Anime of the season and year
Jan. 1st, 2024 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I gave up watching Frieren at the halfway point when it tried to have a plotline justifying something that looks like genocide. I say "tried to" because, ironically, it ran into the same problem I was seeing early on, where the author's skills were not up to the task of fully executing their ideas. Turned out to be a good thing in this case, but still, attempting to justify genocide. Plus I didn't really care about any of the characters.
Bullbuster was a perfectly competent midlist effort and has already been forgotten by anime fandom at large.
The Apothecary Diaries and Undead Unluck both remained entertaining and both are continuing into the coming season. Undead Unluck felt like it really hit its stride when the main characters joined the central organization of the story, and I'm still appreciating its dedication to doing romance tropes in a shonen story.
Some late last-minute viewing included the movie wrap-up of Kana of the Great Snow Sea (available on Crunchyroll), and the Christmas Day drop of the last three episodes of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead which were supposed to have aired back in September.
Both were very good. I was apprehensive about the Zom 100 episodes since there was a lot of chatter about the griefer villans of the arc and how it didn't fit with the mood of the story, but they were fine. No shock deaths or grimdark misery porn.
Animoo Chat, my favorite anime Discord server, which I encourage any and all anime fans reading this to join, votes on "Anime of the Year" plus specialized awards every year. Everyone gets to pick one top anime and three runners up. Mine were the finale of Attack on Titan for the winner, and Oshi no Ko, Kaina, and Zom 100 for runners-up. If I'd had a fifth place, it would have gone to Hell's Paradise.
Animoo Chat's overall top pick was season 2 of Vinland Saga, which to be fair I've been hearing tons of good things about constantly. Oshi no Ko was #2, and Attack on Titan was #3.
The winners of the regular annual categories were:
And the one-off categories for this year were:
Bullbuster was a perfectly competent midlist effort and has already been forgotten by anime fandom at large.
The Apothecary Diaries and Undead Unluck both remained entertaining and both are continuing into the coming season. Undead Unluck felt like it really hit its stride when the main characters joined the central organization of the story, and I'm still appreciating its dedication to doing romance tropes in a shonen story.
Some late last-minute viewing included the movie wrap-up of Kana of the Great Snow Sea (available on Crunchyroll), and the Christmas Day drop of the last three episodes of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead which were supposed to have aired back in September.
Both were very good. I was apprehensive about the Zom 100 episodes since there was a lot of chatter about the griefer villans of the arc and how it didn't fit with the mood of the story, but they were fine. No shock deaths or grimdark misery porn.
Animoo Chat, my favorite anime Discord server, which I encourage any and all anime fans reading this to join, votes on "Anime of the Year" plus specialized awards every year. Everyone gets to pick one top anime and three runners up. Mine were the finale of Attack on Titan for the winner, and Oshi no Ko, Kaina, and Zom 100 for runners-up. If I'd had a fifth place, it would have gone to Hell's Paradise.
Animoo Chat's overall top pick was season 2 of Vinland Saga, which to be fair I've been hearing tons of good things about constantly. Oshi no Ko was #2, and Attack on Titan was #3.
The winners of the regular annual categories were:
- Best OP/ED: Oshi no Ko OP
- Hottest Mess: Zom 100
- Most Tolerable Isekai: Magical Revolution of the Reincarneted Princes and the Genius Young Lady
- It's Shocking This Anime is Good at All: Onii-chan wa Oshimai
- Most Anime Anime: The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
- Best Anime Movie of 2022 (Animoo Chat votes on awards to movies of the previous year because it often takes so long for them to be released outside of Japan): Yuru Camp Movie
- Most Disappointing: Helck
- Best Anime Doomed to Be Forgotten: Overtake!
And the one-off categories for this year were:
- Best Ridiculously Long Premiere: Oshi no Ko
- Cast With the Most Rizz (in honor of the Oxford Word of the Year): The Apothecary Diaries
- Best CG Monstrosity: Those awful horned things with mouths full of molars from KamiKatsu which you'll find if you search on "kamikatsu cgi"