The best anime of 2023 so far and where to watch them

It looks like 2023 will be another amazing year for anime enthusiasts. We’ve only just managed to catch our breath from the avalanche of the best anime 2022 had to offer, and we’re already swimming in an embarrassment of riches this season.

There’s so many exciting shows to look forward to on the horizon this year, from the FinalSeason final of Attack on Titan Both the return and retention of both Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no YaibaAnd Jujutsu KaisenTo the eagerly awaited debut of new anime like Witch Hat Atelier, Dungeon: Delicious, Heavenly DelusionAnd Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku. That’s not mentioning some of the even more elusive anime set to come out this year, like the long-awaited UzumakiAnimation and even longer-awaited anime of Naoki Urasawa’s PlutoMasao maruyama is a famed anime producer.

Start at Trigun StampedeAnd The Fire HunterComedy is funny like Tomo-chan is a girlAnd the anime adaptation Nier: AutomataThese are the top anime currently airing in 2023. The order in which the titles were released is chronological.

Tomochan is a Girl

Image: Lay-duce/Crunchyroll

Tomo-chan is a girl has delivered us one of this season’s strongest female protagonists, literally. This romantic comedy follows Tomo Aizawa, a tomboy who has a crush on her childhood friend, Junichiro “Jun” Kubota. Tomo, who is well liked by her friends and confident but also physically strong, has many things going for her. There’s just one problem: Tomo has trouble getting Jun to see her as a romantic interest and not just another one of the guys.

Tomo recruits the help of her friend-girls to give her tips on being a woman over the course the program. Whereas some stories can reinforce the idea that their protagonist is “not like other girls,” Tomo finds strength in both femininity and her more masculine traits. The show handles its characters with care and doesn’t cast judgment on women — regardless of how they present themselves. Carol, originally portrayed in a light-skinned bimbo role, is given a loving portrayal. It’s good, lighthearted fun that’ll charm anyone looking for a bit of romance. —Ana Diaz

Tomo-chan is a girl! Crunchyroll has it available for streaming.

Buddy Daddies

Image: P.A. Works/Crunchyroll

If you are looking for more Spy x FamilyI recommend watching Buddy Daddies. Rei Suwa and Kazuki Kurusu, are the two main characters in this show. They both work as deadly, for-hire assassins. Kurusu is a bubbly but lonely couch-crasher and Suwa is a degenerate gamer who can’t cook or keep his own place clean. Miri Unasaka, a 4-year old girl is found by Kurusu while they are working. They find themselves in a situation where they can help her and end up adopting her.

I have some gripes with the show — Unasaka’s mom’s plot plays out in a strange, unexpected way — but it has its own charms. Mainly, you’re watching it for the adorable family interactions. After a long day at the park, Suwa holds Unasaka in his arms. It is enough to warm the heart. The show isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but if you want a show that will give you cute daddies doing cute daddy things, well, Buddy DaddiesYour show. —AD

Buddy DaddiesCrunchyroll allows you to watch it online.

Trigun Stampede

Image: Orange/Crunchyroll

There’s a lot of history to Trigun Stampede, but the moment it starts — with a spectacular disaster in the stars that comes crashing down to a bleak desert under an impossibly blue sky — that doesn’t really matter.

Studio Orange’s reimagining of Trigun, the seminal ’90s manga and anime, stands on its own two feet with tremendous confidence and more than enough swagger. It’s an immediately compelling introduction (or reintroduction) to Vash the Stampede, a legendary hurricane of trouble with an enormous bounty on his head. All of it makes no sense. For one, he’s kind of a doofus? And for another, he’s an incredible gunslinger who just refuses to kill people. The more time the viewer spends with him, the less he makes sense — because he should have succumbed to despair by now. Everybody should.

Trigun Stampede is an apocalypse that is desperate but not despairing, a wasteland of broken people figuring out how to persevere and find things worth fighting for after the world is already broken and there isn’t any fixing it. You will enjoy it again and again on whatever screen is available. It’s not just one of the best anime of the year — it’s simply one of the best shows. —Joshua Rivera

Trigun StampedeYou can stream it on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Hulu.

Nier: Automata Ver. 1.1a

Image: Aniplex of America/A-1 Pictures

2017’s Nier: Automata This is one of my favorite video games over the past 10 years. A meditative, genre-defying, action-packed game, it required that players confront in a way only video games could, the overwhelming existential fear that you can feel when looking at the various dooms that humanity has to face in the 21st century. This game is strange, frustrating and baffling. It’s also very moving. Automate is such an argument for video games as a medium that adapting it for television seems almost like a violation of the game’s whole deal.

Its first episode aired on April 1, 2005. Ver. 1.1a almost confirms these fears, with a straight adaptation of the game’s opening moments that does little to sell why it’s special to the uninitiated, or justify the investment by the already converted. It pivots on its hindquarters to suggest that this series could be doing another thing. This is part of the fun: There’s no way of knowing for sure until the end.

For now, the base appeal is the same as what drew unsuspecting players to director Yoko Taro’s game in the first place: a strange sci-fi far future where warrior androids fight an endless war on behalf of humans that have abandoned the Earth. Taking over the planet in humanity’s absence are crude machines, who war mindlessly against the androids in a perpetual stalemate. This is the way it works until some of them lose interest and grow flowers and then some androids start questioning their purpose.

