Anime of the Year

Hey now, I watched Blood Lad as well. And now I'm reminded to see the OVA.

The only anime I didn't see from your award list was Arpeggio.

Nekomonogatari, Monogatari season 2, Servant x Service, Hataraku Maou Sama, Railgun 2 and Haganai 2 were about the only anime I watched to completion.

Based on that, I guess I'd say Hataraku was my favorite of the year. I'm not sure what made it so great except that it seemed to suit my sense of humor perfectly. Hataraku is actually probably one of my favorite anime period. The only thing I didn't like is that the director seems to have liked the boring character too much and tried to force the ship at the expense of characterization.

Bakemonogatari 2 gets second place, mostly thanks to Nadeko Medusa and Hitagi End. Shinobu Time and Mayoi Jiangshi were pretty bad and Tsubasa Tiger was only okay. However, I really loved the way the POV changes so much depending on the narrator enough to make up for two bad arcs.

Servant x Service gets third place, I guess. It was funny, but I prefer Working.

Railgun gets fourth. It might have scored third or even second if it was just the Sisters arc and didn't have a filler arc. I didn't even watch that and I subtract points for it. The only problems with the parts I saw that really stuck out were some potentially unavoidable pacing problems and the story still trying to pretend that Saten, Uiharu and Filler Girl actually matter.

I have nothing in particular to say about Nekomonogatari or Haganai 2. Oh, I guess both were inferior to Shin Sekai Yori, but I consider that an anime of last year even if was a two cour series. I wish we had more series like that. One that aren't so, well, anime.

Considering checking out Kill la Kill and Attack on Titan, but for the moment I have better things to be doing.

, Oh good, that brings the total number of people who I know that have watched it up to six. Perhaps I was simply not looking in the right places...>_>.

To be honest, most of the shows that I saw this year were reactions to what other people were watching and enjoying a few weeks in rather than taking initiative myself.

I hope you're not talking about Chiho.

I hope he does talk about Chiho. In that case I would agree from my whole heart.

Also I think Hataraku was probably best anime of season. There is very few animes that are able deliver that much through every episode. Great humor that can't realy insult anyone. Good characterisation and interesting interaction (with exception of Chiho of course). Same thing can't be said even about most of "serious" animes and definitely not of this year.

Chiho is genuinely lovable. >:|

Well I do think Maou's interactions with Chiho aren't as fun as with other characters and all, but damn, Chiho is adorable.

Yeah, according to some LN readers, White Fox really did like Chiho, and they also made Emi look worse than she was in the novels.

If Emi was wors in anime, I can't imagine how awesome she has to be in novels

What I've hear is that she was made more tsun in the anime, while she was more balanced in the novels. For example, in the anime, Maou caught Emi when she fell from the stairs and she deliberately punched him, despite the fact that he saved her. In the novels, when Maou caught Emi she flailed around a bit in his arms and accidentally hit Maou, causing both of them to fall to the ground.

Anime Tsun approach might be actualy better in this particular case, considering that Mao is guy that is responsible for death of her father and mass murderer in general.

edited 2nd Jan '14 7:44:22 PM by Tenzen12

I'm not even sure if that's true considering

Episode 5:

Taken from the thread, from a blog on Tumblr (I think). Attacking your ally during a major battle is a lot doucheier than attacking your frenemy outside of his apartment. As is attacking with a projectile rather than bare fists.

I can't remember anything that aired more than two months ago, so I'm going to have to say that Monogatari was the anime if the year. Sorry winter season.

Chiho was the boring girl that got too much love from the director, yes.

In order to force the pairing, there was actual important information about Emi's mother that got omitted. Emi was also made a lot more of a jerk. For example, they cut the part where she admits that she didn't kill Maou when she could because it would be beneath them both and would be incredibly dishonorable to kill a defenseless opponent, indicating that even when they were nothing but enemies she did respect him. They also rewrote the scene where she confronts him about her father to make Maou look more disinterested when he actually did feel kind of bad about it and gave some information about the circumstances. Remember the bit where right before Lucifer is beaten and he asks Emi what to do with him? He was actually saying "This is the dude that destroyed your village. What would you have me do with him?"

And even with all of that and all the Chiho love, the director's favorite pairing still was way less chemistry than Emi and Maou. He did an otherwise great job with the material so it's not like I'm mad at him or anything, but it was definitely stuff he should have left alone.

edited 2nd Jan '14 8:42:49 PM by Arha

I've got to add Ore no Nounai Sentakushi to the best Fall anime. Still not as good as Non Non Biyori, but really funny.