Anime has been both good and bad since it first started getting made. As I look back on my anime-watching this year, I find this a helpful axiom to recall, along with its associated evidence. That said, it is probably equally true that the particular ways in which anime has been both good and bad over the years have changed.
Has it really been almost a year since my last post on the blog? How time flies! At least this year it didn’t take me until February to do my yearly recap. Every year I say, “I’m going to do more blog posts this year,” and while I didn’t do that in 2024, the silver lining is that I did write a book! A light novel (sort of) to be exact. Forgive me if I make a promise to write a blog post about that experience, as we all know how blog post promises go…
Anyways. Anime! I really liked that the 2023 edition of this post ranked everything I watched (from this year and not), so we’re bringing back the format for 2024. Hope you enjoy!
Completed Shows | Rewatches | Unfinished
Over the years, these year-end wrap-up posts have taken a variety of shapes and forms. In the past, I’ve enjoyed making list of my top shows of the year. But in a year where few airing television anime really moved me, I thought I’d forgo that formality by telling you all 28 (more or less) new things I watched in order to provide a more thorough chronicle of my anime-watching activities.
Hopefully it’s enjoyable and not too tedious!
There will be a few confessions made, and some resolutions declared. It’s the end of the year after all! It’s time to look forward, even as we reflect on the past.
There’s something to be said for putting down a more permanent record of your favorite anime of the year. I didn’t do it last year and I realized I regretted it—so this year, although I said I wouldn’t and the list will be shorter than normal—I won’t make the same mistake.
These are my picks for the top anime of 2018.
2018 was yet another year of evolution in my journey as an anime fan. Throughout the year, I spent less time watching anime and less time engaging in anime-related activities like doing freelance writing, blogging, and livetweeting shows. So as I started to consider “my year in anime,” I wondered if I would have much to say.
I needn’t have worried. The year is 2018 and anime is still good, so in the spirit of the 12 days of anime project (that I didn’t do this year)—here are twelve anime things that brought me some joy this year.
I’ll be publishing my list of my favorite TV anime of the year after I finish up with a couple of final shows, but while we wait for that to happen, I thought I’d share some of the great individual scenes that stayed with me this year. Some of these are from shows that will inevitably be on my year-end list; some are not. Regardless, they all made an impression on me for various reasons, and I wanted to share them with you!
With the end of the year come year-end lists, talk about favorite anime, favorite seasons, and the like. But, in all the flurry of closing out the old year and moving into the new, it can be easy to forget some of the smaller things that made the previous year what is was.
This post is dedicated to those small things. The individual efforts, the little pieces of goodness, the solitary shining spots.
These are TV Anime 2015’s best moments…
Mage in a Barrel 