Welcome back to the most special post of the year! As is tradition, we’ve gathered writers from different communities but a shared trait: a love of animation and all it encompasses. The goal, to praise at length the greatest productions and most resonant direction in all of 2018 anime, according to a series of categories. These are our yearly anime awards – the sakugabowl!
Long running action anime are no stranger to controversial production experiments, met with divisive reception among their fandom. The latest example is Black Clover #63: a highly experimental, rough but immensely ambitious episode crafted by a team that rebelled against the negative working environment.
SSSS.GRIDMAN casually dropped one of the most memorable episodes of the year, a tour de force of evocative layouts and energetic animation that managed to make a hateful villain into a sympathetic person as if it were easy. Let’s explore this show’s greatest episode, the team behind them, and the industry movement it represents.
SSSS.GRIDMAN has maintained its fascinating identity even when handed to other directors and different studios altogether, still combining all the nostalgic factors with some new ingredients. Let’s continue examining its production to see how they’ve brought back lost arts while at the same time also advancing certain techniques!
SSSS.GRIDMAN is proving to be one of the most intriguing offerings this year. A rich creative effort drawing from multiple stylistic currents and mixing them in a way that feels so natural that people are likely to overlook how outstanding this is. Let’s take a deep dive on the first episodes and explore the direct correlation between certain production choices and the show’s bewitching atmosphere!
Before tackling this new season, it’s time to wrap up our coverage of Yama no Susume / Encouragement of Climb season 3 and explore at length why it’s not just a quietly spectacular anime production, but also an exceptionally efficient storytelling effort!
Revue Starlight keeps on cruising under the command of very skillful rookies, creating one memorable scene after the other. But as admirable as their ambition is and the generally excellent results they’ve had so far, we can’t avert our eyes from the severe struggles the team is facing either. Let’s recap all that’s been going with this production, the very good and the less fortunate!
There’s no need to hold back on the praise for this: Fate/Apocrypha #22 was the best animated episode of anime in 2017, one of the greatest outings in general terms, and a genuinely significant moment for this industry. So as much as we find the production notes format useful to provide you the important points of all the shows we cover, this time we’re offering an even more in-depth write-up about everything that made this episode so special. Enjoy!
The end of an anime season causes key staff to give the best treatment possible to their shows, but also means that by this point most productions have become messy and the information about them becomes scarce and less reliable. Let’s try to make sense out of it, while noting the episodes that are shaping up to be particularly strong. Featuring My Hero Academia, Boruto, Little Witch Academia, Eromanga Sensei, Tiger Mask and some more guests!
Hiroyuki Imaishi’s episode is unsurprisingly the most Hiroyuki Imaishi episode that Little Witch Academia could ever handle – in a good way, I swear! Let’s explore his work and the way Trigger appears to be approaching this project.