Best Anime Of The Spring 2023 Season: From The Witch From Mercury To Oshi No Ko

After a season of slowly building up the "Gundam" part of "Mobile Suit Gundam," "The Witch From Mercury" has finally gone full "Gundam" and full Yoshiyuki Tomino, delivering a show where every character is miserable, lots of people are dying, and the robots go boom. It's a rather stunning transition from Shakespearean high school drama to full space opera, but "The Witch From Mercury" has managed to do it seamlessly.

In its second season, the Shakespearean revenge plots and "Succession" style business betrayals and maneuverings have come fully into the light, shutting down any notion that this would not be a proper "Gundam" show. Like Tomino's original show, "The Witch From Mercury" masterfully explores the ethics of war, transhumanism, and how children are the ones who suffer the most during violent conflicts. What this anime does differently, however, is to truly make us care about the kids as individuals and teens as opposed to as soldiers. The slice-of-life school parts of the anime were not just there to make this visually different, but now come full circle to hammer down the fact that these kids should absolutely not be involved in interplanetary war.

"Heavenly Delusion" is a hard show to describe, as a big part of the fun of watching is not knowing anything about where the story is leading you. What you should know is that this is a meticulously plotted mystery thriller set in a post-apocalyptic world full of man-eating monsters, where some kids have powers and weird s*** happens all the time. It is the closest anime has come to capturing the mystery box aspect of "Lost," and there is no predicting where the story goes next.

Indeed, the plot is as outlandish and hard to wrap your head around at first as the trainwreck of a release that Disney and Hulu gave it (using the Japanese title rather than the English translation, not saying anything about whether the show would air in the first place, etc). There are mysteries upon mysteries at every corner, from plot to character to the very state of the world, and what's fascinating is how "Heavenly Delusion" is in no hurry to divulge its secrets until the most effective time.

The story is told in two narratives, that of two young men traversing a post-apocalyptic Japan and battling monsters, and a separate story of a group of kids in a secluded school without knowledge of the outside world. How and whether these elements even intersect is part of the fun, but "Heavenly Delusions" also drops enough weird facts nonchalantly to distract you from asking too many questions. It goes from one reveal (kids with powers!) to the next (babies without faces!) faster than you can keep track of while serving a narrative that sustains the mystery with character drama and exquisite animation.

Based on a manga created by Aka Akasaka, the mind behind the spectacular "Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War," "Oshi no Ko" is the discovery of the season. This anime adaptation deals with a quintessential story in anime: the idol story. As seen in films like the masterpiece "Perfect Blue," idols make for great stories that interrogate our obsession with celebrities, and "Oshi no Ko" does that again in quite surprising ways.

This is another show where the least you know about it, the better. In the series, we focus on idol Ai Hoshino as she grapples with a teen pregnancy that could destroy her career. Thanks to some magic shenanigans, she gives birth to twins, reincarnations of two people who idolized her, and now get front-row seats to the shady side of the entertainment industry. Unsurprisingly, this is a stunning-looking anime with great visuals and music and a story that offers a scathing look at fandom, exploitation of the artist, parasocial relationships, and more. And yet, this is still based on a manga by the creator of "Kaguya-Sama," so you can expect plenty of dry wit and hilarious gags that balance commentary with sheer entertainment.