2016 Was a Pretty Good Year For Anime Shows

Looking back on 2016, I have to say it was a pretty darn good year of anime viewing for me.  A number of very memorable shows were on, some of which will be classics in the years to come.
Most of these shows were on Crunchyroll, with a few on Netflix, but Netflix has some awesomely great shows in their catalog.

Love Live Sunshine Display in Akiba

When I thought about what I really liked, these shows really stood out for originality, art, and even their openings and endings.  Great stories and characters sure helped too.  My top three anime (as in what I like) from last year would have been:

• Izetta: The Last Witch - great story and a witch that flies on an anti-tank rifle that is set in an alternate WWII historical environment.  Izetta and the duchess were great characters with some great scenes of magic versus tech.  Well imagined world and a nice portrayal of magic. 
• ERASED - great story about a 29 year old guy name Satoru Fujinuma who has the ability to jump slightly back in time (rewind) to save a life.  He gets involved in events that take him back into his 10 year old self to save the life of a girl and fix something that has haunted him since.
• Re:ZERO Starting Life in Another World. A shut-in named Subaru Natsuki finds himself transported to a fantasy world where he meets a silver haired, half-elf named Emilia.  Their fates are now linked and he finds out that there are some pretty dark forces at work in this world, but he has the ability to restart the day after dying.  Why and how he does this is a mystery, but the story is pretty good, and it is a lot like restarting from the last save point in a video game.

Out of these shows, only Re:ZERO is a longer running one.  When I was in Tokyo in November, it was pretty hard to find any merchandise for any of these shows.  I did notice that there was plenty of merchandise for shows like Gintama (super popular) or a few other long running shows that are still airing, but some shows like Bleach which are done, there was very little to buy.

Then I had a bunch of shows that were super good, really entertaining, and maybe even really close to the top three so they should have been up there.  In this set, there was some mecha love from Mobile Suit Gundam and Schwarzes Marken.  I got to see my home city of Edmonton get some Gundams fighting down on Jasper Avenue (main street).  Schwarzes Marken was pretty cool with the alternate Cold War and having mecha action set in East Germany with the Stasi (secret police) and politics of the time.  GATE just rocked with modern tech versus fantasy as the Japanese Self-Defence Forces fight medieval invaders.  Food Wars! has got to be my favourite food anime, with the tasty food related plots and cooking.  Konosuba was a pretty hilarious take on an otaku trapped in a fantasy game world and who doesn't only practice Explosion magic!  March comes in like a lion was a great character show based on the backdrop of the Japanese chess game Shogi.  Yuri!!! On ICE was a pretty good story with fantastic skating animation.  Inari Kon Kon was an anime I wish I had seen prior to visiting Fushimi Inari Shrine as it makes it a pretty magical place with the red torii gates even more magical.  I always like the stories about kami and shrines.  Finally, Love Live Sunshine was a nice successor to Love Live, but my first love will always be Love Live!

• Mobile Suit GUNDAM Iron Blooded Orphans
• Schwarzes Marken
• GATE
• Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma
• KONOSUBA -God's blessing on this wonderful world!
• March comes in like a lion
• Yuri!!! On ICE
• Inari Kon Kon
• Love Live Sunshine

A bunch of the other stuff I managed to watch and thought was pretty good included:

• Drifters
• Brave Witches
• High School Fleet
• ReLIFE
• Flying Witch
• Alderamin on the Sky
• Adventures of Sindbad
• KuroMukuro
• Heavy Object
• Yuki Yuna is a Hero
• Qualidea Code
• Amanchu!
• Garakowa -Restore the World-
• The Ancient Magus' Bride
• The Lost Village 
• Myriad Colors Phantom World
• NEW GAME!
• BAKUON!! 
• Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon
• Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

Then there was the stuff that I think I'm only going to watch a few episodes:

• Kaiju Girls
• NANBAKA
• ClassicaLoid Beethoven, Mozart
• Cheating Craft

And finally some stuff I need to watch or have on my to do list.

• Twin Star Exorcists
• Blue Exorcist
• Durarara
• Lostorage incited WIXOSS 
• BBK/BRNK

It is always interesting to look back and see what you watched over the year, even if it was for only one episode.  I probably missed a few too, but this is already a pretty long list.

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