Melv's Anime Awards Part 4: Anime of The Year

I deserve to get hit for taking so long to finish this. Also, Girls Last Tour is an amazing 2017 anime which I sadly watched in 2018 so was no eligible for the anime awards. 

Hiatus x Hiatus from yours truly. It has been a tough few months of slaving over engineering sheets that made no sense whatsoever. I had quite a few current anime series in  my backlog (thankfully all caught up now) and I hope you guys have been enjoying the current season. If you're curious, I am enjoying a lot out of Hinamatsuri, Hisone to Maso-tan and Steins; Gate Zero.

But yeah, it's time to finish what I began so many months ago now. I apologize if this isn't relevant anymore but I will finish this!

Without further ado, I present to you my personal top 5 anime series of 2017.



5. Gamers! (Summer 2017, MAL Avg Score: 7.24, Studio Pine Jam )

Desu Desu intensifies

This was an anime series that I was not expecting to even watch in the first place, never mind having the enviable honour of making it into my top 5 anime of 2017. I was convinced by r/anime to try out this anime and I instantly fell in love with the series from the first episode.

This was an anime that used a lot of the common tropes, but when the tropes are or so fun to watch, how can I say no? Here was an anime about a plain looking game-loving MC building his own harem of two fellow beautiful game-loving girls and another pretty girl who is actually the girlfriend of his best friend. Sounds generic? Pretty much.

Yet, this anime series was so fun to watch. I found myself anticipating every week for the latest episode of Gamers! seeing how all the characters hilariously interact with each other. Gamers! prided itself on one aspect - misunderstandings.

You know the usual misunderstandings between the many recurring female characters and one MC which creates needless drama that extends to 12 episodes of zero human communication? Gamers! turns it to an 11 with this concept which might annoy the shit out of people but the show did it so well that it was too entertaining to hate.

I had so much fun with this series and that is why I gave it a 9 out of 10. The openings and endings are pretty catchy which is also a plus. Episode 6 will always stay in my memory.

Chiaki is best girl.



4. Net-juu no Susume (Fall 2017, MAL Avg Score: 7.87, Signal. MD )

Me when watching this show. Morimori is just too cute.

Oh look at this, another rom-com? Man I've gotten soft in my older years (I'm 21). Long are the days where I only watch long-running 50-100 episode type shounens which I now try to avoid like a plague, mostly because I don't have time to get invested into shows like that anymore.

This was in my opinion, the best rom-com to come out of 2017. It was such a simple story by rom-com standards with really only one couple to focus on with zero alternative love interests. It was just Morimori and Sakurai-san. That was it. And they were not even high school students or anything. They were goddamn adults. It was near perfection.

It was something of a treat to wait every week and see the beautiful relationship between this two adorable lovebirds kindle into a bright fire. On one hand, we hand the most adorable little 30 year old turned NEET as she struggles to communicate with other people after locking herself in her sweet little paradise of MMORPG. And on the other, we had Sakurai, an actual hard-working employee and an overall nice guy who enjoys the ocassional MMORPG game in his downtime.

And of course, they both meet online in the same game where with each beautiful episode their love story begins. It's hard for me to describe in words how much I enjoyed this anime. It was simply so satisfying seeing the main couple which I shipped pretty hard started to blossom into a beautiful 10 episode story. I simply couldn't get enough of this beautiful series and the only thing really stopping me from giving the show a 10 was the somewhat poor ending.

Yet, I gave this show a 9 due to the amount of satisfaction I had from watching these two adorable munchkins get together and realize that I wanna fall in love too. OP and ED from this anime was also goddamn top-tier in my opinion. Watch it.

Morimori is best girl.



3. Made in Abyss (Summer 2017, MAL Avg Score: 8.92, Kinema Citrus )  

Mesmerising.

What can I say that has not been said about Made in Abyss. From the first episode to the last, this anime series did not drop in terms of quality whatsoever. It was high production stuff and any other year, it would have easily clinched anime of the year for me.

This show also had a relatively simple premise with some strong world building. A girl and her robot-like friend go into a massive hole i.e an abyss in the middle of the city to find her mother who is deemed to have died in one of the layers of the abyss.

It was simple, no doubt but there was some really good story telling done here with great world building. The number of layers within the abyss with the many mysterious and dangerous creatures and characters were so brilliant to experience. There was a real adventure vibe that I got from this series as I went through each episode living in the shoes of these two souls learning more and more about the world that they had lived in, the people they were living with and even about themselves as what it means to be human fighting against the forces of nature.

