So what are your choices for the Best of 2018?

[Chapinator_X]

Rather than what videos or other Best of lists would suggest, how about coming up with the shining stars of this season yourself? At the moment, I'm only going to post a Top 10 Shows list, but I might chime in with other categories relating to characters or music. 

Top 10

1. Asobi Asobase

2. A Place Further Than the Universe

3. Zombieland Saga

4. SSSS Gridman

5. Yuru Camp

6. JoJo Part V

7. DEVILMAN crybaby

8. Bunny Girl Senpai

9. Uma Musume

10. Comic Girls

 

Honorable Mentions:

Aggretsuko

Takagi-san

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro

Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan

Pop Team Epic

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori

Wotakoi

Edited December 30, 2018 by imchapp.in

[PokeNirvash]

It should be clear by now that Tonegawa is my #1. I made a post over on ANN detailing my personal top 5. (I'm the one with the dancing Popuko icon.) But, for posterity's sake, as well as that of those who don't want to subject themselves to the ANN forum community, I'll post it here, but a little further down.

Edited December 29, 2018 by PokeNirvash

[jackiemarie90]

Top five cause I don't watch a lot of new anime, I revisit old ones and others I didn't think were as a good as others. >_>

 

1. The Seven Deadly Sins revival of the commandments - I appreciated the inversion of Arthurian legend but instead of glorifying crusading Holy Knights they criticized any war mongers. Also strong character growth and connections. Also Nakaba forshadows everything. lol Favorite of the year.

2. My Hero Academia season 3 - Great steady world build up. Characters avoid cliches represented in previous shonen while still having a well connected story.

3. Devilman Crybaby -  Great retelling of an older story with highly stylized art and music. I like the dive in the darkness of humanity while avoiding edgy tropes and to me personally, I think is an interesting portrayal of hopelessness than other stories.

4. That time I reincarinated as a slime - A good isekai story that really doesn't try to hard to be a "different isekai" story with overly edgy plot and so far refreshing.

5. Cells at Work! - Dem platelets tho. And also like how it reminds me of Hetalia with real life facts sprinkled in the background with cute humor.

[EmpressAngel]

I didn't watch enough new anime to make a top 10 so here's a top 3 in no order:

1. Devilman Crybaby. Lured me in with a dick the size of my arm and then fucked me right in the soul. It hurts to smile.

2. Jojo Part 5: Vento Aureo. Just pure fun. I love the main group, the stands are cool, and the music is great.

3. My Hero Academia season 3. I haven't genuinely enjoyed a shounen this much since before Toei threw the pacing for OP down the toilet. All Might's fight was phenomenal, the characters continue to be an absolute delight to watch, and we end the season with someone who promises to be a worthy substitute for my love. The wait for season 4 is gonna be brutal.

[Gina Szanboti]

Edited from my ANN list, in no order:

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens I loved all the characters and was impressed with how intricate the plot was without ever pulling dei of the machina variety out of their asses. Everything was properly foreshadowed and almost all the plot threads were neatly tied up at the end, with the danglers perhaps inviting another season.

Hinamatsuri  One of the funniest things I watched all year, it could still rip your heart out in a flash, then turn on a dime and make you laugh through the tears.  A lot of original and creative ideas going on in this one.

Megalo Box This one had me from the OP and never backed off the throttle.

Run with the Wind One of the best surprises of the year, what I thought was just going to be another shounen sports anime about the power of friendship carried forward on two (or 20) feet (which it is, of course), has turned out to be a delightful character study of a bounty of fascinating people. I love them all, and I love the natural, slow building of their relationships and progress. So glad it's 2 cour. I think I'd happily follow them for 4.

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2  The most fun you can have with over-dressed puppets!  Watching Vape Wizard get pwned because his target was even more of a slime than he realized was the highlight of the season.  That and the touching tale of a man utterly devoted to his bloodthirsty lady sword.

Angels of Death I was unprepared for how invested I got in these psychopaths and their murder games. Not usually my cuppa tea, but the main couple were just so great together. The series only suffered when they kept them apart.

Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan What a quirky idea, and a delightful execution. Someone mentioned facial expressions, and they weren't exaggerating by half. Though not quite to the extent of Hinamatsuri, it achieves the dual goals of heartwarming and hilarious.

Hakumei and Mikochi This one nearly booted Megalobox off my top 5 (had to flip a coin), which is funny because they hardly occupy the same niche. I'm a big fan of The Borrowers, and this scratches a similar itch for miniature things. Like Megalobox and this series, the title characters couldn't be more different, and how they get along and get on each other's nerves is utterly charming. Though I mostly identify with the practical and rough-edged Hakumei, Mikochi complements her perfectly. And the costuming and scenery are to die for. This is what iyashikei anime should be.

