As 2018 rolls its credits and 2019 segues from teasers to its international debut, let’s take a moment to look back and reminisce over some of the memorable points from this last year of anime. Pour yourself a cup of chamomile tea, pull the afghan over you as the fire crackles wistfully, and join me in a whimsical retrospective with the Ghost of Anime Past.
Winter
The Winter season brought us both shattered dreams and amazing surprises. The cutest thing we had never imagined but suddenly adored was… a mummy. Trigger’s new mecha fantasy somehow managed to be both edgy and sexy and yet disappointingly stodgy and static: clearly a waste of a good waifu. And let’s tip the glass to the yuri series with stunning visuals and a decent attempt at relationship development, but which also downplayed abuse and non-consent. We had an attempt (not the first nor sadly the last) to reinvent the isekai genre, with a Kirito look-alike who was OP and gathered a harem before the show ended relatively weakly. And the most consistently amazing series turned out to be a “cute girls doing cute things” story, except that it was a powerful coming-of-age tale told around a trip to Antarctica.
For decades, anime devotees have lamented that anime is largely unknown and under-appreciated in the West. Suddenly, a front-page celebrity announced that she loved anime and especially 02 from Darling in the FranXX. Was the subsequent rise in interest in anime the start of the long-awaited springtime? Apparently not, as we have been informed that such people are not “real” anime fans.
Spring
Spring turned out to be full of shocking life lessons:
- that love maybe hard for otaku, but not impossible;
- that strong central characters can be women dressed in pink, and the SAO franchise doesn’t actually need Kirito;
- that strong central characters can be women and members of indigenous peoples. (Before Golden Kamuy took bizarreness into uncharted waters.)
We also encountered a boxing anime homage with insanely good music and story development in its own right; and a heartwarming tale about a yakuza underling and a fugitive telekinetic orphan who bond through violence… wait, what? checks notes Yep, that’s correct.
I’d be remiss not to mention a certain shonen series about a Quirk-less boy, which really hit its stride in its third season.
Summer
With the summer heat (at least here up north, and with due respect to my fellow fans in the southern hemisphere) came an equally hot lineup. Planet With was the mecha series our planet couldn’t do without. Cells at Work proved that, yes, you can make an anime (and a waifu) of absolutely anything. Summer also made up for spring’s relative lack of isekai by giving us two attempts at reinterpreting the genre, though it’s debatable whether this was a good thing or not: Both involved an OP Japanese male who gathers a harem before the show ended relatively weakly.
And instead of the usual “cute girls doing cute things” slice of life, we got a cute girls doing insane things” slice of life, and boy was it funny! Asobi Asobase for the win!
Fall
Finally, the Fall season proved that clickbait titles work, and that that isn’t always a bad thing: Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai starred a rascal who clearly did dream of his sempai, and she was hardly a full-time bunny girl. And it was amazing. Then there were the four shows that vied for the “most accurate and descriptive title” award:
- Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is about a guy whose face is a skull… who sells books… and is named Honda-san.
- Fairy Tail Final Season may well turn out to be completely innaccurate if they release yet another season later; but as long as it’s running it’s still in the running.
- That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime actually gave a semi-successful try at rebooting the isekai genre, though the title, while accurate, follows the light novel tradition of being nearly a novel’s length in its own right.
- And Goblin Slayer is about a guy who (get this) does pretty much nothing except slay goblins.
A certain aforementioned fantasy also took flack for showing an onscreen rape. Several other series decided to try to push the envelope even further, with the new season of SAO depicting a double sexual assault, and the second season of Golden Kamuy giving ample screentime to a young man who likes to kill people (especially family) then stuff and mount them like birds and talk with them as though they are still alive. (And that isn’t even the edgiest thing that show has done lately.) Naturally, people were up in arms about this, right? Wrong! Ire was reserved instead for Zombie Land Saga‘s Lily-chan, who was allegedly… trans? Maybe? It’s not really clear.
And finally, Trigger brought out SSSS.GRIDMAN, the mecha show we all suddenly realized we’d been waiting for, thus redeeming themselves for winter’s fiasco.
These were just a few of events that stuck in my memory this ani-year. Here’s to a fresh year of anime potential, and oh, the anticipation!
Happy 2019!