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2017 Anime of the Year

A tournament-style matchup that will determine the best anime of each season; and finally, of the entire year.

By Megs MonsterPublished 6 years ago 23 min read
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With Crunchyroll's 2017 Anime of the Year vote set to take place in just a few short days, we can expect to see some big fights for anime of the year. Looking back, there were some outstanding shows this year. Let's get to it.

Winter 2017

My Top 3: The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Little Witch Academia, & Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

The 2017 anime year started off strong. We saw a slew of excellent shows in the winter, ranging from hard-hitting dramas like Scum's Wish to heart-felt school comedies like Interviews with Monster Girls. Any anime that wanted to make a big impression had to make a dramatic entrance. And boy, did these shows do just that.

'Little Witch Academia'

FiredUp.jpg

In terms of flair, Little Witch Academia has the most going for it at the outset. With two Netflix movies under its belt, LWA has a stage already set for it, its audience ready for an encore. The first arc premiered in January, and it was just as heart-warming and charming as the two previous Studio Trigger productions.

The characters are fun and dynamic, with an irresistible lead in Akko, the underdog witch-in-training set on becoming a flashy showman. Her friends and classmates support, tease, and challenge her along the way, each with their own unique characteristics and mannerisms that leave memorable impressions all their own. The whole thing is a bit like a more whimsical and animated version of Harry Potter. LWA allows itself to be a little more slapstick and fanciful at times, which keeps the characters lovable and relatable. It is a feel-good show that inspires the viewer to hold themselves to the same high standard that Akko does herself, and I continuously found myself grinning along with her throughout her many mishaps and successes. The production value in terms of animation is in another class entirely as well, but that is something that I will touch on again later.

'Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid'

Chillin' with my dragons.

Speaking of feel-good programming, the most easy-going show of the entire season comes in the form of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. It was very apparent from the get-go that this was going to be the staple comedy of the season, with its initial eye-catch art chock-full of colorful and fantastical characters. However, where this show could have very easily gone astray in terms of fan service and cheap gags, it instead finds a heart in thoughtful and expressive characters, each with their own set of motives and emotions.

The show's main dynamic revolves around the title character, Miss Kobayashi, and her relationships with two dragons masquerading as humans: Tohru and Kanna. While the show's main outlet for comedic relief is the constant disconnect between fantastical creatures living in a practical world, it strikes a deeper chord in its simplest moments of domestic life. Miss Kobayashi and Tohru are constantly dancing around a friendship that is often misunderstood as being less mutual than it really is, and Kanna is seeking companionship in the form of a more maternal bond in Miss Kobayashi -- something that a single woman has yet to think about adjusting to in her young life. While the more extreme dragon-esque conflicts take a center stage in the show due to their drama and intrigue, it was the quieter moments centered around a growing little family that kept me coming back each week. The dynamic among the three main characters left my heart feeling full after each episode, and seeing their simple moments of happiness with one another had somewhat of a similar happy effect on me. At the end of a rough week, this show was a delight to keep coming back to.

'Yōjo Senki/The Saga of Tanya the Evil'

May God have mercy on us all.

If you're ready for some conceptual whiplash, then we can move on to my final pick of the season, Yōjo Senki or The Saga of Tanya the Evil. This was a show that I was hesitant to pick up initially. The premise seemed a little too weird to be any good on the surface. A small and admittedly adorable girl fighting her way through an alternate version of WWI Europe? Too bizarre. However, I have a bit of a darker humor than most, and the rave reviews I was hearing about the show piqued my interest enough to give the first episode a shot. And boy, am I glad I did.

The show is excellent, from opening to ending (literally, the opening and ending credit songs are absolute fire). This is a show that amped me up before, during, and after the episode aired every week. The show's plot is wild enough to keep you guessing, but grounded enough that you can still feel a sense of reality in the insanity. It gives you the bait-and-switch of an aesthetically cutesy main character coupled with a rotten to the core personality and twisted backstory. There are moments of dark humor and wartime glamour, hitched together with the ultimate deus ex machina: a main character who will always get her way, no matter how badly she deserves to lose it all. You can't help but root for Tanya due to her sheer militant charisma as she stubbornly fights to defy the odds and further her own agenda, even as she ruins and ends lives in her quest to do so. She is an inherently unlikeable character, but she's personified so well that it works in her favor. Everything about this show should not work on a base level, and yet somehow, all these factors come together to form a brilliant product. This was a show that kept me on the edge of my seat each week, and each episode flew by.

