Last season's top 3

[Ryllharu]

As usual, the intent of this thread is to discuss finished series.

Spring 2016

Bakuon - While it looks like a "cute girls involved in xxx activity," series, it is perhaps more accurately described as, "idiot girls doing funny things." This was really a surprise comedy hit for me. The gags are accessible despite the highly-specific subject area because they're set up so well and pay off so cleanly. This isn't generic slapstick comedy set to the backdrop of a school band, it's actual motorcycle otaku humor. It ends up being a bit more of a Genshiken than a K-ON, though I may be giving it a little bit too much credit. The character designs are pretty good (big fan of puffy hair's retro design, same with her father).

Flying Witch - Excellent slice of life. This series has a bluntness to it, where the fantastical world the witches live in is also surprisingly mundane. It's magic, but it's relaxed and understated most of the time. It's a very calming series to wind down to while watching. Love the voice cast, and the design captured the manga well.

Kuma Miko - It was a cute gag series with an absurd premise. A touching story of friendship and co-dependence between a young girl and a bear. Loved the watercolor backgrounds.

[Kraco]

It was such a lackluster season that I'm unable to enter more than two series. I don't want to put the rest in the same sentence with the word Top, not even in a relative manner.

Flying Witch - An all-around wholesome package with diverse and good characters. A splendid example of a successful slice of life series.

Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge - The most lethargic slice of life ever. A perfect thing to represent as lethargic a season as this spring season was.

[shinta|hikari]

Kuma Miko - Loli getting harassed for comedy. Perfect.

Flying Witch - The funniest, well-animated slice of life I've ever seen. It reminds me of ARIA, which I love, only without the super boring parts. The cooking parts are better executed than actual cooking shows (Souma, I'm looking at you).

Boku no Hero Academia - This counts because the upcoming cour is another season. Though it has the flaws of most shounen stories, this one is executed very well and has one of the best soundtracks for a hero show ever made.

Honorable Mention:
Sakamoto Desu Ga - Some parts were comedy gold, while some just made no sense whatsoever. If only the good parts were included, this would've made it to the top 3.

Kiznaiver - If it weren't for the ridiculous premise, this would've been a great romance drama love quadrangle that actually wraps up well.

Macross Waki - For obvious reasons.

[David75]

1) Tanaka kun is always listless
Very calm and nice anime. Watching ep 1 I thought I would discard it. But the mood grew on me and I liked the kind of humor and scenes shown. I can't say I understood all gags or liked them, but it did pretty well to entertain me. Pretty sure that one is under everyone's radar.

2) Nijiiro Days
Basic animation, 13 minutes eps... I usually never watch such a show. But I did nevertheless because the storytelling was much better than your average teenage love anime.

3) Haifuri
Mainly for the 5 first eps. Despite many flaws, for some reason I like the action and kept watching for more.

[neflight86]

Summer 2016:

3. Saiki Kusuo: Good gags are good to me. Machine gun punchlines got me laughing and wanting more, while the mini-episode compilation format kept it from focusing on any one thing for too long (looking at you, Sakamoto).

2. Re: Zero: I feel the middle was stronger than the end (if painful to watch), and there is no closure in sight, but I still eagerly awaited it every week. Hope for more but am satisfied with what we have.

1. Mob Psycho 100: More good One shounen. Just what I wanted it to be, and with great animation to offset the simplistic art.

This season's special awards:

The "I can't believe its not Anime" award goes to Thunderbolt Fantasy. Anticipation wise, this was on par with Mob Psycho, but is not technically anime so could not place, but it was very worth watching.

Best "Cute girls doing xxx" award goes to New Game!, for depicting a surprisingly strict workplace in a fluff show. No industry insider commentary here, but still a good watch if this genre's your thing.

"Most crummy animation": 91 Days. So sad this mob tale didn't get a little more TLC on its animation, because I cringed 1/3 of the running time past the first episode. Yeah, it's shallow, but Anime, as a visual medium, draws me in with the art. What was on display here was lacking.

"Favorite Voice of the season": goes to Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! For some reason, Usami's voice had a surprisingly pleasant 'strain' to it as she talked and got excited. Not being a speaker of the language, it is special for me to notice a trait like that and think "thats cute".

The "Golden Toilet" award is hereby presented to Taboo Tattoo. I dodged Big Order last season just to get stuck watching this as if I came out ahead... We cant win 'em all, but this had all of the hallmarks of a mediocre show: wierd animation, attitude to spare, 'fluid logic' in how the superpowers worked, introducing and killing off characters to no emotional effect, and of course a kaijuu battle at the end. Flush.

**Edit: 10/4 Apparently, Saiki isn't over yet. Sorry for the confusion.

[shinta|hikari]

1) Alderamin - Awesome show. Decently adapted. Loved all the characters and most of the tactics. Wolf teamwork was it's lowest.
2) Re Life - Solid overall. Consistent art, lovable characters. Emotionless female lead FTW.
3) Hitori no Shita - Just because Houhou. See 2.

Consolation: Kuromukuro. It lost steam for me because I stopped midway, but it had really great art and a solid story. Great battles too. Now if only the MC got together with the kuudere version of the heroine, or the kuudere loli. Tsunderes are boring.

[MFauli]

1. Re Zero kara hajimaru isekai seikatsu

I will have to say that this isn´t even that great of an anime overall. What it managed masterfully is to make me look forward to each new episode week after week. It was always fun discussing episodes and trying to predict what happens. Combined with fantastic animation and music, as well as one the best female characters ever (talking about Rem, dickheads!), I vastly enjoyed this. Ofc the wait for more sucks enormously.

