked in fits and starts but never came to fully love. I just couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the behavior and musings of its protagonist. That said, the anime had some surprisingly insightful things to say about the Japanese entertainment industry that I found myself deeply appreciating. There’s a clear-eyed depiction of the trials and tribulations that come from the act of creation, especially when you do it as a job. I’m not sure if it’s enough to bring me back for a season 2 though. Maybe if they get another banger of a YOASOBI intro.

Personally this was the premier I was looking forward to the most this season. Heavenly Delusion is a great post apocalypse story that doesn’t let the end of the world get in the way of a good time. Maru and Kiruko are an immensely likeable duo and the Takahara Academy sections add a fun contrast to the storyline. At its best, Heavenly Delusion is a deeply human story about people trying to make the best of difficult situations, often in the arms of others. No one character alone can solve the mystery of what happened to the planet or why they were raised in this mysterious facility. Some of them will die long before knowing the truth, but they will have done so with the people they care about the most. It's an anime that manages multiple tones throughout its runtime, all to almost impeccable competency.

The elephant in the room of course, is the unfortunate tonal and narrative stumble of the penultimate episode. Heavenly Delusion asks you the difficult meta question. Can you still love a work that irrevocably fucked up? What if the work continues to be great after that? Heavenly Delusion is dealt a narrative blemish that permanently marks the anime in a way it never truly recovers from. This makes the anime a difficult proposition. As someone familiar with the source material, I can confirm without spoiling anything that Heavenly Delusion continues to be the great story you knew it to be, but can you still bring yourself to enjoy it in spite of its greatest mistake? I wouldn’t blame anyone for deciding the end of the anime is their stop on the journey, but if they ever do produce another season, I hope people will give it the chance to prove itself.

Oh Birdie Wing. You were the chosen one, the manic shitpost of an anime that was destined to shoot to the top of our AOTY list in spite of your blatant disregard for cohesive storytelling, meaningful characterization, or anything resembling actual golf. Despite its inevitable fall from grace in its second half, Birdie Wing still finds a way to keep things ridiculous. It’s just not quite as absurd as its first half. The reality is that a traditional golf tournament is never going to be quite as entertaining as underground golf mafia deathmatches. It’s kind of a shame most of the characters introduced later in the story don’t have any outlandish powers, it probably would have helped keep the energy up. It’s almost jarring how normal many of the rivals are compared to the gimmick laden golfers Eve faced earlier on. Not a single robotic limb or psychic power in sight.

Still, it’s hard to deny Birdie Wing’s inexplicable appeal. Eve is one of 2023’s most charismatic anime protagonists, sporting a specific kind of devil may care attitude that never got old. Seeing her on screen for a few minutes was more entertaining than entire seasons of other anime I watched this year. Watching her develop her own super golf technique by combining the powers of the myriad golf lineages that contributed to her growth was both satisfying and a really fun thing to type out. Birdie Wing may not have stuck the landing but it will still be one of the most enduring reminders we have of why anime is worth the effort.

They did it. Those two crazy kids made it in this messed up world. I love the characters of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. I love its mechanical design, its world building, and the messages it communicates across its 24 episodes. It deserved a better anime than it got. WFM tries to make the best of its truncated runtime and just barely succeeds. It never quite flies off the rails but it gets close multiple times in a way that’s difficult to ignore. In spite of all that, I love every aspect of what WFM represents. It’s a new Gundam for a new generation and I think it broadly succeeds. It’s the first AU in over a decade that I think I can say I genuinely like without caveats.

It’s not perfect, but Gundam rarely ever is. Gundam is a franchise that takes swings nearly every time it’s up to bat. Stories about war and geopolitics kind of have to by their very nature, and Gundam is a franchise with more misses than hits. In the context of that history, WFM is something pretty special. It dares to reimagine Gundam in some genuinely cool ways I would loved to have seen further explored. As commercial owners go, Bandai Namco is slow to react, but I don’t think they can ignore WFM’s impact, both critically and commercially. I’d like to believe this is not the last we’ve seen of the Ad Stella universe. Then again, it took over a decade for the commercial juggernaut that is SEED to get a new movie. I hope we aren’t left waiting that long. Unlike Kira Yamato, I actually want to see Suletta and Miorine again. Let Chuchu kill someone please.

