Peter's 2018 Anime Rundown

I thought I'd do another media review for fun. But just doing the Anime one took me far longer than I planned, so I don't actually know if I'll do the rest. But I may as well post this one. Enjoy the yearly weeaboo autism roundup from Peter to usher in the holidays. I guess Louis' choice would be the animated film "Your Name", I would put anime films in a films list rather than here, but I think it's the only anime like thing he's watched all year so I'll bend the rules this once.

This list goes in an approx order or how good I think they were, ending with my top pick for the year at the bottom. Like last year, this is just the anime I watched (and finished) this year, they mostly did not in fact air in 2018.

Gabriel Dropout – I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was just so much fluff with Gabriel being a shit and doing cute things. It’s basically just a PG Panty & Stocking.

Shimoneta – Raunchy comedy about a world where the concept of naughty jokes and swearing has been banned, with the heroes being a group of sexy terrorists. Pretty entertaining, but nothing special outside of the unique concept.

Aggretsuko – Retsuko is a red panda who hates her office job and lots about her life in general, only singing death metal at Karaoke keeps her sane. This is a well-produced comedy following Retsuko trying to improve her shitty life and usually failing, but is also, ultimately just another piece of diverting fluff.

Devilman Crybaby – Ryo gets turned into a half demon by his best friend who is literally Lucifer and the apocalypse kinda begins to happen. It seems like a lot of people liked this more than I did. It had good moments, good music and tried to say things about humanity, but it just missed the mark a bit for me and didn't strike me as being actually as deep as it thought it was.

Ouran High School Host Club – After breaking a vase by accident, the poor Haruhi has to work as a host in a rich high school to pay off her debt, meaning she has to pretend to be a boy, and slowly the president of the club realises he’s in love with her. A pretty entertaining comedy, but I also seem to like this one less than many of its fans. Possibly my expectations for it were just too high as I’d heard so much about it previously.

Code Geass Series 2 – Lelouch is still trying to become king of the world to protect his sister, and kinda fucking up everything in the process. While enjoyable, I ultimately felt like this second season was pretty worthless, I feel like if they hadn’t been aiming to do a two season anime from the start, this would have better been written to wrap up in a single series. And now I hear they are making a third series. God dammit Japan.

Mob Psycho 100 – Mob is an autistic boy who also seem to be the most powerful psychic in existence, and manages to get into all kinds of hijinks with his master, who is supposed to be training him, despite being a con man with no psychic abilities whatsoever. Written by the same man as one punch man, this offers a fun look at another world endingly powerful individual, albeit in very different circumstances.

Megalo Box – Joe is a poor person living off the grid in future Tokyo, who wants to be the best Megalo Boxer in the world. Basically a boxing tournament with robo arms for added action. Before they realise the megalo boxing arms were inside you all along. Or something. Kind off a cop out that despite the set up the whole point seems to be NOT actually fighting with rigs. Entertaining and well made ‘sports’ anime, for want of a better word to describe people hitting each other with robot arms.

My Hero Academia – In a world where (nearly) everyone has superpowers, the originally unpowered Deku gets given the power of the Symbol of Peace (#1 Hero) All Might, who needs a successor, and saw potential in Deku, who then goes to superhero school. It’s no HxH and is normie as fuck, but this is a very entertaining piece of Shonen fun. The characters are (mostly) endearing and interesting, the power progression feels (mostly) well-paced and the fights are fun to watch, as they do have some fun with the abilities of some of the weirder quirked heroes. Deku and All Might are idiots about training Deku’s power for far too long though. And Bakugo is just an annoying piece of shit. I get what they are going for with his character, but they didn't have to take 4 fucking seasons before he starts having character development. Maybe. 

Dragonball – Goku and his friends go looking for the seven magical dragonball so they can make wishes. With lots of fighting in between. This has gotta be up there as one of the most important Anime ever, and as far as I’m concerned the original 150 episodes of Dragonball hold up way better than its sequel DBZ in almost every way. Unpopular opinion - despite the Piccolo (and Saiyan in DBZ) sagas still being pretty great, the series peaked during the world tournament in the Tienshinhan Saga.

Nichijou – High school girls doing cute or, more usually, bizarre things for comedy. Featuring a robot, a talking cat, an 8 year old girl who is also a professor, an aspiring manga artist, a troll made incarnate and someone pretty much normal other than being a bit thick. And that's to say nothing of the side characters. Really funny and very endearing. And there are some scenes where they have clearly spent an insane amount of money on the animation for a gag anime. I do recommend.

Made in Abyss – In a village on the edge of something called the Abyss (a, well, Abyss that stretches on forever into the earth, with all manner of monsters and riches residing within) Riko finds a robot she calls Reg, and they leave their orphanage to attempt to find Riko’s Mother at the bottom of the Abyss, finding all manner of people and monsters on the way. Lots of quite horrific death and mutilation happens to the cute characters, but the story is engrossing and the world enthralling. Highly recommended.

Houseki No Kuni – Androgynous sentient crystals wander a weird and desolate world, defending it from the Lumerians who want to kill them and collect their shards for reasons as yet not understood (we do know now in the manga, where things have gotten, eh, interesting... But that's another story). Amid this backdrop, Phosphophyllite, a seemingly useless gem, tries to find her purpose in life without losing herself on the way. It was hard not making this my top pick. I enjoyed HNK while watching it a whole lot, but I don’t think it hit me how much I enjoyed it until I was thinking about it months later and wanted to watch it again, which barely ever happens with an Anime unless many years have passed. The characters are great, the mysteries engrossing, the music fantastic and the 3D art beautiful (at least to me). I can hardly even think of any times I was aware of it after the first episode, so if the 3D art style puts you off, I’d recommend giving it a go anyway.

Monogatari – After being made a half vampire, Araragi and his harem of cute girls combat the supernatural forces that assail their town. Often told in an idiosyncratic order that leaves earlier events a mystery until its reveal has the biggest emotional payoff. I could rank all of the different seasons from this show differently, but they come together into an almighty and unassailable edifice that took up a massive chunk of my summer. I planned to leave spaces between watching the seasons, but by the time I was halfway through Nisemonogatari (‘Fake Story’) I was hooked and for weeks didn’t watch anything but the ~80 episodes and 3 films that make up the series after Bakemonogatari (The first series and on last years list). Always looks striking, with a great art direction, the music for the Ops, EDs and within the episodes is always exemplary and most importantly the storytelling at the macro level keeps you hooked and always on board for the big mysteries, while at the micro level manages to make everyone best girl when they need to be to keep you interested in an arc.
Unfortunately, thanks to the toothbrush scene (among other… bizarre… fan service. Usually played for laughs, I must note. Usually...) I can now never actually recommend this series to anyone without risking them thinking I'm an even bigger freak than they already think I am. Great job guys.