While I watched more anime this year than played new games, I still only saw nineteen new anime this year. So this will be the only full top ten list I'll be able to put together this year. That said though, I don't know if watching more shows would change this list much, because there were a lot of really bad shows I did watch, and at the very least my top two would be truly remarkable to be worse than them.
There is one show that I am not putting on the list in part because I cannot remember the name, and in part, I only watched one episode. And all I can remember about it is that three or four times the main character mentioned being so excited he could piss himself, and that was his catchphrase. That's all you need to know about it. Not much else to say, so on with the list!
10.) Blade of the Immortal
There is a good show buried in here somewhere, but it just ends up feeling like it drags on too long. Most of the time it just doesn't feel like anything is happening, and none of the characters are very interesting. The premise is a pretty good one though, you have a woman out for revenge and an Immortal who is trying to right his past wrongs to get rid of the curse of Immortality he has.
You do get a good number of really good action scenes, and some interesting thematic points around the different characters' philosophies and how they conflict, but it never really felt like it would capitalize on any of it. This is especially true of the action, which is good but doesn't come up often enough to make up for everything else feeling lackluster.
9.) Bungou To Alchemist
I wanted to like this show more than any other show on this list because I love the theme. In this world there exist forces that are trying to erase literature from history, but the spirits of Authors are fighting against it. The preservation and protection of art and speech is something I am very big on, so the theme of this show is something that I really can get behind.
Once you get past that pretty much nothing else in this show is worthwhile. Characters are all bland and one-note, fights are pretty underwhelming, and the actual plot gets pretty silly. Were it not for the themes, there isn't anything in this show that makes it worth investing the time into. And just agreeing with the message of a show isn't enough of a reason to say it's good.
8.) Shadowverse
When you make a show about a card game, there is one thing that is very important to do. And that is to make sure the people watching the show understand, at least to some extent, the rules of the game that is being played. As insane as the original Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime could get, you always have at least some idea of what is going on in each of the duels. In the case of Shadowverse, you don't get that. I only know someone is winning or losing based entirely on what the spectators are telling me, and pretty much they only say whether or not someone is in a good position, and not pointing out what is going on.
It wasn't until the third duel that I even understood the main character's deck enters a certain kind of game state that gives him an advantage, and it's basically how that deck operates. I didn't even know this was a thing he had been doing until three duels in. If you don't even understand the rules of a game, it's impossible to get invested in the game. It's such a fundamental principle I don't know why it is this is always a problem with Card game anime.
7.) Plunderer
This is a great story that is poorly written. The best character of the show, and the only one that is genuinely interesting as a character, is Jail Murdoch who is a secondary character and gets nowhere near the screen time as the badly written main characters. Most characters are just one note schticks, which is frustrating because the actual backstory of the main character Licht is one of the most interesting backstories I have seen in an anime for years.
The other main issue is the show is inconsistent with how the rules of the Ballots work. It's not the same as a card game, but it's still important to understand the rules the universe is operating under, so when you keep seeing those rules not being followed it's hard to feel any kind of tension when the world seems like it will just do whatever it wants regardless of what's been established.
6.) Shironeko Project Zero Chronicle
I am going to be lazy and just quote my original review because this one line pretty much sums up the entire show. " It's a show that's hard to talk about in too much detail because it's just kind of bare-bones and boring. At the same time though, it's hard to find anything that wrong with it."
There isn't anything else to say, and after all this time it's a show I can remember pretty much nothing about despite having watched the entire thing.
5.) Kabukichou Sherlock
It's an anime about Sherlock Homles if he were in some kind of modern-day slum rather than old England, and rather than try to make actual compelling mysteries they go the route of just saying Sherlock is so smart he can figure all of this out because he sees clues and evidence that not even the audience is aware exists. It's the laziest and worst kind of intrigue a show can do.
It doesn't help that most of each episode is just a really bad comedy. Considering you don't have any real look at the evidence or mystery aspect, this is all the show has to offer.
4.) Zashiki Warashi no Tatami-chan
It's a show with short comedy sketches, and they are all terrible. Some things may be funny if you know more about Japanese culture, and there may be puns that didn't translate well into English. So if you don't know Japanese or aren't familiar with the Culture, this show offers nothing. That said, some of them do translate fine and are very easily understood by even an American like myself, but even those jokes just fall flat.