I could go on and on about the beautiful setting this show had but I won't. It is the highest rated show in this top 5 for a reason. I really felt entering each episode, especially the latter episodes, a sense of foreboding danger that might befall on our beloved characters. The show really conveys the dangers of the abyss really well with amazing visuals, sounds and good story-telling. It gave me chills seeing how fucked up the world in the abyss was, and that is saying something.

The opening and ending song was catchy but what really stood out was the amazing soundtrack by Kevin Penkin. It is one of the many OSTs that I repeatedly listened to this post-anime as I was eager to relieve the beautiful memories of this show.

I gush and gush but this show just misses the perfect 10 score. Just. And yes, the ending of the show is yet again the culprit. Some might not feel that way but I thought the ending was anticlimatic. Anyways, it was still a sparkling show.

Lyza is best girl.



2. Uchouten Kazoku S2 (Spring 2017, MAL Avg Score: 8.22, P.A. Works ) 

Destiny!

And coming in second is the second season of  Uchouten Kazoku. Calling this show an underwatched gem would be a huge understatement. It pains me to say that this show flew massively under the radar for many people in 2017. I mean the first season was already sadly underwatched which made the second season even less desirable to be picked up by a typical anime watcher.

Yet to me, who absolutely loved the first season, the second season improved by leaps and bounds of what the first season had. And don't get me wrong, I gave the first season a well-deserved 10/10 as I enjoyed the show massively. However, it may be recency bias talking here but I honestly enjoyed season 2 even more.

Season 2 took what made the first season special and added a whole lot of different characters and plot details that I really enjoyed. The addition of certain characters such as Nidaime, Juroujin and Tenmanya were very welcomed indeed as it gave the show a fresh look thanks to their colourful personalities. I personally loved Nidaime to bits as he was such a badass character.

Throughout the first season, Benten had that untouchable god-like aura about her which made her dangerously attractive and feared among many. Yet, Nidaime gave zero shits about her and took her down a peg more than once in the show. It was so satisfying to see Benten humbled and the many clashes between the two were so great to watch.

Of course, I can't forget about the tanukis in the show. Our MC and his eccentric family members were still ridiculously charming and great to watch. I found myself invested still in the story of their lives. The overlooming threat of being eaten was still omnipresent in the show which made me really fear for their lives at times. The show does a very good job in making me care about this adorable family. Besides the idiot family, there was also a much higher amount of Kaisei screentime which was also great to see. I enjoyed the little tidbits of Kaisei in the first season and more was certainly better in the case of Kaisei.

I also loved how the second season seamlessly continued where the first season left off. Unlike many sequels, there was a great reason for the show to exist and it just left me wanting Season 3. The visuals was stunning as usual from P.A. Works as they really displayed the beautiful fantastical and mythical world of Kyoto. The many beautiful shots in some of the many powerful scenes from the show took my breath away at times and I certainly will remember them for years to come.

The soundtrack too was great as well, adding some new brilliant tracks to what was already a very solid soundtrack in season one. It was very atmospheric and had that mysterious feel that I adored as I learned more and more about these mythical tanuki and tengu characters. The opening and ending was reprised by milktub and fhana respectively to great effect. The OP was upbeat and fantastic as usual with brilliant visuals while the ED was beautiful as expected from the very talented fhana.

This show got a 10/10 for simply doing no wrong from start to finish. It had a very satisfying ending which made me grin like a little kid finding out that he was being brought out to eat fast food by his parents. This show needs more coverage indeed.

Kaisei is best girl. 

1. Houseki no Kuni (Fall 2017, MAL Avg Score: 8.49, Studio Orange )

You haven't watched this anime yet??? - Phos is disgusted.

The moment this show finished airing, I knew that it would be anime of the year. Without a shadow of a doubt. The entire 12 episode journey was a masterpiece, of which I could not find a single solid flaw in the whole series. Of course, I could nitpick here and there but honestly, it was really a near-perfect show for me.

So what's this show about anyway? In a nutshell, it was a show about gems that were humanoid who spend all of their lives living on their own against an ever present threat by mythical creatures from the Moon called the Lunarians. They live with Sensei who is respected and loved by all the gems as their adoptive father.

Now, I really want to be as careful as possible when talking about this show because I really do want people who haven't watched the show and read this long-winded review and be convinced to give this show a shot. This show unfortunately did not gain as much popularity as a lot of the big hitters such as Made in Abyss and Boku no Hero Academia in 2017 which saddens me because more people should give this show a shot as this show deserves a lot of love. Therefore, in a wholly biased mindset, I shall give a pretty concise break-down on what I loved about this show that I didn't give to the previous 4 in my top 5.


Artstyle/Visuals (10/10)

Beautiful.

One of the key talking points about this show would be the staggering amount of CG used in this anime. With the gems being the main characters in the show, it was always going to be hard to show the sparkling characteristics of the gems in all its glory simply by using hand-drawn animation.

