Forum - View topicThe Best (and worst) Anime of Summer 2018
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zrnzle500
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Make that two people. Totally agreed on the narrator being the best part. What I like most about his performance is how much he seems to enjoy himself. And the rest of the characters are no slouches either. It did get overshadowed by some of this season's healthy crop of comedies, but I'm glad it's continuing. |
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Rhykion
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Best: Grand Blue - This series got a lot of flack this season, but I loved the college humour and every episode made me laugh, which I can’t say about a lot of anime
Runner Up: Happy Sugar Life - Now that’s a turn around from my favourite this season. The psychological horror and twists that came out of this show was amazing. The show’s subject was pretty messed up (relationships with a minor, kidnapping, murder, self-abuse, domestic violence, etc...) which probably scared away a chunk of the audience. Worst: Free Season 3 - I was never a big fan of the other seasons, but I couldn’t even stick half way through. The other seasons at least had stories and character, this was an excuse for more fanservice. |
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Gina Szanboti
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I know, right? Like when he draws out a word-ending "kuuuuuuuuu!" instead of cutting it off with just the k sound. But what really tickles me is how he'll just throw in an English word with perfect, native English-speaking American pronunciation. He's a hoot. |
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chrysanths
Posts: 7 |
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The Best:
The obvious ones like GeGeGe and Planet With have been covered already, but I doubt you've heard of Mo Dao Zu Shi. Talk about no coverage! It starts off in medias res with two episodes of pure action, then enters a lengthy flashback to introduce the main cast and world. Suffice to say, it's a tough hurdle to clear in the first few episodes, especially when everything is Chinese and the names are difficult to keep straight. But my God, it friggin' delivers. Somewhere along the way it became a fantastic tale about adoptive families, brotherhood, and the tragic consequences of seeking justice vs conformity in the face of oppression. The characters start off as generic archetypes but become painfully realistic, flaws and all, through consistent development. There are Big moments, like when a character sacrifices their life, and Small moments, like when another character quietly hums a song as comfort and confession. Episode 11 is probably one of the most cinematic episodes I've seen this year. Maybe even the past few years, on par with Tokyo Ghoul Root A's finale. (As problematic as that series was, the direction for that last ep was perfection.) From voice acting, to music, to animation, to sheer gut-punching emotion, nothing this anime season even comes close. It out Game of Thrones-d Game of Thrones. There are still two episodes and a final climax left, so who knows if something even better will come along. I'm guessing yes. The Worst: Kind of a misnomer, since I preemptively avoid everything I find "bad". I guess I would have to say Planet With's resolution? It was a little too clean for me, given what I've read of Mizukami's other stuff. The first 2/3 more than makes up for it, though. Really, it just makes me mad no one has animated Spirit Circle yet. |
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Sailor Sedna
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I've only watched two anime of the season, but these are my thoughts.
Though I've yet to see episode 12, I agree with Lauren on the best one: Harukana Receive was my favorite of the ones I've seen, it gave me nice memories of me playing high school volleyball, the characters were likable and very well developed, art/animation, whilst obviously not big budget stuff, was really well done, the story was a nice, sweet slice of life with exciting volleyball games (heck, I wouldn't mind a video game of it in fact), and whatever fanservice is there is more about making you laugh and doesn't detract from the plot. I oddly didn't notice any homoerotic tones in there unlike others though. 
Second was Chio's School Road, but I didn't finish it, certain parts of certain episodes started making me feel skeeved; I couldn't finish Part B of the seventh episode and though I saw Part C, I still was done and dropped it (I partially felt like I was going to go on a list or something...). I did like what I saw, but even when I look at it as a whole, I dunno if I'd be missing much of anything, as it's very episodic compared to the previous one I saw, to the point where basically if you've seen one episode, you've seen the other ones too...and not much of an overall story. I don't mind episodic stuff but I prefer anime with stories over more than one episode. Still planning to check out other anime from Kadokawa Pictures, and for ones from the Spring season, I may check out that weird-ass yet still enjoyable "Magical Girl Ore." 
Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Fri Sep 28, 2018 7:44 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 361 Location: Maryland |
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Best:Sunohara-sou no Kanrinin-san I'd put Lupin III here as it is by the best iteration of the series I have seen to date. However, I have a personal policy in listing shows that aired the season before. So I'll actually go with Sunohara-sou no Kanrinin-san. It had a lovable cast, a cute premise and I would go out of my way to watch each episode every week (sometimes twice because I was too impatient for the subs). I know Sunohara_sou's premise will put off many viewers but I hope an official subber picks it up eventually.
