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It's simple, just as the title says. What's the best thing you watched this year that wasn't airing in 2016 and why was it so good? For me, it's Touch. I watched a lot of oldass sports anime this year and it was the best by far. Before you look it up, find out that it's baseball, and not read anything else I say, I wanna note that despite being for all intents and purposes a baseball anime it takes a long drat time to get to the sport. It's about 30ish episodes before the protagonist even takes up baseball and if you make it that far, by then you're so engaged with the cast that they could be doing anything and you'd still want to watch them. I'm not going to say there's no baseball at all, but the drama is a huge factor too. Anyways that pacing is a huge part of the show's strengths, it's very much deliberate. Characters rarely have life-changing revelations and/or choices in a single episode. Rather it slowly gains momentum towards payoffs that, while their direction is usually obvious, are quite effective. I know that recommending a 101 episode show is a tall order no matter what the genre but not only is it the best anime I've watched this year, it instantly became one of my all time favorites. It's a very sincere show that easily bounces between comedy and drama quite naturally, and the large episode count gives all of the side characters room to do their own thing too. Everyone, even those that seem like irredeemable jerks, has something to them. And if that's not enough have a webm of a scene from the second half of the series, in which a replacement coach is hired and our main character meets him for the first time. If watching old sports anime has taught me anything it's that coaches in the 70s and 80s were badass. (Very mildly not worksafe at the start) https://my.mixtape.moe/airdzr.webm
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Dec 30, 2016 00:15
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for 'old' anime this year i watched: murder princess Hotarubi no Mori e (ova) Giovanni's Island (movie) Senyuu (shorts) Otaku no Seiza (ova) Mobile Police Patlabor: Early Days & movies Acchi Kocchi Kyousou Giga galaxy railways gdgd Fairies 1+2 (half length) Mouryou no Hako Princess Arete (movie) Genius Party & Beyond (movies) The Sky Crawlers (movie) Seto no Hanayome Last Exile sega hard girls (half length) Otona Joshi no Anime Time Nerawareta Gakuen steamboy Cobra The Animation beck ghost hound Figure 17: Tsubasa & Hikaru Ghost in the Shell (watching gits sac now) Hyouge Mono Kowabon (shorts) Kuro ga Ita Natsu (movie) so quite the list hah of these the ones i thought were especially good (and not too popular, series like gits need no introduction) were Giovanni's Island : a beautiful movie on a subject that isn't often touched in anime, WW2, specifically the russian occupation of several japanese islands. uses inspiration from night on the galactic railroad and childrens imagination to touch a difficult subject in a way i quite liked gdgd Fairies 1+2: from the makers of tesagure comes a comedy of the sort that isn't too common in anime, unscripted. probably one of the funniest anime shows ever in my opinion Mouryou no Hako: great mystery with brilliant environmental design, the hospital in it is one of the most disturbing setpieces out there Seto no Hanayome: if you need more evidence besides the shows this year that the DEEN meme is fail, this is it. once its done doing the traditional harem setup it becomes very funny and its filled to the brim with yakuza parodies Otona Joshi no Anime Time : josei shows are a rare thing and i'd say that largely this is one of the good ones, its a series of unconnected ovas that are mostly excellent, touching on mundane subjects of the sort a housewife might encounter. the only one i'd say isn't good is the second one. the creators made some decisions with incorporating 3d that made it very ugly and its plot is on the level of a lovely harlequin novel steamboy: everyone has seen akira, but i feel like barely anyone has seen this? sure its plot is forgettable, but its visuals are beautiful, putting forth insanely detailed and fantastical steampunk visuals. please dont let bad associations with steampunk or rumours of it not comparing to akira dissuade anyone from checking out this movie beck : great coming of age story with an even greater manga once youre done with it Hyouge Mono: the kaiji of teacups, what more do i need to say? well, im gonna say a lot more anyway. i saved the best for last cause this show had me compelled from the start to the end. sasuke is a brilliant protagonist, the sort of sneaky underdog you can't help but root for. a samurai who isn't made for fighting, but for art. i've never been one for the very long shows, but this show had me so in its claws that i finished its 39 episodes within 2 weeks. while its visuals might not be the most flashy thing imaginable, it never has any of the huge dips that other anime tend to have. its a show that works very well on every level and tackles a subject that has no other rivals in anime. very nice ed too https://track3.mixtape.moe/vunkup.webm
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Dec 30, 2016 01:19
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I watched a ton of stuff this year, but some things that stood out... Symphogear and Symphogear G are just a ton of fun. Optimistic, bombastic, emotional story about the power of love, communication, and music strapped into an absolutely delightful Magical Girl Brawler with strong art direction, good choreography, excellent (and triumphantly silly) character songs, and a great cast of characters that play off of each other in joyful ways. Haven't really gotten around to GX yet, but plan to do so over a slow winter season, and really looking forward to the coming two seasons as well. Patlabor was just a ton of fun to simulwatch. An intelligent, light-hearted, funny, and upbeat mecha police procedural with an absolutely dynamite cast. The main character in particular is just a joy to follow, being a tremendously likable, quietly but thoroughly explored, and extremely competent lady protagonist in a older mecha show where you might not always expect such protagonists. Non Non Biyori is a fantastic Iyashikei piece - most of what I have to say about it parallels what I said about Flying Witch in the other thread in that it has lush art, a good sense of humor, and a tremendously cozy feel, but I would say it sets itself apart with slightly better character work at the cost of a little of Flying Witch's sense of wonder.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:46
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birdy the mighty decode is literally the perfect anime
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Dec 30, 2016 01:46
