My Favorite Animated TV Series of 2023 Pt.1: Jan.-June

Images courtesy of Netflix, Disney Channel, HBO Max / Illustration by Rachael Fendrich

Well, I’ve done my favorite animated movies of 2023 (at least the ones I’ve seen so far). Now it’s time to look back on the animated TV series released in 2023 to see which ones I like best.

Heads up before we start, though; this list will work a bit differently than the movies list. My original idea for that list was to list my favorite movies from each month of 2023 before I realized that a) there weren’t enough movies that I would call “good” to make that feasible and b) there were several films not available to watch because they weren’t legally available. For the 2023 list, though, I have enough options to make that idea work.

Perhaps there are too many options, though. Indeed, April 2023 alone has twelve series I’m interested in checking out or catching up on (and as of this writing (February 20), I only just started watching the first series on that list). Therefore, I’ve decided to split this countdown into two articles because otherwise, it would likely take forever to come out.

With that out of the way, let’s see what the best of 2023 was from January to June, starting with:

January

Distributors: Tokyo MX, Nippon BS Broadcasting, Gifu Broadcasting System, AT-X (Japan), Netflix, Crunchyroll (English-speaking territories)

Production company: MAPPA

Director: Shuhei Yabuta

Producers: Naokodo Fujiwara, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Masae Yamato, Akira Yonezawa

Writer: Hiroshi Seko (based on the manga by Makoto Yukimura)

Music: Yutaka Yamada

It’s been a year since Thorfinn Karlsefni (voiced by Yuto Uemura/Aleks Le) witnessed the assassination of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark (Takayuki Sugo/Jamieson Price) at the hands of his mentor Askeladd (Naoya Uchida/Kirk Thornton), who was in turn killed by Prince Canute (Kensho Ono/Griffin Burns), thus robbing Thorfinn of his chance to avenge the death of his father, Thors (Ken’ichirou Matsuda/Greg Chun), at Askeladd’s hands. As a result, Thorfinn, aimless and without purpose, ends up sold into slavery on a farm in southern Denmark owned by “Iron Fist” Ketil (Hideaki Tezuka/Sean Burgos). He befriends Einar (Shunsuke Takeuchi/Alejandro Saab), and the pair make a pact to work hard to earn their freedom. Meanwhile, Thorfinn works to confront his past and recognize the futility of war and violence. Things become complicated, however, thanks to Einar falling in love with Ketil’s favorite slave, Arnheid (Mayumi Sako/Gilli Messer), and becoming determined to free her, and King Canute using a fight between his soldiers and Ketil’s sons, Thorgil (Taitne Kusonoki/Earl Baylon) and Olmar (Yu Hayashi/Ryan Colt Levy), as an excuse to seize Ketil’s farm, by force if necessary.

Of course, Thorfinn’s character arc is the most talked about aspect of this season, which is not surprising considering that it may be one of the most remarkable instances of character development in any fictional story. He goes from a one-dimensional killing machine laser-focused on getting his revenge on Askeladd in Season 1 to wondering what it was all for after having his revenge stolen from him. Through all this, he realizes what his father meant when he used his dying breath to tell Thorfinn, “You have no enemies.”

Aside from Thorfinn, one of the best parts of this season is how it deconstructs the “benevolent enslaver” trope. Ketil, at first, seems like a kindly master, treating his wards with respect and offering to free them once they’ve accomplished their tasks. But we soon learn of his unsavory relationship with Arnheid, and when Canute arrives to take his farm, Ketil abuses his power over his workers to force them to fight Canute and the Jomsvikings, despite knowing full well that his soldiers stand no chance against warriors as well trained as them.

The anime also uses this final battle to turn the previous season’s depiction of violence and war on its head. Even if their actions in Season 1 were clearly portrayed as wrong, it was hard not to cheer along when Thorfinn, Askeladd, or Thorkell (Akio Otsuka/Patrick Seitz) performed their badass warrior feats. With Ketil vs. Canute, however, there’s no glory to be seen anywhere, as a ragtag group of farmers and debtors are sacrificed by a selfish and cowardly feudal lord.

Overall, these thematic elements are combined excellently with stunning animation from Studio MAPPA and excellent voice acting to create a series destined to go down in history as a future anime classic. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Honorable Mentions

Trigun: Stampede: If Studio Orange’s previous outing, Beastars, hasn’t convinced you that CGI anime can be every bit as good as the hand-drawn stuff, then maybe this new version of Vash the Stampede’s (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka/Johnny Young Bosch) story will convince you. The animation is exceptionally fluid, especially in portraying the characters’ facial expressions. The characters themselves are every bit as enjoyable as they were in 1998 anime, even if they are different from their original interpretations. For instance, Meryl Strife (Sakura Andou/Sara Roach) has become a somewhat naive reporter, while Milly Thompson has been replaced by Roberto de Niro (Kenji Matsuda/Ben Bryant), Meryl’s jaded alcoholic mentor. Nevertheless, it’s a worthy adaptation of Yasuhiro Nightow’s classic manga and well worth checking out.

