The Best Credit Sequences of 2023

I always watch the credits. They set the scene. They prime you for what’s to come. Sometimes they tell the story before you know it, letting you recognize piece by piece what you should have known before. When they close an episode, they can offer bitter irony, desperate need, or taper off an intensity of feeling as if you’re being weaned back into the real world. They can give you permission to lose yourself, or to cry, to close the world out and open yourself up, or to silently scream at heartbreak. I always watch the credits because they’re part of the story.

Some stick in my mind and some don’t need to. Each does something different. In 2023, here’s how:

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House

(Netflix) The Japanese series tells the story of best friends Kiyo and Sumire, who train to become present-day geisha performers. Sumire is a natural, but Kiyo flunks out. Rather than going home, she takes over as her house’s new chef, or makanai. She finds deep satisfaction in this, and the opening credits serve to clarify that Kiyo didn’t fail as an artist, but simply found a different form of art. She finds value and joy in practicing that art, and those around her appreciate it not as an expectation or chore, but as a daily gift she gives them.

“The Makanai” has very little conflict, and what conflict there is tends to be solved with a minimum of drama or be forgotten in realistic ways as time passes. Yet it is one of the most compelling and captivating series this year, finding a measure of calm I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed in a show before. That starts with the credits, which present what its characters do in artistic, caring detail.

Map Break!

Why are there so few English-language entries here? There’s a trend in U.S. and U.K. series to completely do away with opening credits. Just slap the title up in all-caps, drop a loud note over it, and call it a day. Edgy.

You know what we do love, though? Maps. Oh my god, give us a map and we can spend all day with it. It might be tempting to blame “Game of Thrones”, but I think our dysfunction goes back further than that. Psychiatrists shouldn’t ask us how we feel about our parents; they should ask us what’s our deal with J.R.R. Tolkien? If you approach me at the bar, don’t buy me a drink or compliment my eyes. Show me a map you drew with mountain ranges at absurd right angles to each other.

(Netflix) The live-action “One Piece” adaptation delivers on the map front like you wouldn’t believe. The endearingly cheesy pirate adventure features close-ups of maps, panning shots over islands we’ve visited, clues to episodes we haven’t seen yet, and realizations of how episodes we have seen link together geographically. Makes you want to settle your tab and pop a ride-share back to Oda Eiichiro’s place.

Every end credits sequence gets a different song, which isn’t that rare, but many are variations which capture the theme of that particular episode or center on specific characters. What’s more is that the maps themselves and their creation eventually play a major component in the season’s most emotional plot reveal.

(Disney+) The other quality credits map we’ve got this year belongs to “Ahsoka”. It’s a little harder to keep track of since it’s two-dimensional layers in a three-dimensional space, but it communicates the notion of traveling across the galaxy and – as the villains attempt – traveling to another galaxy altogether. Its markings of creatures and threats also help return that original trilogy feeling of the unknown and uncharted to Star Wars, an element where “Ahsoka” excels.

Kevin Kiner’s yearning but lurking score is exceptional. Between “Ahsoka” and “Andor”, we finally have new musical identities in Star Wars rather than folks just trying to emulate John Williams over and over again. It’s a big galaxy; it should cover just as much music.

Hell’s Paradise

(Crunchyroll) “Hell’s Paradise” is full of mood, tragedy, and mindfucks. So are the opening credits. The story follows criminals who are condemned to death but are given an opportunity for a pardon…if they can retrieve an elixir of immortality from a mysterious island. Everyone who’s gone there has died, or returned as their body transforms into flowers.

The animation is often astounding, and the storytelling is well-delivered. A good chunk of the first season is getting to know most of the ensemble right before they die. It’s not an upper, but it is thrilling. It gives into a few shonen cliches, including one I hate, but it is the best action-oriented anime of the year.

The credit sequence immediately gets your adrenaline pumping, and the scenes tell stories we immediately want to know more about.

Skip and Loafer

(Crunchyroll) For the complete flipside, we’ve got “Skip and Loafer”, which is the credit sequence that best sticks in my mind this year. You may wonder for the first half why. Song’s good, the visuals are pleasant enough, but nothing’s really popping. Then they get to the dance. It perfectly captures the nature of our two leads and their relationship – the driven, ambitious, yet anxious Mitsumi and the popular but egoless, and endlessly supportive Sosuke.

“Skip and Loafer” is so, so kind and real. Mitsumi isn’t as gorgeous or stylish as her classmates, but she’s substantive and honest. Sosuke harbors regrets and a quiet depression, but his own ambitions lie in bolstering and supporting the people around him. Mitsumi is someone with whom he can realize that ambition, someone he can steady and support. She knows what she wants out of life, but is shaky without kindness and acceptance. His dream is to give that kindness and acceptance, and have it be accepted in turn.

