[Awards] Top 5 Best and Worst Anime of 2017(and misc. awards)
It's time! For the Anime! Of! The Year! Po! St!
Unlike last year, this year didn't put out any shows that became one of my top 10(last year was Jojo Part 4 which is currently on my top 10), but there were still a lot of good shows, a lot of surprisingly good shows, a lot of surprisingly bad shows, and a whole lot of just plain shit! Let's get to it shall we ROLL IT
Worst Second Season:
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but IBO seriously dropped the ball part way through season 2. I really wish they'd stopped at season 1. I really like that one, it was super good, I put Mikazuki on my favorite characters list. It was a really, good, show.
And IBO 2 isn't. It's dumb, and bad, and is very "we needed a plot cuz we got greenlit for season 2". I don't like it, I stopped watching it, I'd rather watch Thunderbolt, and that one has a guy who drums in the cockpit of his mobile suit.
Runners Up: Show Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Futatabi-hen, New Game!!
Weirdest Phenomenon:
The massive popularity of Kemono Friends
Well okay this one's not too weird. I get it I know why it is. It's just cuz it has cute girls in it. I mean it's the same reason Kancolle was popular and why MLP:FiM is popular in the west. There are trading-card tier girls with simple but likeable character archetypes that are decently characterized, there are enough of them that no matter who you are one of them will appeal to you. It's simple. I'm sure there is something more to this, why it was this one specifically, and I do plan on watching it some time to see what this background info and lore is(I mean I already got some of it from the 5 minutes I saw) but I just... wow. It become so fucking huge, there's now tons of porn of it all over the internet. It's overwatch level almost.
Most Mediocre Show:
DanMachi Gaiden
And the award for "most boring show" goes to! This one. It was boring. It's a spin off of DanMachi, which while not being a great show is still pretty good. Contrast this one, which is really uninteresting and useless, and if anything just convolutes the timeline. No one is every in any danger because they're all high level and even when they have a hard time they just reveal they weren't using all their power ;^) and then use all their power and win easily. The main plot is dumb and I don't care, we learn nothing about anyone really, there are new and really stupid characters, nothing is really developed especially not the world, and god it was just so
meh(while I'm editing I may as well say, I rate this like a 4 or 3 now, it's worse than mediocre honestly)
Runners Up: Isekai Shoukudo, Demi-chan wa Kataritai(actually mediocre shows)
Most Disappointing Show I Dropped:
Mahoutsukai no Yome
Boy oh boy. What makes this one so disappointing is how long it went being really good, and how good it was before it got bad. The other two runners up weren't as good. This show looked good, had good directing and atmosphere, and interesting world and characters, so much stuff that hooked me on it and and just made me want to keep going!
And then they introduced the edgeboy antagonist who does da evul expurimants on peoples and is bads and made this corpse into a vagina monster and is oh no intimidating cuz it's a psychopath who doesn't care about human lives and is sadistic but is all smiley and happy! AAAAAAAAH!!!! so scary!!! God dammit.
Runners Up: Acca, Aoyama-kun
Dumbest Ending to a Good Show:
Shoujou Shuumatsu Ryokou
So at the end, a bunch of Mushroom Angels eat these nukes on a submarine and then fly off into the sky presumably to go back to God Himself.
Okay.
Best Ending to a Dumb Show:
Inuyashiki: The Last Hero
This is spoiling my top 5 bads a little but hell you should know this show is bad. But the weird thing is, it actually has a really well done ending. Like the episode until then is really bad like always, but then... the ending song starts to play, as Inuyashki sacrifices himself to save the world. It flashbacks, maybe even is his flashback, to his family and the time he spent with them. Shows the good times he had before they started to resent him, before all this shit happened. His friends and family see the explosion in space from the earth's surface, and they cry as the night sky is illuminated by the massive energy discharge. It cuts to an unspecified time later; his wife is back to her minimum wage job, his daughter is still working on getting published in Shounen Jump, his son has grown as a person because of the experience and you can see him finally having stood up to his bullies and even made one of them cry. Everyone tried to move on with their lives, but their lives were subtly changed by him. It's a really good ending
that it just. Didn't. Earn. At all. It waived the right to have such a good ending. But it had it none the less.
(I wanted to put a link to the ending sequence but it's been blocked in the United States so just imagine it)
Biggest Surprise:
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
A show by KyoAni that isn't shit? A show by KyoAni that doesn't look like the same exact show as their last 15 shows? A good show that's an adaptation of a manga by that "I Can't Understand My Husband At All!" guy? The one who does oppai loli doujins?
Holy shit. You gotta be squiddin' me ova' here! No really, this show is actually not garbage and it has every reason to be. It's not great, and it has a stupid fucking ending, but it's not bad. That's the most surprising part!
Runners Up: Frame Arms Girls, Animegataris
Best Show That Gets No Recognition:
Alice and Zouroku
A really good, fun and imaginative series. It's not super amazing or anything but it was really good, and really interesting. Aside from the first episode which had some godawful GONZO level CGI it looked good too. I feel like both because of that first episode and because it's by JC Staff, people kinda just forgot about it.
Runner Up: Twin Angel Break
Best Short:
Love Kome: We Love Rice! S1 and 2
Love Kome is something I never thought the fujoshis would do, but did anyway: Made ikemen personifications of strains of rice. And bread also. And noodles. They're all food. And this show is great. It's super dumb and I love it.
Runners Up: Nyanko Days, 100% Pascal-sensei, Nobunaga no Shinobi
And now, it's time. Time for: The Worst Anime of the Year.
5. Fukumenkei Noise
Not really sure what to say about this. What started off(and I mean like the first half of the first episode) as what seemed like a really good music/band based drama(something I love) devolved into the most contrived melodramtic romance story I've seen in years. Lemme tell you some of the convenient things I remember:
The boy the girl likes and stopped singing to save her voice for, as well as the boy she met after that boy moved away and she was sad, all happen to go to the same high school.
Boy 1 just so happens to secretly be a popular pop song composer. Boy 2 just so happens to be the "lead singing"(they dub over him with the real lead singer, a woman. He dresses like a girl for the part) of one of the most popular bands in the nation.
They replace their lead singer with her, and lead singer girl just so happens to go over to Boy 1's side and join his band that is a rip off of their band because he learned main girl is singing in the first band now and wants to make a band that surpasses them so she'll join his band.
Boy 2's mom just so happens to be insane and blames music for killing her husband as if music physically murdered him.
Boy 1's mom just so happens to come visit him without telling him, found him walking around in town, found him right as he was waiting for a train to cross the tracks, and then stand behind him like a slasher villain (which made me for a moment think this show was suddenly gonna switch genres). Not behind the train so she could surprise him or something, behind HIM so that when the train passed with the camera facing in front of him we would see her there all of a sudden, as if she has some kind of weird 4th wall powers.
