Favorite 2014 Anime

To be completely honest, there wasn't much I was looking forward to coming into the year. Compared to last year where many great shows wrapped up, such as Attack on Titan and the rarely discussed Arpeggio of Blue Steel (which I will eventually get around to reviewing, by the way).

However, like anime tends to do, there were a lot of cool shows that took me by storm. Some long and some that only lasted for about twelve episodes. This year also served as something of a precursor for what next year looks like: a whole bunch of season 2s. You had SAO II, Fate/Stay Night unlimited blade works as some of the bigger ones.

What was good about this year was the fact that I didn't really feel any one anime taking over everything so that everyone had to watch it so they had their own opinion. I mean, yeah, there were really big names such as Tokyo Ghoul that came out, but, it wasn't like the 2014 anime like how Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online were the past two years.  It gave other shows their own chance to breathe.

But that wasn't to say there wasn't a presence. SAO II was fantastic, and the AOT OVA "No Regrets" was still really cool. It just shows durability on the part of these shows to continue being so strong.

So today, I'm gonna be discussing what my favorite anime of 2014 was, as well as some others I liked a lot. I won't, however, be including any newly released English Dubs into this "favorite" selection since they technically had come out in years previous. But, I'll touch on them now:

"Battle of Gods" was really great and it was awesome to see DBZ back in mainstream media just as Kai is returning to TV on Toonami. Hopefully it will get more exposure and get its popularity back to what it was when I was a kid, and not just rely on a nostalgia factor. We finally got the last two parts of Hellsing: Ultimate and like the other eight, the voice acting and all of that was great and it was wonderful to see the end of such a bloody good (haha, get it?) run on an amazing OVA series (not for kids...or any queasy people...yeah). Fairy Tail continued to be great and introduced us to the Grand Magic Games arc while finally alleviating us from the filler Key to the Starry Heavens stuff. I haven't watched anything past where the English Dub is (I'm too used to it by now) and so you can't tell me if I'm going to eventually like Sting and Rogue because right now I'm just looking forward to the Dragon Slayer showdown that the opening promises me.

Also, one more thing on dubs, I really like what Funimation is doing with their broadcast dubs. If you haven't heard, they basically decided to test it out on two Fall 2014 series: as the episodes are being released still in Japan, Funimation has hired voice actors, just as they would for a regular dub session, but bring out new English episodes every week as their own simulcast. It's a good way to get the show out quicker for a boxed release and allows people who prefer the English Dubs to watch the shows. They're usually about four episodes behind, too. I can't imagine they'll be doing this for their longer running shows such as One Piece or Fairy Tail given how far behind they are, but perhaps for future shows released in the Winter or Spring season they'll test it out. I'm really looking forward to where the future of broadcast dubs goes. It's certainly an exciting time to be an anime fan.

As far as newly released shows go, for this year, there weren't too many bad shows that I watched. Early on I started watching the horror-anime Pupa and that was just so weird and I didn't really care for the art-style. I had no idea what the heck was going on and the episode formatting was very strange. I've heard that they tried to convert episodes from 24-minutes long (so standard time) down to what they became, 5 minutes long. You can imagine the problems there.

Two of the shows I'm most mixed on how I feel about them are Akame ga Kill! and the ongoing Lord Marksman and Vanadis. Obviously I'm not sure how Vanadis is going to end and it seems to be picking up as far as action goes, with more battles and the situations growing more dire, but there are several plot elements that are constantly left dangling in the back of my mind that I think should have been addressed earlier that aren't getting any attention right now.

With the former, I'm still not sure what to make of it. It's like it tried to be Game of Thrones-like in the way that it picked people off, but there were some that I just shook my head at. Were there traumatizing episodes? Absolutely, and it has some extremely memorable moments. But the ending was a little rushed, for my taste. The action was fantastic, however, and I really did like the animation. Plus, the openings were great. If you want my full-thoughts on this Summer 2014 anime, you can check out my thoughts here.

The show that did end up being my favorite was one that I knew would probably be my favorite no matter what, before I even heard of all these other shows. And by the time I was at episode four or five, I pretty much knew not much was going to top this.

I'm talking, of course, about Sword Art Online II.

Yeah, yeah. I know it's a season 2, and I don't care. This show was great. It was exactly what, I believe, the first season was going for. You have an amazing twelve episode arc to open the show, followed by a little breather arc that's nothing but fun for the characters, and then the last seven or eight episodes are a very intriguing, if not gut-wrenching by the end, story. You can say that the show slows down as far as character and action goes with the "Excalibur" arc, but, come on. It's only four episodes and it's fun to finally see all of the main characters from the show (Kirito, Asuna, Suguha, Silica, Lizbeth, Klein, Yui, and now Sinon) working together to fight, um, the Nordic Gods. In a videogame. Plus, I didn't even notice this, there's a sweet call-back to one of my favorite moments from the first season.