My Final Winter Pick: 'The Saga of Tanya the Evil'

For me, the marker of an excellent show is that you never once let your mind wander off of what you are watching. And for me, that show was The Saga of Tanya the Evil. For this reason, it takes my top spot as the best anime of Winter 2017, and moves on to compete in the final round.

Spring 2017

My Top 2: My Hero Academia Season 2 & Little Witch Academia

During the Spring 2017 anime season, things started to get a little busy for me. I had a Master's degree due and time was ticking. Don't get me wrong, I picked up my usual full roster of anime and gave them all the old college try, but nothing really held my interest very long. Unless an anime figuratively smacked me upside the head with plot and intrigue, I really didn't have the time or the patience for it. I needed quick, engaging, and fun escapes from the pain of academia. Which is a convenient segue into... My Hero Academia! Specifically, the second season, which premiered in the Spring.

'My Hero Academia: Season 2'

Image of me being slapped in the face by My Hero Academia.

I had heard a lot about My Hero Academia, and I was urged by more than just a few of my friends to watch it. After putting it off and putting it off, I decided to binge-watch the first season the day before the second season premiered. My past and future selves must have been on the same wavelength, because I was so blown away by the first season that I could not have possibly waited more than a day for the second season to air. I'm not typically a shounen fighting-type anime viewer, but something about MHA is so inherently endearing that you end up viewing all of the super heroic fighting as secondary to the entire story. The characters are brilliantly written, and you fall in love with ever minor character just as often as you fall in love repeatedly with the main cast. The humor is fast-paced and on the mark, staying fairly self-aware. The action is charged with emotion that a lot of shounen anime seem to miss the mark on. You end up seeing yourself in at least one of the characters, and your heart breaks and swells along with theirs throughout the show.

I'm going to tell you right now, however, that this was not my pick of the season. This show was comprised of 25 episodes spanning the spring and summer seasons, and while I enjoyed myself immensely, I know that I would not have enjoyed myself nearly as much had I not been riding my high from the season 1 binge-watch prior to starting the new season. The pacing in the first half of the season runs pretty slow. You're coming off of a pretty intense finale in Season 1 straight into a season that begins with the crutch of most shounen anime: the tournament arc. Your favourite characters, pitted against one another in duel-style match-ups for ten or more episodes. Fight after fight after fight. It can really drag on. I love the characters and there were some great moments of development and humor peppered in between the fights, but overall the spring half of the show was not really "best of" material for me. The second half of the show in the summer, however, really made up for the entire series as a whole. An excellent show, but not my favourite this time around.

'Little Witch Academia'

See you, Space Witches.

But if we want to talk about long-form anime with an excellent second act, then let's go ahead and revisit my second pick of the Spring season, Little Witch Academia. As much as I loved the first half of the show in the winter, I adored the second half in the spring. The light-hearted air of the show remained consistent throughout, but the character development and stronger plot lines teased at in the first half of the show really paid off in the second half. Tears were shed.

As I mentioned earlier, the production value that went into this show was incredibly apparent throughout, and I think that Studio Trigger deserves its credit when due. The animation is smooth and fluid, and they have found a way to make the magic look as natural and somehow still tangible as possible. Everything carries a weight and purpose. Every movement, no matter how over-exaggerated, adds something to the scene. Each character has their own unique style and characteristics, and they remain consistent throughout. LWA is stunning in its most beautiful scenes, many of which we see in the final stretch of the show. Akko's whole aim throughout the show is to be a witch that can inspire awe with her magic, and the animation team has found a way to convey that same feeling of awe in their animation, allowing the viewer to feel just as awed by impressive feats of colour and shape as she is by magic.

My Final Spring Pick: 'Little Witch Academia'

The characterization, the story, the animation, and the lore of Little Witch Academia weave together to create an enjoyable and emotional experience. Not only do I see this as an all-ages anime, I also see it as one of those timeless classics that will be able to sustain itself as a piece of media for years to come. If it wasn't apparent enough, Little Witch Academia has secured its place as the best anime of the spring, moving on to face off against three excellent titles.

