Hapuriainen's Animation & Comics (& games) 2016

Animanga:

Mob Psycho 100

Author of One Punch Man strikes again, and the quality of writing is even better. Mob was a super likable protagonist and a great foil to OPM's Saitama. Best character was Reigen; he was kind of an opportunistic slimeball, but still mostly a good person and often managed to be a decent mentor by accident, and his ability to talk himself out of tough situations gave great laughs. The friendly and supporting Body Improvement Club is the cherry on top of an already awesome anime.

Awards given: Anime of the Year, Best Animation, Best main boy, Best mentor, Best OP

Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi (ERASED)

I got hooked on the anime, but since waiting for new weekly episodes was so painful I quickly jumped to the manga and totally forgot about the anime. Great mystery, likable characters and an awesome mother character.

Awards given: Best mother

My Hero Academia

Doesn't do anything particularly new, but it presents everything it does in such a great way that it doesn't matter. Surprisingly clever writing, and I really like the author's take especially on the wussy lead, aloof rival and the idea of the aloof rival joining the bad guys. Also I'd say that the girls get better than average characterisation for a shounen, and All Might's (so far) final battle was definitely one of the high points of the manga year.

Awards given: Best rival, Also Best mentor, Best side girl (Tsuyu), Worst side boy (Mineta)

Space Patrol Luluco

I saw cute pics of this on tumblr hand gave it a go. Too noisy and random for my taste, but the character designs were so appealing and the episodes were short anyway so it was worth the watch. And I really liked how the show actually had something new to say about Luluco's silly crush.

Awards given: Best "I actually enjoyed this", Best romance

Mahou Shoujo Nante Mou Ii Desu Kara., Mahou Shoujo Naria girls, Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R, Fantasista Doll, Flip Flappers, Matoi the Sacred Slayer

Succeeded at my plan to consume more magical girl series. Unfortunatel a bigger quantity meant lower quality on average... Naria girls was almost hilariously bad but not quite so it was just plain bad, Nante Mou Ii, Komugi and Matoi did nothing interesting, and Fantasista Doll had a terrible main character but at least had the decency to have a lot of fun outfits to look at.

Flip Flappers is the only one really worth mentioning with its wonderful and ever-changing visuals. It kinda feels like a story I would write if I had any kind of story making ability, but for some reason I only found this "ok". Or Papika's annoying pushy behaviour and complete lack of understanding of normal social interaction and the story being pretty vague are probably to blame.

Awards given: Worst animation, Biggest WTF (Naria Girls), Worst siblings, Most confusing outfits (Fantasista Doll), Best visuals, Best opening song (Flip Flappers)

(Actually I haven't finished Matoi & Flip Flappers, but if I hold this off until then I'll never get this posted. If it turns out there's something special about them I'll put it on a 2017 compilation or something.)

Happiness Charge Precure!

I didn't expect much of this and somehow got even less. You can read my full rant here.

In HapiCha's defense, I'm also watching DokiDoki! Precure which has all HapiCha's weaknesses and not one of its strenghts and absolute bottom of the barrel repulsive main girl, but I'm only halfway through so it doesn't really belong on this year's list.

Awards given: Biggest time-waster, Worst main girl, Worst side girl (Yuuko), Worst romance, Worst friendship, Worst use of setting and plot threads introduced

(in all honesty HapiCha's not the worst thing ever, it's just that when I award some entry with "Best" something and go through this list, the "Worst" awards just gravitate here. Many of the other series would be just as deserving on some of the dishonourable mentions, but it's like, I couldn't care less about Naria Girls or Fantasista Doll was super forgettable so hating on them isn't any fun.)

Magical Girl Raising Project

Everyone seems to hate on this for being yet another edgy Madoka clone or torture porn or whatever, but it ended up being one of my favourites and I jumped to reading the light novels pretty fast. I really like magical girls, but it feels like so many works in the genre just do the same thing over and over, so anything that has any new ideas on how to change the formula even a little is welcome. What appealed to me the most was the amazing character designs and ditching the concept of the cheerful outgoing pink girl being the protagonist who gets to hog all the glory.

Awards given: Best character designs, Best magical girls, Best use of setting and plot threads introduced

One Piece

After the somewhat disappointing Dressrosa One Piece's quality rose when we entered the Zou arc, and the new Big Mom arc has been just great. I really enjoy all the character drama about how Sanji's been totally cornered and I expect it to be super cathartic when he gets up again, the candy setting is delicious, I like Big Mom's huge family, and there's been a 1000% improvement when it comes to female characters. Big Mom is a great villain, Reiju was a much better sister character than I expected, Sanji's turmoil has been effective, Carrot made me like furries and the most recent developments with Pudding have been certainly interesting. They feel much more like actual interesting characters on their own right rather than the obligatory token girl who gets a girly support role.

