Forum - View topicThe Best (And Worst) Anime of Winter 2020
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
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Best to me would be Pet. To me it was kind of a shame that it wasn't picked up by reviewers, as I feel an introspection every week would've been wonderful for its mind screws. Second best is either Eizouken or Railgun - since Railgun hasn't aired as much as it should've it's tough to say.
Worst, if we're simply considering stuff I've not dropped, would have to be Beastars since people consider that to be this season. If we do consider dropped things, 22/7 for sure. |
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Lactobacillus yogurti
 Posts: 844 Location: Latin America |
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I saw Beastars last year, and I loved it, since despite it all, it's a well-written series with surprisingly imperfect characters. But this season, the only series I saw was Dorohedoro, which reminds me a lot of the original FLCL in its WTF-ery.
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Oggers
 Posts: 359 Location: Ontario, Canada |
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For me, the best would be Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, with the runners-up being Beastars and The Case Files of Jeweler Richard (which I started watching much later in the season, and while it's not perfect I'm still enjoying it quite a bit). No Worst since I don't watch anime I already know won't be for me.
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5420 Location: Iscandar |
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Best: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Runner-up: Asteroid in Love Least good: 22/7 or F/GO Babylon |
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joeydoa
Posts: 121 |
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Best: Eizoken and Railgun T - I looked forward to these each week. Going in to the last episode of Eizoken there seemed to a lot of story to wrap up and maybe there was going to be an announcement of a second cour or that the 12 episodes initially reported was wrong. Unfortunately it is over - there seems so much more to know about the Eizoken characters and their insular town and school life. Normally, I am a slice of life guy so Railgun is an abnormality in my viewing habits - but it is a perfect mixture of cute girls doing cute things interspersed with some high stakes action with one or two major plot lines per cour - it is a perfect mix. I would find it hard to choose any season over any other.
Runner-up: Uchitama - This was a fantastic slice of life series that was composed of several short stories per episode about the lives of cats and dogs in a town in japan. It was very sweet and provided some good pieces of wisdom - always bang on the front of your car before starting and check the wheel wells to make sure no cats are up in there. BOFURI and Asteroid in Love deserve honorable mention. Most Disappointing: Chihayafuru - I loved the first two seasons, watching them twice over but this season was uneven - not a lot of in depth Karuta matches, focusing on messy relationships and hurt feelings with Chihaya herself being marginalized for most of the series. For me the best parts were learning more about Sou and his eccentric ways and the episode that featured the Queen - I really wish there would of been an epic rematch that lasted episodes between Shinobu and Chihaya - but alas it was not to be. |
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tfwnoymir
 Posts: 313 Location: Hungary |
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Instead of 2, I've got 3 shows this time around that I think deserves mention:
1, Eizouken was a great ride from start to finish. Each 3 characters were interesting and lovable and the visual storytelling and sound design was exceptional. I'm not even saying this as a Yuasa fan, because this is literally the only thing I've seen from him. Others have written plenty about why is it so lovable, so I leave it to them. 2, Dorohedoro was also fun. I've never read the manga but I definitely will after this. Warning for those going in blind, it's very gory and there's some nudity in it, nowhere near as Gantz-level, but still present: if it helps, it's very over-the-top so it's not as gross as it could be. If nothing else, people should check out the OP and the EDs - yes, there were multiple of them - which definitely shows Dorohedoro was an adaptation made with love. 3, Asteroid In Love is a very overlooked show, wasn't even reviewed on the site. Some of its elements were iffy - looking at you, Suzu - but other than that, recommend to anyone into slice of life shows or STEM, as it gets very nerdy about its subjects, particularly about astronomy and geology. Mira and Ao are lovely protagonists, but the rest of the cast is also great. While I didn't like Suzu, she's been voiced by Ueda Reina, and she's a great VA, so at least that made her antics tolerable. The later episodes were especially strong, I don't want to spoil too much, but just in advance, the anime didn't end with the 3rd years graduating, which is a pleasant surprise. As for the bad shows: Hatena Illusion and 22/7 comes to my mind. The latter is especially disappointing because it was one of my most anticipated shows this season: Horiguchi Yukiko worked on the shorts that preceded it and those were great. Sadly she was no longer among the staff. Only seen 2 episodes of each, but that was enough. |
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cchigu
Posts: 250 |
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For me:
Best: Dorohedoro Runner up: Chihayafuru/Eizouken Worst: Interspecies Reviewers/Isekai Quartet |
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shterraarson
 Posts: 43 |
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BEST: Keep Your Hands Off! Eizouken Masaki Yuasa, you brilliant bastard. This is 1,000% my favorite show of this season. Each episode was a delight to watch. The animation was stunning. It had so much love and passion thrown into it. I was in fact brought to tears during some scenes. I adore all three main characters. I want to protect them all. I remember the first time a piece of animation captured my soul. And this show re-ignited that spark.