Said mom then proceeds to tell him he can't go after this girl and also make him leave town again, and he agrees to this because for some unspecified reason he believes that they would actually be in danger from this spooky mama.
Girl wants her voice to reach Boy 1, and it does... literally, while she's singing many many yards away from him at a rock concert, while he is also performing in a rock band.
Do you see any problems here?
4. Re:Creators
I stuck with Re:Creators way longer than I should have. The thing about it is that it's not really that terrible, I mean it's a bad show with pretty hollow writing and dumb plot threads, but I mean the reason it's on here is for 2 things. 1. It's such a good idea and 2. Sometimes it has pretty damn good moments still.
Re:Creators is the kind of thing I've been wanting for a while. It's a great idea. Characters from a bunch of in universe fiction come to the real world and fight each other, and are also none too pleased at their creators for being the cause of their suffering and strife, and also us as the audience for these things that facilitate it being made and readily consume it as entertainment. It's especially potent when a bunch of the things these people are from are very schlocky light novels, which often use very over the top dark methods to garner sympathy from the audience due to their authors not having the chops to execute anything less well enough to make you care. For example you've got this knight girl who comes from a series where people are routinely killed so often in this massive 5 nation war that dead bodies are constantly just piled up all over the place. Knight girl understandably wants that to stop, and also understandably is super fucking pissed that some dude decided "your world is gonna be so embroiled in war that hundreds of thousands die each day and also it's gonna take you much longer than it should to fix the problem because my publisher wants more chapters".
That's about all that's understandable of her behavior, motivation, and goals btw.
It seems as if not only are the characters written by sub-par light novel authors in the show, but in reality too. That knight girl, for example, decided to trust the obvious villain and fight against the obvious heroes thus going entirely against her code of chivalry and also attacking unarmed civilians. Then she had a really hollow conversation with another character. Then they had a boring fight scene.
That seems to be every episode of this show. A poorly written character, such as Edgegirl McMonogatari, talks in really long winded hollow lines that seem like they might be clever or deep but are nothing of the sort, then they fight, then they stop to have another meaningless conversation that kinda sorta sounds thematic but isn't. And then something really stupid happens, like they'll bring someone back to life with the power of twitter, or come up with a plan that involves using fanfiction to nerf the baddy's power. The baddy by the way is mad because mean nasty cyberbullies made her creator kill herself so she wants to kill them instead. And the MC is sad cuz instead of white knighting her and doxing those evil trolls like a good feminist ally he didn't do that and so it's totally his fault bluuuuuurg.
The worst part is that sometimes the show will have something that's actually deep. I feel like this is because, as a writer, the writer of this show at least understands what it is to be a writer, even if not a good one. So you have scenes like sword girl talking about how her world is basically meaningless because it's just a story, and him saying that, for him, creating her wasn't meaningless. That it was proof that he lived. Then in that same episode, you have a scene where the MC talks about how he gave up drawing to the light novel illustrator, and asking why she still keeps going. She says that yeah, it's hard. People always criticize her, the art world is super competitive, it's stressful and can be bad for her self esteem sometimes. That sometimes she wants to quit. But she says that's normal, that everyone has those feelings, and that even if it's hard it's worth it pursue your passion, your dreams. It's trying to show why these heroes in their stories are heroes, it's because their creators' own beliefs are projected onto them. It also shows the importance of finding your own meaning in life, even if it's just writing some trashy novel. If you're happy with it, if that's enough of a mark to leave behind, that's fine, isn't it? Everyone has the right to decide what's meaningful in their life, right?
And then in that same episode they plan a big huge crossover story in which they're gonna trap and defeat the big bad, some girl sketches a highly detailed drawing in like 5 seconds, and I feel like I'm watching SAO.
3. Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss started out as an absolutely amazing show. I was certain it was gonna anime of the year, maybe even a spot on my favorites list. It had amazing directing and art design, beautiful and atmospheric music, a fantastic setting, and was simultaneously very original and unique yet familiar and nostalgia. It was such a good story, taking like 3 episodes before the main adventure begins, being about surviving in a beefed up version of the Amazon Rain Forest, being able to be dark without being edgy about it, having a simple plot with a very interesting seeming overarching story that I thought would be doled out slowly allowing the adventure to take the focus.
And then we met Ozen. The First Edgelord. Ozen's section of the story makes no sense. Ozen herself makes no sense. First Ozen talks like she's trying to arouse a masochist constantly to these children, then apparently somehow unleashes a weird monster that somehow makes it's way to where Riko got lost too which she also knew she would do when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night which she also knew she would do, all so that Riko would ask her what the deal was so that she could show Riko the Zombie Cube so that she could tell Riko that she was put in that when she was stillborn and then attack her under the pretense that she must be killed to keep this quiet and then reveal it was all a trick for some reason that I can't remember.
And then her back makes no sense because sometimes she's hunched over but if you look at her torso it's only slightly bent forward while she has somehow lost a whole foot or more of her height which is also about 7 feet tall.
Then we flash forward a bit to where Riko gets stabbed by poison spikes due to some very convenient circumstances, and her hand swells up to the size of Popeye's forearm. But don't worry, because Reg made sure to escape upwards for no reason despite the show trying to claim there was, which means she's gonna bleed out of literally every orifice which should get the poison out. At least that's what Riko thinks but it's not true she's still poisoned and also has lost pretty much all of her blood which means she should be dead. Before she dies though she makes sure to tell Reg to cut off her arm, and he makes sure to do it in the most inefficient and slow way possible but then doesn't even manage to finish the job and only succeeded in breaking the fuck out of her arm and causing her joint some nerve damage. She flops over dead and he has a good, oh say 5 minute cry about how horrible it is and how he wants her to come back, making you believe she's gone for good. Then a rabbit girl shows up to tell him "lol she's not dead her face is just white as fuck because she stopped breathing, do some CPR and she won't die" despite having lost gallons of blood and being poisoned and that her heart should have been stopped for long enough by now that it wouldn't matter if the breathing stopping was the only problem.
Then she fixes her arm with the help of a blob creature which we learn was created via scientific experiments by the Big Bad,Kihara Gensei Bondrewd(yes this is his name I learned it from a MiA fanboy), a guy who doesn't see the orphans he's using as murder victims experiment subjects as human(no he really said this, these are his own words). Said blob is seen transforming into a blob in front of our very eyes, and is also incapable of dying so the Big Bad tried to kill her a bunch, neither of which is edgy I assure you. Which btw all of this is caused by the curse of the abyss which up until now seemed to work like an exaggerated and worse version of what happens when you quickly ascend after being deep in the ocean in a pressurized submarine but now it's also basically magic and can turn you into either a rabbit or a blob for completely unexplained reasons(but that's totally fine because Mad Scientistman is researching it even though he doesn't share his theories as to what factors caused this in this story in which all the other fantastical elements had clear defined rules to them). Then her arm is fixed and not poisoned, her blood is back, and her nerve damage even heals enough in montage that we're ready to set out again! Boy, it's almost like that near-death had absolutely no narrative weight or consequence and was only there to introduce a new character which the publisher said to do to save the manga's sales. I'm sure that's not the case though~
This show turned into garbage.
