Best Animated TV Shows of 2023 (Western) | Kaiser's 23 of 23 

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I'LL WATCH PANTHEON

All I’m going to say about Captain Laserhawk: it wouldn’t be Ubisoft if they weren’t disappointing Beyond Good & Evil fans

My favorite part of My Adventures with Superman is when Lois gets superconfrontational about Superman's abilities. And Clark responds something like "Maybe he's just a nice guy trying to help others." And Lois offhandedly responds "That's what you would do if you had powers, Clark." And that just said so much about them. Lois assumed everyone would misuse Superman's powers, she immediately was cautious about Superman. And she assumed Clark was the one exception. I love that first and foremost, what she loved about Clark is that he was a good guy. Second favorite part is when Clark later shields Lois from some bullets. "How did you know you'd be bulletproof?" "I didn't. I just knew that you weren't." And all the props for keeping Grant Morrison's relationship for The Brain and Mallah!

“Since his dad ran a train on him” is fantastic wordplay, sir. Two claps. 👏👏

Episode 5 of Blue Eye Samurai may be the greatest piece of media from 2023

42:42 "She pulls off a stunning feat" is a massively underrated visual pun. Absolutely marvelous

I absolutely loved My Adventures With Superman and I cannot wait for season 2

"Is this all gonna be super heroes?" Next one is Velma. "...Super heroes it is."

My biggest issue with Blue Eye Samurai is also contingent on the plot. SAMURAI HAD GUNS GUYS. 1545, introduced by the Portugese. Jesus.

Any mention of scavenger's reign is saved in my book. It's criminally underrated and deserves all the attention on it.

Kaiser won my heart with that Identity Crisis joke 😂

I was mixed on Harley Quinn season 4. But I have to give a credit to the people working on for putting in the underrated DC Snowflame.

Happy you enjoyed Scavenger’s Reign, Scott! The more eyes that show gets the better

Not enough people are talking about Blue Eye Samurai. A masterpiece.

When Kaiser took his hat off on the Hilda take, i was so confused who was talking lol i often only watch him with the hat on

"This is MY hole, it was MADE for ME!" was definitely a reference I was not expecting.

Yeah! Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur deserves all the appreciation. There's a lot on this list I didn't know about though, and some of it looks right up my alley. I miss Anime FMK but this'll do, getting good informed anime reccomendations was always the best part.

The biggest reason I liked Jimmy in this version of the show is that most (if not all) the theories he spouts are either foreshadowing or are deep cut references.

My Adventures with Superman probably could have benefited from some extra episodes. Things did move awfully fast at times and additional episodes could've helped flesh out some of the characters and plot threads. But Clark and Lois' personalities and dynamic kept me hooked throughout. Here's hoping season 2 is at least of the same quality.

I miss Anime FMK sometimes. Understandable why it stopped, but they were good times.

Scavengers Reign is a terrific show

i"m just glad to hear of another person that watched scavagers reign

Well, I’ve just got to add 3 more series to your watchlist from 2023: Carol & The End of the World is a surprisingly poignant look into how different people handle… well, the end of the world. There’s a lot to love in the characters and methods of storytelling. Fired on Mars will never let you get comfortable. It’s a strangely wild ride as the MC grapples with a lack of purpose and finds so much more going on beneath the surface. Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is a visual masterpiece with a great hook: reincarnated heroes fighting a strange magical enemy over history. The story itself never quite comes together, but the characters and their journeys through it are excellent.

I loved the “would” during the Blue-Eye segment

Blue Eye Samurai is beyond spectacular and deserves all the love it gets

Just from the bit of scavengers reign you showed, it honestly reminded me a lot of "Made in abyss" A beautiful rich world with abundance of weird strange but well designed creatures that can work for or against you and can be absolutely terrifying...

I get where you're coming from on Jimmy, but as someone who knows the DC universe I knew the "Jimmy's insane conspiracies are all true" thing was coming. From episode one his "conspiracies" were truths of the dc universe.

Scott... did you re-dub the mauler twins scene? or is Kevin Michael Richardson's rendition of the Mauler Twins just channelling the same "voice place" as you often depict for your deeper voiced villains?

I could *feel* the weight behind that "utterly exhausted trope".

I somehow have never heard of Scavenger’s Reign, but I’ll definitely be doing my damnedest to check it out now! Thanks, Kaiser! ~_~

I really love these videos. In any form be it the tier lists or your more structured and polished ones and always am happy to see more

Hell yea Kaiser opinions!!

Loved how you covered Zero’s show. I watched it to practice my Italian

Kaiser gave a shout out to us FMK fans, my day is made

I'll also admit to being really curious how Blue Eye Samurai will handle the shift to London, if only because it's not really an era of British history American shows tend to cover a lot. Namely, if Mizu manages to arrive in England by 1658 or so, she'll be right in the middle of Oliver Cromwell's reign in our brief period of republicanism/religious fundamentalism following his execution of Charles I several years prior. The time where he banned Christmas, murdered MOST of Ireland etc. Additionally, considering the themes of exploitation and colonialism in the show, I won't be surprised if a theoretical third season (I think that I read they were aiming for roughly one season for each prospective dad?) we end up in colonial America, as one of the guys getting involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade seems... likely?

