Forum - View topicPersonal 2014 anime awards.
|
|
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15851 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
||
|
Time to post your personal awards for anime of 2014. This is not a place to do a list of the best anime of the year, but to make up a category and say what should win it. The category can be a good, bad, or strangely specific, while you can award them to a series, a character, or an event. Give an explanation of why you think it deserves that award, comment on someone else's, or give your opinion of what should have won for your version.
Best protagonist who is a terrible person: Momoka Sonokawa (Sabagebu!) - At first she seems to be a normal looking protagonist who suffers from cliché protagonist problems. But Momoka is spoiler[not the kind respectful character she appears, she will sacrifice anyone at any time and think nothing of it, shoot someone in the back just to say she won, and petty enough to seriously fight unnecesarilly]. Strangest premise: Twintail power (Gonna be the Twin-Tail!!) - Normal life is turned around when aliens come to earth to steal human energy related to twin-tails (the hair style), to combat this the protagonist who has a love for twin-tails above anyone else must transform into a little girl to combat them. It is so crazy it is hilarious when monsters various fetishes. Worst anime about a music Group: Shōnen Hollywood - Holly Stage for 49 - It might deserve some points for being just about the only male group for quite a number of female groups. But this show was unbelievably boring, not even spoiler[Miss Monochrome] could save it could save it. |
|||
|
|||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
||
|
Good thread idea.
For purposes of balance and fairness I will only consider series that I actually finished, unless they are ongoing into the next season and I'm still watching them. Lemme see. Negative ones first. Positive ones will be in another post. Worst Show: Psycho-Pass 2 Was going to be awarded to either Terror of Resonance or Aldnoah.Zero but then this clusterf*** of a show aired. It is a terribly written sequel, no doubt about that, but what really sets it apart was how it spat on all the mechanics, world-building and nuanced themes found in the original. Not only did it come across as though the staff didn't understand the original, it's like they hadn't even watched it. Just as I pretend that The Matrix never got sequels and that the Star Wars prequels never happened, I will now try to pretend Psycho-Pass 2 doesn't exist. Worst Sequel: Psycho-Pass 2 For the same reasons listed above. Dishonourable mentions go (in order of decreasing quality) to Fate/Kaleid 2, Love Live! 2, Chaika 2 and Date A Live 2. Biggest Disappointment: Initial D Final Stage Terror of Resonance was very disappointing given its pedigree, but the four-part OVA that finished Initial D takes the crown for how weak an ending it gave to a franchise that deserved better. The action could have been exhilarating if it hadn't been interrupted all the time. This OVA was bloated as heck with inane dialogue as every racer in the crowd had to cameo one last time, making the race relatively boring. Plus where was the awesome music that punctuated earlier entries into the franchise? It was nowhere to be found, replaced by instantly forgettable tunes that added nothing except background noise. And as an actual ending this OVA was useless, with the race taking up too much of the runtime. After four seasons, a movie and an earlier OVA, the animated arm of the franchise was long enough that the characters deserved more than a cursory sendoff. I wanted to know what happened to all the characters afterwards, but that was glossed over because they ran out of time. I felt cheated. Ending That Most Invalidated The Rest of the Show: Love Live! 2 An "award" I made up specifically for this show. A lot of the runtime of this sequel was devoted to spoiler[the younger girls saying goodbye to the third-years, and there were lots of genuinely touching emotional feels. In a long and careful build-up the girls revisited all the places they'd been, looked back at the wild ride of two season's worth of adventures and bonding, and said their many many goodbyes.] But then in the final seconds of the last episode, just as it looked like we'd gotten a great and decisive ending, there is a sequel hook to set up a third season. (You know, because a franchise this financially profitable can't possibly be allowed to end until every drop has been milked from it.) This invalidates the theme of moving on, not to mention the numerous emotional scenes in the build-up. Worst Lead Character: Lisa (Terror of Resonance) Strong competition in this category. Mika from PP2 was pretty awful and hateworthy, but at least she was involved in the plot. And Inaho from Aldnoah.Zero with his "I'm too cool to emote" demeanour was a constant blight upon his show, but he did get stuff done. Lisa on the other hand was a complete waste of time who never did anything. She was simply put in there for Terror of Resonance to have a cute (and clumsy) female lead, and to provide a love interest for one of the boys to save. That's literally all she was good for. Worst Minor Character: Tengu (Gugure! Kokkuri-san) Thankfully he barely showed up at all, but even with just two appearances he jumps to the top of the list. His predilections for little boys wasn't funny, just really really creepy. As a dishonourable mention I'd highlight Five from Terror of Resonance, who was mishandled so atrociously that I felt sorry for her. She should have been an awesome character but just ended up being a complete mess. Least Believable Romance: Rikka & Yuuta, Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren Although Rikka needed to be more assertive, I single out Yuuta for special mention. For a boy who was supposedly in the midst of his first love he was so disinterested in it and treated Rikka so casually and indifferently that she should have just dumped his psychopathic arse. It's one thing to have a "pure" relationship, quite another to friendzone your own girlfriend. Worst CG: Garo The Animation As if there was any competition. Yeah, the CG itself isn't actually that bad, although it's overly garish and the lion-themed designs are hilariously stupid. The real problem is how poorly it matches (or rather, how it doesn't match at all) the art style of the rest of the show. Ugh. I think that's all the negative ones I wanted to share. Anyway, going to bed now, will hopefully remember to do positive awards when I wake up. |
|||
|
|||
CrowLia
 Posts: 5569 Location: Mexico |
|
||
The latest F/SN episode with its CGI skeletons made of dirty water would give GARO a serious run for its money on that front. |
|||
|
|||
Shikiari
 Posts: 462 Location: Wales |
|
||
|
Neat thread Dusky. I'm not brilliant at describing why with words, so I'll just give a quick explanation for each category.