2. Kino's Journey(2017)
Ooooooohoho booooooy. You wanna know why this one's the top? It's not a great show turning into shit like MiA, it's not a shitty version of a show I like like Kino, it's not a wasted concept like Re:Creators.
It is, however, one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my life.
It's also one of the funniest too, though it's not supposed to be. The level of incompetence here is astounding. This is one of those anime that's akin to like, The Room, and Birdemic. In this case maybe more like Battlefield Earth, since similar to that being a major studio movie with a big budget, this was from the normally fantastic Studio MAPPA. I dunno what happened, MAPPA usually at least produces nice looking anime. Ushio and Tora, Yuri on Ice, Shoukoku no Altair, and hell I might not like either of them but they also did Terror in Resonance and Punch Line, both of which look good. Inuyashiki on the other hand looks like horseshit.
If what you're seeing isn't CG(and 70% of the time it is), it's pretty low quality art and super stilted animation. Kinda reminds me of the worst scenes in Psychopass 2. It never looks good, except for in the OP, which has some bad spots too. How MAPPA ended up making something that looks so bad is beyond me... okay well maybe not. I have a theory: maybe they knew it was a lost cause and didn't even try.
Cuz really, even the directing, composition, anything about this show isn't good. It manages to make it 2 episodes before it drops the ball. And the ball then rolls down a steep hill and crushes 50 people.
I dunno how to explain this really. It's a show about an old man and a young man who both get killed one night by aliens and/or fourth dimensional beings. Said beings say "oh shit uhhh put them in the robo bodies" but all they got left are combat units. So they both get those. Old Man decides he's gonna become Astro Boy(not just a joke, he sings the Astro Boy theme song to activate his thrusters and fly) and save people as a Hero. Young Boy decides he's gonna become a serial killer and kill people as a Villain. They are the same, they and them...
So I mean the story never really developed past that but that wouldn't be enough to make me say this is one of the worst I've seen, and a so bad it's good show. I've seen Mars of Destruction, guys. What puts it over the top is where it goes from there. See, after Hiro, the killer(get it his name is "Hiro" but he's the villain not the hero) is found out by the cops he runs away, but then finds out his mother committed suicide. He's very upset about this fact, which is a little odd given he's supposed be a psychopath, but I guess it's not impossible for them to ever care about someone, they simply lack empathy. He may feel sad simply because it's his mom, meaning he's been negatively impacted by it. Also, he might not really be a psychopath, and also also it's sort of a metaphor because he's like the "average teen" really, something about the internet making the youth crazy or something. I know that zoomers suck and everything but this is kind of a stupid metaphor honestly and even for me feels like Old Man Yells at Cloud... Anyway, he's really sad, but then...
People on 2chan say mean things about him and his mom! So he goes and finds all of them literally finds all of the anons and murders them one by one goin "u shouldn't have shitposted on the internets". And then he also guns down a bunch of reporters, by shooting his fingers like guns which I mean yeah he can do that but it looks so fucking silly. It's so fucking dumb it's the stupidest fucking scene, and it's where I realized oh my god this show is a masterpiece of bad, a badsterpiece.
He goes and hides away with a girl who is so fucking stupid she won't believe he's the killer even when he tells her he is. Then he takes her flying in the sky. Then she believes him finally, and tells him that it's super bad to kill people you know like don't do that. So he goes "oh, really? Okay then I'll save them instead" and isn't being sarcastic, he genuine seems like he didn't consider that killing people was bad. He then starts saving people. He sets up a twitter account where he says "yo dm me if u dyin and shit" and people actually do? People actually think this is legit?? And he heals their terminal illnesses with his robot powers??? And everything is going great until the SWAT team
BUSTS into the house of the girl and old lady who he's staying with and fucking OPENS FIRE ON THE OLD LADY AND YOUNG GIRL, SOMETHING A SWAT TEAM WOULD NOT DO. I mean holy shit. For one thing, the cops probably wouldn't even be sure they were harboring him yet. They totally would have been open to the possibility that he was holding them hostage. And even if they weren't, the cops don't just shoot people who are harboring criminals, especially not old ladies, at least not 5 seconds after aiming their firearms at them and asking them to freeze. There's no reason given for why they shot both of these woman. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. I didn't know there were anti-cop retards in Japan.
Hiro then kills them and takes the ladies to a safe location and revives them so the scene was pointless, but he then decides he's gonna go and get revenge on the cops so he murders an entire police precinct. He doesn't stop there though! He kills 100 people in the streets of Shibuya via their smartphones which. Inuyashiki and his sidekick, the former friend of Hiro, figure this out and tell everyone to get rid of their smartphones. They all immediately believe this and drop their phones right on the ground. All of them. In 2017, everyone just believes this, they aren't skeptical at all, they believe them and drop their phones right on the ground. WHAT.
But it's too late, 100 people are dead! And the next day about 5000 more die, because Hiro takes control of a shitload of passenger planes and crashes them all into Tokyo. Just fucking SMASHES them into it. Killing many people. And the worst part is that at this point in the show they are still trying to make you sympathize with Hiro somehow. Yes, this mass murderer and psychopathic serial killer yes I care so much about the poor guy oh muh tragic villain he totally didn't have to be. Like what the fuck.
Inuyashki saves his daughter from carbon monoxide poisoning and then goes to fight Hiro, during which they both cause enormous damage to the city especially because a satellite randomly falls out of the sky and is exploded causing the debris to fall all over. But then everyone seems kinda "eh" about all this. After the huge incident they all just go "I wonder if the trains are still running" even after Inuyashiki saves the people who weren't totally dead from all of it. I haven't seen something give this little of a shit about 2 superbeings destroying shitloads of buildings and killing hundreds of people during their fight with each other since Man of Steel. Wait, that also had a scene with a satelight... was it an inspiration!?
His family finds out and they have a really dumb scene where he goes "I'm a copy of Inuyashiki a robot I'm not the real one!" and his wife goes "you remember that vacation we went on?" and he goes "yes I do ! oh that must mean I am the real one!" because it's not like a robot copy would have his memories. But sadly a random meteor is gonna crash into earth and kill everyone, that was briefly hinted at one time in an early episode I think so it's fine that it's so out of nowhere and contrived, so both Inuyashiki and Hiro explode themselves to destroy it.
The End.
4. Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Washio Sumi no Shou
Not much to say here, it's just a really fun, really good, really well done prequel show. It's paced so well it feels like much longer than 6 episodes, and it manages to make me really care despite knowing the outcome of this situation, and acts as a great set up to the sequel. If you liked the first season, for sure watch this! The music also sounds even more like NieR this time around so that makes it even better. This also made me realize there's some strange similarities between this series and Drakengard.
3. My Hero Academy S2
My Hero Academy second season? Check. Twice as long? Check. Twice as INTENSE? Check. Twice as good? Double check! The first season was already pretty good, and restored my faith in Shounen Jump. So it's absolutely wonderful that season 2 is even better. I'm fully on board with this series now, I'm gonna keep watching it for as long as it goes on and maybe even start reading the manga if the show ever stops airing. I cannot wait until the next season. I don't think I need to explain to you why MHA is good; most people have already seen it and they either love it or hate it. It's just that kind of show. If you happen to not have seen it, I'll say it's basically a battle/action shounen distilled down to it's most pure form. That might sound like a bad thing, but it's actually incredibly good. See, shounen series, especially ones from Shounen Jump, tend to complicate themselves far too much. Think about it: Why is Bleach bad? Why is Naruto bad? Bleach is bad because it became utter nonsense about an evil Soul Reaper and weird Soul Reaper/Hollow hybrids with spanish names instead of the very simple premise it started with. Naruto became a convoluted mess about 15 different evil traitor to their village guys who all had stupid pity party backstories that made them eeeeeviiiiiiiil and went on about how their pain was greater than his.
My Hero Academy is about a simple premise: Boy who admires super heroes wants to be one, but can't cuz he has no powers, is given powers by the hero he admires, and then works hard to be a super hero. Yes, there's stuff like oh man we gotta fight All Might's antithesis, or oh man Hero Killer Stain has messed up the hero political climate, but in the end it really is about this kid starting from zero and slowly becoming an amazing super hero through sheer force of will and determination. Which is what shounen series are supposed to be about. When they're that, they're really good. It takes this simple premise, and instead of convoluting it more to make the story more complex, it fleshes it out. It develops the characters, themes, world it takes place it. Like a good story should. That's what makes a good, complex story: expanding on a simple, core theme. Not big bad guy groups you're supposed to feel sorry for, not complicated plots to create and army of super beings, not some other fuckin' bullshit.
MHA is not some fuckin' bullshit, it's some fuckin' good shit. I mean, just look at this OP!
2. Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond
I liked the original Kekkai Sensen. I did. It really dropped the ball in the later episodes, and the last episode had a 4 month delay, but I still did like it. I felt like it didn't at all live up to it's potential, and that Yasuhiro Nightow felt pressured to make the plot more complex and grandiose, due to having become known as "the Trigun guy". I really have to think that's the problem, that he felt, because Trigun got more complicated and dark and kinda crazy later on, that his new series had to too. But Kekkai Sensen's main strength is that it's an over the top and campy pulp fiction story. It's not meant to have a big overarching plot. It's meant to be a fun episodic adventure with these crazy super powered dudes in this supernaturally fucked up version of New York.
And now it is.
I dunno, maybe at some point Nightow realized oh, this isn't working out as well. I'm much better when I'm doing dumb fun stuff like Gungrave(yeah he just did the character design from what I remember you know what I mean). Maybe the sales dropped and they went "shit" and switched back to this. I don't know, I don't care. The end result is Kekkai Sensen is now the show I always wanted it to be, and it's fantastic. Every episode was a joy to watch, very engaging, very entertaining, and very cool. Bones did a fantastic job animating it, the composer did a fantastic job scoring it, and it was a blast! I highly recommend this show if you like other over the top action series like Gurren Lagann, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and hell maybe even Fist of the North Star since it does that cheesy BIG ONSCREEN TEXT for attack names. Very recommended.
And now... the moment you've all been waiting for. The top
anime
of
the year.
1. Mahoujin Guru Guru
That's right! Magical Circle GuruGuru!
I don't really have much to say about this one, oddly. This is simply my favorite anime from this year. It's an absolutely fantastic parody of old school JRPGs, with fun characters, silly jokes, cute artwork, and a surprisingly engrossing story. Despite being a very obvious parody, with an intentionally simple plot about a boy who is the chosen hero destined to defeat the evil dark lord monster man, despite being a very absurd comedy you can almost never take seriously, you really do get seriously invested in the story, characters, lore, world, everything. It was super silly but I genuinely cared what was happening, I was excited when the hero triumphed, was worried when he was losing, was happy when they overcame adversity. When the characters were sad I was sad for them, when they were happy I was happy for them. It may have been a silly comedy, but it was also an exciting epic adventure. Because it was able to be both of those things, and be both of those things so damn well, delivering me a highly engaging and enjoyable experience, I have to say it's my favorite, the best, of the year. You should do yourself a favor and watch Magical Circle GuruGuru if you haven't, it's an absolutely great show that shouldn't be missed, and is also suitable for children! M-mostly.
Runners Up: T Kyoukai no Rinne S3, Shoukoku no Altair, Attack on Titan S2
And there you have it! Go home. Please watch all of the top 5 best and the runners up and don't watch any of the worsts thanks see ya!
Unlike last year, this year didn't put out any shows that became one of my top 10(last year was Jojo Part 4 which is currently on my top 10), but there were still a lot of good shows, a lot of surprisingly good shows, a lot of surprisingly bad shows, and a whole lot of just plain shit! Let's get to it shall we ROLL IT
Worst Second Season:
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but IBO seriously dropped the ball part way through season 2. I really wish they'd stopped at season 1. I really like that one, it was super good, I put Mikazuki on my favorite characters list. It was a really, good, show.
And IBO 2 isn't. It's dumb, and bad, and is very "we needed a plot cuz we got greenlit for season 2". I don't like it, I stopped watching it, I'd rather watch Thunderbolt, and that one has a guy who drums in the cockpit of his mobile suit.
Runners Up: Show Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Futatabi-hen, New Game!!
Weirdest Phenomenon:
The massive popularity of Kemono Friends
Well okay this one's not too weird. I get it I know why it is. It's just cuz it has cute girls in it. I mean it's the same reason Kancolle was popular and why MLP:FiM is popular in the west. There are trading-card tier girls with simple but likeable character archetypes that are decently characterized, there are enough of them that no matter who you are one of them will appeal to you. It's simple. I'm sure there is something more to this, why it was this one specifically, and I do plan on watching it some time to see what this background info and lore is(I mean I already got some of it from the 5 minutes I saw) but I just... wow. It become so fucking huge, there's now tons of porn of it all over the internet. It's overwatch level almost.
