The Fall 2023 season of anime had a lot of anime. Like, a lot. For someone who watched every speck of it, I was – at first – fatigued by it. However, while the amount of anime led to an above average amount of sub-par series, there were actually a lot of good series too. To be honest, many more than I expected there to be at first glance.
If you are looking to see what from that Fall 2023 anime season is worth watching, head on down below.
Best Fall 2023 Anime
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
After the Demon King’s defeat, the victorious hero’s party returns home. After disbanding, the elven mage Frieren continues journeying to indulge her hobby of collecting spells. However, being a long-living elf, fifty years pass in the blink of an eye for her. Now, she finds her old companions and friends slowly passing away from age one by one.
Before his death, Heiter the cleric manages to foist his young ward, Fern, onto Frieren as her apprentice mage. Together, they travel to collect spells, but after visiting many locations that Frieren had once visited with the hero’s party, she begins to ponder the missed opportunity to form deeper bonds with her now-dead comrades and cherish the new opportunities she has with her current ones.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
When it comes to seasonal darlings, I can see the appeal and I admit they are always good anime. However, Frieren was one of those seasonal anime series hyped well before the season started that I watched with no knowledge that I can say is a truly a great anime.
It takes a familar plot in the over-saturated fantasy genre of anime – killing the demon lord – and twists it in what is legitimately a new and unique way. By focusing on the post-adventure adventure, it gives you a poignant glimpse at a lot of concepts oft-ignored in the fantasy genre, like how elves feel when their human comrades die.
However, while I am a big sucker for “feels anime” that laser-target emotional responses with touching stories, Frieren isn’t just an emotional anime. It is also an interesting action adventure in its own right, eventually injecting interesting and beautifully animated fights that are as much of a treat as the emotional moments. Honestly, emotionally investing me in the characters before the action actually made watching the fights more interesting. Shounen battlers should take some notes.
Undead Unluck
All Fuko wanted was a passionate romance like in her shoujo manga. However, she has the unpleasant ability of Unluck that causes anyone she touches to suffer an accident – its severity based on her affection for them. After accidentally causing her parents to die in a plane crash, Fuko has been paralyzed by fear that she might accidentally touch someone all through her school years spent as a shut-in.
With her favorite manga now ended, Fuko was about to end her own life when a man claim to be unable to die swoops in and saves her. Delighted that her ability might finally be able to kill him for good, this man that she nicknamed Andy declares that he will make her fall in love with him so she will give him the most fatal stroke of unluck possible.
Teaming up and entering the organization that hunts people like them with dangerous abilities, the pair tackle a number of unique enemies.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Undead Unluck had a rough shake by being a Hulu exclusive, meaning it was put in front of less eyes than if it aired on one of the actual anime streaming services (in the west, anyways). However, even if it meant I had to go to a whole different streaming platform every week, it made it a treat to do so.
The charming thing that sets Undead Unluck apart from being “just another shounen battler” is that it dares to go big. At first, it was amazing to see how much each scene could outdo itself. However, it knows that you can only outdo yourself for so long before it becomes untenable, but by the time it tempered that off, you were already hooked.
In every episode of Undead Unluck, you are treated to the endlessly confident, but also surprisingly kind Undead who doesn’t balk from any challenge that might even remotely end in his death. He is aided and accompanied by Unluck who plays the comic straight woman to the absurd comedy of any situation.
In short, Undead Unluck lets shounen be bawdy and exciting without relying on animator-crippling animation levels or eye-rolling power of friendship. It makes the shounen battler feel as fun as it felt the first time you watched one.
The Apothecary Diaries
Learning to be an apothecary from her father, Maomao honed her skills in the brothels of her town. However, one day she is kidnapped and forced to work as a servant in the rear section of the Imperial Palace that houses the emperor’s consorts.
While trying to stay under the radar until her contract was up, Maomao catches the attention of the emperor’s favorite consort when her skills as an apothecary end up saving the life of the consorts’ baby daughter.
This act leads to her being taken on as the consort’s lady-in-waiting and food taster due to Maomao’s prolific knowledge of both medicine and poisons.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Like Frieren, there was a distinctly tingle of hype in the air for this series to be adapted as well. As per usual, it was pretty warranted despite this series being a bit like The Story of Saiunkoku, The Raven of the Inner Palace, and Snow White With The Red Hair had a threesome and this slorped out the middle of it. (But like, in a good way.)
