Now that 2014 is officially in the books, I'll take a look back at what were my favorite anime in that year. Here we go!
Witch Craft Works
Some of the best action sequences this year. Fantastic music, memorable characters, consistent tone. Few anime in 2014 could hope to have such a combination.
Love Live! School Idol Project 2nd Season
You can almost here the Rocky theme in the background. It might be The Right Stuff of the idol genre. You feel good after each episode! P.S. Nico is the best.
World Conquest Zvezda Plot
Any anime with a world domination plot spearheaded by a little girl is okay by me. It also features a meganekko rabbit-girl robot.
Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta
War is hell. While some anime focus mainly on a glorious, heroic aspect of battle, this one shows the unfortunate consequences of political violence, and its tendency to reverberate in time. Flawed, yet still worthwhile.
Mushishi Zoku Shou
If you ever come across a mushi, just leave the damn thing alone!
Zankyo no Terror
Decent storytelling, even if it did present the terrorism aspect as too clean. However, that would overlook some of the monsters in it who were far from having clean hands and who indirectly brought about the situation they found themselves in.
Wake Up, Girls!
Slightly different in tone than LLSIP, even showing the less-shiny crappy side of the music industry. (For a minute there I thought they were headed into The Black Swan territory, haha.) They put up a good fight to transcend the ugly side, as each character in her own way exemplified. P.S. Yoshino is the best.
Denkigai no Honya-san
Hopeless otaku working in a manga shop are my kind of otaku.
Even though it premiered as a fall 2013 release and finished with the winter 2014 releases, I'll include Kill la Kill as a special mention. Is it a 2013 or a 2014 anime? It ended in the latter, so I'll count it here as an asterisk. The battle between Ryuuko and Satsuki in ep.4 was glorious. So yeah, my list includes a significant asterisk.
Other than the asterisk, you'll also notice that this isn't a top 10 list. While there were other anime I liked in 2014 (e.g. Hanayamata, Lodocol and Aldnoah.Zero), I didn't like them enough to fill out a solid top 10 list. Otherwise, it would have been a padded list for the sake of making it 10 entries. I might have made it even shorter, but I enjoyed Wake Up, Girls! enough to include it.
Oh, and one more thing, after looking up all the releases in 2014 and compiling this list, I realized that the ones I liked the most aired early in the year. Witch Craft Works, Zveda Plot, Toaru Hikuushi e no Koita and Wake Up, Girls! all started in the January winter season. After that, LLSIP and Mushishi Zoku Shou debuted in the spring season. Following those, the only blips that really registered with me were Zankyo no Terror in the summer season and Denkigai no Honya-san in the fall season. I think this may be partly explained by what I actually watched each season. Some of my picks weren't the luckiest, especially the spring ones being offset by Akuma no Riddle and Brynhilder in the Darkness - the latter being a particularly awful mess. At least the former had some moments that were stupid enough to be entertaining in a way only bad anime can, which the latter completely lacked. During that spring season, I even picked up No Game No Life, which has wildly overinflated numbers on MAL. It was fun, but not that fun. And that's all it was. From the fall season, Sora no Method started off okay, but then gradually got on my nerves with its extra-needy clingy obsessive friendship. How many times can a main character get slapped and be given the cold shoulder and still believe in the power of friendship?!?! I guess every season's picks are gambles, and you hope you pick the winners (Zveda Plot) and not the losers (Brynhilder).
Here's looking forward to 2015! (And the Love Live movie!)