Runner Up: Hataraku Saibou David Production's non-Jojo's show Hataraku Saibou or Cell's at Work, if you prefer that title instead. I found each episode to be colorful, informative and fun enough to recommend to any of my friends who enjoy anime. Worst:Overlord III Like Nick, I was pretty cutthroat this season about the shows I watched. I dropped Banana Fish because it started to feel stale at the midpoint and it relied too much on rape. I dropped Starlight Revue because the only things I liked about were the performance fights. No other aspect of the show stood out to me and half the time I just wanted to skip to those cool fight scenes. Now I wouldn't consider these shows bad at all but they just stopped appealing to me. But enough blabbing about shows I dropped and now onto why Overlord is the worst show I'm sticking out there for. Overlord III boasts an interesting world and plenty of characters to become invested in. The problem is that none of those characters reside in Nazerick. Momonga is the most mary-sue protagonist, I have ever seen in an isekai series before (and yes I watched Smartphone). No foe can harm him (the only one who got close was Shalltear), and everyone either loves or fears him. Momonga puts minimal effort into everything he does and it's a chore to watch him just win everything. The only way I can find myself enjoying this series ever again is if they introduce someone who can actually pose a threat to this story's protagonist spoiler[but from what I have read that seems to be an impossibility.] I think I could go into more detail but really even with my recent disappointment in Overlord, I wouldn't call it a bad show and I think this season as a whole was pretty decent. |
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FilthyCasual
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Wow, no love for the Heaven's Feel movies? |
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DeTroyes
 Posts: 520 |
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My $0.02, for what its worth. This time around my top two shows of the season were ones you had to watch "by other means", since they've been picked up by Netflix and hence won't be available officially outside of Japan until sometime later this year.
Best: Sirius the Jaeger Vampires vs Vampire Hunters, in pre-WW II far east (China, Japan, and Eastern Russia). Great animation backing some very well executed action scenes and fun characters. Hoping this one gets an s2, because this season feels like its a set-up for a much longer, larger story. Runner-Up: High Score Girl Okay, I have a soft spot for high school romantic comedies, and this one is just adorable. The only gripe I have is that the male MC Harou is at times an annoying jerk, but the good part about this is that he actually starts to grow up as the series progresses. And Akira Oono is probably my Best Girl for the year. A really, really enjoyable show that I hope gets lots of attention when Netflix releases it in November. Special shout-out goes to Dragon Pilot (aka, Hisone and Masotan), which while actually a Spring 2018 series, I didn't sit down to watch until Netflix released it late in the summer. Goofy, cheerful, and sometimes oddly moving, its the story of Dragons masquerading as aircraft in the modern day JDF, and the pilots who fly them. If you're looking for something now to lift your spirits and give you a grin, this is the show to try. Honorable Mentions: Planet With, Angolmois, Holmes of Kyoto (just barely), Persona 5 (cour 2), Steins;Gate 0 (cour 2), Lupin III pt. 5 (cour 2), Juushinki Pandora (cour 2), Gundam Build Divers (cour 2), Black Clover (ongoing). Started But Dropped: Happy Sugar Life, Island, Shichisei No Subaru, Back Street Girls, Lord of Vermillion, Chios School Road. Worst: (tie) How Not to Summon a Demon Lord & The Master of Ragnarok and the Blesser of Einherjar Quite possibly two of the worst animes I've tried to watch all year. Both shows are pretty much everything wrong with isekai, from overused fantasy settings to pointless harem fanservice to lackluster animation and even more lackluster writing. Both shows were so godawful and similar that when I first wrote this season-in-review I forgot they were two separate shows, and instead rolled them up into one convoluted memory. Avoid. Still haven't caught up with the previous seasons of Overlord, Attack on Titan, or My Hero Academia, so I won't rank the new seasons for those just yet. Overall, the Summer 2018 season was for me a huge step down from the Spring season (which I maintain was probably the best single season in five or six years). Only a handful of new shows sparked any interest, and the bulk of those were huge disappointments. And as I said above, my two best shows of the season weren't even available through ordinary channels, which in some ways contributed to my overall disappointment with Summer 2018. Looking ahead to Fall 2018, the only shows I can say with certainty I will be following are the new seasons of A Certain Magical Index and Sword Art Online. Beyond those two, nothing really sticks out, although I imagine I'll end up trying several more once the reviews start coming in. On to Fall 2018! Last edited by DeTroyes on Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:37 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Gina Szanboti
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Yeah, this is really fantastic. I hope the Japanese pick it up and dub it like they did with Spirit Pact. Don't let that deter you - these two series couldn't be farther apart, quality wise. I'm just saying if they could pick up SP, it's a no-brainer to jump on MDZS. 