Discover the mysteries behind Ver. 1.1a and how different it may ultimately end up being from its source material have unspooled slowly since the show’s Jan. 7 premiere, after production delays resulted in a roughly 1-month hiatus between episodes 3 and 4. It’s a ride worth getting on, though — few creators leave it all on the floor the way Yoko Taro does. —JR

Nier: Automata Ver. 1.1aCrunchyroll allows you to watch it online.

Season 2 of Tokyo Revengers

Image: Liden Films/Disney Platform Distribution

The cliffhanger ended in an extremely tense finale. Tokyo Revengers put my pounding heart at ease when it returned this winter to reveal how Takemichi got out of his latest brush with death — and how he’ll hopefully stop that deadly showdown from ever taking place again. Takemichi, now unable to go back to the past for fear of being sent to jail, decides to tell the truth about Chifuyu’s time-traveling mission. This leads to sweet friendship between the two himbos who are way out of their league.

When rival gang Black Dragon enters the picture — and threatens the lives Takemichi and Chifuyu’s friends in the present and Tokyo Manji’s very soul in the future — the pair put all their energy into taking its bloodthirsty leader down. They’re so set on destroying Black Dragon that not only do they go against Mikey’s orders to do so, but they even agree to work with Kisaki, whose last actions in the future were murdering Chifuyu and attempting to murder Takemichi. The resulting partnership complicates our picture of Kisaski, revealing who he is beyond the “villain” in Takemichi’s story and the unexpected ways their pasts are intertwined. —Sadie Gennis

Tokyo RevengersSeason 2 can be streamed on Hulu.

Vinland Saga season 2

Image: MAPPA/Netflix. Sentai Filmworks

Shuhei Yabuta, the director of season 2, returns after nearly four years Vinland SagaThe historical adventure follows Thorfinn (a young Viking man who lost his father to the Vikings). The second season is so different from the first that it could be called a historical slice-of life rather than an action anime.

The first season of Vinland Saga had nonstop action and character growth (quite literally, in fact: Thorfinn ages from 6 to 22 years old over the course of the season), the second season so far has focused on Thorfinn’s guilt and grief from living a childhood consumed by revenge, as well as developing new characters, such as Einar, a former slave who meets Thorfinn on a farm. The fourth episode, in which Einar & Thorfinn shared a moment of love, was Yabuta’s highlight. tweeted, “Even if it slows down the pace, I really wanted to take time to draw [Thorfinn and Einar’s] relationship.” Along with the tonal and pacing shift, the studio behind the series has changed from Wit Studio to MAPPA; the same staff of animators from season 1 remains.

If you haven’t watched Vinland Saga Yet, you can still come to the Viking battles but stay for the bonding. —Christina Gayton

Vinland Saga You can stream season 2 on Crunchyroll, Netflix and YouTube.

The Fire Hunter

Image: Signal.MD/Crunchyroll

Junji Nishimura (Ranma ½Mamoru Obshii (Ghost in the Shell) combine forces once again after 2021’s Vlad Love to bring us a new anime based on Rieko Hinata and Akihiro Yamada’s post-apocalyptic fantasy novel series.

Set in a world where any proximity to natural fire causes spontaneous human combustion and Japan subsequently has reverted back to a feudalistic isolationist society, the series follows the parallel stories of Touko, a young girl from a remote village who journeys to the nation’s capital to repay the family of the slain Fire Hunter who saved her life, and Koushi, the son of Touko’s savior who endeavors to unravel the mystery behind the otherworldly “fiend fire” humans now rely on for warmth and energy. It features a wealth of talent, including Oshii longtime collaborators Kenji Kawai as composer and Kazuchika Kise as animation director. Outlaw Star character designer Takuya Saito.

The Fire Hunter is an unquestionably beautiful series with well-executed animation and interesting character designs that makes inventive use of intertitle cards, digitally painted “postcard memories” still frames, and cutaway panel reactions for dramatic effect as well as expository efficiency. It’s the definition of a “slow-burn” anime, what with the main story only just now ramping up into full gear seven episodes deep. Don’t let that dissuade you, though, as The Fire Hunter is more than worth the investment and shines through as one of the winter season’s brightest new series. —Toussaint Egan

The Fire HunterCrunchyroll allows you to watch it online.

Summer Time Rendering

Image: OLM/Disney Platform Distribution

If you’re looking for a binge-worthy mystery that will leave your head spinning, Summer Time Rendering This is the best choice. To be even more specific with the genre, it’s actually a supernatural mystery thriller with a dash of romance and slice-of-life. So there’s probably a little something for everyone!

The story starts with protagonist Shinpei returning to his hometown for a close childhood friend’s funeral. He initially hears that his childhood friend, Ushio, died by drowning, but Shinpei eventually starts to suspect that Ushio’s death was not as simple as it seems.

However, I am confident that you will find the right people for your needs. Summer Time RenderingThis is not just a mystery solving show. There’s much more the show has to offer to keep you guessing and confused (in a good way).

I was forced to finish the season with one episode and then miss bed by several hours. Thankfully, there are only 25 episodes, so if you do start watching and can’t put it down, it’ll only be eight and a half hours. Easy! —CG

[Ed. note: Summer Time Rendering aired in Japan from April to September 2022, but was only made available to stream in the United States as of January 2023.]

Summer Time RenderingHulu streams it.