10 of 12: Quaternary Adjunct of Unimatrix 2000
Last day of the year? Sounds like a fine time for the club president to write up a Top 10 list for anime!
Luckily for me I only watched about 15 shows this year, which made putting together the list pretty easy. I’m also limiting listees to shows that finished in 2012, which means I’ll have an “Honorable Mentions”/”Continuing” list at the end of this post.
The List
10 – Binbougami ga!
The shows that got cut from my list were all removed for variations on “I can’t really remember why I watched this show.” Binbougami almost succumbed to that fate, except that I distinctly remembered laughing at its jokes and being high-enough power level to catch most of its references.
9 – Sakamichi no Apollon
If you can get past the overwrought drama of the love … pentagon? Pentagon. If you can get past that, SnA is solidly executed. It’s also an interesting perspective shift to see high school drama as viewed by a late-20s/middle-30s woman. And of course, Dat Soundtrack.
8 – Jormungand
Jormungand falls pretty squarely in the guilty pleasure category for me. I have a feeling some sort of central plot may be starting up going into the second season (based on the first scene of the series and the teaser at the end of season 1), but the first 12 episodes were pretty loosely connected. The first season was still entertaining in a bad-guy-of-the-week way, which means S2 is on my “to watch” list. Which, in turn, means I’ll get around to it sometime in 2017.
7 – Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
An image so nice, I'm gonna use it twice.
Mmmm, that’s some good satire. I really wish Jinrui had been able to keep pace with its first two arcs; they were fantastically funny. The quality drops sharply after them, though, which was disappointing.
6 – Thermae Romae
Most of the “short-form” web animations and such that have come out recently have had problems with pacing. Comedy is all about the pacing. With their 5-minute running times, short-forms usually wind up feeling rushed and falling flat. Thermae Romae manages to dodge this pitfall with its 10 minute episodes (paired off into 3 “full” episodes), playing one central joke per episode without overstaying its welcome. I’m interested to see if TR was just bottled lightning or well-needed evolution of the format.
5 – Sword Art Online
MMOs, The Anime. Actually, more like Vidja Gaems, The Anime. If you’ve been in any sort of competitive gaming environment (especially an MMO) you’ll recognize 90% of the characters as some archetype you’ve played with in the past. Let the nostalgic hate flow through you! If you’ve done IT work or have any CS knowledge you’ll be left banging your head on the wall at a handful of really stupid things, just like most media portrayals of computers. Let the MORBO RAGE flow through you!
4 – Nisemonogatari
Whoever came up with the brilliantly twisted idea of having a Nisioisin story be animated by Shaft deserves a pat on the back. Nisemono is a wild mashup of wordplay, strange design, and supernatural mystery. Freaking crazy and I loved it.
3 – Tsuritama
Tsuritama was like a summer’s worth of fun distilled down into 12 episodes. I love fishing with my grandfather as well, so the fishing angle drew me in and set the hook (ha!). The plot escalates quickly as well, which gave the series a pacing that felt very good to me.
2 – Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun
Yeah, I think this one is going to be the surprise hit that a lot of us will be reluctantly admitting we enjoyed while burning our man cards. I, for one, was hooked after the first episode where we get the declaration of love, skipping dozens of episodes of UST (not that that can’t work — looking at you, Kimi ni Todoke). Things just get better from there, without that anchor around the show’s neck. The characters are Characters, and TnK takes every chance it has to play them off each other. Recommended, for sure.
1 – Nichibros (Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou)
POW, right in the childhood!
It’s like watching my childhood antics with friends turned up to 11. Surreal, yet in an understated matter-of-fact way. If you were ever a high school aged male, you will find a lot of stories in this series that you can relate with. I’m still amazed that Square-Enix and Sunrise, of all publishers, greenlighted and funded this show; I’m amazed further that it managed to stay so consistently funny throughout its entire run. I’m filing this away next to Lucky Star as “comedy shows everyone should watch.”
NEVER FORGET
Honorable Mentions
A handful of shows that started in Fall 2012 are continuing into Winter 2013. Good chance these will end up on 2013′s Top 10 list, but for now they’re getting a short blurb each.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Although clearly designed to pander hardcore to fans of the manga, this is show is crazy fun if you’ve never read the source material (like me).
Robotics;Notes: This is starting to pick up for me now that the central plot is kicking off.
Psychopass: Despite leaving off on the bullshittiest cliffhanger I’ve seen in a while, this show is quality Sci Fi.
Shin Sekai Yori: I literally only just found out this has two cours while writing this article. That honestly makes me feel much less disappointed with the long summer camp arc that felt too long on first viewing.
Magi: Simple action fun set in a fantasy middle-eastern setting. If you need your biyearly dose of shounen, this is a good way to go.
Nadeshiko ga!
