10 Anime I Most Enjoyed

I think that there’s something really special about discussing the things that you like. While I do not find that I always agree with people’s favourites when it comes to anime or other media, there’s something enjoyable about seeing people’s passion when it comes to the things they love. Positivity is such a fantastic force! For some time I found it really difficult to decide on things which I liked the most. Perhaps I felt that by naming something as ‘more enjoyable’ or ‘better’ that I was locked into that decision. I know that there’s other bloggers who have expressed their difficulties in this regard. Still, as I’ve grown to enjoy seeing others share their enthusiasm, I thought I’d share a little of mine regarding the things I like.

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I Like Shorts

Replace easy to wear with easy to watch and you get the idea

If you’ve hung around this blog for any length of time, you have probably figured out that I enjoy short-form anime, or anime shorts, or sometimes I just call them shorts. While I’ve seen some people create additional categories, I’d consider an anime short to be any show which has an episode runtime noticeably less than the regular 20-25 minute runtime of regular series. This can be anything from under 2 minutes up to about 15 minutes.

Anime shorts are a relatively new thing to become available to English-speaking anime viewers. Back when anime was either fan-subbed or received a DVD release some time after it had finished airing in Japan, the focus was mainly on things which a wide number of viewers would be interested in. Most shorts tend to be a bit niche and quirky, and often don’t have the overarching plot and impressive 2D visuals which draw many people to anime, so they rarely got any attention. With the increase of legal online anime streaming, English subtitled shorts are far more readily available. I think this is a great thing!

Best of 2016 Awards

It seems like the end of the year has come upon us before we know it, and it’s a chance for me to look back on the year that we’ve had and see what stood out to me! I’m also going to use this spot as an opportunity to mention things which were exceptional that were not anime. It’s also worth noting that I will on occasion distinguish between favourite and best. A favourite thing is the thing which I personally enjoyed the most. Obviously for me to enjoy it, it may have some technical merit, but something can be a favourite while I recognise its flaws or lack of general appeal. A best thing is one which I think is strong on all technical levels, and I liked it, but it may not have felt as personally enjoyable as a favourite. For something to qualify for an award, I have to have completed it for the first time this year. It doesn’t have to be new in general unless specified, I feel that limiting myself to only new things means that I miss out on shining light on older things and it’s not as though only new things are good, it just has to have been new for me. Also, when it comes to some of the non-anime categories, it would be unusual for me to actually partake of something released in the last 12 months.

12 Days of Anime: Day 10 – gd Bungee Jumping

gdgd fairies (my review of the series is here) is without a doubt, the gdest anime which I have watched this year (not the best or my favourite, but it’s very fun). A moment which I think really captures the ridiculous absurdity of the whole show is when the three fairies decide to go bungee jumping and have a scavenger hunt.

Series Review – gdgd fairies

Anime is frequently lauded for it’s overarching stories and quality 2D animation. gdgd fairies has none of these things, but I think that it’s still worth a look. gdgd fairies is a strange little series of comedy shorts (14 min episodes) created using the MMD (Miku Miku Dance) software. It features the life and adventures of three fairies, pkpk (Piku), shrshr (Shiru), and krkr (Koro). My review does mention some of the events of the show, but as it’s a sketch comedy, I don’t think these qualify as plot spoilers. Use your own discretion! This review discusses both seasons of the show, as they’re fairly similar in content.