Summer 2023 anime

Final Reactions: Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha S2
After a long, LONG delay, this finally reached it's conclusion, and ... yeah, I'm still left without much taken in... The delays kinda killed the hype. Maybe in the next part, things'll be fine...

Final Impressions

• Misfit of Demon King Academy: Honestly, it's a good thing the series had to take a break for a while. That first half was haphazardly arranged and it made it hard to care about what was happening. The second half managed to make up some lost ground, though it never really fixes the mess. Also unfortunate that there really isn't any Memetic Badass moment that propelled the first season into entertaining goofiness. Ah well.
• Horimiya -piece-: Levying the same criticisms against this show compared to the original: way too much focus on side characters and not on the cute main couple themselves. But this time it was easier to accept because -piece- was billed as being a slice-of-life spinoff in the first place, and what Hori-Miya moments are there are honestly more adorable than what we got before. Also: this is probably the closest to a Cute Boys Doing Cute Things anime I've seen.

Is the season finished yet? Any worth remembering to look up at some point?

It's in the process of ending, I would say. The early starts are starting to close up.

Some series will go for longer (like 7 Spellblades has 15 episodes) but for the most part the season should end within a week.

Edited by Nachtwandler on Sep 24th 2023 at 1:51:40 AM

Forgot to mention this a while back but I did drop Mushoku Tensei. Heard it's done for the season so now I can just ask people if anything important happened.

Final impressions for Eiyuu Kyoushitsu: Always knew what it was and always proud to be itself. It's like one of those battle academy-harem anime hybrids, but constantly poking fun at itself. Like how the cast are constantly annoyed with how overpowered the main character is and make it a daily activity to try and kill him. It's incredibly earnest (heh) so it's hard not to like it. Favorite episode is when the characters band together to survive in a hellish training ground all so they could cook up the most exotic curry they can for the MC. Super wholesome.

Final impressions for Synduality Noir: Honestly not a half bad mecha anime. It's most significant faults comes with being a video game tie-in where the video game hasn't managed to roll out yet, but at least the studio has confirmed a second season, which I imagine will answer at least a few of the more pressing lore questions. The action sequences are all smoothly animated, and I'm all for more 3DCG if it means being able to maintain that quality. The cast isn't particularly interesting, but they entertain the best they can.

Edited by fillerdude on Sep 25th 2023 at 11:51:59 AM

Undead Girl Murder Farce was really good. I had hopes for it but was hesitat to watch at first. Was plesantly surprised. In general the first arc (sans prologue) was the weakest one as it was pretty uneventfull for the time they spent on it. Apparently, they only have 1 short story and 1 novel volume left to adapt, so we won't see continuation anytime soon, most probably.

Edited by Nachtwandler on Sep 27th 2023 at 11:42:06 AM

Slightly disappointed at the end of Undead Murder Farce... but only because Shizuku's werewolf girlfriends didn't join the gang ^_^. Otherwise it's was a hell of a ride and a lot of fun and the only thing this season that consistently had me going, "wait, that' can't have be been (appromixately) 25 minutes".

Final impressions for Undead Girl Murder Farce: Anime isn't the best at the detective genre, so it's always a treat when a show comes along and gets it right. Undead Girl Murder Farce understands that the goal is not to confuse the viewer, but make them feel the satisfaction of slowly piecing the truth of case together. I like that the cases last 2-4 episodes, which gives the writers plenty of time to lay out the clues. Adding to the impact of this show is its strong, stylish cinematography. It constantly utilizes visual metaphors, adopts unusual camera perspectives and changes art styles. So yeah, I'm joining in the chorus of praises, it is easily my favorite Summer 2023 anime.

Which lets me segue into answering doomrider's question: "Any worth remembering to look up at some point?" I would say:

• Undead Girl Murder Farce
• Zombie 100
• Helck
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades
• Link Click
• AI no Idenshi
• Atelier Ryza

Those are the ones I would say are baseline good. Though if you have more specific preferences I can tailor the recs further.

Mushoku Tensei S2 is still my favorite of Summer, but also of 2023 in general, and part 2 in April next year is only gonna be better.

Jesus Christ, Zom 100 STILL haven't finished airing.

What, is this trying to be a Fall 2023 anime as well or something?

Okay, everything I've been watching is done, so final impressions:

Undead Girl Murder Farce is a solid mystery series with great art and direction. It does have some issues juggling it's tones, with the recurring villains leaning into camp while most of the mysteries are fairly dark and serious, but this doesn't really prove a major problem in what we see. Hoping for a second season

...That's everything I watched to the end this season. It was genuinely the worst season I can recall since I started keeping up with seasonal releases

Edited by Hylarn on Sep 27th 2023 at 7:36:27 AM

For once, its not executives at the top being this demanding for Crunch and needing to delay it due to deadlines, but the result of a Director that became way too ambitious for his own good.

Yeah, I admire the ambition but damn did the production suffer for it. Can’t imagine the crunch the animators had to go through, which is… ironic, to say the least.

Royce agents were definitely the worst part, I hated them even more than Jack the Ripper and I frickin’ hate how that killer pops up everywhere

There’s also Spellblades getting 15 episodes! Airing schedules have submitted to chaos and I’m all for it.

I guess everything I'm watching is either finished or long-running. I'll stick to mentioning the stuff I can say more than "it was fine" about, I suppose.

• Reborn as a Vending Machine: It was silly and fun, enough to carry the entire season shockingly. It really says something about the state of isekai when a joke premise that sounds like a one-off, extreme parody ends up just being nice to watch every week. It might also be the first anime I've seen that actually takes CPR seriously and not devolve into "lol kissies ew so weird" bullshit. I mean, the rescusitation attempts felt like they were super delayed but if that's the biggest gripe I have about a vending machine getting things done, I'd say this is a decent watch.

