#the tale of outcasts

[animebw]

I’m gonna be honest, I thought going into Winter 2023 that this was gonna be a bit of a dump season. One of those seasons where anime just kinda sits around farting and we all wait patiently for the actual Good Shit to start coming out again while pretending to catch up on our backlogs.

That... has not been the case.

Bofuri Season 2: Seriously, how does this show get so many incredible action cuts?

Buddy Daddies: Look, it’s probably not gonna be gay, but Spy x Family meets Tiger and Bunny is something we all need in our lives, okay?

Campfire Cooking in Another World: Couldn’t even last a full episode of this one before my eyes glazed over. Dropped.

Endo and Kobayashi Live: Now this is pretty charming! Pity the animation’s such garbage, though.

Giant Beasts of Ars: It’s a damn good season for fantasy anime, y’all.

Handyman Saitou in Another World: Could actually end up a halfway decent isekai SOL if it stops being so goddamn terrible at structure.

High Card: This is exactly my brand of Anime Bullshit(tm) and I am so on board.

Ippon Again: An actually great female-led sports anime? With major A Place Further Than the Universe vibes? Do not sleep on this one, y’all.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Damn. Good. Season. For. Fantasy. Anime.

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible: As far as Takagi-san knock-offs go, this one is pleasant enough.

The Magical Revolution of the Oh Fuck It These LN Titles are Impossible to Remember Just Call it “MagiRevo��: Buckle up, folks, we might just have another Actually Good Isekai on our hands.

Malevolent Spirits Mononogatari: It’s Noragami but shit. Dropped at 1 episode.

Nagatoro-san Season 2: Yeah, turns out I’m still not above the occasional well made trash.

Nier Automata: Genuine question, is this gonna be an acceptable substitute for the game or will I just be spoiling the experience for myself?

Onimai: I fucking hate the Mushoku Tensei studio so much and I hate myself even more for deciding to stick with this one.

Reborn to Master the Blade: This one might be soon for the chopping block, but I’m holding out hope that its story can overcome its middling production values. We’ll have to wait and see.

Revenger: GEN UROBUCHI’S BACK BABY YEEEEEEHAW

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: Take notes, Every Isekai: this is how you explore slavery in a fantasy setting.

The Tale of Outcasts: Feels like a 13-year-old’sedgy  Ancient Magus Bride fanfiction. Honestly, though? I kind of really dig it.

Tomo-Chan is a Girl: LET. TOMBOYS. BE. TOMBOYS. WITHOUT. SHAMING. THEM. FOR. IT. Dropped at episode 2.

Tokyo Revengers Season 2: At this point, I’m just watching out of morbid curiosity of how bad the manga’s ending supposedly was.

Trails of Cold Steel: The Northern War: Easily the weakest fantasy anime of the lot. Giving it one more episode to impress me, otherwise it gets the drop.

Trigun Stampede: Y’all are buggin, the CG here is incredible.

Tsurune Season 2: Good god, the glow-up from season one is nuts. KyoAni just does not miss.

Vinland Saga Season 2: Okay, manga readers, let’s see if watching a bunch of sad men farm is as incredible as you say.

[newtypezaku]

Let’s not tell him about the monsterfuckers

[edensania]

The beauty and the beast ♡

[animangapolls]

[cherry-valentine]

Winter 2023 Anime Season

Here’s what I’m watching:

Buddy Daddies is easily my favorite new show this season. Following a pair of skilled but unlucky hitmen (Kazuki and Rei) who end up taking in and attempting to raise a little girl they just orphaned (Miri), the show is primarily a comedy. The humor mostly comes from watching two people who are woefully ill equipped to deal with a child having to work through the day to day challenges of caring for a little girl, from finding a good daycare to figuring out how to dress her. These mundane objectives are made hilarious through the lens of these guys being literal assassins. They go from shootouts to making dinner for their daughter. The show also sneaks in some truly heartwarming moments, as well as truly traumatic ones. Both Kazuki and Rei have tragic backgrounds that explain why they can’t just abandon Miri. The relationship between the two men is fun and interesting. While a lot of viewers are hoping for a romance between them, I just don’t see it happening. So far I’ve yet to see a single hint that the story will go that direction. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it, but I’m afraid there’s going to be a lot of disappointed fans at the end of the season. Other than that, the show has decent animation and excellent character designs (Just look at Rei when he’s in assassin mode. Just. Look. At. Him.), as well as fun peppy music. The series overall is just super watchable. There’s not a moment in any episode that I’m not entertained. Highly recommended.