The Apothecary Diaries crafts characters that are easy to like. It has the typical competition between the concubines, but the main character, being only interested in food and medicine, doesn’t meddle in the intrigue. As such, she doesn’t butt her head into every palace intrigue, and yet somehow saves the day. She is as refreshing as a shoujo protagonist as you will ever find. Furthermore, the story actively pushes away developing into a romance since romance tends to take over shoujo plots like a creeping vine. And yet, the potential for romance is left dangling there, stringing the lovesick along for the ride.
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You
Throughout his middle school career, Rentaro Aijo has confessed to – and been reject by – 100 girls. After his 100th confession, he visits a shrine and prays to god that he will have better luck in high school.
Suddenly the God of Love appears and declares to him that in high school he will meet 100 soulmates that he is destined to date!
However, the catch is that once he meets these soulmates, the two must date or else the girl will die. Will Rentaro be able to make it through high school with 100 girlfriends!?
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Harem anime where the main character dates all the girls – or harem anime, in general – are usually never near the top of what I enjoy in a season. I can see the appeal of the fantasy to its demographic, but its demographic is not me. However, 100 Girlfriends is an experience, and not a bad one like I thought it would be.
By making the main character a cinnamon roll and not the usual gross or eye-rolling confident male harem lead, it made the fact that 100 girls fall for him instantly somehow less offensive. However, what made the series legitimately good is the comedy – both the meta jokes and comedic intensity of the girls. It also takes its already over-the-top concept that parodies the entire harem genre and runs with it to the most comical extremes any time it can.
Tearmoon Empire
As the people rebel against the royal line that lead to famine and suffering, first princess Mia Luna Tearmoon is imprisoned and eventually publicly executed. After her death, Mia wakes up several years prior when she was still just a child.
At first, she thinks it was all just a terrible dream until she finds the blood-spattered diary she kept in her cell next to her. Using the knowledge of the future, Mia seeks to escape her fate by preventing the poor governance and economic strife that is to come. However, tireless efforts are not something this pampered princess is used to or particularly good at.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
While it was always strange that going back in time to redo your previous evil actions so as to not die was limited only to the realm of otome game villainess and sometimes NEETs, Tearmoon Empire sets an complicated precedent. You know how anime is. Once they learn we like something, it heaps it on. That’s how we got so much isekai. Are “Regressors” the next trend?
Anyway, part of what makes Tearmoon Empire good is that it follows a villainess anime story, but dares to not be set in an otome game. However, the real treat is watching a character that is still rotten on the inside, but is making smart choices that distinctly make her seem nice to others. In doing so, their now-positive reception of her starts to unwarp the personality that years of privileged had forged.
Migi and Dali
Falling for him at first sight, the Sonoyamas are happy to bring home their new adoptive son, Hitori.
While they find their son to be the perfect child, he harbors a secret. Hitori is actually a set of identical twins named Migi and Dali that are pretending to be one boy.
Migi and Dali worked hard to charm the Sonoyamas into bringing them home to Origon Village, the village where they were born and the village where their mother died. Together, the boys keep up the charade in order to discover who murdered their mother in this village many years ago.
Why It Is Worth Watching?
Calling Migi and Dali one of the best anime of the season is, for sure, what you would call a “hot take.” However, this one sneaks up on you with its enjoyment. I started to think about it like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – more specifically, Jojo Part 4 – where it was all bizarre comedy from the bizarre people throughout town and none of the “ora ora” action while investigating a murder mystery.
While at first Migi and Dali seems like it is about two weird twins pretending to be one person, it manifests an actually sinister plot of them doing so to find out who murdered their mother in that town years ago. The deeper down you go in the rabbit hole of this murder mystery, the weirder it gets. However, that weirdness still doesn’t wash out the sinister menacing that radiates from some characters and situations.
It’s unique and strange in the best way. I like anime that is both of those things, but that’s probably because I have watched so much at this point that new things delight me perhaps too much.
What did you enjoy from the Fall 2023 season? Let fans know in the comments section below.
