Best of Anime
Best World Building
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
The world building in Jobless Reincarnation is exceptional. A vast, expansive, detailed, rich world. Beautiful scenery, great music, calm, atmospheric, at times emotional opening scenes drive a presentation. Adventures, traveling, and relocating drive insight into the rich world. Characters, and the exceptional storytelling and alternating between curious adventure, struggling travels and tragedy drive a right world. Insight into other characters and surroundings drive a rich world.
Only two things may take away from this masterpiece series, albeit they may be subjective. If you do not mind, can ignore, or are willing to try to ignore or to accept the occasional lewd story aspects, and possibly the occasionally occurring white scenes (diffuse terminology in order not to spoil anything), this series does not miss anything.
Best/Most Touching Storytelling
Violet Evergarden is a masterpiece in both primary and secondary storytelling.
Most Adorable Character
Kanna - Miss Kobayashi`s Dragon Maid
Kanna is an adorable kid. Visually, this is driven by the small-kid-thickness. She acts pretty reserved.
Miss Kobayashi`s Dragon Maid is a great mixture of fantasy and slice-of-life, with character, story, and friendship development.
Most Adorable Character Runnerups
Miyauchi Renge - Non Non Biyori
Non Non Biyori is a masterpiece in calm, slice-of-life storytelling. A perfect series to relax with.
Calmest Anime
Non Non Biyori is a masterpiece in calm, slice-of-life storytelling. A perfect series to relax with.
Calmest Anime Runnerups
Mushishi has wonderful, beautiful, and tragic stories to tell, and it does so exceptionally well.
The protagonist is a mixture of spirit doctor and botanist, working with and around (non-conscious) spirits and their influence on people and their environments. Beautiful scenery, great, calm storytelling. Great variance in stories, and travels to various places and people. A rich setting and world.
Laid-Back Camp (Yuru Camp) great series with camping theme.
Most Insightful (IRL/industry)
Shirobako tells stories of anime production. It was really insightful, and made me appreciate anime in a new way, occasionally and specifically being mindful, noticing and/or appreciating details and specifics about and within anime.
Most Insightful Runnerups
- Silver Spoon - agriculture school setting, insight into food and agriculture production
- Dr. Stone - with a driving theme of Science; the scientific process, and knowledge.
Most Disturbing Anime
Grave of the Fireflies tells the story of two children in Japan during/at the end of World War 2. At times gruesome, overall tragic, and an exceptional and important telling of one of the many stories wars in general but also this one in particular produced.
When I watched a documentation on the Atomic Bombs, historic context, and consequences recently, it reminded me of Grave of the Fireflies, and how based in reality it is, and how well and close it touched the gruesome aspects of that part of history.
Best Music Performances
I had Beck here, but I’m not so sure about that anymore. What’s the best in my eyes/ears? For now, I will list the ones I remember.
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
It definitely shows its age, with image in 4:3, and lack of visual details. It starts pretty pessimistic and negative; moreso than I would have liked. But the music and embedded story of it is great.