The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2: The series that answers the question “What if you put Trey Parker and Matt Stone in charge of a Lord of the Rings adaptation?” is back for another season. This time, the lovable misfits of Vox Machina are called upon to take down the Chroma Conclave, a group of four dragons intent on conquering Exandria and stealing its riches. Along the way, we’re treated to the same hilarious antics combined with serious character drama that we saw in Season 1, but arguably better and more refined. Like with Vinland Saga Season 2, I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

February

Distributor: Disney Channel

Production companies: Cinema Gypsy Productions, Disney Television Animation, Marvel Animation, Flying Bark Productions

Creators: Steve Loter, Jeffrey M. Howard, Kate Kondell (based on characters created by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder, Natacha Bustos, and Jack Kirby)

Producers: Steve Loter, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Sugland (executive), Pilar Flynn, Rafael Chaidez

Writers: Jeffrey M. Howard, Kate Kondell, Halima Lucas, Maggie Rose, Lisa Muse Bryant, Liz Hara, Taylor Vaughn-Lasley

Music: Raphael Saadiq

This charming superhero show revolves around Lunella Lafayette (voiced by Diamond White), a 13-year-old Black girl and aspiring scientist who lives an everyday life in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, helping out her parents, Adria and James Jr. (Sasheer Zamata and Jermaine Fowler) and grandparents Miriam and James Sr. (Alfre Woodard and Gary Anthony Williams) at their family business, a rollerskating rink called Roll With It. But her life takes a turn for the weird when one of her experiments triggers a portal that allows a red Tyrannosaurus Rex to walk into her underground lab. The fearsome beast turns out to be friendly, though, and Lunella names him “Devil Dinosaur” (Fred Tatasciore). With the help of Lunella’s social media-savvy best friend and manager, Casey Calderon (Libe Barer), Lunella and her new pet become the crime-fighting superhero team of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, confronting numerous supervillains from the electricity-based Aftershock (Alison Brie) to the theatrical tyrant Rat King (Daveed Diggs) to the manic reality-warping space wizard the Beyonder (Laurence Fishburne). But soon, Lunella will have to face her greatest challenge when certain figures from a long-buried part of her family’s history come to call…

The thing that most stands out when watching this series is the animation, which may remind you of 2018’s Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Indeed, the same studio, Australia’s Flying Park Productions, is behind both series, this time combining its “anime meets thick-line animation” style with an overt comic book aesthetic, with more than a bit of inspiration from graffiti art as well. The characters, especially Lunella and Casey, are brimming with witty dialogue and charisma. Fishburne’s performance as the Beyonder is probably the biggest surprise, as his hammy and manic performance is a far cry from the soft-spoken badasses we’re used to seeing him as (and he sings, too!). Tatasciore also deserves credit for how well he conveys Devil’s emotional state through only grunts and growls. Lunella’s relationship with her family is also a wonderful highlight, especially how Miriam figures out Lunella’s faked injury in “Moon Girl’s Day Off.”

The series also deserves credit for its subtle yet powerful political statements about the Black experience in America. For instance, Aftershock specifically targets the Lower East Side because she knows the authorities are slower to respond when working-class people of color are in trouble, and the plot of one episode centers on a pair of white inventors trying to gentrify the LES. The final villain of Season One is driven to the dark side when a white man tries to take credit for his work. And then there’s the episode where Lunella tries to straighten her hair because of a racist comment from a classmate, only for it to all fall out. When her mother and grandmother find out, they give her a pep talk, telling her that kinky hair is nothing to be ashamed of and is a powerful symbol of Black people’s identity (also, her original hair turns into an evil villain called Mane (Jennifer Hudson) bent on destroying her, because comic book show).

Overall, this is a very fun show. The animation is some of the best TV animation currently airing, it has excellent action and laugh-out-loud comedy, the characters are brimming with personality, and the once-an-episode songs are a real treat, letting White and Fishburne, in particular, show off remarkable singing voices (indeed, the show’s theme song is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time). I know everyone’s been feeling burned out on MCU material lately, but trust me, this one’s worth it.

Honorable Mention

My Dad the Bounty Hunter: Appropriately enough for Black History Month, this one also centers on a Black family going on a sci-fi adventure, this time brought to us by Netflix.

