* Not objective<\/em><\/p>\n ** Not comprehensive<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s been a good number of years since I\u2019ve watched enough yearly anime to make an annual retrospective post make sense, but it finally happened. Not only did I watch a good amount of seasonal anime, but I also have checked out a fair few older shows for the first time, leading to a very healthy anime diet (at least as healthy as metaphorically eating anime can be). That said, I didn\u2019t feel I watched enough to make a proper top anime of 2023 list, so instead you\u2019ll just get some categorical short reflections on various moments and shows from the year. I hope you find that sufficient.<\/p>\n So, why? Why was this the year I came back to watching seasonal anime after a solid two years away? The answer is simple, charming, and straightforward: Spy x Family<\/em>. I watched the first part of the first season of the show as it aired in Spring 2022 and it turned out the unvarnished cheer, the platonic-ideal-of-anime blend of action\/intrigue stuff with slice-of-life stuff, and the solid production<\/a> was what I needed to remind me of what I liked about watching anime. Spy x Family<\/em> is just the right kind of nice to make you want to spend 20 minutes with it each week, and in the midst of a year that was pretty whatever for me from the start, apparently that was exactly what I needed.<\/p>\n Despite my time away, I don\u2019t think I ever stopped liking anime or wanting to watch it. It just didn\u2019t have a place in my life for a few years; it needed a hook that make me decide to make it more of a priority and find a place it could fit in amidst the other hobbies and activities. Whether it was the humor brought my Anya\u2019s blunt, childish approach to the world, the marshmallow fuzziness of seeing Loid gradually grow to cherish his fake family, or Yor\u2019s gentle efforts to be a good member of the Forger clan, Spy x Family<\/em> had the reasons\u2014both in terms of the show itself and anime as a whole.<\/p>\n So, thanks, SpyFam<\/em>. You were never going to be my favorite show of this year or any, but you made a difference in your own way.<\/p>\n I\u2019m often know as a blue person due to my consistent avatar colorings over the years, but if you look at the background of this blog you\u2019ll notice another color is much more dominant. As good as blue-haired childhood friends are and as often as the blondes seem to catch my eye, there is something about a pink-haired anime girl that stirs the soul in a special way. And we had our fair share of pinks this year (and Sasaki Saku, who is eternal<\/a>): most notably Shikimori of Shikimori\u2019s Not Just a Cutie!<\/em><\/p>\n I actually had an idea for a post about how the way Shikimori is framed in her show differs noticeably from the way cute anime girls often are framed\u2014with her presentation for Izumi being prioritized over making her eye candy for the viewer\u2014but in the end it was too ambitious and would have required too much time going back to gather screencaps than I had motivation for. So instead you get this little teaser of Shikimori\u2019s unique kind of bishoujo work.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, we had Kiara from Engage Kiss<\/em> (who got Guilty Crown<\/em>\u2018d), the pink gyaru from Fuufu Iijo<\/em> (whose cuteness was undercut by the show\u2019s insistent sexualization of her at all times), Bocchi from Bocchi<\/em> (who hardly even registers as a pink to me for some reason), and Charlotte from Parallel World Pharmacy<\/em> (the goodest child of the year). No, Bisque Doll<\/em>\u2018s Marin doesn\u2019t count as pink as badly as they wanted to ape Chitoge\u2019s gradient hair. Jean from Vanitas<\/em> is also pink-coded, but she gets her own section. All in all, not a bad year for pink representation in anime in terms of quantity, although there could always be more.<\/p>\n A few years back<\/a>, there was this crazy moment where a certain kind of technically brilliant, aesthetically distinctive episodes happened. This year, we saw a similar kind of effect, except across four entire shows (three of which aired concurrently): Healer Girl<\/em>, Bocchi the Rock!<\/em>, Do It Yourself!<\/em>, and Yama no Susume: Next Summit.<\/em> Now, you might be saying that the thing that binds these things together is that they\u2019re all cute girls doing things cutely shows, but while that\u2019s true, the similarity I\u2019m interested is in their aesthetic commonality. Although each articulate it in slightly different ways, I believe the philosophy is evident in every aspect of how these shows look\u2014simple yet evocative character designs, restrained yet effective application of color, light, and shadow, and the restrained use of post-processing.