Biggest Fuckup:
The latest Gintama
So I mean, Gintama was already pretty obviously ruined with the Shogun Assassination Arc and the aftermath of it, but this new season put the final nail in the coffin if you'll pardon my cliched phrase. Gintama is dead. It's over. It's done. It has reached the point every ongoing shounen series reaches eventually, where you just have no reason to watch it anymore. Hopefully, as long running shounen are designed to eventually, people will stop reading Gintama and it'll be canceled. Maybe Sorachi will do a new series, start fresh and be good again. Maybe not, it doesn't matter cuz I'm done with Gintama. I'll always remember it as it was, but as it is it's a pile of gorilla feces, covered in the vomit of Sunrise' CEO.
EDIT: I never mentioned why lol. It's because it was revealed not only was Gintoki's sensei alive but he was actually the bad guy!!! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. His teacher's death was the literal FOUNDATION of his ENTIRE character and backstory, his teacher and his death is WHY GINTOKI IS THE WAY HE IS AND INFORMED SO MANY OF HIS ACTIONS DURING AND AFTER THE WAR. To have him not just not be dead but have him be an antagonist is absolutely fucking STUPID. After LIKE 350 EPISODES OF THIS you decide OH NO THIS FUNDAMENTAL THING ABOUT THE STORY ISN'T TRUE! fuck you. If you did this in the last 3rd of a 24 episode, or even a 50 episode show, or like last 3rd of a 40-60 hour game, sure. But not now, you needed to this early on, you can't do this NOW. To say after what FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS of this story "that fundamental and important pillar of the story that we call back to for ground and emphasis all the characters who were affected it was a lie actually" is the stupidest god damn thing. Fuck the fuck off forever.
Runner Up: Tales of Zestiria the X S2, if only because it's a terrible adaptation of ToZ, while Gintama as a series is just done.
Most Mediocre Show:
DanMachi Gaiden
And the award for "most boring show" goes to! This one. It was boring. It's a spin off of DanMachi, which while not being a great show is still pretty good. Contrast this one, which is really uninteresting and useless, and if anything just convolutes the timeline. No one is every in any danger because they're all high level and even when they have a hard time they just reveal they weren't using all their power ;^) and then use all their power and win easily. The main plot is dumb and I don't care, we learn nothing about anyone really, there are new and really stupid characters, nothing is really developed especially not the world, and god it was just so
meh(while I'm editing I may as well say, I rate this like a 4 or 3 now, it's worse than mediocre honestly)
Runners Up: Isekai Shoukudo, Demi-chan wa Kataritai(actually mediocre shows)
Most Disappointing Show I Dropped:
Mahoutsukai no Yome
Boy oh boy. What makes this one so disappointing is how long it went being really good, and how good it was before it got bad. The other two runners up weren't as good. This show looked good, had good directing and atmosphere, and interesting world and characters, so much stuff that hooked me on it and and just made me want to keep going!
And then they introduced the edgeboy antagonist who does da evul expurimants on peoples and is bads and made this corpse into a vagina monster and is oh no intimidating cuz it's a psychopath who doesn't care about human lives and is sadistic but is all smiley and happy! AAAAAAAAH!!!! so scary!!! God dammit.
Runners Up: Acca, Aoyama-kun
Dumbest Ending to a Good Show:
Shoujou Shuumatsu Ryokou
So at the end, a bunch of Mushroom Angels eat these nukes on a submarine and then fly off into the sky presumably to go back to God Himself.
Okay.
Best Ending to a Dumb Show:
Inuyashiki: The Last Hero
This is spoiling my top 5 bads a little but hell you should know this show is bad. But the weird thing is, it actually has a really well done ending. Like the episode until then is really bad like always, but then... the ending song starts to play, as Inuyashki sacrifices himself to save the world. It flashbacks, maybe even is his flashback, to his family and the time he spent with them. Shows the good times he had before they started to resent him, before all this shit happened. His friends and family see the explosion in space from the earth's surface, and they cry as the night sky is illuminated by the massive energy discharge. It cuts to an unspecified time later; his wife is back to her minimum wage job, his daughter is still working on getting published in Shounen Jump, his son has grown as a person because of the experience and you can see him finally having stood up to his bullies and even made one of them cry. Everyone tried to move on with their lives, but their lives were subtly changed by him. It's a really good ending
that it just. Didn't. Earn. At all. It waived the right to have such a good ending. But it had it none the less.
(I wanted to put a link to the ending sequence but it's been blocked in the United States so just imagine it)
Biggest Surprise:
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
A show by KyoAni that isn't shit? A show by KyoAni that doesn't look like the same exact show as their last 15 shows? A good show that's an adaptation of a manga by that "I Can't Understand My Husband At All!" guy? The one who does oppai loli doujins?
Holy shit. You gotta be squiddin' me ova' here! No really, this show is actually not garbage and it has every reason to be. It's not great, and it has a stupid fucking ending, but it's not bad. That's the most surprising part!
Runners Up: Frame Arms Girls, Animegataris
Best Show That Gets No Recognition:
Alice and Zouroku
A really good, fun and imaginative series. It's not super amazing or anything but it was really good, and really interesting. Aside from the first episode which had some godawful GONZO level CGI it looked good too. I feel like both because of that first episode and because it's by JC Staff, people kinda just forgot about it.
Runner Up: Twin Angel Break
Best Short:
Love Kome: We Love Rice! S1 and 2
Love Kome is something I never thought the fujoshis would do, but did anyway: Made ikemen personifications of strains of rice. And bread also. And noodles. They're all food. And this show is great. It's super dumb and I love it.
Runners Up: Nyanko Days, 100% Pascal-sensei, Nobunaga no Shinobi
And now, it's time. Time for: The Worst Anime of the Year.
5. Fukumenkei Noise
Not really sure what to say about this. What started off(and I mean like the first half of the first episode) as what seemed like a really good music/band based drama(something I love) devolved into the most contrived melodramtic romance story I've seen in years. Lemme tell you some of the convenient things I remember:
The boy the girl likes and stopped singing to save her voice for, as well as the boy she met after that boy moved away and she was sad, all happen to go to the same high school.
Boy 1 just so happens to secretly be a popular pop song composer. Boy 2 just so happens to be the "lead singing"(they dub over him with the real lead singer, a woman. He dresses like a girl for the part) of one of the most popular bands in the nation.
They replace their lead singer with her, and lead singer girl just so happens to go over to Boy 1's side and join his band that is a rip off of their band because he learned main girl is singing in the first band now and wants to make a band that surpasses them so she'll join his band.
Boy 2's mom just so happens to be insane and blames music for killing her husband as if music physically murdered him.
Boy 1's mom just so happens to come visit him without telling him, found him walking around in town, found him right as he was waiting for a train to cross the tracks, and then stand behind him like a slasher villain (which made me for a moment think this show was suddenly gonna switch genres). Not behind the train so she could surprise him or something, behind HIM so that when the train passed with the camera facing in front of him we would see her there all of a sudden, as if she has some kind of weird 4th wall powers.
Said mom then proceeds to tell him he can't go after this girl and also make him leave town again, and he agrees to this because for some unspecified reason he believes that they would actually be in danger from this spooky mama.