Jujutsu Kaisen is a soulless, fundamentally hollow work of shounen. After the heights we were left at with season 1, the second season makes the decision to start with an extended Satoru Gojo flashback. As someone who doesn’t care much for the character, this was quite the kick in the teeth. This type of flashback arc doesn’t work unless you already care about the characters as they are in the present. Without that, you’re just watching the dolls in slightly different clothes. And then the Shibuya arc happened and boy, what a rancid experience watching this has been. It says something when a show manages to be almost entirely about fights and I find myself completely incapable of caring.

I could write a much longer post about my theory on booking as a concept in shounen. The short version is that the framing of the fight and its meaning to the people involved is just as if not more important than the details of the fight itself. In this regard, JJK has extremely bad booking. Fan favorites are unceremoniously killed off to spur the hero while others put in trivial showings to further elevate the threat posed by the villains. You could do this once and it would suck. JJK does it close to a dozen times by the end of the season. In the end, Jujutsu Kaisen feels like a work that doesn’t understand why it became popular and desperately attempted to reinvent itself multiple times to recapture that popularity, to diminishing returns.

We have once again been tricked by an initially impressive seeming anime with a likeable cast only for it to drop the ball. What makes Undead Girl Murder Farce slightly different is that its the middle arc that bowled us over and had us thinking the show may have found its footing. There’s no way around it, it’s just fun as hell to watch a bunch of public domain characters from 19^th century Europe duke it out for a mystical diamond while contending with werewolves, vampires, and people with names like Fatima Doubledart. The villain, Professor Moriarty, explains that his grand plan is to literally shove the DNA of all the world’s monsters into Jack the Ripper to turn him into a supernatural ubermensch chimera. When a piece of media gins up a story like that and then proceeds to fuck it up, it should be legal to just steal the story so that someone can try and do it better.

Synduality Noir is neither a good mecha anime nor a good crossmedia promotion for the video game of the same name. If the job of anime like this is to organically grow interest in the franchise to eventually market a different piece of media in that franchise, it helps if your glorified commercial is actually any good. Synduality Noir has the occasional flash of brilliance and admittedly cool robots, but little else.

I’m told this pilot episode is meant to introduce us to an entirely new kind of unhinged alternate universe Fate thing, which is usually a recipe for disaster, but I can’t help but be into what Fate/strange Fake is cooking. An alternate Grail War happening in the continental United States with all the baggage that carries just kinda works for me. In many ways it highlights the strength of the Fate setting. Its narrative mutability and systems allow for a great deal of narrative what-ifs. What if Alexandre Dumas got summoned as a Servant? What if the police were armed with magical weapons? What if the feds got involved in a wizard gang war? What if the Black Plague earned enough historic notoriety to manifest as an individualized being? Will any of this actually amount to anything in the upcoming full length TV anime? Hell if I know, but I’m onboard for now at least.

This modern adaptation of one of the classic Tezuka stories hit me on multiple levels. If you hadn’t told me it was based on a Tezuka work, there are enough novelties and interesting concepts in play that I would have believed this was a novel surrealist sci-fi story. But once you become familiar with its original creator, Eden17 takes on a different quality. It’s fascinating to see so much of Tezuka’s nascent ideas about storytelling in the manga format brought to life with modern presentation. His love for Aesopian storytelling, his willingness to make explicit political points in his works, and well, his unabashed horniness. There's something about how unapologetically bleak Eden17 allows itself to be to more effectively communicate its core message. A lesser work would have stepped away from such a precipice. Phoenix: Eden17 is a short but gripping vignette.

It’s more SxF, what else is there to say? The reality is it’s the only thing currently under the shounen umbrella that I’d call reliably consistent. This is a good thing and you don’t need me to tell you to watch this one. We can all simply agree that Yor should be allowed to kill people more.

Probably a lowkey AOTY contender for some people, Frieren is another anime that shows a strong adaptation can elevate decent to solid source material to whole new heights. As a fan of the manga, my feelings are that Frieren is a story that lands an unbelievably good first impression, and then largely coasted on that goodwill ever since. The anime has done a legitimately great job of reminding me of many of the smaller moments I enjoyed from the story while dressing it up with a great degree of technical polish. I think this deserves special attention because I’m of the mind that the manga art is broadly competent if emotionally stiff. Madhouse imbues the characters with a kind of life I never saw them possess in the manga while still maintaining the original tone. I love how much the anime is willing to just allow its characters to linger in their world, belong to the spaces they inhabit. There’s a meditative quality to Frieren’s journey of self discovery that resonates with anyone who has regretted not appreciating the fleeting moments.