The series centers on the Hendrix family, who are suffering a bit of estrangement from Terry (Laz Alonso), who is constantly away on his “truck driving” job. When Terry has to go on another job even after promising his wife, Tess (Yvonne Orji), that he would spend that weekend with their kids, the jaded and passive-aggressive Lisa (Priah Ferguson) and the optimistic Sean (JeCobi Swain), the kids decide to hide in his trunk and follow him to work. But they get more than they bargained for when they learn about Terry’s actual job: he’s an interstellar bounty hunter, flying through space and hunting down extraterrestrial criminals for a mysterious corporation known as the Conglomerate.

It’s definitely a bit formulaic and predictable at parts, but it’s still a fun watch. The premise of a beleaguered dad looking after his rambunctious kids on a road trip reaches new levels of hilarity when you put it IN SPAAAAAAACE! This is elevated by solid voice acting, especially from Alonso (who carefully walks the line between wanting his kids safe and wanting to spend more time with them) and Rob Riggle as Terry’s former partner turned rival Glorlox. Themes of corporatism, forced labor, and whether or not it is right to follow orders also add to the show’s enjoyability, especially when Lisa finds out about what Terry’s top bounty, Vax (Jaime Chung), is really up to, which causes yet another rift in their already rocky relationship.

So overall, it has a lot of the same things that make Moon Girl… great. It’s got humor, action, likable characters, excellent voice acting, and well-done social commentary. But, sadly, it doesn’t have the Beyonder, so it has to make do with an honorable mention.

March

Distributor: Disney Channel

Production companies: Titmouse, Inc., Disney Television Animation, Yearim

Creators: Lucy Heavens, Nic Small

Producers: Nic Small, Lucy Heavens, Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobio, Ben Kalina (executive), Kent Osbourne, Winnie Chaffee, Kayla Reid

Writers: Quinn Scott, Kent Osbourne, Claytia Gonsalves, Koby Agyeman, Sarah Lloyd, Lucy Heavens, Nic Small, Hannah Jost

Music: Brad Breeck

This charming slice-of-life buddy comedy follows an ambitious and hyperactive squirrel named Kiff Chatterley (Kimiko Glenn) and her more laid-back rabbit friend Barrington Agustus “Barry” Buns III (H. Michael Croner) on their misadventures on the island city of Table Town, inhabited by a vibrant funny animal cast and several magical creatures. Their adventures often cause chaos despite their good intentions, leading our main characters to learn lessons about selflessness, friendship, responsibility, and maturity along the way.

One could easily view this as Disney’s answer to SpongeBob SquarePants, with Kiff and Barry’s dynamic feeling very similar to SpongeBob and Patrick’s. Hell, the plot of the episode “Two for One Hot Dogs,” in which Kiff and Barry take the tagline on a billboard advertising hot dogs (“It doesn’t get any better than this!”) way too seriously feels precisely like the kind of misunderstanding everyone’s favorite underwater comedy duo would find themselves in.

While I wouldn’t say that Kiff reaches quite the same heights of hilarity that SpongeBob does, there’s still plenty of great comedy to be found, with the same slight touches of surrealism that often characterize the latter show. Highlights include the troll Trollie (Rhys Darby) and his eccentric approach to riddles (the answer to “I’ve never been abroad but have seen the entire world” is not “the moon,” but “the guy who dusts atlases at the library”), the antics of Kiff and Barry’s eccentric and egotistical drama teacher, a 712-year-old witch named Helen (Lucy Heavens), and Kiff’s attempts to get out of being the last to share the Buns family’s bath water in “The Fourth Bath,” with disastrous results. Also worth noting is the conflict in “Snow More Ketchup,” in which ketchup is used as a delightfully quirky metaphor for wealth inequality, and “Mushroomamtes,” in which Kiff and her dad (James Monroe Ingleheart) neglect their lawn cleanup duties, leading to their backyard being taken over by sapient and warlike mushroom people right as Kiff’s mother (Lauren Ash) is planning to host a cookout with scientist friends from the local college.

My only real complaint about the series is that Kiff’s selfish side can become a little overbearing in a few episodes. Other than that, though, the series is a solid buddy comedy with vibrant characters and voice acting, well-written comedy, an engaging setting, and some seriously amazing songs (having not been familiar with her work in musical theater, for instance, I was taken aback by how good of a singer Kimiko Glenn is). It might not be a high-stakes story-driven epic like a lot of my favorite series tend to be, but does it really need to be?

April

Distributors: Tokyo MX, CTC, GTV, SUN, KBS, BS11, SBS, TVA, tvk, TVS, GYT, MRO, KHB, HOME, TVh, TVQ, BSN, AT-X, Sentai Filmworks, Medialink
Production company: Doga Kobo
Director: Daisuke Hiramaki
Writer: Jin Tanaka (based on the manga by Aka Akasaka)
Music: Takuro Iga

From the mind of Aka Akasaka, the creator of Kaguya-Sama: Love is War, comes a story exploring the highs and lows of the Japanese entertainment industry through the eyes of a charismatic pop idol and her twin children. It’s also extremely difficult to recommend without spoiling major plot twists that happen in the very first episode, so bear with me.

