The 5 Best Anime Series of Spring 2023, Ranked
Photo Courtesy of MAPPA
With the last wave of finales from the Spring 2023 anime season in the books, it’s time to appraise the best of the best. Simply put, this was a standout batch of shows, with not only a few exemplary series at the top, but also a range of solid productions that delivered genre delights. There were fun action romps, moving romance tales, and no shortage of well-defined characters. Although I’m usually merciless in trimming down my watch list, I couldn’t bear to make too many cuts this time around, which is a testament to the quality of the group. Let’s get into it.
Honorable Mentions
Otaku Elf was an ideal palate cleanser to many of this season’s more intense offerings, a charming slice-of-life series that occasionally tapped into melancholy musings on the passage of time and loss. Its titular character, Elda, is a videogame and manga-obsessed elf who is always on the receiving end of her teenage miko Koito’s reprimands as the two preside over a shrine in Tokyo. Even if I wish it spent a little more time on its underlying drama, it was a consistently fluffy watch that made the most of its recurring gags.
While Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage couldn’t consistently match the highs of the base show, in large part because it was a loose collection of stories instead of a proper second season, many of its one-offs tapped into the folkloric wonder and horror of what came before. And thankfully, it managed to revitalize my interest in where this story will go next after the last season’s somewhat awkward conclusion.
Over its run, Hell’s Paradise matured from a schlocky delight of an action series into something backed by a surprisingly engaging cast. We follow Gabimaru, a renowned shinobi, and Sagiri, an executioner in the Yamada Asaemon clan under the Shogunate, as they’re forced to explore a deadly supernatural island alongside other doomed explorers. Its unsettling monster designs and willingness to kill off its characters make it quite pulpy, but it eventually endears us to those fighting to survive in this nightmarish place.
Insomniacs After School is a low-key love story about two teens who bond over their shared difficulty falling asleep as they revive their school’s astronomy club. While subdued, it excels at depicting its central pair’s anxieties, conveying how they find solace in each other.
Tengoku Daimakyo (otherwise known as Heavenly Delusion) is arguably the most visually impressive series of the season, its powerful shot compositions and consistently dynamic animation communicating the haunting undertones of this broken world. Through its imagery and characters, it makes for a rare post-apocalyptic setting that contains both kindness and the types of unimaginable cruelty you’d expect from this setup. For its first 11 episodes, it successfully weaved together two parallel stories, one following Maru and his bodyguard Kiruko as they try to find a place cryptically referred to as “Heaven” in a post-disaster Japan, and another about a group of kids with strange abilities being raised at a mysterious institute. Unfortunately, its last two episodes are marred by a sordid turn that doesn’t treat its heavy subject matter with the respect it deserves (content warnings for extreme violence and sexual assault throughout). It’s a thorny one that I wish made some different choices, but it can be undeniably spellbinding.
5. Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story Season 2
In its second (and likely final) season, Birdie Wing: Golf Girls Story largely maintained the blistering power of its opening drive, delivering fairway-related absurdity that kept me guffawing at its antics until the very end. At the heart of this was its ability to dole out increasingly outrageous one-liners and improbable circumstances concerning one of the most strait-laced sports on the planet with complete deadpan, as its characters bent not only the rules of the game, but the very laws of physics in their quest to knock a small, dimpled ball into the cup. For instance, I couldn’t help but cheer every time Eve unleashed her signature “Blue Bullet” drive, which pierced through the heart of every sapphic golf girl she encountered, including that of her one true flame and greatest rival, Aoi. Just like last season, we follow these two star-crossed golfers as they attempt to meet on the green. But this time, they are blocked by every conceivable obstacle, including a cadre of villains of the week, the golf mafia, intergenerational golf trauma, and golf-related injuries and diseases. Despite this constant hum of ridiculousness, it successfully built up its melodrama as Eve and Aoi shattered through every barrier in their path. It was even able to overcome being a seemingly modest production, with just enough visual embellishment to sell its most climactic moments with aplomb. While the series ultimately felt like it needed a few more episodes to wrap up all its lingering conflicts, and its central relationship doesn’t end in as conclusive a place as I’d like, it still made for a decent finish for this cult hit. A birdie indeed.