Forum - View topicThe Best and Worst Anime of Spring 2016
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1401 |
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Best: My Hero Academia
I was a mark for MHA from the word Go. I love the manga, I love the adaptive team behind it, and it delivered on just about ever level I could have hoped for. Pacing issues aside, the series just absolutely NAILED the big, fist-pumping moments that made me fall in love with the manga, even improving on a number of them and giving me more to enjoy with every big event. No small achievement considering it's adapting what I consider the weakest material in the entire series! Can't wait for season 2 Runner Up: Ushio & Tora I was a fan of season 1, but S2 absolutely blew it out of the water. It was momentous, dramatic, brimming with some fantastic and unique action sequences, and did something so few shounen anime get to do - it ended. It set up a huge, chaotic final battle that spanned half the season yet managed to make every moment feel enormous and important and satisfying. I really hope this team gets to make that Rurouni Kenshin reboot they discussed last year. Worst: Big Order I almost feel bad putting this show here, consider I got an incredible amount of entertainment out of it, but in truth literally everything about this show was a failure. Its attempts at drama and character were so ludicrous and brainless they became hilarious, yet whenever it tried to be funny it somehow completely failed pitifully. It looked awful, the soundtrack felt like it was trying to sabotage its own show, and ending is some of the worst writing I've seen in anything in years. Thanks Big Order, you're a special kind of disaster that I'll remember for quite a while. Special mention to Macross Delta since it's not streaming. It's a mess of a narrative, but so is basically every Macross TV series, but unlike Frontier this one's been delivering on the humor and crazy ideas that I most love seeing from this series. I love the cast, I'm impressed by its space mysticism aesthetic, and it's the first entry since 7 where I really love the music. Looking forward to the 2nd half immensely. |
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RobBarracuda
 Posts: 4 |
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Best: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable
It's JoJo. Does anything else need to be said? Runner-up: Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto! The best way to describe Sakamoto IMO would be to compare it to the recent Deadpool film i.e. both are based around a one-note gag that should get old fast, but the comedic timing of everything is so on-point that it stays funny and entertaining all throughout. The main thing that I think keeps the anime from getting stale is the fact that Sakamoto himself both is and isn't the main character/focus of each episode. While he is the title character of the series, the majority of each episode is wisely spent from the POV of the varied and funny secondary cast, and the show's more about them and their interactions/experiences with Sakamoto, ensuring just the right amount of stylishness that each episode needs. Worst: Kiznaiver I'm slightly hesitant to call Kiznaiver a "bad" show, but I call it worst of the season because it is easily the most frustrating viewing experience I had all season. I get that the show is supposed to be about the main cast learning to empathize with each other and understand their underlying feelings and sense of humanity, but so much of the show (even right up to the last couple of episodes) seems to waffle back and forth on whether or not it agrees with this central premise, as the series often acts like it deliberately wants the cast to fail at getting along. Otherwise fantastic animation/character designs, shot framings, and music sadly feel wasted on this narrative, and this holds true for the emotional moments that on paper could have been brilliant (I could see the climactic emotional story beats of the final two episodes being real gut punches in a much better-written series). Idk if this is standard for Mari Okada's writing style since, truth be told, this is my first time ever watching anything she's written, but this is just really weak and a waste of potential. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2617 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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That was me (Rebecca), and it was one of my favorites the season it aired. |
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xifeng.hu
 SubscriberPosts: 103 Location: Oahu,Hawaii |
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Best: Re:Zero
Runner-up: My Hero Academia Worst: Big Order |
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1010 |
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Best of the Season: Re:Zero