2.) Mob Psycho-100

Beginning episodes were mah mah, but the series took a huge leap for the better once Mob fought the blonde guy. Became really interesting in the end, especially now that Reigen awoke to psychic powers. And fuck the haters, I LOVE it when they do the "but there´s an even more dangerous organization in the shadows"-thing :P

3. Handa-kun

Hilarious. And you don´t need to have watched Barakamon at all. It´s funny seeing that calligraphy master as a weird teenager. But I couldn´t tell you in which order it´s funnier, first watching this one or first watching Barakamon. Both should work. The ridiculous scenes created by Handa´s false image about himself is so funny. The opening alone is always cracking me up when all the girls fall in love with him at a glimpse and all the boys are embarrassed because they find him so cool.

Now I wish I could´ve put this in the top3, but ... I cannot. Berserk 2016 managed to be somewaht entertaining in the end BECAUSE IT´S BERSERK. Despite how shitty animation was, despite how shitty music was and despite how rushed the story was, it turned out somewhat okay. Because that´s how fucking great Berserk IS. But my conscience won´t let me put this mess higher up. Do I think Berserk-fans should watch it? Yes, absolutely, because it´ll be a very long time before we´ll get a better version. Do I think non-Berserk-fans should watch it? Nah, it´ll probably leave you confused and irritate, asking yourself "huh, THIS is getting so much hype? ok ..."

DAYS is okay, but I´d be too embarrassed to watch it with other people. Tsukushi is too whiny of a main character. Back then, the much younger kids in Ganbare Kickers or Captain Tsubasa were such badasses. Jojo finally got good again with the arrival of a real villain. Amaama to Inazuma was nice, but it went nowhere. As is, you could show it to young adults as an education style series, teaching about cooking and caretaking of children. Personally, I want more plot progression.

[shinta|hikari]

Completely forgot about RE:Zero. Definitely belongs in the top 3 because of Rem and a few select episodes that were masterfully executed.

[MFauli]

And I forgot about ReLIFE. SEE THATS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BATCHRELEASE A SERIES!!!1

[shinta|hikari]

Redoing my list after marathoning Active Raid S2:

1) Alderamin - For reasons stated.
2) Active Raid S2 - What a surprise. Fun show with great characters that really grow on you.
3) Re:Zero - For reasons stated.

Sorry Houhou and Hishiro. You two are great, but you couldn't carry your shows.

[Ryllharu]

In no particular alphabetical order:

Alderamin
Amaama to Inazuma
Amanchu

I don't really feel like elaborating this season, you either like the type of series these are or you don't.

[Kraco]

Alderamin - Fantasy adventure military with an intelligent MC. Difficult to go wrong with that.
Saiki Kusuo - Excellent comedy where good writing conquered an obviously low budget
Amaama to Inazuma - This might not be my favourite of the single dude needing to take care of a little girl stories, but it's still jolly.

Saiki Kusuo isn't actually finished yet, but it's 95% episodic, so it hardly matters.

[neflight86]

It’s that time again. This season took a little extra time to get through my small backlog to all the shows I actually finished.

3. Jojo – While an excellent series overall, I didn’t find Kira to be quite as engaging a bad guy as the infamous Dio, and the sort of arc around him felt like a bit of a mis-step. Still good, but the villain of the week format felt kind of forced this time around and a few story lines seemed to patter of quietly. Looking forward to part 5!

2. Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume – Cute girls do shounen sports right. Good animation, just the right weight of technical jargon and larger than life table tennis for my palate.

1. Saiki Kusuo – To be able to overcome a level of animation roughly similar to powerpoint in its quality and hit my top spot is the sign of comedic greatness. Every episode had one or more things I was audibly bemused by.

Special awards:

“Binge or Bust” award: Girlish Number
About half way through this saccharinely cynical tale of a little voice actress who couldn’t, and an industry that didn’t care, I just sort of stopped watching. I don’t know why. It may have been due to the lack of a grabbing climax or cliffhanger endings, but I felt ‘content’ with what I’d seen. Fast forward to after the show is over, and I was able to complete it in short order. I feel a story like this becomes more watchable when I know I can already see the next episode now, as little actually happens or changes per episode in a character driven piece like this. I’m glad I did, because it was ‘grounded great’.

“Deja Who?” Award: Shuumatsu no Izetta
Same story as Girlish, but I never got back to this one. After about four episodes, I felt like I’d seen this before, in another permutation. I’m sure I haven’t, but so many story elements are familiar that I had that epiphany where you imagine the ending of the series, and it’s not one you find particularly interesting.

“Fate filler” Award: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku
Not a great show by my count, but it did employ the narrative trick of not being predictable in the journey to the forgone conclusion. I like when anime storylines surprise, and the details of how this death game played out make it worth the memory of having watched, if not the time to watch it itself.

“Goodbye Friend” Award: www.Working
Not as enjoyable as the original series, but definitely cut from the same stuff. More amusing than funny, this feels like watching an old show again.

“No one reads these, right?” Award: Keijo!!!!!!!!
Trashy trash. You’ll love it unless you hate it. Raises the bar for just how seriously something dumb can be taken for comedic effect.

[MFauli]

Ah, almost forgot. Let´s see what my top3 are:

1.) Ajin S2
Admittedly, I struggled a bit with middle part of season 1. I was intrigued by the premise of this show, but then I lost interest a bit when the hero just wandered around, getting nowhere seemingly. It wasn´t until the masterful finale of S1 that I was convinced of this show´s quality. And S2 has been on top of its game for almost every single episode. This anime continues to have one of the best villains I´ve ever seen in anime (and it´s only because of my #2 that I can´t say THE best). Proof that old characters can be more than stereotypcial wisemen or helpless sidecharacters. I strongly recommend NOT letting yourself get distracted by the CG-animation. Yes, it kinda sucks, but it´s detriment to this anime´s quality that it still ended up my #1.

