The Best Anime of 2017

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > The Best Anime of 2017

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Put the appropriate music to read this: 2017 was one of the best years for anime, and if people weren't watching, they weren't paying attention

Little Witch Academia. The best thing Trigger or anyone else did this loving year, which was beyond wild with good anime. As people have said, this is not a perfect show: There are a couple of episodes that miss the mark in the first half; afterwards, though? It's all gold diapers, tasty beverages, 4-cheese pizza on one side and 3-meat on the other. Its sheer joie de vivre is almost palpable. This is probably what I consider the 2nd best "Gateway" anime ever, but it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best anime that came out in 2017 in my opinion. Even if you hate Netflix, just do the 30-day trial and watch it. Speaking of the best gateway series to come out this year...
ACCA: 13 Territory Inspection Department. This is the show you can put with friends who are like "Ew, chinese cartoons!" and it will charm the pants, skirts, socks and everything else off of them. Especially if they don't care one fig about Ghibli / Hosoda / Shinkai movies. My parents LOVED it, and it's so far removed from their "strike zones" it's not even funny. My girlfriend loved it. It's one of the best adaptations I have seen of everything period. I don't know if this or LWA is better, to be perfectly honest. Yes, even taking into account...
Land of the Lustrous. Yes, I'm a late-comer to this show, but I watched it in its entirety and I loved everything about it. From its themes, to its usage of 3D/CG/whatever it is. It only gets third place because the source material is still ongoing as opposed to Little Witch Academia (OGT) and ACCA (manga, which is complete and also FANTASTIC) and, while the presentation is loving gorgeous, I still liked the playful aesthetics that LWA and ACCA a bit better. Again, totally understand why everyone is so enamored with this show, and in my short time with it, I've come to love it as well. Just not as much as the first two places. Speaking of beloved things...
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen. This show. This loving tragic, adorable, badass, flawed, incredibly awe-inspiring show. This season by itself only gets fourth place, but I can say, without any dumb exaggeration, that if we were to unfairly combine both season 1 and season 2 into one entry, it would DESTROY anything else in this list. Since I've been aware of Rakugo, it has come to occupy a similar place in my interests as that of Stand-up Comedy (and I've come to love it just as much), and this show just has amplified the sheer love I have for it. I hope that all these shows (meaning spots 1 through 4) eventually become new standard-bearers for stuff that newcomers can watch when taking their first steps into anime (I love Bebop and Eva just as much as the other guy, but we need to step out of our comfort zones as well, peeps).
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! 2. I've re-watched the two seasons of this show at least three times this year alone. While at times I wished it adapted more of its source material given what I've read from people in several sites including this one, everything that's been adapted so far has been a goddamn riot. I love all the characters, even if they are irredeemably awful/flawed/dumb people. Aqua for best (useless) goddess.

Honorable mentions:

Girls' Last Tour. Pretty drat good show. Technically much better than KonoSuba's 2nd Season in every aspect except the funny.
Princess Principal. Pretty drat good show. Would've been an obvious top 3 in any other year.
Gintamas. Two Silver Souls for the price of one year, hot-drat! And last season is-a-coming!
March Comes In Like A Lion S1. Incredibly mature and excellently put-together. It's just... well, look at the year, you guys.
BBB and Beyond. Again, in any other year, the sheer badassitude, goofiness and up-to-earth moments would've made this a Top 3 series. Alas, not this year. Still pretty loving good show, though!
Gamers! I've read somewhere that this was "The Death Note of RomCom Misunderstandings". That was an incredibly dumb description, but the sheer amount of cute and dumb these kids have going on was endearing as hell.
Tsurezure Children. Short, (mostly) sweet and hella charming.
Love is like a cocktail. Shorter, sweeter and even more charming.
My Hero Academia's 2nd Season. This had the best episode of all year, bar none. (spoilers for guys who haven't seen/read it, because c'mon) When "You Say Run!" starts playing that drum fill after Deku yells "IT'S YOUR drat POWER, ISN'T IT? to Todoroki, all while fighting broken bones and trying to prove his own worth, I was getting choked up. I know it's a simple show, and that this was scripted to trying to tug at my heart-strings the hardest, but dammit, it was so well done. Again, it was a really good show, but so many rad shows came out this year.

