K Sawyer Paul

Previously: 2022, 2021, 2020

See: My Personal Interpretation of Star Ratings ⭐

You can always follow me on Trakt, a pretty good site for logging tv shows.

Good New Shows

• Oshi no Ko 🎤
• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 🛼
• Zom 100 🧟
• The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today 😹
• Rurouni Kenshin ⚔️
• Tomo-chan is a girl 💪
• Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku 🥷

Good Returning Shows

• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 😈
• Our Flag Means Death 🦜
• The Bear 🍽️
• What We Do in the Shadows 🦇
• Slow Horses 😫
• Spy X Family 🕵️‍♀️
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 🔫

Good Shows that Ended

• Perry Mason ⚖️
• Barry ⌛
• Aggretsuko 🤬

Notes 📝

I watched a good number of live-action shows this year, but it’s notable that all seven of my “Good New Shows” are anime. That just says we’re living in an incredible age of new anime shows. Oshi no Ko is the lead by miles, a show I did not shut up about for six months, but all seven of these shows were incredible for their own reasons.

It’s never a guarantee with anime, but I also anticipate that four of those seven shows won’t get a second season. Because of that, I wanted to begin noting my favourite shows that ended this year, giving an extra set of flowers. Perry Mason deserved at least one more season. Barry ended perfectly. Aggretsuko felt like a show that would drop out of nowhere every year and we’d gobble it up in a weekend, but always felt like a special gift.

Live-action fared better with returning shows. The Bear is on everyone’s list, and I loved several episodes, but it didn’t work for me as a cohesive season. And while I loved Star Trek, it faced a real uphill battle defeating its own first season. The rest of the shows remained solid and know why they are loved. Demon Slayer soared this season, and I feel it’s on almost no best-of-year lists that I’ve read. Perhaps because we’re in a crazy good period of new shows, anime hitting their third or fourth seasons get talked about way less. That’s a shame. You can’t a show like Demon Slayer for granted. I’m guessing this time next year, I’m saying the same thing about What We Do in the Shadows.