2.) Jojo´s Bizarre Adventure: Diamonds don´t Break
I´m glad that Jojo exists. It´s rare to find to quality long-running anime-series these days. I wasn´t that happy with the whole "let´s travel the world"-arc before this one, and the first half of the latest arc was rather silly, too, with it´s monster-of-the-week style. But damn, the second half turned out great beyond my best hopes. When you read the name "Kira" in anime boards now, you can no longer be sure if it´s that great guy from Death Note or this one.
I guess what elevated Kira Yoshikage above most villains is that the author didn´t write him as a villain, but as a hero. Don´t get me wrong, Kira is no hero at all, he´s a sick bastard who murders women, cuts off their hands and keeps them with him. He feels no guilt at all about killing those in his way. And he´s sneaky as fuck. BUT: The way he manages to escape dangerous situations is akin to a typical shounen hero. Ya know, when a hero ends up in a hopeless situation and you´re left wondering "omg, how will he survive that?!". It´s the same with Kira. Except that he´s the big bad villain and not the hero Animation and music are typical Jojo-quality, the stupidity of the heroes got a 1-up, but still, very enjoyable to watch. A villain doesn´t always need to try conquering the world. Murdering women and carrying their cut off hands around is just enough ;>

3.) Yuuri! on Ice
This one sold me from listening to the fantastic opening song and the great animation. In terms of plot, it´s very nice to have a sports anime where A LOT of actual sports is happening. During the tournaments, you´ll see several performances in a single episode. I´m used to anime dragging stuff like this out to no end, but Yuuri never stalled it´s progression. On the critical side, I must admit that I´m not sure if I had watched this anime had I known how deep into yaoi-territory this would eventually venture. In the first couple episodes it´s about what you´d expect from a series about young men ice skating. A little awkward sexual innuendo here and there. But it kinda takes over at around half-point; lots of hugging, almost-kissing, exchanging rings, openly declaring love, and so on. As a ice skater, I´d be kinda upset about thise anime reinforcing stereotypes about ice skating being "homo" and such. But I´m not, so I still got to enjoy the ice skating performances.

Runner-Up: Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari
I´m a sucker for these happy-sad slice of life anime with little children. This one was really sweet. It´s good that Poco isn´t real, because if he was, I´d hug him until the end of time :P Not spoil anything, but the ending kinda went into the direction that I feared it would from the beginning. It´s still good and all, I had just hoped that it wouldn´t follow that path. Oh well.

Biggest disappointment: Occultic;Nine
As somebody who loves Steins;Gate (just finished Zero on PSVita 100%) and likes Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes, I had high hopes for this new series from the same author (right?). After watching ep1, I was delighted by the high quality animation and the super modern presentation. After ep2 I started worrying about the speed every characters speaks with. After ep3 I was bored, because the plot went nowhere.
I have NO idea what happened here, if this was planned that way by the author or if they needed 24 episodes but only got 12. The way everybody speaks SO fast is really tiring and not fun to follow at all. It also makes all characters unlikeable. There was a lot of craziness, but it never went into a direction that would make sense. The finale then felt rushed, as if they had to force everything together and end it.
I don´t know what more to say about this one. Just disappointment all around. Even worse than Durararara.

[Buffalobiian]

All my picks for the season just gone goes to sequels:

-Hibike Euphonium S2
-Haikyuu S3
-Natsume S5

Haikyuu + Natsume continue more of the same thing. You'll know if you like the show from the previous runs.

I caught up on Eupho after it was done since I wasn't particularly motivated to watch it. It turns out to be the best show of the season. Those who call this K-ON v2 are Trump-level ignorant. It's a drama show first and foremost. If you want a show to go somewhere, talk about relationships and drop the superpowers, watch it.

Also, there is no alternate reality.

[neflight86]

Without further ado, here is my top three from this season:

3. Gabriel Dropout – Fun little comedy slice of life. Actually didn’t like Gabriel (dunno if that was intentional), but Satania, as a cute character and voice, made up for it. Nice art and good gags.

2. Konosuba s2 – Though the cult joke ran a little long at the end of the season, there was plenty here to enjoy. This is one of those shows that has become popular to like, and for good reason. Funny gags, animation production that doesn’t take itself too serious, and a good voice group who’s delivery seems to gel with the general irreverent tone of the series creates a very cohesive whole that makes watching a joy.

1. Youjo Senki – Loli fascist won this season as the show most regularly anticipated. Story moved but did not travel, as is the course for so many anime today. Nice animation and sound design. Maybe there is more to come. One odd point I would like to address is the concept of “god” as portrayed here. In the translations I watched, the ethereal being (X) demanded for the major to have faith in him; not necessarily reverence or worship, which was achieved, as far as I can tell, in the second episode’s flashback. Yes, the main character says he does not believe in the god, but he behaves as though it (being X) is a real entity by specifically rebelling against it and even cursing it. If I say I don’t believe in something, I can’t go around cursing it or talking to it to prove as much. Acknowledging the being by responding to it and not assuming he himself was crazy is a demonstration of faith in the perception of this being. It just felt very disjointed, from a plot point, as if it were all a convenient excuse to bring real world history into a similar but different conflict.

Special awards (I now officially look more forward to this part each season):

“Most girly thriller” Acca 13: Political intrigue, by its low key nature, has the clear to be a relatively subtle affair, but when characters spend the better part of 6 episodes speculating with the unifying theme of ‘isn’t fresh bread tasty?’, I grow itchy for just a bit more bite. It’s hard to take such a serious theme of upending a peaceful country’s government and reconcile it over a narrative where government agents don’t even carry guns, as far as I can tell. Rioters don’t go to jail? Touchy-feely espionage, if you will.

“Nicest animation” Kobayashi Chi no Maid Dragon: Kyoto ani strikes again with cute character designs, consistent production, and an inane plot that is simply a vehicle for characters to interact. No harm, no foul, but not much to remember, either.

