2018 Anime Roundup

I’m sorry this post is late! Yesterday I had an insane headache and I couldn’t find painkillers. My mom was asleep and couldn’t tell me either, which made it worse.

Also, a little warning. My concentration was terrible while writing quite a bit of this post, so it’s probably one of the worst posts I’ve written so far. You can probably skip most of this and just read the headlines if you don’t have much time to spare. I mean, I even posted this to the wrong blog at first!

I guess it’s about time I talk about my favorite anime from this year. In this post, I’ll round up my favorites from all of 2018. I’ll go by season, starting from winter, including all anime I feel like needs to be included so not all seasons will have equal amounts of anime. I’ll also put in some words as to why it’s there.

 

Winter 2018

Violet Evergarden

If you read my post where I rounded up my favorite anime of all time, this should come as no surprise. Violet Evergarden hit me right in the feels, and it really stuck with me. I do sometimes put anime in my favorites and then remove them after a little (like the next on my list), but this one has stayed up there, ever since I watched it. It had amazing animation, fantastic characters, and excellent world building. It also managed to captivate me with its writing, which got me crying time and again. I’m being really vague here, as I want people to just watch it themselves if they haven’t. I’ll also probably make another post about it later.

Devilman Crybaby

Any show with animation at this level should be worthy of a mention. It may not be the best-looking show by Yuasa, but it’s still a Yuasa show. The animation looks fluid and at times goes all the way into arthouse-land. However, it’s still made in such a way that arthouse can be appreciated by a general audience. Yuasa is actually pretty good at appealing to a broad audience with qualities that will also appeal to an audience that is looking for something more out there.

I also truly love the music in this show. I have listened to Devilman no Uta quite a few times now. The rest of the soundtrack is also pretty dope though, quite fitting of the style of the show.

Mitsuboshi Colors

So far I’ve just put obvious shows in there, but they were my two favorites from winter, so they needed to be there. This one, however, is one of the shows I don’t think most people would think of when they talk about winter 2018.

Mitsuboshi Colors is a show that really understands children. It gets what it’s like to be one, and how a child acts. It reminds me of the better parts of my childhood. It’s a bliss to watch, and while the backgrounds are kinda bad and the animation doesn’t always look that great (with many slideshow scenes), I didn’t mind, as it’s fun. Sometimes fun can triumph over quality.

Honorable Mentions

gdMen – for being a great comedy that thrives in being shitty

Working Buddies! – for actually making me want to watch it

The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done! – for the cute lolis

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens – for giving me a fun story

After the Rain – for being a mature story about illicit love

A Place Further Than The Universe – for the fun adventure with surprisingly great characters

Yuru Camp – for understanding that wanting to be alone can be just as good as being in a group and neither is a better choice

Spring 2018

Hinamatsuri

It’s not often you get a comedy of this caliber. Usually, a comedy will try to keep the characters relatively stagnant, not learning much from their faults, as that makes it easy to have recurring jokes. However, this show doesn’t go the route of every other comedy, no it actually goes all the way with the characters, changing them over time, like real people. However, it’s the change that creates new comedic scenarios for these characters, allowing us to get new hilarious jokes all the time. This is truly fantastic writing, and I’d love to get a new season of this later!

Comic Girls

I tend to often like cute girl shows like these, so I guess this is no big surprise. This one may be adapted from a yon-coma (four-panel) manga, but as far as I remember, it doesn’t feel like a yon-coma adaptation, but rather a full-fledged anime. This is something I very much appreciate, as I really don’t like when an anime feel like a yon-coma. The characters were cute, and Kaos-chan’s struggles felt quite real. Especially when I know someone that seems to struggle similarly to her. For some, it might be a bit too cutesy, however, I didn’t think it was like that at all. To me, it felt like a nice amount of cuteness. The comedy also hit quite well with me.

Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan

This one may actually be good enough to deserve its own post, however, I have yet to finish the show, so that’ll have to be for another time. I’m about four episodes into it and am already laughing like a madman constantly. This may be, in my opinion, the best work I’ve seen by Mari Okada. I don’t think I’m a big fan of her writing in general, as both Anohana and Maquia failed to captivate me. However, this show is truly fantastic, at least as far as I’ve seen. Relatable comedy and fantastic visuals lends itself greatly to this anime. A must watch that I may write more about at a later time.

