Anime UK News Review of 2021 Part 1: Anime

Great article and always good to pick up from others' preferences on anything missed in the year passed.

Very much like @darkstorm, this has been the year of Evangelion for me, with the decades awaited culmination of Anno's masterpiece (thank you capitalist hive mind Amazon for bringing this so promptly to our iPads/smart TVs/etc etc!!) and then the beautiful updated blu-ray releases (thank you AL for the brilliant and unexpected addition of the classic subs/dubs - legends!).

Now I can only hope we get an AL Evangelion Rebuild UE with all four movies, in the vein of their beautiful release for 1.11 (that I bloody missed!!). But I'll very happily settle for one of 3.33+1.11=4.44 first. Yes, it's been a great year for Eva fans.
 
As I was mostly focusing on the backlog and finally conquering all 110 episodes of Legend of the Galactic Heroes I didn't really have much time for seasonals this year. Just so happens that I only watched 11 series this year it's pretty easy to rank them.
  1. Uma Musume: Pretty Derby Season 2
  2. Super Cub
  3. Laid-Back Camp Season 2
  4. I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
  5. Blue Period *
  6. Love Live! Superstar!!
  7. Godzilla: Singular Point
  8. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean *
  9. Komi Can't Communicate *
  10. Beastars 2
  11. High-Rise Invasion
Series marked with * are those that either haven't finished broadcast yet (Blue Period and Komi Can't Communicate) or that I'm pretty far behind on (only 3 episodes into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) and are subject to change. Even considering what little I watched I had a pretty good year with fantastic sequels in Laid-Back Camp and Uma Musume and new favourites in Super Cub, Blue Period and Killing Slimes. Will scale back my commitment to the backlog next year and give some focus to the series I've been missing such as Eighty-Six, Odd Taxi, Sonny Boy, Ranking of Kings and a LOT of sequels.

Also gotta agree on Evangelion 3.0+1.0. Nothing more that hasn't already been said. A well deserved and cathartic ending to the series.

Another highlight of the year comes in the form of a music video from director Atsushi Nishigori and much of the team from EVA 3.0+1.0 with VOY@GER. Released to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the IDOLM@STER franchise, VOY@GER is great fun with a fantastic production behind it.

Looking ahead to 2022 and while there's bound to be many sequels to look forward to there's also plenty of new projects like Girls' Frontline, Sorairo Utility, Atsuko Ishizuka's Goodbye, Don Glees!, Mitsuo Iso's The Orbital Children and that's only in the Winter season! Gonna be a good year.

Also noticed @Onosume pondering whether the R3BIRTH unit will be in the second season of the Nijigasaki series and I've got good news!
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1444638164140773382
 
Despite some good shows I don't think it's been a great year (better than 2020 though), although there's a few shows (and films) I've seen mentioned here or elsewhere as being good that I haven't seen and a few to finish.
My 9s (only 6!) from this year ranked are:
  1. ODD TAXI
  2. Yuru Camp s2
  3. Kageki Shoujo
  4. Megalo Box: NOMAD
  5. Kobayashi s2
  6. Nagatoro
There were 18 8s though, 5 are mentioned in the article. A couple of note I thought might get a mention are Horimiya and Tokyo Revengers! Others are probably more personal (Rom-com and SoL) like Non Non Biyori 3, Super Cub, Duke of Death, My Senpai is Annoying, Taisho Otome Fairy Tale and Aquatope on White Sand. A couple I would recommend if you want something a little different are Shadows House and Wonder Egg Priority (until it disintegrated in the crash landing of a final episode!) Which leaves CaW:BLACK, Combatants Will Be Dispatched and Moriarty the Patriot s2 which probably aren't 8s in reality, but I found them fun enough.

2018 still reigns in the best year since I started watching seasonal in 2018!

As for stuff coming up, I saw no mention of Chainsaw Man! Sounds like it'll be an insane watch.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
My 9s (only 6!) from this year ranked are:
  1. ODD TAXI
  2. Yuru Camp s2
  3. Kageki Shoujo
  4. Megalo Box: NOMAD
  5. Kobayashi s2
  6. Nagatoro
Click to expand...
Gooood list and further reminders of what I've missed. Apart from Nagatoro (of which I think I managed 6 episodes but still plan to finish that at some point) I'm very keen to make time to watch all those others especially Odd Taxi and Kageki Shoujo. Aquatope another one I wasn't able to fit into my schedule. Wonder Egg was high up on the list and I did manage to watch and it was so, so very good to begin with. It felt very much like it was doing for the Magical Girl genre what ssss's gridman & the truly excellent dynazenon did for theirs. Shame they couldn't finish it (Final episode you say? What final episode? Surely you jest: there was NO such thing! None whatsoever...).
 
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