“Most Saccharine subversion of theme award” Demi-chan: Say what you will about the degenerates watching it, but at least Monster Girls knew exactly what it wanted to be and do. Demi-chan’s premise is quickly marginalized by likening the girls to simply being disabled. Seriously, an ice woman who can sweat some ice, maybe, sometimes? A vampire who wants to drink blood, unless there is one of many suitable substitutes is available? The tension from the premise itself is drained, as people would never even know about their powers if they weren’t for their “special needs” treatment. Lacking natural tension, the show shoehorns some in via… bullying? Perhaps it is a homogenous Japanese thing that people who are even a little bit different might be treated or reasonably fear being treated differently, in a negative way, for it, but I just can’t buy the drama here. I have a friend who lives with an actual disability, and to see a fully functional character cry over ‘maybe’ having a superpower just fell flat for me. It also feels weird that all of the girls are friends because of their demi-status. None of their ‘powers’ are similar, so why should they have any special bond (to be fair, the show explains their parents kind of banded up to offer support to each other)? My whining aside, still worth a watch, even if thematic elements rubbed me the wrong way.

“Would have been better with a death award” Fuuka: This didn’t stand out, as we’ve all seen this show before, in some form or forms. Normal boy is aimless, enter wild-spirited girl who gives him passion for *blank* and he decides he loves her as they pursue the thing together. Fuuka had the chance to be memorable by not giving the formulaic ending we got (in the original manga, apparently, she was hit by a truck as the band began to grow and died). This jarring change induced some uncomfortable adapting of the story toward the end to inject drama and conflict that just felt transparent. The good news is I’m sure I’ll forget all about this by the end of next season.

“Most Infuriating to watch award” Masamune-kun no Revenge: Oh, Masamune… I wish you had been hit by the truck along with Fuuka. I cannot comprehend relating to your plight. My logic muscles cramped each and every episode of this otherwise unambitious show. Masamune wants to make a girl with no redeeming qualities, who he already had dirt on (she eats like a refugee camp), fall in love with him to dump her as revenge because she called him a fatty years ago. This Masamune is a character who was created to support this premise, as I cannot fathom how a functioning human being could hold a lifestyle changing grudge over someone they knew for such a short period of time, and then come up with and commit to the most improbable revenge scheme. He actively stacks the deck against himself via his means and target, and, as far as I can tell, is only motivated to continue this idiotic scheme by his pride that is constantly treaded upon by being around this girl (who he willingly approaches) anyway. It’s sort of similar, in a way, to the “Vash the Stampede”, or “Ruroni Kenshin” dynamics where those characters had the means to solve most of their problems easily (kill their enemies), but chose to take the harder road by avoiding violence to uphold their convictions, but Masamune has no such reason to not use the kill switch for his revenge (his goal is simply to emotionally harm her) except for his worthless pride. I grind my teeth just thinking about it.

“Cutest Animation” Schoolgirl Strikers: Also tied with Ao no Exorcist for most catchy theme song, oddly enough, SS hooked me with a by the numbers take on magical girls saving the world from generic bad guys that they can only fight with some cute costumes on, or something. No real reason to watch this unless me telling you that the generic characters and costumes were still really cute and ‘glossy’ would make a difference.

“Cold Iron award” Ao no Exorcist: Five years ago I had some inkling of what was going on, and then there was a crazy filler grandpa, and now this series tells me to forget everything that happened after part of episode 16 of the original series- you know what? That sounds like a reboot opportunity. Do that next time so I don’t have to spend the first three episodes remembering everyone’s relationships or how annoying I thought the main character is, or how nonexistent the power scaling is in this show.

“Most Impressively Mediocre award” elDLIVE: There are some shows you can just watch one episode of and know that this is gonna be the lowest common denominator show you could watch. Mediocre really is the perfect word for this production. Plain animation, plain shounen story about space police that tries to do action, comedy and drama without excelling in a single one, plain normal characters, plain ‘wacky’ characters (how do you even do that?!?), plain fan-service, plain animation (it’s worth saying twice) and phoned in voice acting. There is just no reason to watch this if even anything else airing actually interests you.

“Most generic show” Chain Chronicle: This is distinct from “mediocre”, because it was well enough executed that I could forgive the mad-libs approach to storyboarding employed here. Apparently most of this was cobbled together from a series of movies about a tower defense game, Chain Chronicle had a good first few episodes that got me on board enough to ride it to the finish, when the story became more derivative with each passing episode. A few nicely animated cg fights in the first couple episodes might be worth a watch, even if the rest of the show is largely irrelevant.

“Worst protagonist award” A toss-up between Chuuta (elDLIVE), Masamune (Masamune), and Rin (Ao no exorcist), the least inspiring MC is… Chuuta. While Masamune is an idiot, he continues to pursue his goal, and Rin also finds his redemption (drawing the sword) eventually. Chuuta simply spends too much (screen) time being depressed and feeling sorry for himself. So much so that it actually hurts the pacing of an otherwise unremarkable show. Chuuta commits the ultimate crime of anime: he bored me with his repetitive and predictable ‘moments of doubt’. For that, he is this season’s wort offender of an MC.

Character most deserving of a better show: Chuuta’s fat ginger friend (I’m not looking up his name). This is the role model that Chuuta should be aspiring towards. Facing all of the same social stigma as Chuuta (not popular with girls or dudes), Fat Friend has an impeccable mindset. Kind to everyone, including the mega-loser that is Chuuta with no ulterior motives, I question if Chuuta saved him in episode one, or if he in fact saved Chuuta long ago by reaching out to him in friendship when no one else would. Even though he has ‘no chance’, he talks to girls, sets up events and gatherings, and approaches even odd alienoids as equals; as friends. If anyone deserves a talking phallic monitalien’s help, it’s this man. Oh, Chuuta’s aunt also deserves a better show, for the record.

[MFauli]

My Winter season Top3:

1.) Youjo-Senki:
The premise is absolutely absurd and before I even began watching I told myself: "This is gonna be either REALLY bad or REALLY good." I´m glad to be able to say, the latter was true.The character of Tanya Degurecheff is so nicely overplayed, it really makes you want to see her through this, as she deals with both the real world issues of a world word, as well as her battle against god that she strongly defies. Animation is superb and I loved the magi-tech. Let´s hope this gets a second seasons, anything else would be criminal!

