It’s that time of the year again – y’know, when it’s right about to end (lol),

It’s as fitting of a time as any to think about things that happened in 2015. A lot can happen in a year; we meet new people, and hang-back with some not-new-relatively-old people in our lives; experience new things, and somehow or another we continue to experience some not-new-always-how-it-is things. Which is what makes every passing year so fleeting, I think – we get caught up on how mundane the everyday life is, until something comes around that makes us treasure every lasting second of it (I’m sorry. I have a tendency to become overly melodramatic when I don’t write for long stretches of time).

For me, the year went by in varying speeds. There were times when I wished to skip ahead of certain days, and there were times when I just wanted to hit pause on the world for just a few minutes. However, as all of you could attest, it just isn’t like that. Time plays on whether we want it to or not; people come and go, things continue happening, and of course – anime shows keep on coming.

Spring > Fall > Winter > Summer

In a rather surprising turn of events (and a season riddled with sequels to shows I haven’t gotten around to watching yet), the Summer season ended up getting the shorter end of the anime stick this year (at least in my opinion). I would, however, like to preface anything that I say further by saying I’ve watched noticeably fewer shows this time than previous years – which could have very well ended up affecting how I ranked the seasons. I attribute it to both being busy with Uni stuff, as well as having bad taste in titles I try to start. I might go back to some of the shows that I missed at a later date, but I really did feel a bit sad about seeing really just a few titles. As a final note; no, I have not watched One Punch Man – yet, anyways. 😀

Winter

I’m very quick to associate the Winter anime season with the namesake of its time of the year, by being a very cold period of anime watching. Since I started watching on-going shows, Winter has always been fairly lackluster. This time around, Winter 2015 was met with eager anticipation on my end with the second half of Aldnoah.Zero. Amidst the fallout of another Uro-butcher work that ended up being so-so, I’m not really ashamed to say that I enjoyed Aldnoah.Zero – though probably not for the intended reasons. The moment it devolved into a love-triangle with the fate of two world-nations at stake (which was late into the first season) I was sold.

The surprise favorite however was Death Parade. I watched Death Billiards back when it was part of Anime Mirai, so I thought that I knew more or less knew what to expect – more of an episodic, Jigoku Shoujo kind of thing. What I didn’t expect was a fairly solid build-up for a storyline that paid-off towards the end of the series. Would love to see more.

Spring

Spring has, time and time again, proven to me that it is the best season for anime. I’m far from being an accurate barometer for what’s good or not, but I can give it a good go when I need to. This is definitely not one of those times. Bias will take the best of me for this one, and my unconditional love for Fate/Stay NIght : Unlimited Blade Works trumps all. I’ve said it on multiple occassions on different platforms, but yeah, the Fate series is far from perfect. However, as hopeful romantics are quick to preach, true appreciation is to see beyond the imperfections. And what my rose-tinted glasses see is the vision my fourteen year-old self had seven years ago. I never thought I’d see the day.

The second biggest draw for me this season was Yahari Ore no Seishun Rom-Com wa Machigatteiru S2, and maaaaan was it good. The studio change (Feel) definitely played a huge part, and as is the name sake of said studio, the second season of Oregairu S2 was chock full of feels. Kekkai Sensen makes the list, albeit retroactively, by being that weird Bones show that every likes. Stuck around for the romance though xD.

Summer

Not gonna lie, I was a bit lazy with my anime during the Summer season (which was smack-dab in the middle of the semester). Since most of my free time was spent either clocking-in hours as an intern or doing Uni stuff, I decided to just stick with at least one show throughout the season. Before me, I had two options; Charlotte and Gangsta. – and although Gangsta. was interesting, I went with the safer choice in Charlotte (however it was a real shame that Manglobe went under before finishing Gangsta.) Charlotte was very promising from the start, but as with all works of P.A. works, they’re either a hit or a miss. Charlotte definitely peaked at one point (little sister arc), but beyond that, it was pretty much downhill the rest of the way.

Fall

OwariMono, OwariMono, OwariMono, OwariMono
*ehem* Yeah.. I’ll always welcome more Monogatari if it keeps on coming. Not really much I can say other than how with each Monogatari that does come, the real end draws nearer – and as a fan that hoped many years back for all the Monogatari books to be adapted, I can only be so happy. I also had high hopes for the noitaminA block’s Subete ga F ni Naru coming into the Fall season, and although the intrigue was definitely there, something about it was amiss. I can’t put my finger on what exactly I found off about it, but whatever it lacked, TROYCA’s Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru definitely helped find what I was looking for. Sakurako-san was the real dark horse of the season, and I enjoyed every second of it (expect me to talk more about it in a future post).

Concrete Revolution also makes it to my round-up because of its unorthodox story-telling mechanic, that was very reminiscent of a similar plot device employed by one of my favorite Heisei era Kamen Riders (Kiva). They play around going back-and-forth between the present timeline and a future one, with scenes from the present directly relating to the ones of the future. Concrete Revolutio is going to be split-cour (resumes in Spring 2016), and I’m very curious as to how they decide to play it out.

*Honorable Mentions

PsychoPass : The Movie
Season 2 where?!  I kid, I kid. I’m well aware that there is in fact a PsychoPass 2, and that no amount of pretending is gonna make it go away (I mean, we learned our lesson with Tsukihime am I right? xD) I do however, still remain immensely unimpressed with how the second season played out. It wasn’t bad per se’, but there were a lot of things that I feel were ignored from the first season in favor of trying to introduce new plot devices that just didn’t work. I could go on and on (and I plan to in the future, lol), but for now all I really have to say is, the movie does not at all disappoint.

LoveLive! : The School Idol Movie
I have no words.
Well, actually I do have a few. It was fun, μ’s. I thought I’d already said my farewells the last time, but it can’t be helped. Now let’s all be school idols!

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Aaaand with that, I’m pretty much good to go with sending off the awesome 2015.

Happy New Year guys. Have a good one. 🙂