#1 – Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Truth be told, there’s been very little real doubt all year about what my #1 anime for 2017 was going to be. From the time Winter ended, I knew it was going to take an enormous upset – something historically, freakishly great – to unseat the series that was sitting in that spot. And while 2017 certainly offered up some worthwhile contenders (principally Made in Abyss and Tsuki ga Kirei), I never wavered in my commitment that my pick was the right one.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu has been a part of this conversation before, of course. It was the #2 series of 2016, and based on your votes it would have been the #1. I picked Boku Dake ga Inai Machi as the top series and for me, that was the correct (albeit difficult) choice, but there were certainly years when Rakugo would have been the top show. And I found Sukeroku Futatabi-hen to be, if anything, even better than that superb first season. It was an incredible work of art in every respect, and without question the best anime of the year.

It’s been nine months since “Sukeroku” ended, and some of the story details are starting to become a little fuzzy. But the experience of watching this series is as vibrant as ever. In a sense it’s the embodiment of everything going right with a manga adaptation – plenty of episodes to tell the story, a superb director, a collection of fine actors perfectly cast. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is a story of tremendous sophistication and subtlety, and with a lesser adaptation it might have struggled to be compelling as entertainment in anime form. But that was certainly never a danger here.

There have been times in looking back at this series, in fact, that I’ve been struck by how much this show transcends anime as a medium. I have a muggle friend who’s fond of asking when forced to sit through an episode of an anime like this one “Why did that even have to be animated?”. Part of that is fueled by a narrow view of what animation generally and anime specifically can be (I discussed this in my interview with Michaël Dudok de Wit). But to me, that’s like looking at one of Monet’s “Water Lillies” series and asking “Why didn’t he just take a photograph?”.

Could Rakugo have been done in some other medium? Of course – but it wouldn’t have been the same. Anime allows imagination and interpretation to soar freely in a way live-action does not. Kumota Haruko began the process with her manga – as literate as any in the modern era – and Omata Shinichi and Deen built upon that in the anime. From the story construction on up, there’s no element of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu that feels anything less than exactingly considered – every development is foreshadowed by others earlier in the narrative, what happens on stage reflects what’s happening off it. In hindsight some if it may feel a bit shocking, but the clues were there if we had chosen to see them.

I don’t know if there are any larger lessons about anime to be learned from the triumph of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu. It’s wonderful that it exists, but it’s such a uniquely brilliant piece of writing that it’s beyond the scope of most creators to even try to imitate it, and it was hardly the kind of commercial hit as to spawn copycats. No, this series was simply a one-off, a unicorn – and I’m grateful that I was lucky enough to be a fan when it was produced.

 

#2 – Made in Abyss

I’m well aware that for most of you, the reveal of my #2 series is effectively a confirmation of what my top show of the year is – by this point there’s not much doubt which two shows are left in any given year, if one has been following the site at all. But I really want this post to be all about Made in Abyss, because even if it wasn’t my top anime of 2017 it was a truly remarkable one, and there are certainly years where it might have taken the top spot.

Here’s the bottom line for me. Any show I rank higher than Tsuki ga Kirei has to be a pretty fucking great show, because I love Tsuki ga Kirei. Made in Abyss is quite unlike anything I’ve seen in anime before, both as a story and as a production. The latter was evident in the very first episode, which had “specialness” stamped all over it – the world-building and visual flair was off the charts. But the extent to which the story itself was unique would only become apparent over the thirteen weeks Made in Abyss graced our screens.

There is an elephant in the room with this series, and it’s an especially troubling one because what turns some people off about it is also partly what makes Made in Abyss so exceptional. To say this series is “dark” would be an understatement (and the anime barely scratches the surface, no pun intended). Mangaka Tsukushi Akihito is certainly unsparing when depicting the brutality of the world he created. He does the characters no favors simply because they’re adorable children – no punches are pulled here, that’s for sure. But more than that, there’s an almost fetishistic quality to some of this – a fixation on humiliation and physicality, I don’t deny it – I don’t deny it troubles me. In short, I don’t have an easy answer to those for whom it’s a problem, or even a deal-breaker.

