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The Best Anime of 2016

Sorry, I fail to see how either of those examples are "attacking" the show. I never denied it was a good show, and I made it quite clear that I was asking "other than it being good, why is it popular?" My "that would be boring" comment was referring to merely accepting "It's popular because it's good" at face value.

Anyway, I'm stopping because I directly answered your question on possible outside factors instead of the quality of the show and you are obviously not really interested in talking about those.

2. Figure skating representation. It's not a sport that has had an anime before

I guess that modern anime evolved into more and more fantastical environment/depictions so that now they just don't care at alll how "realistic" things look. Only how "cool" they are. It's perhaps analogous to the evolution in painting you have talked about before.

But what I miss the most in older stuff is the more organic look of the colors since the animation cells were painted by hand and that created a more complex and organic quality for the animation cells. Today they are digital so the color is much more uniform and "boring". You can notice that clear difference that started to appear around 1999-2000 when most studios switched to fully computerized animation.

Still I am not that of a big fan of "cool looking" animation sequences what I care the most is good direction, art and writing although I find those animation pyrotenics to be always a joy to watch.

I just came back here to say that I was kind of amazed that "99" from Mob Psycho 100 didn't receive even a single mention in the best OP's of 2016 list. In my opinion, that opening beats pretty much anything else that came out this year. By a long shot. Sure, Yuri on Ice had a dope ass song, but it didn't sync up with its visuals nearly as downright perfectly as "99" did with its gorgeous and imaginative visuals full of morphing objects and nearly no hard-cuts in sight. It marries its music with its visuals to make both even better than they already are as standalone pieces. And that, imo, is what makes a truly effective opening.

Oh, and happy new year my fellow weebs! Here's to another year of (hopefully) lots of great new Japanese cartoons!

I think this can be explained by the fact that for many people, the best OP/ED is still pretty much a matter of picking which song you liked the best and then see if the visuals are good enough and in sync. It's understandable in a way (hell, that's how I used to choose my favorite OP/EDs until a few years ago), but some excellent openings or endings will definitely fly under the radar like that.

With painted cels it is just a flat layer of paint,when it is shot, they turn it over onto the other side, to both hide any brush strokes and make it look more shiny. So the end result is just a colour, it really makes no real difference. The only stand out can be dirt on the cel, which honestly is really bad, as it shows a lack of care for the product, you don't see that in a lot of American animation.

Secondly, the switch to what is called Digitial paint, happened over a slightly longer period of time, Saber Marionette J to X which came out in 98 is Digital Paint, and Cowboy bebop the Movie, which came out in 01 is cel painted. And there is no clear difference at all, it is often debated what shows are and what are not digitally painted, for a few reasons.

Early digital paint is very different from today, and had more of a basic look very similar to cel paint. Also backgrounds(according to art director for Baccano!) were hand painted until 06, and even today some shows still have hand painted backgrounds, which is actually mostly likely the organic part of Anime you were talking about, as that is where brush strokes can be seen and fine details are present. Here's an example from the early 10s: https://2xtottemo.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/milky-holmes.jpg
A surprising high amount of shows from the 90s, mostly the later half, had some degree of CG, either 3D models or some 2D computer effects, the water in the sewers in Jin-Roh for example. This mix of media muddles what is what.

Lastly the animation is not computerised, colouring and animation are different departments, as is evident from Shirobako or any behind the scenes making of. They even still use pencil and paper since most animators don't know how to use a computer, how can that be computer animation
Dam I didn't expect to.write this much.

That's why they call it SAO 2016.