Forum - View topicThe Best and Worst Anime of Fall 2022
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Aerdra
Posts: 345 |
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I loved 4-Uso as well, though it doesn't make the top in a crowded season. One problem it faced was that people wanted to compare it to Spy Family due to superficial similarities, even though the two shows took different approaches to comedy. I recommend judging it on its own merits; I was laughing, or at least grinning, every episode. Human Bug is probably the worst show I watched to completion. It wasn't that bad as an anime-only viewer, but when the source material is already a voiced manga, its hard to justify the existence of an anime that lacks animation. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2272 Location: Online Terminal |
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I think it further shows that there is no such thing as an objective review and that's okay. While everyone who voiced their opinion was clearly different from each other, there's still going to be a big central circle that any Adult Anime Critic Under 40 will intersect with. This is not to say that anyone's choices were wrong or that a title was unjustly raised or lowered, it's just that the scope of what gets focused on is narrower than you may think. Also, your bests/worsts tend to be shows that stand out, From all account the 2nd half of SxF is just more SxF. Nothing wrong with that, but in a crowded field, it's (literally?) nothing to write home about. |
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Saeryen
 Posts: 922 |
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My best is Bibliophile Princess! Watching the anime got me into the manga and LNs (which are also excellent), and I adore Elianna. She’s definitely a potential Pretty Cure. I love that the anime is a gorgeous and sweet romance (they really got all the shoujo princess aesthetics on point) but it’s also advocating for a better world. Our heroine stands up for commoners and racial minorities and uses her position to improve the lives of others, and she’s against starting wars and making enemies. Truly a sweet and heartfelt watch, and a new favorite of mine. I hope for Season 2, the next arc after the anime leaves off is amazing.
I also watched and enjoyed I’m the Villainess, so I’m Taming the Final Boss and My Master Has No Tail, the latter of which I have yet to finish. Both were fun and the former has a cute romance. |
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Blazi
 Posts: 502 |
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What an incredible season for anime. You had some of the biggest titles this season, but the real spotlight were the originals and underdogs.
Best: Bocchi the Rock! I have never seen more love put into a project as this one. A 4koma manga, to one of the best slice of life animes I've ever seen. From the outrageous gags, animation transitions, and of course fantastic sound, this had me coming back week by week as a huge fanboy. There have been a lot of animes with anxiety filled and introverted characters, but Bocchi is an exception, as they (rightfully) go to the extreme with it. And by band aspects, it's completely on target. The character development of Hitori was truly well done, seeing her progress of barely leaving her room to on stage and thinking of doing something completely out of her comfort zone. And have I said enough about the animation? The absolute fluidity of some simple scenes were better than most fighting animations. It always kept you on your toes, not knowing of what reference would appear or animation style they would go into next. Overall a work of art and an anime that took the world by storm. Runner-Up: Reincarnated As A Sword I found it unfortunate that no one talked about I believe was one of the biggest surprises this season. Rather than it being another generic fantasy, TenKen was a tale that set apart itself from the others. Instead of the person itself being quite overpowered, it's the item, aka, the sword, which helps Fran try and reach her goal to evolve. But the beauty of it is as time goes on you see Frans development and how she gets stronger by herself, going against a strong opponent without the use of her teacher. And man, the swordplay is some of the best I've seen in a while. No flashy effects and stuff, just clean metal on metal clashing, which I quite enjoyed. The animation was quite clean and pacing was also fine. Overall a great adaptation though they turned down the fanservice, which wasn't much of a problem. I've heard good things about the arcs to come, so I'm quite excited for season 2 and more of Fran and "Shishou"'s journey. |
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1522 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Oh, what a bountiful fall season... that I mostly missed out on thanks to my own personal interpretation of what "Toonami Jail" means. If I didn't care about [as] potentially airing it later, I'd have watched Bleach: TYBW and called it the best of the season solely based on the fact that my all-time favorite darkhorse director Toshiyuki Tsuru storyboarded an episode. But I didn't watch it or any of the super-huge big-ticket shows, ones I could talk about weekly with both my sister, who's really gotten back into anime over the past few years after a decade-long hiatus, and my uncle, who's also jumped on the seasonal watching train. For what it's worth, I plan on starting Chainsaw Man next month, though that's far too late for me to talk about it here. So I might as well stick with what I did watch.
