Well, I guess it’s about that time of year again where I remember to make my one token post to wish people a pleasant festive season, probably posted slightly early under the excuse of it already being the 25th in Japan.

I guess I could talk about some anime I’ve watched in the past year, if only to prove I’ve actually watched some stuff.

Labyrinth – Shoji Kawamori’s latest effort is probably my favourite movie of the year (though it’s not actually out for a week or so in Japan, so hurrah for film festivals). Please note that this is a very different thing from me thinking it’s the best movie of the year. It’s probably going to be a movie with a very self-selecting audience, between the Sanzigen-powered CG animation and Kawamori’s excesses being on full display.

As a movie, I guess the elevator pitch would be “It’s like one of those Hosoda Internet Movies, but with the mindset of Arjuna”, as a girl gets trapped in the world of her smartphone as her internet troll alt-account tries to personify herself in the real world by becoming a social-media memelord with the assistance of a nerdy scientist who has reinvented himself as a f**kboy by rewriting his own existence with the power of 7G (in the Train to the End of the World sense).

On a purely superficial level, though, it’s a movie deeply in love with the works of Shoji Kawamori, which I guess is funny when you consider that he’s the director of it. I think there’s at least a little something from just about everything he has put his name to – the Aquarion references almost literally punch you in the face, but there’s entire cuts recreated from Macross Plus, there’s heavy reuse of extremely specific pieces of visual language from Arjuna, Fortune Telling inevitably comes up, and there’s even some shoutouts to his mechanical design work in Cyber Formula.

All of which probably makes it sound like I’m pointing and laughing at the wacky reference cartoon – which is probably underplaying how absolutely insane the rest of the movie is – but it never really comes across to me as being anything less than extremely knowing about what it’s doing, and it’s not like Kawamori doesn’t have something to say (and it’s at least not anywhere near as…. anything about Arjuna’s take on fast food burgers). I think it’s a lot of fun. Some of my friends thought it was nonsense. I feel like that’s the sign of a good movie, though.

The Last Blossom – Probably actually the best movie of the year. It’s also one of those Japanese movies that lives under the specter of Stand By Me, albeit not in terms of mirroring it’s plot in the kind of way something like Goodbye Donglees does, instead more in the “This is set in the year the movie was released and this is tangentially relevant” kind of way. I’m not sure I really need to push a movie made by the same senior staff as Odd Taxi, though.

100m – I liked this enough to have been happy to sit through it three times, but I guess it’s going up on Netflix in a few days (at least in the UK), so just watch it yourself if you are interested.

TURKEY – On the TV end, I guess I’m always going to have respect for the TV originals, and even more for something where they spent two years promoting the show as being a typical Cute Girls Hobby Anime only to first subvert that in the PVs released close to broadcast by suggesting a much more sombre tone, and then to subvert that again with the way it’s first episode concludes. Even then, it follows through with sowing Bowling into every fibre of it’s existence, entirely seriously even in the face of sheer absurdity. Plus I like the characters and think the story it tells is ultimately pretty sweet. Probably my personal TV anime of the year.

MONO – I like regular Cute Girls Hobby Anime as well, though I guess the way it started ignoring the Primary Hobby it was supposed to be about in favour of Just Being More YuruCamp rubbed a few people the wrong way.

Apocalypse Hotel – Probably the actual best TV anime of the year, though again it’s gets bonus points for being an original. It’s very much one of those shows where I absolutely had no idea what genre an episode was even going to be when firing it up every week, yet never in a way that didn’t ultimately make sense. Goes to some utterly wild places whilst somehow tackling a bunch of Properly Hard SciFi concepts. I just think it’s Neat.

Ave Mujica – I actually procrastinated on watching MyGO right up until the day before this aired, pretty much finishing the last episode right as Ave Mujica episode 1 aired. Was very much worth marathoning MyGO to watch, though.

Medalist – I gather some of the manga fans kind of hate the adaptation for failing to capture the impression the performances gave them in the original material thanks to it’s gloriously flowing artwork, but as an anime only, I enjoyed it just fine. Mostly, I’m just glad to see Nabeshin getting work on something with enough Goofs to play to his strengths. Guess I should really be watching Princession for that, though.

Ninja and Assassin – Mostly just nice to see something that plays into the visual SHAFT-isms of a decade ago.

Necronomico – It’s a little frustrating that most of the news surrounding this ended up being in regards to it’s first episodes (quickly-replaced) AI subtitles – the actual show is pretty fun, in that twisty-turn cliffhangery way that was rather more common in shows a couple of decades ago. Was absolutely wild to see the show recreating the old NeoGeo game King of the Monsters in it’s climax.

Secrets of the Silent Witch – I ended up mainlining the novels after the first three episodes. I’d like to think that’s some kind of recommendation. Smart adaptation of the material which knows what is ultimately superfluous and can be trimmed for the sake of making a better paced TV show.

I watched and enjoyed a bunch of other stuff this year as well, but honestly, you are probably all fed up with reading about the likes of CITY and New Panty, and I honestly have zero to add to those conversations.

Old TV show of the year is the 1996 Magical Girl Pretty Sammy show. I ended up rewatching a bunch of Tenchi content for a 1995 retrospective panel I was running at an anime convention, and it’s honestly remarkable exactly how much funnier this is than than, say, Tenchi Universe. Tight scripts full of smart gags and incredible visual gags, and Nabeshins episode fully displays exactly how much of A Threat he was back in the 90s.

Oh, I guess I did get sucked into the Horse Game as well.