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I watched a bunch of older anime this year (and am about 3/4 through Rose of Versailles right now), but I'll try to remember them all. if i don't remember them they probably weren't that good anyway, so nothing of value lost: Ergo Proxy Durarara Blood Blockade Battlefront Bokurano Yuru Yuri and a few Gundam shows that were either new to me (ZZ) or may as well be new considering how long it's been since i saw them (Z) I'd say of those the one that I enjoyed the most was probably Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. It's actually an OVA I believe and only 6 episodes long at that, but it manages to put more character into those six episodes than I'm used to seeing in 50. I could describe the premise here but instead I'll point out that the ova ends with the kid's schoolfriends (who were not involved in the main plot) showing him their cool loot from the recent battle that nearly destroyed their colony, causing him to finally break down and cry over all of the emotional hardship he'd gone through recently and his stupid friends trying to calm him down by saying "Don't worry, there'll be another war soon." I've never been so emotionally impacted by something going over people's heads before. But the one nobody ever talks about is Bokurano. It gets a little too dark at times, and sometimes it's way too edgy, but overall I had a good time with this show about a group of hosed up kids being told "hey, all of you are going to die one by one." e: also a really catchy op https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05p646nlYS0 Xinder fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 01:52
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I watched Love Live while bored out of my skull at work and I ended up liking it quite a bit. Then I watched Sunshine and liked it even more than OG Love Live
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Dec 30, 2016 01:52
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This year I watched Welcome to Irabu's Office aka Kuuchuu Buranko aka Trapeze and that show loving owns. It's by the Mononoke / Gatachman Crowds guy and it's about a psycologist who mostly just acts like a prick all the time and yet ends up solving his patents problems by the end of every episode. It's surreal but everything has a point and layers on top of each other for a fantastic last episode. Not every episode is a hit, but as a whole I really loved it and how it looks and feels.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:11
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Xinder posted:I'd say of those the one that I enjoyed the most was probably Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. It's actually an OVA I believe and only 6 episodes long at that, but it manages to put more character into those six episodes than I'm used to seeing in 50. I could describe the premise here but instead I'll point out that the ova ends with the kid's schoolfriends (who were not involved in the main plot) showing him their cool loot from the recent battle that nearly destroyed their colony, causing him to finally break down and cry over all of the emotional hardship he'd gone through recently and his stupid friends trying to calm him down by saying "Don't worry, there'll be another war soon." I've never been so emotionally impacted by something going over people's heads before. I love War in the Pocket but had to stop Bokurano because it was depressing me too much. I should get back to it sometime.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:12
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It's not very old but I only got around to watching Hunter x Hunter (2011) this year, and holy cow it was great. A few bits felt a little drawn-out but it's got a pretty brisk pace considering how long it is, and I think every arc except maybe Heaven's Arena is excellent. I think the only other non-current animes I watched this year were Girls und Panzer der Film, which was also fantastic, and Turn A Gundam, which I haven't finished yet but has been great so far.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:36
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devtesla posted:I love War in the Pocket but had to stop Bokurano because it was depressing me too much. I should get back to it sometime. I won't say it ever stops being depressing, but I think it's worth powering through. Not to give too much away, but the shittiest kid at the start actually has a redemption arc where watching all his friends die one by one actually softens him in the right way and he becomes a decent person. I looked at the manga afterwards and found some things I think it did better and some things I think the anime did better. There's also a few massive changes in the anime for both better and worse. In the manga at one point one of the opposing pilots runs away and they're told if he doesn't die it doesn't count as a win, so the currently piloting kid ends up murdering millions at random until he successfully kills the right person and it really fucks him up bad. Nothing like that ever happens in the anime.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:57
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Either Haibane Renmei or Barakamon. Both were really good.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:12
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Birdy the Mighty Decode Season 2 Kaiba Symphogear G Yuru Yuri: San Hai Rockman.exe: Hikari to Yami no Program The Colonel fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 03:25
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Space Battleship Yamato 2199 it turns out that anime that dav talks about all the time is really really good who would have thought. KnK 5 - Spiral Paradox has super good action and weird time fuckery stuff all packed into a 2 hour film. Watch it even if you don't want to see the rest of the series (watch the rest of the series though) Shiki is agonizingly slowly paced. The first 12 eps of a 22 ep show are about watching a small town slowly dying out to vampires while doing their best to ignore it. The back half where everything just finally goes off the rails is so worth it to me though that I can't help but reccomend it. It's technically a horror anime, but it's not really scary outside of like one instance in the bonus ep. also it features a very good dog 
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Dec 30, 2016 04:21
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Birdy the Mighty Decode, the second season of which was just eye-poppingly awesome with a great great OP.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:26
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I really enjoyed the first season of Heroic Legend of Arslan, but I'm a sucker for Three Kingdoms-style stuff. I also got around to finally watching Kaiji and Akagi, which were both excellent.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:49
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I went in to Arpeggio of Blue Steel expecting it to be some weird waifu-thing like the Kancolle anime. Actually, it was a pretty good action anime with laser boats.