Best Show: No Game No Life, Amagi Brilliant Park, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, Kill la Kill, Akame Ga Kill The award for the best single season show goes to No Game No Life. I'll be honest this was a hard choice but it topped ABP by a fraction. Simply put it had everything I wanted in a show, from the great soundtrack to the amazing set pieces. Of course, we knew the twins wouldn't lose a game but it was as they say the journey more than the outcome. Another season please! Best Continuing Show: Log Horizon, Seven Deadly Sins, Sword Art Online The award for best continuing show goes to Log Horizon. Need I say anymore? For me it’s one of my all-time favourite anime and the top dog in the ‘stuck in a game’ shows. Long may it continue! Most Anticipated Show: Tokyo Ghoul √A, The Testament of Sister New Devil, Highschool DxD BorN, The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato. I’ve given this award to Highschool DxD BorN. It happens to be my favourite ecchi show for two big obvious reasons… the plot and characters of course! I’m looking forward to seeing how they both progress. Favourite Full Feature Film: Patema Inverted, The Wind Rises, Sword Art Online Extra Edition I haven't actually watched many anime films this year, but I've given it to The Wind Rises. I personally thought it was fantastic, maybe not as good as previous Ghibli entries but certainly better than anything Disney's thrown out this year. Favourite Male Character: Seiya Kanie, Sora, Kazuto Kirigaya, Shiroe, Jurai Andō, Tatsumi I've given this award to Seiya Kanie from Amagi Brilliant Park. C'mon, he saved the park from certain doom, defeated the bad guy and freed the princess... for now... On top of that, his character is portrayed brilliantly. Favourite Female Character: Shino Asada, Isuzu Sento, Akatsuki, Ryuko Matoi, Esdeath I've given the award to Shino Asada 'Sinon' from SAO. My second favourite character from the series and the highlight of Gun Gale Online. We got to witness her struggles and coming to terms with that terrible childhood 'accident'. Yeah, she's so tsundere as well. Best Soundtrack: Kill la Kill, Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, No Game No Life This award goes to my most played soundtrack this year, Kill la Kill. Everything from the epic 'Before my Body is Dry' to the Honnouji Academy theme and then the eerie 'I want to know', is just fantastic. Favourite OP: Log Horizon, Sword Art Online, Tokyo Ghoul, Amagi Brilliant Park, No game No life, Kill la Kill I'm awarding this to Sword Art Online for 'Courage' by Tomatsu Haruka. It felt epic and I loved how they changed the animation for the last two arcs. Songs not half bad either. Favourite ED: Log Horizon, Sword Art Online, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, Seven Deadly Sins The easiest to pick award goes to Log Horizon for 'Wonderful Wonderful World*' by Yun*chi. It's just utterly adorable and goes wonderfully well with Yun*chi's vocals. Best Art Style: No game No Life, Sword Art Online, Tokyo Ghoul, Amagi Brilliant Park, Terror of Resonance I'm giving this award to No game No Life. It was literally a drug for the senses. The colours and character design were incredibly vivid and really stood out against any of the competition this year. |
|||
|
|||
Yttrbio
 Posts: 3822 |
|
||
|
Best generic harem lead: Trinity Seven. Somehow managing to be a pervert without being either a dick or a weenie about it.