The Tale of Outcasts follows a young orphan girl named Wisteria who can see a powerful demon named Marbas, a rare ability among humans. Marbas is immortal, very old, and very bored, so he decides to take Wisteria along with him to travel around the country, meeting other demons along the way as well as avoiding powerful demon hunters sent by the church to destroy him, one of them being Wisteria’s long lost older brother Snow. This show is a bit more light hearted and mild than I expected at first. It does have serious or darker moments, but overall the stakes don’t feel incredibly high at any given time. The charm of this story centers on the relationship between Wisteria and Marbas. Both care very much for each other, and thankfully (so far) the age difference prevents it from becoming a romance. If anything, Marbas takes an almost fatherly role with Wisteria, even if he sometimes forgets how fragile humans are and unintentionally puts Wisteria in danger. It’s a soft, sweet relationship that carries the series on its back. The animation is fine, nothing special, and the design work is pretty good. In particular, the demons all have cool designs. I’m not crazy about the music but that’s a small quibble. Recommended.

High Card is an energetic action series set in a fictional modern kingdom where 52 special playing cards give people super powers. These cards were accidentally (?) scattered across the kingdom, one of which lands in the possession of a young thief named Finn. After getting drawn into a battle for possession of another card between rival groups seeking to collect them, Finn is recruited to join High Card, an organization trying to gather all the cards for the king. This is a very colorful, vibrant series with a fun setting, exciting battles, and excellent visuals. The characters are cool, especially Wendy, a somewhat shy and mousy young woman who turns into a batshit crazy, unstoppable killing machine when she uses her card, and Chris, the flippant ladies’ man who is rendered immortal by his card’s ability (and there’s obviously more to him than meets the eye). The animation is slick. The music is, in my opinion, the best of the season (both the opening and ending themes are absolute bangers). Honestly, if not for Buddy Daddies, this would have easily been my favorite new show of the season. The show has a generally light hearted vibe but they’ve thrown at least one episode at us to prove how serious and dark the story can get. Highly recommended.

Bungou Stray Dogs has a new season (I think it’s season four?) and like with a previous season, it opened with a mini arc that’s entirely comprised of a flashback. This is something not every show can get away with, but Bungou Stray Dogs pulls it off. This flashback deals with the creation of the Armed Detective Agency, a group of “gifted” (people with special powers) agents who work with the government to neutralize threats, most often involving other “gifted” folks. When the season’s actual plot kicks in following the flashback, it’s about the Agency being framed for horrific crimes and being pursued by powerful government-sponsored hunters. The strength of this series has always been its ability to balance its genuinely funny humor with the darker, more violent aspects of its plots. It does both things so well, and manages to overlap them without one aspect distracting too much from the other (something a lot of stories, anime or otherwise, struggle to do). This season might just be the darkest yet, with each new nightmarish development making the situation more and more bleak for the Detective Agency. The animation remains polished and the design work attractive and interesting. If you watched previous seasons, you’re definitely already watching this. If you haven’t, this is a great time to catch up.