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Dec 30, 2016 06:03
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Teekyuu - This anime is funny as hell 100/10
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Dec 30, 2016 06:36
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Love Lab: The usual example I see of nice, smooth animation, this one was really nice and cute. I read the manga after finishing up the show and promptly got diabetes. 
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Dec 30, 2016 06:46
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I saw Capeta, it was good
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Dec 30, 2016 07:08
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i watched the first episode of Cutie Honey just now and i'm going to say, it was really really good (and i accidentally hosed up recording scenes from it) https://a.pomf.cat/ydielz.mp4
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Dec 30, 2016 07:33
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I also started and caught up on Haikyuu. Very pleasantly surprised. I was sure it was going to be one of those sports animes where the power of trying hard and naming special moves saves the day.
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Dec 30, 2016 07:47
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Giant Robo Runners up are Dai-Guard and Jyu Oh Sei
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Dec 30, 2016 08:35
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Also Count of Monte Cristo, if re-watches don't count (I saw Jyu Oh Sei 10 years ago when it was airing).
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Dec 30, 2016 08:48
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gdgd Fairies became my favorite after watching it. I even watched the movie that hasn't been subbed and despite only understanding half the jokes it was still awesome. Really hope someone translates the movie some day so I can rewatch it.
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Dec 30, 2016 14:12
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If this thread had been posted last year I would have easily said Lovely Complex. The year before that I would have said Urusei Yatsura. This year I don't remember watching anything that I thought was amazing.
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Dec 30, 2016 15:28
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I watched Hunter x Hunter 2011 and Haikyuu, but the best non 2016 anime I watched this year was definitely The Eccentric Family. So excited for season 2 now!
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Dec 30, 2016 15:51
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In a similar vein, I didn't watch any version of its anime and it's not an anime at all but the manga of Hunter x Hunter is definitely the best thing from a different year that I experienced for the first time this year.
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Dec 30, 2016 15:55
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King of the Hill - features the adventures of a boy trying to be himself and earn his father's approval at the same time honestly though Sakigake!! Otokojuku - I've watched the first few eps of this. Its basically if you took Fist of the North Star characters and instead of a post apocalyptic wasteland, put them in high school. its really good. Golden Boy - nsfw as hell, but its really funny. I don't like 'fanservicey' stuff unless its self-aware. Golden Boy definitely is. This anime is very educational.
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Dec 30, 2016 16:33
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Girls und Panzer der Film is strictly speaking from 2015, so that.
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Dec 30, 2016 16:45
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Blast of Tempest: Pretty good show, with a much stronger first half than second. A bit of an attempt to go "Look at how much shakespeare we can reference in an action show", but its still a lot of fun with a bunch of very solid major set pieces. Its on practically everything so watch if you're bored and want a slightly cerebral action show. Legend of Galactic Heroes: I'm barely part way into it (holy poo poo so many episodes), but it is everything that it is cracked up to be Ghost in the Shell: SAC OK, so this was a rewatch, but it is still so good. I actually liked the second season a lot more this time around, which is a change from my first viewing. This is still my all-time favorite anime
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Dec 30, 2016 18:40
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The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and Toradora
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Dec 30, 2016 18:57
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I watched the 2011 Idolmaster series and SDF Macross. Picking between them is actually really difficult... My first thought is Macross just because of how gorgeous it was. But IM@S was no slouch at all either. Also the last arc of Macross was kind of horrible. And I tried to watch Macross 7 afterwards and ran away screaming. So Idolmaster is my answer.