Also, just going to point this out because Aniplex produced both SAO and the "Fate" series: Excalibur in both shows look extremely similar. Probably just little nods to each other, but, still. Interesting stuff.

Ah, yeah, then there's that show. Fate/ Stay Night unlimited blade works. Well, at first, SAO II had pulled away pretty far. It's season finale was very strong, adding a lot to the character of Asuna and had a really touching moment.

But DANG what a cliffhanger from FSN, man! I mean it's just as bad as the Aldnoah.Zero cliffhanger or the Arrow cliffhanger (HA!...I mean...how sad...).

I'm really, really happy that FSN is doing as well as it is. Fate/Zero, being the best anime ever in my opinion, set a huge precedence for this show in every regard. And as far as I'm concerned, FSN is doing a darn good job of living up to that precedence. Yeah it's not as grand or epic but there are still huge moments in FSN that feel grand and epic. Like the big one from the season finale. I have no idea what happens in the visual novel, and I don't want to know, but I honestly have no idea where this show is going next. I have a heck of a lot of questions.

FSN is easily my second favorite show of 2014, though. I mean, it's just a whole lot of fun. Whereas F/Z was serious drama and action, this show is a lot of fun and still has its own intriguing elements. The chase for Caster throughout the season was intriguing as were seeing all of the various Servants. Heck, there's still the mystery of who Lancer's master is as well as the ploy Gilgamesh and Kirei are going for. Because you know they have their own motives. As far as animation goes, this is probably the best animated show, but a close second to this would have to be the aforementioned Aldnoah.Zero.

I don't mind CGI anime, which is why I don't mind the style of Arpeggio of Blue Steel, so the mechs of Aldnoah being CGI. They're used pretty sparingly anyway, so it's not too bad. The only probably I have with Aldnoah is the fact that its main character is soooooo bland and boring. There is never any hint of emotion coming off of him. Luckily, the supporting cast is fantastic. Lt. Marito, Slaine, Rayet, heck, even his sister is more interesting than him. The situations presented in the show are also very daunting. And I like the opening, and, again, what a finale!

This was the year of good finales for animation, apparently. Just look at this, SAO, FSN, and, of course, The Legend of Korra. (haters gonna hate)

Plus, Aldnoah.Zero was composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, the composer for my favorite OST of all time, Attack on Titan. So that's a plus.

Yet throughout all of this stuff, SAO II prevailed. Why? Well because it finally got its pacing in order, it didn't try to throw cliches at you, and even introduced various new topics to the characters that I honestly didn't see coming. Terminal disease is a very real issue people face and with the continual growth of technology, it was interesting to see what the show explored. Seeing remnants of Aincrad in the GGO Arc was just a blast of nostalgia. And the mystery element? Oh my goodness, that was amazing! Death Gun is probably the best villain we've gotten on the show so far. I've not redeemed Kaiyaba of his crimes but it seems his role is not yet done (season 3, maybe?). Sughou was just, well, annoying. But Death Gun? He was legit. His method of killing, literally, was also intriguing and the reveal is a tad bit disappointing that leads to some very tense moments throughout the GGO Arc's final episodes.

And we got an entire arc dedicated to Asuna! Again, this is what the first season should have been about! Asuna is just as strong a character as Kazuto/ Kirito, and deserves all the same amount of time. Given how much happens in her life, and all the extra trauma she's seen since SAO (including ALO), it would only make sense for us to see a heck of a lot more of her, and thankfully, we did, getting to see many elements from the Aincrad arc evident as well as some new ones she mustered up since then.

SAO II introduced us to a bunch of new and amazing characters I won't soon forget, and that I can't wait to see more of in a possible season 3. I've heard that things get super crazy in the next big arc, Alicization (or whatever its called) and look forward to seeing what that is. But for this year, I was really happy with the show, and it proved to be my favorite.

Next year, though, there is already a clear front-runner for favorite, and it's FSN. If it's anything like the second season of F/Z, things are going to get so crazy. I am paranoid of spoilers for this show, I don't want to know a thing outside of what the latest promo shows us. The fact that Shirou is somehow back with Rin and that we may potentially learn who Archer is--perhaps having something to do with Saber--is exciting on its own. Plus, Gilgamesh seems to be back in full-force, and I really do hope he and Caster go at it. It'd be nice to see them take each other out.

But until next time, it's been a good year for anime, and I look forward to what next year holds!

Like the new DBZ movie and the Arpeggio of Blue Steel movie!


If you want to stay up to date on when I post, be sure to follow me on Twitter @seanovan13 and on Instagram @seanovan10. Thanks for reading!
Also, I'm starting a second blog that will be doing episode-by-episode reviews of Sword Art Online starting January 1st, so stay tuned for that: wordofsao.blogspot.com.