Anime of the Season (Winter 2016)

The 2016 Winter season is drawing to an end. Which anime titles did you enjoy the most and why?

My top favourites would have to be:

1. Erased

My most favourite thanks to all the thrilling revival and nail-biting moments that Satoru went through, coupled with the heart-warming smile of Hinazuki. Just seeing Satoru struggle so many times and him picking himself up was the biggest highlight for me.

2. Dimension W

An awesome Sci-Fi world, the concept of coils providing infinite energy for mankind, along with collector mercenaries and lots of action. It was pretty unique, and I especially loved Kyouma and Mira. Kyouma for his badass combat skills and Mira for her almost human-like personality despite being a highly advanced android.

3. KonoSuba - God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!!

A stupid, absurd and ridiculous title that thankfully didn't take itself seriously. Seeing Kazuma put up with his idiot party was amusing and very funny at times. But on the same note, he did enjoy hanging out with them after all. This title was without a doubt the funniest title this season for me. And laughter is good.

Which anime titles did you enjoy the most this season and why?

1) Erased (93/100): A great mystery thriller title that had me on the edge of my seat for every episode. The ending was a tad disappointment, but not enough to take it out of first place for this season. The highlight for this show was easily Satoru, as he was a great character to watch. Overall, one of my favorite anime of all time, and would highly recommend to anyone.

2) AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue (86/100): Yes, the show I had originally dropped on episode 4, ended up in second place for this season. While it had a slow start, it was nice to see a fictional sports anime that didn't have any harem elements at all. Watching FC was quite exciting, even if the winner could pretty much be determined beforehand most of the time.

3) Myriad Colors Phantom World (81/100): The show has been whimsical all throughout, but that has actually helped it in my opinion. Even if a lot of things aren't explained, the show never really meant for you to understand them, and just wanted you to sit back and enjoy a good moe SoL fantasy superpower show.

vote anime two 2. Dimension W . I like type it

Just posted this but probably Ajin simply because it was an anime that had a semi-original premise, with a Main character who isn't over the top and feels more normal and natural in his way of acting. Amazing story, with some amazing bad-ass antagonists and such a twisted plot.

Loved it

Since I normally watch things after they're finished airing, I haven't actually watched everything that aired in winter. However, I'll talk about everything I did watch and why I did or didn't enjoy it.

Note: there will be spoilers, though I'll try to keep them minimal.

Boku dake ga inai machi (9/10)- This was, by far, the best anime that aired this season (to me). The animation, story and OST was great though the ending could have had some work. Another problem this anime faced, be it intentional or not, is that it was downright obvious who the murderer was, which, for me, took away a lot of the pleasure this anime could have given me. However, I really grew attached to the characters, something I felt the ending ruined (for most of them). However, I really enjoyed it's general idea and the way the story played out. Even though you most likely knew who the killer was, the characters didn't meaning, even if you didn't get the pleasure of figuring out who the murderer is w/ the facts, you still get a similar feeling watching others do the same within the anime.

TL;DR- This anime is pretty good up till the ending and the fav. of the season (for me).

Hai to Gensou no Grimgar (7/10)- This anime was, to me, quite boring at many parts. It had very little action, which was the primary reason I watched it, and even if there was action, I don't feel the shots of said action were in the right positions. The action, wasn't very well done. The only other thing the anime had going for it in this area was it's focus on human emotion, which I feel it also failed at. Yes, they had the general idea down to a key, and it was well done overall, but they tended to skip over the key areas that were highly important. I felt the OST was well done, and, as much as I love pastel coloring and despite how badly I wanted to see it be the art style of an action anime, it felt bland. The art made most of the scenes seem more peaceful than they truly were and the characters and art didn't blend that well. I did like, alone, both the art and character designs, and I felt the characters were well written. This anime really did take an interesting take as they placed the monsters fighting for their own cause, which was similar to that of the humans, so I gave it points for that.

TL;DR- This anime took an interesting side that most don't but left a lot to be desired.

Kono Subarashi... (6/10)- In all honestly, this anime, in aspects of doing what it wanted to do, did better than Grimgar. The animation was better as were the jokes, which were it's main selling points. This is also why I didn't like this anime much. To me, this was a cliche action harem anime that relied on it's silly jokes to make you overlook it's problems. It was one of those blown out of proportions anime when it comes to their story telling and enemies. This can be, if done correctly, really fun. However, the art and story telling didn't seem to go together and I didn't really feel attached to half the main cast. I did enjoy some of the jokes in the anime, but it seemed to be kicking a dead horse by the end of the series with some of their more prominent jokes. This anime doesn't fail to pull a laugh out of you in almost every episode, but it's how often they do it as I found myself laughing less and less at each episode. I also feel this anime left a lot of questions to be answered that weren't though the concept was also, in it's own way entertaining and yet, at the same time extremely cliche.

