Welcome back to the first official Otaku Thursday of 2023! Star and I recently sat down to plan out our ENTIRE year of posts, and we’re really excited to bring to you a bunch of new content that we’ll touch on later. But for now, I’m personally excited to be counting the top 5 anime of fall 2022 in preparation for our 2022 You Can’t Know Anime Awards that will be coming to a blog post near you soon. So while I prep that behemoth of a post and we deliberate over our MANY categories, let’s get down to our fourth seasonal nomination for Anime of the Year.
While unfinished and with a kind of crazy upload schedule, Eternal Boys was indeed one of our favorite anime this season. This story of grown men creating an idol group was something that really spoke to use because we, in real life, are getting a little tired of super young boy bands. Eternal Boys was really refreshing to see these older men keep up with the youngsters (and funnily enough we discovered Xeed, a recently debuted k-pop band whose youngest member was 26 and oldest 30. We were so happy to see older idols that were our age).
What I really appreciated about Akiba Maid Wars was that it really played off of yakuza stories and tropes really well. What was advertised as the ‘daily life of maids’ that should’ve been cute, was a brutal gang story. While there were definitely some gaps in the storytelling, it all pulled together to be just like a very good show. I also really like the maids’ personalities and the secret of the panda. If there is one complaint I had, it’d be that the ending felt a little rushed.
3 ) I’m the Villainess, so I’m taming the final boss!
The most surprising anime of the season for Star and me. Now, I say that because we looked at this and thought it was just going to be another dating sim isekai and that we’d end up dropping it. However, this story of the female becoming the villainess didn’t end up with her taking over the main romance plotline, she instead went for the villain so her character would live. We really liked the main character’s tenacity and proactive attitude, and we REALLY loved the demon king. He was everything you’d want in an anime man and he honestly made the main love interests look absolutely horrible. Of course, most characters redeemed themselves and there were no true love triangles, even if there was some drama. I just wish it were longer.
Honestly, we might just have a thing for Wuxia right now. This anime is really pretty and the story is pretty good. The raven consort is haunted by the spirit of the raven but also acts as a kind of spiritual detective and healer. I found the stories involved in this anime to be really good and took us by surprise a lot. We especially appreciated the eunuchs storylines–they were downright shocking but explained their temperaments very well. The one thing I will say is that this anime didn’t feel finished–it definitely felt like it needed a part 2 or second season, but it was a really gorgeous and breathtaking anime overall.
I kind of hate that this is in the number one spot because, at the beginning of the season, Star and I knew this was getting hella hype from the masses. We didn’t think it could be that good. We were wrong though. While Chainsaw Man is very much the next big shounen adaption, it really earned its place here. The animation was really good (even though we heard that some manga fans thought it was bad), the fights were honestly fantastic, there were some surprising moments, the characters were somehow likeable even when they were unlikeable, and it took a lot of risks in its story. While the main character is a clear idiot, we’re really living for Aki–who is one of the main three and seems like he plays a big role in the story. So yes, coming in at number one for actually is a well-deserved Chainsaw Man.
There you have it! Those are our top five anime of Fall 2022. It was a surprisingly good season, but not as good as previous seasons. We definitely did end up watching a lot out of the season though. And of course, now we have the final seasonal nomination for Best Anime of the Year. Chainsaw Man will be up against other hits like Lycoris Recoil, Fanfare of Adolescence, Tokyo 24th Ward, and four special nominations in just a few short weeks. So look forward to the YCK Anime Awards soon!
Stay weebtastic,
xoxo
Luna
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