{"id":11890,"date":"2016-12-31T16:24:54","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T21:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=11890"},"modified":"2016-12-31T21:18:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T02:18:21","slug":"2016-anime-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2016\/12\/31\/2016-anime-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 Anime Year In Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel like I have to say this every year but…No, 2016 was not a terrible year for anime<\/a>. You have to keep Sturgeon’s Law<\/a> in mind: “90% of everything is crap.”<\/p>\n

When fans look back on 2016 in the future, they won’t be remembering the 90%. It’s the other 10% that determines how successful a year is. So based on the 10%, 2016 wasn’t the best year ever, but it wasn’t all that bad.<\/p>\n

Outstanding Anime of 2016<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nERASED<\/strong><\/a><\/em> (Boku Dake ga Inai Machi<\/em>) (Crunchyroll<\/a>) is a superbly executed fantasy thriller with crisp plotting, edge-of-your-seat tension and a fine ending.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last year I called Rin-ne<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) an “Outstanding” comedy. With the second season we’re at 48 episodes and if anything it’s funnier than ever. It’s incredibly hard for a comedy to keep up the pace for this long. (Consider the enormous drop-off in quality between the first and second seasons of Squid Girl<\/em><\/a>, one of the few anime series to reach comparable levels of hilarity.) Kudos to the legendary talents of manga<\/a> giant Rumiko Takahashi.<\/p>\n

Notable Anime of 2016<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe year’s best iyashikei<\/a> anime was Flying Witch<\/strong><\/em> (Crunchyroll<\/a>), a charming story about a young witch who goes to live with her cousins in a small rural town.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I see only one example of a good traditional shoujo<\/a> series: Orange<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>.) Aside from the fantasy premise, this is a smart and fairly realistic story about the difficulties involved in preventing teen suicide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I’m not giving Natsume Yujin-cho 5<\/em><\/strong> (Natsume Yuujinchou Go<\/em>) (Crunchyroll<\/a>) an “Outstanding” award because its the fifth season of a long-running series which doesn’t break any new ground. Still this series about a boy and his encounters with the spirit world remains consistently good.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Charming\/poignant story with a cute kid #1: Sweetness & Lightning<\/em><\/strong> (Amaama to Inazuma<\/em>) (Crunchyroll<\/a>.) A young widower wants to learn to cook for his daughter and gets help from a lonely high school student.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Charming\/poignant story with a cute kid #2: Poco’s Udon World<\/em><\/strong> (Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari<\/em>) (Crunchyroll<\/a>.) A lonely bachelor begins to come to terms with his past when he takes in a lost little boy (who is actually a shape-shifting tanuki<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At last! Girlish Number<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) finally gives the anime industry the treatment it deserves!<\/p>\n

Was this the year that the isekai<\/a> genre finally wore out its welcome? We had a brutal deconstruction in Grimgar<\/a><\/em> (Crunchyroll<\/a>). Konosuba<\/em> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) was a trashy parody of the genre. And of course Girlish Number<\/em> told us a little too much about the people responsible for foisting this stuff on us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>However Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-<\/strong><\/em> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) goes a long way toward redeeming the genre by giving it a Groundhog Day<\/em> twist. The nebbish hero doesn’t somehow become heroic when transported to a fantasy world. He acts like an immature teenage otaku<\/a>, the results are horrid, and he actually learns from his mistakes.<\/p>\n

Special “Eat Your Vegetables” Award<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhat do you get when some talented people get together to make an anime series that is inspiring, educational and morally uplifting? Something like The Great Passage<\/em><\/strong> (Fune wo Amu<\/em>.) Really I don’t have anything bad to say about this series about the hard work and sacrifice that goes into creating a new dictionary. It’s totally admirable. It just doesn’t excite me much.<\/p>\n

Still Watching<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>You may be surprised that I didn’t give an “Outstanding” award to Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>.) It’s been excellent so far (my take here <\/a>and here<\/a>) but it’s really a 2-cour<\/a> series in which only the first cour aired in 2016. By my rules judgment must be withheld until 2017.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMarch Comes In Like a Lion<\/em><\/strong> (Sangatsu no Lion<\/em>) (Crunchyroll<\/a>) has also been excellent so far, but a lot will depend on the second half. Our talented but emotionally-scarred young Shoji player really needs to grow up and get a grip. (He’s had some terrible breaks but he’s also lucky in some ways and he doesn’t fully appreciate that.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel like I have to say this every year but…No, 2016 was not a terrible year for anime<\/a>. You have to keep Sturgeon’s Law in mind: “90% of everything… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[676,654,669,677,448,682,675,684,279,683,680],"class_list":["post-11890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anime","tag-3-gatsu-no-lion","tag-erased","tag-flying-witch","tag-girlish-number","tag-natsume-yujincho","tag-orange","tag-poco","tag-rezero","tag-rin-ne","tag-sweetness-lightning","tag-the-great-passage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11890"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11915,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions\/11915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}