I didn’t think I’d stick with this one but Maomao is a surprisingly fun protagonist, YA novel main character syndrome aside. She’s a misanthrope and a bit of a dirtbag, but passionate about her craft and willing to aid those who truly need it. Simply solving medical mysteries of the week would probably have kept me around for a while but the organic introduction of court intrigue and conspiracy elevates it.

Even if it hadn’t been a pretty cheap looking production, I arrive at the conclusion that Kengo Hanazawa’s specific brand of Japanese male oriented nihilism probably doesn’t work well in anime form. Under Ninja is one of those shows that has a lot of legitimately funny moments, but you have to work through a lot of drudgery to get there. I remember enjoying the manga but seeing the same scenes played out in anime form had the opposite effect of Frieren’s anime. I found myself thinking, “was this really that funny?” I don’t think the source material is perfect but the anime serves as a reminder that a lackluster adaptation will make the rough patches even more noticeable. Great OP though.

Anime wouldn’t let us close out 2023 without one more anime original that leaves a good first impression only to steadily drop the ball over the course of its remaining episodes. There’s a lot to like about Bullbuster’s underdog story. Patlabor and Dai-Guard have shown that mecha and workplace comedy are better bedfellows than you’d assume. Unfortunately, Bullbuster sort of just fails across the board. The mecha are fun but terribly underutilized, which makes sense in-universe but makes it a pretty boring piece of media. This wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if the characters or story could pick up the slack but Bullbuster is lacking there as well. The character dynamics never quite gel in the way you’d want from these types of stories and the conflicts that spring up between them feel contrived and unearned. The last episode does manage to bring some of the old energy but by that point, it’s too little too late.

Ugly, hollow, pointless. Gundam Build Metaverse is basically what everyone feared the original Gundam Build Fighters would be; a shallow and blatant cash grab that recycles old toys and imagery to make an extra buck. Absolutely nothing of value to be found here. Does it make some sense now why I’m willing to be so generous to the likes of Witch from Mercury? No franchise has ever been less apologetic about its willingness to race to the bottom like Gundam.

I’m not sure Scott Pilgrim Takes Off needs to exist, but that might be fine? I was quite charmed by Science Saru’s take on the manga inspired graphic novel but what really hooked me was the reveal of what SPTO really was; a complete reimagining, a secret sequel if you will. This is much more interesting to me than a simple remake of the original. I really enjoyed watching Ramona take a more active role in confronting her checkered past. And on some level it just feels good to see the old cast out and about again.

My issue is that when you do these types of thematic remakes of an old story, you’re essentially taking a narrative loan. These types of intentional divergences can fuel a lot of fan speculation and spur interest but eventually you need to pay it off and show us why this story had to be reimagined and what you wanted to say with it. Unfortunately I don’t think SPTO ends up saying much at all by the end. Scott and Ramona’s relationship was always going to be a struggle. It was something the both of them would have to work on in spite of their personal flaws. Rearranging events and having our cast square off against an embittered Scott Pilgrim from the far flung future doesn’t dramatically change those themes. The eight episode runtime also makes a lot of the plot feel kind of perfunctory and abrupt. Some characters get abandoned entirely while others don’t get nearly the amount of time they’d need to make their narrative arcs feel fully earned.

But I still smile every time Lucas Lee opens his mouth. I liked Ramona and Roxie making amends, however brief. I wish Kim was on screen more but I’ll take literally every extra second I can get. So maybe Scott Pilgrim Takes Off doesn’t say anything meaningful about the story with its reinterpretation, but it was still an excuse to get another eight episodes of anime Toronto’s quirkiest residents hanging out, fighting, and kissing. It's also one of Science Saru's nicest looking productions and its OP might be my favorite of the year. So even if it initially seemed like it was going to be something so much greater, maybe that’s good enough.

Gridman Universe feels like Akira Amemiya’s victory lap. The culmination of everything he’s built up from the day he directed the Boys Invent Great Hero short in 2015. It’s a bombastic crowd pleaser that focuses more on giving the fans what they want than a hard hitting narrative conclusion to the story of Gridman. Not that it necessarily needed one, both Gridman and Dynazenon had proper conclusions, which allows Gridman Universe to explore the less notable threads left behind.