Summer 2017

My Top 3: My Hero Academia Season 2, Kakegurui, & Princess Principal

For as lacking as spring was in anime to my liking, summer really knocked it out of the park. There were so many cute shows here and there that were great, as well as a handful as absolutely stunning shows that were excellent. There were three I came back to every week with the same renewed hype each time, and it's hard to make a call between them.

'My Hero Academia Season 2'

Deku the Destroyer.

As I mentioned earlier, My Hero Academia really gets pretty buck wild in its second act and I was delighted by this turn. They pick things up really quickly, throwing the young heroes into a major conflict that ramps up the stakes from zero to one hundred. It's such a welcomed change of pace from the previous tournament plot, which just kind of stretched on. They could have condensed it a little more, as the entire first half of the season consisted of the tournament arc, which left the second half divided by three plot lines (the internship arc, the hero killer arc, and the final exam arc), but I digress.

Leaving that gripe with the spring season in the past, the summer season episodes of MHA were fantastic. The conflicts were poignant and nerve-wracking. The characters that grew did so in heartfelt and meaningful ways. The animation was on point, and helped convey feelings feelings of anxiety and action. I found myself just as excited with the show as I had been with the first season, rooting for the entire cast and picking new favourite characters given the spotlight for the first time. The pacing was improved while still being thorough, and it kept me interested without being lost. My Hero Academia is one of the only shows that I actually cheer and gasp aloud at while I'm watching, and season two definitely kept that same spirit alive for me.

'Princess Principal'

They'll never see ya coming!

When I was going through the plot synopses of the summer season and trying to pull together a list of what I wanted to give a try, Princess Principal stood out as being right up my alley. Cute spy girls trying to lead a country into revolution with a turn-coat princess? I'm in. I was coming off of Tanya the Evil's vibe from the winter season, after all. I needed some new intrigue in my life! Luckily, Princess Principal does not disappoint. It has the kind of stylish sophistication of an old heist-style movie, with five girls under the employ of the government undertaking perilous missions together in order to shake up the current political environment. They were selected as spies for their obscurity as simple boarding school girls, but each is highly trained to carry out the tasks necessary for completing their assigned missions. You have the skilled wheelman, the trained assassin, the thief, the con artist, and the essential double-agent, all with their own unique backstories and personalities that give them depth and character beyond their stereotypes.

Despite it's generally cutesy aesthetic, Princess Principal is wildly entertaining and I found myself enjoying the show immensely every week. Each episode is centered around a different unique mission, giving the girls and the viewers something completely new and different to deal with time and time again. With a great soundtrack and lovable characters, this one was a hit for sure.

'Kakegurui'

The gambling queen!

However, my pick of the season goes to Kakegurui, an intense thrill-ride centered around the high-stakes world of gambling. The setting itself is absurd: a high school governed almost exclusively by the students and their way with Lady Luck. Those with money run the school, while those without are demoted to sub-human servant statuses to serve their high-rolling peers. But not unlike a casino, the tables can turn at any moment, and a high-roller could lose it all on a single bet. Enter our titular gambling queen: Jabami. A transfer student, her gambling addiction becomes all too apparent very quickly on in the season. She lives for the thrill, and somehow seems to have a way with the odds. The story from here out follows her quest not to unseat those with the highest of power, but to find those willing to bet on the highest of stakes.

What keeps Kakegurui interesting is its cast of characters. Jabami is somewhat of an enigma, constantly switching her personality between an innocent wide-eyed Mary Sue and a ruthless gambler with insatiable appetite for risk. Her opponents each have their own quirks, and the show falls into a "gimmick of the week" formula, with no game or gamble going quite how the viewer expects it to. I found myself swept up each week, taking time after each episode to break down how each game of chance was played -- and subsequently who exactly got played.

My Final Summer Pick: 'Kakegurui'

The physiological aspect of this anime kept it fresh and enthralling, and it absolutely deserves top-billing for the season. While I sometimes enjoy mindless entertainment, I loved breaking this show down to predict the outcome of each episode. Even the opening credits give way to hints at the entire plot, if you want to take the time and dissect it. Nothing is as it seems or to be expected in Kakegurui, and it was the most fun I had had watching a dramatic anime in a long time.

