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Forum - View topicThe Best and Worst Anime of Spring 2021
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Hal14
 Posts: 674 Location: Heart of africa |
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Best: OddTaxi
Number one on my "Must rewatch" list. It reminds me of the first cour of DRRR (which is my favourite) but I prefer this shows sense of dry yet wacky humour Runner-up(TIE): 86 & Welcome to the demon school, iruma. Both good shows and great adaptations of their source material, with new content that blend well with the original. Most disappointing: Those snow white notes The first episode was my favorite premiere of this season, and the music was good throughout but it's because of those reasons that I was left so frustrated with the show. As an adaptation, I can think of no reason to ever check out the source material. I can't even imagine rewatching the show because of how the cast ruined the music for me with their constant commentary. It felt like being in a movie theater when the people in front of you won't stop talking. I will listen to or even buy the soundtrack if one is made though. Worst: Full Dive Normally, I consider being boring the worst thing a show can be, and so Joran should have easily taken this but F-dive is just bad. It has its funny moments but it uses a 'beat the dead horse' style of writing where a joke is repeated till it's no longer funny, if it ever even was funny and it's one of the worst execution of 'asshole comedy characters' that I've ever sat through. |
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1217 |
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Goddamn, Steve. 
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1010 |
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Best of the Season: Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song
Runner-up: Shadows House Show I enjoyed the most that I dropped anyway because I just didn't have time to keep up with it: Tokyo Revengers Worst of the Season: SSSS.Dynazenon. Definitely a controversial pick so I feel a bit obligated to explain, but all the visual flair in the world did little to alleviate the intense boredom I felt having to experience a story through the perspective of one of the most aggressively uninteresting protagonists I've seen in a long time. In the first several episodes, that's not too much of an issue, but he starts severely weighing down a lot of the drama he's actively involved in, which is much of it, which is an issue Yuta from Gridman didn't suffer from. A lot of the conflicts play out how you expect them to, the show repeats sequences from Gridman while doing little to earn them or playing out the scenario in a less satisfying way (the "dream -like sequence" in episode 10 is the most egregious example of this). Not to mention characters like Chise whose arcs are almost aggressively teased throughout the show...don't really get much of a conclusion. In fact the whole show feels like a bit of a test run for the Gridman crossover. |
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Sailor Sedna
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OddTaxi looks like the best and I'll have to check it out when I can, it reminds me of BEASTARS somewhat in a way.
The worst looking on the other hand, Koikimo, we'll just say any fan of it is not someone I'd want to know or live within 1000 ft. of, it sounds like it makes Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy look like Maison Ikkoku. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 1854 |
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Best: To Your Eternity It barely finished its first cour but the anime got to my feels a lot. Kawashima's voice acting nails Fushi's character. The same can be said for the rest of the cast who are surprisingly endearing regardless of questionable actions.
Runner up: Nomad and Vivi: *Nomad takes the cake of the best sequels I've ever seen and it makes sense considering how the staff wanted it to be more original rather than an Ashita no Joe homage. The older Joe starts at his lowest and as he meets Chief, he decides to redeem himself which sure takes quite a beating. *Vivi: Is a bit more due to the production values and early episodes. Sadly, the finale didn't live up to the expectations Most disappointing: Records of Ragnarok and Tokyo Revengers: Both have nice concepts, interesting parts but then the studio completely messed them up with their pacing, poor quality animation, and the latter earns a place of really weird designs. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2460 |
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Best is Dynazenon, for all the reasons already said. I felt like it didn't have as good a character as Akane (but that would be hard because Akane was my favorite character of that year), but had several very good ones, and the whole world felt less built than Gridman's as well (nobody cares all that much about giant kaiju destroying the city every week for... no particular reason?), but it manages to become just as good as the prequel regardless
Runner-ups are both 86 and Zombieland Saga Rising: Revengeance. I feel like both could've been better than they ended up being, having some disappointing moments through their runs. But they still managed to slightly outshine the third runner up, Pretty Boy Detective Club by an inch, though I honestly think that's gonna be more memorable in the long run just based on its visuals Worst is Shadows House. Maybe the manga is good, and I do have the other manga from the author on my to-read list, but immediately the sound direction in this makes sure the main character does a small cute grunt for every single movement she does, and I hated her voice too. I can see myself reading the manga when it's over, the mystery seemed fairly interesting, but I simply outright disliked the characters I was seeing and hearing on the screen Dishonorable mention in Hero Academia. This is gonna be my standard of 'what to drop' these two seasons I suppose. If I manage to like it less than this season of MHA, it's time to stop watching it Last edited by killjoy_the on Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:54 am; edited 1 time in total |
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musouka
Posts: 707 |
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Glad to see the Megalo Box love! It was riveting from start to finish. My only complaint is a personal one; Yuri was my favorite character from the first season, and I would have liked to see more of him. (I thought the screentime he got was utilized excellently, I just wanted more of it, lol.)
I'll admit, I was pretty ehh on Fairy Ranmaru going in with the first episode, but around the three ep mark I got pulled in once its mixture of sincerity and cynicism became more obvious. I think it had one of the most satisfying conclusions of the season. I'm glad I continued watching this one, and wouldn't mind seeing a continuation of some sort! On the balance, I thought Koikimo ended up better than Higehiro--though that's absolutely damning with faint praise and both were on the low end of the season's offerings. Neither one was especially good and Koikimo sure thought Ryo's romantic pursuit was funnier than it actually was--by an enormous margin--but by the time it settles into something closer to your typical shoujo romcom, I could enjoy it on those terms. (It helps that Ichika is actually 17 and close to graduation, at least to me.) Higehiro, on the other hand, is no less wish-fulfillment than Koikimo, it just thinks that it's saying something profound about a societal issue. That it expected me to take it seriously as a drama while botching so much--spoiler[like the handling of Sayu's rapist]--left a really bad taste in my mouth. |
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Panino Manino
 Posts: 745 |
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All the fools missed out Link Click.
