They may not have aired in 2023.

It feels like yesterday I was still a student, even though I was last a student in late January. That’s why it doesn’t seem right for 2023 to end yet.

I’m the Villainess, so I’m Taming the Final Boss

This was great…until it hit the part where it introduced the school. Then it started to slide into the tropes of every single other school anime out there. I feel like the focus was squarely on Eileen without remembering about Claude – even though they’re both in the anime’s title – during that part.

Spy x Family Part 2

I haven’t caught up on the currently ongoing (as of this post on the 11th of December 2023) part of the anime, but I did finish the previous arc after it aired which is why I’m counting it here. I had read through the manga until well beyond this point while I was watching this, so I don’t really have any comments on it aside from being thankful for the fact now a wider audience will know about Bond and the awesome tennis mini-arc.

Memories

See my full review here.

Dororo (2019)

This was one of my favourite anime while it was airing, so it was great to finish even though I tuned out during the fake marriage episode and it got a bit monologue-y at the end. I quote from my notes, “It’s works like these that teach you what it is to be human.”

…well, I guess part of the reason why I eventually tuned out what is ostensibly one of my favourite anime of all-time is because I was bingeing this while having COVID. March 2023 was the first time I caught it, so I binged a bunch of anime and books during the worst part of the illness. That’s why my heart might not have been in it for anything longer than 13 episodes, including this.

Hataraku Maou-sama!!

On the flip side, I binged this while I was depressed from getting a negative review as a freelancer a few months ago…and to be honest, I should get my life out of that hole, but it really hasn’t gotten out of that hole since. That said, the first season was one of my favourites of all time, to the point I proudly own a disc of it, and so I was cautious going into it (I’d known about Alas Ramus from reading the light novels, years before her intro happened in the anime) – my fears were put to rest as soon as I got back into it and the cumulative finale of these three seasons, in particular, was solidly constructed.

Shugo Chara! (original series)

Shugo Chara is that one anime I’ll turn to when I’m craving a magical girl anime, but don’t have a craving more specific than that (which occurs sometimes, but possibly not as frequently as you’d think for a self-professed magical girl fan), so to actually finish all 51 episodes is no mean feat. The manga was one of my first completed manga back in high school so finishing it was essentially That said, there’s still the other seasons left to go…

Boogiepop wa Warawanai/Boogiepop Phantom

I actually didn’t like this anime all that much – I found it confusing and pretentious, plus had to start it a few times to even get my head around it and do some research to find out my understanding of the overall Boogiepop story was incomplete – I should’ve finished Boogiepop and Others first. On the other hand, I like the OP for its nostalgia factor (not only because I first watched it with the anime club so hearing that OP mentally takes me back to the theatre, but because that OP is emblematic of that particular early 2000s period it was released in) and if my records are anything to go by, it’s my 500th completed anime. I have to give it props for those.

---

So there you have it. Note those are all anime I finished within the year – as is usual for me, I started a bunch of anime and yet didn’t finish them within the year (more on that next week), but I might finish them in the months between Amazing Race seasons. See, both Amazing Race Australia 8/Celebrity Season 2 and US 36 are scheduled to happen soon, but while the latter has a confirmed start date of 13th March 2024 in the US – meaning, knowing the channel that airs it, I’ll probably get to watch it starting the week after – I don’t yet know about the former.

Speaking of which, I can say something about that particular time period. I’m going overseas for the first time in over 5 years in April 2024 to attend a wedding. The gears have been in motion for this ever since a few months ago when I RSVPed, but I’ve started shuffling things around in real life to allow for it. This announcement will probably fly under people’s radar in the mess of the holiday period, but I figured I’d let you guys know now as a reference for later. (Of course, one of the steps of preparation is putting content on the Spellbook in advance, so you won’t perceive it as me being gone.)

Meanwhile, that translation I mentioned is currently (as of writing this bit of the post) just missing typesetting, so you may see it one day. It’s just that you’ll only see digital versions.

So what anime did you watch in 2023? I had huge swaths of time where I just couldn’t bring myself to watch anime for a variety of reasons, so I know a bunch of good stuff has passed me by.