Fall 2017

My Top 3: Recovery of an MMO Junkie, The Ancient Magus' Bride, and The Land of the Lustrous

In the past, my fall season has always been fairly tame. It rolls through the winter holidays, so the momentum that it builds during the majority of its season has to carry me through Christmas. If not, it can get kind of lost in the shuffle. While my three top picks definitely carried, one did outshine the rest in terms of keeping me the most engaged.

'Recovery of an MMO Junkie'

Me: An Autobiography

A convenient segue from engagement: Recovery of an MMO Junkie was actually not on my radar at all until the very end of the season. It just so happened that I stumbled upon its Twitter page and became interested in the story, noticing how cute the characters were and how light the story seemed. I had it bookmarked for a while and decided to binge it one day over my holiday break. I was so pleasantly surprised and charmed by this show. As I'm sure you've noticed throughout this list, my anime viewing can get a little heavy and analytical at times. In fact, most of what I consume on a day-to-day is fairly dramatic or thought-intensive. I rarely pick up just a pure romantic comedy these days. I decided I needed something lighter and treated myself to Recovery of an MMO Junkie, which was a treat that hit pretty close to home.

Our main character comes to us in the form of an overworked salary woman, suddenly overcome with the heavy burden of an unfulfilled working life. She retreats into herself, looking for comfort from a corporate world that treated her incredibly poorly, and decides to take solace in the form of an online role playing game. She devotes her life to being a NEET by choice (Not in Eduction, Employment, or Training), and slowly begins the process of healing herself through cultivating friendships with the people she meets online. Through a series of wacky coincidences, these friendships break into her real world, and she slowly begins to heal in her personal life as well, forming bonds with people that she could never have had she given into her own desire to over succeed and demand too much from herself in a corporate job. For such a simple premise, this show was so heartfelt that I found myself completely smitten with it by the end. All of the characters were relatable and lovable, and I found myself just a little happier to see someone in a similar predicament as I am (in total meltdown over my career and future), find an abstract way to love themselves and others in a realistic and silly fashion. A fantastic light-hearted romp made just for the nerds in all of us!

'The Ancient Magus' Bride'

Giving away the bride.

I'm going to get a lot of flack for this one, because it's going to be on a lot of lists as best anime of the season, if not the year. However, while I have enjoyed The Ancient Magus' Bride enough to give it a spot on this list, it has yet to really hit it out of the park for me. I say "yet" because this is a title similar to Little Witch Academia and My Hero Academia, in that it's slated for twenty-five episodes, only 12 of which were seen in the fall 2017 season. So while I wait on the rest of winter 2017 to unpack, I want to be as fair to The Ancient Magus' Bride as I can.

What's to say about this show that hasn't already been said to death? The art is absolutely gorgeous. Everything about it visually is stunning. The music is enchanting and extremely fitting of a fantasy-genre anime like this one. What seems to be falling the most flat for me with this anime, however, is its tone. With some moments of out-of-place levity, I feel like this anime is trying to cater to too many palettes at once, hitting on the more quirky moments of a traditional comedy anime in fast breaks and clips, while also working with dark and dramatic themes and storylines. Both are equally entertaining to watch, but their constant clashing throws me out of the moment a lot of the time. My other issue with The Ancient Magus' Bride has been establishing relationships between the characters. Our two mains -- the Magus and his bride -- can't quite seem to come to a consensus on their relationship and how they want to approach building on it. Given that this is a longer-form anime, I can only assume that the producers are hoping to draw out their bond and make it seem more meaningful given time, but for now their unlikely friendship, apprenticeship, and partnership seems contentious at best. This is one I want to keep my eye on, as it's been a visual feast for the eyes.

'Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous'

Grass Simulator 2017

Now, I won't lie to you. everything that I have written up until now has just been a thinly-veiled attempt to not write about how much I love Land of the Lustrous. On the surface, everything about this show goes against my guiding principal of animation: thou shalt not enjoy CGI. However, as with Recovery of an MMO Junkie, I started to see irresistibly colorful and engaging screenshots and GIF images pop up on Twitter, and I had to take a peek at what Land of the Lustrous had to offer. And it has so much more to offer than just any old anime. This was one of the first anime that I broke into online forums and begged people to watch. I knew it was going to get overlooked because of its overly CGI-finished surface. And it deserves so much more than that.