This approach ripples throughout the entire story of “Skip and Loafer”. Mitsumi’s Aunt Nao is cool, protective, caring, and wise. As a trans woman, she sometimes needs kindness and acceptance in the face of social judgment. Mitsumi is there to love, accept, and reassure her. In turn, Nao offers that kindness and acceptance when one of Mitsumi’s friends is having difficulty in their friend group.

The series is filled with beautiful moments: a trip home, a familiar family snack, a moment on a train where one person supports another, a casual comment that turns someone’s embarrassing classroom moment into one that people admire. There’s endless kindness in “Skip and Loafer”. It is a constant painting of loving support, and that dance in the intro encapsulates that permission to be imperfect in front of one another with unconditional acceptance.

See You in My 19th Life

(Netflix) K-Dramas tend toward iconography that’s key to the plot, which means their credit sequences open up the more of the show we see. As we learn to recognize the motifs that keep returning, we can plug their meaning into the opening and understand more and more what it’s telling us.

The opening credits for “See You in My 19th Life” may be briefer than other sequences, but they pack a lot in. They initially speak to protagonist Ji Eum’s ability to remember her past lives, and her goal of reconnecting with a love interest in a former life that was cut tragically short.

I love the retro imagery in this, and the light, hopeful touch of the theme, but every piece of iconography in that credit sequence takes on a meaning by the end of the show. Some take on two or three meanings in a series where that layering across lives constantly offers new ways of understanding both people and plot.

The Last of Us

(Max/HBO Max) “The Last of Us” is a journey through a post-apocalypse where fungus has destroyed society. As it evolves to endure higher temperatures, the same fungus that can control ants and spiders begins to survive in mammals. One girl is found to be immune, and she sets off with an ill-equipped guardian to find a surviving science base that might be able to develop a vaccine.

The series is both dire and beautiful, and constantly finds in its cinematic post-apocalypse ways to reflect our slow-motion one. It is haunting, and its opening credits always set this tone.

So much is hidden in the artistically spreading fungus: sky scrapers, a map of the U.S., a screaming human face. At one point, a baby is seen in razor wire – imagery that should’ve stayed in fiction, but we discovered this year is a reality for the way our National Guard treats refugee and immigrant children. Who needs fungus to steal our humanity when we can do it ourselves?

Just as the series does, the credits comment not just on a U.S. in this recent alternate history, but a U.S. at a juncture in the current history of our own real world. It is horrific and something we all understand, that we can all recognize the spread of, yet that we simultaneously can become lulled and hypnotized by. Sometimes credits help transport us to another world. Sometimes they clarify that the horror we see on-screen is best recognized from right where we’re sitting.

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Rare Craft, Top Cast — “See You in My 19th Life”

Joo-won can remember all her past lives. She meets a boy in her 18th life named Seo-ha, and they fall in love as children. A tragic accident rips her away from him. In the moment of death, she usually prays that this will be her last life and that she’ll finally know peace. This time, she prays to be reborn so that she might meet Seo-ha again. She reincarnates in her 19th life as Ji-eum.

This time, Ji-eum is born into a family living in poverty. It’s a struggle to meet those from her past life, and she has to grow up first. Even then, she plays things slow. As she tells her 17th life’s niece, who takes Ji-eum in to escape an abusive father, she’s learned over so many lives that some people accept the truth of who she is and some don’t. She’s unsure which Seo-ha has grown up to be.

Complicating things is the fact that her previous life’s surviving sister Cho-won is still in Seo-ha’s life, and has fallen in love with him. Of course, little sister Cho-won is now older than the reborn Ji-eum. This might start to sound a little confusing, but keeping all this clear is easy with the series’ top-notch editing. It’s complicated from an emotional standpoint, but not from a story one.

Like all good K-dramas, it can’t just be about the love story when there’s systemic corruption at hand, and this gives us the central obstacle that Seo-ha’s struggling to overcome. He refuses a leadership position in his father’s corporation to take over the hotel his late mother once ran. His father is comfortable with corruption and bribery, but Seo-ha holds to more noble ideals. Of course, he takes the hotel over from Mrs. Jang, who got the job by sleeping with Seo-ha’s father while mom was dying in the hospital. Needless to say, they don’t get along.

Ji-eum’s an accomplished engineer and test driver, but sees her opportunity to re-encounter Seo-ha by applying for a leadership position within the hotel. Obviously, there are elements here that would convey as stalking in any other plot. The central conceit of reincarnation disarms this and the series is smart to get the pair into a trusting friendship early on. Ji-eum may be disrespectful of etiquette, but she’s not disrespectful of boundaries.

