 The winter 2023 season has finally ended. One for the record books, 30 plus shows. I think this is the most anime I've seen in a single season. I don't know how I'm gonna do this video. It's going to be gigantic. Welcome back to the manga geekdom. Yes, I talk about all the anime that I'm watching, specifically all the seasonal shows. I like doing that. That's how I consume most of the anime that I watch, all the new stuff and whatnot. And every season, I try and top my viewing. And for this one, I went all out and watched as much as humanly possible with my busy schedule outside of YouTube. It wasn't always pretty. I struggled halfway through, but I made it happen and watched, I think the final tally would be 36, almost 40 different shows. Holy moly. And before we get started, there are a couple of shows that we'll be missing from this. For example, things like the Nier Automata. The anime adaptation, I have never played the video game. I recently got the Switch version and I kind of wanted to experience that first and then come back and watch the anime version. So eventually, maybe I'll talk about it, who knows, but that's why it's not here. And other shows that had like season twos and I had not seen the first seasons. So obviously they're not gonna be reviewed here, but I think I covered the vast majority of this season, which had a lot of highs and a lot of surprising lows. I was really taken aback at how many shows I went in thinking I was going to love. And instead, it was just, all right. But without further ado, let's get this started. All righty, the first anime that we're gonna talk about is the second season for The Vampire Dies In No Time. First season aired back in 2021 and it was all right. I dug some of the humor, not all. I think it was just okay. I really liked the animation done by Madhouse, great character models, fantastic silly nonsense. And for this second season, honestly, it's a little bit more of the same. There's more plot elements thrown for the characters of Draluk and Ronaldo. Of course, John, the Armadillo and all the other crazy kooky cast. And trust me, this show has bizarre characters, but it's all done in a slapstick type of humor. And sometimes it works. There are like many stories within each episode, typically like three or four. And the problem was for me, I liked some of the stories, not the entirety of the episodes. But it was perfectly fine. If you enjoy the silly humor of the first one, I think you're gonna like a season two, probably even more. Ayakashi Triangle, the adaptation of Kentaro Yabuki's manga. I have heard many things about this series and I did not know what to expect. Some people hate it, other cultured individuals enjoy it. I don't know. So I went in with an open mind because I like to see most shows that air, even if they're bad. And I was surprised in some areas by upset and others. First off, this is a series about Ayakashi, which are related to yokai monsters. There's an exorcist ninja force to counter this threat. And in it, we follow our main protagonist, Matsuri Kazamaki. He is friends with Zuzu. Hygienksensuu, when an Ayakashi cat named Shirogane shows up and our main protagonist ends up being transformed into a lady. And it's one of those genderbender romances with a lot of pervy humor and heavy on the fan service. Honestly, it's just an okay story. I know it has its fans and it has a lot of people that dislike it for the things I mentioned. I didn't really care about any of that stuff. I just wanted to see what all the fuzz was about. And I ended up actually liking the character Shirogane. He's a funny little cat dude. And the relationship with the two main characters is frustrating. And what's more frustrating is the fact that we only saw five, six episodes? It got hit hard by COVID and it was delayed, I think, a full month. Then it came back for an extra episode and now it got delayed again for July when they're gonna restart broadcast all six episodes. So we're probably gonna see this series late summer to early fall. That's insane. I was surprised when I heard malevolent spirits, Mononogatari was going to get an anime adaptation. We follow the character of Yoma who is suffering after the death of his siblings at the hands of a deadly Tsukumogami. Now you're probably wondering, what the heck is that? Well, it's a yokai, one of the key classic yokai of Japanese folklore. They are originally supposed to be tools or household items that after a really long time have gained a kami or spirit and are now living and breathing in this world and interacting with people. However, in the story for this show they are a little bit different. Some are filled with rage, others are more peaceful and they take human forms instead. They each have different abilities and are trying to survive in this world without getting transformed back into their original forms or sent back to the spirit realm or whatever. So the character of Yoma is dealing with that rage of having lost his siblings. So his clan sends him to live with Nagatsuki Botan. She has a powerful secret, but she also lives with a whole squad of Tsukumogami that live with her and take care of her. So I thought it was going to be this really nice story of confronting your rage and past and moving forward and accepting things and all that stuff. But it turned out to be more of an action series disguised with the whole gimmick of the Tsukumogami. Animations all right, I like the character models, but nothing really stood out to me. I guess I progressively got a little bit out of it as the episodes went on and I ended up just thinking it was all right. I didn't love it as much as I thought I was going to. We finally have the return of Vinland Saga in anime form and I am so happy about that. I loved the first season and I've been enjoying reading the manga and this second one is just fantastic. I was a little upset and I kind of knew the reception would be a little odd online simply because people want fast-paced action with little to no plot development these days and season two is adapting the farmland arc which is notorious and famous for its slow pace. It's more methodical and more interesting in that it further develops the character of Thorfinn while also introducing more characters and there's a maturity and an evolution that happens to the cast. And I was just so excited to see that. Mapa just knocked it out of the park. This looks great. They took this series from Wood Studios and they've been doing a stellar job in my opinion. Special shout out to that one episode in the middle of the arc. The story of Thorfinn having that vision slash dream where he ventures into the underworld essentially and beats some familiar faces. That is easily one of the highlights of the season so far. Expertly done, a beautiful story. I cannot recommend this enough. Ningen Fushin, adventurers who don't believe in humanity will save the world. This was actually the first show I watched this year because the new season started on a Tuesday. I was really excited for the concept of this series but in the end I am sad to report that this was one of my least liked shows of the season. We follow four adventurers that have had terrible luck and fate just throws them together and they decide, hey, we've got nothing left to lose so let's form a party together where we're all equal and we treat each other with respect and all that stuff and we venture forward and do our thing. Eventually some things happen and they are tasked with saving the population of certain bad guys and all that stuff. It's not as crazy as it sounds with the whole save the world aspect. It's a lot more self-contained at least in these first 12 episodes. What I liked was seeing the four main characters and how different their stories were but they all had a common element of pain, grief and suffering and how they all ended up relying on each other and grew from there. That was really cool. The rest of the anime, however, I was really underwhelmed by, especially with the bad artwork. The animation was clunky, just bad overall and some of the character designs were not really appealing whatsoever and there were some moments where I was just flat out bored and did not want to watch. I kept going to see how the story would progress and it hits the right story beats, I guess, but it's just the overall presentation that I thought was pretty lacking, unfortunately. Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill, this was actually one of my favorite shows so far this year. I absolutely loved it. It's a comedy slash cooking show but it's also an isekai. In it, we follow our main protagonist, Siyoshi Mukura, as he is summoned into another world. He was a salaryman in ours and now in this new parallel world, he is summoned by mistake. They intended to get a more of a hero type character but they got him instead. Realizing that hero life is not for him, Siyoshi decides to venture out on his own and he discovers that he has this ability called the online supermarket, if you will, an online grocery app where he is able to buy stuff from our world, ingredients, food items and all that stuff and ship it over there through magic, I presume and takes this opportunity to convince everyone that he is pretty much a useless protagonist so everybody just discards him and he takes that opportunity to leave the kingdom and explore and become something of himself outside of what was expected of him. During his travels, he meets a legendary beast known as Fenrir who demands Siyoshi feed him after tasting a meal that he made and that sort of in a nutshell is a majority of the plot and there are more characters introduced and a lot more fun concepts to be had. I think Mapa did an exceptional job with this. I like that they even had consultants for the food segments and everything looked nice and beautiful and delicious when the main character was preparing all the meals. This is the type of show where I can just sit back, unwind, relax and actually genuinely laugh out loud. I highly recommend this. If there's one show out of all these that I want you to check out, it's this one. It's a lot of fun and I guarantee you're gonna have a cool time with it. The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague. This was a surprise. I actually really enjoyed this. I thought it was quite wholesome. It's a workplace romance with two very unique characters. We have Himo Dokun who is a descendant of the Yuki Onas Snow Woman Yokai. He's a young, nice kid that unfortunately when he gets emotionally overwhelmed, he causes blizzards and snowmen to appear and icicles and all that stuff. So it's played in a slapstick manner for laughs and obviously convenient to the plot. A lot of hijinks happen when there is awkward moments with him and you see the reaction from the different characters and himself as he's flustered and embarrassed over his powers. So one day he's nervous to get started on his first day at work at an office and he meets the character of Fuyutsuki-san. She is a calm, laid back woman with a beautiful personality to her and as the two spend time together, it's obvious they like each other. Obviously their personalities make them pretty unique characters which I thought was pretty cool and it's just a nice, wholesome series, easy to vibe with. I really like the artwork. I think it captured the essence of the manga pretty well and it was done by Zero G which I think are super underrated. Their character work is stellar in my opinion. Kubo won't let me be invisible. We follow the character of Junta Shiraiishi who has one goal and that's to experience his youth to the fullest. It just so happens that he is what they describe as socially invisible. People don't really pay attention to him. They don't even know that he's standing next to them. He's a shy, honest kid but that all changes when he meets the character of Saki Kubo. Kubo has always noticed him and is there to tease him. However, they form a sweet, wholesome friendship that could be something more down the line. It's one of those teasing girls type of shows similar to Uzaki-chan, Ms. Nagatouro, teasing Master Takagi-san, et cetera, et cetera. However, where this differs is that, yeah, Kubo is teasing our main protagonist here but there is a sincerity to it. There's a friendship that forms and it doesn't come off so mean-spirited like a lot of the other examples that I mentioned. I really enjoyed the art by Pine Jam Studios. I think they do a good job of bringing this to life. Unfortunately, this one also got hit hard with COVID and the whole production had to be postponed to, I think, May. So we're still waiting for that to finish airing. We only saw six episodes out of the 12 that are scheduled for season one. But I think you'll like it. It's fun and wholesome at times. Reminded me that all it takes is that one person to take notice of you and help you open up and become a better person as a result. The magical revolution of the reincarnated princess and the genius young lady. Long name aside, this is an isekai slash yuri magical romance series. And honestly, this was one of the highlights of the season. I really enjoyed it. It's a well thought out romance series. It has a lot of dramatic elements to it. We follow the character of Anisfia. I hope I said that right. She is the princess of this world's kingdom and there is an expectation for her to come into her own as queen of the kingdom. However, this is a world that relies on magic and she happens to be born without it. She does not use magic but has developed her own unique style which she calls magicology, a theory based on memories from her past life. On a particular day at the start of the series, she notices a brilliant noble woman called Euphelia as she is unjustly stripped of her title as the kingdom's next monarch. Anisfia then makes up this plan to kidnap her and make Euphelia her assistant in all things magic. Little do they know that fate has thrown them together and there's a romance brewing between the two. It's a really nice wholesome sweet show mixed with a lot of cool concepts. I love the idea that the whole isekai thing is it's more of an afterthought. The animation is solid. This was done by Diomedea Studios. I hope I pronounced that correctly. It doesn't dip in quality like with other series. The relationship that forms between the two main characters, that's the star highlight of these first 12 episodes. I assume we're gonna get more. Overall, it was a very pleasant series and I do like the main character and how she is a constant reminder as she somewhat said it herself in the series and I'm probably misquoting impossible things or something that you can make possible. And she has stood her ground and has