The story starts with Gorou Amiyama (Kent Ito/Jeremy Gee), an OB/GYN who becomes a fan of the popular pop idol Ai Hoshino (Rie Takahashi/Donna Bella Litton) after bonding with a terminally ill young girl named Sarina Tendoji (Tomoyo Takayagani/Savanna Menzel) who dreamed of becoming an idol herself. One can imagine his shock when Hoshino suddenly turns up at his office, pregnant with twins at only 16 years of age and seeking to deliver them in secret to prevent her career being ruined. But as he is rushing to the hospital on her due date, a crazed stalker shows up and throws Gorou off a cliff, killing him. He ends up reincarnated as Aquamarine Hoshino (Yumi Uchiyama/Chaney Moore), Ai Hoshino’s son, alongside his twin sister Ruby (Yurie Igoma/Alyssa Marek), who, unbeknownst to him, is the reincarnation of Sarina. Life is idyllic for the next four years, with the twins admiring their mother’s rising stardom from the sidelines. That is, until a horrible tragedy tears the Hoshino family asunder, and Aqua, convinced that his biological father is to blame, decides to pursue acting as a method of hunting him down and taking revenge. The series then follows a teenage Aqua (Takeo Otsuka/Jack Stansbury) and Ruby as they navigate their way through the trials and tribulations of Japan’s entertainment industry, with Ruby even resurrecting her mother’s idol group B-Komachi alongside haughty former child actress Kana Arima (Megumi Han/Natalie Rial) and peppy social media influencer MEMcho (Rumi Okubo/Juliet Simmons).

The series starts with a feature-length first episode, which, over the course of its 82-minute runtime, takes us on a rollercoaster of emotions, from the tenderness with which Gorou remembers the time he spent with Sarina to the comedic antics the twins get up to (from Aqua’s discomfort with being breastfed by Ai to scaring the bejesus out of Ai’s guardian Miyako Saitou (Lynn/Christina Kelly) by claiming to be sent from the heavens when she tires to leak Ai’s secret) to the final gut-punch of a twist that sets the rest of the story in motion. That contrast between silliness and seriousness continues through the rest of the series. One episode will feature the new B-Komachi training with a fitness YouTuber, Pieyon (Taishi Murata/Andrew Love), who wears a ridiculous chicken mask and speaks in a Mickey Mouse-type voice. The next will feature teen reality show star Akane Kurokawa (Manaka Iwami/Kristen McGuire) being driven to suicide by cyberbullies (although Aqua saves her just in time). Perhaps Ali Griffiths of Digital Spy put it best when he said that Oshi No Ko is “all about the ways fans interact with the people who make the things we love.” Consequently, it also shows the hoops entertainers have to jump through to keep those fans (and their business benefactors) happy, often at the expense of their physical and mental health (or, in extreme cases, even their lives).

Pair this with expressive and colorful animation (especially with the character’s eyes, which sometimes look like they hold entire galaxies), and you get a wonderful, funny, and emotional tale of the entertainment industry at its best and worst. I’ll admit that I haven’t seen any of Akasaka’s other works yet, but if Kaguya-Sama is even half as good as this, I can’t wait to get around to it!

Honorable Mentions:

Heavenly Delusion: Brought to us by Production I.G. and based on the manga by Masakazu Ishiguro, this post-apocalyptic sci-fi story follows two parallel storylines.

The first follows a group of children in a walled-off orphanage who are kept from the outside world by warnings from the director, Shino Kaminaka (Masako Isobe/Anzu Lawson), that Hell is the only thing waiting for them out there. However, a girl named Tokio (Hibiku Yamamura/ Brittney Lauda) starts doubting this when she receives a message asking her, “Do you want to go outside of the outside?” Her doubts are only exacerbated when her clairvoyant friend, Mimihime (Misato Fukuen/Tia Ballard), shares a vision she had of two people coming from the outside to save them, one of whom shares Tokio’s face. Matters are further complicated when Tokio is impregnated by Kona (Toshiyuki Toyonaga/A.J. Beckles), which seems to scare the living daylights out of the orphanage staff for some reason…

The second plotline follows 15-year-old Maru (Gen Sato/Jonathan Leon) and 18-20-year-old Kiruko (Sayaka Senbongi/Anjali Kunapaneni) as they travel across the apocalyptic ruins of Japan, each of them looking for something. Maru is looking for someone who looks like him and a place he only knows as “Heaven,” while Kiruko, in addition to serving as his bodyguard, is searching for her old mentor, Robin Izanaki (Kazuya Nakai/Eric Vale), a doctor who performed an operation on her that changed her very being. But to reach these goals, they must get past the “Hiruko,” a class of horrific man-eating monsters that the duo takes down with Kiruko’s ray gun and Maru’s psychic abilities and martial arts skills.