2.) Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2:
The beginning of this second season was rather rough and it stayed like that for more episodes than I would have liked. Had to power through those. However, it really got great once "brother" got active, and then the rest of the season remained at that top level. Because it deserves special props: The ending was one of the best, most exciting and most satisfying ends I´ve ever seen in an anime. It felt like one of these old school JRPGs that show you a 1 hour-cutscene after beating the final boss, wrapping up EVERYTHING.

3.) Masamune-kun no Revenge:
It wasn´t as good as I had hoped, but that´s the same when I read some of the manga. Sill, I liked Makabe-kun, his attitude and how he kept getting closer to Akitsuki-chan. If I could choose, I´d want this to be a more serious story, where the main character truly wants to take revenge on his former bullies. But that´d be an entirely different anime. Here, Makabe´s conviction to revenge is more an attention grabber, but it quickly becomes more of a regular romance anime with a slight twist. Still, every episode was easy und fun to watch.

Special praise goes to Gintama, which had some really great fights. But it was a transitional arc. Guess next up is the finale of the series, so I hope to get it into my top3 that time.

Girl of the Season: Fuuka from "Fuuka". The anime itself imploded, also due to a crass plot change compared to the manga-version. But that episode at the beach with Fuuka swimming ... perfect body, perfect ass, AND blue hair. Yeah, it doesn´t get any more perfect, unless you get into a fantasy-setting and make her a catgirl, too. My proposal: All girls in the world should be required to color their hair blue. It makes me happier. :P

[Munsu]

Doing a bit of catching up:

Fall 2015

1. One Punch Man

2. Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen - I think in general Owari no Seraph had quite a bit going for it despite having massive flaws here and there, but in the end I enjoyed the heck out of it. I think it's way underrated.

Still need to watch Utawarerumono and Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider to finish up my interest this season and finish the list.


Winter 2016


1a. Boku Dake ga Inai Machi - Not much to complain about. Nice beautiful story with some very good execution and production.

1b. Ajin - Awesome series with an interesting main character with a very interesting villain. Too bad about the CGI animation that keeps many away from giving it a legit shot.

Still have quite a few series I need to watch from this season, but Hai to Gensou no Grimgar is good enough placeholder for that 3rd spot for now.


Spring 2016

I have a lot of this particular season to watch, so going to refrain of making a list right now. I'll just say that Boku no Hero Academia, Kiznaiver, and Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu are three series that have potential to be on the top 3.


Summer 2016

This one is particularly difficult, so going to list more than 3.

1a. Mob Psycho 100 - Same mangaka as One Punch Man, and it delivered plenty for me... though not as globally appealing as OPM was.

1b. Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin - The two main characters are just awesome with some cool action to go with it.

2. ReLife - One of those series that I normally don't watch and completely surprised me how good it was. Hopefully the continuation next year doesn't ruing it. I'm skeptic.

3. 91 Days - Mob series which didn't pull any punches. It had plenty of highs as well as plenty of lows, but in the end it was one series I wanted to watch every week.


That's all I have for now, until I do some more catching-up.

[neflight86]

It's that time again!

Top 3 of Summer 2017:

3. Boku no Hero Academia Season 2: While the beginning and middle portions were more overall exciting than the ending transitional arc, Boku came through again, managing to be both hot-blooded and thoughtful; an ideal combination for shounen that can appeal to both sides without really compromising the shounen core values. You already know where you stand on this show.

2. Made in Abyss: A close second only really coming down to number one being a relatively complete story, Made in Abyss managed to be both beautiful and somber most episodes. Showcasing a dangerous frontier that did not harbor any sanctity for human life, but not apparently belligerent toward it either. I enjoyed the scenery and the mystery of the general deviance of the White whistle class of Cave Raiders. Often sad, but not melancholy; highly recommended.

1. Princess Principal: The opposite of a certain “award” below, Princess principal does all of the ‘not based on a manga/LN/NV’ things right with competent writing, good intrigue, and self-styled storytelling that crafts a stronger narrative than you might expect. Yes, you could argue that our moe-spies are poor spies, but I think in the framework of the show, they work marvelously and are actually elevated by the steampunk aesthetic. This is the closest thing I’ve seen to Read or Die in tone and I greatly enjoyed every episode; there were no outright duds. Open for more, but what we have is plenty enough as well, I highly recommend unless espionage performed by young girls (that can fight and defeat grown men) is just too derpy a pill to swallow.

Special awards
I watched entirely more anime this season than I typically do, hence this bloated special awards section.

The envelopes, please…

The “Got Robbed” suspect sketch goes to New Game!! Season 2. Most seasons this would have easily made top 3, but the competition was extra fierce this time around, making this a pleasant footnote in an above average season to me. Unfairly, this show also sports multiple ‘best girl’ candidates that make it easy to wish for a dubious third season. Simple but effective light drama with moe-overload. What’s not to like?

The “Standards are Real” break-up text goes to… Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu. The most post-processed anime of the season, doubtless brought to us by ufotable, this one immediately began to wear on me after the visual climax of the first episode. An evil half-time, half-CG army is trying to muck up the future by doing unhistorical things, so the god guys recruit weapons turned into people who know how to wield… themselves? Why would weapons care about history? Isn’t time travel inherently paradoxic-… nevermind. I just entered into edgy nit-pick mode when my issues with the show stem actually from how uninteresting the entire thing became. (Non)people standing around sharing dry, philosophical dialogue with personality rivaling the slabs of iron and steel they represent in between the generically choreographed fight scenes. I’m glad to feel like I won’t just watch a show because it is gorgeous.

