Best Anime Of The Summer 2023 Season: From Undead Murder Farce To Jujutsu Kaisen

(Welcome to I Didn't Know What Seasonal Anime to Watch, So I Asked /Film for Help and They Gave Me a List, a regular column dedicated to helping choose what anime shows to watch each season.)

The summer heat is finally starting to go away, replaced with an autumn breeze (unless you're in Texas), and that means another season of anime has ended. After a phenomenal spring season full of blockbuster successes and one of the best shows in years reaching its thematic climax, the summer 2023 season delivered all the goods, with returning seasons of fan-favorite shows, blockbuster adaptations of exciting new manga showcasing the visual diversity of the medium in all sorts of genres. Whether you're in the mood for thrilling action, a horror mystery, a domestic drama with supernatural elements, or a hilarious and all-too-real zombie show, there's something for everything. 

With so many new and returning shows airing this season, including some with a large episode number, it can be hard to decide what to spend your time on. That's where we come in. Let /Film be your guide to the best anime of the summer 2023 season.

What happens when you combine the classic premise of "Cinderella" with an alternative Meiji Restoration-era Japan in which magics and spirits are real, so that Cinderella has magical powers but still lives as a servant to her stepmother? Well, you get the hauntingly beautiful "My Happy Marriage." The show follows Miyo Saimori, whose life of servitude promises to finally come to an end once she gets married to Kiyoka Kudou — except it doesn't, at first, because Miyo's new husband is as icy and abusive as they come. Throughout the season, however, Miyo finds that her new husband isn't as cruel as the rumors say, and the two start to bond.

What makes "My Happy Marriage" stand out is how it conveys the quiet pain and the internal journey that Miyo goes through as she finally starts accepting herself. Her love story cannot take off until she allows herself to love and to receive love, and he is only supportive once he realizes what's going on. The story lives and dies with their mutual growth, and the anime does a fantastic job of portraying their journey together, playing on our expectations and ideas of what fairy tales are and should be.

The first season of "Link Click" was one of the biggest surprises of 2021, a fun, smart twist on the time-travel genre with clear rules, an engaging story, and compelling characters. Now in its second season, "Link Click" doubles down on its brutal cliffhangers, raising the stakes higher than ever and focusing more on visually stunning action. Yes, this is technically not a Japanese show, but a donghua (Chinese animation), but I'm still including it here since A) it is released on Crunchyroll like most other anime and B) it is one of the best shows of the season.

The season leaves behind the show's case of the week format from season 1 to instead dive head first into a single central mystery involving a former cop, a brother-and-sister duo with a tragic past. The stakes are much more personal, the worldbuilding is in full force, and the lore behind the magical powers that allow Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi to dive back in time through pictures takes center stage. The action continues to be impeccably animated, the cliffhangers are quite effective at making you want to pull your hair out, and the villains are as horrific as ever. What makes the new season of "Link Click" so good is how it doubles down on what made its first season special, while making every aspect of the story and world bigger. Still, there is time to shine a light on smaller moments of character interactions, or thematic moments, like a mini-arc revolving around domestic abuse which is portrayed with nuance.

While every manga fan and their grandma will likely swear that the anime event of the year is the still-in-progress "Shibuya Incident Arc," audiences should not overlook the miniature flashback "Hidden Inventory / Premature Death" arc that kickstarted the second season of "Jujutsu Kaisen." After alluding to it in the "Jujustu Kaisen 0" movie, this arc is all about the tragically doomed friendship between Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto. Their story is heartwrenching and compelling, with masterful character work on the two powerful sorcerers that nevertheless still maintains the contemporary humor of "Jujutsu Kaisen." It is hard not to be heartbroken upon seeing what was supposed to be a simple mission result in the falling out of two friends, and the birth of a terrifying villain, even if you already know how the story ends thanks to the movie.

Then there's the season's upgraded aesthetic and visual style. Newcomer director Shōta Goshozono doesn't try to replicate Sunghoo Park's work on the first season, but instead incorporates the cinematic approach Goshozono and MAPPA did in their excellent "Chainsaw Man" adaptation. The result is a show with not just stunning fights, but one that remains visually inventive even in smaller and quieter exposition scenes. Granted, some of that exposition is a bit too clumsy, but this is the best "Jujutsu Kaisen" has ever been, and it promises to get even better as this season goes along.

Now, there's a big caveat with this entry, "Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead." The show has been plagued with so many production issues and delays that the last quarter of the season just got taken off the broadcast schedule completely. Making matters worse is that these issues are seemingly making the studio behind the anime fall into the same crunch culture it so successfully criticizes.

And it is a shame, because what has made it to air for "Zom 100" is not only one of the best shows of the season, but of the year at large. This is a painfully relatable, visually vibrant, and exhilarating zombie comedy about a guy so depressed about his work that the start of a zombie apocalypse becomes the best gift of his life. The first episode alone is one of the best-looking shows of the year regardless of medium or genre, the use of aspect ratio and color literally open up our protagonist's eyes to the beauty of life like he's entering the land of Oz being one of the most memorable scenes of the year. From there, "Zom 100" delivers a delightful spin on the zombie genre by still following the life-of-death situations and tropes we associate with the sub-genre, but giving them a more uplifting tone through a life-affirming story angle of finding the life you always wanted even if it is at the end of the world.

Who knew all you needed to make the best show of the season was to put a disembodied talking head, Sherlock Holmes, Arsène Lupin, the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein's Monster, vampires, and werewolves together in a Victorian gothic murder mystery? That's "Undead Murder Farce," and it is one of the funniest, most clever, and delightfully weird shows you can watch this year. The story follows disembodied detective Aya Rindo and her half-Oni assistant Tsugaru, who travel through Europe solving supernatural murder mysteries — and mostly just fight supernatural creatures in the process.

This is what "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" movie wishes it was, a smart collection of literary characters involved in a thrilling mystery that both pays homage to their source materials while also putting a new spin on them. This is a world where Dracula is dead and vampires have begun to openly live amongst humans — which means tensions are high between them. In addition to rich worldbuilding, this show has a fantastic eye for visuals, with director Mamoru Hatakeyama framing not just the action, but even the talkative scenes with attention to eye-popping detail. Still, this a mystery show, and "Undead Murder Farce" delivers a thrilling mystery that lays out its clues in front of the audience, but always keeps an emotional layer hidden until the end, when Aya makes her grand deductions without ever being too long or dull. Whether you're in the mood for a good mystery, a cool action show, or a horror-inspired monster mash with every Victorian character you could think of, "Undead Murder Farce" has something for you.