2023 has been an incredible year for animation. We’ve seen a laundry list of incredible films, shows, and independent shorts emerge from all ꦑover the world. To mark the end of the year and our love for all things animated, here’s a variety of projects from the past twelve months w❀e swiftly fell in love with.
Suzume
After following up the global success of Your Name with the underwhelming and inconsistent Weathering With You, Makoto Shinkai returned to tell yet another love story set amidst the throes of natural disaster. Thanks to stronger central characters and narr🍌ative that explores generational grief far more than lovestruck teenage heartthrobs, Suzume delivers in characters, storytelling, and visuals to create one of Shinkai’s strongest anime epics yet.
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
This film needs no introduction, having taken over the world this year as the first part of a double-edged story that has Miles Morales hopping between dimensions in the vain hope of altering his destiny. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson again deliver a brilliantly written superhero tale that puts the MCU to shame and develops versions of characters I can’t wait to see more from. We also spoke to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Studio Grackle’s Spencer Wan about his🌱 own work with the🔯 film earlier this year.
The Amazing Digital Circus
It’s always incredible to see independent gems burst into the mainstream. Glitch Productions released the pilot online in early October, and since then it has garnered over 100 million views and a fandom most major media properties would kill for. It is cute, sinister, and daring in ways that were always going to capture the imagination of its audience. Nobody saw 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Amazing Digital Circus coming.
Blue Eye Samurai
Slicing onto Netflix in November, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blue Eye Samurai from co-creators 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Michael Green and Amber Noizumi is a s🌊tunning watercolour adventure held up by equal parts violence and emotion. It tells a stunning story of gender and acceptance across a society༺ in which its women must prove themselves at every turn. Recently renewed for another season, we’ll soon see more from this modern masterpiece.
The Boy and the Heron
As the latest and final (so he says, again) film from Studio Ghibli&꧙rsquo;s Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron needs no introduction. While it doesn’t achieve the legendary heights of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, Heron is a phenomenal animated film with touching characters and endless streams of imagination. The English dub also features some great turns from Robert Pattinson, Karen Fukuhara, and even Dave Bautista. Ghibli does it yet again.
Honoroble Mentions - Elemental, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Unicorn Wars, Carol &�🤪� The End of the World, Leo, Invinsible
Nimona
After being shelved by Disney after the😼 closure of Blue Sky Studios, everyone thought this adaptation of ND Stevenson’s graphic novel was destined never to release. But thanks to Netflix and Annapurna, this year
finally saw this queer parable starring Riz Ahmed and Chloe Grace Moretz arrive. We caught up with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:directors and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stevenson prior to release too.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Verse’s influence is being felt across the cinematic world ri▨ght now, and nowhere is that more apparent than throughout Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. It’s a visual treat to behold and ripe with attitude, so memorable because it isn’t afraid to allow its titular characters to actually act like teenagers. The writing feels genuine, which only makes its biggest moments hit all the harder once they arrive.
The Owl House
Y'all thought I wasn’t going to mention 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the finale to this queer masterpiece? I’d be a fool not to highlight one of 🔯Disney’s best original animated shows of the past decade, which wrappeℱd up its final extended special earlier this year. The story might have prematurely ended due to forces out of its control, but it went out on a massive high.
My Adventures With Superman
Superman has always been kind of dull in my eyes, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:but this new animated show from some of the creative talent behind She-Ra and the Princesses of Power turns the iconic hero into a lovestruck himbo with a heart of gold. Lois Lane is also given the spotlight as a heroine filled with personality. While its pacing is a little rus🅰hed, I love everything else this show offers up.
Scavengers Reign
This gem has gone under the radar of many since it debuted on Max a couple of months ago. A frighteningly original science-fiction drama in which a group of very normal people must try and survive on a very 🔜abnormal planet. It’s disturbing yet extraordinary as it takes this tried-and-true concept and turns it right on its head.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Scott Pilgrim Takes Of🎃f would have worked as a simple retelling of the cult film and beloved graphic novel, but instead it acts as a pseudo-sequel/reunion that builds on its characters and themes I previously thought impossible. Queer characters are better developed, Scott is made out to be a flawed dirtbag, while Ramona is finally given a♏ level of agency she has never before been afforded to bury the hatchet with her evil exes.