All I can really say to that is, in the end, the experience of Made in Abyss is astonishingly powerful in part because Tsukushi-sensei is so ruthless, both with his characters and the audience. One feels almost violated by some of what they see here, and there’s a (frankly exhilarating) feeling that nothing is sacred, nothing off-limits. Yet through that there’s an undying belief in the goodness of the major characters, a hope that their decency and their courage will make them strong enough to survive even the horrors The Abyss (and its more unsavory inhabitants) will throw at them. This is something it very much shares with the “Chimera Ant” arc of Hunter X Hunter – which is about the only comp I can make for Made in Abyss, if I’m determined to make one.

The other element one must discuss with Made in Abyss is the production values from Kinema Citrus. Citrus is a smaller studio with a lot of connections to Bones, and they put together a veritable all-star team of artists and animators for this series. Even so, it’s astounding just how gorgeous it is, start to finish. The backgrounds, the cinematography, the monster design (iconoclastic artist Yoshinari Kou was hired specifically for that purpose), the music – it’s as good as TV anime gets, frankly. The Animation Director came from Gainax (Kise Kazuchika) and the Art Director Ghibli (Masuyama Osamu), and the end result is indeed something like a heady mix of those two classic studios in style – but it transcends any “influence” and becomes something entirely unique. In the future, anime will aspire to be “Made in Abyss-influenced”.

The happy ending here (which sounds a bit of a misnomer with Made in Abyss) is that a second season has been announced, though not a planned air date. Made in Abyss sold surprisingly well on disc, probably enough to break even or close to it, and that was apparently enough to persuade the production committee to give this series another season. There’s not that much unadapted manga left, though Tsukushi-sensei will reportedly be writing material specifically for the new season – it’s going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. There are certainly more unknowns than usual with this sequel, but just to be getting one for a series as stupendous – and difficult – as Made in Abyss feels like playing with house money.

Note: We got a wonderful New Year’s gift today – it was announced that Hoozuki no Reitetsu’s second season will be a split cour, with the second airing in Spring. That’s obviously great news, though in theory it does mean it shouldn’t have been eligible for this year’s Top 10. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to address that directly, but I am aware of it.

 

#3 – Tsuki ga Kirei

At last the longest-ever run of sequels is broken – and with an original series at that, Tsuki ga Kirei.  It’s not a show whose presence on this list is going to surprise many people, not even its high placement – I think I was clear pretty early on that Tsuki ga Kirei was hitting me very close to the heart.

I’ve known since my first serious deliberations on this list what the top three series were going to be – with no disrespect to the shows that follow (especially the superb Boku no Hero Academia) there was a definite three-series tier in 2017 at the very top.  And while this was a pretty shallow year for anime, at the apex it can hold its own with most years without a problem – these top three are legit, AOTY-level classics.  High praise indeed, but they all merit it – Tsuki go Kirei among them.  I both love this show on a personal level and consider it objectively to be one of the best anime romances ever.

It’s not unfitting that I write this on the same day I did the Just Because series review post, because there two series are first cousins of a sort.  In much the same way Just Because was on-point in the way it depicted kids about to leave high school, Tsuki ga Kirei was with middle schoolers.  That’s an even rarer feat though – we see too few shows about them to begin with, and they’re almost always portrayed either as downsized high-schoolers or trumped-up elementary kiddies without the randoseru.  The middle-schoolers at the heart of Tsuki ga Kirei were freakishly accurate, to the point where I had many commenters note how unerringly (and often uncomfortably) there were reminded of their own experience.

Tsuki ga Kirei is a romance to a degree that Just Because is not – that is to say, the love between Akane and Kotarou is the heart of the story.  And because this is a romance that begins when the principals are 14 and not about to graduate high school, it’s a far more idealistic take on the experience.  Being in love at fourteen is terrible and beautiful, intoxicating and terrifying and everything in-between.  And all of those emotions shine through here.  I’ll go so far as to say I’ve never seen first love depicted more beautifully in anime, or a pair of romantic partners more engaging and likeable and Kotarou and Akane.

