[Anime] Your top five anime of 2014

So anime news network have posted the results of a poll they did to find the most popular shows of 2014, and seeing as we've had threads on here asking what anime everyone was watching each season I thought it might be fun to ask the same question of you guys and gals.

We'll stick to ANN's rules; so the show had to start in 2014, no carry-overs from last year (sorry, Samurai Flamenco fans) and no never-ending long-runners like Naruto. But sequels, second seasons, and other spin-offs of existing shows are just fine, so long as they began this year. So, what were your favourite anime series of the year?

 

Is there a big list of all the anime's this year? I've been jumping around from here and there so I'm not positively sure.

although my I'd say one of my top 3 (depending on what was on this year) is definitely Akame Ga Kill. The last few episodes were magnificent.

 

ANN's public results (try not to be influenced by what they've given high scores to, the original polling page also listed them all but has been pulled now that it's ended) and there's a wikipedia catagory for 2014 anime too.

 

okay, so going by that, Akame Ga Kill is #1 for me.

2. Fate/Stay Night:UBW - Good action, story progresses well, and follows up Fate/Stay Zero very nicely.
3. Trinity Seven - Just one arc for the episodes listed, not all of them like Vanadis, main character guy is likeable, and him getting beat up by his harem is always a good laugh.
4. Captain Earth - Good complete story...Valvrave was still fresh in my mind watching this, and unlike the latter, CE came in full circle, showed some good growth for the characters and kept me entertained every week.
5. Aldnoah. Zero - ending dropped it a bit for me, waiting for the second half to pick up. Overall it was good, just wish some characters died sooner or didn't.
Honourable mention. Buddy Complex. I liked it despite all the crazy time traveling thing, but that ending was a HUGE let down...should've just gave it more episodes, way too rushed.
Cross Ange - Story is starting to pick up a bit and I just really like those Para-Mail Mechs.
Argevollen - Very Military type of anime...with robots. but overall, feels like how it'd be if one was part of an army unit.
Mahoka Koukou no Rettousei - all powerful MC destroying everything in the last arc was fun to watch...hope they continue it
Date a Live - 1st season was good, 2nd was okay...I don't like Miku and she got a majority of the 2nd cour. But yay for psycho Kurumi!

I've seen at least 3 episodes of about 60-65% of the ones listed in that list, I usually only give it that much to grip me and if it doesn't, I bow out. Marvel's Disc Wars take on Black Symbiote Spider man last week was good, especially since they made it so the weakness is back to sound vibrations. I haven't watched Space Dandy at all though and there are just some that I won't give the time of day because I'm not the least bit interested in according to their genre.


What about yours Toku?

 

Cross Ange, G-Reco, Nobunagun, Witchcraft Works, and at number 1 Nobunaga The Fool.

 

I don't think I can even think of five animes released in 2014 that I enjoyed.

Sailor Moon Crystal is at the top of the list, and I want to include Aldanoah Zero, but I haven't had the chance to finish the series yet (and at this pint, I might as well just start over).

If I included anime BDs that came out in 2014, my top five would be:

Ghost in the Shell Arise
Psycho Pass
Attack on Titan
Sailor Moon Crystal
Aldanoah Zero

Honestly though, this year I spent more time rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, DBZ (I'm about to start the Cell Games), and Kai than anything else. Well, I did watch the original DB for the very first time, so I would probably put that at the top of my list if I were to make just a generalized anime viewing one.

 

I must admit there were a lot of shows that I started but didn't pass the three episode test. It's the first full year I've followed the simulcasts and surprisingly the mecha shows just didn't do it for me, while I kept picking up shows from genres I'd never been interested in before. Some of them are still ongoing so I hope they don't take a nose-dive and make me regret including them. :sweat:

My favourite of the year wasn't a surprise. Mushi-shi: The Next Chapter. The first series is one of my all-time favourite anime, and 8 (!) years later they came back even better. It's not an action-packed show (actually I don't think there's ever been a fight). You certainly have to be in the mood to watch something very calm. There isn't even an overarching plot (or even re-occurring characters aside from the lead). But for thought-provoking, mature, atmospheric TV I just love it.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero. This show has had very little attention, and the few reviews I have seen have compared it to Madoka Magica but IMO it forges a different path despite being aimed at a similar audience. I won't describe the plot as it's easy to give too much away about a 12 episode show, but IMO it's the right mix of fighting multiple Godzilla-sized (but non-humanoid) monsters simultaniously (and I mean fight - Yuki favours dragon punches and rider kicks), character building moments to get you invested, and a slow-burning horrific plot. It also integrates a disabled hero in without any trouble, which I've never seen before.