Watched practically nothing but watch I watched was very good. Nomad deserves so much praise, we where so lucky that we good a second seasons so good as this one, I'm still a bit surprised. About Odd Taxi... it's good and well written but there were at least two big problems that made it lose a good lot of it's charm. Last episode is today, can it deliver the promised mystery and confirm itself as one of the best? |
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myfairx
 Posts: 87 |
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Best: Godzilla SP
Runner: Odd Taxi Worst: Full Dive Letdown: Godzilla SP The first half of Godzilla SP just ooze AOTY vibes. It still, until the last ep rush crumbles just like spoiler[Orthogonal Diagonalizer crushing the titular Godzilla] itself. this needs another episode or two to get the whole thing right . However IMO, Bones production values alone carry the whole thing together. TBH this season is a bit of letdown. I drop a ton of anime early. Many anime start strong but in the end just meh as they progressed. Shadow House is the most surprising watch this season. |
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Saeryen
 Posts: 903 |
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Best New Series: Fruits Basket: The Final Season
An emotional, heartwarming and satisfying conclusion to this excellent series. I loved the character development, particularly of Tohru, Kyo, and Akito. Best Continuing Series: Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure Tropical Rouge continues to be fun, sweet, heartwarming, and exciting. The five leads are all excellent characters, and the villains are also enjoyable. Runners-Up: Fairy Ranmaru, Those Snow White Notes Fairy Ranmaru was great. It was weird and fun, and it had a great Pretty Cure-esque heartwarming ending. I loved the exploration of human (and fairy) emotions and relationships, and of the ups and downs of the Buddhist-based fairy laws. Those Snow White Notes was also excellent. It would have been perfect if it had had one more cour. I remember hearing that Stars Align (which I also want to watch) was left unfinished with its one cour, and I think this series is similar. That aside, it's a very good anime about healing from grief and expressing your unique self through music. |
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DeTroyes
 Posts: 520 |
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My usual 2¥'s worth of commentary.
Best: Vivy: Flourite Eye's Song This was a stellar production that had me invested in the story from episode one. Great animation, fun characters, and an engaging story kept me coming back. The only thing that marred it in my opinion was spoiler[the ending, which felt somewhat anti-climactic given its built-up]. Strong contender for Anime of the Year for me. Runner-Up: 86 The only reason this series ended up getting beat out by Vivy was because 86 is obviously setting itself up as a multi-season epic, whereas Vivy was a one-cour-and-done complete story. 86's first season set up the characters and the basic world, and did so not only with spectacular animation and some genuinely great action sequences, but also displaying an unexpected depth to its story telling and characterizations. Watch this series, folks; it would not surprise me if 86 becomes the new Attack on Titan. Also strong contender for my AotY. Honorable Mentions: SSSS Dynazenon, Don't Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro, Godzilla Singular Point, Moriarty Patriot s2, My Hero Academia s5, Fruits Basket Final, Moriarty the Patriot, So I'm a Spider So What!? Dropped: Mars Red, Combatants Will Be Dispatched, Tokyo Revengers (no intention to go back to any of these) Will Get To One Of These Days I Swear: Zombieland Saga: Revenge, Oddtaxi, To Your Eternity Worst: Way of the Househusband Dear Netflix: First it was Back Street Girls, now its Way of the Househusband. These are not anime series; they are PowerPoint presentations spiced up with some Flash animation. Please stop. On to Summer Cour 2021! Last edited by DeTroyes on Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:15 am; edited 7 times in total |
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Shiyonasan
 Posts: 30 |
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Glad to see SSSS.Dynazenon is at the top of so many lists. It's easily one of the best anime in Spring 2021. It's hard to follow up an excellent series like SSSS.Gridman, but they absolutely did it with Dynazenon. Great character development, great voice acting, the art direction is incredible, OST is awesome...I could go on and on. I'm very much so looking forward to the third series which looks like it might combine Gridman and Dynazenon into the same world. We'll see!
I didn't dislike Higehiro as much as some people have. I do think things could've been handled better with spoiler[Sayu's male co-worker] and spoiler[Sayu's mom], but I think the series handles Sayu's and Yoshida's relationship very well and in a mature way compared to similar series like it. Haven't read the light novel but I've enjoyed the manga more than the anime. Wouldn't say the anime was a disappointment but it's good for what it is in my opinion. I'm not gonna judge My Hero Academia Season 5 since the season's not done yet, but it's been alright so far. I do think the spoiler[Endeavor Agency Arc] will be a step up from the first half of the season. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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My best: Megalobox 2 - Nomad
This was just great. No more(???), no less - just an all-around really good show that I will come back again, just to bask in it once more. Runner-up 1: Fairy Ranmaru I just loved it all around, from the mix of cynicism and genuine old-school naivity to the way it was basically a mirror image of the usual male-gazey fanservicey ship-teasy magical girl/fantasy works, and did it without being "haha isn't this weird because this time they're guys" about it. Runner-up 2: Godzilla SP This was pretty great until the last episode, but even that couldn't make it less fun. Worst... dunno, I didn't stick around with anything bad long enough. Based on first episodes, the house-hunting dragon show, that was pretty bad. Last edited by SHD on Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:51 am; edited 2 times in total |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Kind of bummed to see no mention of lonely girls on inexpensive motorcycles here.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2948 Location: Email for assistance only |
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It was definitely Mercedez favorite based on her reviews!
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