Yes, that title is indeed a pretty obvious reference to Houseki no Kuni: who knew that a CGI anime about genderless almost immortal gem people could be so good?
But that’s only one of several surprisingly good anime series that came out this year. Kemono Friends was the first and perhaps most surprising of these, a wonky looking CGI anime about cute animal girls that turned out to have not just excellent writing, but heart enough to melt the most cynical anime fan. A very pleasant surprise at a time when heart was something sorely needed in the real world. A heart warming experience right during the coldests, dreariest months of the year.
Two more series I had no expectations for whatsoever were Tsuki ga Kirei and Just Because, romance series which went for realism in their romance. Both had strong characters who weren’t tied to the usual romcom stereotypes, while the writing had the courage to go slow on the development of the romance. It made for a very different sort of anime romance story.
18 If was a series that was easy to overlook, but for me was one of the best series of the Summer season. The biggest problem with it was that the overall storyline, of a guy stuck in dreamland having to rescue girls from Sleeping Beauty syndrome, where they’re stuck in their own private dream worlds The strongest episodes were those where the nominal protagonist was barely present or only as observer, when the focus was on the girl’s own story. The series wasn’t afraid to change its anime style frequently to suit each story, so it’s easy to think of it as an anthology and not pay too much attention to the overall plot.
Gamers was great because it looked like it would be a typical school club series, where the geeky loner protagonist is invited to the gaming club by the school’s beautiful idol, only for him to politely reject the offer. It then turns into one of the best cringe comedies I’ve seen in anime, as everybody misunderstands everybody and everybody thinks everybody else is in a relation with somebody other than they’re actually are. It gets so bad you have the characters themselves drawing up love diagrams to keep everything straight. It’s rare that a comedy anime makes me laugh each episode, but Gamers! did it.
Animegataris also started out as a seemingly ordinary school club series, this time based around the love of anime and for about nine episodes we got that, before it all became one giant glorious meta mess as things became a bit too anime. Even before that transformation it was already delightful, in how positive a vision it had of anime, going beyond the usual consumerism of otaku baiting series and not neglecting international fandom either, by both introducing a Chinese fan as well as showing how the shared love for magical girls shows had made another character friends in the American high school she went to.
So while you think that it couldn’t happen anymore, what with online news and fansites dissecting all info coming out of Japan and simulcasting delivering shows as they’re aired there, but there were still plenty of shows that came out of the blue this year, not just for me, but for most anime fans. It can only be good if anime creators can still surprise us like that.
This is the eleventh post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: looking forward to 2018.
No Comments