Fall 2023 First Episode Awards

We’ve made it everyone! All the premiers (barring Dog Signal but who cares) have aired! And that means it’s time to finally announce the seasonal lineup, though I figure that’s obvious by now, as well as my awards! This was a pretty easy set to be honest. Frieren dominates in every production category, it’s just that good looking of a show. Meanwhile there were a lot of good options for the “Worst” categories, so many that any of them could be valid. So I ended up picking the ones that annoyed me the most!  As for the other awards, like exceeding expectations and best continuation? These were limited by what I had experience with. Obviously as someone who hasn’t even finished the first season of Kanono no Kanojo I’m not going to watch this one, so stuff like that lost out immediately. Meanwhile there are some series that I had high expectations for and they met them. In the end the winner for both of these came down to being the only new season I’m watching and something I expected to be terrible for the first few episodes. Decent picks if you ask me. Now onto the lineup and the awards!

Fall 2023 Lineup

  • Jujutsu Kaisen S2 (Continued)
  • Dr. STONE New World Part 2
  • Migi & Dali
  • The Big O (Throwback Thursday)

First Episode Awards

Best First Episode (The Death Note Award)

Frieren

Spent All Their Efforts on the First Episode (The Kyoukai No Kanata Award)

Paradox Live

Best Animation (The Samurai Champloo Award)

Frieren


Season Sleeper (The Gargantia Award)

Migi & Dali

Worst First Episode (The Bleach Award)

Butareba -The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig-

Exceeded Expectations (The Hyouka Award)

Undead Unluck


Best Continuation (The Natsume Book of Friends Award)

Dr. Stone: New World P2

Most Disappointing First Episode (The Berserk Award)

Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions

Best Background Art (Made in Abyss Award)

Frieren

One thought on “Fall 2023 First Episode Awards

  1. I actually thought Butareba wasn’t all that bad… I gave it a shot after reading a surprisingly positive first impression post on ANN (and also because I was obscenely curious what they could do with such a ridiculous premise), and it was surprisingly tame. There’s barely any ecchi content, the MC is a pretty decent guy (the worst he does is having some lewd thoughts – Undead Unluck is actually far worse in the ecchi / sexual assault department), the central relationship is fairly healthy (they communicate as equals via telepathy after all, so it makes perfect sense that the FL treats the MC as a person instead of a pig), and the story is much more serious than I expected (with the FL being from an oppressed social group). So … yes, the premise is weird, and it’s not like the show is outstanding or anything (just decent), but there are far worse shows out there imo.

    This probably won’t be a popular opinion, though, haha. 🙂

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