been defiant of all the obstacles in her way and has pushed through. It's always refreshing and badass when you have a character like that. So this series is really good in that regard. The character work was stellar. Highly recommend checking it out. BoFuri, I don't want to get hurt so I'll max out my defense season two. It feels like forever since we had season one that aired back in early 2020. So it's been a minute and we finally have a season two. Unfortunately for me, it's similar to the vampire dies in no time season two where it's just more wholesome adventures with Maple as she's traversing new areas of the game with her friends. Maple gets new abilities and she's a super badass player. So it's just a lot of fun. If you enjoyed season one, you'll be right at home with season two. Tobochan is a girl. This romantic comedy took me by surprise. In my first impressions, I was really dismissive of it but watching more of it, I was hooked and this actually became one of my favorite shows of the season. Even though some of the plot elements are extremely predictable and you see them coming from a mile away, you can't help but smile and have fun with it. And that's because of the fun, great written characters throughout. Tomoha is a beast of a character with her insane strength, able to fight on par with men. She is best friends with June. However, he doesn't really see her as a girl hence the name of the series. So at first I thought, man, June is a horrible character and I was not going to like this series at all. However, throughout the course of 13 episodes, you see slow progressions but you do see them for the character and he recognizes his mistakes and actually does view Tomoha as a girl and forms a bond deeper than friendship. The animation by Le Duce, I hope I said that right, is great. There are really nice moments where I kept thinking, man, this is too good of an animation for what is essentially just a rob-gum but it goes there. From the opening animation to the fights to the crazy slapstick humor that happens to Tomoha's reactions to everything. Also, this is probably Rie Takahashi's best vocal performance of all time. She just crushed it and I love this series mostly because of her wonderful performance. So I highly recommended just for that it was such a treat and everybody else, they all acted the heck out of this series. Kaina of the Great Snowsie is an alternate earth where it is blanketed by an endless, ever-growing ocean of snow. What's left of humanity is living huddled together on the roots of enormous trees that go all the way up in the sky and spread across the planet's atmosphere. We follow the character of Liliha, the princess of a kingdom that is desperate to get more water and resources for its people and she is searching, along with soldiers and generals of this kingdom, a possible sage that lives atop of the canopy that might have solutions for this problem. However, when she goes up, she ends up meeting the character of Kaina, a young boy, and that sets off a chain of events that will change the fate of the world. This one is interesting. It's created by Tsutomo Nihei. Most of the characters are well-made and I guess I should address the elephant in the room and that is of course, the CG artwork. It's unexpected. I thought it was going to be 2D but nope, it's a 3D work here and it's not as fluid as I wanted it to be. It suffers a bit. It looks more like a JRPG, to be honest. That's not necessarily a bad thing seeing that the plot and characters do carry the show and you still have an enjoyable experience watching Kaina of the Great Snow Sea. The story has some predictable elements but what it exels at is the setting and the world that it's being presented here. Unfortunately, one of my grievances with this series is the character designs. Yeah, I get the art style is a little bit so shady but they gave everybody detailed shadowing on their noses and in some characters, it's not as distracting but if you look at Lilia, it reminds me of a pumpkin nose. I could not take that out of my head and it was a little bit off-putting to be honest but this was pretty interesting. I really enjoyed the concept, super unique in my opinion for a post-apocalypse series and there is a sequel movie coming out so I'm excited to see where the story's headed because it does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. It's a solid little series that deserves more attention in my honest opinion. Spy Classroom finally got adapted. This was a popular light novel that is still being released. I was somewhat excited for it. I mean, it's one of those cute girl doing cute things type of shows. In this case, we have a class of reject spies of troublemakers and now they're grouped together under the tutelage of this master spy and he is going to teach them to be the very best spies so they can do the impossible missions. This is a world where it's a bunch of different nations and they're all in conflict with each other and it's sort of like a perpetual cold war that's happening and information wars and spies and assassinations and all that stuff. The concept and the world around these characters is interesting, I liked it. However, I have to admit and I know I'm gonna upset someone so I do apologize in advance. I was pretty bored by most of what was happening in here. Some of the characters are nice, others I really did not care for. The art is serviceable to pretty good and the voice cast is excellent. That's one thing that the show excels. It has a ton of A-list say-us so I really enjoyed hearing the vocal performances. However, it was just a little bit too boring for me. Most of the episodes, you know, the girls are trying to outdo the master character here, Klaus, and it's more of the same and eventually they do get missions and it's sort of a rinse and repeat type scenario for me. But if you like espionage and you don't mind the cute girls doing cute things, trope, I think you're gonna be just fine with spy classroom. Once in a while, every few seasons you get stuff like this where you are questioning your sanity, you're questioning everything about yourself as a content creator, as an individual, as a human being. This time we finally got the fabled anime adaptation, oh boy, of my life as Inukai-san's dog. Essentially, if Kafka's metamorphosis was turned into a manga and an anime but it was extremely perverse and horny, that's sort of what you would get here. The main character suddenly awakes one day to find out he's been turned into a dog and now lives every day under the care of his crush, Inukai-san. She's a bit of a freak when it comes to dogs and is obsessed with Pochita, the name of the dog and the less I talk about this, the better. There's nothing here worthwhile to check out. Move on to something else, please. And speaking of odd things off the internet, Onimai, I'm now your sister. Based on the manga of the same name, this is an anime about an erotic game-loving dude that wakes up one morning as a woman. Turns out his mad scientist little sister, super genius Mihati, tried out one of her new experience on him and well, he's now a lady. Let me be completely transparent with all of you. I was actually pretty excited to check this out. Not for the reason you're thinking of, which we'll talk about in a minute, but the visual key, it's so bright and colorful and I love