My Favorite Anime of 2014

It has been quite a while since a post appeared on the blog, hasn’t it? Hopefully there are still some readers out there eager for some more stuff! Feeling a bit stiff when it comes to writing, I figured the best way to get it all started is to revisit my favorite anime of 2014! After this, I hope to slowly return to form.

Truth is, I haven’t seen a lot of anime lately. We’re a few months into the new year and I have only seen two new series, which is a new record for me. Instead, the time has been spent watching older, completed, anime whenever the urge has kicked in. As a result, it has made me feel rather distant to the anime community.

When it comes to the year 2014 in anime, my stance is that it has been a fine year.

The Best Anime of 2013

2013 has been a strange year of anime for me. For starters, there are only ten anime series that I feel genuinely soft for and out of those four happen to be leftovers from the previous year.

In addition, almost all of the anime on this list has one thing in common: they are “light and fluffy”. They could be labelled as “slice of life” and are generally heartwarming. Relaxing, happy and fun.

Summer 2013 Anime Reviews – What’s With These Finales?

With the new anime season recently having started, I figured it was time to look back at what aired during summer.

One thing that struck me as this season ended was how many episode finales surprised me both positively and negatively. Nearly every finale made me react in one way or another I usually do not do.

Often they made me look back at the series and think “Wait, what is wrong with this final episode!?”.

Spring 2013 Anime Reviews – When Good Becomes Bad and Bad Becomes Good

Lesson learned: never do early anime impressions. The tides can turn at any given moment and basing your thoughts on only one or two episodes will most likely not reflect the overall series (even if there are exceptions as always).

Never before have I been this disappointed in the outcome of an anime season since I properly started following the airing anime seasons back in fall 2010. Attack on Titan, Suisei no Gargantia and Hataraku Maou-sama!. These three all had magnificent starting episodes that made me excited about what was to come. But then, when they all hit episode six, something happened.

Winter 2013 Anime Mini Reviews – A Season Full of Meh and GJ-bu

I will be trying out a new and shorter format for my future seasonal posts, so it would be nice if you could tell if you like it or not. The reason for this is that I do not want to spend hours writing them. Because even if I love doing these posts, the time it takes to write them could be spent on more fun things such as editorials!

As for the season itself, it turned out rather bad. Well, to be perfectly honest, it is to be expected when one watches over 20 series! There were a few good ones, but ironically they were the ones I did not have much expectations of in the first place!

Makoto Shinkai – Short Films Reviews and Thoughts

Last week I wrote about my feelings regarding movies done by Makoto Shinkai. Considering how he is such an interesting creator, I afterwards decided to give his short films a try.

Here are my thoughts.

What do you think of Shinkai?

Makoto Shinkai – Movie Reviews and Thoughts

Originally I planned to do complete reviews for each of his four movies, but I soon realized it was futile. Makoto Shinkai’s works are rather hard to properly write about and my reviews were far too similar to each other. This is why I decided to instead sum up my thoughts in a shorter format (call them “half-reviews” if you want).

What I can say is that after having seen everything Shinkai has created, there is nothing but a bitter taste of disappointment left in my mouth. All those praises about Shinkai being the next Hayao Miyazaki cannot be further from my own experiences, especially as I feel that he is regressing as a director as time passes. Instead of evolving, he keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

The Twelve Best Anime of 2012

Unlike last year when it was hard to create a list because I felt there only were a handful of good series, it is now hard due to there being too many good ones to choose from.

I hate lists.

The Ten Worst Anime of 2012

I didn’t even have twelve bad series this year. Dang.

It is time to get serious. These are the worst series that aired 2012 (of the ones I have seen, at least).

Which were the worst in your opinion?

The Most Surprising and Disappointing Anime of 2012

Before I start listing the best and worst anime of 2012 I want to tell you about some anime that managed to either surprise or disappoint me.