Hozuki no Reitetsu A mostly-overlooked workplace comedy about a guy called Hozuki who somehow always manages to keep a cool head even when dealing with inexperienced colleagues, a hated rival, and a boss who'd rather tell you about his grandkids than do his job. The twist is that Hozuki's job is chief steward of Japanese hell and his colleagues are other demons responsible for tormenting the departed. You might need to know a little of Japanese mythology (Momotaro anyone?) to get the most from it, but it tries every kind of comedy you can think of to get a laugh.

Denki-Gai. I nearly gave this spot to Barakamon, which is done very well despite having a very old premise. But Denki-Gai is a show about manga nerds that spoofs the slice-of-life / workplace comedy genre rather than just lean on nerdy in-jokes. I'm not into manga, but even I can feel the passion the show has for the subject and while it isn't sophisticated it's just a lot of fun to watch.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders. TBH I don't enjoy it quite as much as the previous season but my issues are story-based ones that it inherited from the manga. JoJo is still consistantly entertaining and I can't wait for it to return.

I strongly considered putting Crystal on the list. I only started watching it because everyone was talking about Madoka Magica while Gaim was on, and I figured that to get the most out of Madoka I should probably understand what a normal magical girl show was like before I jumped into the "deconstructed" version. I think I saw about 6 episodes before I had to get caught up on all the episodes of the 90s Sailor Moon so far uploaded to hulu, and I'll probably keep watching the newly released ones each week until I've seen it all. That made Crystal seem very worthy. However, as it's gone on I've realised that the story requires you to be invested in the characters, and the only reason I am is because I've seen some of the original anime. Crystal itself isn't doing that. And then this week they really dropped the ball with the four kings of heaven. :shakefist

Did that show ever get back to the fun space battles? That launch/combination sequence instantly sold me on the series, but then they barely bothered with them. I reached the end of episode 14 and then dropped the show because I couldn't remember the last episode that I hadn't found a chore to watch, and a whole new season of shows was starting.

 

Yeah, the latter episodes were all space battles. I honestly found the sequences tedious time-wasters. I liked it though.
well, most of it.

 

Here is my top 5 anime of 2014

1. Gundam Build Fighters Try
2. SAO II
3. Yugioh Arc V
4. Gundam: G no Reconguista
5. DBZ Kai [Buu Arc]

 

That's because they decided to showcase something not in the manga, but then never followed through with it. It was the ending to the Escaflowne movie all over again.

"We remember you. We fell in love with you. BLAH!! We are dead. Go save your princess."

It was like WTF? The Sailor Soldiers' lament lasted all of like 4 seconds.

I'll take Crystal over the original anime any day due to the lack of filler redundancy, but I will say that Naoko does not know how to write a villain for ****. Her writing for the Black Moon Family is just convoluted and awful. It is the worst arc in the manga.

 

Hmm, now that Denki-Gai has finished I'm not so sure it deserved to be ahead of Barakamon. Both left me wanting more, but Barakamon felt like a natural place to end while Denki-Gai just ran out of episodes. :redface2:

The protagonist characters just never really grew on me and at the time I stopped watching it didn't feel like the plot was going anywhere. At that point, spectacle was all it had left to offer and it wasn't doing that.

I watched the first two or three episodes of the first Build Fighters series, but I wasn't convinced by the whole "fighting our toys is serious business" and there wasn't actually much in the way of battling going on. But I've heard good things about those shows so I might re-visit them someday.

They slightly rescued them this week, or at the very least made it so episode 12's lame move was not their last appearance. I think Crystal is better on a technical level than the original anime (I especially like Crystal's soundtrack) but it lacks the characterisation to stand on it's own. Mercury, Mars, Jupitar and Venus are essentially a single combined character.