how pinkish it looks that it called out to me, I am a huge fan, I'm a sucker for really bright, colorful things. And when you have stylized character designs like this, you immediately grab my attention. This one is by StudioBind and it's top tier animation, even though it's cartoony and simple to look at at first, once you go into the series, you'll notice the complexity and you'll notice the character movements and the stuff that they're doing is really top tier work. So yeah, I'm a sucker for that and like I said, I watch everything, man and I'll talk to you guys about it. If it's good, if it's bad, it doesn't matter. It all makes for interesting content at the end that I can express myself here on this channel on YouTube. So let's address the other element. You cannot deny the fact that a certain demographic of the fandom is going to be excited for this. And that put me off from watching this because I'm like, I didn't want to associate myself with certain crowds, if you will. But in the name of science and research, I watched the series and I have to say, even though the plot is extremely crazy bonkers and super weird, there are moments in this series that are genuinely heartfelt and wholesome, which is shocking. Obviously, Mihadi is missing that sibling relationship from the recluse brother. And now that she has turned Mahito into a girl, there's a lot more bonding and there are things that she is now experiencing for the first time. And that was pretty fricking wholesome, I have to admit. The voice cast is great. Everybody is exceptionally cute. And the animation, like I just mentioned is top tier in my opinion. I read somewhere on a forum that this is a nice anime, a wholesome one with a questionable exterior. And I have to agree with that. Revenger, another original anime. This one is done by Ajado or Ajado Studios. This is a samurai epic. And boy, oh boy, did this have potential. It doesn't quite stick the landing 100%, but what we get in the end is a very dramatic, poetic samurai series. The story of Revengers follows two specific people. First is Usui Yuan, who is a master assassin and investigating a conspiracy with the opioid trade in Japan. And we also follow the character of Raizo. He is a samurai. And unfortunately, he thinks his father-in-law is responsible for some of this trade that's going on and has to take him out. He soon finds out that's not the case and he's been set up. And the real culprits are targeting Raizo and try to assassinate him. Raizo's beloved is heartbroken over this and sadly takes her own life. As a result, a grief-struck Raizo is wandering aimlessly and is living under a bridge until a fateful day when he meets Usui. Turns out the master assassin has a team called the Revengers that exact revenge on behalf of the deceased or the ones that solicited help and bit gold coins as a sort of payment. The idea and the plot is there for Revenger. It's a solid, slow-burning conspiracy slash samurai tale. The action is intense. The kills on this are so creative and macabre at times. There are a lot of sadistic characters that are shown throughout and it's honestly really badass. However, certain aspects and the pacing and the structure of the story are not necessarily the best. Sometimes they might feel a little bit rushed or too convoluted for its own good. Aside from the main character of Raizo, a lot of the characters in this series have underdeveloped backstories and they're not as fleshed out as they could be. It's not as interesting. I never found myself wanting to know everything about these characters or caring for what was going to happen to them. The art is beautiful. I love it. The animation's solid all throughout. There are moments where, of course, some far-fetched thing happens with ultimate abilities and all that stuff, but you can ignore all of that, especially with one of the series' strongest points and that is its ending. It is a work of art. Really well done, and it comes full circle to everything that you watched throughout the 12 episodes, and it's a solid, unexpected way to end the show. Ultimately, this is a story that has a solid foundation and story element, but the execution and character work isn't necessarily the strongest element of it. Urusei Yatsura, the 2022 remake or reboot, it ended in 2023, the first full season, 23 episodes in total, and I am so excited that it did so well that it's getting another season next year. I am so excited. This was a lot of fun. It captures the essence and spirit of the original manga, definitely captures the essence of Rumi Gotakahashi's art style. You could see it really well on the character designs for this reboot, and it's just fun, man. It really does a good job of reintroducing these characters, presenting all these stories that we read back in the, gosh, the 80s for Urusei Yatsura, and presenting it to a brand new crowd, and I think it didn't lose its charm. Obviously, with the new animation by David Production, it can reach more audiences. This thing looks beautiful, 100% of the time. Maybe some of the harem-type elements aren't going to be to everyone's standards in this day and age, but Ataru is not necessarily the best protagonist, and that's sort of the point. He's heavily flawed, but you can't help but like the relationship that forms between him and Lum. And Lum is fantastic in the series as she's always been. Super crazy and wacky. I love the episodes that deal with her childhood in space with the other girls and all that stuff. Those were probably some of my favorite episodes and all the adventures that she went on. Pokemon aim to be a Pokemon master. This is the epilogue farewell miniseries to Ash's adventures on the main Pokemon anime. This was extremely nostalgic. It made me tear up. It was a nice wholesome send-off to one of the goats of the anime world, if you will. I mean, who didn't grow up watching the Pokemon anime series? This was probably my second ever anime that I ever watched. I remember back in the late 90s when we first got that initial three, the initial big three, if you will, of the anime world, which was, of course, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon and Sailor Moon. I remember when they were being broadcast on WB and I would watch at least one of those three series during the morning before heading off to school. The rest, I think, would air in the afternoon and my folks would record it on VHS so that when I got back from school at three or 4 p.m., I would have a new episode of Pokemon to watch and I would pop in the VHS and enjoy that. So it's definitely hitting me in the feels and the nostalgia. I actually had to stop recording this for a minute because I got a little bit emotional. This was a really nice send-off to a character that has been in people's lives for 26 years. I saw the inception of this series and now I'm seeing the character of Ash and Pikachu say goodbye to everybody on the screen. A lot of people were upset, however, that it wasn't as big as it could have been or whatever, but I think most fans seem to have forgotten that this is an epilogue to the main series. We had the finale, if you will, with Ash finally winning one of the championships and this is sort of a extra epilogue fawn farewell before it's all over and I think it succeeded at doing that. It brought back all of his Pokemon and we saw the return of other