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I wasn't always into anime. It was only after getting an interest in visual novels thanks to Ace Attorney, that I got interested. For a while, I didn't really did do anything more than visual novels and other anime-themed games. I did catch the first season of the Ace Attorney anime when it originally aired. I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of the series, so I had to. I eventually got to a point where I really wanted to watch anime so now I watch some anime pretty much every week. For some reason this year I've been watching a lot more seasonal anime, so I figured why not talk about some of my favorites from this year? 10. Kaguya-Sama Love Is WarNot gonna lie. When I started watching this, I actually thought it was an older show by at least a few years for some reason. If I hadn't checked and just watched the show, I would have believe it due to the dated Twitter description of only being able to use 140 characters, rather than 280. But enough about that. This show is a romantic comedy that doesn't really have any plot. The two main characters are president of the student council, Miyuki Shirogane and the vice president, Kaguya Shinomiya. Both of them spend the show trying to get each other to confess, but their attempts always fail. The other members of the student council get caught up in their little "war" on more than one occasion. Overall, it was pretty entertaining to watch. 9. My Roommate Is A CatI'm sure that at least some of you aren't surprised at all that this is on here. This anime follows writer Subaru Mikazuki, who had recently lost both of his parents. One day, he encounters a cat when visiting his parents' grave and ends up taking her home. This cat ends up giving him an idea for a story that he would end up writing. The show made share to give both him and the cat a decent amount of screen time. Seeing the world from his cat's perspective was pretty interesting. The rest of the time, we see him trying to write or just being socially awkward. Though if I'm honest, the thing I really can't get over is how he has the same English voice actor as Accelerator from A Certain Magical Index. 8. The Quintessential QuintupletsWhen I had decided to watch this, I had just started watching season 2 of We Never Learn and wanted something similar since I'd have to wait at least a week to watch another episode. I remembered that this existed and ended up watching it since it had a similar concept. So, this is a harem anime about a set of quintuplets. The main character, Fuutarou Uesugi ends up getting a job where he'll be tutoring these twins. However, when he first heard about the offer he didn't know he'd be tutoring that many or that one of them was someone he had met the day he got the offer and wasn't very fond of. The series has him trying to tutor all of them but most of them don't really want his help and are likely to run off. Thanks to these girls, he ends up getting into a lot of trouble. 7. Senryu GirlThe main character, Nanako Yukishiro of this show doesn't speak. At least, not with her mouth. Instead, she chooses to get her words out by using her senryu, which are 3-line Japanese poems that treat human nature often in an ironic or satiric vein. Being completely honest, there is no plot to this show. However, the one thing that this show explores is her relationsip with former delinquent Eiji Busujima. Throughout the show, friends of theirs try to get them together, but so far it hasn't really worked. Not much else to say, really. I just find this show to be really cute. 6. Hitori Bocchi's LifestyleWhen Hitori Bocchi ends up going to a different middle school than her best friend, she's told that she needs to become friends with everyone else in her class or else she and her best friend won't be friends anymore. Unfortunately, Bocchi is an extremely shy girl with really bad social anxiety. Despite this, she still manages to at the very least make some friends. Not everyone is willing to befriend her though, which really isn't helping with her social anxiety. Even with struggles like this, she manages to keep trying. The entire first season follows her and her new friends throughout their first year of middle school, all the way up until when the seniors of that year graduate. I thought this show was pretty cute too. 5. If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat A Demon LordBy this point, you probably know that I like watching cute anime. What can I say? I've been a big fan of cute things for years. When I first heard the title of this series, I raised an eyebrow, but I still decided to check out. After just one episode, I was sold on this show because of how cute it was. This show follows Dale Reki, who had recently became an adventurer. On one of his missions, he finds an orphaned demon girl named Latina in the forest. Because he knows a bit of the demon language because magic spells use it, he's able to communicate with her. Since she has nowhere to go, he ends up taking her in. Over time, he grows pretty attached to this kid and she loves him too. It would be good if that's all their relationship was. However, I heard the light novel this is based on had other ideas. Thankfully, the anime hasn't pulled any of that crap so far. For some reason, Japanese content creators seem to love pulling the "they're not related by blood" card. However, most sane people would find something like this disgusting. It was a cute and sweet idea, so finding out that he and Latina get married in the light novels did not leave me with a good feeling at all. Let's just say if this show gets more seasons and it pulls the incest crap, I'll give it a low rating regardless of the quality because of how disgusted I'll be. Ignoring that for now though, this was an incredibly cute show. 4. A Certain Scientific AcceleratorWhen I heard that this was going to be a thing, I wasn't really sure what to think. I had previously watched the original series and the spin-off, A Certain Scientic Railgun, enjoying both quite a bit. I was never the biggest fan of Accelerator, but I can't say I really hated him either. He made his first appearance in the original series as a villain. In fact, he often refers to himself as a villain after his defeat in that show. A Certain Magical Index had at least a few episodes that would follow him and eventually Last Order, the smallest of Mikoto Misaka's clones. His series is pretty much the same, at first. A new girl, Esther Rosenthal who has the power to bring people back to life (sort of) shows up. At first, he doesn't really want anything to do with her and just wants to continue doing his own thing. Though some of the people he's encountered would argue that he should be staying in the hospital since this takes place after he got shot in season one of the original series. So it turns out Esther got caught up in some kind of messed up experiment, and Accelerator ends up trying to put a stop to it. Just watching him take out his enemies was incredibly satisfying. There's just something entertaining about "a son of a bitch villain" as he calls himself completely destroying everything. Things don't always work out for him though. So, in the end, I enjoyed this like I did with the other shows. However, I feel like the action was a bit more gruesome this time around than what I'm used to. Still worth a watch if you're a fan of the series. 