Some Thoughts on Crunchyroll’s 2016 Anime Awards Before Voting Begins

Crunchyroll launched its inaugural Anime Awards in late December with nominees in 14 categories selected by a panel of seven judges with different backgrounds. Voting begins January 3rd and lasts one week until January 10th. The winners in each category will be revealed soon after voting concludes with one exception: Anime of the Year. The winner for that award will announced live at a party in San Francisco on January 28th.

Subjective awards are often full of debates about who or what should have or should not have been nominated. I’m not going to discuss the merits of any particular series in this blog post, mainly because I have only seen episodes from two anime that received nominations – those two are Flying Witch and Space Patrol Luluco. I’m more critical of the overall categories and gaps in the types of anime series being highlighted. Continue reading

12 Days 2016: Post #4 – Anime From 2016 I’d Like To Start Watching in 2017

Using a screenshot from late 1990s anime Kare Kano to talk about anime from 2016 is *very* timely.

Over the past year, I saw a lot of new anime series being discussed on Twitter and elsewhere that I had mild to high levels of interest in watching myself but didn’t get around to trying in 2016, partly because I rarely watch new episodes on a weekly basis anymore. Different reasons for my interest in any new anime may be its basic premise, cool-looking characters, or word-of-mouth recommendations from friends. I put the ones missed in 2016 into five general categories: action, comedy, drama, slice of life, and sports/games.

Action/Adventure:

Active Raid; Ajin; Berserk; Big Order; Bubuki Buranki; Bungo Stray Dogs; Drifters; Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash; Izetta The Last Witch; Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress; Kuromukuro; Luck and Logic; Luger Code 1951; Lupin the Third Part 4; Magical Girl Raising Project; Mob Psycho 100; My Hero Academia; Qualidea Code; Taboo Tattoo

Comedy:

Ace Attorney; And you thought there is never a girl online?; Bono Bono; ClassicaLoid; The Disastrous Life of Saiki K; Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto; Heybot!; The High School Life of a Fudanshi; Kaiju Girls; Kiss Him, Not Me; KonoSuba; The Morose Mononokean; Rewrite; Sushi Police; This Art Club Has a Problem!; Time Travel Girl

Drama:

91 Days; ERASED; Flip Flappers; Girlish Number; Girls Beyond the Wasteland; The Great Passage (Fune wo Amu); Joker Game; Kiznaiver; Mayoiga (The Lost Village); Occultic Nine; Orange; Re:Zero; Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

Slice of life:

Amanchu!, Ancient Magus’ Bride OVA series, Bananya, High School Fleet, Magic of Stella, Momokuri; New Game!; ReLIFE; Shonen Maid; Sweetness and Lightning; Three Leaves, Three Colors (Sansha Sanyou)

Sports and games:

Battery, Cheer Boys, Days, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Long Riders!, March comes in like a lion, Tiger Mask W, Yuri!! on Ice

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I don’t think I will end up liking all of the anime I listed above but I hope many turn out to be worth the time I put into them.