The Con Artists’ Color Awards 2023

Happy New Year, everyone! 2023 has continued that oh so joyous inflation from last year! Aren’t you thrilled?! Minus that, we hope your year has been eventful and joyous. Thank you for being a fan, and engaging in our content. It really means a lot to us, and it keeps us motivated to keep making things. Without further ado, here are our awards for 2023. Enjoy!

Scott – Red Awards

Su – Green Awards

Best of 2023	Pluto Pluto is my first soiree into the works of Naoki Urasawa. I’ve read one volume of Monster and loved it but life got in the way of me pursuing the rest of it, and the 74 episodes of it on Netflix is very daunting. I genuinely had no idea what to expect of this show as I’d never tried the manga, didn’t read the plot synopsis ahead of time, and thankfully had managed to avoid any spoilers. Pluto proves that science fiction doesn’t need to make its characters droll in favor of building a compelling world. The show has a central mystery which kicks off immediately and you are swept deep into this well realized version of Earth that has both humans and robots in uneasy coexistence. There’s a lot of layers to the show but the crux of it is about what makes us human, and contemplating both the beautiful and the horrifying elements. I loved every character deeply and felt a sense of purpose and understanding behind their thoughts and actions. All this served to make it ever more devastating as tragedy befalls many of them, and the answer to the central mystery is uncovered. As a last note, the story’s clear allegory to the US-Iraq war makes this show all the more chilling to watch as an American. It’s hard to ignore some of the ugly points about fear, war, and the way we hide our guilt when you know the real history behind the narrative. Pluto is an excellent story that’s beautifully animated and completely sticks the landing. Well worth the watch.
Most Pleasant Surprise of 2023	Heavenly Delusion Heavenly Delusion is a sci-fi, mystery, thriller, all wrapped into a solid package. Its interleaved storytelling that spans time periods kept me guessing all the way through its first half (I cannot wait for the next part), and never once spoon-fed me the answers I was seeking. You really have to be on your toes while watching this show or you’ll miss subtle foreshadowing or story beat clues. The show’s violence (physical and one instance of sexual) is used with purpose and leaves deep impressions or meaning. It’s so refreshing to watch something that wasn’t showcasing these elements just for gratuity’s sake. The dystopia that Kiruko and Haru meander through is as terrifying as it is fascinating. In addition to all this, Kiruko brings up a quiet discussion on what it means to be a singular person (or are you always the sum of two people?). The show also looks and sounds beautiful (gotta love that Disney money). I had no idea what I was getting into with this show and damn did it turn out amazing!
Worst of 2023	Hell’s Paradise Somewhere between the excessive violence, the dumb characters, the pedantic use of sex and sexual imagery, and whatever the heck Tao was, I knew…this show was not for me. Early episodes showed promise of there being a mystery to the deadly island our criminals were being shipped to. I was looking forward to a Lord of the Flies style throw-down as everyone went mad due to the true dangers and perhaps the dangers that only lurked in their minds. There aren’t any mysteries or reflections on human nature to be found in the show’s first part. It’s all just sexually fueled baddies and excessive violence. Even the show’s other draw, lead characters Sagiri and Gabimaru, rapidly declines in appeal. Sagiri is initially a badass sword wielder and quickly becomes a weak second fiddle to Gabimaru. Gabimaru learns things far too fast and becomes a wrecking ball just in time to go through my “favorite” trope of all time (amnesia…UGH). This show is poorly written, the fight scenes were lazy/uninteresting, and the whole show left me feeling irritated the whole way through.
Most Disappointing of 2023	Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror Good grief, this show was insipid. I almost didn’t finish it. I wasn’t sure what I would get with this fantasy fanfiction version of Love Live: Sunshine, but I expected fluffy fun times with some great music. Yohane herself is fine and her relationship with the Lailaps and the other girls is heartwarming at times, but the storytelling was a complete mess. There’s a strange calamity that has no real purpose being in the show, none of the magic makes sense, and not one but TWO unnecessary crime fighting teams in town. The show’s 13 episode run time barely gives every girl enough time to breathe, and the fight for the town’s future feels painfully tacked on. Even the music is just…okay. There’s a song or two in there I found good at the time but I barely remember any of them now. If this show had stayed a slice of life fantasy romp with great songs, I think most people would have been happier. At least the OP is a banger (and goes way too hard for what the show actually is).