How to keep a mummy/School Babysitters These are the Bobbsey Twins of Sweetness and Light and it would be cruel to separate them. I adore them both, delirious as I remain from the overdose of warm fuzzies.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime  It's just really pleasant to watch and I'm thoroughly enjoying Let's Play "Civilization": the Anime.

Honorable mentions:

Devils' Line Another big surprise. I came for a time-wasting vampire anime and got a slow burning romance and conspiracy series. The heroine took a lot of getting used to, but I actually warmed up to her after she started becoming a little more assertive. Unfortunately, the ending got pureed in a whirlwind wrapup, like someone pulled the plug and only bothered to tell them 3 days before the finale was due.

Frankenstein Family Hate this English title (I first knew it as Creature Family Days). This is an obscure and weird little piece which sadly doesn't really end, but it's engaging along the way and pretty creative.

Hinomaru Sumo This one gets a shout-out just for making huge, nearly naked guys body-slamming, head-butting, and just slapping the shit out of each other interesting. This is so far away from my wheelhouse I can't even, but I keep watching with anticipation.

Jingai-san no Yome This precious little short just makes me squee with its adorableness. The first episode was a wth letdown due to half of its 3-min run time being used for the OP, but with the basic premise, what there is of one, out of the way, it was my weekly dose of feel-goodness. It doesn't make a lick of sense, and doesn't need to, but if it can't elicit at least one "awww" per episode, or a sigh of regret over not having one of these alien husbandos in your life, you're dead inside.

While I'm at it, Best Characters:

Zack (Angels of Death) A psychopathic, and nearly indestructible serial killer, Zack was the life of the series. He was hilarious when he was being grouchy, touching when coping with his own PTSD, and poignant in his honorable devotion to Rachel. But I think the thing that stabbed my heart the most about him was that he couldn't read, and this bothered him, as much as he tried to pretend it didn't matter. That was a subtlety of characterization that totally caught me off guard, and impressed the hell out of me.

Prince (Run with the Wind) Everyone on the team would qualify for my Best Characters list, but I'll limit it to Ouji, my spirit animal. Clad in an amusing assortment of mood tees, he may run like a goofy Titan, but he gives his all, and never gives up, public humiliation be damned. He may be a spindly little guy, devoutly wishing to become incorporeal, but he has a defiant otaku heart.

Narrator (Mr. Tonegawa) He totally makes this series. I've never heard anyone have so much fun with narrating a series before. It's also really jarring, in a funny way, when he spits out English words (like "Number Two!" in the OP intro) with perfect American pronunciation. Have a listen to the beginning of the first episode and see for yourself. And consider that what you hear there is the most restrained his narration will ever be in the series.

[PokeNirvash]

And here's my top 5, straight from ANN.

5. Doreiku the Animation - Now, I could have put any worthier anime here. Attack on Titan S3, FLCL Alternative, B: The Beginning... but I chose this because no one else was gonna vote for it (well, most weren't), so someone had to. Also because I honestly find it underrated. I'll admit that its production values were far from stellar and the premise of partaking in a game that allows you to enslave others was enough to make plenty steer clear before it came, and the fact that one of the SCM users was the ghost of another user's mother possessing her son's body in the form of a split personality was dumb enough to void any suspension of disbelief, but dammit, I liked it! I liked that everyone had their own reasons for using the SCM, both honest and otherwise. I liked that both before and after the SCM game, the characters were all connected in various ways. I liked all the crazy shit the show pulled once it hit the ground running with its plot. I liked how the scene at the start of episode 1 demonstrating an example of SCM usage wound up foreshadowing the surprise final boss. And I liked how it ended with little to no loose plot threads - less than FLCL Progressive, even! - and no stupid catches to piss off the handful of dedicated viewers left. It may not have been "good", but it was fun, which to me is as good as being "good". I'm confident that the ten or twenty other shows I didn't watch this season were better than this, but even so, Dorei-ku is one of the best seasonal anime I did choose to watch, and for that it has all the respect it previously lost when it failed to go "all BDSM all the time" like my inner deviant hoped it would. 9/10.

4. March Comes in Like a Lion 2nd Season - I'll be brief, since this was technically a 2017 show, but this season really improved on the first. Between many of the characters having grown on you so much that their annoying traits from season 1 were next to nothing and Rei's development in more ways than one (especially the social quadrant), SHAFT really knocked it out of the park with a show that was a pleasant watch, even with the not-so-feel-good subject matter. 9.5/10, And yes, the missing half-point is because I'm still sour about that time Smith-san and Yanagihara got all over Rei for his inadvertently making the annoying tics of his one-time shogi opponent of the week even more annoying.