beloved characters and it was just a really nice, simple series. It didn't need to do anything. I mean, for Christ's sake, he had 26 years of Ash adventures. I think he's proven himself and didn't need a full 12-episode story arc or whatever. It was okay to just have a chill, quiet little time and have some fun with smaller-scaled adventures. Before going off into the next chapter, obviously the next series with new protagonist in the Paldaea region. So yeah, I am a huge lifelong Pokemon fan. This is my favorite gaming franchise. So I was super ecstatic about this, loved it, and I do recommend it if you're a fan of Pokemon and want to catch up or maybe say goodbye to these wonderful characters. This is a nice way to do that as you get ready for the new series in the Pokemon franchise. Farming life in another world. In this isekai, we follow the character of Hidaku Machio. He is dying in our world and a god-like figure has blessed him and gives him a chance to live again in another world. He arrives on this new parallel world earth with one wish and that is to be healthy so he can live a peaceful life and he lands on this forest with only a god-like tool in his hands, like a super-powered farming tool. So he decides to spend his days farming and planting crops and making a house and interacting with the creatures in that forest and all that stuff. Eventually, characters find out about him and they find out that he's not only a really sweet, wholesome guy, he's also pretty overpowered with that farming tool of his and that sort of just spins into creating a village, but the main character becoming the mayor of the village and of course the other characters wanting to be a part of it. This was another fantastic, wholesome isekai series. The only fan-servicing bit, I would say, is the fact that the rest of the villagers, like 97% are female and they all have pretty voluptuous character designs. Let's just say that. Like the story doesn't go into weird sexual subplots or anything, it's literally them having a fun time farming and creating an inclusive, wholesome town filled with all types of creatures and farming and foods and all that stuff. So if you want a relaxing, cool little series with cozy vibes, great artwork, fun characters, I do recommend farming life in another world. It's like watching an animal crossing anime, but for adults, if that makes sense. Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is an anime that I didn't think I was going to love as much as I did and it follows the character of Anne Halford. She recently had a tragedy in her life as her mother passed away and she was a sugar baker. If I'm using the proper term here, these bakers use this silver sugar confection to create these works of art and it's in a world where fairies are real and they're bought, unfortunately, and sold as slaves to the highest bidders. We also meet the character of Shao, who is this warrior fairy that has lived for a very long time and due to plot hijinks, the two characters end up being together in this series and traveling and is now his new master and he is, of course, escorting her through dangerous areas in the kingdom and wants to cook to honor her late mother as a send-off for her to move on to the next life. In a nutshell, that's the basis of it, but it keeps going in very splendid ways. I really enjoyed Anne Halford as a character. She never gave up. She's a feisty competitor and wants to honor her mother and wants to be the top sugar master, if you will. Shao, he starts out a little bit douchey and kind of a prick, but you come to like him as well and the relationship that forms between the two is very wholesome and sweet. I really enjoyed that. There are a lot of adversities, obviously, in this world, similar to our own, there's a lot of discrimination. A lot of people aren't fans of Anne. That she is a woman trying to compete in this sugar confection business, if you will, for the kingdom. So they will try to sabotage her work so she has to deal with that. There's also the complex relationship between the fairies and the humans and how some of them don't get along, but yet you have this character, Anne, that she was kind of forced to have Shao under her wing, if you will, and doesn't really want that. She wants a friendship to form between the two and not a master and slave relationship. The art is by JC Staff and I think this is one of their best works, honestly. I looked for and read a couple of chapters of the original manga adaptation and I have to admit it wasn't exactly to my liking and I don't know if it's blasphemy or not, but I kind of prefer the art in the anime a little bit more. So I think it's a solid series for you to check out if you're interested. Buddy, Daddy's from Progressive Animation Works, one of my favorite animation studios. This is an original piece, so very quickly the story of Buddy, Daddy's takes place in a world where assassins, Kazuki and Rei, are tasked with taking out a particular bad guy. It just so happens that he is the father of a young girl named Meaty who is looking for her and on a Christmas day, everything sort of just collides together and unfortunately the two buddies end up taking this guy out because that was their assignment. Meaty doesn't know any better and assumes that Kazuki and Rei are her parents. So what follows is a really hard warming comedy slash action series about this dysfunctional family that is now being formed. And I just loved every single minute of this. I think this is one of Progressive Animation's best works. It's solid all throughout. It has realistic or somewhat realistic characters and a somewhat realistic plot. It doesn't go too over the top. I mean, yeah, there's some high-flying moves here and there when it comes to the fighting and shooting, but that's such a minimum factor in what makes this a stellar show. I found all the main characters to be extremely likeable, Kazuki, Rei, Meaty, and even the secondary characters. The animation is beautiful all throughout and it really does have a sense of realism of parents raising kids. And in this case, the dynamic, even though it's dysfunctional, is pretty wholesome and beautiful to see these two characters now have a new outlook on life and maybe they don't wanna do what they've been doing in the past and wanna change. Meaty, the young kid, is obviously the one that is forcing that to happen. And speaking of that girl, the actress, Hina Kino, who voiced Meaty, did a phenomenal job. It was, I think, one of the most realistic depictions of a toddler in animation. From her dialogue to her expressions, the way she's drawn and her body movements and all that, it easily could be something that would happen in real life. I mean, if you take out the whole assassin thing or whatever, you could see this as a live-action film and it works wonderfully. I really recommend this. It's awesome and I fear that this is going to, even though it got pretty popular, I would say, I fear that it's going to go under a lot of people's radar in favor of that other spy manga slash anime, but really do give this a shot. Even though we know where some of the elements are gonna go, it's so much fun going through that story and the relationship between the two fathers and this young girl is the heart and soul of Buddy Daddies. And I recommended purely on that. Giant Beast of Ours is another original