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Dec 30, 2016 19:10
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oh yeah, i also watched Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls which was actually a really fantastic and beautifully made drama
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Dec 30, 2016 19:14
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Your Lie in April. It would have been on my "Best of 2015" list if I hadn't waited until April of '16 to watch it. Also, Welcome to the NHK, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Shinsekai Yori and Uchouten Kazoku. EDIT: My 2017 "watch this" resolution is Bokurano as mentioned by a previous poster. I just haven't found myself in the right sort of mood to get started on something like that lately. Kytrarewn fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 20:09
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Finally got around to Mouretsu Pirates this year and for the most part really enjoyed it! It's such a pleasant sci-fi slice of life/coming of age/piracy anime. The art was appealing, I liked the characters and voice acting, and, yeah, it was just pleasant all-around.
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Dec 30, 2016 20:36
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This year I got introduced to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and I binge-watched parts 1, 2, and 3 not long before the part 4 anime started up.
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Dec 31, 2016 01:20
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When i'm sick or grieving i tend to watch old favorite anime, and had a lot of that his year. The best of all of those were: Legend of the Galactic Heroes Planetes Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood Monster Also this year i watched that would count: Higurashi Death note Stellvia Uninhabited Planet Survive Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans (season 1)
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Dec 31, 2016 17:26
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I watched Gatchaman Crowds last November so that doesn't technically count but then a few months later I watched Insight and it was good. (crowds s1 was also good) edit: also I watched the JoJo OVAs and boy are they not great. TriffTshngo fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 20:37
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I've seen so many fantastic anime this year, it's kind of crazy. Here are some of my favorites. My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU: I foolishly avoided this show for a long time because the name made it sound like something very different than what it was. It was actually great! Well-written, endearing characters, lots of laughs and lots of emotional pain, the good stuff. Season 1 was a great comedy, and season 2 turned it on its head to become a compelling drama. Sound! Euphonium: I came in expecting band slice-of-life, and was not prepared amazing character drama. Every moment was crafted with such love and care. Fantastic character writing, naturalistic voice performances, and film-quality animation came together to make this one really, really special. Mawaru Penguindrum: Penguindrum is a flawed, messy show, but an absolutely fascinating one that ended up really moving me by the end of it. A one-of-a-kind experience. Steins;Gate: I've often heard the first half of this show described as "boring until the plot picks up". I thought the first half was great fun! (The second half was also great!) I love a good time-travel story, and writing this one around the preexisting John Titor hoax was a brilliant move. The World God Only Knows: There are so many shows on this list that I came back to and loved after initially dismissing them out of hand. "Dating sim-obsessed shut-in is forced against his will to use his game techniques to conquer girls in the real world" is a premise that could backfire in so many pandery ways, but TWGOK was great. The first two seasons were well-written comedies riffing on genre conventions, and then its third season took the whole show to another level by adding real emotional consequences to Keima's conquests. Gargantia: Criminally underrated among Urobuchi's works. Aside from one unfortunate moment around the middle of the series, the inclusion of multiple writers actually worked well for Gargantia, allowing the show to shift between different personalities as its story progressed. Psycho-Pass: The first season was a compelling procedural drama and an excellent Urobuchi take on the moral dilemmas of laws and technology. Eerily prescient in some ways. The second season, written without Urobuchi's involvement, was a gross trainwreck that I wish didn't exist. Humanity Has Declined: Gloriously fun dark comedy, full of crazy and clever ideas. I want more of this show! Between this and the Rewrite VN (see below), I am really impressed with Romeo Tanaka's writing, both in his comedy and in his execution of more serious themes. Bonus, and probably my favorite media of the whole year: Rewrite (the visual novel, not the anime) As you may have heard, Rewrite the anime is distressingly terrible and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Rewrite the visual novel, though, is shockingly great. It absolutely blew me away, and deserves much more of an audience. Once the Key-school-life cliches of its deceptive beginning started to give way to the real plot and character work underneath, Rewrite revealed itself to be an absolute gem. It spends a while playing up every Key trope in the book, then turns into a great Romeo Tanaka comedy (see: Humanity Has Declined), then goes off in a number of absolutely wild directions that at various points invoked Madoka, Higurashi, and Evangelion, all while inverting basically all of my Typical Key Thing expectations and very much being its own unique work. Messy and imperfect as hell, thanks mainly to the collaboration of three different authors, but with peaks rivaling any of the best anime I've seen. I wish this had gotten an adaptation worthy of its source material, because I think it would go down as a classic.
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Dec 31, 2016 21:01
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i like the first jojo ova second one's probably trash but the first has lots of cool shots
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Dec 31, 2016 21:25
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