There is a lot to praise about this anime. The animation is vibrant, the backgrounds beautifully rendered, the monster designs delightfully twisted, and the central mystery appropriately opaque. One of the greatest aspects of Heavenly Delusion, however, is the dynamic between Maru and Kiruko, especially with the reveal that comes in the second episode, when she reveals that she used to be a boy named Haruki Takehaya (Mariya Ise/McKenzie Atwood), whose mind was transferred into the body of his older sister Kiriko when the two were almost killed by a Hiruko attack and a gunshot wound, respectively. This leaves her in a somewhat ambiguous gender situation; while her mind is male and identifies as such at first, she seems to become more and more comfortable with being identified as a woman as the story goes along. Maru still admits to having feelings for her even after he learns about this.

While I definitely recommend experiencing this story for yourself, I feel that I must also warn you that the end of episode 12 features a harrowing scene involving sexual assault, so beware of that in case you’re sensitive to the subject. Also worth noting is that the show goes by its Japanese title of Tengoku Daimakyo on Disney+ and Hulu because Disney apparently stopped caring about marketing its anime acquisitions outside Japan after losing the distribution rights to Studio Ghibli’s works.

Hell’s Paradise: This It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World meets H.P. Lovecraft plot follows a group of death row convicts in feudal era Japan who have been promised a pardon from the Tokugawa shogunate if they complete the following task: recover the elixir of life from a mysterious island that has appeared southeast of the Ryukyu archipelago, and stick closely to the rules of the mission lest their samurai handlers be forced to carry out their original sentences. But when the various teams are confronted with the horrible monsters and deadly magical entities on the island, they must learn to set aside their differences and work together to survive their ordeal.

The dynamics between the various convicts and their assigned Asaemon are one of the series’ highlights. There’s the central duo of Gabimaru the Hollow (Chiyaki Kobayashi/Alejandro Saab) and Sagiri Yamada (Yumiri Hanamori/Marisa Duran). The former is a highly skilled ninja assassin who has survived numerous execution attempts and plays up the facade of being a cold and emotionless killer while secretly being terrified of dying without ever seeing his beloved wife, Yui (Mamiko Noto/Skyler McIntosh) again. The latter is a samurai executioner with unparalleled skill but is plagued with self-doubt, partly due to the effects of living in a sexist society and partly due to her reservations about taking human lives.

Other notable duos include Yuzuriha (Rie Takahashi/Jill Harris) and Senta (Daiki Yamashita/Jordan Dash Cruz) (self-centered and flirtatious femme fatale vs. a rotund and bespectacled scholar of religion); Aza Chobe (Ryohei Kimura/Nazeeh Tarsha) and his brother Toma (Kensho Ono/Matt Shipman) (the former a scar-covered bruiser, the latter a long-haired pretty boy); and Nurugai (Makoto Koichi/Cassie Ewulu) and Shion (Chikahiro Kobayashi/Reagan Murdock) (a 12-year-old religious heretic vs. a blind master swordsman).

Besides their banter and relationships, the series offers excellent animation courtesy of MAPPA, especially in the deceptively colorful environment of Shinsenkyo and the designs of its monstrous inhabitants, some of which wouldn’t look out of place in a Junji Ito manga. The tight pacing, the mixing of religious traditions that the expedition discovers among the island’s demigod inhabitants, and philosophical discussions surrounding the death penalty are additional highlights.

My only complaints are that some characters (I won’t say who because spoilers) seem to be killed off before their potential is fully realized and that Nurugai’s voice actor in the English dub sounds far too mature for a character who’s supposed to be twelve. Other than that, it’s an excellent action-adventure/horror story.

Fired on Mars: This HBO Max adult comedy-drama stars Luke Wilson as Jeff Cooper, a graphic designer who lives on Mars and works for a tech startup named Mars.ly. Things become complicated when Cooper’s job is deemed redundant, and he’s terminated. Unable to escape the corporate hell of Mars’ only colony, he searches for a new purpose among various characters and factions within the colony, from eccentric fitness fanatic Jaxton Olivier (Cedric Yarborough) to misanthropic rat-catcher Sluggo (Carson Mell) to a group of rebels seeking to build a new colony separate from Mars.ly., led by chief biologist Sheila (Emily Watson). He even starts a relationship with rebel doctor Crystal (Amara Karan) as his long-distance relationship with his earthbound girlfriend Hannah (Chase Bernstein) becomes increasingly strained. But Jeff must overcome his carelessness, impulsivity, and bootlicking tendencies lest he jeopardize his opportunities to find a new life outside of Mars.ly.