“Double Derp” award presented to “Aho Girl”: Short form, and even shorter on common sense, this one crossed the language barrier with largely situational comedy that takes itself seriously when fully committing to the dumbest jokes. It got to me a lot. Slightly enhanced by the Main VA also playing the lead in Symphogear (crossover derp is meta funny).

The un-prestigious “Waste of Everyone’s Time” award is split between “Battle Girl High School”, and “Action Heroine Cheer Fruits”. About as toothless an entertainment can get, both shows set up meager perils one after the other for its girls to overcome with the power of… plot convenience. No tension felt, no deep characters, no competent fanservice, nothing ventured and nothing gained. Quickly forgetting this would be the most favorable outcome for anyone that watched it hoping for more.

The “I hate everything” award was burned in honor of “Chronos Ruler”. When you get to be as jaded as we are, you tend to go from black to red to… grey when presented with trashy shows. Unambitious titles become more of an eye rolling exercise (see above) in our lament of the ‘state of the industry’, and so on… But this trash made me feel kinda mad in its lazy bad-ness. The entire package here is just rote to the point of being patronizing. Do they (the producers) think we haven’t seen anime adaptations of light novels like this but better for the last five years that we still complain about not being very good or innovative? Is anything about this show supposed to be endearing or likeable? Are we supposed to just accept the revisionist power system, copy-paste characters, and done-to-death premise with nothing craftsman-like to make it palatable? Respect the audience, and we might give a show more of a chance than it deserves.

The “You mean ‘Seinen’ as in Berserk ‘Seinen’, right?” award was won by Nanamaru Sanbatsu. You can tell me this was written for older teens/young men, but I ain’t buying it. One cross dresser and a single panty shot do not elevate this about WSJ’s content filter (or any other young boy’s magazine), so the publication classification is confusing to me. About the show itself, it plays out like a serviceable ‘boy learns to become passionate and great at a thing: prologue’ show. No idea if it will be popular enough to get another season but what we got is digestible enough. Oddly, the show cheated in being able to hold my attention via fairly diverse trivia getting my “Jeapordy Senses” bubbling to answer some trivia along with the characters. I’ll also admit that I felt the ‘scales fall from my eyes’ as they explained the tactic of cutting the question at strategic points to guess the rest of the question so they could formulate an answer. I like twists like that; it's part of anime’s way of making anything more interesting.

The “Bucket bottom-out” award made a wet flop for “Koi to Uso”. Not being a great romantic, I’ll admit the series had a bit of a hurdle to overcome with me from the outset, but my issue was when the entire lynchpin of the drama of the story, the assertion that you must marry your assigned partner, was casually relegated to a ‘black mark’ on your record partway through the show. What?!? You just spent five episodes building up the bittersweet conflict of emotion versus the system, and now you tell me it won’t be tangibly enforced? Even if it was the author’s intent all along, I wish it had never been brought to the audience’s attention. Every time afterword, whenever main character McNiceGuyThatsActuallyJustADecentGuy fretted about his firstiest of first world problems, I got mild cringe-strokes. Trust me pal, the world of professional burial mound excavation isn’t so competitive that the rejection of your first wife candidate will really hurt your chances of becoming one (what a loser). Character designs were cute, but the whole thing felt frivolous, and the non-committal ending actually gave me hope that there won’t be a second season.

The “My trash, get your own!” trophy has been mailed to Symphogear Season 4. Nothing here hasn’t been done already, by the Symphogear’s earlier seasons, no less. Still enjoyable in a ‘I was there before it was cool to hate Symphogear’s ability to get additional seasons’, way, the ever expanding cast of singing warrior-girls faces off against a new overwrought and ultimately slightly redeemable foe. My burning questions are twofold. Firstly, how did the interview process go, I wonder, to get into the separate production and animation team dedicated to Cagliostro’s boobs? They are in a class all their own, and I will not accept that the same studio making this show had the budget, manpower, and conviction to elevate just her jigglies above the mortal realm; it must have been crowd funded or something… Secondly, I feel it would be in humanity’s best interest to teach commander TuckTie to sing, as his battle ability easily surpasses all of the girls, and a Symphogear for him would be a wiser use of the resource. Also, I would have liked to see more of Hibiki’s dead-beat dad. He was an interesting character in… whatever season he was in…

The “Rabbit Hill” award gift-card has been credited to Isekai Shokudou. My favorite fiction book I’ve ever read has got to be Rabbit Hill. It was a jolly feel-good story about a bunch of critters in a rural area with little better to do than discuss new humans moving into a nearby homestead. The animals are ecstatic about all of the benefits that human co-habitation would bring, and, while not without some drama, generally displayed an optimistic hopefulness that I found and still find refreshing. Isekai Shokudou gave me those vibes. Essentially, the episodic format goes: problem, delicious food, problem solved. It is a little difficult to imagine that the fantasy world is so primitive in its culinary arts, as they should be the longest practiced art of any sentient beings capable of taste in my estimation, but I digress. It’s just fun to watch folks have a good time and there’s a nice little twist at the end. Enjoyed every week.

The “Diamond in a Dung heap” award is being hosed off for “Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni”. Just narrowly avoiding the “Waste of Time” and “I hate Everything” awards by the miniscule merit of the main character being slightly sleazy. Just enough so, in fact, to confuse me into harboring the delusion, ever so briefly, that he had a discernable character (which he doesn’t). Tension or narrative stakes are luxuries Isekai wa Smartphone couldn’t afford while focusing on bringing us one of the most generic harems since the original Tenchi Muyo. Save yourself a few hours and don’t bother, unless you like to see a literal Deus ex Machina solve all of the problems this character faces in a generic fantasy world where things wait until it is convenient before going wrong. Flaccid and smelly- just take the award and go.

