T5W#124-Top 5 Favorite Titles Ive Reviewed in 2017 (That Aren’t Your Name)

2017’s last day is Sunday.  Thank freaking God.  If I could sum up this year as a whole, it would be 2016 Part 2, the continuation of a bad year that somehow managed to get worse in many respects.  I sometimes fear some of that life stress did bleed into my Anime Corner content, with some reviews or articles not being as well written as they could be.  On the whole, 2017 was a good year for my page.  I enjoyed (most) of the titles I chose to review and while the reviews weren’t as numerous as previous years (longer shows and less stand alone titles), I think I knew when I gave a title my all.  Those titles are getting the spotlight this week, the last week of 2017.  And for fairness sake, im going to omit Your Name from this list because, well that movie is a tier all of it’s own and it wouldn’t be fair giving it the top spot when there were so many other titles I also enjoyed this year.  So as the title says above, these are my Top 5 Best Titles Ive Reviewed in 2017 (That Aren’t Your Name)

 

#5-Silent Mobius: The Series

Wait a second Gundam, I thought you said “favorite titles”.  You hated reviewing Silent Mobius, right?  Correct but you know what, it’s been a long time since ive been able to cut loose and put a bad series through its paces on this blog.  Rewatches of titles like Escaflowne and Love Hina have shown my opinion of both shows isn’t what it was when I saw them both back in college.  In the case of Silent Mobius, it wasn’t for the better.  Silent Mobius’ TV adaptation was one of the most horrible shows ive ever reviewed her.  Subpar animation, lackluster characters (mostly, I did love Kiddy and Katsumi), a premise with squandered potential.  Every week turned into a whole new rant…and I was having so much fun doing that.  I like to praise the shows I watch when I can but in Silent Mobius’ case, its flaws were begging to be torn apart by me.  So yeah, it nets a spot in my Top 5 Best of 2017 titles cause it was bad and I was loving going crazy by how worse it was getting week after week.

#4-Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket

The title that officially kicked off Year 4 of the Anime Corner, Gundam 0080 has so much going for it and manages to get everything right.  A nice side story slipped into the main Gundam narrative featuring a cast you love, no matter the side their on, high quality animation and some of the most heartbreaking moments in all of Gundam, War in the Pocket is a near perfect OVA and entry in the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise.  It was an easy binge and an even easier pair of reviews to write.  Unlike Silent Mobius above, 0080 was a show I had to praise from beginning to end and while one of the villains is lacking, that’s a minor quibble that kept it from getting a straight 10/10. This is one Gundam story that shouldn’t be forgotten in the sea of titles.

 

 

#3-Full Metal Panic: Fumofuu/Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid

This year I tried a bit of an experiment.  I took one series with three seperatley connected seasons and decided to review them all throughout the year.  The series I selected was Full Metal Panic.  While the first season was pretty shakey, trying to balance intense military action with high school antics, the second and third seasons each split the formula in half, ran with them and produced far better results.  Fumoffu was just a lot of fun.  The jokes worked, the chemistry between Sousuke and Kaname played for laughs and good character building that carried over into Season 3 and, of course, BONTA KUN!!!  It was so good I was nervous going into The Second Raid when things got back to serious business again.  But the writers had learned from their Season 1 mistakes and after an “eh” first set of episodes, Season 3 ran off like Barry Allen in the Speed Force.  The drama was enthralling, the action was better, the villains were better, Sousuke and Kaname were perfect, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid knoked it out of the park.  I suppose if I were forced to pick between the two, id probably choose TSR over Fumoffu.  But for this list, they share the #3 spot, simply because for a series that started as roughly as the first season did, the later seasons somehow fixed its mistakes and only got better as time went on.  I cant wait to see if Season 4-Full Metal Panic: Invisible Victory, can carry on the momentum.

 

#2-Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

One of the unfortunate casualties from the crappy year I had was the Fate/Stay Night franchise.  After reviewing the Studio Deen series at the end of last year, I was pumped to review Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works as my summer series special leading to Otakon 2017.  But Otakon never happened and I got depressed.  I needed to change my mindset and review something that I could have an easier time watching and enjoy.  As luck would have it, Crunchyroll added Mobile Suit Gundam Wing to their roster, in HD no less to heighten anticipation for the long awaited arrival of the series to Blu-Ray.  While the site didn’t have the famous English Dub, getting to watch Gundam Wing in HD and in Japanese was something else, like watching the show for the first time all over again.  This was my first time watching Wing in a long time and it gave me new perspective.  As a nostalgia title it is near and dear to me, hell like many it’s what got me into Gundam to begin with.  The show, much like Escaflowne or Love Hina, isn’t without its retrospective flaws and I had to point them out.  Not everyone agrees but I cant call Gundam Wing a flawless masterpiece.  It is, however, a title I will always hold near and dear to my heart and am glad it was there for me when I really needed something to lift my spirits this year.  Plus I really like the “Final Thoughts” I wrote for the show, probably the most honest and still care ive given to a show yet.

So with all that said, why is Gundam Wing not #1?  Well that’s because…

#1-Blade Runner/Blade Runner 2049

It’s hard to think of Anime and not somehow think of Ridley Scott’s 1982 scifi/noir masterwork Blade Runner.  The influences from that film can be felt in Anime across the board from the 80’s to 90’s to 00’s to now.  With the announcement of a sequel, one that (at the time) I was terrified of seeing as how Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time, I decided Blade Runner would be a natural title to review on my blog.  I had to hold back my fanboy a little bit as I could talk about how perfect that movie is til the end of days.  And yet, I was surprised when not only did I enjoy Blade Runner 2049, seeing it as a film that was more than capable of standing alongside its predecessor, but when BR2049 became my most read review on this blog EVER!!!  I guess people resonate with the connection between Blade Runner and Anime like I do.  That or people who know how much I love BR were really looking forward to my thoughts.  Still, as far as live action features go on this blog page, im glad I got to give Blade Runner some time to shine and I am more than happy the sequel got things so, so right.  Without Blade Runner, scifi Anime like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, and Bubblegum Crisis might not even exist and through the existence of those titles and more, the legacy of Blade Runner will be eternal.