And holy shit, Studio Orange pulled it off fantastically. Not once did I feel nauseated or felt that the use of CG was unwarranted or affected the show in anyway. In fact, I absolutely adored the CG effects used in this show. Shot after shot, I could really feel the hard work that went into producing the visual style of this anime. The movement of the gems as they zip through the air with their swords was a sight to behold every time they were called into action. The many enemies that they faced looked terrifying at times, yet really beautiful.

The gems themselves looked very different from their counterparts in the original manga source but yet, I really think they looked great by their own right. There were many scenes etched in my memory which displayed the full creative talent of the animators and artists that worked on these beautiful scenes. I will not spoil the battles for you but take my word for it, it was so fucking good.

The background art was hand-drawn to perfection as well. The end cards for each episode were a clear indicator on how beautiful this anime was. I fell in love with the background art which displayed the changing seasons during the anime, sunset, sunrise and looming danger to a quality that my eyes were simply not worthy of looking at.

10 out of 10 for sure.

Music (10/10)

Some of the best tracks from the official OST

I cannot stop gushing about this show and now I have to talk about the music in this show. And yes it was great too.

I have mentioned this in Part 2 of my Anime Awards so you can click the link to see my in depth thoughts about the show's music. Spoiler alert, it's great.

I'll start with the OP. It's probably the weakest of all the three parts of music in the anime but it is still a really good OP. The music is great and the visuals, while not the best is still pretty good.

The ED on the other hand is a whole different force. The music here is so good backed by the beautiful vocals as well. It starts off slow but as the song continues, it starts to build up into an epic finale accompanied in the background by blaring heroic sounding trumpets that gets me all hyped up even listening it now. Yet, the lyrics tells a very beautiful and sad story if one listens hard enough. The visuals which I believe was hand-drawn has the beautiful watercolour look which is much closer to the drawings in the manga which is impressive as well.

The official OST is absolutely superb as well. There are of course a few standout tracks of the many but I would say that each and every track plays its part amplifying the scene it was played in to perfection. No other genre in the visuals art scene relies on music more than anime and this OST pretty much proves that. For every battle, there was a great piece of music. Same goes for each confrontation, plot twist and revelation. I fell in love with the OST and it really is one of the best ever in my opinion.

Story(10/10)

Man, I really want to tell you what the story entails but I feel like my dumb self would spoil it for you guys. This really is a series best went in blind.

"Long story short, the world is now inhabited by crystalline organisms called Gems. They are constantly under threat by creatures from the Moon called the Lunarians and spend most of their lives defending themselves from them. One of these Gems is Phos. She's a useless little gem who literally does nothing for the Gems although she really wants to help. She gets assigned to do some encyclopedia work and meets up another gem called Cinnabar who is also rejected by the Gems. Phos therefore goes to find a job that both of them can do. "

Okay, that's pretty much it. Take my word for it that this synopsis really doesn't do this series justice but this is due to how much the series evolved over the 12 episodes that it ran for. As a story, it was told beautifully through its amazing visuals and characters. I kept wanting more and more as each episode ended as I had to wait agonizingly for a week. The story was paced beautifully with nearly zero info dumps as it told everything it wanted to - with great effect. How great of an effect? Watch episode 8. Holy shit. I still have chills.

This was a story that I will not forget anytime soon.

Characters(10/10)

Love all of them. Some more than others.

Despite me literally giving 10 out of 10 for everything, the characters in this show really does stand out in the show. I don't think it is possible to not fall in love with all the characters in this show. The whole cast of our lovable gems are fucking brilliant and plays their part in making the series as acclaimed as it is.

From our ever charming and witty MC, Phos to the many side characters such as Jade, Alexandrite, Diamond, Cinnabar, Kongo Sensei to even certain characters that barely had any screen time like Ametyst and Padparadscha, I genuinely enjoyed all of their screentime. None of them overstayed their welcome but complimented each other when possible. It truly felt like they were all gems who have known each other for years as they all gelled really well.

I might be here all day if I were to tell why I loved each character so much since pretty much all the characters in this show were fucking amazing. So, I'll probably just leave you to trust me on this one.

In short, I'll say that the character development for Phos really stole the show in this one. She started off as a naive, spoiled and frankly pretty useless gem at first which amused me to no end. She had a certain bubbly personality that some had find annoying but this only made me root for her even harder to succeed. Phos went through a lot from episode 1 up to the final episode and I truly felt her overwhelming flood of emotions she went through as she changed massively from then. No spoilers of course but I would say the character development for Phos throughout the series was beautiful to experience.





And with that, I have finally reached the end of this whole personal anime awards. A beautiful year for anime indeed. Have a great day!