I always end up looking up some of the recipes that the characters cook. It also makes me want to learn to cook better than I can.
I especially loved the recipes that used Middle Eastern cooking and Indian cooking. There weren’t many of them, but I’m very familiar with that cooking. I liked their little ideas on how to change them up. For example, when he cooked the “burger” using shwarma meat and put a yogurt sauce in there (which is normal) but then replace the pickles with achaar, which we have all the time in Indian and Pakistani cooking. I thought that was a brilliant idea. Next time we cook or make a Gyro or Shwarma, I’m going to try that. My mom used to make homemade achaar, but my wife doesn’t. But even store-bought achaar should make for a very interesting pickle substitute. I might even try that with actual hamburgers that we make at home when we make burgers using kebabs.
But yeah, watching the series made me so hungry. I always had something tasty and light to snack on while watching.
I found this:
I’ve already seen Samurai Champloo (which was excellent). But I have not seen Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or Nana. Both sound pretty good.
Fullmetal Alchemist is excellent though there are two versions. It can get a bit confusing and I forget which one is considered to be the best. I remember watching both and liked them both (though I cannot remember what was different). It is also one of the few animes that I watched in english because the voice acting was good.
Brotherhood I believe is generally considered the superior version and is closer to the manga. The original anime ended up outpacing the manga and the story becomes quite different.
Anim… er… non-Western series of the Year
- Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū.
An original ‘fictional biopic’ kind of story in an evocative setting of the pre and post war Japan, focused on Rakugo performers, with deep but ‘natural’ characters that engage your and trap into their lives, in their little successes and dramas. All with a very correct direction, visual production, and great voice acting. I wanted the end of the story, and we got it (season 2 starting in a few days).
2 Thunderbolt Fantasy.
Consider this basically tied to Rakugo, it isn’t a true ‘2nd position’. A good wuxia adventure, which turns into something great in the last episodes, with twists and a hidden depth I didn’t see at first. And man, dialogue is really tight here, Urobuchi really shines here. For what it tries to be, it’s almost perfect.
3 Mob Psycho 100.
A great adaption that enhanced the original, Bones shone here with both animation and great imagination in how to adapt the look, the pace, the humor. A series that surprised me with its quality, as I didn’t like the manga so much.
4 Haikyuu!!
(Second and third seasons). Very solid and engaging sport series, with at the third season is starting to feel too long in the tooth, but it’s still recommendable.
Mind the gap!
(gap in quality here)
5 The Great Passage. A very low key story about the road to create a new dictionary, about normal people and their mundane lives. Relaxing and with moving ending that pushes it up at 5th position.
6 JoJo’ Bizare Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. An entertaining and original, if flawed in execution, series.
7 Erased. Yeah, it fell flat on the final sprint, but let’s remember it was a very decent mystery/drama before that.
8 Space Patrol Luluco. Fun little crazy short series.
9 March comes like a lion / 3-gatsu no Lion. Yeah, it’s too literal of an adaption and the conflicting parts of the series (fluffy vs edgy) are too jarring, but still has some nice qualities.
And that’s it, I couldn’t find 10 remarkable series. Honorable mention to Kiznaiver, which wasn’t bad, but the story left me totally cold. I thought of putting it here, and just couldn’t muster to evoke ANY feeling whatsover, positive or negative, about the series. I took that as a signal it shouldn’t be here.
For next year, there are some promising series in form of sequels or adaptions:
The Eccentric Family season 2
Thunderbolt Fantasy season 2
Shinji Rakugo season 2
Attack on Titan Season 2
One Punch Man Season 2
Code Geass Season 3
FLCL Season 2
Steins;Gate 0
Ballroom e Youkousu done by Production IG
Acca done by Madhouse
None of the current animes interest me, but some of these I love.
Code Geas quality on the later part where going downhill, but still watchable. FLCL if I remember well ended with a bang, is hard to continue something after that. Steins Gate is always mysterious and candid and likeable.
Lookiing forward for that.
The fact that this show works at all is a testament to the strength of the shonen/sports anime tropes.