Most Engaging Slow Burn	Ancient Magus Bride Season 2 Season 2 of this show brought us into The College and immediately had me concerned. This show did not need a magic school. Despite this, the show took a different approach and introduced us to a whole host of characters, each of whom weaved together into a slow interconnected web. The first half of this show took forever to get its ideas up and running but that didn’t stop it from being well executed. Chise has grown up, and her relationship with Elias is questioned in a mature way. She meets new people and has to contend with understanding her relationship with them. When Philomela is in trouble Chise and Co kick it it into high gear, and I was chomping at the bit every week for the latest episode to see how that poor girl would get saved. As with Season 1, Magus Bride wraps you in a rich world full of Fae that make you feel dazzled and afraid. The show looks fantastic and the two OPs by JUNNA are excellent. Even though it took its sweet time, this Season was well worth the watch!
The Most Tragic use of CG	Aoi no Orchestra Having watched Shirobako and having read numerous articles on how anime is made, I am no purist. I understand the money and time required to produce hand drawn animation, and I am therefore very understanding of the need for CG in 2D animated shows. That being said, there’s a time and a place where CG is horribly distracting and takes away from the feel a show is going for. Aoi no Orchestra is all about music, and with any music show, the heart and soul of it should be the animation of people playing instruments. For every scene where characters play music (save a few), the show uses CG. The CG is also very wooden and takes you out of any emotional connection to the music that the show is trying to portray. It serves to both ruin the visuals AND the storytelling. The show already appeared to have a lower budget but these scenes really put a damper on it.
The Most Impressively Bad Animation	Hikari no Ou I feel like even with budget constraints, most anime is clever in its cost cutting measures. There are more still shots, and they save the money for action/high stakes scenes. Hikari no Ou has impressively bad animation. As in, I’m shocked they let that kind of stuff out of the door. Given the pedigree of the director onboard for the show (Mamoru Oshii), it’s a mystery as to how the show received such little funding. The animation in this show is so bad, that I don’t believe it manages the required 24 frames per second rule half the time. Characters look terrible when moving, and it’s just hard to look at.
Best Body Image on Display	Mou Ippon! The girls in West Aoba’s judo club are drawn a bit chunkier, and never once does the show feel the need to harp on this, as we’ve seen time and time again in other anime. There’s no mention of anyone being “fat”, no body shaming in any capacity, and even a discussion on how bigger boned girls have various advantages in the sport. Props to the writers for putting together such a well meaning show that showcases a normally ridiculed body type in its lead characters.
The Actual Best Show of 2023	Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – Season 2 Birdie Wing is a treasure in the world of anime. Not only is it bonkers to the nth degree, it’s so sure of itself that you can’t help but be all in on it. There’s golf so powerful it gives you Tuberculosis. Golf so powerful that only your ties to the mafia can cure the damage it does to your body (via acupuncture administered by the butler of course). There’s even hidden identities and badass golf is the only cure for amnesia! Every girl in this damn show has golf powers which make no sense and I love every minute of it. Seeing the culmination of Aoi and Eve’s story, and their fierce battle against Moon Empress Beyonce (I’m barely exaggerating here) was incredible. The art direction and vivid colors of the show add a lot to its appeal, and if they were available I’d seriously consider buying prints of the watercolor-esque art from the ED song. I loved the dedication to the crazy premise that was showcased throughout this show’s runtime. It’s a good thing I trained as a weather woman, and if you haven’t done so, you need to watch this show!
Su’s JPop Playlist of 2023*	“Dear” by JUNNA (OP – Ancient Magus Bride – Season 2 – Part 1) “Nemurasareta Lineage (眠らされたリネージュ)” by JUNNA (OP – Ancient Magus Bride – Season 2 – Part 2) “Venus Line” by Koumi Hirose (OP – Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story) “Yuusha (勇者)” by YOASOBI (OP – Sousou no Frieren) “Idol (アイドル)” by YOASOBI (OP – Oshi no Ko) “Ｗ●ＲＫ” by millennium parade and Sheena Ringo (OP – Hell’s Paradise) “Genjitsu Mysterium (幻日ミステリウム)” by Aqours (OP – Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror)

