Monday, December 28, 2020

Fall 2020 Anime Awards

Hey guys! So this week was the last week of the Fall 2020 Anime Season so I thought it would be fun to shout out some of the my superlatives for the season!

Anime Of The Season

Haikyuu! To The Top Season 2 is definitely my anime of the season which is really funny to me cause I really didn't expect to love this show as much as I did when I first started it. I'm not usually a huge sports anime fan and I especially don't love anime in which every main character is male or every main character is female but I was convinced that I should check this show out so I did and I'm so thankful for it. This show is pretty much one of the best modern shounen stories out there and while at first you don't think about this anime being a shounen given that we don't fight monsters or play with magic, in the end it's an underdog story in which we follow our protagonists as they fight to reach their goal of being the best volleyball team in the country. Every character is fully rounded including every antagonist we meet, the animation is incredible, and the hype is real. 

Runner Up - Irregular At Magic High School: Visitor Arc

Hidden Gem 

Sleepless Princess is my pick for hidden gem of the season and I really was tossing it back and forth between this one and my runner up but in the end I went with Sleepless Princess cause while Akadama Drive was slept on by the vast majority, at least a few people I saw were watching it so if anything's a hidden gem, it's Sleepless Princess. I think the lack of interest in this show has to do with the fact that there's no real plot to this show or any real goals we need to reach. Instead we kind of get a slice-of-life comedy in which the Princess basically destroys the Demon Castle every week in order to invent new and exciting ways of sleeping better while also inadvertently worming her way into every demon's heart. The humor is spot on in this show and there were definitely moments when my heart was tugged on. I think if you're looking for something soft and happy-making, this show should definitely be checked out.

Runner Up - Akadama Drive

Best Sequel 

Haikyuu! To The Top Season 2 is the best sequel of this season cause it's the one show that I looked forward to every week. It's totally interesting cause at the start of this season I expected the runner up to win just based on the fact that we hadn't got new Irregular episodes for years but in the end while Irregular was a nice jump back into nostalgia, Haikyuu was the show that got me excited week-to-week. The fact that since we had so much airtime devoted to one match alone let every single Karasuno member have a moment to shine and remind us why we adore them them all. Several volleys were absolutely out of this world and that's not even mentioning Hinata's power up! Like Suga we all cried thinking of how far Hinata grew from this little kid who just wanted to play to this beast who could catch receives like no other! I even loved the small break we took in order to catch up with Nekoma and unlike what a lot of people thought, it didn't feel like filler to me cause Nekoma is Karasuno's main rival team so of course when we can flesh them out, it's a good thing!

Runner Up - Irregular At Magic High School: Visitor Arc

Greatest Animation/Character Design

Akudama Drive had the best animation this season and there really was no competition here. I loved the way every character was drawn, the transitions between scenes were creative, and I've never seen exposition/world building done the way it was here with propaganda videos being shown. Even the world itself was beautiful to look at cause it was both post-apocalyptic and yet futuristic. I loved that the colors were so saturated except when they needed to prove a point (like seeing the world through Cutthroat's eyes.)

Runner Up - Moriarty The Patriot

Best OP 

Steal by SPARK!!SOUND!!SHOW!! from Akudama Drive is definitely my favorite OP of the season. The show gets you pumped while also exciting your senses. I love the way the characters flash between normal light and UV light to show the blood that they have on their hands. 

Runner Up - Howling by ASCA from Irregular At Magic High School: Visitor Arc

Protagonist Of The Season

William James Moriarty from Moriarty The Patriot is my protagonist of the season and maybe this is a cop out cause in all technicality James Moriarty should be the antagonist to Sherlock's protagonist but in this show we're following James and seeing the world through his eyes so I would definitely say he counts! I love how deep and complex James is as a lead cause I'm always so fascinated with leads that are not good people and the question of morality. Technically James has not killed a single person throughout this entire show though I suppose you could say he was an accomplice or like Sherlock that he is the mastermind (is that murder by proxy?) Another important question is whether or not it is really so horrible when the people who die are barely human themselves? James is fascinating cause he's leagues smarter than every other person in this show with maybe Sherlock being the only one at his level though the fact that he falls to vices doesn't make him as sharp. I adore the Moriarty crew and how loyal they are to each other and the idea of making a better London.

Runner Up - Tatsuya Shiba from Irregular At Magic High School: Visitor Arc

Antagonist Of The Season

Nana from Talentless Nana is my antagonist of the season and really could it have been anyone else? Nana is an interesting character cause while part of me feels bad for her cause the girl is clearly being used by her bosses in order to murder people who they're afraid is stronger than them but at the same time I can't help but hate her for killing so many people only to be left with the thought that most of these people weren't the innocents we thought they were so in the end is she really so bad? I did get tired at points throughout this show about how strong Nana's plot armor was and just how stupid the other Talented kids were but I can't exactly blame Nana and her characterization for that. She had a horrific childhood and was used to become the assassin she is now and yet part of her is constantly looking to be proven wrong. She hopes at times that the people she's about to kill aren't all bad and she's clearly won over by Mirchiru and without her intelligence and wit this show wouldn't be what it was.

Runner Up - The Executioners from Akudama Drive

Ship Of The Season

Tsukasa and Nasa from Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You are hands down my ship of the season and really they had no competition cause they were actually the only romantic ship of the season. I really loved just how good both Tsukasa and Nasa were. In most romance animes the male leads are kind of pervy (like in Rent-A-Girlfriend) or suave (hello Usui from Kaichou wa Maid Sama) but Nasa fell into neither of these categories. He was just plain good and everything that he got back was cause of the good he did for others. I loved the way the two slowly fell in love and that they had no problem hugging or kissing as their affection grew. 

Runner Up - Miyuki and Tatsuya from Irregular At Magic High School: Visitor Arc


And with that I'll see you all in the Winter 2021 Season!

xoxo Allie

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