I did not know this was headed for an anime.
Oh you know the manga? I read it (until the last chapter released) this year and it was one of my favorite mangas from 2016. The news that it’s going to have an anime is from only a few days ago.
Yes I have read it but probably behind a few issues. My wife and I used to watch the ballroom dancing contests all the time. I think the show captures their stances very well in the art.
I couldn’t get into Rakugo because I feel like I’m really missing so much with a) not really “getting” the artform, and b) not understanding Japanese. In an early episode (I didn’t watch more than a couple) he does a comedy rakugo and it looks really funny but the translation just didn’t carry it at all. I was just trying to figure out what was supposed to be funny about it. Of course it’s cultural as much as language.
Mob Psycho 100 was better than I thought it was going to be and ended up being pretty good, and Erased was great IMO. Kiznaiver was a little boring and emotionless, but I thought that suited the character well. :)
My favorite animes of 2016 were probably all of the ones I finally caught up on watching from earlier years that were awesome. Kino’s Journey and GTO were both fantastic.
Did you watch Re:Zero? I liked that quite a bit.
Here is a search to get you to myanimelist’s top 2016 anime: https://myanimelist.net/anime.php?q=&type=1&score=0&status=0&p=0&r=0&sm=1&sd=1&sy=2016&em=12&ed=31&ey=2016&c[0]=a&c[1]=b&c[2]=c&c[3]=d&c[4]=e&c[5]=g&gx=0&o=8&w=2&o=3&w=1
Here is my list:
I do not know for sure if they all came out this year (it could be I watched them this year). I probably am forgetting a few as well.
I found that if I can remember the name in Japanese than it is usually an anime I enjoyed (though there were a few that I had to look up which did make the list; blaming not remembering on the aging process).
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2
One Punch Man
Boku no Hero Academia
Bungou Stray Dogs
Haikyuu 3
Koutetsujou no Kabaneri
Mob Psycho 100
Thunderbolt Fantasy
Re: Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu
Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan
Sakamoto desu ga
It was neat seeing everyone’s favorites of the year. I loved Re:Zero earlier this year.
I tried watching Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū. But I got bored very quickly.
Then I tried Mob Psycho 100, but got bored pretty quickly again.
Then I tried Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased), and wow, that is fantastic so far. I’ve already watched 3 episodes. Unfortunately it’s giving me a very Lovely Bones vibe. That was a Peter Jackson movie. It was well made but very depressing. So far Erased is very very well made. I’ve got a sinking feeling it’s going to be depressing, but I’m okay with that.
Erased turned out to be wonderful. One of the best I’ve ever seen.
I just watched the ending, Episode 10. Rarely do you see a show wrap up in a way that really puts a bow on it like that, bringing around everything from beginning to end.
But now I face a conundrum. There’s apparently 3 more episodes. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
With The OA, when I reached Episode 7 and thought it was a great ending, I left it right there. I’m not sure if I should do the same here with Erased. I’ve just experienced the perfect ending to this thing, so why would the show keep going? Should I trust the storytellers, since they provided 9 great episodes so far? Or should I leave well enough alone?
I prefer the original Fullmetal by far over Brotherhood. They spend much more time on some of the stories, much more Alex Louis Armstrong, and no Ling…all positives, IMO.
I had not heard about this, but this is guaranteed to be a huge hit in my house (my wife and daughter have both competed in ballroom and Production IG is awesome).
Just binge watched Yuri on Ice over the last couple of days with my wife and daughter. Rewatching Psycho-Pass season one with my daughter too (this has quickly become one of my favorite series ever), while she is home from college. We had fun with Noragami season one as well. Also working on Legend of Arslan.
There have been some great shows this year: Alderamin on the Sky, Mob Psycho 100, Bungo Stray Dogs, erased, etc.
I humbly suggest this as the best course of action. Any trust you would place in the remaining episodes somehow improving your experience to this point would be sorely misplaced, IMO. A friend of mine and I both agreed that the non-existent final episodes to which you refer were our biggest anime-related disappointment of 2016.