Revenger follows a group or mercenaries who take jobs killing targets as revenge for people who can’t afford to hire hitmen, charging only a single coin that has been bitten into, to display the rage of the person who was wronged. A skilled but stoic samurai named Raizo joins them after they get involved in a plot by his lord that tricked him into killing his fiancé’s father. While they’re definitely a group of killers, there’s a lot of moral variety among the group, with some seeming to enjoy the kills while others simply want to see the guilty punished. It’s an interesting mix of personalities. There’s an overarching plot about a giant stash of opium hidden somewhere in the city and corrupt government officials, but the show is best when focusing on stand alone stories of random people needing revenge. The animation is decent and the character designs are varied and attractive, particularly the leader of the group Yuen. The backgrounds are especially nice, with lovely colors and lighting. The music is quite good too. It’s not my favorite show this season, but it has a solid spot on my watch list.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Boku no Hero Academia

Blue Lock

Yowamushi Pedal

To Your Eternity

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Buddy Daddies

Best Opening Theme: High Card

Best Ending Theme: Buddy Daddies

Best New Male Character: Rei (Buddy Daddies)

Best New Female Character: Wendy (High Card)

[animefeminist]

2023 Winter Three-Episode Check-In

The big forerunner this season? Girls in fantasy shows!

The team split up the three-episode reviews between staff volunteers, with one person putting together a short(ish) review on each series. Like we do with our check-in podcasts, we started from the bottom of our Premiere Digest list and worked our way up.

If we didn’t watch a show for at least three episodes, we skipped it, and we’ve used nice bold headers to help you quickly jump to the shows you’re interested in. We’ve also excluded shows that are continuing on in basically the same vein as our premiere review to conserve space. Unless specifically noted, we will not be mentioning overt spoilers for anything beyond episode three.

We don’t have the time to keep up with everything, so please let us know about any gems we might be missing in the comments!

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[nenadear94]

[faline-cat444]

This isn't everything

[animescreencolle]

[anime-of-the-day]

Anime of the Day: The Tale of Outcasts

Alt title: Nokemono-tachi no Yoru

Released: 2023

Wisteria lives in the British Empire. She is an orphan girl who can see demons. However, Marbas, a lonely immortal demon, isn’t really interested in contracts like a normal demon is. He just kinda mopes about. That is till Wisteria appears. Now the pair frolics around the Empire while trying to, poorly, avoid hunters.

[newtypezaku]

This is the “no fear, one fear” comic except in reverse

[stacotto]

God, what is it about red hair x white hair pairs that sets the shipping part of my brain into overdrive? Like, I would commit horrible atrocities to get content of:

Suletta/Miorine

Reiji/Aila

Shirayuki/Zen

Marbas/Wisteria

Chise/Elias (ok I guess he kinda barely counts but all of his non-Simon-based disguises feature white hair and he's normally just a skull so I'm counting it)

It's just...so unexplainably satisfying. Probably doesn't help that red (like red red, not ginger red) and white are some of my favorite fantastic hair colors.

[thatrpguy92]

She offers her eyes for immortal companionship.... shits deep.... fuuuuck the haters 😎 😏

[animefeminist]

2023 Winter Premiere Digest

Things have cooled off from Fall, but there are still some excellent girls to root for this season.

Which shows do you review? 

We don’t review shows that are direct sequels, shorts, or (generally) for very young children. Anything not licensed and/or immediately available is off the table as well, though we do our best to offer premiere reviews for “Netflix jail” shows once they become legally available. Shows with late release dates will be reviewed separately from the digest.

While shows may change category as they continue to air, for ease of reference this is the order that will be used when discussing shows on our mid-season and wrap-up podcasts. Please note that any shows released in batches/by cour rather than weekly will not be discussed on the mid-season podcast.

How do you write the reviews?

Cy, Lizzie, and Vrai split the majority of shows, with Chiaki and Alex stepping in to pinch hit. The titles were divided by each reviewer’s preferred workload and choice, tackling a grueling 33 titles in just 11 days. Caitlin pitches in on the Anime News Network Preview Guide, so you can see her take on the new shows over there.

Once we have more funding, we’d like to change our current model to provide a wider range of perspectives on more episodes. We’re a long way from that goal, but it’s been a personal wish of ours since launch and we hope to make it happen someday.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[nenadear94]