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Well, feels odd to be doing this after the decade thread already discussed it. Like last year, I watched a bunch of shows. Also managed to catch a few movies, but it feels a bit odd to put them on the same metric. Sure, Promare, Rascal, and Konosuba were great, but the nature of films and even six episode OVAs is pretty different. Promare might have been the most fun to experience, but keeping up the intensity for a couple hours is easier than keeping up the intensity for a couple months, you know? I don't know if I could easily rank them, anyway. They were all doing entirely different things. All I feel equipped to do is say some thoughts. So, in order of viewing... Promare: Studio Trigger. Seriously, this is just them cutting loose on a film budget, and it's a delight. While most of their shows attempt to have some thought under the madcap surface, Promare hardly has room for any of it, instead amping things up in a roller-coaster of CG, giant robots and bright colors. Plus, you have to respect any film where the solution to the world potentially being destroyed in an inferno is to light everything on fire before that can happen. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl: And at the opposite end, this is basically an arc of Bunny-girl Senpai on the big screen. The animation's not a feast for the eyes, and it doesn't do much the show couldn't, but it does what the show did well, and that's more than enough. Our leads are likable, the dialogue is funny when it's not emotional (and sometimes when it is), and the plot played with time travel in clever ways. It was a nice capper to one of my unexpected favorites of 2018. Wouldn't mind more some day, but if this is where it stops, it's not a bad way to end. KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World! Legend of Crimson: Now Konosuba, I need more of. The film showed some visible upgrades to the show, with more animated dopey expressions, more character details, and of course utterly absurd explosions, but at heart it was still a bunch of idiots and lunatics running rampage across a fantasy world. While compressing what would normally be a five episode arc into 90 minutes meant that some of the scene transitions were awkwardly abrupt, it had some amazing stupidity from all concerned, including Kazuma's classic self-sabotage and finally meeting Megumin's home village, which explains a lot about her in general. While I technically got a dose of Kazuma and company in Isekai Quartet, this reminded me how much more fun they are with a full scale world to rampage across. So, moving back to TV: 5) Dororo: We're starting with kind of a default pick. While I liked the show overall, it had some weak episodes, and seldom felt like it fully lived up to its potential. Still, it had a complete story, and played with the protagonist's arc in an interesting way, balancing the monstrous nature of the world with the classic questions as to what extent brutality justifies brutality, the needs of the many and the one, and the whole "Gain the world, lose your soul" profit bit. Plus, some of the fights were pretty neat. Not one for the all time list, but it had enough that I don't regret checking it out. 4) High score girl: More of the same as the first season, but the first season was good enough that I don't mind. Coming in at a short nine episodes, it doesn't overstay its welcome, wrapping up the manga and getting in a few more good gags. Plus, the second season ED just worked for me. 3) Vinland Saga: Won't say this year was particularly good or bad, but the gap between the top three and everything else for me is kind of crazy. Vinland Saga starts with excellent material and does all it can to live up to it, even adding new scenes and whole episodes worth of content to flesh out Thorfinn, Canute, and Askeladd's journey. The action hits hard, the comedy's funny, but most of all it's a thoughtful meditation on war, peace, and the human condition. It's nice to have something live up to your expectations. 2)O Maidens In Your Savage Season: I'm pretty sure I laughed harder at "Bus Porn" than I did anything else this year, and that alone was enough to secure O Maidens a strong place on my "best anime of the decade" list. But it also had amazing scene composition, strong character drama, an ending that tied things up much better than I expected with how spread out things had gotten, and plenty more great jokes, right up to the end. I never thought that it would do this well on my listings when I first heard of it, but I'm glad it did. 1)Mob Psycho 100: My "no double dipping" rule for the decade list left Mob stuck with "only" one year. But here, without that holding it back, Mob can live up to its absurd potential. It looks like nothing else, moves like nothing else, and lands jokes like... okay, like One Punch Man season 1, but that's to be expected with a shared author. Mob Psycho 100 is an amazing manga, but the show lifts it above even those heights. I'm really hoping we'll see season 3 in the near future to wrap things up, but even without it, I'm amazed at what we got.
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Dec 27, 2019 06:07
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 04:10 |
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darkgray posted:4. Vinland Saga - Being from Iceland made this one hard to ignore, and I'm glad they put so much effort into making it. Kind of feels like the protagonist could have used some proper development, however, considering the beefy episode count. 24 is beefy now? How the times change. But yeah, the focus for development was much more on Cnut and Askelad, rather than Thorfinn. Manga spoilers: the next big arc is all Thorfinn dealing with his life being completely destroyed. Tons of development there.
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Jan 2, 2020 03:13
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AlternateNu posted:Also, holy crap, there was a Boogiepop & Others series this year? Is it any good? I loved the original anime and read a couple of the novels. Yes. No. It was one of my worst of the year, despite being, in theory, my kind of thing. The bland character design would be enough of a fault normally, but it combined with the non-linear storytelling to make even simple scenes confusing. What I've seen from people who like the novels also said that the show kind of cuts the heart out of the books. The raw events are there, but the stuff that makes you care is pretty much gone.
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Jan 5, 2020 06:22
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Elephant Parade posted:People talked about Boogiepop & Others being nonlinear and confusing, but I thought it had the opposite problem. Every mystery is resolved before it's even really introduced. Like, we learn all about Boogiepop's deal in the first episode before we even have any reason to care about them. It's bizarre. It's both. That's the impressive thing. The mysteries and ambiguities are resolved with obvious explanations before you had room to start theorizing, while basic questions like "Which brown haired guy was this? Is he the serial killer? Is there more than one?" were difficult due to awkward presentation. It's the opposite end of the spectrum from shows like Gridman, where the big mysteries had people theorizing (and were satisfying when you got the answer, even if you guessed it already), but where the basic "Who is this, what happened, is that an Evil Chief Over-justice?" is obvious.
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Jan 5, 2020 21:39
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an actual dog posted:There's so much anime and a lot of it is very good! And even a lot of the bad stuff can be fun and have good moments.
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Jan 14, 2020 23:14
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 04:10 |
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Endorph posted:shockingly the internet forum thats mostly old japanese nerds liked the anime that was mostly 80s/90s video game nostalgia They got to the ending. And yes. That happens.
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Jan 15, 2020 00:12
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