Girl wants her voice to reach Boy 1, and it does... literally, while she's singing many many yards away from him at a rock concert, while he is also performing in a rock band.
Do you see any problems here?
4. Re:Creators
I stuck with Re:Creators way longer than I should have. The thing about it is that it's not really that terrible, I mean it's a bad show with pretty hollow writing and dumb plot threads, but I mean the reason it's on here is for 2 things. 1. It's such a good idea and 2. Sometimes it has pretty damn good moments still.
Re:Creators is the kind of thing I've been wanting for a while. It's a great idea. Characters from a bunch of in universe fiction come to the real world and fight each other, and are also none too pleased at their creators for being the cause of their suffering and strife, and also us as the audience for these things that facilitate it being made and readily consume it as entertainment. It's especially potent when a bunch of the things these people are from are very schlocky light novels, which often use very over the top dark methods to garner sympathy from the audience due to their authors not having the chops to execute anything less well enough to make you care. For example you've got this knight girl who comes from a series where people are routinely killed so often in this massive 5 nation war that dead bodies are constantly just piled up all over the place. Knight girl understandably wants that to stop, and also understandably is super fucking pissed that some dude decided "your world is gonna be so embroiled in war that hundreds of thousands die each day and also it's gonna take you much longer than it should to fix the problem because my publisher wants more chapters".
That's about all that's understandable of her behavior, motivation, and goals btw.
It seems as if not only are the characters written by sub-par light novel authors in the show, but in reality too. That knight girl, for example, decided to trust the obvious villain and fight against the obvious heroes thus going entirely against her code of chivalry and also attacking unarmed civilians. Then she had a really hollow conversation with another character. Then they had a boring fight scene.
That seems to be every episode of this show. A poorly written character, such as Edgegirl McMonogatari, talks in really long winded hollow lines that seem like they might be clever or deep but are nothing of the sort, then they fight, then they stop to have another meaningless conversation that kinda sorta sounds thematic but isn't. And then something really stupid happens, like they'll bring someone back to life with the power of twitter, or come up with a plan that involves using fanfiction to nerf the baddy's power. The baddy by the way is mad because mean nasty cyberbullies made her creator kill herself so she wants to kill them instead. And the MC is sad cuz instead of white knighting her and doxing those evil trolls like a good feminist ally he didn't do that and so it's totally his fault bluuuuuurg.
The worst part is that sometimes the show will have something that's actually deep. I feel like this is because, as a writer, the writer of this show at least understands what it is to be a writer, even if not a good one. So you have scenes like sword girl talking about how her world is basically meaningless because it's just a story, and him saying that, for him, creating her wasn't meaningless. That it was proof that he lived. Then in that same episode, you have a scene where the MC talks about how he gave up drawing to the light novel illustrator, and asking why she still keeps going. She says that yeah, it's hard. People always criticize her, the art world is super competitive, it's stressful and can be bad for her self esteem sometimes. That sometimes she wants to quit. But she says that's normal, that everyone has those feelings, and that even if it's hard it's worth it pursue your passion, your dreams. It's trying to show why these heroes in their stories are heroes, it's because their creators' own beliefs are projected onto them. It also shows the importance of finding your own meaning in life, even if it's just writing some trashy novel. If you're happy with it, if that's enough of a mark to leave behind, that's fine, isn't it? Everyone has the right to decide what's meaningful in their life, right?
And then in that same episode they plan a big huge crossover story in which they're gonna trap and defeat the big bad, some girl sketches a highly detailed drawing in like 5 seconds, and I feel like I'm watching SAO.
3. Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss started out as an absolutely amazing show. I was certain it was gonna anime of the year, maybe even a spot on my favorites list. It had amazing directing and art design, beautiful and atmospheric music, a fantastic setting, and was simultaneously very original and unique yet familiar and nostalgia. It was such a good story, taking like 3 episodes before the main adventure begins, being about surviving in a beefed up version of the Amazon Rain Forest, being able to be dark without being edgy about it, having a simple plot with a very interesting seeming overarching story that I thought would be doled out slowly allowing the adventure to take the focus.
And then we met Ozen. The First Edgelord. Ozen's section of the story makes no sense. Ozen herself makes no sense. First Ozen talks like she's trying to arouse a masochist constantly to these children, then apparently somehow unleashes a weird monster that somehow makes it's way to where Riko got lost too which she also knew she would do when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night which she also knew she would do, all so that Riko would ask her what the deal was so that she could show Riko the Zombie Cube so that she could tell Riko that she was put in that when she was stillborn and then attack her under the pretense that she must be killed to keep this quiet and then reveal it was all a trick for some reason that I can't remember.
And then her back makes no sense because sometimes she's hunched over but if you look at her torso it's only slightly bent forward while she has somehow lost a whole foot or more of her height which is also about 7 feet tall.
Then we flash forward a bit to where Riko gets stabbed by poison spikes due to some very convenient circumstances, and her hand swells up to the size of Popeye's forearm. But don't worry, because Reg made sure to escape upwards for no reason despite the show trying to claim there was, which means she's gonna bleed out of literally every orifice which should get the poison out. At least that's what Riko thinks but it's not true she's still poisoned and also has lost pretty much all of her blood which means she should be dead. Before she dies though she makes sure to tell Reg to cut off her arm, and he makes sure to do it in the most inefficient and slow way possible but then doesn't even manage to finish the job and only succeeded in breaking the fuck out of her arm and causing her joint some nerve damage. She flops over dead and he has a good, oh say 5 minute cry about how horrible it is and how he wants her to come back, making you believe she's gone for good. Then a rabbit girl shows up to tell him "lol she's not dead her face is just white as fuck because she stopped breathing, do some CPR and she won't die" despite having lost gallons of blood and being poisoned and that her heart should have been stopped for long enough by now that it wouldn't matter if the breathing stopping was the only problem.
Then she fixes her arm with the help of a blob creature which we learn was created via scientific experiments by the Big Bad,
This show turned into garbage.
2. Kino's Journey(2017)
This one's gonna be short cuz all I need to say is that this is just the less subtle, less well directed, and just not as good version of Kino's Journey. It's so high on the list because Kino's Journey is one of my tops of all time, it's a fantastic show, and this pisses all over it. I'm not gonna tell you the original Kino's Journey is the most subtle and intelligent show out their, most of the aesops are pretty obvious, but this really makes it blisteringly obvious and isn't even as atmospheric.
People are gonna be told for years now, I'm sure, to just watch this one instead because it's more newerer. You know, instead of the real one. This is basically their attempt to A: Revive the series and hopefully sell more LNs and B: Make a more "accessible" version. Instead they made a worse one.
Do yourself a favor and go buy the actual show for only 20 dollars from Amazon. ADV just did a brad new print and run of it. All episodes, 20 bucks. It's only DVD but it's new enough the quality is really good.