At the end of the day, Gridman Universe gives us a chance to spend a little more time with the characters we’d grown to love over the course of both TV anime. The villain basically doesn’t matter other than to give us an evil monster for Gridman and Dynazenon to punch in the face in increasingly ludicrous ways. You will see robots combining in ways that feel almost decadent. You’ll think, surely you couldn’t smash that many robots together into a single form? Right??? And then it happens and you cheer like an ape because it’s cool as hell. And that’s the thing about Gridman Universe, it feels good to watch.

I realize this is section will read similar to my feelings about Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, but with the conclusion reversed. Gridman Universe is undeniably pandering to its fans, but it carries enough emotional weight to justify it. There are things only Gridman Universe could do that neither individual show on its own could feasibly achieve. We’re given closure on the last few open doors left by both stories. It feels like a luxury the two earned by being two of Trigger’s greatest stories. I didn't really need to see Anti speak with Akane one last time, but it hit me so much more emotionally than I expected. It completely justifies itself. Perhaps that applies to Gridman Universe as a whole. It doesn't need to exist but I'm so glad it does. Akira Amemiya has grown to become one of Trigger’s most exciting directors, I can’t wait to see where he goes next.

Watching this was fulfilling on an emotional level. Is it the most coherent or focused story Miyazaki has ever told? Most certainly not, but it’s a film that takes the best, most dreamlike parts of his past work and elevates it to a new visual peak. I truly believe it’s a film best approached with as little foreknowledge as possible so I will just say it’s a refreshing return to form for the director. I deeply respect The Wind Rises and Ponyo is well, a decent enough kid’s film. The Boy and the Heron is a return to the kind of fantastical whimsy Miyazaki became iconic for, but with a more introspective camera lens. At its core, it’s a story about legacy and creation that understands that loss is simply a part of the natural order. That no legacy can endure forever; not Miyazaki’s, not even Ghibli’s. The movie feels like Miyazaki coming to terms with the twilight of his career in about as beautiful a way you could hope. Knock on wood, Miyazaki gets to keep creating for as long as he wants. Regardless, The Boy and the Heron is a majestic capstone to a legendary career.

Godzilla Minus One is an impressively impactful movie. I think it would have been easy for a movie about postwar Japan reckoning with its past and future to fall into the worst kind of revisionist excesses. Unfortunately I think the movie can still be read that way if one chooses, but I believe its overall message about overcoming adversity, the preciousness of life, and focus on the failings of systems give me a more generous interpretation than that. The boat chase scene might be the most viscerally terrifying Godzilla has ever been. I also appreciate the recent trend of every Godzilla work coming up with a new way to portray his atomic breath. Godzilla Minus One’s is particularly inspired, taking cues from mecha anime. His plates glow and shift into place as if cocking a gun before firing. It’s mechanical in a way that emphasizes the creature’s unnatural existence. You can’t help but admire its violent efficiency as it levels Tokyo.

I think we can all agree that stories that ask if robots are human are played out. Stories that already assume robots have personhood have a much more interesting baseline. Pluto takes it a step further, positioning itself as the story where the robots themselves are convinced they’re not that human, only to repeat the same tragic failings of their creators. The Pluto manga is in my opinion, one of the zeniths of fiction. Not simply one of the greatest manga I’ve ever read, but maybe one of the greatest stories the human race has produced. It’s insightful, beautifully rendered, and presents its messages with such clear eyed intensity you can’t help but feel yourself overcome by its very existence.

The story never lets up, and lets you experience the dread, anguish, and introspection of its primary cast as they’re steadily hunted down one by one by the world’s strongest, most vengeful serial killer. All while confronting their own skewed sense of humanity. Pluto as a work suggests that the more human a robot becomes, the more likely it is to repeat our mistakes. Taken to its logical extreme, the perfect robot would be capable of hatred, duplicity, and self loathing. It becomes paradoxically less perfect the more perfect a simulacra of its creator it gets.

For that reason, I’m so impressed the Pluto anime was able to recreate even a fraction of its magnitude as a piece of fiction. The anime is quite decent, occasionally veering into legitimately brilliant. No anime was ever going to perfectly capture Naoki Urasawa’s inimitable style and sense of melancholy, but the anime gets quite close at times. It’s not the definitive version of Pluto, but even an imperfect emulation is going to rise to the top on the back of one of the greatest stories ever told.