anime. This one is done by Asahi Productions. This is a story that involves heroes and giant monsters as well as weird, wacky bad guys and scientific experiments. The world of this series is plagued with giant monsters. They have a history with humanity. They're upset with humans and are trying to eradicate them. Humans are obviously fighting back and now in present time for this series, we follow two specific characters. We have Jito who is a man that retired from being a warrior slash soldier, if you will, and Kumi, this young girl who has a mysterious past that is tied with the kingdom. As she has recently escaped and is on the run, she doesn't really know about the world and when she collides with Jito and other characters, they form a party together and we spend a majority of the time with these heroes and unfortunately ignore the rest of the world. This is the type of show that was oozing personality and you wanted to have this epic world-building on a grand scale of politics and monsters and ancient artifacts, but it falls back into the dynamic of the main characters escaping. They're on the run, so we spend most of the time with them. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the main plot comes back up, it crashes with the main party and suddenly everything's a little bit rushed and the resolution, not necessarily to my liking. Welcome to Demon School Irumakun Season 3. It finally ended. I talked about it on the previous seasonal review and I was satisfied with the later half of this season. I thought it was really good. The only thing I didn't like about Season 3 is the fact that the Harvest Festival Arc runs for so long and I get it, you want to highlight the adventures of the individual classmates, but it sort of stretches itself out a little bit too thin, in my opinion and I kind of wanted them to reel it back in to following Irumakun most of the time. But I get it, it's just a minor nitpick on my end. It was nice to have different stories for the other characters and their trial in the middle of the festival arc. That was a lot of fun. The ending, however, sets up a really nice fourth season so I'm looking forward to that. Some big reveals finally happen towards the end that I'm excited to check out. But overall, just another solid season. Every season I think has been better than the previous one so I'm eagerly anticipating more from Welcome to Demon School Irumakun. The Fire Hunter is another anime original. This one is done by SignalMD and I do think this is easily one of the most underrated shows so far in the year. I really enjoyed it. It brought me back to an era that I thought was gone the early 2000s when we had shows like Witch Hunter Robin, Ergo Proxy, that type of dark, gritty, mature type storytelling. I think Fire Hunter excels at setting up a fantastic world and this one society is very different. It's in the distant future and after a calamity occurred, human physiology has changed and people will instantly combust in the presence of fire. As a result, civilization has collapsed until they discover an alternative fuel source derived from the blood of demonic fire fiends. There are now fire hunters whose sole purpose is hunting down these fiends and harvesting their blood, fueling a new industrial revolution. And you also have the main character, Toko, a young girl who lives in a remote village. She's saved from a fire fiend by a fire hunter. Unfortunately, he dies in the process and she feels obligated to deliver his weaponry and his companion dog to his family, which is out in the city. She meets a lot of characters. They all come from different walks of life and as you experience things from Toko's perspective, your worldview opens up on this place. It does get just a tiny bit confusing with so many names and terminologies thrown at you for the first time, but I think it's a worthwhile watch, man. I really enjoyed this. I love how rugged the art style is. They had some issues with it, but they make the most of it by being creative and doing panel displays for scene transitions. Sometimes they'll show different frames to highlight certain things that are gonna happen. Like it's a comic book, for example. Really creative use of presenting your story. This is based off of a light novel, if memory serves me right. This already got announced for a second season and I'm eagerly anticipating that to see where the story is headed. If you want something original, a little bit grimy, dark, and mysterious, but also fun and action packed at times, go check out The Fire Hunter. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Just keep an open mind about the animation. Finally, we have the return of Trigon. A lot of people were excited when it got announced. A lot of people were skeptical when we learned it was Orange Studio that was handling the adaptation. There's gonna be CG people don't like that stuff, but Orange has proven themselves, I think, by creating a more dynamic anime-looking CG. I mean, you can do CG characters and they'll behave accordingly, but they sometimes miss that element from the 2D side of things that makes the medium of anime so endearing for a lot of people. But with Orange Studios, they're known for things like Beastars, which I think is highly expressive, really fluid in its animation, and that served great training for them for Trigon's Stampede. Certain scenes in this new anime look great, in my opinion. A lot of people are iffy about it. You'll find certain areas of the fandom split right in the middle. Some hate it, others love it, others just, they're just okay with it. I happen to like a good majority of this show, and it's sort of a reimagining, if you will. It takes stuff from the manga. It takes stuff that we've seen before from the anime. It mixes it up and it creates its own timeline sequence of events and narratives. Do not consider this a prequel, sequel, or anything else. This is a separate adaptation of Trigon and Trigon Maximum. Some people were upset about the cast of characters. Some are missing, others are included way early. Again, it's its own thing, and I dug it. I think it's a really neat reinterpretation of the character and I like the CG art style. I like the color palette that they used. It's very bright and colorful and really highlights the harshness of that desert planet. And of course, the action scenes were pretty phenomenal in my opinion. Don't toy with me, Miss Nagatodo's second attack or the second season, finally aired. The first one was a lot of fun. I was pleasantly surprised. It's more of the teasing genre, if that's even a thing. You have the girl teasing the guy and it's a rom-com with ecchi jokes and pervy humor and all that. This second season has more of that. Thankfully, there are certain episodes where the progression of this main couple of Nagatodo and Naoto moves forward a little bit, even if it's just a tiny bit. And that's usually something I don't like about these type of shows where, yeah, you get a lot of humor and funny episodes and sequences or whatever, but the story beats are so slow and it's usually until the end of the season where something significant happens that pushes the plot forward. I think in this second season, we get a couple moments like that sprinkled throughout and obviously towards the end, we get developments for both characters, which I dug. There's an