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The Best Anime of 2021


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q_3



Joined: 02 Sep 2015
Posts: 129
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:59 pm Reply with quote
I think it's unfair to call Wonder Egg Priority the worst show of the year, sure it was abruptly canceled after just seven episodes without resolving anything, but those seven episodes were pretty good!
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 653
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:01 pm Reply with quote
My best were:
Odd taxi
Ousama ranking
Megalobox: nomad
Case study of Vanitas
Demon school, Iruma


And I'm not surprised to see which placed on the Mega poll.

My worst were WEP and Promised neverland for the reasons given. There might have been some bad shows i finished this year like Full dive but i had no expectations going into a show like that. Wep and TPN left me feeling sad and annoyed despite promising starts
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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:01 pm Reply with quote
Because I forgot to list my favorite characters and moments for 2021 - I tried to list those out before the mega poll results were posted, but alas it was probably posted as I was typing.

Favorite Cast of Characters:
1. Kageki Shoujo - Every main girl got her moment to shine, with some like Kaoru getting entire episodes to themselves. I love how rich and fully-realized each of the girl's inner lives and personalities come across and I really would LOVE a season 2 pretty please...

2. Fruits Basket - Feels like cheating to include a direct sequel for supporting cast, obviously they'll have more development with 50 episodes already under their belt. But considering how much development we got for everyone (except maybe Yuki who had his breakthroughs in S2), it feels worse not to include them.

3. Ranking of Kings - I love Boji and Kage as a duo and every supporting character continues to surprise me. Especially with the depth given to those who are seemingly very cookie-cutter storybook "villains" on the surface.

4. SSSS.Dynazenon - While Akane got the most development in Gridman, Dynazenon seemed to share the love much more equally. I do think Dynazenon is a bit messier than its predecessor, but the supporting cast is one of its strongest attributes.


Favorite Moments:
1. spoiler[The curse finally breaks] (Fruits Basket the Final) - Not much to say here that wouldn't be covered in spoiler tags, but it was easily one of the most cathartic and emotionally satisfying moments in anime this year.

2. Ep 4 of Odd Taxi - Gacha hell is real folks. While I enjoyed Odd Taxi's premiere, this was the episode that convinced me it might be a masterpiece by the end of it.

3. The finale (Heike Monogatari) - While Ranking of Kings had my personal premiere of the year, Heike easily nabbed my favorite final episode. Full of imagery that will stick with me for years, lines that so perfectly sum up the crux of the show, and the emotional weight needed to cap off a story of this scale.4.

4. "Goodbye Evangelion" - Feels pretty self-explanatory, but from the moment I watched it I knew it would make a list like this.
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saber721



Joined: 21 Jul 2009
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:06 pm Reply with quote
It warms my heart to see 86 ending up in the top three in the poll. I just wish the production committee or whoever was responsible for the schedule hadn't made things so tight and impossible that A-1 had to delay multiple episodes. (But such is the current state of the industry it seems)
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Dark Mac



Joined: 17 May 2008
Posts: 309
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:18 pm Reply with quote
Re:Zero only sixth makes me sad.

Higurashi Sotsu is my pick for worst of the year. I already didn't think Gou was good, and this takes all Gou's potential and shits on it big time.

Disappointed not to see Fena represented here too. It was a much bigger disappointment than WEP in the end.
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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:43 pm Reply with quote
I usually don't actually finish a lot of anime I hate enough to put on a worst list. I didn't bother with the obvious picks like Ex-Arm or Promised Neverland S2. My worst "dropped" show would easily go to Yashahime for just... failing at everything I would have enjoyed or appreciated with an Inuyasha sequel.

I will say the Wonder Egg Priority finale hurt. It was a serious AOTY contender and easily my top show of Winter 2021 until the last couple episodes. And it wasn't even merciful enough to have a subpar finale instead of a depressing, almost rage-inducing one.

Also Higurashi Sotsu was a massive disappointment that I actually stuck with until the end. Good lord did they drop the ball hard there, and reading poor Lynzee's weekly reviews for it was just so sad haha

As far as the Mega Poll results, I'm not too surprised with anything in the top half of the list, but its really nice to see shows like Heike Story & Dynazenon sneak in there (both of which I know are pretty acclaimed but wasn't sure they were popular enough to get votes). Actually my biggest surprise might be Demon Slayer's Mugen Train arc being on there because I kind of figured most readers didn't bother watching it again (and the movie was included on last year's poll so this should just be for the tv series).
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
Posts: 4884
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:54 pm Reply with quote
For the worst of the year (out of the shows I watched) I guess I'd say Redo of Healer, a low hanging fruit for sure but it was bad. It's hard to care about anything happening in a story that is only filled with unlikable characters. Though I'd like to give a negative shout out to The Honor Student at Magic High School which focused on the least interesting (and most annoying) character in that series and yet still managed to reveal nothing new about her.
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Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18138
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:03 pm Reply with quote
Wow, I had heard that WEP crashed and burned (I didn't watch it past the second episode myself), but I guess I unappreciated how hard it did that and how many people it let down by doing so.