3. Happy Sugar Life - A controversial yet intriguing premise. Characters that straddle the line between likeable and unlikable at any given moment. An atmosphere that exudes greater horror than works with a higher body count, or at least bear reliance on jump scares. Visual direction one wouldn't expect out of the freshman effort of an unknown studio. There's so much to love about this, no matter how much it tells you you shouldn't like it. For all of its possible flaws, which are already of little concern to me, Happy Sugar Life was a damn good series. It's telling that I quit watching Anime FMK before its inevitable (and announced!) end because I couldn't bear the knives it ultimately had to take thanks to Ben Creighton's poor tolerance for the delightfully disturbing. (Kirran's play-by-play rundown of episode 1 during the preview special was much preferable to Ben recapping the first two in his usual way in an increasingly sickeningly sarcastic tone.) It exists because it has to be seen, so no matter how much you want to quit watching, just watch it. 9.5/10.

2. Pop Team Epic - One of my most anticipated anime of the year, I actually held back from watching it the first week after finding out Popuko and Pipimi were gonna be voiced by guys. But once I got over that, sat down, and watched it, I never looked back. Hit or miss, Pop Team Epic is an unparalleled ride, from the expected absurdity of both the standard skits and the story portions to the craziness of the felt puppet musical shorts and muthafucking Bob Epic Team. And that's not even getting into its nonexistent sister series Hoshiiro Girldrop, the one anime I want made outside of my original 12-episode idea I "premiered" on my home message board this season. (Think Senran Kagura meets Serpico meets Without a Trace.) Safe to say, if [adult swim] premiered it to test the non-action waters six months after its premiere, you know it's good. 10/10, still thinking about Hellshake Yano.

1. Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues - The barrier to entry for this series (read: both seasons of Kaiji) is considerably high, but with or without, this series proves that even without the people Callum May said were responsible for its greatness, Madhouse still has it. I mean, what other spin-off anime would bring back most of the same crew, Korean outsourcers and all, with the original director occasionally on board in order to bring that vision to life? A FKMT spin-off is still FKMT, and Tonegawa adds a comic bent that while I'm sure would ruin Kaiji for a number of you, be it by either making Hyoudou more hilarious than monstrous or painting Kaiji himself as the unwitting villain, adds to the show's universe in a seamless manner and expands upon it in ways you wouldn't consider following the Ultimate Survivor himself. There's a lotta fun to be had about this show, between the misadventures of Tonegawa and his team of blacksuits and Ootsuki's one-day trips to savor the best Japanese food culture has to offer, sometimes at the expense of others, and Jay Kabira's energetic narration, laden with Engrish and English alike, only enhances each experience, enough to make you both miss Fumihiko Tachiki and consider Kabira a fitting replacement. I looked forward to this show every week, and I'm proud to say that it's my undeniable anime of the year (of what I watched). 11/10, based and Teiaipilled.

[Hidden]

Lupin III: Part V - old school lupin.

Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood - i actually hit a wall with my SoL anime which ive loved for years now...i think i just got used to the same character archetypes and activities and the usual cute girls yada yada..so i fell off..but i was looking forward to this every week. i think the vampire life was a nice switch up for me.

Bloom into You - yuri.

Jashin-chan Dropkick

High Score Girl - 90s videogames.

Bunny Girl

Zombieland Saga

Back Street Girls

Satsuriku no Tenshi

Violet Evergarden

----

banana fish im still in the middle of but i like it a lot. i think its just refreshing to me. op is nice too.

was also told to watch megalo box even though i dont watch sports anime really. supposedly its still worth it so will eventually get around to that.

i cant believe i watched ten shows.

[Cidz]

well idk really what i watched that aired this year. i dont watch anime as much and sometimes i go back and watch older stuff. or stuff a couple yrs back. 

but lets think...which ones of 2018 did iw atch...

chios school road - it was really wacky and funny. just an enjoyable watch. i liked the main char. and her bff that altho would backstab her for the lolz shed also have her back.

saiki k - that aired this year right? that one was hallerious too! tho i havent seen season2 bc im waiting for it to be dubbed since seas1 was.

devilman crybaby - that....that was well sad at the end lol. i liked the guys work i rmb seeing his work in previous animes. his artstyle is odd and not everyones cup o' tea. but i liked it. the storyline was good too. 

agreketsu? - i actually watched it. like, it wasnt bad. i liked the other ones i mentioned more, but for a show to just sit and watch it was fine.

wotokoi - did that air in 2018? i actually watched that recently and really liked it. but i read some of the manga before. (i cant rmb where i left off on the manga but i think i got further than i thought bc as i was watchn the anime i rmb some stuff) 

umm...ah was...wutsitcalled all you need is a little sister - is that from 2018? if so i liked that one. i think thats the name. bout writers and one of em is a siscon, idk i just enjoyed the characters and comedy.