introduction of new characters as well, which I found really funny and enjoyed that. And overall, it's more of the same. If you enjoyed season one, I think you're gonna like season two even more. Blue Lock also finished airing all 24 episodes. This is such a melodramatic series. The fact that they are making this Battle Royale scenario with no deaths, by the way, which bummed me out. I thought this was gonna be Squid Games, but with soccer and they're trying to get the best players to make Japan a powerhouse in the soccer world. It's crazy, it's wild, but I enjoyed how cringy and dramatic at times this series is. How they're all just talking about chemical reactions and egos and they are doing impossible feats and talking full conversations in a split second. Well, they're trying to get the ball from one point to the end. I just thought it was insane, but in the best of ways. I enjoy Isagi's journey throughout this competition. I think we're, what, two stages in or something and we get that cool reveal at the end that they're going to take on a certain team and all that to prove to the investors that the idea of Blue Lock is solid, it's all insanity. But if you like sports, if you like soccer and if you like that whole drama of sports anime I think you'll be right at home with Blue Lock. The Angel Next Door spoils me rotten. This is based off a light novel and manga of the same name and it tells the story of two young high schoolers. One is Mahirushina and the other is Amane Fujimia. Amane lives alone in an apartment and the most beautiful girl in school lives next door. They've never really spoken until the day that he sees her in distress on a rainy day and helps her out. To return the favor, she offers help around the house and slowly but surely a relationship starts to blossom. This is a rom-com slash cute girls doing cute things and for the most part, I thought it was pretty cute. I like that compared to something like the Nagatouro series at least with this one, there is progress throughout each episode and it all leads to an emotionally packed finale. The relationship is cute. The interactions between the two characters is nice. It was cool to see both coming out of their respective shells and coming together. Although I gotta say, it's weird to have two kids living in apartment buildings alone and now she's coming over to his apartment. Nobody's raising any flags about this. I thought that was just odd. I do think the art was the series weakest point to the point where I thought it brought the whole thing down. I was not a fan. I liked the character designs but once you start watching the show, it's really low budget and it shouldn't be because this isn't a complicated thing to adapt. It's not like Blue Lock that I just talked about where you're doing soccer moves left and right. This is just characters sitting in a table, eating and talking or in a sofa or at school. It's very limited in scope so I don't know why the cheap animation was plaguing the whole adaptation. Saving 80,000 gold in another world for my retirement. This is also an Isekai manga. This was adapted by Felix Film and I really enjoy the premise of this but it's really bogged down by the average animation. I was really disappointed by that. We follow Mitsuha. She's a smart 18 year old girl. My God, she has the worst luck imaginable. I feel so bad for her. Her parents died as well as her brother. Now she's all alone grieving and doesn't know what to do when she fails her university entrance exams due to what's happened and also has people coming for her insurance money. However, one day she discovers that she has the ability and they do explain it later a little bit on the whole nature of it but she gains the ability of world jumping which is essentially traveling to another world and then coming back to our world and she goes into this medieval looking place with kingdoms and castles and all that stuff and she has sort of an epiphany that she wants to live there but is going to do trading, buying and selling and stuff from our world over there and vice versa and raise enough money, 80,000 gold to successfully retire in that other world and live comfortably for the rest of her life. That's really fun and the animation did not match my excitement for it. I love the art style for Mitsuha and her character design. It's simple yet cute and effective. And the fact that the beckoning cat is all over the motifs of this series is awesome. I'm a huge fan of beckoning cats and I think where the series excels is when she's able to finally start selling things to the royals and the people of the kingdom and they're all marveled by our foods technology and small trinkets. That part I think was really fun and I wish we could have gotten more of that. Obviously the plot goes in different areas but it's still fun. Chilling in my 30s after getting fired from the demon king's army. I wasn't going to check this out initially. However, when I skipped the near anime I picked something else to fill the void and that was farming life in another world and this one, chilling in my 30s. I thought it was pretty fun. You have Darryl, he is a member of the demon realm but he doesn't know, he finds out early on that he's a human and he's lost his job at the demon king's army for his lack of magic. On his exile he finds a human village and lives there and befriends the people there and a lot of normal mundane things happen to him but it's also relaxing to see. Eventually trouble comes brewing from the demon realm. He has to protect the town and all that stuff and it was just a nice wholesome little series. It's nothing too grandiose but it's just chill enough where you can just watch it on a Saturday night and just relax and have fun with it. The animation's nothing to write home about and it has a nice cast of characters and a pretty cozy wholesome story. Tokyo Revenger season two finally happened. I loved season one and became a huge fan of the franchise. I started getting the manga as a result and now here we are with season two adapting the Christmas arc where Takamichi is back and he's trying to prevent all the crazy stuff in the future and he's trying to save the life of Hagai Shiba and in the process Yuzuhara as well trying to stop the Black Dragons and their leader the formidable Taiju Shiba. Holy crap was that battle exciting on Christmas Eve. So if you like season one of Tokyo Revengers it's honestly more of the same. There's time travel hijinks and the whole thing with Takamichi trying to right his wrongs to reshape the future if you will or the timeline. The art is just as good as season one so if you're not a fan you're probably not gonna like season two but I still recommend it it's awesome and at 13 episodes it's nice and concise. I'm excited to see where the story is headed after this season. Digimon Ghost Game I think I only talked about this once. It's kind of sad to me that it ended. This started back in October of 2021 and so much crap has happened in my life since then that when long running shows end like this I get a little nostalgic and sad. It's been with you for a long time you know what I mean? Like that happened previously with Dragon Quest Adventures of Dali. I still have to make a video about that because that one really meant a whole lot to me and with this I sort of felt the same in a way and to see it end just like