TL;DR- It was an ok idea with ok humor that only continued to repeat itself.

Dagashi Kashi (6/10)- This anime, like Kono Subarashi, had it's fair share of funny jokes. However, the jokes seemed to get less and less funny, even as they continued to kick a dead horse in much the same way. The difference between the comedy is that Kono tried implementing new jokes more often than Dagashi did. Dagashi sets up a legitimate story line that I could have found myself enjoying, regardless the witting, but after the first episode, it proceeded to trash the idea of a plot and continued itself just like time had stopped for 11 more episodes. Overall, I felt this anime went no where and seemed like a waste of time as the jokes also didn't go anywhere new. I did, however, learn quite a bit about candy. I did feel the OST and animation were above Kono's, which is why the two have the same score.

TL;DR- This anime trashed it's entire concept after episode 1.

GATE Season 2 (6/12)- GATE really lost it's glamor to me as things settled down on the new planet. I didn't get to see a lot of people getting shot and it lost some of it's humor. Yes, GATE did a better job of hitting it's jokes than the other two anime and the animation and OST were decent too, though, Seaons 1 set a high bar and I feel season 2 failed to reach and/or surpass that bar. They did hit new jokes, which kept me entertained, but they seemed to skim over the action scenes even more than the original season did and they took a more innocent stand unlike the first season. The anime also skimmed through a lot of other subjects I felt should have been put into more detail and quickly introduced new characters, even those that stayed.

TL;DR- Season 2 didn't surpass the first season. It dropped the bar as it skipped key areas and action.

Dimension W (5/10)- This is one anime I didn't really like, unlike the vast majority of it's audience. I felt Dimension W's soundtrack wasn't as good as that of other anime as I skipped the OP for the second half of the series (something I don't normally do). To me, this anime just wasn't aesthetically pleasing. I liked how it was out there and crazy at parts, but at the same time I didn't. The anime does wrap itself up in a decent way, though I felt they could have put more into the story (which I would actually give a 6-7/10) to make it better (as space was there) but they also skimmed over quite a few things I felt could have been expanded upon. The anime really lacked life in a good amount of their characters, only really breathing it into 1-3 of them. Dimension W also lacked explanations on some of it's core features, primarily Dimension W itself, even at the end of the series. This is, to me, a big mistake Sci-fi shows should never make- explaining how the world changed and/or it's main concept.

TL;DR- This anime failed to explain key concepts.

Schwarzesmarken (5/10)- This anime, unlike Dimension W, did hit all of it's core factors and changes. However, it lacked the depth I felt it needed considering the stance they seemed to have taken on things. It was interesting as they focused on the politics of things and kept the world divided even though they're losing a war to aliens, something I can actually see happening, but made the politics of the matter child like. They didn't put much thought behind it. I felt a lot of this anime could have easily been trumped had someone pointed out some obvious facts in the anime. I also felt the characters lacked depth and were easily changed (as in 5 minutes they're a different person). The OST was iffy to me but the animation was decent.

TL;DR- The anime had mature aspects it handled in a childish manner and it had bad characters.

Over the course of the season, I also watched some of the shorter anime, though I don't feel they need to be discussed as they weren't really meant to have a thick plot and most likely weren't as well funded as the other anime on this list. I know I haven't seen everything this season, as there are plenty of other anime that aired (and plenty of others from this season I'd like to watch). Also, just so no one gets upset, these are all my opinions and I'm not trying to force anyone to agree with them. I'm a pretty tough critic when it comes to anime as I'm a tough person to please. Some of these opinions are also partly based on my personal preference when it comes to what an anime contains, though I try to keep it based off of a more "logical" standpoint. Also, sorry if I lost you at the end; I spent quite a bit of time writing this and, as it went on, I became less enthusiastic about writing (though I continued on to finish and post this anyways). All titles have TL;DR just in case (since most people keep these things short) and I hope you enjoyed reading my opinions.~

Sad to say I didn't actually like Erased and haven't seen the other two... However I did watch Durarara x2 Ketsu! It was pretty great

Mine were Akagami no Shirayuki-hime 2nd Season, Norn9: Norn+Nonet, GATE S2, Schwarzesmarken and Bubuki Buranki