*All song titles and artist’s names were taken from MyAnimeList

Dan – Blue Awards

Best of 2023	Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End There are some shows that grab you in such a way that you keep reloading their streaming page to see if a new episode has dropped, even if your brain recognizes that it won’t come online for another 12 hours. With its beautiful artwork, enthralling story, and moving characters, Frieren has been one of those shows for me. It’s a show that’s happy to take its time without ever feeling drawn out. I’m thrilled that it’s continuing into 2024, and expect to continue enjoying it for the rest of its run.
Most Pleasant Surprise of 2023	Undead Murder Farce I started watching this show on a whim, half-expecting to drop it when it inevitably went sketchy, but Undead Murder Farce kept me engaged with its banana-pants mysteries and comedic bits. There’s some questionable decisions in the second half, and its tone is definitely not for everyone, but if you can’t enjoy a good trashy anime once in a while, what’s the point?
Worst of 2023	The Ancient Magus’ Bride (Season 2) While there’s a lot I enjoyed about the original series and its accompanying OVAs, I fell out of love with Magus’ Bride hard this year. The magic school setting ballooned the cast and story into something I didn’t enjoy following. I finished it only on sufferance, and it would’ve taken Biggest Disappointment if it hadn’t been for two other shows that I had higher hopes for.
Most Disappointing of 2023	The Fire Hunter/ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead That’s right; it’s a two-fer this year! We followed The Fire Hunter to its messy, frustrating end as a group, so the shared aggravation helped ease the pain of watching a world and story with so much potential be rolled out in such an unpolished way. ZOM 100 was disappointing for two reasons – First, its fun, goofy story really fell off in the last few episodes, focusing on some of the most obnoxious antagonists I’ve ever seen. Second, its troubled production led to erratic releases and more importantly, created awful working conditions for artists. The irony of the hero being a survivor of an exploitative production company has not been lost on anyone.
Best Opening Theme	“Specialz” by King Gnu – Jujutsu Kaisen (Season 2) This is a BOP! The music and the opening animation are immaculate – give it a listen here.
Best Ending Theme	“Anytime Anywhere” by milet – Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End “Anytime Anywhere” absolutely nails the show’s shift from melancholy to hopefulness and is accompanied by beautifully stylized animation. Check it out here.
Most Baffling Remake	Trigun Stampede There’s so much I want to like about this series. It explores backstory details that the original anime never had the time to address, and makes strong use of its 3D animation for comedic effect. However, in striving to differentiate itself, it left behind a lot of the characterization and style that made the first anime adaptation so iconic. I know my nostalgia for the earlier anime puts me in an incredulous position to begin with, but the design and story choices made for this show really left me befuddled.
Biggest Fly in the Ointment	Yuri Briar – Spy X Family We’ve all got that show we absolutely love – that we tell all of our friends to watch. But then there’s that one episode, or scene, or character that just murders the vibe whenever they come up. In the case of Spy X Family, that vibe-killer is Yuri; the sister-obsessed weirdo who is also a member of the secret police directly opposed to his spying brother-in-law, Loid. Yuri had the potential to be both goofy and threatening, but they leaned into the sister obsession so much that every moment he’s on screen feels gross. Please put this creepy trope to bed, folks!