The “Foundation” award statuette is still curing for “Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu”. A strong setup in the first episode carried what became a slow burning political classism (no pun intended) struggle that hasn’t really gone anywhere, in spite of having a few good ideas of its own. Really, this is the most tragic kind of series to be adapted as a single cour, because it never even gets to reach a decent zeitgeist to make use of the groundwork and players introduced. Watching this is a gamble, in that if you like it, you may be disappointed that there may be no continuation (in anime). Recommended if you like a ‘broken’ main character.

The “Broken Rudder” award would go to 18if, but there was no address provided. I like the idea of experimental media, but mixed media projects like 18if are prone to a few fundamental problems. Not being beholden to a script or story gives greater creative freedom to the creator, but also removes the safeguards preventing a show from feeling as generally aimless as this one did. After two episodes, I couldn’t tell where this was going, nor be expected to care, as characters shifted personalities on a dime, if they even stayed in the show long enough to develop them. Just a mess, but worthy of a mention for trying to be different if not succeeding at also being good.

The “I can’t believe all the main characters are grown-ups” plaque is hanging in Manoyama’s train station wall for “Sakura Quest”. An unassuming P.A. works slice of life/drama show about one young lady’s attempt to bring vitality back to an equally unassuming rural town. All of the main girls save one are of drinking age. Why is this unusual? Enjoyable enough, but without any great climaxes or hype due to the ‘realistic’ slow moving, generally apathetic world presented, this is a show of small victories and ambitious ideas that don’t go quite as planned. Easy come, easy go.

The “Patience is a Virtue… be Virtuous” award will eventually be given to “Gamers”. A very popular show this season, but all I saw were rom-com misunderstanding tropes with more complex set-ups. The show focused so much on its wacky misunderstandings that I forgot some of these characters were supposed to be gamers until the last episode or two that poked fun at DLC and consumer culture. Some (more interesting) characters were introduced in the first episode to never be used again, and the entertainment topped out for me at about episode 3. Sometimes, I can get behind and enjoy misunderstandings (see School Rumble), but here it just fell kinda flat after a while, and I don’t really get why. Some of the setups were downright ambitious, but I just didn’t enjoy the sequences like I thought I would. A pity, really.

And now for the (even more) miscellaneous awards:

Best Girl(s) in order of best girl-ness: Dorothy (Princess Principal; dat smug smile), Hajime (New Game!!; her ever bouncy PERSONALITY), Chris (Symphogear; Don’t sweat that kid’s leg – pro soccer isn’t a realistic dream for anyone, and now he gets to be alive instead when he grows up), Purple haired Senior (Battle Girl High School; NEET + chip clip twin tails + neko mouth = best girl in a show of wannabe best girls)

Best use of a previous season’s character: Symphogear Season 4: Surprisingly, the leftover loli from last season pulled overtime in plot relevance (and screen time for not having a transformation sequence) this season, arguably enabling the girls to fight and win at all. Not bad, little lady.

Best Single Character: White beard Wizard (Isekai Shokudou). Yes, it’s a feel good tale, but that doesn’t mean characters can’t have a little charm. In the scene where the black ‘death powered’ dragon first entered the restaurant in human form, Shiro Wizard happened to be finishing up his meal at a side booth. When he noticed the magnitude of the being entering, the danger it could pose and the ensuing chaos that could be wrought by a battle as communicated in a single wrinkly glance over his mug, he ponders for a moment, peers in the mug and joyfully orders another beer instead. That aged mindset, plus his stupid bickering with the samurai over what is the best diner food, made him a pleasure to watch.

Best Op (Nanamaru Sanbatsu / Princess Principal): Both were surprisingly catchy and never got old.

[neflight86]

A bit of a backlog slowed this season’s recap

3. Shoujo shuumatsu ryokou: Sleepy little post-apocalyptic slice of life series that followed two young women on their tread cycle through a dilapidated cityscape. Almost meditative, with some soothing musical score and child-like naiveté to compliment the honestly derpy looking character designs. Actually an average show with an above average production and a strangely satisfying ending squeezed this into third place.

2. Juuni Taisen: It is actually a feat into itself that something as hyped as this still managed to make the second spot after such a string of disappointments throughout its run. You want fights? You get talking. You want an unpredictable death game? You get a pattern in the second episode. You want a grandiose finale? You get a moody teen being angsty about making a wish for the last episode. I sound harsh, but the premise and execution of this overwrought killing game (aside from the dragon/snake being both 4chan surrogates and boring) was still generally very entertaining.

1. Shokugeki no Souma 3rd Plate: The old standby got a much needed shot in the arm this season. After the somewhat lackluster Autumn Election tournament continuation in the second season, I was brought back in by the mini stagiere ‘training’ ark that brought the focus back to the real star of shokugeki: the food and its enjoyment by regular people. Bafflingly, an important scene bridging the second and third seasons, the formal introduction of the elite 10, was relegated to an OVA that many didn’t know to watch, causing flashbacks to the scenes to seem woefully inadequate in explaining the current climate of competition. That aside, the first portion of the season, the showdown of the festival sales against the 8th seat was delicious, if you’ll excuse the pun. Bringing back the out of the box business thinking and returning characters with an impact really set up for a good climax. It is at the second half, the introduction of evil chefs, that opinions are divided. On one hand, I can sympathize with the author feeling pressured to raise the stakes by adding an organized oppositional element to our polar star heroes, and gourmet cooking, being an inherently noble task, is not so simple to vilify its participants in so doing. On the other hand, though; evil chefs cooking evil-like makes me chuckle, and could only be entertained in a show where tasty food is taken this seriously. I, personally, am willing to acquiesce this direction to provide the tension that will fuel future conflicts within the show. I looked forward to nothing more.

As I’m sure all (none) of you are waiting for, it is time for the special awards!!!