that with 67 episodes is pretty wild but we finally got the conclusion. Unfortunately Ghost Game I like the characters a whole lot and there are certain episodes that are genuinely well done and creepy. This Digimon series leans more into horror and folklore, urban legends, even yokai. Other episodes are just okay. Very formulaic and monster of the week. You have a long running story that doesn't really play out until the very end. A good chunk of these 67 episodes are just random scary spooky stories and that's it. The ending is a little bit rushed but you get what happened. It just, it happened too fast. It's a satisfying conclusion and there could be more in the future I hope there is but if it's not, I'm okay with it. It was a really unique take on this franchise. To your eternity, season two adapting the best arc of the manga. I was really excited but skeptical. They changed studios. At first it was Brain Space, now is Drive Studios and they tried imitating the art style for season one. They mostly got it but it's, I don't know, it felt very soulless at times and certain areas were a slog to get through which is a shame because I really, really enjoy the manga. It's one of my favorite ongoing titles right now. I thought it was just a subpar animation or subpar adaptation, I should say. The end result is great because the story, the original story is fantastic so I can't fault it for that. It's just on a visual level. I was not clicking with this. I'm looking forward to season three. It's gonna adapt the modern arc and already got announced. So yeah, more to your eternity. Handyman's Saito in another world easily. Another of the best shows of 2023 so far. I loved it. It was so freaking good. I know the manga is still coming out and I hope at some point we get more from this world because it was such a delight. I had no idea going in that I was gonna love it so much. The story is essentially a handyman from our world gets isekai'd into another fantasy world and he's part of a group that consists of Rilesa, a really badass warrior, LaFanpan, a really sassy fairy and the kooky old man Morlock wizard. He's awesome and slightly perverted and that's part of the humor and charm of the series. And once that starts, what we get is like vignettes or short stories within each episodes of many things that happened to them. And when I made my first impressions take on it, I remember saying, oh, I think that's probably one of the things I don't like about the show where I don't think it's going to provide a long narrative for me to care about things because it's all like short bursts of comedic scenarios and all that stuff. I'm happy to report that I was dead wrong because there are some emotional scenes that happen in this, some story arcs that happen across three or four episodes that are genuinely heartbreaking, really well done. The emotional pay-off is there. The relationship that forms between this party is so nice. I enjoyed that so much. The world is explored in a really fun way by having short stories with other side characters, but they're all integral to the plot and eventually all the stories sort of intertwine and they give us a really nice resolution. A lot of heavy subject matter is explored throughout as well. I can't recommend this enough. This is a must watch for me to you watching this video. Go check out Handyman Saito in another world. Inspector season two. A lot of haters out there were complaining, oh, why does this get a second season? Apparently it did really well and I'm super excited because this is one of my favorites. I love the manga. This is essentially a detective crime show but with supernatural aspects. Kotoko Iwanaga, she is sort of the princess deity for the yokai and is taking care of them and solving all these crimes. And in this second season, what I loved is that they adapted a bunch of arcs from the manga. Whereas the first one mostly focused on one singular story, the big one with Nanase, which was fine, but I think for the style and the quick-witted nature of it and the heavy dialogue worked against it in my opinion. Whereas with this second season, it really shines and gives you the ideal flavor for what the series is and can be. If I had to recommend this series to someone, I would recommend season two before season one. You get the introduction to all the different yokai and all these wild cases that appear, typically involving murder. The fact that we got the Bakoneko and the Yuki-Ona and stuff like that was really cool to see, giving you different flavors for the story. Ipon, again, this is based off the manga of the same name. It's a sports judo anime. It also has elements of slice of life and comedy elements. It follows the story of Michi Sonoda. She has decided to quit the judo sports team at her school because of her last tournament, which she suffered an embarrassing defeat. And with entrance exams and part of growing up and all that stuff, she decides that she's a little bit burned out by it and wants to move on and do other things in life. But it's not until her friends get reinvigorated in the sport that she finds new passions again for the sport of judo and wants to re-establish the club with more members and you get that whole arc of building it and training again and participating in new tournaments with different schools and all that stuff. It's a really simple story, but highly effective. I really enjoy the art on this. The character designs are pretty unique and well crafted and designed. It's a very realistic take on high school girls. If I am being honest. And the fact that it touches on things like burnouts, I could relate to that because many a times I've thought about just quitting everything online and not doing anything, but I keep at it because it's something that I'm very passionate about. It's my main hobby. I like creating content. So in that regard, even though we're totally different, we're not doing any sports. I felt a little connection with Ipon again. It's a nice, fast paced sports series. It's not heavy on the melodrama whatsoever. Great characters throughout. Highly recommended if you're in for something different when it comes to sports in anime and manga. Phew, there we go. Ladies and gentlemen, the winter 2023 seasonal review. It's in the can. Now we're moving on to spring and a whole bunch of other shows. I don't know if I'm gonna top myself and watch even more anime, but I'm gonna try my hardest and bring you my thoughts on this. And if you're missing the first impressions, those typically don't do as well on the channel, so I decided to incorporate that to my monthly discussion live streams that I do. I call them the monthly hangout and you can also find me on Twitter, just type Geo or a week in Geekdom. You can find me there and I usually share my thoughts on all the anime that I'm watching. So that's it. Thank you everybody for tuning in to this video. It really does mean a lot. It's a long one and I don't know if the algorithm will be pleased because of that, but I tried my hardest to keep it concise as to what I thought on these shows. If you want me to maybe review a specific series, let me know in the comment section down below. And if you watched any of these shows and liked them, let me know as well. That's it. Thank you everybody. God bless, stay safe out there. I will catch all of you on our next video.