• Zom 100: Damn that's a lot of delays. Such a shame, this is a pretty fun ride. Colourful, energetic and fun, exactly what you want when the world's gone to hell and corpses are eating not-corpses. And I guess we're getting Evil Bucket Listers now? Can't wait to see how that pans out.

• Dark Gathering: This has been a lot of fun to watch. Sometimes it feels like the animation isn't quite hitting like it should, but Yayoi more than makes up for it, really. I love how quippy and deadpan she can be, in addition to the spooky stuff that I guess she excels at. Keitarou's... fine, but it's clear who the real star is. Yep, it's Eiko, that girl's loyalty and determination are unsurpassed, you can always count on her to find Kei, no matter where he is. At any time. Almost like he can't possibly escape her network or something. So I'll be looking forward to the second half of this one.

• Helck: Another delightful show. I... don't quite know how to describe the general feel, but I guess it'd be... kind of laid-back? Helck's a delightful goof, the demons in general are mostly silly, amicable folk, Ver is the best and everyone she, Helck and Piwi meet just tend towards being super likeable and silly. It's a fun atmosphere, contrasts quite a bit with humanity sucking super hard and wanting to kill the demons. I think I can see why Helck isn't too fond of them.

Besides those ones, I'm also enjoying Bleach, Jujutsu Kaisen, and 7 Spellblades quite a bit. I really should rewatch JJK's first season, but I don't think I'm forgetting anything super important right now anyway. Bleach had Kenny beat a reality warper by being Kenny, and that was great.

Don't really have much to say about Yohane, Malevolent Spirits, Synduality and Ayakashi Triangle. They were all... y'know, fine I guess. Yohane was the mehest, just wasn't really into it a whole lot, Malevolent Spirits has fun powers, but the animation doesn't often sell them too well, Synduality was a fun and a great advert for the game, and Ayakashi Triangle... pretty much covers stuff right up to before it got really fun. Can't imagine it'll continue with the manga just having finished now, too.

Let's see... uhh, only thing I really dropped was Mushoku Tensei. Kind of got tired of Rudeus being the literal goddamn worst, and giving the show chance after chance after chance after chance after chance to convince me he will actually improve as a person. So... that's that I guess, time to cry at the sheer amount of must-watches next season.

I hate the Evil Bucket Listers!

Also glad you talked about Dark Gathering and Helck, I like those shows a lot too.

Helck...uh... doesn't stay laid back. Don't be fooled by the early parts of it. It and Faraway Paladin are among the manga that made me genuinely cry at points.

Edited by Silentedge89 on Sep 27th 2023 at 11:52:29 AM

Final Reactions: Spy Kyoushitsu S2:
Yup, definitely liked this more than the first... It was the increase (ish) in action, especially in Thea's arc, that did thhe trick for me! Looking forward to what's next!

Final Impressions

• Spy Classroom S2: The first season was an awkward hodgepodge of character introductions and intrusive flashbacks, but thankfully the second season fares much better thanks to an already established cast. It became free to explore the girls' friendships, flesh out their individual abilites and personalities, and combine their skills in spy-to=spy combat. It was finally having fun with its setup, and delivering on the campy espionage action it initially promised. This cour also focused mostly on Thea, and it worked wonders. Ten or so episodes let her backstory and subsequent character development be told more organically. In short, a Surprisingly Improved Sequel and I would like to get a peek at more.
• Hataraku no Maou-sama: Similar to the above, part 2 of season 2 which aired this summer is much better than part 1. But in this case, it was clearly because the studio wanted to allocate their limited resources to the important stuff. And I do mean important— there were loredumps galore and the status quo has been shaken quite a bit, perhaps most notably Emi finally stopping being hostile to Maou. I thought the studio did the best with what they had, though obviously I would have liked if it had the production to back up its vision. Ah well. Despite the lacking technicals, my level of enjoyment was comparable to what I felt during the first season.

Spy Kyoushitsu S2 was way better than the first one. I liked the S1 also unlike most people here but mainly as a comedy. S2 actually had somehow better actual plot. It was far from the best anime this seson but if they decide to make more, I do not mind.

Final Reactions: AI no Idenshi
My pick for this cour for the people into AI philosophy! Good luck, Hikaru...

Final Impressions

• The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today: I might have a tear in my eye. GoHands finally created an anime that I can classify as decent. Above decent, even! I think this relatively restrained tale of an office lady hanging out with her oversized, hypercompetent cat stopped the studio from indulging in their excesses. It's a nice, feel-good story that will probably resonate with pet owners out there. Even if arguably the human is the pet haha.
• AI no Idenshi: It didn't exactly tread new ground, but I still have a soft spot for navel-gazing science fiction. Some questions are worth repeating, such as the morals behind AI art and deepfakes, which are especially relevant in the current and foreseeable tech landscape. I also liked the concept of humanity basically stumbling into making sapient AI, and that they don't have a real idea about how that happened. The anime sadly ends right when Sudo finds his best lead towards finding the copy of his mom, but at least there's apparently a sequel manga I can read for that.

And I'm eagerly awaiting the last two episodes of Reign of the Seven Spellblades.

Edited by fillerdude on Sep 29th 2023 at 10:59:33 AM

It's funny that two remaining shows I watch (Seven Spellblades, and Zom 100) have not ended yet. At least the former will air regularly (just for extra 2 weeks).

Do we even know when the next episode of Zom 100 is going to air?

Not yet. They plan to air all 3 remaining eps in a row but no date yet.