Awards given: Best manga, Best furry, Best siblings (Charlotte family), I guess also Manga of the year (either this or Mob Psycho 100)

Digimon Adventure tri.

I was really looking forward to this due to nostalgic reasons, but unfortunately tri didn't deliver. While there's been plenty of good character moments, but often the character writing feels forced or pander-y. I also still don't like the new girl and she feels like an awkward third (ninth?) wheel, the evolution animations are boring, the pacing feels odd, and I couldn't care less about the plot.

However, hearing Brave Heart start playing remains as awesome as ever.

Awards given: Biggest Meh, Worst comeback, Best Thank God they're still ignoring the 02 characters

Also watched but no particularly strong opinions:

The Boy and the Beast, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shijuu, Osomatsu-san, Haven't you heard? I'm Sakamoto, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, Sound! Euphonium

Western animation:

Finding Dory

I didn't really like Finding Nemo that much and Dory was my least favourite character, but I still ended up seeing this. Much less annoying than I expected and worth the price of the ticket, but I won't be seeing this again. Most importantly the story didn't really manage to make Dory particularly likable, and the cutesy patootsey childhood flashbacks just felt manipulative to me.

Awards given: Biggest "Still wish I had seen Kubo and the two strings instead"

Little Prince

I like how the film (like the book) dealt with death, it was nice how the overbearing mother wasn't presented as a completely unreasonable douche, and I thought it was a bold choice to keep the main character unnamed. Otherwise this didn't leave that much of an impression on me, but I do have to add it to the delightful and hopefully growing list movies with a female protagonist that have nothing to do with romance/marriage or aren't forced into stereotypical girly subjects and themes.

Awards given: Best use of death

Zootopia

Same as the previous one, glad to get a movie centered around a girl who is not a princess nor finds character development through a love story. I thought the Zootopia world was incredibly interesting and it was great how it didn't stop at a hamfisted "discrimination is bad" moral but instead added on it with "you too can be prejudiced even if you face discrimination yourself". Sure the message was as us unsubtle as humanly possible, but I suppose that in today's world it's justifiable.

Awards given: Best movie, Best main girl, Best friendship

Games:

Undertale

Didn't actually play this, just watched hours of Let's Play like a boss (though I do regret not playing it myself). Not only was the story clever and touching, but the fourth wall breaking also added to the story and didn't feel like obnoxious tacked on winking at the audience. Too bad the visual style isn't for me, like I get that it's much more innovative than your usual anime samefaces, but the anime samefaces just appeal to me more.

Awards given: Best ending, Most thought-provoking, Best music

Gone Home

Otherwise didn't give me that much, but being the first game I've played in like a decade that's not Sims or on a handheld console managed to make a big impression for me. I've only ever played one game where you move in a 3D environment in a first person view, so just wandering around the house, picking up every item and chucking it on the floor was a lot of entertainment for me. I guess a walking simulator like this where you don't need to worry about getting killed was the best to showcase that. Story wise I didn't have much to think since I had already seen a Let's Play.

Awards given: Best item throwing

Animal Crossing New Leaf

I hadn't played in like a year, and suddenly there's a free update!? It was so nice to go back to my friendly peaceful town, discover all the new items and play the new mini games. Finding out what a terrible state I had left things in was less than nice; all the rooms were totally unfinished and just had a bunch of items that could fit the theme thrown into a room. Sometimes it was so bad you couldn't take more than two steps in the room...

Unfortunately the new Pokemon game came out right after the update so my animal buddies had to go to hibernation again.

Awards given: Best comeback, Coziest atmosphere

Pokemon Moon

I'll join the complaints that especially in the beginning the pacing was atrocious, like you couldn't take ten steps without a cutscene interrupting, and the NPCs felt the need to explain every little thing instead of letting you explore yourself. And can you please let me turn off the Rotom map pointer? I'd rather get lost on my own. Still, I liked the story and the characters, changing the beat-8-gyms formula even a little was extremely refreshing and the hiker joke at the fire trial was the most funny thing in the Pokemon franchise I can remember.

Awards given: Worst handholding, Worst pacing, Best Professor, Best Mimikyu

Pokemon Go

I'm not that much into mobile games, but this took me by surprise. I like walking and collecting so it turns out that a game like this is practically made for me. Though recently I haven't received anything but 5km eggs so trying to hunt for the mons I'm missing has become kinda difficult... Luckily gen 2 is just around the corner so there should be new Pokemon I haven't caught yet available soon.

Awards given: Best Pokemon game

Onwards to 2017!

Plans

finishing DokiDoki Precure, another Precure series I might actually enjoy (probably Heartcatch or GoPri), more Magical Girl Raising Project, Houseki no Kuni, more stuff from the Hoshi no Samidare guy, NaruTaru, Pop in Q, Kimi no Na wa, Yuuki Yuuna sequels, Moana, whatever else Disney & Pixar are doing