Dude, thank you for reccomending Scavengers Reign! I checked it out directly after watching this and was blown away

33:31 Don't worry, Kaiser. You win, got a dumb little laugh out of me.

I have loved both of these videos, I would love to see more content in this style.

Having not yet seen my adventures with superman, bishounen deathstroke was a genuine jumpscare.

One of the storyboard artists for Moongirl is also the guy who birthed Eggman's Announcement. He does excellent work, he'll be at Momocon this year.

I see u Kaiser killin it with the beard, looking great hunny :3

An excellent list, I've even gotten a really good suggestion in the Italian work you mentioned. I'm surprised Fired On Mars didn't make the list.

You win :) I'm just gonna copy and paste this list for myself :P

i REALLY like this format @kaiser - Hit me in the feels - keep on truckin

This is why I miss talk cast pod show, Kaiser was always super honest without being unnecessarily mean.

That T-Rex animation looks like a mix between Emperor's New Groove and We're Back!

I now know where "Black Girl Magic" that was used in The Marvels came from. Pretty great! 😂

I will love if you would do those on a yearly basis. Really makes it easier to shift through all the stuff thrown out there and focus on the good stuff. And so far all your reviews were so spot on I will take whatever you recommend and give it a try at least.

love hearing your perspective

No, it makes perfect sense that Clark Kent IS Batman. He can't be Superman because Clark needs glasses and Superman doesn't wear glasses, so as Superman he'd keep bumping into things. But the lenses on Batman's cowl would serve as glasses so Clark could see.

Great video I love moon girl and devil dinosaur 😊

Agreed on the Laserhawk front I’m a casual Ubisoft games player (a fan of assassin’s creed, watchdogs, and Ray) and literally went into this show not knowing Ubisoft was apart of it. Rayman’s and that F-ing frog became the stand outs eclipsing the main character in mostly every way. Along with the issues you mentioned I did think personally that the plot moved at somehow both a breakneck and turtle pace. But I am also up for a season 2 especially since this thing starts with an 11 on the insanity scale and keeps going.

I followed the request to skip the Scavengers Reign segment as I love hard sci-fi and yet haven't even heard of the show; hopefully I'm able to correct that soon. Also, thank you for the bittersweet reminder of Anime FMK; I understand why it stopped for multiple reasons, but I absolutely loved that format.

I never knew I needed Scott's soft voice talking about cool shows in my ears for half an hour but damn it do I lmao

I have to say, I've fallen off of a lot of tv shows lately. Mainly just because I dont have the time, and then the next thing I know I've missed like 6 shows and don't know where to start to try and catch up. So I actually had never heard of a lot of these shows. But holy crap have you sold me on several of them. Blue eye samurai sounds like a work of art with how you've described it, and I will absolutely be finding the time to watch it.

It's the DC universe, man... Jimmy's not a conspiracy theorist. He's right. Probably about all of it. Hell if anything he's shouting spoilers for later episodes.

Absolutely loved your Blue Eye Samurai Review!!

This is awesome ! Most of these I already watched but thank you for the ones I didn’t watch definitely going to check them out

Honestly this was the section i was looking forward to the most.

@KaiserNeko thank you for making these videos. I hadn’t heard of blue eye samurai before this. I’m about halfway through it now and I am enjoying it so much. It is one of the best shows I’ve watched in a long time

More of this please Scott

The writing of this review marathon is so good, entertaining on its own. Guess I will finally watch Blue Eyes (despite what I hear of the creators). Scavenger’s Reign was a show I could’ve watched 4 years ago, but now thats a show however deserving that’ll be too disturbing for me to enjoy.

Maybe it's because I'm in The Netherlands and we didn't get a whole lot of those shows in the early 2000's, but I loved The Boondocks.

Man, I watched all the main titles except this world can’t tear me down

37:35 dammit Kaiser, I was taking a sip!

Gonna check out this world can’t take me down!

You really put words to a lot of my problems with My Adventures with Superman. I still love it and am anticipating the second season, but it's also not flawless. Also I'm getting sick of multiverse stories. It's a symptom of superhero stories (and a lot of other entertainment media) being constantly being rewritten and rebooted. At a certain point, it makes individual works seem less important because the stories, themselves, are acknowledging that it's all been done before.

15:20 I had a vivid, physical recoil in my chair from seeing this pop up and went “Scott, what happened?! Did you have a fucking seizure?! Is someone pointing a gun to your head to say good things about it?!” But then I saw dishonorable mentions and felt nothing but relief.

Blue Eye Samurai is SO good. I watched it when it came out and I already feel like I want to watch it again, and I generally don't rewatch shows

Punk Tactics was a GREAT AMV. I've watched it so many times.