There are several things in “See You in My 19th Life” that I love. The portrayal of one person across multiple lives is impressive. As we see more and more of Ji-eum’s history, we realize sometimes she’s been a woman, sometimes a man. Just depends on the life. To her past live’s niece who takes Ji-eum in as a child, Ji-eum is always “Uncle” despite being younger and a woman now. This isn’t deadnaming because of the conceit at play, and recognizes that Ji-eum is still the same person, regardless of gender. (There is one brief homophobic remark in Seo-ha’s story early on, thankfully passed by quickly and not repeated in what I’ve seen so far.)

Seo-ha is deaf due to the accident that killed Joo-won. He needs a hearing aid to catch most conversation, and he’s still coping with trauma and panic attacks from losing both his mom and his first love at such an early age. He’s neither your average cool, charming romantic protagonist nor a broken human being who needs fixing. He becomes neither trophy nor trope, but forges his own path in ways that prioritize his and his late mother’s ideals even if it means defying his father’s wishes and behavior. Being a leader and often needing help from those around him aren’t treated as mutually exclusive – they’re treated as the same thing, which is refreshing to see anywhere.

The flashbacks to Ji-eum’s past lives are all well-acted, well-produced, and consistent in conveying a single character. The child actors who play her various lives hold a sense of stillness and patience that makes them feel wise without losing that they’re children. There are some potential pitfalls with the premise, but the series thankfully communicates that even if Ji-eum remembers her past lives, she still has the maturity of her present life. Director Lee Na Jung handles this carefully and it’s an instance in which I’m especially thankful the series was helmed by a woman. There are places this could’ve gotten creepy, such as Joo-won and Seo-ha falling in love as kids, but the performances, writing, and direction carefully navigate that yes, even when she possesses all these additional memories and skills as a child, she still has the behavioral development of her current life’s age.

Shin Hye-Sun’s portrayal of the adult Ji-eum is a great mix of someone who’s assertive and energetic, yet measured. She has no use for norms anymore but is still always going to know more than anyone else in the room. She’s quirky, but in a way that easily takes control of a situation, not in a way that’s meek or defers to others needlessly.

Remembering all her past lives mean Ji-eum’s also an accomplished engineer, test driver, martial artist, painter, distiller, and horse archer who knows several languages, how to play multiple instruments, and remembers detailed histories about most of the world. If this were an American series that incels bothered to watch, Ji-eum would stand accused of being this month’s worst Mary Sue that ever was – which as we all know is just called a power fantasy when male characters get to embody the same range of traits.

That said, Ji-eum’s power fantasy elements are a little truncated since the plot is about whether she will or won’t get the guy. We get to see how awesome and in control she is along the way, but the plot is still centered on whether a man will fall in love with her. That can clash with the power fantasy to a certain degree.

“See You in My 19th Life” is the kind of series that is often problematic or inconsistent except in the rare instances where it’s handled well. From what I’ve seen so far, it is handled very well here. It is melodramatic, but I’ve long made the argument that most of the world watches melodrama, and the U.S. is fairly alone when it comes to our insistence on “gritty” drama (that’s really just as fake). You’ll get some momentary slow-motion gazing while a song plays here, but they’re usually doing it through something beautiful, like an aquarium or the concept of time itself, so I’m good with it.

A melodrama in the hands of a cast this talented can be wildly successful, and if you’ve watched a few popular Korean series you’ll recognize some of the names. As I mentioned, Shin Hye-Sun plays Ji-eum and she’s been in shows ranging from “Stranger” to “Mr. Queen”.

Ha Yoon-Kyung plays Cho-won, Ji-eum’s younger sister from her previous life and competitor for Seo-ha’s feelings. If you watched “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”, you’ll recognize her instantly as the main character’s co-worker and close friend Soo-yeon.

Seo-ha is played by Ahn Bo-Hyun, co-lead and love interest of “My Name” (still the best action series of the past few years) and supporting lead in “Itaewon Class”.

In other words, this is a group with considerable acting chops. It’s a cast that can take a light comedy that gets you laughing and elevate into something where you’re grinning ear-to-ear the whole time. Combine this with excellent set design, cinematography, and editing that bring the drama elements to life and you’ve got a show that really surprises in both its charm and craft.

South Korea’s “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”, Turkey’s “Midnight at the Pera Palace”, and Japan’s “Spy x Family” are very different shows, but they all leave a specific kind of hole for us as viewers once we finish out a season and long for the next one. There’s something about a melodramatic comedy that simultaneously manages self-awareness and real dramatic stakes, topped by a cast that gets us to emotionally invest with shocking immediacy. I think “See You in My 19th Life” is on the cusp of this territory. The only thing it’s missing is a more specific weekly dramatic stake to complement the broader character stakes, but a few episodes in and it is absolutely close enough to fill that need as a viewer.

If that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, I highly recommend “See You in My 19th Life”.

“See You in My 19th Life” is on Netflix.

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