<\/p>\n All this adds up to shows that look sophisticated yet distinctly cartoony, a massively welcome contrast against the highly processed, glossy and glitzy (and sometimes realism-obsessed) instincts of many of their contemporaries. I don\u2019t want to be overly cynical against many of the trends in anime production, but I really don\u2019t think it\u2019s a coincidence that these shows share so many of the same aesthetic sensibilities\u2014to say nothing of the industry-bucking production circumstances<\/a> paralleled in Healer Girl<\/em>, DIY<\/em>, and Yamasusu<\/em>. And this does lead back to the genre similarities, because I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a coincidence either. Whether it\u2019s simply because these aesthetic preferences are most compatible in show that don\u2019t demand huge fights or simply because the tastes of the creators themselves leans a certain way, some of the most talented people in this industry are out here making the same kind of great shows\u2014and I for one am very grateful.<\/p>\n Ask me about my favorite anime of the past few years and there\u2019s a good chance I\u2019ll start spouting off about how much I love Vanitas no Carte<\/em>, a BONES-produced, visually decadent adaptation of Mochizuki Jun\u2019s original manga. BONES and I have a long history, and Vanitas<\/em> was yet another in a long series of things the studio has made that have spoken to me in a deep way. And yet, the second season of Vanitas<\/em> sits in my MAL list, unfinished at episode 7. Why?<\/p>\n Because the show kind of gave me everything I wanted out of it in the Chloe arc. You see, from the first extremely problematic moments of Vanitas\u2019 flirtations with Jean, I was all in on that ship. And if you\u2019ve seen the Chloe arc, you know it\u2019s full of Jean and Vanitas interactions and their weird, ever-rotating power dynamics with Vanitas being sick, Jean nursing him back to health, Jean needing his powers to fix the situation, and eventually Jean surprising Vanitas with a kiss on the cheek in a gorgeously composed field of flowers. Those moments were the true marshmallow high of seeing your ship canonize itself (even if they still aren\u2019t really a couple). I was pretty much so overwhelmed by being so decadently fed\u2014I mean, have you seen<\/em> the way that scene looks?\u2014that I basically was like, \u201cI can die happy now.\u201d<\/p>\n I really do love the show and I\u2019ll come back to the final five episodes eventually, but for now my unofficial ending to Vanitas no Carte<\/em> is Jean\u2019s lips on Vanitas\u2019 cheek and Vanitas recalling his childhood to realize that maybe he doesn\u2019t have to be alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I see it, there are exactly two options for anime of the year: Yofukashi no Uta<\/em> (aka Call of the Night<\/em>) and Do It Yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sure, Vanitas<\/em> pandered to me harder, Bocchi<\/em> was the funniest and most visually creative show of the year, and the Yamasusu<\/em> victory lap was emotional and well earned, but the two at the top of them all stand out in my mind\u2014and for very different reasons. Yofukashi<\/em> could be called anime of the year for its fierce engagement with societal disillusionment and dis-integration, while Do It Yourself<\/em> could be called anime of the year for its technical perfection and the deep sense of satisfaction its conclusion engendered in me. Said another way, the former is here for the ambition and sensitivity of its content while the latter is here for the feelings of warmth generated by the excellence of its craft. Yofukashi<\/em> spoke to my soul with its compassion, and Do It Yourself<\/em> accomplished the miraculous feat of accomplishing every single goal it set out to achieve.<\/p>\n To be honest, I\u2019m not all that fussed to choose between my two candidates. If they were even remotely the same kind of show, it might be harder to choose, but they\u2019re so different in basically all meaningful ways that comparing them just seems\u2026 pointless. Whether we\u2019re discussing how cute Nazunachan is or Purin\u2019s wonderful tsundere childhood friend antics, creating a competition between such lovely works of art is just not something I care to do.<\/p>\n I think that\u2019s an anti-listicle meta decision that Nazuna would approve of and devotion to doing things my own way that even Serufu could get behind.<\/p>\n * Not objective ** Not comprehensive It\u2019s been a good number of years since I\u2019ve watched enough yearly anime to make an annual retrospective post make sense, but it finally happened. Not only did I watch a good amount of seasonal anime, but I also have checked out a fair few older shows for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12035],"tags":[3271,5248,10921,16653,17741,629],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-52406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation","tag-anime","tag-barrel","tag-comprehensive","tag-mage","tag-objective","tag-year"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mageinabarrel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/yamasusu-s4-1-1.jpg\")
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