That fabled time has come once again. With four full seasons of anime on the books, it’s time to mark out the true all-stars, the cream of the crop, the shows we just might remember in spite of our recency-mad fandom culture. I normally preface posts like this with a glib assurance that rankings don’t really matter, art deserves to be engaged with in a manner more meaningful than relative evaluation, and thus this whole ordeal is a hopeless exercise. That all remains true, but at the end of a year that’s offered plenty of things to be cynical about in the real world, I’d rather end this introduction on a note of honest positivity. Rankings aren’t bad things. Not only are they fun to read, but to people who actually haven’t spent countless hours poring over the year’s better and worse selections, rankings can genuinely help point people in useful directions. On top of that, simply celebrating the shows I love is one of my favorite things about criticism, and what’s a better venue for pure celebration than a list of my recent favorites? So let’s put the critical knives aside, and appreciate how good some cartoons can be. Here’s my Top 10 Anime of 2017!
Tag Archives: Anime
Just Because! – Episode 12
Just Because!’s final episode concluded the show as strongly as it could have, offering a welcome reprise of its early character acting and plenty of stunning individual scenes. The show is such a dramatically reserved production that even this climax felt like a pretty quiet affair, but it hit all the notes it needed to, even if that meant the clear best character Ena ended up getting rejected. Don’t worry Ena, being the best character in one of the year’s best shows is still pretty good.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 25
Let’s power on through some more Ojamajo Doremi! Last episode saw the show finally reaching the end of its Majo Ruka arc, with Doremi and her friends’ level six powers proving just strong enough to conquer Rika’s nemesis. Unfortunately, Ruka’s exit has opened the door for an even more powerful foe: Doremi’s sister Pop, the most competent and confident character in this entire series. Defeating evil witches is one thing, but Pop has demonstrated she can handily cross swords with Doremi any day of the week, and her silence will not be bought for cheap. My personal suggestion is Doremi give Majo Rika to Pop permanently in order to keep her quiet, but I suppose the show couldn’t make things that easy. It’s Pop’s time to shine in Ojamajo Doremi twenty-five!
Kiss x Sis OVA – Episode 1
There’s a tricky balance involved in watching the dire stuff people fund specifically to make me suffer. To be frank, I don’t enjoy watching bad media. I am not at all a hatewatcher – I can enjoy something that’s truly exceptional in that way like The Room, but movies that are simply not good? Why not watch something good instead? I get very little pleasure out of watching other people’s failed projects; I’d much rather embrace the vast range of experiences possible through intentional, intelligent artistic choices, and could easily do without the simplistic, repetitive “lol that was incompetently conceived/executed” comic beat of hatewatching. I want to watch shows I can care about, shows that transport me to unique places, shows that teach me new things. Great media has so much to teach us, and we have so little time on this earth; why waste it on garbage that leaves us empty?
Fall 2017 – Week 12 in Review
And so it ends. This really wasn’t much of a week in anime, considering a third of my airing shows have already finished, but it still seems worth it to stop by and turn the lights out. Even taken as the season’s conclusion, this was a pretty weird one; not only are Just Because! and Love Live lingering into the year’s final days, but March comes in like a lion isn’t concluding at all, and Land of the Lustrous was only able to offer a light thematic bookend. This was an extremely good season, but it seems that it’ll be ending very quietly; no anthemic finales, and not all that much finality in general. But hey, if all these great shows want to end with slow dignity instead of dramatic fanfare, I suppose they’ve earned that right.
March comes in like a lion – Episode 33
We were basically just in transition territory for this week’s March, as the show swept up the emotional loose ends of the past arc and started arranging some pieces for future conflicts. The show’s rigid adaptation style once again resulted in some dramatic weirdness, but frankly, this week’s material would have been kinda blase regardless of its presentation. They can’t all be standouts!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
Juni Taisen: Zodiac War – Review
Today I offered a streaming review of Juni Taisen, one of this season’s most fascinating and polarizing titles. The show’s relentless violence and depressing flashbacks often made it seem like it must be a cynical thing, but the last episode was such a clear validation of all of its stars that its underlying empathy seems undeniable. Unsatisfying as a battle royale and inconsistent as an antiwar treatise, Juni Taisen most consistently shined as a character piece; fortunately, those characters were strong enough to carry the day. Juni Taisen is one of those deeply unbalanced properties that make anime so interesting, and I was happy to explore those contradictions at length.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Why It Works: Rating the Wishes of Juni Taisen
I managed to find one more Juni Taisen topic to send the show off this week, and was pretty happy with the result. Juni Taisen’s finale was pretty much exactly what I’d hoped for, an episode that managed to celebrate the show’s excellent cast without undermining the legitimacy and finality of their choices. The show hit a rough patch from Monkey’s death through the twins, but it came together well enough for me to forgive the stumble. I’m gonna miss these murders.
Rating the Wishes of Juni Taisen
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 24
It’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi! It’s been about a month in my time since my last Doremi episode, but certainly not due to lack of interest. The last episode of Ojamajo Doremi was possibly the best episode the show has put together yet, and undoubtedly featured the best single sequence of any episode so far. The flashback to Ai and her father coping with her mother leaving was a devastating and phenomenally executed sequence, building on Doremi’s strong familial relationships to arrive at a moment of transcendent catharsis. It was pretty much the definition of beauty through tragedy, demonstrating the strength of Ai and her father’s relationship in the harshest of times. I’m guessing it’ll be some time before we reach another sequence as strong as that, but Doremi has actually gotten consistently more powerful all throughout, so I’m excited for whatever comes. Let’s take it to that friggin’ Majo Ruka!
March comes in like a lion – Episode 31
I apparently forgot to post this one back when episode 31 aired. Whoops!
Rei finally arrived at the Newcomer Tournament finals this week, and was able to pay Nikaidou back for his loss in the semis. Of course, that victory only came after Rei painfully accepted this arc’s main lesson: that sometimes we cannot help the ones we love through direct action, and must exercise emotional restraint. It was a smart narrative embodiment of this arc’s central emotional conflict, and seeing Rei rewarded by actually being able to help Hina was great as well. This show is good stuff.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.