HERE IT COMES, THE WORST. THE BADDEST. THE SHITTEST
IT'S!
1. Inuyashiki: The Last Hero
Ooooooohoho booooooy. You wanna know why this one's the top? It's not a great show turning into shit like MiA, it's not a shitty version of a show I like like Kino, it's not a wasted concept like Re:Creators.
It is, however, one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my life.
It's also one of the funniest too, though it's not supposed to be. The level of incompetence here is astounding. This is one of those anime that's akin to like, The Room, and Birdemic. In this case maybe more like Battlefield Earth, since similar to that being a major studio movie with a big budget, this was from the normally fantastic Studio MAPPA. I dunno what happened, MAPPA usually at least produces nice looking anime. Ushio and Tora, Yuri on Ice, Shoukoku no Altair, and hell I might not like either of them but they also did Terror in Resonance and Punch Line, both of which look good. Inuyashiki on the other hand looks like horseshit.
If what you're seeing isn't CG(and 70% of the time it is), it's pretty low quality art and super stilted animation. Kinda reminds me of the worst scenes in Psychopass 2. It never looks good, except for in the OP, which has some bad spots too. How MAPPA ended up making something that looks so bad is beyond me... okay well maybe not. I have a theory: maybe they knew it was a lost cause and didn't even try.
Cuz really, even the directing, composition, anything about this show isn't good. It manages to make it 2 episodes before it drops the ball. And the ball then rolls down a steep hill and crushes 50 people.
I dunno how to explain this really. It's a show about an old man and a young man who both get killed one night by aliens and/or fourth dimensional beings. Said beings say "oh shit uhhh put them in the robo bodies" but all they got left are combat units. So they both get those. Old Man decides he's gonna become Astro Boy(not just a joke, he sings the Astro Boy theme song to activate his thrusters and fly) and save people as a Hero. Young Boy decides he's gonna become a serial killer and kill people as a Villain. They are the same, they and them...
So I mean the story never really developed past that but that wouldn't be enough to make me say this is one of the worst I've seen, and a so bad it's good show. I've seen Mars of Destruction, guys. What puts it over the top is where it goes from there. See, after Hiro, the killer(get it his name is "Hiro" but he's the villain not the hero) is found out by the cops he runs away, but then finds out his mother committed suicide. He's very upset about this fact, which is a little odd given he's supposed be a psychopath, but I guess it's not impossible for them to ever care about someone, they simply lack empathy. He may feel sad simply because it's his mom, meaning he's been negatively impacted by it. Also, he might not really be a psychopath, and also also it's sort of a metaphor because he's like the "average teen" really, something about the internet making the youth crazy or something. I know that zoomers suck and everything but this is kind of a stupid metaphor honestly and even for me feels like Old Man Yells at Cloud... Anyway, he's really sad, but then...
People on 2chan say mean things about him and his mom! So he goes and finds all of them literally finds all of the anons and murders them one by one goin "u shouldn't have shitposted on the internets". And then he also guns down a bunch of reporters, by shooting his fingers like guns which I mean yeah he can do that but it looks so fucking silly. It's so fucking dumb it's the stupidest fucking scene, and it's where I realized oh my god this show is a masterpiece of bad, a badsterpiece.
He goes and hides away with a girl who is so fucking stupid she won't believe he's the killer even when he tells her he is. Then he takes her flying in the sky. Then she believes him finally, and tells him that it's super bad to kill people you know like don't do that. So he goes "oh, really? Okay then I'll save them instead" and isn't being sarcastic, he genuine seems like he didn't consider that killing people was bad. He then starts saving people. He sets up a twitter account where he says "yo dm me if u dyin and shit" and people actually do? People actually think this is legit?? And he heals their terminal illnesses with his robot powers??? And everything is going great until the SWAT team
BUSTS into the house of the girl and old lady who he's staying with and fucking OPENS FIRE ON THE OLD LADY AND YOUNG GIRL, SOMETHING A SWAT TEAM WOULD NOT DO. I mean holy shit. For one thing, the cops probably wouldn't even be sure they were harboring him yet. They totally would have been open to the possibility that he was holding them hostage. And even if they weren't, the cops don't just shoot people who are harboring criminals, especially not old ladies, at least not 5 seconds after aiming their firearms at them and asking them to freeze. There's no reason given for why they shot both of these woman. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. I didn't know there were anti-cop retards in Japan.
Hiro then kills them and takes the ladies to a safe location and revives them so the scene was pointless, but he then decides he's gonna go and get revenge on the cops so he murders an entire police precinct. He doesn't stop there though! He kills 100 people in the streets of Shibuya via their smartphones which. Inuyashiki and his sidekick, the former friend of Hiro, figure this out and tell everyone to get rid of their smartphones. They all immediately believe this and drop their phones right on the ground. All of them. In 2017, everyone just believes this, they aren't skeptical at all, they believe them and drop their phones right on the ground. WHAT.
But it's too late, 100 people are dead! And the next day about 5000 more die, because Hiro takes control of a shitload of passenger planes and crashes them all into Tokyo. Just fucking SMASHES them into it. Killing many people. And the worst part is that at this point in the show they are still trying to make you sympathize with Hiro somehow. Yes, this mass murderer and psychopathic serial killer yes I care so much about the poor guy oh muh tragic villain he totally didn't have to be. Like what the fuck.
Inuyashki saves his daughter from carbon monoxide poisoning and then goes to fight Hiro, during which they both cause enormous damage to the city especially because a satellite randomly falls out of the sky and is exploded causing the debris to fall all over. But then everyone seems kinda "eh" about all this. After the huge incident they all just go "I wonder if the trains are still running" even after Inuyashiki saves the people who weren't totally dead from all of it. I haven't seen something give this little of a shit about 2 superbeings destroying shitloads of buildings and killing hundreds of people during their fight with each other since Man of Steel. Wait, that also had a scene with a satelight... was it an inspiration!?
His family finds out and they have a really dumb scene where he goes "I'm a copy of Inuyashiki a robot I'm not the real one!" and his wife goes "you remember that vacation we went on?" and he goes "yes I do ! oh that must mean I am the real one!" because it's not like a robot copy would have his memories. But sadly a random meteor is gonna crash into earth and kill everyone, that was briefly hinted at one time in an early episode I think so it's fine that it's so out of nowhere and contrived, so both Inuyashiki and Hiro explode themselves to destroy it.
The End.
I don't tend to watch things "ironically", I don't like watching things that are bad. It's also unlike a couple other bad anime I like despite them being bad, Blood-C and Mirai Nikki, which are an interesting show with good ideas that beefs it in execution and ends up really trashy and schlocky in a way it's not meaning to be and a show so derivative that goes off the rails so hard I find it kind of charming and certainly an entertaining ride. This one on the other hand is just so bad in so many ways with so many baffling writing choices and goofy scenes that I can't help but laugh at it, and I think it's worth it to see just how confusingly bad and stupid it is despite all of it's attempts to be a thought provoking and mature show. It's undoubtedly the worst anime of 2017.