Let's start with the second half of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. The animation still sucks, which actually dampened the impact of many huge scenes, I'll admit. But even so, seeing the story play out as it did, even in the inferior form I'd rather prefer to watch (not really a manga/LN guy 99% of the time), was very enrapturing, especially seeing how I've waited years upon years for a Biscuit Hammer adaptation just so I could experience the show without having to force myself into the habit of manga-reading. It was all worth it for that feel-good epilogue. And while I'd have preferred there be more Pillows songs than just the two, the uniquely put-together retro-'00s aesthetic of episode 18's ending theme really fit the show's unfortunate final product beautifully, and made for a better (albeit shorter) music video for "Babylon Tenshi no Uta" than the Pillows' own dementedly fun yet poorly aged effort. I would gladly watch this show again, warts and all. Maybe also read the manga if there's a physical English release, even if it's just so the volume of Nana to Kaoru I got for Christmas yesterday has some company on whatever bookshelf it ends up on. The award for best of the season (and the year, as I'll reiterate in the discussion thread for 2022's best and worst) was season 2 of Pop Team Epic. While the standard-issue segments missed more than hit this season, the more experimental segments from artists both new and familiar were varying degrees of amazing, from Bob Epic Team's continued derangements and the last-minute UchuPeople music video to Junichi Yamamoto's many promotional tie-ins and Asami Ike's animated flute solo. But what really brought this season to the top of the pack were the story segments, from the friendship musical number in the first to a tokusatsu parody in the last that was so on-point, the entire episode was removed from MyAnimeList's series statistics! And that's not even getting into the Dora the Explorer parody, the gratuitously English power metal music video, the dyad of shoddily put-together visual novels, the full-assed return of AC-bu's take on Hellshake Yano, and the guest segments from Masami Obari, Flat Studio, and the f*ckin' Wacky TV Nanana guy. Simply astounding! Season 3 can't come soon enough, though I will happily take another hour-long April Fools' special in its place. And then we move to a different show with Lovecraftian elements, one that didn't even have the decency to feature Cthulhu to the degree that PTE did. Having been a fan of [as] and its anime offerings for most of its lifetime and mine, I naturally liked Housing Complex C, more than general consensus suggests anyways. Though most of that is because I went into it with lowered expectations brought on by its no-name staff lineup, its too-short episode count, and the fact that I'm still so disappointed in Fena: Pirate Princess's end result that I've made a tradition out of writing scripts ripping off DBZ Kai Abridged as a form of self-therapy. But if there were any problems for me to have with Housing Complex C, it wouldn't be the lack of scares or excruciatingly slow buildup or how little it earned the right to revel in brutality in its finale. For me, it's two things: the fundamental laziness of an American anime production using the Cthulhu mythos as the basis for its horror lore, and making the ultimate antagonists too excessively psychopathic and monstrous to be either believable or enjoyable. It really says something when you have to write up a Disco Elysium-style Fix Fic session among your OCs to process the many different ways you'd have preferred this show to play out, be it simple like extending the episode count or adding extra scenes, or ludicrous like turning it into a campy B-movie funfest where nobody dies except an Old One or two. So while it's disappointing to see Housing Complex C be chosen as the worst of Fall 2022 for this article three times, all by people who genuinely disliked it to the point of memory-holing, I can't argue with their decisions. But for as much as I abhorred spoiler[Yuri's] true characterization, Housing Complex Cthulhu remains higher on my scoreboard than my one true worst anime of Fall 2022. Which would be Shinobi no Ittoki. Right from the first episode, I was underwhelmed by the show's decision to waste its original anime status and "modern day ninjas" premise on plot beats so generic and overused that no amount of polished-looking animation could make up for it. The creativity on display in episode 2, from the academy entrance exam to the apparent main villainess's sudden suicide, gave me false hope that this show would get good, but it squandered it by introducing characters that ranged from unlikable by way of underdevelopment (the teacher) to dicks for no good reason (the already-intro'ed Kousetsu and the ninja principal for that one scene) to so detestable they make Jimmy Pesto look endearing (Suzaku, Himura and especially Karajishi). And it only got worse when the plot kicked into higher gear, killing off supporting characters left and right and not even having the decency to tell us they didn't somehow survive their mortal wounds until after they've already died. That sort of thing was an easy enough hatchet to bury when it was just Satomi, but to do it multiple times with spoiler[Goshogawara, Housen, Yumika (whose death was actually poignant and necessary but undercut by a meaningless "resuscitation attempt" flashback), and half of the other village chiefs] is just cruel and unforgivable. Nothing really speaks volumes as to a seasonal anime failing by my personal standards (which are already too flexible for comprehension) than my actively putting off watching it for nearly or over a week starting from episode 9, a.k.a. the point of no happy return. I still have yet to watch the final two episodes, but no matter how much they attempt to salvage Shittoki from the depths, it will remain the worst TV anime I've seen since Nyaruko-san season 1 ten years ago. Oh, and there's also My Hero Academia season 6, but I've only seen two episodes of that so far, and I'm spending it stewing in enough dread to drown twice over. spoiler[Midnight will be forever missed, and Horikoshi is a hack who should've killed off a different UA teacher instead.] Truly, I would call my experience this season the "sh*t taste package". For obvious reasons. |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 609 |
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It didn't make my top picks but I loved Kawaii Little Liars! I'm hoping to get to a review of it once my writing duties around the seasonal transitions wrap up. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 629 Location: North America |
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Sad but predictable that Yama no Susume (Encouragement of Climb) - Next Summit did not get a mention despite being among the very best of the Iyashikei genre. Seems that even in anime, "if it bleeds, it leads".