Fruit of Evolution was the worst series that I actually finished this year, but I at least found it to be entertainingly bad.

While the ordering of the top Mega-Poll results offered some mild surprises, the overall composition was almost exactly what I expected. As an interesting note, this is only the second time in the six years that ANN has been doing "The Best Anime of 20xx" in its current format that the top critic pick and the top Mega-Poll pick have coincided; the only other time was Yuri on Ice!! in 2016. (Made in Abyss came in as a very close 2nd in the Mega-Poll in 2017, and in 2018-2020 the topic critic's pick wasn't higher than 3rd.)
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omnistry



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1015
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Hands down, Pride of Orange was the worst of the year. It’s one thing to make a bad anime; it’s a new low to insult an entire sport (specifically one that’s never had an anime before)!
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ZelosZoidberg



Joined: 23 May 2018
Posts: 630
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:06 pm Reply with quote
I'm sorry Pui Pui Molcar. I've failed you, I really have. Seriously guys go watch it!

Redo is my vote for worst {along with EX-ARM). Now if they had marketed it as a Ero title I probably would have no problem but man this has to be the worst hot trash anime to try to take itself seriously since King's Game.


Last edited by ZelosZoidberg on Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 1155
Location: A River Named Toms
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:06 pm Reply with quote
My ranking of Favorite Shows I've watched this year:

1. The Ranking of Kings
2. Mushoku Tensei
3. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S
4. Re: Zero Season 3
5. Quintessential Quintuplets ∬

Honorable Mentions:

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 2
So I'm a Spider, So What?
Kemono Jihen
Beastars 2
Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun
Mieruko-chan
Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut


Shows I've either stopped watching midway because it stunk worse then subway toilets, or plugged thru although I don't know why:

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter
Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town?
Drug Store in Another World - The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist
Sonny Boy
The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made
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Dayraven



Joined: 21 Jul 2021
Posts: 168
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:25 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Wow, I had heard that WEP crashed and burned (I didn't watch it past the second episode myself), but I guess I unappreciated how hard it did that and how many people it let down by doing so.

I only watched it after it had aired, well forewarned about its faults — and yeah, it’s still a fairly bad letdown that way.

I suspect it might have been a failure of the ‘make it up as you go along’ approach. The late establishment of the main antagonist and the genre shift seem to point that way, and in general it seemed at its best with striking scenes in the moment, and at its most addled when it tried to resolve things.
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Piglet the Grate



Joined: 25 May 2021
Posts: 523
Location: North America
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:36 pm Reply with quote
omnistry wrote:
Hands down, Pride of Orange was the worst of the year. It’s one thing to make a bad anime; it’s a new low to insult an entire sport (specifically one that’s never had an anime before)!


As I have posted elsewhere, I watched PuraOre: Pride of Orange all they way through and failed to see where hockey was insulted (and the only professional sporting events I have ever attended are hockey games).
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:44 pm Reply with quote
Only Lynzee Loveridge got into why Wonder Egg Priority was rage inducing, and even she doesn’t go far enough—the show buys into and promotes the narrative that teen girls lie about sexual assault in order to hurt adult men, going so far as to kill themselves in attempts to ruin the life and careers of adult men. That is not only f*cked up, it’s dangerous, We don’t need an anime to reinforce a myth about false reporting that so many knee-jerk defenders of sexual predators already believe to be true. It’s as if it was written by someone who’s goal was to undermine the #MeToo movement.
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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:12 pm Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
Only Lynzee Loveridge got into why Wonder Egg Priority was rage inducing, and even she doesn’t go far enough.

THIS so much. Sure, the whole Neiru twist and weirdly out of nowhere conclusions (or non-conclusions) weren't good by any means, but the Koito stuff was so deeply upsetting and felt so far removed from what I believed the show was trying to explore based on earlier episodes that its rage-inducing or downright depressing rather than simply disappointing.

There are still small blessings like individual episodes + characters I know I'll look back fondly on, I'll always love the OP, and heck I'd be shocked if we don't see either Mikaela or Anairis get a Crunchyroll nomination for their dub performances (preferably the former but why that's less likely is a completely off-topic tangent)... but a finale like that is just going to kill the show for me. Which is so sad considering how much I loved it at the start.
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