Shallow isekai ("Transported to another world") shows have been a dime a dozen the past few years, but very little of them have had anything in the way of actual narrative substance. Not even Konosuba of last season, which I'll admit to loving too. Maybe it's because by some miracle, the male protagonist is an actual freaking character, with a personality, emotional depth, and character flaws. Maybe it's because the world doesn't revolve around him and his needs, and has interesting issues that are completely seperate from his own. Maybe it's because half a dozen girls don't throw themselves at him for little to no reason. Maybe because the show does a great job of showing what happens when you throw a mostly normal kid like Subaru in this kind of story (He gets f*cked up, hard). Maybe because I'm sick of the same old BS and this comes off as a breath of fresh air. A shallow reason would be I really like the girls. I love that Rem and Ram are shown as the cliched identical twin maids, only to reveal that one only copies the other because spoiler[of self-hate stemming from feelings of guilt and inferiority.] Runner-Up: The Lost Village Let's dispel the notion that Mizushima and Okada didn't know what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing. A show so absurd so consistently doesn't happen by mistake. I wasn't sure myself, but by episode 5 when Lovepon became the Spring Waifu, I knew for certain. Worst of the Season: Big Order Trainwreck would imply that this show was ever even on the rails. I don't even feel like describing it. Last edited by ThatGuyWhoLikesThings on Wed Jun 29, 2016 4:03 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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You're new around here so you probably don't know the reviewers all that well, but ANN is actually one of the rare sites were you find pretty much no bias against female-targeted anime -at least amongst the critics-, with many of the reviewers enjoying the fujoshi stuff quite a bit. Quite the contrary, the -chan crowd tend to come here to whine that the site has a prejudice against male otaku shows. Jacob and Gabriella have taken a lot of flack for having negative opinions on popular otaku shows. I've honestly got no clue of where you're getting this idea that there is a bias against BL stuff. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju was universally acclaimed by the reviewers here too. You can read Rebecca's reviews on Love Stage and judge by yourself if there's any prejudice here, but as she has already said in this same thread, she liked it a lot. Rebecca also does manga reviews and I'm sure she's done a handful of them for BL manga -can't remember any in particular. Jacob tweeted about liking LS too when it was airing. It's just LS and Doukyuusei are about the only not gross and rape-filled BL anime to come out in the last decade, so of course it'll seem like the majority of reviews for those shows are negative -because the shows in question are awful- |
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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I went back and forth a lot about if I should include Tanaka-kun or Jojo's as my runner-up. I think I picked Tanaka because I just had more to say about that show, but you can consider them basically tied for me.
MHA would come next in my top five, and then Concrete Revolutio? Or Joker Game? Man, there was a lot of strong stuff this season. |
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RocketOtter
Posts: 34 |
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Needless to say I liked a lot this season.
My pick for AOTS is definitely going to be controversial, but I'll say it anyway. Best: Kiznaiver Now this is something I never expected to like as much as I did. The story always kept me on my toes, the characters for the most part were pretty damn likable in their own regard, and the production values are great. The feels were strong with this thing, let me tell you. Runner-up: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Now here's one that'll likely not get me as much shit as my actual best. Hero Academia is a standard shounen, but its executed superbly. Episode 1 was like a 7 or 8, but everything after that was great in almost all aspects (The animation is one of the weaker efforts by Bones admittedly but I'm not saying its looks anywhere near bad). Looking forward to the 2nd season. Other runner-ups: High School Fleet, Ushio to Tora, Tanaka-kun, Bakuon (People who watched this for the "story" make me laugh), Re:Zero, Concrete Revolutio, Shounen Maid (What I thought this was going to be actually did occur this season (if the Super Lovers "anti-hype" is anywhere near true)), Bungou Stray Dogs (Grew on me as it went on), Luluco Worst: Big Order This anime legit feels like it was made by people who have no [expletive] idea what they're doing. The plot is nonsensical garbage, the characters are bland as fudge, and its so [expletive] hard to tell if you're meant to take it seriously or not. Its one of the few TV anime I've given a 1/10 and in my opinion it fully deserves it, cause I can't think of anything this show did right. Runner-up: Mayoiga Now this show is hilarious, but for all the wrong reasons. The script is laughably poor, primarily for the fact that I can't tell whether or not I should treat this as a serious thing or as a comedy. As it went on it just felt like the people making it stopped giving a crap, perfectly encapsulated by how it ended. In a way, just a more tolerable version of Big Order. At least I can say I had fun watching this. (Dis)honorable mentions: Crane Game Girls, Wagamama High Spec, Kabaneri, Kuma Miko's ending (I actually really liked everything prior to the ending but the ending sours the experience for me) |
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danshi_boy3
 Posts: 37 Location: Brazil |
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Best of Season: Shounen Maid.
