2023 may have been an up and down year for anime, but it produced one of our closest top 10 lists of all time. The top 3 in particular were only a few points apart, and might look different if I had woken up in a different mood on the day that I voted. I think it speaks to the quality of the shows at the top of the list, all of which might have been #1 in different years.

If you’re new to our process, each member of the GLORIO crew submits their own top anime list, and we use a weighted scoring system to determine the final overall list. It’s worth noting we generally do not include shows that are continuing directly into the next season, particularly this year since a lot of us would have probably included Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End on our list. So consider than an honorable mention for Frieren. Now, on to the top 10!

10. Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story Season 2

Anime Original by Bandai Namco Pictures
Director: Takayuki Inagaki
Series Composition: Yousuke Kuroda

Jel: Dropping from our #2 show last year down to #10 is an appropriate reflection of our disappointment in Birdie Wing’s return season, but the series will always hold a special place in our hearts. Season 2 trades most of its unhinged underground golf mafia antics for soap opera-style melodrama, which still manages to be entertaining. We still get absurd dialogue, like one character proclaiming golf is killing everyone she loves, or a caddy revealing she trained to be a weatherwoman to essentially win one round of golf. So some of the magic is still there. Perhaps there is another timeline where we get a better second season, but even as is Birdie Wing is pretty great.

9. Blue Lock

Adaptation by 8bit
Director: Tetsuaki Watanabe
Series Composition: Taku Kishimoto

Euri: The author of Blue Lock woke up one day and wondered what Battle Royale would look like if it was full of soccer players instead. Some 300 national team prospects are sent to a facility to duke it out, and elimination from the program means being blacklisted from the Japan national team for life. As bizarre as that premise is, it’s a rarity among sports anime to have stakes above prefectural tournaments and the like. Everyone in this show is fighting for their one chance to make it.

Blue Lock walks an interesting line between realistic and absurd, constantly opting for plausible but unlikely. The Blue Lock program itself, the stats nerd that thought it up, and even the level of sporting ability on display is teetering between both states, which makes for fascinating developments that aren’t yelling out shot names and kicking footballs so hard they set on fire. It’s a rare sports show that doesn’t fit in with the straight-laced shows like Aoashi, or the fantastical shows like Captain Tsubasa. It stands out and does its own thing, which makes it worth your time if you’re up for a sports anime.

8. My Happy Marriage

Adaptation by Kinema Citrus
Director: Takehiro Kubota
Series Composition: Ami Satō, Takahito Ōnishi, Momoka Toyoda

Artemis: I was pretty down on this anime when it first started airing – I believe I called it cliché and tropey, as well as unimaginative and derivative. Let the records show I was… well, not exactly wrong, at least in part, but it was also still a really good show once the story properly got underway. My Happy Marriage may not be all that unique on paper, but it delivered exactly where it most counted, especially in the (surprisingly realistic and grounded) depiction of Miyo’s ongoing trauma and its after-effects, as well as in its lovable side characters like Yurie and Hazuki.

If I had any major criticism of the series after completing it, it’s that I think it would have greatly benefited from being a two-cour anime rather than a one-cour one split into two seasons (season 2 was announced after the final episode but has yet to receive a release date/season). There was a lot of material here, along with some obviously unfinished plot threads and character arcs, and it was obvious from the final third of the show that 12 episodes simply wouldn’t be enough to get there. Still, the fact that there will indeed be a second season is great, and flaws aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Highly recommended for anyone who likes non-toxic shojo romances, non-isekai fantasy, or fairytale-inspired period dramas.

7. Spy x Family Season 2

Adaptation by Wit Studio, CloverWorks
Director: Takahiro Harada
Series Composition: Ichirō Ōkouchi

Artemis: Is this the most original pick for any yearly top 10 anime list? Absolutely not. Did it deliver in all the ways it was supposed to (and sometimes then some)? Absolutely yes. Sure, we could all sit here splitting hairs over which season did certain things better or which had the most top-tier Anya meme faces, but I’d say the differences are, for the most part, fairly miniscule overall. If you liked Spy x Family season 1, you will almost certainly have liked Spy x Family season 2… and if you haven’t yet watched Spy x Family season 1, you should go rectify that immediately.

Whether you’re into explosive action sequences, goofy slice-of-life antics, or scenes that unexpectedly make you tear up because they truly manage to tap into that human part of you that actually values things like childhood nostalgia and found family, Spy x Family continues to have something for pretty much everyone. This is one of the only anime series out there where I’ve thought to myself, “Yep, I will definitely bother to watch the movie when it comes out,” and that in itself speaks volumes, including of the ongoing wacky entertainment that season 2 brought to the table.

6. Skip & Loafer

Manga Adaptation by P.A. Works
Director: Kotomi Deai
Series Composition: Kotomi Deai

Jel: There are many good school comedies about nice people being nice to each other, and Skip and Loafer is one of the best. It stands out by having great characters that mostly avoid anime stereotypes. Everyone from the main couple to the supporting cast feels multi-dimensional. Sure everyone is generally friendly and kind, but they also have negative feelings and disagreements that can’t be immediately fixed with the power of friendship. In particular, main character Mitsumi is ambitious and full of energy, and she makes the series feel more fast paced and exciting than your average show in this genre. Skip and Loafer feels good without being naive or cloying, and it’s a joy to watch.