Most obnoxiously overused insert song: The World Is Still Beautiful, but I only learned one song. Most surreal dialogue situation: Noragami, giving assistance in extended free fall. |
|||
|
|||
|
DuskyPredator
Posts: 15851 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
||
I think that I will echo this, Sinon was one cool character, but it was not just whether she was strong, but that she had problems too. Best loli Naru Kotoishi (Barakamon) - Its Naru, you start off thinking she is going to be annoying and then totally charmed by her. There have been many great lolis, from conquerors, shape shifters, dragons, and "dolls", but I think that it was Naru who was the real surprise as what felt like an actual kid. Best shota Livius Orvinus Ifrikia (The world is still beautiful) - This feels a little low in terms of candidates, so it is more if going off the obvious answer, the child king who starts of arrogant and jaded yet grows. extra points for showing his stuff off in the ED, and appearing spoiler[as a trap] once. Best Rivalry team-up Hinata and Kageyama (Haikyuu) - There was a lot to like in Haikyuu, and the characters interacting with each other can be great, but one of the awesome parts of the series was these two starting off as enemies before working together. They manage to start to become friends once they realise that working together makes them a force to be reckoned with, leaving spectators shocked. Best/favourite opening song Database (Log Horizon 1 and 2) - The second half of the first season was in this year as well as the first half of the second season, and the same song has been used in both. Usually not changing the OP after the first dozen episodes might not be incredibly popular, but only changing the video and not the song for the second season is very odd, but I think barely anyone has complained, Database is just a cool song that gets you pumped. |
|||
|
|||
|
CrowLia
Posts: 5569 Location: Mexico |
|
||
|
Here are some of my personal awards. Bests first, worsts afterwards:
Best Sengoku Anime: Nobunaga Concerto. I'm a huge fan of Sengoku anime, I'll basically watch anything that Japan throws at me with that theme (except Sengoku Collection, I couldn't go further than ep.10). We had a lot of animes with that theme this year, and Nobunaga Concerto, in spite of being only 10 episodes and having an open ending, came out as the best of them. In spite of the unoriginal premise, the execution, quirky visuals and superb development of the two Nobunagas, as well as the creative twists made on classic historical facts made it both entertatining and educational. It's a shame that I'm one of the three people that liked the show, because I would've loved a second season. Best Sports Anime: Haikyuu! 2014 was also a good year for sports anime, with many of them topping sales charts. While I loved many of them Haikyuu definitely took the cake with its heartful characters that kept their sport real without losing the shonen passion. The characters are all really down to earth, with none falling into the easy cartoony-villain mold, making even the opponents very relatable. It also has a lot of positive energy and cheerfulness, and I'm eagerly awaiting season 2 Best First Episode: Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis: This was the show no one was banking on because it was based on a bloody cellphone cardgame, and MAPPA blew it out of the park without even showing all of its cards Best Sequel: Mushi-shi Zoku Shou. It kept the mood and beauty of the first series as if 8 years hadn't passed since season one, it never grew repetitive, and most of the stories landed the emotional and thematical impact perfectly. Most obnoxiously unkillable character: Princess Asseylum - Aldnoah Zero. She's spoiler[been killed three freaking times and she won't die. The trick got old after the second one, and by now it feels the writers are just aiming for cheap shock value]. Biggest Disappointment: Psycho Pass 2. I don't even want to comment on it, after episode 4 every week I felt the show was insulting my intelligence. It was a high stakes series given its legacy and they managed to dump on the whole thing. I wish I never watched it. Worst Premise - Aldnoah Zero. We're really supposed to believe that 50 years of separation are enough for the Martians to consider themselves a superior race with no ties whatsoever to Earthlings and create a strong animosity that would drive these two civilizations to mutual destruction. Uh-huh Worst Sequel: Psycho Pass2. If insulting our intelligence wasn't bad enough, it completely ignored all the established rules and characters. I can't even begin to list all the things this fucked up. Most shameless and poorly executed money-grab: Sailor Moon Crystal. I'd give it to PP2, but I already gave it two razzies, and SMC deserves it's own "Award to the shittiest" because it's so soulless, poorly animated, shallowly written and prides itself on its "girl power" opening song just to have Usagi having to be saved by Mamoru every other episode, and the rest of the girls being flat non-entities. It exists for the sole purpose of promoting all the new overpriced SM merchandise. Cheapest budget-saving trick: Yuma's duckface in World Trigger. Seriously, Toei, start putting some goddamn money in your stuff, for crying out loud. Worst romantic scene: Pilot's Love Song, episode 1. The cheesy romantic cliché meeting of the main couple was such a lame attempt at going through a checklist of every romantic meeting trope it fell flat and discouraged me to watch any more of the show. Most wasted character: Kana, Parasyte. This is an issue with the original source material, but I think her character, with the unique abilities she displayed, spoiler[could've become a much larger player in the plot, but she was kind of wasted and turned into an obsessive idiot] that literally spoiler[dug her own grave] Worst Lead Character: Inaho - Aldnoah. Zero. There was nothing interesting or remotely likable about this guy, not even a reason that explained why this 15-y-o was much more capabla than any other experienced military. [EDIT: Changed where the spoiler tags were on "Most obnoxiously unkillable" so that it made more practical sense. - Key] |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group