This shoujo is so underrated! The lovely story about an a responsible boy torn between being a child or follow the advice of his dead mother about working hard did much better than all the anime this season. Runner-up: Boku no Hero Academia I'm suspect.. I'm totally fan of MHA manga since it's started, so ... haha The worst: triple tie with Tanaka-kun is always Listless (probably the biggest disappointment i have with an anime since 2001's Digimon Tamers, when i was just a child), Netoge no Yome and Re:Zero. I just can't understand why a initially nice show could downhill like Tanaka-kun did. 
Ps: Please forgive my terrible English skills. |
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Edl01
Posts: 117 |
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Glad to see so much variety in this season's favorite shows, exemplifies why this is such a fantastic season of anime.
Concrete Revolutio is my show of the season. Kind of sad Nick is the only one to have it on his list. Even in such a strong season Con Revo dominated almost every week and while I understand it's lack of mass appeal it doesn't mean I don't hope it gains traction. Choosing my runner up is very hard though. I really like a lot of this seasons shows. Kiznaiver, The Lost Village and Flying Witch are all shows I really like for different reasons, why is life so hard? Similarly because of this seasons strength my choice for least favorite show isn't even something I think is that bad. Re;Zero isn't a terrible show for me, but I don't like the premise and find the characters uninteresting. I've seen worse. |
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Raneth
Posts: 271 |
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Best: Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Fun, likable characters, good world-building, the story has constant forward momentum, and every episode is chock full of action. The cherry on top of the sundae is that it looks gorgeous. By far my favorite of the season.
Runner up: My Hero Academia. Not much to say other than its cookie cutter shonen, but its done right. Worst: Re-Zero. It had potential. The first few episodes had action and set up some sort of method to choose new royalty as the plot, and I was curious about the time travel mechanic. But it quickly squandered any potential it had in stupid light novel tropes and utterly slow pacing. The plot never goes anywhere. 80% of every episode is the completely deplorable main character wasting time and never shutting up. I think I finally gave up when the main character said something along the lines of "pretty girls have a duty to dress nice to please the eyes of others," and was never challenged on it. I hate the main character and thus I hate the show. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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Concretio's problem is that is has the whole "true art is incomprehensible" thing going for it. Half the time it was too messy, convoluted, and inconsistent to make following it easy. |
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Koda89
 Posts: 278 |
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For me my favorite is Joker Game and runner up is Flying Witch, but it was insanely close. Like they were neck and neck. So it is more a 1a and 1b type thing.
My worst is Terra Formars: Revenge. It was the first show I saw multiple episodes of that I dropped this season. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2460 |
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Iunno, I never found it that hard to follow on a surface level. Sure, it ran deep if you were aware of the references it was throwing and followed the timeline religiously, but that wasn't strictly necessary for most of the episodes. |
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xyz
Posts: 243 |
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There are too many mediocre anime this season and many more worst ones so it's hard to choose best and worst. But if I have to choose.
Best: Shonen Maid (I enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and the loveable cute characters. It's so very heart warming. There isn't anything that I can complain about this one.) Runner up: Zero (Actually I'm kind of disappointed with this show and I no longer like it as much but comparing to the others, at least the first 9 eps kept my attention.) Worst: Mayoiga (The premise sounded interesting at first but man it was on a strange level of badness. I don't know what they were thinking when they made this.) |
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