Honorable Mentions

Megalo Box – while I didn’t finish this anime, it was still quite a fun ride. I intend to get back to it someday, but at the moment, I have too much other stuff to watch

Mahou Shojo Ore – a funny comedy that parodies magical girl tropes

The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These – for making me check out the original show. I only watched one episode of the original so far, but I’m gonna get back to it someday

Last Period – Once again for cute lolis. But while I didn’t think the show itself was that great, the villains made me keep watching it. The ED was great, now I wanna listen to that, but I’m already listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor . . .

Summer 2018

How Not To Summon A Demon Lord

I already made a post about this show earlier. It was, to me, the best of this season. I had a lot of fun with its characters and I quite enjoyed the art in this show as well. It’s not often that I have this fun with an Isekai show, despite me really liking those kinds of shows. It’s great when you get a good one, but they are far and in-between

Honorable Mentions

Grand Blue – for giving me two funny episodes until I dropped it

Sirius The Jager – Because the 5 minutes I watched were awesome, but it’s locked behind Netflix’ waiting wall. I’m gonna watch it when they release it

Happy Sugar Life – for giving me the opportunity to find a manga I really liked. The anime was pretty mediocre

One Room Season 2 – Because it’s so fun to make actually try to respond to the girls and make every scene seem creepy or sexual

Lord of Vermilion – for making me realize that shit doesn’t have a bottom, it’s an endless pit

This season – for making me realize that a season can have just one show I want to finish (well, I kept watching My Hero Academia from last season, but it’s not exactly one of my favorite shows)

Fall 2018

SSSS.Gridman

This show kicks ass. It’s fun and quite honestly, if it weren’t for Violet Evergarden, this would’ve been my favorite of the year. So many callbacks to Evangelion’s directing and the sound design is just fantastic. Honestly, this is a show I feel like I could talk endlessly about. There are so many aspects of it that I could analyze. As a result, I don’t want to say too much about it here, as I want to write more about it later down the line. But the fights are awesome, the story too, and the directing is Trigger at its best!

Zombieland Saga

Quite possibly the broadest appealing idol show I’ve seen. So many people like this show, and that’s despite it being an idol show! I’m glad people seem to enjoy it regardless of that, as I may get people to give other idol shows a go now. I’ve personally been watching some of IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls which I really like. And I realize that I’m no longer talking about the show in question. Well, it is fun, but not the greatest of the season for me. My concentration today is horrible, sorry if my post reflects that.

Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

Another show I’ve already made a post about before. This one got a lot of similarities with the Monogatari series, while still being inherently different. I find the writing quite stellar, though I do question its longevity based on how each arc ends. Kaede’s arc is most certainly the most interesting one to me, as it’s been hinted at from the beginning. I’m quite looking forward to the end.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

This show actually kinda reminds me of Game of Thrones in a way. It’s a political show about a slime that builds up his army of goblins, interacting with other races, which may be why I compare it to GoT. I mean, the latest episode of it showed us a throne that resembled the sword-throne in GoT even! It has fantastic animation and all that jazz. Sorry, my concentration is so bad today, I can’t even write properly, but I have to put this out today because I once again wasn’t able to post yesterday . . .

Honorable Mentions

Sword Art Online Alicization – For allowing me to write hit-pieces about how bad it is

Run With The Wind – For its amazing characters. This would’ve been a full feature if it weren’t for the fact that I’m lagging so far behind right now

UzaMaid – for insane character animation. This is Doga Kobo back at it again

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san – for the two funny episodes I watched, it was quite good. It really revels in being limited animation

Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood – For being a funny and cute yon-coma adaptation that doesn’t feel like a yon-coma adaptation

This season – For saving me after the previous one gave me cancer (read: a burnout). This one may be one of my favorite seasons of all time!

 

Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I think this post turned out pretty badly, but that’s how it is when I can’t hyperfocus and am forced to put something out. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll have to draw out of the 12 Days of Anime and instead just write a great post once in a while instead . . . We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings. Maybe I’m back on track and feel like writing another thousand words about some kind of topic. I mean, I do have stuff I wanna write about, but some of them I don’t know how to tackle yet, so it may take some time for me to do it . . .