But what about: The Best Anime of the Year?
5. Ballroom e Youkoso
Finally, I get to talk about something good! Well all I really have to say about this show is that it's basically a combination of a sports shounen and Yuri on Ice. It's about competitive ballroom dancing, and it's really good. It's got all the mainstays of sports shounen, so don't expect a totally new experience, but if you enjoy these types of shows like I do you should totally watch this. It seems really well researched, into what "Dance Sport" is like, how the dancers feel and how the visualize the very intuitive technique and art of dancing and being good at dancing, as well as the more concrete technique and terminology of dancing. I learned a lot about professional dancing here, much more than I learned about figure skating from Yuri on Ice, which is why it's for sure a technical type of sports shounen like Baby Steps. I love the artstyle, the eyes especially, it makes me want to read the manga cuz from what I've seen the show is very faithful to how it looks. However, a problem arises with the style and the animation. Everyone's necks are too long, and in some places it makes sense, but in others their necks are way too fucking long and it just looks weird and creepy. It's fine to do the squash and stretch thing in anime for animating movements, especially these kinds, but the problem is the necks stay stretched out when the characters stop moving and IT'S JUST CREEPY.
But if you can get past that, it's a damn fine show!
4. Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Washio Sumi no Shou
Not much to say here, it's just a really fun, really good, really well done prequel show. It's paced so well it feels like much longer than 6 episodes, and it manages to make me really care despite knowing the outcome of this situation, and acts as a great set up to the sequel. If you liked the first season, for sure watch this! The music also sounds even more like NieR this time around so that makes it even better. This also made me realize there's some strange similarities between this series and Drakengard.
3. My Hero Academy S2
My Hero Academy second season? Check. Twice as long? Check. Twice as INTENSE? Check. Twice as good? Double check! The first season was already pretty good, and restored my faith in Shounen Jump. So it's absolutely wonderful that season 2 is even better. I'm fully on board with this series now, I'm gonna keep watching it for as long as it goes on and maybe even start reading the manga if the show ever stops airing. I cannot wait until the next season. I don't think I need to explain to you why MHA is good; most people have already seen it and they either love it or hate it. It's just that kind of show. If you happen to not have seen it, I'll say it's basically a battle/action shounen distilled down to it's most pure form. That might sound like a bad thing, but it's actually incredibly good. See, shounen series, especially ones from Shounen Jump, tend to complicate themselves far too much. Think about it: Why is Bleach bad? Why is Naruto bad? Bleach is bad because it became utter nonsense about an evil Soul Reaper and weird Soul Reaper/Hollow hybrids with spanish names instead of the very simple premise it started with. Naruto became a convoluted mess about 15 different evil traitor to their village guys who all had stupid pity party backstories that made them eeeeeviiiiiiiil and went on about how their pain was greater than his.
My Hero Academy is about a simple premise: Boy who admires super heroes wants to be one, but can't cuz he has no powers, is given powers by the hero he admires, and then works hard to be a super hero. Yes, there's stuff like oh man we gotta fight All Might's antithesis, or oh man Hero Killer Stain has messed up the hero political climate, but in the end it really is about this kid starting from zero and slowly becoming an amazing super hero through sheer force of will and determination. Which is what shounen series are supposed to be about. When they're that, they're really good. It takes this simple premise, and instead of convoluting it more to make the story more complex, it fleshes it out. It develops the characters, themes, world it takes place it. Like a good story should. That's what makes a good, complex story: expanding on a simple, core theme. Not big bad guy groups you're supposed to feel sorry for, not complicated plots to create and army of super beings, not some other fuckin' bullshit.
MHA is not some fuckin' bullshit, it's some fuckin' good shit. I mean, just look at this OP!
2. Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond
I liked the original Kekkai Sensen. I did. It really dropped the ball in the later episodes, and the last episode had a 4 month delay, but I still did like it. I felt like it didn't at all live up to it's potential, and that Yasuhiro Nightow felt pressured to make the plot more complex and grandiose, due to having become known as "the Trigun guy". I really have to think that's the problem, that he felt, because Trigun got more complicated and dark and kinda crazy later on, that his new series had to too. But Kekkai Sensen's main strength is that it's an over the top and campy pulp fiction story. It's not meant to have a big overarching plot. It's meant to be a fun episodic adventure with these crazy super powered dudes in this supernaturally fucked up version of New York.
And now it is.
I dunno, maybe at some point Nightow realized oh, this isn't working out as well. I'm much better when I'm doing dumb fun stuff like Gungrave(yeah he just did the character design from what I remember you know what I mean). Maybe the sales dropped and they went "shit" and switched back to this. I don't know, I don't care. The end result is Kekkai Sensen is now the show I always wanted it to be, and it's fantastic. Every episode was a joy to watch, very engaging, very entertaining, and very cool. Bones did a fantastic job animating it, the composer did a fantastic job scoring it, and it was a blast! I highly recommend this show if you like other over the top action series like Gurren Lagann, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and hell maybe even Fist of the North Star since it does that cheesy BIG ONSCREEN TEXT for attack names. Very recommended.
And now... the moment you've all been waiting for. The top
anime
of
the year.
1. Mahoujin Guru Guru
That's right! Magical Circle GuruGuru!
I don't really have much to say about this one, oddly. This is simply my favorite anime from this year. It's an absolutely fantastic parody of old school JRPGs, with fun characters, silly jokes, cute artwork, and a surprisingly engrossing story. Despite being a very obvious parody, with an intentionally simple plot about a boy who is the chosen hero destined to defeat the evil dark lord monster man, despite being a very absurd comedy you can almost never take seriously, you really do get seriously invested in the story, characters, lore, world, everything. It was super silly but I genuinely cared what was happening, I was excited when the hero triumphed, was worried when he was losing, was happy when they overcame adversity. When the characters were sad I was sad for them, when they were happy I was happy for them. It may have been a silly comedy, but it was also an exciting epic adventure. Because it was able to be both of those things, and be both of those things so damn well, delivering me a highly engaging and enjoyable experience, I have to say it's my favorite, the best, of the year. You should do yourself a favor and watch Magical Circle GuruGuru if you haven't, it's an absolutely great show that shouldn't be missed, and is also suitable for children! M-mostly.
Runners Up: T Kyoukai no Rinne S3, Shoukoku no Altair, Attack on Titan S2
And there you have it! Go home. Please watch all of the top 5 best and the runners up and don't watch any of the worsts thanks see ya!
oh im TOLDS YOU it gonna be GURUGURU i knew it but not knew all these fun pictures and ocelot awaited
ReplyDeleteOh no he was right.
Delete