Votes
10. Minori Scramble - A cute action comedy short film about a girl with a penguin phobia learning to overcome that with a strange penguin robot with the personality of a little girl. Yeah that sounds weird, and it is, but also pretty funny and it's filled with energy and lots of nice animation with really bold colors. Extremely pleasant to look at, and fun to watch on a lazy weekend with friends.
9. Kids on the Slope - Cowboy Bebop's Watanabe made a surprise return to directing this year, and while I would love to rate his series higher, the facts speak for themselves. Adapting a 9 volume manga into 12 episodes of anime is a bad idea. Hence it is not surprising that while the show had a really strong first half, it then suffered greatly from pacing issues and felt like a rush to the finish by the last couple of episodes. The mid-series climax was fantastic though, and deserves to be acknowledged for that alone.
8. Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos - I think I voted for this last year, but with the new rules it makes sense to give it a vote again anyway. I liked this movie quite a bit, other than the lackluster ending itself. Lots of solid action animation and effects animation as expected from BONES, and as a self-contained random FMA side story it works quite well and the new setting keeps things interesting. Too bad about the dumb ending though.
7. Letter to Momo - This film was in production for about 6 years. It's a labor of love by Okiura, who previously directed Jin-Roh. It was a good movie, with really good production values, but I felt it was a bit too simple and a bit too orthodox to really move me in anyway. It's certainly nice to have another Ghibli-style movie from a non-Ghibli studio, but I just felt there was something missing from it to make it really memorable.
6. Code:Breaker - I don't really think the story or characters are that great, and the manga it is based on is really crappy. Yet somehow, director Irie has managed to take what he has to work with and made it work. What we end up with is a totally cheesy 90s style shounen action series with really solid effects animation, tight direction, and scripts which focus on creating exciting fighting scenarios making the best use of the characters they have. Definitely the best effects animation in anime this year.
5. Girls und Panzer - This series is just plain fun. The premise of an alternate reality where schoolgirls drive tanks to compete in non-lethal competitions as a club activity is just off the wall. What makes it work here is a combination of smart direction, a great script, and really solid music - many of which are remixes of popular marching tunes themed to different countries. Really fun stuff. Panzer vor!
4. One Piece - Episode of Nami - Another huge surprise for me this year, especially since I don't even watch the One Piece anime usually. This TV movie special adapts the classic Arlong Park story from early in the One Piece series, and it's probably my favorite story in early One Piece. The adaptation here was pretty solid, and captured all the emotions which I felt the original handled so well.
3. Hyouka - The very definition of "slow burn". This series started out in a really mundane way, and for much of the first half remained slow and sometimes straight out boring. But the character development is good, the interactions are interesting, and by the second half the series it really takes advantage of that to deliver what is ultimately the best character drama series of the year. Amazing production values too.
2. Tsuritama - This was quite a surprise for me. The first series I watched directed by Nakamura was [C], which turned out to be pretty awful. Here he does a total turnaround and delivers a really upbeat, quirky, but enjoyable drama-comedy about aliens and fishing set on the Japanese island of Enoshima. Great pacing and build-up all the way to the climax. Very satisfying ending too.
1. Fate/Zero 2nd Season - I loved the first season, and I'm a total sucker for modern settings mixed with urban fantasy nonsense. The compelling characters, dark tone, and tight script made for a really thrilling ride. Ufotable's creative usage of digital techniques in the series really elevated it from a normal television anime series into something which felt more at home with OVAs or theatrical animation. Great stuff.
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Honorable Mentions
Wolf Children - If the rules allowed, I would totally be voting for this as the number one anime of the year. Mamoru Hosoda has done it again, and this is his best film yet. A very mature piece of film making, relying more on visuals and sound than dialogue, and it tells a powerful story of how a young mother brings up two kids on her own - except they're part-wolf. Hey, I'm not really a furry. Honest!
009 Re:Cyborg - This year has a lot of stuff from big directors who haven't done anything for a while. This is Kenji Kamiyama's full CG stereoscopic 3D anime movie based on the Cyborg 009 franchise. It was kinda weird, and honestly I didn't like it much when I got out of the cinema, but after some reflection, it definitely has some interesting ideas. It starts of feeling extremely reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, but eventually ends up feeling more like a partially successful love song to Oshii's Ghost in the Shell movies instead. Weird stuff, with some pretty decent 3D effects.
From the New World - This is the only series I considered on my Top10 list this year but couldn't fit it in. It's just hard to justify with the uneven pacing, and some really wretched episodes in-between of certain story arcs so far. It's a great scifi mystery-horror if we're talking about the atmosphere and tone, but when it comes to actual narrative, sometimes it just falls short.
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Dishonorable Mentions
Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna - I'm mentioning this here because this is the worst anime I watched all year. If you are even considering watching this because of the Lupin brand, don't. IT IS FUCKING AWFUL. Don't watch it. It starts off with decent but underwhelming episodic episodes, and then it completely falls off the cliff when the "real" storyline starts and it just goes crazy in all the worst ways possible. Total.Waste.Of.Time. #youhavebeenwarned