Perhaps BJ Colangelo, writing for SlashFilm, put it best when he described the series as “what would happen if Mike Judge was allowed to animate an episode of Black Mirror.” It’s a much-needed deconstruction of the rosy vision of humanity as a multi-planetary species advocated by figures like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, pointing out how all of the problems of late-stage capitalism wouldn’t just go away if we colonized Mars; they would simply be exported. Jeff Cooper finds this out the hard way, having been taken in by the romanticism of the Martian dream only to find the same uncaring corporate overlords as on Earth. Besides the biting satire and top-notch voice cast (which also includes Tim Heidecker as Mars.ly’s jerkass CCER Darren Young, Pamela Adlon as vapid Dreamspiration department head Reagan Smith, and an uncredited Pete Davidson as Martin the cantankerous office supplies manager), the series also takes advantage of its medium to build the rich and complex sci-fi environment of the Mars.ly colony, complete with beautiful Martian vistas.

Sadly, though, HBO seems to have little interest in marketing this show, which is, unfortunately, in character with the Zaslav era of Warner Bros. Discovery. So catch it now while you still can (legally, that is) before Dumbass Dave removes it and writes it off for taxes, I guess.

May

Distributor: Adult Swim
Production companies: Cartoon Network Studios, Studio La Cachette, Studio Zmei
Creator: Genndy Tartakovsky
Writers: Genndy Tartakovsky, Darrick Bachman
Producers: Sam Register, Genndy Tartakovsky (executive), Shareena Carlson
Music: Tyler Bates, Joanne Higginbottom

Fresh off the success of his recent smash hit Primal, TV animation maestro Genndy Tartakovsky returns with a steampunk fantasy adventure through time and space.

The story centers on a trio of heroes, the Order of the Unicorn, assembled by the great wizard Merlin (Jeremy Crutchley) to battle a timeless, nebulously defined evil force. The team consists of the sorceress Melinda (Grey DeLisle), the warrior elf Edred (Jacob Dudman), and the astral traveling monk Seng (Alain Uy), whose souls are stored in a rotund steam-driven robot named Copernicus and reincarnated in new host bodies every time the Evil reawakens. Things go awry in Victorian-era London when the Evil sends a kitsune named June Way (DeLisle again) to destroy Copernicus, forcing him to perform the reincarnation ritual earlier than expected. Melinda possesses wealthy heiress Emma Fairfax (Hazel Doupe), Edred possesses stage magician Dimitri Dynamo (Tom Milligan), and Seng possesses an orphaned child named Alfie (Demari Hunte). This poses numerous problems, including Melinda’s soul fighting with Emma over who gets to control the latter’s body (especially because Copernicus crashed her wedding with her childhood sweetheart Winston (George Webster) during the reincarnation ritual) and Alfie’s young mind being overwhelmed by the cosmic realm so that he’s in a prolonged dreamlike stupor. Somehow, though, the group must work out its differences and stop the Evil from destroying them and everything they love.

The first thing that stands out about this series is undoubtedly the animation (unsurprising, given that it’s a Genndy Tartakovsky production). The character designs are especially creative, blending influence from manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka and the rubber hose aesthetic of Max Fleisher cartoons (the Melinda-possessed Emma resembles Betty Boop going through a goth phase). Unicorn is also notably more dialogue-heavy than Primal, with Tartakovsky returning to script-based storytelling rather than storyboard-based to accommodate the more plot-driven narrative and character arcs.

Indeed, the character arcs are probably the most compelling parts of this show, especially Emma’s, as we watch her struggle to retain her identity as Emma while sharing a body with a headstrong Melinda. The conclusion of this character arc, in which Emma discovers a secret that involves Melinda’s relationship with Merlin, is one of the most emotionally satisfying moments I’ve seen in any of the series I’ve mentioned. Edred’s struggle to repair the broken state of the northern elf kingdom caused by his refusing the line of succession so he could be with Melinda is also a compelling story.

Overall, the series feels like the culmination of Tartakovsky’s entire career in TV animation. One can find elements from all his previous series’ in Unicorn, from the action of Primal and Samurai Jack to the worldbuilding of Star Wars: Clone Wars and Sym-Bionic Titan to the irreverent comedy of Dexter’s Laboratory (particular highlights include all of Alfie’s antics after he’s possessed by Seng and Edred using his magic sword to neuter an army of nude stone statues to preserve the show’s TV-PG rating).

Indeed, Unicorn may mark the start of a new era of creativity from Genndy Tartakovsky, as he recently entered an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Discovery that gives him access to any of the company’s IP. Hopefully, that will reduce the chances of Unicorn getting canceled and sent to tax write-off purgatory before Genndy has finished telling the story he wants to tell (especially given that he’s been trying to get this show made for twenty years.)

