{"id":12405,"date":"2018-12-31T14:42:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T19:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=12405"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:42:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T19:42:26","slug":"2018-anime-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2018\/12\/31\/2018-anime-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Anime Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overall this feels like one of the weaker years for anime<\/a> in recent memory. Yes, I’m giving 3 “outstanding” ratings, but 2 of them are for series begun in previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most noticeable trend seems to be “over the top.” It’s always been common for anime series to be a bit nuts, but many this year seemed to be trying to push craziness to the limits. This is not necessarily a positive trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Outstanding Anime of 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Ancient Magus\u2019 Bride<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) (previous posts<\/a>) (begun in 2017.) There’s not much more I can say about this one but it’s clearly one of the best high fantasy stories in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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March Comes in Like a Lion Season 2<\/strong><\/em> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) (previous posts<\/a>) wrapped up a series that originally began in 2016 and just got better and better as it went along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gurazeni: Money Pitch <\/em><\/strong>(Crunchyroll<\/a>) is the best new series of the year, a smart, funny and insightful look at the lives of professional baseball players. (Previous post.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notable Anime of 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A Place Further Than the Universe<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) is a totally wholesome story about high school girls who finagle their way into an expedition to Antarctica. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hakumei and Mikochi<\/em><\/strong> (HIDIVE<\/a>) is a strange but charming fantasy about 3-inch-tall people who live peacefully with full-size animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Karakai Jouzu no Tagaki-san<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) is the year’s funniest gag anime, a whimsical look at middle-school puppy love. A girl constantly outsmarts a hapless boy, suckers him into making losing bets, then forces him to do something that a boyfriend would do for her. He insists to himself that he hates it but keeps coming back for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GeGeGe no Kitaro (2018)<\/em> <\/strong>(Crunchyroll<\/a>) is (I think) the 6th reboot of the perennial spooky children’s series based on the classic manga<\/a> by MIZUKI Shigeru. I think this one is the best version so far (in spite of Crunchyroll’s decision to translate “Nekomusume” as “Catchick.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shounen fighting anime is not my favorite genre but My Hero Academi<\/em>a<\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) is about as good as it gets. It just finished its third season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hinamatsuri <\/em><\/strong>(Crunchyroll<\/a>) takes story elements that might have been the basis of a dark and tragic anime and uses them to come up with something that is totally nuts. A smug and ruthless young gangster is humanized when he adopts a teenaged girl who is sullen and self-centered and has deadly psychic powers. She is on the run from a sinister organization which, fortunately, is totally incompetent. In fact everyone is a position of authority is incompetent, irresponsible or just plain stupid. Somehow love and decency manage to triumph at least part of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Golden Kamuy<\/em><\/strong> (Crunchyroll<\/a>) is definitely in the “over the top” category. It’s common to refer to samurai shows as “Japanese Westerns” but actually Japanese history had a period much more like the settlement of the American West: the settlement of Hokkaido in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This took place in the same time period, in a climate resembling America’s Pacific Northwest, and involved determined pioneers and proud indigenous people who were less than thrilled about having their hunting grounds taken over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So Golden Kamuy<\/em> is like a Western, but not like a Western directed by John Ford. It’s more like a Western directed by Alfred Hitchcock with some assistance from Mel Brooks, with characters ranging from rugged individualists to batshit-crazy wackos. It’s pretty violent but I like it due to its depictions of Ainu culture and the two likeable main characters.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More “Over the Top” Stuff<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Karakuri Circus<\/em><\/strong> (Amazon<\/a>) is a shounen<\/a> fighting anime involving a unique form of military technology. Before I tell you, try to guess…Is it giant robots that punch each other? No? How about giant robots that bash each other with swords…In Space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No, that would be too easy. In this universe the most advanced military technology consists of giant marionettes based on characters from the Commedia dell’arte.<\/a> <\/em>(This seems ideally suited to give your kids nightmares.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This show is ultra-violent with great production values and it just keeps getting weirder all the time. It’s interesting but I can’t honestly recommend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overall this feels like one of the weaker years for anime<\/a> in recent memory. Yes, I’m giving 3 “outstanding” ratings, but 2 of them are for series begun in previous… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12418,"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":[708,712,714,711,703,717,705,715,685,666,696],"class_list":["post-12405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anime","tag-a-place-further-than-the-universe","tag-gegege-no-kitaro","tag-golden-kamuy","tag-gurazeni","tag-hakumei-and-mikochi","tag-hinamatsuri","tag-karakai-jouzu-no-tagaki-san","tag-karakuri-circus","tag-march-comes-in-like-a-lion","tag-my-hero-academia","tag-the-ancient-magus-bride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405","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=12405"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12424,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405\/revisions\/12424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}