Also that OP will never leave my head and I don't think I ever want it to. Runner Up//Honorable Mention: ID Invaded Holy fudge this show is insane. It's like The Cell + Inception + Psycho Pass. I loved the diversity of the ID wells. There's a montage from episode 10 that ripped my heart out. The music is bangin'. So the twist toward the end is probably my only caveat as I could kinda see it coming HOWEVER the visuals especially in the last episode are straight out of End of EVA. Second Runner Up: In/Spectre (aka Iwanaga's Book Of Friends) So Blast of Tempest is one of my favorite shows that no one remembers from 2013. And In/Spectre is written by the same guy. I'm a HUGE Yokai/Folklore nerd. Plus I'm always down for a mystery. So this was right up my alley. Cute, cheeky, witty banter between the main characters. Interesting story overall. Decent(ish) production values. Does occasionally suffer from exposition overload. But I still found it very entertaining. And yet another bangin' OP. Worst: Plunderer So I do hear it picks up a bit later on buuuuuut.... this show just has like everything a generic battle fantasy show from 2004 would have. It's 2020. WHY are we still making shows like this??? Production values are really bad. Characters are extremely unlikeable. Dumb fanservice nonsense that ads nothing of value whatsoever. Idk man... but I'm perfectly fine to continue on without having subject myself to the rest of this show. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4420 |
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If we're distinguishing disappointing from bad, then I'd say ID was the most disappointing. It felt like an animated version of a pitch meeting where it had various good and not so good ideas, and didn't devote enough time to any one of them to put together more than a good episode here and there.
Hatena Illusion probably fits the bill for what I would call the bad of what I watched. Most of the time, I can see things in a show that at least seem like justification for an anime to get the green light. This one left me wondering who the audience was for it. I guess the premise of magical thieves sounded alright, but then it pretty much immediately decides to do next to nothing with that. |
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harminia
 Posts: 1997 Location: australia |
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You said Symphogear. Now I'm intrigued, almost to the point of considering watching Hatena just to see what you mean |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 421 |
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anyone who says Plunderer gets better is a liar
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1498 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Best was Eizouken for obvious reasons. Haven't seen the final episode of Kabukicho Sherlock let, but considering how much it wasted the enticing new characters of Albert Trevor and Kate Carlyle - between the former spoiler[going from being Moriarty's tormentor in prison to one of his many pawns, then killing himself off in yet another "you said my name, now I must do it" suicide] and the latter spoiler[doing absolutely nothing of consequence, even after inexplicably surviving spending time alone in a room with Moriarty just after he fatally shot his father] - I'm expecting disappointment. I'm not that far into My Hero Academia 's seventh cour yet, with episode 81 having aired this past Sunday on Toonami, but it's definitely been serviceable, as the series has been in the past.
I don't have a worst because no anime has proven worthy of such a disparaging designation since Nyaruko-san in 2012, but I do find it hilarious that everyone's picks for worst of the season (minus Lauren's) were FUNimation co-productions. Considering how disappointing most audiences found Dimension W and Fire Force by the ends of their respective runs, I don't find this super-surprising, but still, it really makes you wonder where FUNi's priorities lie regarding the anime they directly have a hand in making. 
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3rdImpakt
Posts: 118 |
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Best for me are Dorohedoro and Eizouken. Dorohedoro edges it out for me with just how well the adaptation turned out, from the art to the music and even how the CGI turned out in the end. I'm glad people are bringing it up a lot here in the comments. Let's keep the conversation going while it's still the most relevant as we'll likely only recieve a series review and possible mention in next seasons best of (if we're lucky).
Im curious about something.... Pretty sure ANN has correspondence in Japan right? Why don't you have one of them legally review the show as it airs on Japanese Netflix or something? It's a series many users are interested in and would get you clicks. My runner up is Ishozoku Reviewers. Just a fun show to laugh with my buddy over discord about. |
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scowler
 Posts: 92 |
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#1 Eizouken
#2 Toilet Bound Hanako-kun (hard to omit Beastars and BOFURI) Worst: Smile Down the Runway |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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As good as Eizouken apparently is, the unholy trinity of overwhelming hype plus anime-about-anime (a genre I'm exhausted with) plus really annoying OP (made worse by the fact that everyone else loves it) will probably prevent me from ever watching it. I can find a way to hate almost anything if it has just one of those three characteristics. Beastars sounds good in an abstract sense, but doesn't appeal to me at all.
I don't really have a standout favorite this season, going by how I'm several episodes behind on every show still in my queue, but of those, Somali is probably the most creative, so if I had to pick it'd be that one. Runner-up jumble consists of Magia Record, In/Spectre, and Asteroid in Love. Bofuri looks interesting but would require piracy and/or buying a new streaming service, so I haven't gotten around to it. Ditto for Hanako-kun. |
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