Melv's Anime Awards Part 1 : Best Visuals of 2017

This is god-tier visuals from Makoto Shinkai. (Garden of Words)

To kick off the awards show, let's go with giving some recognition to the anime series that looked so good that I at certain points, wished I lived in the show itself.

We all know the old saying, you can't judge a book by its cover. And it's true. There are countless of anime series that looks absolutely stunning but are completely devoid of any redeeming content or plot to fill in the run time. Yet, I must applaud the illustrators and animators for making such beautiful pieces of art that the joyful treat to the eyes was worth the entry fee alone.

Looking through my list of anime, I just realized that I've watched so much slice of life anime series. You know, the one where cute girls do cute things for like 13 episodes. I think that's what people call moe these days. It's great fun to watch but it doesn't do much for great visuals. These kinds of anime tend to roll out the usual cutesy backgrounds with even cutesy character designs for the entire 24 minute run. It's great in its own quirky way but it certainly isn't on the god tier level of the works of Makoto Shinkai.

And here's a horrible transition to announcing my personal picks for best visuals - hey I tried (sort of).

Here are two shows that were great too and deserve a special mention for its beautiful designs but sadly were runner-ups to the grand prize.

Uchouten Kazoku S2

This was a show that didn't first stood out to me as a visual masterpiece. It told a great story too but its visuals deserve a lot more praise than it got. This show released at early 2017 which is always an easy way to forget the masterpiece it was. With such mythical characters and cultural traditions in a beautiful Kyoto backdrop, the artists and design animators really had their work cut out for them. And they goddamn nailed it. Well done.

I absolutely love this shot and scene.

Made in Abyss

This was THE show of Summer 2017 that everyone was talking about - and for good reason. Just like Uchouten Kazoku S2, its background art was simply beautiful. With our lovely duo travelling down the abyss, the ever-changing surroundings of each layer only served to grow more lovely to look at. I found myself anticipating every week on what the next layer would look like. Its mysterious charm just won me over.

The character designs for the main cast were pretty decent but I thought the monster designs were the star of the show as at times they looked repeatedly unsettling yet beautiful.

The ending of episode 1 was the moment I knew this show would be a visual masterpiece.

What an opening.

WINNER :

Houseki no Kuni

Honestly, I feel like this show has the potential to grab all of the awards I've stated so far. It was such a good show with so many strengths and little flaws. And it was a show shot using CGI.

A decent show shot using CGI? Man, I joke you not. I've seen a few shows using CGI that had turned me off the moment I laid eyes on it. I wouldn't say I hated CGI but there were no shows YET that could have changed my mind.

Till now.

Houseki no Kuni is a visual masterpiece and it should not be limited to being '' an actually decent CGI show ''. Because that would be a disservice to the show. I won't spoil anything for you guys but there were certain episodes that took my breath away with the visuals alone. It was that good.

The character designs were really intriguing to me. To have a show where its cast to be living gems would be a hard sale to pitch but then what do I know. Diamond's design in particular was beautiful. The way Dia sparkled every time he appeared was something I had not seen before. The multitude of gems like Phos (best gem!), Bortz, Antarcticite, Cinnabar and Alexandrite were all so distinctively beautiful.

And then we had the background art, just wow. This show had an end card for each episode it aired and they were all fucking amazing. The end cards were usually based on a particular scene from the episode which basically reminded the audience on how fucking great looking the show was.

Best visuals mean I just had to use one of the beautiful background art as the home screen wallpaper of my phone. It's that fucking glorious.

Just watch Houseki no Kuni already.