For starters, I do not think that Land of the Lustrous could succeed as well as it does without its CGI production. This is an anime based around beings composed entirely of gemstone. They glimmer and shatter in every shot, reflecting and refracting light at every subtle turn. Without the extra attention of constant three-dimensional animation, they would literally have fallen flat as entities. That extra something gave them so much character and potential to play with. And it was definitely something that the animators played with, not relied on. I remember at times completely forgetting that the animation was non-traditional, and other times I had a hard time judging whether what I was seeing was CGI or not. Land of the Lustrous is a love letter to an industry over-saturated with lazy CGI models and over-exaggerated graphics. I want to send it to every animator in Hollywood so they can learn to put some variation into their work. Animation should work with the story, not become essential to it. In addition to being a feast for the eyes, Land of the Lustrous is simply a great story. It's a take of gemstones, evolved into human-like beings after years of mankind's extinction on Earth, and their constant struggle for survival against otherworldly beings hailing from the Moon, set on making the Lustrous into jewelry. There is such a sharpness to the dialogue and timing of each character that they sweep you away into their world, shifting between light-hearted moments of the day-to-day mundane and the dark and haunting moments of defeat and loss so easily that it seems almost seamless. I grew to genuinely feel for these characters and their struggles. Our main character, Phos, is weak by design, and we have to constantly watch them break down and get built back up time and time again into a stronger being. By the time the series concludes, we're dying to know what is next for Phos and how he will continue to grow more.

My Final Fall Pick: 'Land of the Lustrous'

It is this desire to know more about the story beyond an anime's conclusion that makes it successful for the season. Of the three that I really paid attention to in the fall, Land of the Lustrous has been the only one I pursued beyond its finale episode, buying the source material manga to continue the story. While I miss the colors and animation of the anime, it colors its humble beginnings on paper so well that I am able to enjoy it as a manga even more, making this, undoubtedly, my pick of the fall season for best anime.

The Final Showdown

The ultimate choice.

If you made it this far... Congratulations! I almost didn't make it this far. Now, to get on with the simplest choice: I narrowed it down without The Saga of Tanya the Evil and Kakegurui. While both excellent anime this year, there were certain things lacking in each that just left me a little unsatisfied. A lot of this has to do with the recent trend of producing anime in the hopes that it either gets picked up for a second season or that the viewer will get led back to the source material to continue reading the story, rather than watching it. Case in point: both The Saga of Tanya the Evil and Kakegurui have been picked up for sequel works! Hopefully with their future on lockdown, they will be able to flesh out their worlds to an even more extreme extent, making them excellent contenders for future seasons!

Moving into the final showdown, however, I am at a bit of a loss. Little Witch Academia and Land of the Lustrous were both my uncontested favorites this year. LWA I knew was going to get me from the start, and Land of the Lustrous came in as an underdog at the last minute, completely blowing me away. In terms of characters, both have strong casts. Akko in LWA is equally as endearing and faulty and Phos is in Land of the Lustrous, and watching them both grow has been like watching children grow. You would think that their animation would set them apart, but they both are so strong in their respective fields that even that is hard to make a call on. Studio Trigger is second to none when it comes to traditional animation, using every technique in the book to make their characters flow and pop. LWA is not after realism, nor does it pretend to. And this makes the production so much more notable than many modern anime, who strive to create perfect copies of real-world antics. However, something has to be said for an anime that subverted expectations for its animation style, and make CGI not only work, but work well. Land of the Lustrous is a masterclass in 3D modeling and animation, and works so hard to not seem lazy that it overcompensates at times, completely blowing its competition out of the water. Both put a smile on my face and tears in my eyes, and it's hard to make the call. But for me, the winner of the season is...

'Little Witch Academia!'

Thank you, TOHO and the Team!

I'm smitten with Little Witch Academia, and I don't see this really changing any time soon. It's fun, easy, accessible, and overall timeless. I feel like I could watch it at any time with anyone, and it wouldn't feel wrong for any demographic. Studio Trigger has done it again in my book, and would love to thank them again and again for the hard work they put into this production. For the whole of 2017, this is the winner for me!

But that's it for me! Thank you for reading this far, if at all. If you're interested, please try to check out everything I put in the list, especially Little Witch Academia and Land of the Lustrous. They really are something special.

See you in 2018!

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About the Creator

Megs Monster

She’s drunk on old cartoons, liquid TV afternoons.

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