Now that the Winter 2023 cour has come to an end, what better time to discuss the anime that aired this season. This season I have watched episodes from quite a lot of anime. Of course there are some series that I haven’t been able to watch due to them not being available on a platform I use, they are the continuation of a show I haven’t seen, or they don’t seem interesting enough. I will be going through the first episodes of every anime I have watched, and will be giving my thoughts about the series from it, and anime in general this season.
So in no particular order let’s start…
‘Inu ni Nattara Suki na Hito ni Hirowareta.’, or ‘My Life as Inukai-san’s Dog’. First things first, ‘inu’ means dog, so that is quite an appropriate name. This is a bit of a strange anime. In the first episode, the protagonist has somehow become a dog and gets taken in by a classmate who believes that she has found a stray dog. Because of this, the protagonist seems to find himself in some unusual ‘situations’. This is not something that I plan on watching further.
Farming Life in Another World, is another isekai anime where after the protagonist dies, and they get to reincarnate in another world with a wish of their choice. Instead of bringing a smartphone, or getting to live a quiet life, the protagonist chooses to be able to start a farm in their new life. This anime takes some of the elements of Slime 300 to an extreme, with the protagonist gaining a magical farming tool, which gives him some OP abilities as he starts his new life and builds a farm isolated in a forest with wild animals, although it doesn’t seem like it will stay that way for long. The first episode starts off in medias res, with a lively town, and then jumps back in time to show the start of the protagonist's journey. This farming anime seems a lot better than the previous fantasy farming anime we got.
Continuing the theme of isekai we also had ‘Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill’. This anime also starts off in medias res with a brief cold open. After that, this anime starts off as a parody of summoning isekai, with the protagonist getting summoned to another world along with a few other people who are each heroes. The protagonist’s special ability is online shopping, which allows him to purchase items online which instantly appear in front of him. Not thinking that his ability is useful, he parts his way from the adventurers and goes on his own path. This is a unique idea for an isekai, but it seems like it will make this into a food anime.
Next is ‘Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement’. In this isekai anime, Mitsuha gains the ability to travel between earth and a fantasy world. After she finds out about this ability, Mitsuha decides to use it to manipulate the people of the kingdom and use items from earth to gain money and fulfil her capitalist dreams. She found herself in this fantasy world after being manslaughtered and falling off a cliff, ‘Reborn Rich’ style.
‘The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady’ is another isekai in this season. This anime is actually a pseudoisekai series as it doesn’t reference the world the protagonist came from and has no impact on the plot of the series. The only thing that you could argue came as a result of her reincarnating is that she creates several items that resemble things found on earth. In the anime, noble society seems to be rigid and formal, whereas she is able to be much more relaxed and casual. It isn’t clear why they chose to make it an isekai, or if it is just to capitalise on the isekai hype.
‘Chillin’ in My 30s after Getting Fired from the Demon King’s Army’ is another fantasy anime, but this time it's not an isekai. In this anime, Dariel -- the protagonist -- is fired from the demon lord’s army by the new rulers as he doesn’t possess magic. After being fired, Dariel finds himself wandering in the forest where he meets a human girl. He ends up finding out that the reason he didn’t possess magic was because he was actually a human.
‘Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte’ is another otome anime. Instead of the protagonist finding themselves in an otome world, instead the two main characters while playing a game gain the ability to communicate with the characters in the game. This is a unique take for an anime, but it doesn’t seem like a very interesting idea. The producers of the series include DMM and NetEase Games, which seems to be an interesting combination. The female main character has the same voice actress as the female main character in ‘Fruit of Evolution’.
Getting on to the second season of ‘The Fruit of Evolution’, a continuation of another unique isekai. The second season of the show continues after the first, and is set in the academy they travelled to, with Seiichi as a teacher. This season doesn’t seem to be as interesting as the first, and has a very different style to the first.
‘Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire’ is an anime where the protagonist, who was formally the king, is reincarnated in the distant future as a newly-born girl after deciding to devote his next life to becoming the strongest swordbearer. The OP theme sounds similar to some of the music from ‘Spy X Family’.
‘The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World’ is another reincarnation isekai. The protagonist died in a scene that resembles ancient Japanese folklore, and he is reincarnated as a minor noble in a European-style world. Instead of just relying on European style fantasy, this series incorporates elements of asian mythologies, which is quite unique.
‘Handyman Saitou in Another World’ is another isekai, where someone from a specific profession finds themselves in another world where they can utilise their skills. This series also starts off with a cold open showing Saitou with his party in a dungeon. The episode is made up of a series of vignettes focusing on snapshots of different characters.
Bofuri season 2 also aired this cour. It seems like a weird time to air, as the first episode takes place at christmas, which was a few weeks before the episode aired, although it did have a premiere of the episode before christmas.
There is also the second season of In/Spectre, which is more of the same as the first season. In the first episode Kotoko gives a plausible explanation for a bad mystery and then reveals that that was just a solution she had made up, and what the real cause was.
I have also watched the first episodes of several other anime series this cour, such as ‘Spy Classroom’, ‘The Tale of Outcasts’, ‘ONIMAI’, ‘The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World’, and ‘Tomo-chan Is a Girl!’, but I won’t be going into those as this video is starting to get a bit long.
Overall a lot of anime seem to have poorer animation compared to previous seasons. There have been a few unique anime this season as well.
So what did you think about the Winter 2023 season? Did you agree with my assessments, or did you think something else? Leave your thoughts down below. If you liked this video, consider liking the video, commenting down below, and subscribing so that you don’t miss any future videos.