3. Fruits Basket (2019)More than a decade later, Fruits Basket got another anime and this time it's planned to adapt the whole manga, so there's something to be excited about already. The main character is the orphaned Tohru Honda who had just lost her mother. Because of her circumstances, she was unable to live with any of her living relatives and chooses to live inside of a tent. One morning, she finds a house nearby and learns that a popular boy from her school, Yuki Sohma, lives there with Shigure, a member of his family. Eventually, Yuki and Shigure find Tohru's tent and end up offering to let her stay at their place. When staying at their place, she ends up discovering their secret by accident. And that secret is the fact that when they're hugged by the opposite sex, they transform into animals, which are a part of the chinese zodiac. Even after finding out, they still let her stay and she has to do her best to keep this from getting out. Having seen the 2001 anime, I had been seeing a lot of the same events I had already seen. However, these were all done in a different way so it was still interesting to see. There were a handful of events and reveals that never happened in the original so that was cool too. I loved seeing what was different in the remake compared to the original. But if I'm completely honest, I definitely consider this remake to be the superior version. The original never got more than a season and this one is already getting a second. This reboot is not only nicer to look at, but it's definitely a lot more entertaining. 2. Dr. StoneI will admit, I haven't actually finished this show yet. But that didn't stop it from becoming one of my favorites. For some reason, one day seemingly everyone on earth gets turned into a stone. Well over a million years pass before any of them break free of their stone cages. When they came back out, a repeat of the stone age is waiting for them. The main character, Senku already has an interest in science, so that really helps him come up with stuff needed to survive. Starting off alone, he eventually discovers away to free others that were trapped in stone and manages to save a few of them. Not only is he trying to do this, at the same time he wants to get society back up to where it was before it collapsed. Along the way, he encounters a village full of people that are a lot different from those that were turned into stone. Senku gets to know some of them and ends up getting one of them to work with him on his projects. However, since he's an outsider, most of the village doesn't trust him yet, so it would take something pretty big if he wanted to get any of them to like him. I wasn't expecting to like this show as much as I did, but it's certainly one of the most entertaining from this year. Also, this show can be pretty cruel with its cliffhangers at times. All I can say is I'm pretty curious where this show will go next and look forward to seeing what happens. 1. The Rising Of The Shield HeroAt least one person reading this might be rolling their eyes because I think so highly of an isekai. But that's a pretty crappy mentality to have, because whether or not a show is an isekai isn't what affects the quality AT ALL. To be fair, a lot of Isekai came out this year, but that doesn't mean that each one that came out was bad. This was definitely one of the good ones. This show follows college student Naofumi Iwatani. He goes to the library, picks up this one book mentioning four heroes and notices something interesting. There's information about most of the heroes, but nothing on one of them: the shield hero. Well, it turns out he would be the shield hero. He gets sucked into the book and ends up in another world. One he would have to try to save. Unfortunately for him, the shield hero is constantly discriminated against. He never did anything wrong, but no matter what he did, he would be treated like some kind of criminal. The worst part is what he was accused of: sexually abusing the older princess. Of course, that's all a load of crap but everyone believes it. As the show goes on, you can really feel Naofumi's frustration from constantly being accused of one thing after another.
Since it got to a point where nobody would join his party, he went and got some slaves. However, he doesn't treat them like slaves. One of them is a raccoon demi-human named Raphtalia and the other is a Filolal, or bird-like monster that he names Filo. She can also take on a human form. Both Raphtalia and Filo love their master, and at times try to one-up each other with doing nice things for him. I did find the pacing a little weird, but it was a good show from start to finish. What's hard to forget though, is the controversy surrounding it. One being the accusation at the beginning because according to every feminazi ever, every man accused of rape is obviously guilty, even when it's so freaking obvious they're not (yes, woman like that REALLY piss me off). The other part is slavery. Some dumbasses think this show is promoting slavery, but it really doesn't. While Naofumi gets Raphtalia and Filo as slaves, like I said earlier, he doesn't treat them like slaves. He even told Raphtalia that she didn't need to get her slave crest back after it was taken away. So in the end, the show never says slavery is okay and it's even shown more than once that the people selling slaves are in the wrong. Oh well, whether those dumb feminazis like it or not, this show has been confirmed to get up to a third season, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. And there you have it. These are my top ten picks from this year. These aren't meant to be full deep reviews or anything. Just saying what I liked, sharing what they're about, and giving some thoughts here and there. So, what do you think? Any on this list that you did like? Any not on this list that you wish I would have included? Be sure to tell me. Other than that, I don't really have anything to say. Hard to believe another year is almost over. And I'm sick right now. That's always fun. Let's hope I don't bring this illness into 2020!
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