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jr240483
 Posts: 4388 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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there are a lot other animes that were TEN TIMES WORSE than housing complex c and its definitely NO exception in 2022 ( looking at you redo of healer, worlds end harem, Peter Grill to Kenja S2 & ESPECIALLY Isekai Meikyuu de Harem o ) was it disappointing? ABSOLUTELY! it more or less falls under the same category as pirate princess fena. had potential but completely wasted it. though to call it worse is kinda much compared to the other anime of 2022 i mentioned! |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2964 Location: Email for assistance only |
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This isn't for 2022, it's for Fall 2022. Worst of the year will be later this week.
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2552 |
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For those that find the "top shows" this season not to be their preferred style of story like me, here are ones that could be someone's top show and need love
1. Spy Family S2- as entertaining and interesting as ever 2. Reincarnated as a Sword- Looked like it could be stupid, turned out to be very engaging 3. MHA S6- Lots better than S5 and beginning to touch on the really interesting plot twists of the manga. It's not a war unless there are casualties 4. Beast Tamer- Yeah, harem show but "taming" is a mutual agreement (not slavery) and the "tamer" does not have sex with the girls like last season's show. Cute and fun and the girls get along Worst- I nominate Love Flops because the big reveal only made the stupid harem-matsuri less watchable and not Peter Grill S2 only because I couldn't stand to watch enough to rate what is objectively the lowest rated show and thus the actual worst show of this season by that measure. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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It says "most disappointing," not "worst." As they explained, this only means they had more issues with it than previous seasons, not that it was the worst show of the season. The actual worst, by popular consensus, appears to be Housing Complex C. Interesting that To Your Eternity 2 (Two Your Eternity?) also got a Disappointing, given that, uh, I kinda already checked out halfway through season 1. "Revolutionary Gundam Utena" has been a reliable favorite for me, and DIY is also surprisingly good. But there's too many shows I intended to watch and haven't gotten around to for me to have a full ranking. |
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tfwnoymir
 Posts: 320 Location: Hungary |
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There can be no other answers for me than Bocchi the Rock! and The Witch from Mercury. Granted, these were all the shows I managed to follow so far in this season, but they were both worth my time and were absolutely excelllent.
I intend to catch up with YamaSusu S4 and DIY later at the very least. And maybe Akiba Maid War. If only HIDIVE wasn't region-locked in my country (which is 2 of 3 of these shows)... I'll manage, but it's a hassle. |
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Kurohei
 Posts: 597 |
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Favorite: Bleach. A lot of my like come from nostalgic, but I'm just enjoying seeing all my favorite characters again. And now that the manga is over we don't have to worry about long running filler seasons. I do think the villains are pretty flat so far and I want to know more about them before I'll cast all my judgment. But I don't really like the idea of major character dying to faceless henchmen.
Honorable mention: Do It Yourself. Not a masterpiece but it's just a fun show. Sometimes all you want is mindless and fun. Most disappointing: Gubdam Witch from Mercury. I've seen every mainline Gundam series from 0079 to Iron Blooded Orphans, and this is the most disappointing Gundam yet. I like Suletta, and episode zero was promising, but every other character is terrible, and a story about children fighting in billion dollar war machines all to settle rudimentary arguments and force people into marriage is the worst plot I've ever seen. Maybe I'll go back to it someday, but unless Suletta slaps Miorine in the face for being a hypocrite, I might not bother. |
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Feng Lengshun
 Posts: 50 Location: Indonesia |
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Nice, at least some people here appreciate Bocchi the Rock. The show is a lot of fun, the studio seems to really care about the original media and managed to uplift it with a ton of creativity. It has that mix of comfy, relatable, and funny in it that hits just right. It's the sleeper hit of the season IMHO.
The remarks on Last Boss is why I kinda appreciate diomedea. They're just quietly adapting works that aren't very popular and yet you can feel the appreciation they generally have for the original media. I went in to The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent with zero expectation and minimum knowledge of the Otome Isekai genre, but I still ended up enjoying it, and by the looks of the YouTube comment section, it seems that they nailed the parts that people cared the most. Same with KanColle -- it was a production mess, but once I watched the movie and took it all together, it made for a decent story and you gotta acknowledge the commitment to finishing that story. Next season we're having Joou x Tensai by them and the trailers looked good, so it's looking to be a better Otome Isekai adaptation for them. |
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Takkun4343
Posts: 1522 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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That was 2021. |
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