There are so many details this series gets just right, so many things that are just better than they need to be.  The background art, the omakes, the clever use of the ED as a way to spin an alternate telling of the story.  It’s no surprise to me that Kishi Seiji is capable of this kind of work as a director, but it’s still wonderful to see it recognized because he’s been pigeonholed by some of the frankly unimpressive projects he’s worked on adapting.  He and Kakihara Yuuko really take advantage of the opportunities an original series offers, giving us something complete and self-contained.

I was certainly pleasantly surprised to see Tsuki ga Kirei do reasonably well on disc, because even though there’s no need for a sequel, you still want to see the industry encouraged to make more shows like it (not that there are many).  Studios like .feel and Pine Jam taking some risks and giving us complex, subtle human stories about teenagers is a great thing for anime, but I always worry that we’ve seen the last of shows like this one.  Tsuki ga Kirei was a true marvel, a romance anime for the ages, a fairy tale grounded in realism and a story that touched the heart in a very profound way.  If you’re looking for greatness in the medium, you’d be hard-pressed to do much better than that.

 

#4 – Boku no Hero Academia Season 2

In all the years I’ve been doing these year-end lists, I’ve never seen five sequels in a row before, but I guess that says something about the sort of year 2017 was. In the last four selections we’ve had every year from 2013-2016 represented, too. Good anime is good anime, no question about it, and no one is happier to see a series I love get a sequel than me. But it does make one worry even more for the future.

In the case of Boku no Hero Academia, of course, there was no suspense as to that sequel announcement – and that would have been the case even if it hadn’t come at the end of this season’s final episode. As long as Horikoshi-sensei’s health – and desire to continue the series – holds up, BnHA will probably keep getting new anime seasons. And as great as this series is, that’s a good thing – it’s a rare case where a franchise’s popularity is wholly justified by its quality. For me this is the quintessential modern shounen manga, a series that’s wholly modern while still being grounded in the traditions of the demographic. That applies to the superhero genre, too, where Boku no Hero manages to provide the most interesting Japanese take on American comic book culture I’ve seen (and there have been a ton of them).

The first season of BnHA finished 9th in last year’s Top 10 list, and this one 4th – so to answer the obvious question, “both”. Sure 2017 was the weaker year (by a lot) but there’s no question this season of Boku no Hero was stronger than the first. And that’s because, frankly, the portions of then manga being adapted were better. Bones and Nagasaki Kenji are making subtle and astute changes here and there as they go, but for the most part they’re being faithful to the source material. And the nature of BnHA is that it tends to get better as it goes, with a few small peaks and valleys along the way. For a shounen action series it takes its time getting started, devoting (wisely) an unusually long time to laying the character groundwork for what’s to come. And the truth is that the best arcs in the manga haven’t even been touched by the anime yet – and as good as this season was, that has to tell you something about what’s to come.

This is another series I’ve already spilled a lot of virtual ink on, so you should have a pretty good idea why I love it as much as I do.  You have to have a great protagonist if you want to build a great hero shounen, and Deku certainly gives this show that.  Horikoshi takes the time to develop his side characters and his villains too – and while the ones directly connected to Izuku are the most richly detailed, there’s tremendous depth to the cast here.  The world-building is off the charts, the little details all seem to fall into place – as with Togashi, there’s sometimes a feeling that the entire mythology was pre-existing and the author is just drawing from it like some kind of manga Silmarillion.

As for what’s the come in the third season, it wouldn’t be right to go into detail here, but suffice to say it’s some of the best material in the series (what should be the first arc is a particular favorite of mine).  As always there will be spectacular action scenes and as always, Bones will surely nail them.  But there will also be plenty of (IMHO) even better stuff in-between, where the complex bonds connecting this weave of characters will be further explored.  And unless 2018 proves to be a far better year for anime than it looks like from here, Boku no Hero Academia should (if my memory is right) be the first series since Hunter X Hunter to make this list three years in a row.

