It’s finally happened. I’m living the trope. For the last two years, I’ve written my now annual reasons to look forward to anime in the coming year and I fully intended to put my all into this year’s edition. Finally, the night of December 30th, 2022 arrived, and I stayed up all night researching the titles that had already been announced that were getting me excited. Finally, hours later, it was finished and ready to go. All I had to do was insert a smidge of formatting; otherwise, all the writing was done.
“Well, guess I can go enjoy my New Year’s weekend. Surely nothing major is going to happen over the first weekend of the year that will require large swaths of this feature being rewritten, not just before submitting it.”
Curse you Ryohgo Narita!
Regardless, after a couple more hours of research, trailer hunting, and rewriting, I’ve found them: the gems that 2023 brings. The new year has much to get fans excited, let’s look ahead at what we know will come our way within the next twelve months.
Fate/strange Fake to Premiere Summer 2023!
So, what is this news that made me hit “stop the presses”? Fate/strange Fake is going to debut this summer! Originally, this new chapter in the Fate universe was supposed to air over the new year but got delayed. In this wild send-up of the typical Fate battle royale premise written by Ryohgo Narita (Baccano, Durarara), the Holy Grail tournament is happening outside Japan and the masters are not your typical magical genius smarty-pants. Check out this mega-sized promotional video to get an idea of why this title will be this summer’s hot ticket.
Anime News Network did a fantastic job of writing up all the news that came with this announcement (I don’t have the word count to devote to it all, so promise that you’ll finish reading this feature before you click over there. Promise? Alright, cool. Let’s keep going).
So Many Original Stories!
If you’ve been reading my news articles over the last few months — and if you haven’t, you should, I’m very good — you know that I have been absolutely reveling in the recent trend of original stories coming back into fashion. While I still love anime that’s based on manga, light novels, or video games, there is a genuine thrill that you get when watching an original story anime with friends, since none of you know what is going to happen next. It’s even better when you’re watching something particularly cerebral or wacky because, as experienced anime fans can tell you, there is no such thing as a line that anime isn’t willing to cross in the name of recreating some weird fever dream that the writer and director once collectively had in a Nevada desert one night (cough Madoka Magica cough – I’m kidding! I swear!).
While there are already a ton of original series that have been announced for 2023 (some of them already armed with stories and key visuals and some that have been left dangling), these are just a couple of titles that will premiere within the first two seasons of the year that sound interesting: Buddy Daddies, High Card, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea, and The Marginal Service.
Many Returning Favorites!
When I was first putting together my notes for this feature, I was jotting down titles of all the big-name franchises which will be returning with a new chapter in 2023, which included movies and TV seasons. After a while, I had almost two pages worth of titles. I’ll have to lump them all together.
Once again, this is an incomplete list of all the popular returning titles, but once you see how long the current form of this list is, I’m hoping you’ll forgive me for cherry-picking a few fan favorites: Birdie Wing season two, Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War: Part II, Princess Principal is returning with more movies, Ancient Magus’ Bride’s second season hits in the spring, Spy x Family is getting a TV series and a movie, Konosuba prequel, Demon Slayer is back again to dominate the headlines, Vinland Saga returns for more bloody Viking action, The Devil Is A Part-Timer will continue its story, Uma Musume gets an ONA and more, Sailor Moon is returning to movie screens in a two-part grand finale, Tonikawa sequel, and that’s all I had space for!
We’re not just here to talk about the obvious hits, though. 2022 was a fantastic year for “underdog anime” (i.e. anime that deserved an audience but because of bad timing ended up fighting for attention). Good examples of this include Akiba Maid War, Birdie Wing, Human Crazy University, Ya Boy Kongming, and others. So let’s talk about some titles that could face the same obstacles in 2023.
Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers
Bibury Animation Studios (Azur Lane: The Animation, Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall) has only been around for half a decade and thus doesn’t have an extensive portfolio of credits that anyone can point to as “their” style. A hit original story anime could change that.
We don’t have a ton of information yet besides what we’ve seen in a couple of teaser trailers released for Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers so far. What we know, however, is that the story will tell the tale of “four otakus who will fight for freedom, when a mysterious force suddenly starts eliminating the otaku culture in the year 2008”. The creator, musician, and artist Jun Inagawa has gone on the record stating that despite all the times he’s collaborated with brands or companies, this is the first time he’s gotten to create what he “truly wanted to do.” Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We’ll see in April 2023 and, regardless of the result, I’m predicting this will be a project worth keeping your eyes on.
Pokémon with New Main Characters
After literally dozens of years and hundreds of episodes spread out across more than a few series, The Pokemon Company is letting Ash retire from being the face that runs the place (besides Pikachu, naturally). Of course, it’s not like they’re letting the franchise fade into the mist like their hero what’s his face, instead, they are replacing him immediately with two brand new heroes in order to connect with a brand new generation of fans. Will these two new young rapscallions be able to capture the same magic as the OG? I do not know but ask me again in a year and we’ll see if this entry was worth including after all.
More Evil Villainess Isekai!
As of this writing, there are four evil villainess anime (one is a sequel movie and three others are brand new TV series) scheduled and that number is likely going to rise as the weeks progress. Shoujo and josei isekai anime with the lead female being reborn into the body of an otome game villainess have been growing in popularity over the last couple of years and honestly, I’m not complaining. Regardless, if you’ve enjoyed other series, including My Next Life As A Villainess or I’m Taming The Final Boss, your dance card just became very full for the next few months.
Oshi no Ko’s 90-Minute Premiere
Finally, we come to an anime that I’ve been closely following the news for, ever since it was first announced. Oshi no Ko has the potential to become a breakout hit, but in order to do that, the audience will need to be hooked in as quickly as possible. How does the staff intend to ensure this happens? By making the first episode of the series into a literal movie. That’s right, they slotted the first episode of this TV series for a 90-minute runtime and longtime fans of the manga have been losing their minds over that ever since it was revealed. Armed with a dark twist (which I refuse to spoil), this series comes to us from the writing pen of the creator of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War and the brush of the creator of Scum’s Wish.
And that’s our list! Obviously, there is still a ton of anime that will come out in 2023 that I wasn’t able to mention, which is why I want you to sound off in the comments! What did I miss on my list that you’re excited about?
![Akiba Maid War Episode 12 [END] Dark Nagomi Holds Gun](https://blog.jlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Akiba-Maid-War-Episode-12-END-Dark-Nagomi-Holds-Gun-75x75.jpg)