darling in the franxx - ya know what, i enjoyed it. tbh i only started watching that one after i saw a picture of how they piloted the mechas and i thought it was gonna be ona those dumb animes u watch for lolz so my expectations werent much. so i think it exceeded my expectations, but eh towards the end i felt like maybe they thought "ahhhh crap we forgot about a plot!! we gotta hurry up and tie up loose ends but we only got like 3 eps left lets just hurry and rush those parts!!" 

and i cant rmb if i saw any others from 2018. oh there was an anime i watch that i think was from 2018? about a girl who played as a male char in MMOs and she meets this guy who plays female chars in MMOs and romance insues kinda...it was rly cute and i rly liked that one.

ooooh wait!! and that one comedy anime about the girl who turns into a buff magical boy! ore something or other??? loveed that one!!! so funny omg i want more.

(as you can tell mostly of what i watch these days are like comedies. im usually tired from work or stressed out and want to watch stuff to unwind.)

Edited December 29, 2018 by Cidz

[Ric]

Maybe I can bump this when I get around to watching more 2018 shows. Right now Devilman is easily my favorite, but I don't think I've completed five shows this year. Citris and Goblin Slayer(which I said fuck it and dropped) are the only others I can think of. Is Mob Psycho originally 2018? It's not top tier but I have been enjoying it.

[Gina Szanboti]

On 12/29/2018 at 1:51 PM, Cidz said:

and i cant rmb if i saw any others from 2018. oh there was an anime i watch that i think was from 2018? about a girl who played as a male char in MMOs and she meets this guy who plays female chars in MMOs and romance insues kinda...it was rly cute and i rly liked that one.

ooooh wait!! and that one comedy anime about the girl who turns into a buff magical boy! ore something or other??? loveed that one!!! so funny omg i want more.

(as you can tell mostly of what i watch these days are like comedies. im usually tired from work or stressed out and want to watch stuff to unwind.)

Recovery of an MMO Junkie was 2017, but I agree with you for loving it.    Just bought it on BD myself.

Magical Girl Ore started out but got weak in the middle, but kinda redeemed itself in the last couple of crazy episodes.

I'm telling you Cidz, if you want relaxing comedy after work, you gotta watch School Babysitters and How to raise a mummy.  Both are excellent and cute as all get out.  Also Jingai-san no Yome (see my post above), if you're pressed for time and need a quick fix of silly mofumofu.

[PokeNirvash]

Magical Girl Ore will always live in my screensaver.

[scope]

Wasn't too interested in the vast majority of shows that aired this year.

My favorite was easily A Place Further Than the Universe.

[scope]

On 12/29/2018 at 5:13 PM, Ric said:

Maybe I can bump this when I get around to watching more 2018 shows. Right now Devilman is easily my favorite, but I don't think I've completed five shows this year. Citris and Goblin Slayer(which I said fuck it and dropped) are the only others I can think of. Is Mob Psycho originally 2018? It's not top tier but I have been enjoying it.

Mob Psycho 100 was 2016, season 2 airs in January.

[Gina Szanboti]

On 12/29/2018 at 7:35 AM, PokeNirvash said:

Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues -  I looked forward to this show every week, and I'm proud to say that it's my undeniable anime of the year (of what I watched). 11/10, based and Teiaipilled.

Well it certainly went out with a bang (that we can not show you!) and a high kick.  Even the zawa chorus got in a dither over it all. 

[Gyaos]

Devilman Crybaby, 100%. It was a retelling of Go Nagai's horror shonen classic in animated form, with some liberties taken. Overall, it honors the original manga in ways that I can't say for other anime adaptations.

It also gets brownie points for making my friends cry.

Edit: Just mentioning one for now. Will update later.

Edited January 1, 2019 by Gyaos

[Satou Kazuma]

just going by what everyone said on that list. some honorable mention would be:

https://myanimelist.net/anime/37716/Beelzebub-jou_no_Okinimesu_mama

 

Edited January 1, 2019 by Hachiman

[Jman]

Devil man Crybaby

SSSS Gridman

A Place Further than the Universe

Zombieland Saga

[QueenoftheDorks]

I didn't watch much, but I wanna throw out a vote for Tsurune as one of the most underrated shows of the year. There's still two more episodes so the ending could go sideways, but it's been a consistently great mix of traditional sports tropes and character development.

[naraku360]

I was thinking of a real list but just watched the first episode of Lord of Vermillion and decided I'm going with that instead. The first scene is enough of a genius masterpiece in its own right that the rest of the show doesn't really matter.