Brendan – Beige Awards

Best of 2023	Skip and Loafer While this isn’t quite the kind of maximum comfy that’s made up my top picks for the last two years, the tension and conflict in Skip and Loafer is so grounded that the pleasant personalities of the cast shine through and carry the show. It’s a bundle of relatable and affirmational yarns, and I eagerly await another season.
Most Pleasant Surprise of 2023	The Dangers in My Heart I almost didn’t watch past the first episode of this one, but I read some commentary suggesting that it shifts gears over the course of the first three or so episodes, so I pushed through and confirmed that the male lead does stop acting like a wanna-be serial killer. The humor remains drawn from the awkward romantic tension between him and the female lead, amplified by their classmates and families, but that’s entertaining in its own way, and much more palatable than middle-school murder fantasies that the show opens with.
Worst of 2023	The Fire Hunter As much as I thought that Hell’s Paradise didn’t live up to its potential, it was still coherent. The Fire Hunter seems like the anime team bit off way more of the source novels than they could chew, which is surprising given the big names involved. Oshii & Nishimura’s previous collaboration, the original anime Windy Tales, may be on the list of Top 10 Most Confusing Anime Endings, but the strangely drawn-out episodes continue to hold a special place in my heart. That style might not be appropriate for The Fire Hunter, which is full of tension and has a massive amount of concepts to explain and explore. It seems like they had a hard time maintaining a handle on everything.
Most Disappointing of 2023	Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End For my money, the best way to make a tonally inconsistent show is to lay the groundwork with nonsense, and then have serious stuff blended in at irregular intervals. It’s certainly possible for this strategy to be received poorly – to have a show that seems like it establishes itself as crude and later tries to demand respect that it hasn’t earned, but scenes like M.M. audibly breathing while drifting through space wreckage in Kemeko DX or the fight between Pepel and White Falcon in World Conquest: Zvezda Plot are some of my most treasured anime memories because they elevate their normally zany shows to new emotional heights. Reversing the proportions often results in something analogous to “Marvel humor”, which I believe can be done well, but which requires a light touch – lighter than what Frieren has going on, at any rate. Beyond Journey’s End is a serious show most of the time, so the levity tends to stick out, and the choice of gags drags it down. Whatever accomplishments it’s already made (and, let me be clear: it’s made several), and may make as it continues into next year, it’ll always be the show where the thousand-year-old asocial elf sizes her bust up against her teenage human companion’s for no apparent reason, and where that same companion makes an unprompted, disparaging remark against their other companion’s junk.
Most Anime-Adjacent Short	Class of ‘09 Credited to anime sub-contractor Koeda Animation (which is marketed towards and/or based in Latin America), and commissioned by SBN3 as a tie-in to his second visual novel, the Class of ‘09 anime is a dialogue-driven dark comedy set in (and inappropriate for anyone who was born after) 2008. For those with fond (or at least not traumatic) memories of abusing prescription drugs and generally being a terrible person in high school, this might be a strange little tablet of nostalgia – for others (such as myself), it’s an amusing skit that provides a tiny window (embellished, to be certain) into the lives of American delinquents. (as of this posting, the crowdfund campaign for another one has a few days left)
Most Subtle Part of an OP/ED That Was There the Entire Time but Was Re‑Contextualized Partway Through	My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 Once I learned that one of the guild members plays a munchkin character the size of a dust mote, I suddenly became very aware of the dot with the arrow pointing to it when the in-game avatars pop up about three quarters into the OP. I thought they (or at least the arrow) were added after that episode, but it turns out I just hadn’t filed them to long-term memory, because they were, in fact, always present.
Most Product Placement	Edomae Elf Red Bull gives you Yen, apparently. (meanwhile, Fanta plays the long game by keeping their marketing budget and still having obvious stand-ins in this and – if memory serves – multiple other shows)
Most Ironic Interaction with the Real World	Kubo Won`t Let Me Be Invisible! In episode 4, Kubo hangs up a classroom notice about preventing the spread of infections like the common cold and influenza. After episode 6, the studio delayed the second half of the episodes by three months due to COVID-19.
Most Involuntary Flashbacks	A Galaxy Next Door The entryway of the apartment building that hosts most of the show has a large nameplate sitting in it, which is visible perhaps not often, but certainly not rarely. Sign subtitles helpfully translate the text as “Hiiragi”, which is a name that anime fans of a certain age are very likely to be familiar with. Some of us more than others. zettai zettai

See you next year Space Cowboy!