There are at least 5 other shows that I watched to their completion which I loved, but enough already. Again, WHAT A YEAR! :dance:

Wark Say fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 26, 2017

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 16:40

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 07:28

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Davincie posted:

the last season always scores the highest. the anime community is very hype based

I dunno, Rakugo's second season started airing in January and that's getting a lot of mention.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 23:16

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

To this day it still baffles me that HxH is still considered "Jump" taking into account how... bleak can Togashi's handiwork get.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 00:32

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Endorph posted:

i mean keep in mind stuff like hnk with post-apocalyptic gory head explosions is what made jump popular to begin with. plus by the time the chimera ant arc started jump's readership was already 40% adults.

Oh, absolutely. The thing that I feel differentiates HxH is that, while there are similar hellish landscapes/situations to HNK (Meteor City and the dark continent come to mind), it feels a lot more ambiguous and, subsequently, bleaker.

Like a friend that likes a lot of Old-school Jump and started watching HxH this year said after watching the whole series that he found it weird that he kept coming back to old characters when watching Gon and Kurapika and the decisions they made.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 04:36

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

leorio screwed over everyone he was with on the hunter exam so he could cop a feel. but considering what the other 3 have gotten up to over the course of the manga, that single example of poor behavior seems rather trivial.

Leorio has his moments of dimness/roughness, but it's otherwise a stand-up dude and at first I just thought "Eh, he's nothing but a Kuwabara stand-in", but then I started enjoying the big lug a good deal more, which is why when he came back for the election arc and punched that rear end in a top hat right in the kisser, it felt so drat rad.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 17:30

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Davincie posted:

this is fascism

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 23:21

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Kashuno posted:

No one votes and the anime of the year is Dragonball Super

# ¿ Dec 31, 2017 22:10

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Endorph posted:

heres my rules for stupid anal:

1: take a shower first
2: always bring lube
3: NEVER say 'its goofy time'

4: If the recipient is a woman, stick with anal for the rest of the tryst. Trying to switch to vaginal sex will end badly.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2018 01:20

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Ugh, fine. Jeez.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2018 01:41

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Maera Sior posted:

My Hero Academia's 2nd Season just has way better material to work with. It's a pretty fun ride!
Animegataris goes down a weird rabbit hole, but I mostly enjoyed it.
Gamers! is cute, but more important than that, it's INCREDIBLY DUMB. Endearingly so.
KonoSuba has a few skeevy aspects, but it's so dang funny. My recommendation here is to wait for the whole "party" to be properly introduced (coincidentally, episode 3), and if you still feel no need to go on, it's totally understandable.
Little Witch Academia Is not very innovative as far as themes go, but it's an absolutely endearing and dynamically alive show when it comes to visuals. Like LotL is a breath-taking show, but LWA is playful in ways that few things are.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 01:11

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Zaregoto is weird in that, while pretty drat good, these OVA's feel like "the beginning of the road". Like, the story covered in these OVA's, Kubikiri Cycle is one of the first (if not the first?) things Nisio published. Ever. So while I love me some Nisio, let's not pretend this is his best.

Hell, we haven't even gotten to the craziest assholes! :unsmigghh:

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 13:20

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Yeah, I read all those.

Holy poo poo, Nekosogi Radical would be the bomb animated.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 18:28

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

kater posted:

I actually didn't like the mascot character's shenanigans, but whatever.

You're gonna have to explain this here, because I'm utterly lost. Are you talking about Yuki ( :mmmsmug:

girl), Hotaru (little sister of the guy :mmmsmug:

girl has the hots for) or the Romance Master?

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 13:34

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Strange Quark posted:

It�s serviceable battle shounen without a gigantic cult behind it like Jojo.

Let's be fair now, The Kooky Exploits of they, whose names could be abbreviated into Jojo has been accumulating crazy, obsessive, cult-like fans for quite a while. I mean, yeah: The 2012 anime was the starting point of the "poo poo went bananas" and the 2014 adaptation of Stardust Crusaders basically slammed the "Let's never shut up about Jojo, ever again" pedal to the metal, but let's not pretend that this is a new development. Like, unless we're talking One Piece, Dragon Ball, or Attack on Titan fandoms, yeah, it's pretty hard to top the Cult of Araki.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 16:25

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Josuke Higashikata posted:

As one of them, allow me to say the JoJo fandom is 200% arse in many different ways, including ones that contradict each other.