5. Migi & Dali

Manga Adaptation by Geek Toys, Comp Town
Director: Mankyuu
Series Composition: Mankyuu

Zigg: The ‘creepy twins’ cliche has to be one of the most played out in all of media, and yet the late Nami Sano was somehow able to mine not just new material out of it, but some of the freshest, funniest and most poignant material of the year. Migi & Dali is many things, but the one thing it consistently is above all others is fascinatingly, compellingly weird. Whether it was cross-dressing and catfishing your own brother to improve his grades, regressing adolescents to infanthood via mental conditioning, or just hanging out with a boy who dresses up as a bird at night, there was seemingly no scheme too preposterous to mine for laughs. What really set the show apart though, was the ability to temper its ridiculous humour with a powerful undercurrent of menace, and to masterfully balance those two seemingly opposing forces to produce a show that’s equal parts a laugh riot and a nightmare. They even managed to slip in some honest-to-god emotional gut punches in there. Sano may have been taken from us too soon but this delightful and devilish show is a worthy legacy.

4. Heavenly Delusion

Adaptation by Production I.G.
Director: Hirotaka Mori
Series Composition: Makoto Fukami

Aqua: What even is left to say about the end of the world? Aesthetically, Heavenly Delusion is not very far removed from popular mainstays like The Road, The Walking Dead, or The Last of Us, but rather than merely musing on the heart of darkness unveiled once society as we know it collapses, this striking adaptation of a manga by Masakazu Ichiguro touches up the post-apocalypse with various shades of both white and black. Rather than a constant struggle for survival, Maru and Kiruko’s journey is a wisely paced and carefully measured roller coaster that recontextualizes classic tropes in a kaleidoscope of different themes and tones, from heart-rending tragedy over hot-blooded action to side-splitting hilarity, occasionally all in the span of a single episode. Heavenly Delusion‘s staunch refusal to adhere to genre conventions and willingness to address contemporary topics and widely divergent, sometimes messy, moods, all wrapped up in an intriguing mystery, are what make this show a shining example of how anime can do differently the things other media have seemingly done to death. What even is left to say about the end of the world? A lot, as it turns out, as long as you remember to switch out your pair of glasses.

3. Pluto

Adaptation by Studio M2
Director: Toshio Kawaguchi
Series Composition: Naoki Urasawa

Iro: When robots are equal or even superior to humans, what does it mean to be the Greatest Robot on Earth? Pluto transforms the original Astro Boy‘s battle gauntlet storyline, modernizing the setting and bringing its deeper themes to the forefront. It posits that just as robots are limited by their schematics and programming, we humans are trapped by cycles of greed, hatred, and violence. We may never truly be free of our basest emotions – that’s what it means to be a person – but as long as we do not allow them to control us, perhaps we can take those steps into a brighter future.

2. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Adaptation by Sunrise
Director: Hiroshi Kobayashi
Series Composition: Ichirō Ōkouchi

Euri: Good Gundam shows continue to be a rarity, but in many ways, it felt like The Witch from Mercury was making up for some of the more recent stinkers. It has a wonderful cast of characters, including a lead duo that stands out as one of the franchise’s best. Suletta and Miorine are fascinating, troubled people that you can’t help but root for, even at their worst moments. Especially at their worst moments. Spending each week hoping for Suletta to live for herself, and for Miorine to throw her dad’s baggage in the trash, is one of the biggest reasons this show will stick with me for years to come.

1. Vinland Saga Season 2

Adaptation by MAPPA
Director: Shūhei Yabuta
Series Composition: Hiroshi Seko

Gee: You have no enemies. No one is born with enemies. These are the arc words that form the foundation of Vinland Saga’s 48 episode tale of vengeance, guilt, and redemption. We have the privilege of watching Thorfinn grow to internalize these words over the course of his tumultuous life. You can tell Makoto Yukimura wrote the story with this ending in mind and it’s special to have an anime adaptation so ably capture the story’s finest qualities. Modern anime production often precludes this kind of deliberately paced character building. Most anime have to work within the confines of 13-26 episode runs, which entails necessary streamlining. Vinland Saga is the kind of story that can only be told with time and diligence. By spending an entire season with Thorfinn being directly responsible for the violent excesses of his time period, he earns his redemption in the second season confronting his actions and struggling to form a new ideology from its ashes.

Vinland Saga dares you to dream, like Thorfinn, in the face of overwhelming bleakness. It almost feels naïve, but when your world is dominated by the brutality characteristic of early medieval Europe, someone must believe in a better world. That surely, this cannot be the final state of the human race. Thorfinn will not create the paradise he dreamed of. We know this because the modern world isn’t remotely close to that ideal. But maybe it’s closer than it was 1000 years ago. And in spite of everything, Vinland Saga asks us to not give into astonishment. If only one iconic seinen manga is allowed to get a tonally perfect anime adaptation, I’m glad it was Vinland Saga.