Honorable Mention

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2: The second installment of Disney+’s most artistically ambitious Star Wars project remains just as vibrant and creative as the previous volume. This time, however, Visions turns its attention away from solely anime shorts and instead commissions studios from around the world (except for “The Pit,” featuring animation from D’Art Shtajio). Examples include Spain’s El Guiri (“Sith”), France’s Studio La Cachette (“The Spy Dancer”), South Korea’s Studio Mir (“Journey to the Dark Head”), the UK’s Aardman Animations (“I Am Your Mother”), Chile’s Punkrobot (“In the Stars”), India’s 88 Pictures (“The Bandits of Golak”), and South Africa’s Triggerfish (“Aau’s Song”).

Just as with Volume 1, the shorts manage to tell complete and engaging stories despite their limited runtimes. Like with several of the shorts in Volume 1, it makes me wish Disney would make a series based on the characters in “The Spy Dancer,” “Screecher’s Reach,” or “Journey to the Dark Head” rather than Ahsoka or Solo. It helps that several of the shorts lean into the political themes of colonialism and indigenous rights that have been presenting the franchise from the beginning, most notably “In the Stars,” “The Spy Dancer,” and “The Bandits of Golak,” which uses the Empire as a stand-in for the British Raj.

One of the only major flaws in this season, as pointed out by Samantha Nelson of IGN, is that no less than three stories involve young girls seeking mentors to teach them how to use the force, namely “Screecher’s Reach,” “The Bandits of Golak,” and “Aau’s Song.” “Bandits…” may be the worst offender of the three due to how its ending unquestioningly follows the Jedi’s logic of abandoning all attachments. “Screecher’s Reach,” my favorite of the bunch, manages to subvert this with its emotionally devastating twist ending.

Other than the somewhat repetitive nature of its storytelling, though, Volume 2 is everything any fan of Star Wars or animation could want from a series like this. Whether it’s the adorable stop-motion aesthetics of “I Am Your Mother” or “Aau’s Song,” the dark fairytale storytelling of “Screecher’s Reach,” or the high-octane action of “Sith” and “Journey to the Dark Head,” there really is something in here for everyone.

June

Distributor: Netflix
Production companies: Movimenti Production, DogHead Animation
Creator and writer: Zerocalcare
Producers: Francesca Ettore, Magali Fuzellier, Giovanna Bo, Michele Foschini (executive), Davide Rosio, Giorgio Scorza
Music: Giancane

The slice-of-life misadventures of critically acclaimed Italian cartoonist Michele Rech (better known by his pen name Zerocalcare, or just Zero for short) and the eccentric cast of characters he surrounds himself with continues in this crude yet sensitive tale about fascism and the need to fight against it.

Like with Tear Along the Dotted Line, the story centers on another former friend of Zero’s (voiced by himself in Italian and Adam Rhys Dee in English) that he feels he’s failed somehow. This friend goes by the name of Cesare, who returns to Rome after two decades and has been red-pilled into the growing neo-fascist movement, much to Zero’s dismay. Cesare’s return coincides with a local culture war over a new refugee center being built next to a local school, with Zero and his friends being firmly on the anti-fascist side. That is, until his best friend and moral beacon, Sarah, advocates for closing the refugee center to save her job at the school. Can Zero salvage his friendships and stop the neo-Nazis’ dastardly plans in their tracks?

One of the smartest aspects of this series is how it doesn’t portray the conflict between the fascists and anti-fascists as purely black and white. The series goes out of its way to show that the fascists turned out the way they did less because of inherent sociopathy and more because of misplaced socio-economic grievances. Meanwhile, the anti-fascists, while undoubtedly morally superior, are just as likely to have their own agendas. Indeed, one of my favorite moments in the series comes in the last episode, when Zero has a conversation with a resident of the refugee center who tells him that they already had a plan to deal with the fascists before anti-fascists swooped in. It serves as a light-hearted jab at privileged white people who often unintentionally talk over the minorities they claim to be allied with.

Zero continues his quest to gain a sense of sonder in his life and realize he’s not the main character of his reality. He continues to argue with his human-sized armadillo of a conscience (Valerio Mastandrea/James Acaster) and to struggle with his martyr complex. Indeed, I tend to see a lot of myself in Zero, being an aspiring artist who also struggles with crippling self-doubt and anxiety and often chooses to keep my problems to myself rather than trust friends or family to help me deal with them. The other characters are enjoyable as well, especially Sarah’s heartfelt speech in episode 4 when Zero confronts her over why she sided against the refugee center, and Secco gets to show surprising depths beyond his apathy and constant desire for ice cream.