Calling JoJo a battle shonen is pretty wide of the mark in this day and age (I'd say Stone Ocean is the first real foray into it being more of a seinen, which would make it a seinen longer than it was shonen now), as is ignoring that MHA has a pretty large, vocal and rabid fandom of its own, especially considering it's also a young manga for how successful it is.

I'm sure that people mean "Battle Manga" in the same way that Bakuman. more or less explained it.

As for MHA fandom, I dunno: After being part of what I consider the two biggest poo poo fandoms (The Spiral and Tool Army) in my mid-to-late-teens, almost every other fandom looks well-behaved in comparison.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 19:50

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

What is Homestuck? Homestuck ain't no thing I've ever heard of. Stop making stuff up.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2018 01:52

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

AnacondaHL posted:

I'm double checking my data, and you almost got away with making this post as a 2nd set of votes lmao

G'ah, my bad. I was just replying to the post above mine, but since the post was kinda big, I just emptied the post and just commented on the things I watched. Not my intention to try and double-dip, buddy.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2018 13:37

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Homura and Sickle posted:

I'm surprised little witch academia did as good as it did considering how lukewarm a lot of folk seemed on it

To be fair, Netflix decision to not simulcast it probably contributed to said lukewarm response.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 03:38

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Kytrarewn posted:

I'm not going to make a stupid comment suggesting that "If they made more low-effort trash instead of very solid shows we could see more masterpieces", nor am I going to claim that one good show and a lot of dross is preferable in any way to what we got...but in 5 years time, I can see myself looking back at, say, 2015 (Death Parade, Saekano, Durarara2, Oregairu2, Soma1, Punch Line, Shimoneta, Gakkougurashi, Gatchaman Insight, Noragami2, Owarimonogatari1) more nostalgically than I can 2017.

All those shows were good, but no mention of One Punch Man? :raise:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 13:07

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Julias posted:

While I personally enjoyed s1 more and thought it was better overall, the sentiment among most adtrw posters and that I've seen elsewhere was that s2 was stronger.

Also I think that there's something to be said about the quantity of really, really good shows that made so many top lists, and so close to tying each other too, in comparison to previous years

In my very arrogant opinion, Rakugo as a whole (meaning both seasons) DESTROYS every other show from this year and last year. Like, it's not even funny. The "period drama" feel it has going on is just... so distinctly timeless; like yeah, it's the story of a time in Japan that's come and gone, but it's a story that you could transpose to any generation and it'd work. Land of the Lustrous has something like that going on, but its themes are an entirely different itch to scratch.

Agronox posted:

Not sure what you are talking about here, unless you meant Shirobako

I really liked Shirobako, but not as much as OPM. :shrug:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 16:30

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Expect My Mom posted:

one punch man is anime from a sewer when compared to shirobako imo

Well, it looks like somebody is cruisin' for a bruisin'! :toughguy:

It's fine. I respect your opinion, even if I think that Sakura Quest did the "Cute Girls Work Adult Jobs" angle better, while out of the whole OG shows P.A. Works has done, I still have the fondest memories of Hanasaku Iroha :3:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 16:59

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Ranzear posted:

KLK put a little too much effort into making a parental figure Worse Than Gendo�

And they failed.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 22:15

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

The hell I do. I just find Gendo a far more reprehensible human being.

*flicks half-chewed Pocky at you*

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 22:30

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Strange Quark posted:

why

Ragyo is willing to sell humanity for the good graces of a lovely discount Lavos, and seems like her family has been doing similar things for a while. So, while a horrible piece of poo poo, it seems like she was drinking the Kool-Aid fed to her, kinda like Queen Zeal. Gendou is doing all that of his own volition for someone who's kinda not there anymore.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 23:09

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

an actual dog posted:

Why are we talking about klk.

Lets talk about Guru Guru which not enough of y'all watched it's amazing.

Colonel and SQuark are silly. And Guru Guru is fun fun fun! :dance:

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 23:24

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Motto posted:

unsticky my rear end

All the rear end. None of the responsibility.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 22:54

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

ADTRW is a Land of Contrasts

# ¿ Jan 24, 2018 19:31

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

People are weird about strangers they want to take into their family.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2018 15:23

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 07:28

Wark Say: Feb 22, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Battler seems to think otherwise! :colbert:

Then again, me and Cake Attack / Expect My Mom have fairly similar tastes despite the fact that they have an infallible putdown for every doofus-induced post I make, so what do I know.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2018 22:09

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > The Best Anime of 2017