Hey @KaiserNeko, have you happen to catch wind of and see on Hulu the animated movie 'Inu-Oh'. I know it's a 2021-2022 film, my wife and I just watched it very recently and thought it was a very cool film with a rocking soundtrack. It's a Japanese Rock Opera film and does it very greatly of modern rock with traditional Japanese folk style music. Was a great watch for us!! 🍺😎🤘

Cautiously optimistic for season 2 of Blue Eye Samurai. Really really really want it to work

What is the music you used in the Scaveneger's Reign section?

Putting in a shoutout for Carol and the End of the World, at least worth an honorable mention

You NEED to watch Pantheon

Kaiser, you should check out Pantheon. Its good. It's not talked about much and not promoted anywhere.

Aww dude I really dug that version of Livewire.

Blue Eyed Samurai really did rock. Hard to watch sometimes, but came out the other end feeling like you witnessed a saga.

cool video! unfortunately I can't watch all because I now want to watch some of these shows lol

Blue Eye Samurai is the best animated show that Netflix has made since Arcane, and like Arcane I will wait as long as it takes for season two to be made as long as they keep up the quality of animation, writing, fight choreography, and voice acting.

Blue Eye Samurai seems to be some sort of alternate history version of early Edo period Japan: in addition to firearms being rare to nonexistent when they actually would have been quite plentiful, the shogun's clan is the Itoh, not the Tokugawa. A bit of an odd choice, especially considering they still included the Great Fire of Meireki, albeit with a different cause (according to legend, it was caused when a priest was trying to burn an allegedly cursed kimono and a gust of wind caused the flames to go out of control and consume the entire wooden temple). Incidentally, London suffered a comparably devastating fire only nine years later; I look forward to finding out how Mizu causes that one, too.

If you haven't I would give Lower Decks a watch, season 1 started a bit rocky and reference heavy perhaps but it's gotten better and better every season and is easily one of my favorites

I chose this over watching Rebirth. Keep this good shit coming, Kaiser!!

I agree with Kaiser about My adventures with Superman. I absolutely loved it (episode 3 really sold me on it) but I do agree with the complaints he had. Also fun facts. The kids who had their own newspaper club and Jimmy getting rich are all deep pulls from the comics and Superman mythos. Overall as a Superman fan I’m happy this show is here and hopefully season 2 can deliver as I felt season 1 did overall

This was a blast to watch.

Finally, a solution to my viewing malaise. Now I can watch shows I should have been watching already

Watch Pantheon Scott. If nothing else then so you can experience the same shock I did at the brooding anime boy being voiced by Paul Dano of all people

I've been missing out on something for the past two decades that I didn't even know or noticed... I watch literally everything with the volume turned way down and subtitles on so I don't disturb anybody in the house... And it was only this video and it's emphasis on how awesome all the music was for these shows that I realized... 'oh crap I haven't been hearing the music to anything for all this time..." Anime, video games, movies, TV shows... I always have the volume to where I can just barely hear the voices and sound effects. But now that I am thinking about it the music is usually completely silent for me. Whoops

My God I never knew most of these existed. Harley season 4 wasn't bad, it was forgettable. Don´t remember what happened. When Kaiser said he didn't like what they did with Joker, I was like: what happenned with Joker?

I put T4Star dragon ball abridged in this list in my top 5 your guy's rendition was so epic and still brings me joy any time I watch any of it.

I really liked the Haiku

In My adventures With Superman the reason I love Jimmy and his conspiracy theories. As a deep end DC comics fan I recognized the bit immediately. Everything he says is a reference, even his youtuber name Flamebird is a reference to classic DC comics. When the shrunken city of candor was introduced to DC, Superman started fighting crime in Candor as a powerless Batman Esq hero Nightwing ( yes Dick Grayson would later take the name when he stopped being Robin, it was to show his respect for the big blue boy scout). When he did, he brought along Jimmy as his sidekick that's right Jimmy's old sidekick name was Flamebird. For me it was a huge treat, but for folks not as avid a comic reader as me I get him being annoying

I'm going to assume Kaiser hasn't watched the owl house, it is such a well crafted series that I feel he'd really appreciate, I struggle to to find the words needed to describe my love of it, so I'll just leave it at that..

I need to finish Blue Eye

4:38 your girl here is a BIG tokusatsu fan, and almost never one to pass up an opportunity to call something a henshin sequence, but I'm sticking with calling what Clark does a magical girl transformation because a) despite all the progress our society has gone through up to this point, we still live in a time where it's funny for "boy does a girl thing", and b) it's just accurate to do that, since the people making the show explicitly based it on magical girl transformations, including a specific Pretty Cure member with the cape.

Dammit Kaiser, you win.

Scott Please do not replace your face with Werner Herzog again because oh my christmas lmfao That said, I still love your work bud ;)

Blue Eye Samurai was so good!

Blue eye samurai is fantastic

Not even a mention of Legend of Vox Machina is a CRIME