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Best: Planet With every season there seems to be at least one surprising little gem inbetween all the same old same old which restores my faith in anime and keeps me from burning out. This season Planet With what that show and i loved everything about it. Glad to see it getting so much praise here.
Runner-Ups: Gintama because i'll always love this show. Cells At Work deserves credit for its creative way of presenting the human body as the setting of a shounen manga alone and i had lots of fun with it. Phantom in the Twilight finally gave us the otome/reverse harem heroine we've been waiting for and Free! - Dive To The Future might have been a bit of a mess, but i love these characters and therefore still enjoyed it a lot (which was kind of reverse for Banana Fish which is pretty good but i'm having a hard time actually caring about the characters). Worst: the worst i actually managed to finish is definitely Angolmois. I expected gripping character drama or epic battles but got neither. It's not a good sign when major characters die left and right and i couldn't care less. Dishounarable mention goes to Angels of Death which i actually managed to drop twice. |
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killjoy_the
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Oh yeah, if I'm counting things I dropped too Grand Blue was freaking awful. The comedy got same-y in episode 1 and just kept getting... well, sameyer somehow.
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2471 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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I make it clear in the panel that the only thing keeping VN anime alive over the last five years or so is Fate and Uta no Prince-sama, and even there, the Fate franchise hasn’t released anything as a VN since 2004. If you set aside Fate and UtaPri, the last VN-based blockbuster was the original Steins;Gate (going by Japanese disc sales on someanthing.com, Steins;Gate 0 has lost about 90% of the original’s audience), and the last one to even be profitable was Planetarian. In 2017, there were only 6 VN-based anime, and their combined sales were less than that of Frame Arms Girl, which struck me as a hilariously bad data point. (BTW, slides of an earlier version of this panel are available here, with the AWA version adding updated info on Island and Steins;Gate 0 and a few other things. You’ll find the panel dosn’t lack for Fate references, so cool your fanboy rage) Last edited by invalidname on Thu Sep 27, 2018 6:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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BaronViolet
Posts: 212 |
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One of the things wrong with Steins gate 0 is the fact that they replaced the best girl with a tsundere chibi. If people like her, that is fine, but I really don't care for her at all.
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donhumberto
Posts: 817 |
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Disclaimer: not including ongoing series, if I did Banana Fish pretty much puts to shame every other series this season (really baffled is not getting more love around here, although I'm glad to see some people are enjoying it as well).
Favorite: Aguu Tensai. I was convinced I was going to be the only one name-dropping it here but I'm glad there's at least a fellow poster who's also enjoying it. A ridiculously underrated/underwatched (I mean, it wasn't even picked for streaming by anyone, although luckily it's being wonderfully fansubbed) little gem that deserves much more love than it's getting and despite not having the highest budget it manages to have a pretty unique visual style. It also has a great, gripping story and one of my favorite female characters/antagonist of the year. Honorable mention: Angolmois (the last 2 episodes were truly breathtaking and, despite some obvious budget problems along the way, I loved how it looked) and Lupin. I'd also include Sirius the Jaeger but I'm way behind. Anyway, loving what I'm seeing so far. Worst: Only including stuff I actually watched, obviously. I have to go with Persona 5. I was expecting so much more, not because I'm a Persona fan or anything (although I did like Trinity Soul a lot) but because it has the same director of freaking Shin Sekai Yori. I was quite baffled not only at how boring it was but also at how incredibly ugly some of the scenes were (that godawful CGI teacher scene in episode 4... urgh) |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18317 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Normally I take a "to each his own" attitude about what people put as their worst, but I have to raise objection here. Demon Lord and Master of Ragnarok were definitely not similar enough - either in approach or in quality - to warrant being lumped together like this. They were both harem isekai series with a lot of fan service, but that's it for the similarities. |
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