Overall, This World… continues its predecessor’s darkly humorous look at the trials and tribulations of living in modern-day Italy, which I’m sure will resonate with anyone worried about the rise of the far-right in the Western world.

Honorable Mentions:

Hailey’s On It: This sci-fi/romantic comedy adventure, brought to you by the Disney Channel, stars Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho as Hailey Alohilani Banks, an insecure and overly cautious fourteen-year-old resident of Oceanside, California. Her life is turned upside down when the Professor (Sarah Chalke), a time-traveling scientist, steps through a portal to tell her that she is destined to save the world by inventing a device that will reverse the effects of anthropogenic climate change. To do so, Hailey must complete a list of impractical and impossible tasks she wrote in her diary as a joke when she was bored in school, one of which is to kiss her kindhearted but airheaded best friend Scott Denoga (Manny Jacinto). Nevertheless, Hailey, Scott, and their cantankerous AI assistant Beta (Gary Anthony Williams) must complete the tasks, no matter how impossible, if they want to save the world. They just have to get past the Chaos Bots sent from the future by an unknown villain to sabotage Hailey’s accomplishments first…

Despite this show’s annoying tendency to drop plotlines before they’re fully developed (Hailey seems to get over her risk-averse tendencies a little too quickly after the first episode, the Chaos Bots don’t show up nearly as much as the intro implies, and Hailey adding items to the list does not seem to affect the future, among others), the characters are endearing enough that you don’t really mind that much. Hailey and Scott are adorably awkward, and Beta is a snarky delight to watch. My favorite is probably Scott’s younger sister Becker (Judy Alice Lee), a troublemaking butch lesbian who briefly develops a crush on Hailey. Plus, it’s hard for me to dislike a show that does this good a job at Pacific Islander representation and is this insistent about showing young girls that anything is possible once you set your mind to it.

Skull Island: This Netflix-original animated entry in Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse franchise (produced by Powerhouse Animation and animated by Studio Mir) follows a team of maritime cryptid hunters who become shipwrecked on the eponymous island after their ship is dragged under the waves by a Kraken-like squid monster. There, they must find a way to set aside their differences if they want to survive, especially as the Kraken seems interested in claiming the title of king of Skull Island from its current simian regent, Kong…

This series has proven somewhat controversial among Monsterverse fans due to having several elements that either don’t fit with or blatantly contradict other elements of the franchise. For instance, the perpetual storm that hides Skull Island is absent; Annie claims there is a whole archipelago of monster-filled islands (which is why there are no others of Dog’s species on the island); the island has habitats like the red grass field that show up nowhere else; Godzilla and the Monarch Organization aren’t even mentioned; and most of Skull Island’s fauna are (aside from Kong) original creations that show up nowhere else (the only exceptions being a Skullcrawler cameo and a dead Sker Buffalo).

While this is undoubtedly a problem, I still couldn’t help but enjoy this series. A lot of the characters are fun to watch. Annie (voiced by Mae Whitman) is easily the best out of the bunch, being a feral teenager who easily endears herself to the audience through her obliviousness to social cues and her adorable relationship with Dog. There is also the fun dynamic between Charlie (Nicholas Cantu) and his father, Cap (Benjamin Bratt), the latter being the charismatic leader of the monster-hunting expedition who constantly seeks adventure, and the former just wanting to stay on dry land, go to college, and be an average teenager. A lot of the banter between Charlie and his best friend Mike (Darren Barnett) is fun to listen to as well. The main human antagonist, Irene (Betty Gilpin), is also interesting, especially when we learn why she’s so hellbent on capturing Annie.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Monsterverse show without a good monster battle or two. Skull Island provides many such moments, from the initial Kraken attack that strands Cap’s team on the island in the first place to the flashback where Kong fights the giant chameleons while wielding monster ribs as melee knives to the final showdown between Kong and the Kraken in the last episode.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for giant monsters, but I had a lot of fun with this series. Who knows? Perhaps you will, too.

And with all that said, Part 1 of this list comes to an end.

I’ll still be working on Part 2, covering the shows that premiered between July and December of 2023, through the next month or two, even if the Jurassic Park retrospective will be my biggest priority. Indeed, I’ve been so focused on getting this out that I’ve had to push the retrospective to the middle of the month instead of the beginning. Still, I figure if I start before my birthday on May 23rd, I’ll still be relatively on schedule.

I’m also considering doing a best-of list for the new animated shows that premiered in the first half of 2024 once June slips away into July, plus trying to catch up on the animated films I missed from 2023. We’ll see how far I’ve come on the 2023 Pt. 2 list and the retrospective before I fully commit to that, though.

So, yeah, I’m going to get started on Jurassic Park now before Rexy’s patience wears thin. Until next time, beautiful watchers!