Just note that this is a comedy, which is very subjective and a lot harder to judge the quality that certain other genres, so it's hard to say you can just take my word on this one.
3.) Pet
I do try no to just call a show outright pretentious, but that is what I get from Pet. The show is constantly trying so hard to feel deep and meaningful but just fails horribly. You have psychics who dive into people's minds to either alter their memories or break their minds. When they dive the world they are in now operates on Metaphors rather than any real-world logic. The problem is the metaphors barely make sense, and with how loosely everyone's powers are construed the show can pretty much get away with having anyone do anything they want.
I know what I just described sounds vaguely, but that's how the show prevents it. I watched the first ten episodes, and honestly, I still can't explain to you what is even going on. It just feels like a show that desperately wants to say something deep, but doesn't have anything to say.
2.) Gibiate
Just look at how fucking weird that face looks. Everything looks that odd in this show. I feel like I could end this review here, everything looks ugly and the visuals alone make me want to stop watching. But the problems are only just beginning with the look of the show.
The real anchor that drags this showdown is that nobody reacts like what's happening in front of them is happening. The lead characters were transported to this time from the past, and everyone just kind of accepts this as true, doesn't question it and reacts like they were just told they left the lights in their car on. If nobody in this show acts like this stuff is a big deal, why should the audience.
What's worse is the bad mix of CG and regular animation. Enemies are all CG animated while the rest of the people are not. It doesn't even look like the heroes and enemies are interacting together, it looks like someone made an animation and someone else badly edited in a model over the actual enemies the hero was fighting.
I am truly astonished there was a show this year even worse than this, but somehow not only is this not number one, but it isn't even a contested spot. What could truly be so bad that this show doesn't can't compete?
1.) Babylon
(Okay, I am sick of trying to get an image for this anime to work here, I don't know why nothing will upload properly, so you'll need to find a header image on your own)
Part of me loves this show. It may be the most pretentious clusterfuck of a show I have ever seen in my entire life. Even more than Pet, it is trying so hard to make some kind of point about the human condition, it seems to want to say something about the nature of Good Vs. Evil, and even delves into the realm of depression and suicide. Yet the only conclusion I was able to draw by the end of the show was 'Killing yourself and having an orgasm is basically the same thing'.
No one who kills themselves in this show is depressed or suicidal, they were made this way by the supernatural power of the show's antagonist, so any real dialogue about mental illness makes no sense. Anything said about the nature of good versus evil is so basic and juvenile no real meaning can come from that either. Then there is the plot, which when I stopped to think about the events of this show, boils down to everything that happens, all the people who are now dead, the worldwide crisis that was the Suicide laws swept the world, all of the lives and families destroyed, were all done for the sole purpose of the villain proving a point to the main character that deep down he is a bad person for attempting to kill her, even though she caused all this calamity and is the actual embodiment of evil in the world. And make no mistake, she did all of this purely to fuck with this one guy. The world seemingly goes back to normal as it appears the Suicide laws were turned on by the populace, no one saw the last conversation of the hero and villain, so it feels like the show was trying to prove a point to the audience. But in context, the only thing all of this was done for was to make this one mans life hell.
It was around episode eleven I believe, I may have the wrong one, but the entire moral dilemma of the show is being discussed by a group of world leaders who were just barely introduced to the show, not any character relevant to the plot up until now. This takes up an entire episode, and they don't even conclude. Nothing of importance happened at all the entire episode, and nothing of substance relating to the themes of the show were even expanded on. It was at this point I felt this show was some kind of dark comedy made just for me because I started laughing throughout the entirety of the rest of this show. I almost included this on my best-of list just because of this.
I may have just missed the point entirely, and maybe there is something to all of this. But I don't buy it, despite the weird bit of joy this brought me I do think that Babylon is one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my life, but I am so happy I watched it.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. Despite some truly atrocious anime having come out this year, I think the year was fantastic due to the shows that are going to appear on my best-of list. I only have nine on it, so pretty much every good show I watched made the list, but I must have picked a lot of the great shows because every one of them could have made the list any other year. Hope to see you there.