The ‘teeth grinding’ award (and dental bill) goes to Fate: Apocrypha: I’m still getting a handle on what kind of shows make me sorta angry while I’m watching them, because it happens not very often. Ask anyone who watches mediocre seasonal anime and they can tell you much of it is largely isekai (going to another world) or disposable niche pandering that is genuinely entertaining at best, and kinda boring at worst. So why did this production put me in a foul mood most episodes? I’m not a mega Fate fan, but I liked the Ufotable series from the past years, so what gives? In theory, this shouldn’t be that different, except I feel that modern (bad) anime tropes were in full effect here. I hated the main character, the circumstances around him, and all of his interactions with the other heroes. Blind idealism from a character with all of the world experience of 2 weeks in a European countryside should not decide the fate of the world in a story that postures to have depth and nuance. The battles, while animated with some panache, seldom actually felt dangerous as few actually died in them. The character motivations were fuzzy at best, and half of one team didn’t even get scenes with dialogue from its masters. The deus Shiro felt tacky, as did any reference to the old fate series, but I kind of liked the necromancer duo. At least the series lived up to the name “apocrypha”.

The ‘Where are the heroes?’ award went to Inuyashiki. It’s so seldom that I find a scene hard to watch, but the murder scenes in Inuyashiki had me silently hoping for a hero to save the innocent, which usually didn’t come. Some may dismiss this series as a showcase of misery for its own sake, but in that environment I found that the good deeds of the main character with his new powers were that much more impactful knowing that the powers themselves could easily be used for evil. The crux of the ideological conflict (warning: pretention alert!) seemed to be that one treated his powers as having been given to him by God, while the other saw his powers as making himself into a god. The latter became quite a contemporary power fantasy by the end, hunting down internet trolls, fighting the police, and being somewhat redeemed by the self-sacrifice for his few friends. The most powerful scene this season for me this season goes to the two CPR scenes (especially the second one) that really made me feel for Inuyashiki’s character. Not for everyone, but very entertaining for me.

The “I actually don’t even” award does not go to Animegataris (in spirit of the award itself): I’m told that plenty of older anime did this frequently- set up a series as being one thing, and then make a hard 90 in the final few episodes to shock the audience into watching just to see how it pans out. Recent examples include Samurai Flemenco and Mayoiga. That happens here in a sort of creepy, “you see signs but nothing goes off the rails until a few episodes later when we get a sudden save the world plot” kinda way. The twist plot is so inane in hindsight that I would recommend actually stopping after the school festival arc to preserve the best possible memory of this show. The early episodes do actually feel like they ‘get’ anime fandom, and are fun to watch as slice of life.

The “lightning won’t strike twice” award shocks Re:Creators: ‘High Concept’ is maybe a bit generous a descriptor, but I think it suits what this show tried to do. A somewhat nuanced take on an interesting idea: how would characters from fiction, if they were real, react to their world’s intelligent design that was steered by a desire to be interesting, even if that drive caused misery and mayhem for its inhabitants? A reverse Isekai, one could argue. Yes, hoops were jumped though (games and anime only, please- we have to make the meta-narrative commentary as approachable as possible to anime audiences) to restrict the scope, but the premise is strong enough to warrant the tradeoff. That’s where my ultimate problem with Re:Creators comes in. It stirred in me a desire to see this concept explored even better… possibly across more media genres. I can ignore the fluid logic of how the rules worked and the other plot contrivances during the final battle, again, due to the strength of the premise. I fear that, because the setup seemingly requires a certain amount of effort and writing chops to pull off satisfactorily, we may never get another series that explores these ideas, much less better, and that’s a shame. Another odd thing was that the writers seemed to deliberately avoid having the author characters ever deflecting the blame directed at them by their creations with the most obvious answer of ignorance. No one fathomed that the worlds they created could be real, and shouldn’t have been expected to, yet no one mentions this that I can remember; just justifications like ‘it made the story better’ that felt a bit forced in the absence of common sense in that respect. Also, I dislike whiny characters like the MC boy and was glad that his role was diminished as the story went on.

The “Train Wreck Twins” awards have been forcibly split between Evil Live and Ou Sama the Game: I usually don’t find myself watching a single anime that looks completely amateurish, much less two during the same season, but here we are… Imagine the smallest budget you could justify to put 24 frames on screen for ~22 minutes a week and then imagine that you were told to do it for half. I hope these were produced by some ‘fledgling animation industry workers’ program, because woof. The only thing that comes close to how sparsely these are animated is Saiki, but that has established gags as the central draw. Both shows share the premise of young people trying to overcome an unfair adversity, but one goes into gore/tragedy porn (that became comical in its absurdness), and the other… didn’t commit to a single idea for more than two episodes. Not recommended.

The “Shoulda finished that one” award should go to Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau: Everything here was ripe for the watching. Something just didn’t click in this curious show about the doomed nomads aboard a travelling island. The whole thing felt kind of Ghibli-ish in the loss of innocence and intrigue. The good news is that the power of the internet makes anime essentially eternal, so I can pick it back up at my leisure. Kekkai Sensen season 2 was also a contender, but that I have definite plans to binge watch.

The “This is how you make bad animation work” award was scribbled out to “Just Because”: Pine Jam is a newer studio who’s animation has yet to prove itself to me because both this and Gamers make Konosuba look high budget in comparison. In spite of this, the coming of age story here manages to not annoy me, which is about the highest praise I can heap on these kind of “Do you think she knows that I think I know that you like me too” teenybopper love shows. In, out, done. It worked and I was surprised.

“Best Character” has to go to the otaku erogame writer from Re:Creators. To immediately propose marriage to a fictional character of your own creation on first sight requires a kind of degeneracy I find infinitely amusing.

Overall, a weaker, but more consistent season, as I struggled to designate a top 3, but also questioned in any of the final picks would have made it in last season. Oh well. The never ending march of Anime continues…

**Edit: The 'snubbed by a nub' award goes to "Ballroom e Youkoso": I totally forgot about this show (because I'm an idiot), but it should have been number 1. I couldn't follow the technical aspects of the dancing at all, but the strength of the artwork, music and direction had me by the throat pretty much every single week. Thanks, future posters, for reminding me of it!