 

#5 – Uchouten Kazoku 2 

While the slow decline in anime’s overall quality and creative ambition (2016 being a seeming aberration) has certainly taught me to appreciate good series in whatever form we get them, it’s certainly worth noting that 2017’s #5 series is the fourth straight sequel on this list.  And like the two preceding it here, Uchouten Kazoku’s prequel series was also a Top 10 finisher – though unlike those shows, this one actually lands one spot higher on the list.  We’ve seen 2014 represented, then 2015, and now we have 2013 – when the original Uchouten was the #6 anime of the year.

In this instance, four years have passed – and unlike with Kekkai Sensen and Hoouzki no Reitetsu, we can infer a real difference in the quality of the competition based on Uchouten Kazoku 2’s placement.  There’s no question that 2013 was a significantly stronger year for anime than 2017, because I would rank this season of Uchouten a notch or two below the first – which finished lower on the list.  It’s not a dramatic difference by any means, but the highest highs of the 2013 series were among the best anime episodes of the decade, and I don’t think even at its best this season reached quite those heights.

With that said, Uchouten Kazoku 2 was still a great series, an absolute treasure, and would be a legit Top 10 series in any year I’ve been a fan.  All one need do is listen to P.A. Works founder Horikawa Kenji talk about this franchise to realize that it’s a true labor of love for the staff at P.A. Works, and that shines through unmistakably in the production.  Uchouten Kazoku represents a true rarity in the production committee era, anime made for artistic reasons rather than commercial – this series may cobble together enough through modest disc sales and Kyoto tourism tie-ins to avoid being a total financial disaster, but I don’t think anyone ever felt it was going to be a money-maker.  It was simply a great story that the people at the studio fell in love with, and wanted to bring to life.

If you love Kyoto as much as I do (and I don’t know how that’s possible, but maybe a few of you do) you’ll recognize just how masterfully this production captures the magical charms of the place.  It’s a love letter to that magnificent city – as well as to embracing our inner child and never forgetting to act like a fool.  Morimi Tomihiko’s novels are imbued with love for Kyoto and all that’s magical about it, but there’s just something about seeing this story come to life in brilliant color and expressive background and brilliant voice acting that elevates it to levels few anime ever reach.  This show is a literate, humanistic and relentlessly imaginative fairy tale that bridges the quirks of modern and ancient Japan masterfully.

Will there be another season of The Eccentric Family?  At this point there are just too many variables to guess with confidence – starting with the fact that Morimi’s third and presumably final novel needs to come first, and that itself may be years away from publication.  Uchouten Kazoku is the sort of premise that seems to offer endless possibility – it has a huge cast of, well- eccentrics, and the full range of human(oid) foibles and Japanese mythology to draw upon, so there’s little risk of it ever becoming repetitive.  In a way I view show like this as a canary in a coal mine – as long as the medium can still allow them to exist, the anime air hasn’t become too toxic to breathe and there’s still hope for its survival.

 

#6 – Kekkai Sensen and Beyond 

At the risk of repeating myself, we have another series from the current season in the Top 10, which means a shorter than usual write-up.  And just like Hoozuki no Reitetsu, Kekkai Sensen and Beyond finishes the year in exactly the same place on the list that its prequel did (in 2015) – 6th.  It’s certainly worth noting that three of the five shows I’ve recognized so far are Fall anime, which certainly speaks well to how this season will rank as a whole when we look back at 2017.

What I said about Hoozuki no Reitetsu, I’ll say here: part of the reason for the identical ranking is that the two seasons aired in years that were not all that dissimilar.  2015 was certainly deeper, but the top 6-8 shows were of roughly similar quality.  And again, as with Hoozuki I think both seasons of Kekkai Sensen have been very similar in overall accomplishment – I’d be hard-pressed to say which one I liked better than the other.  The difference is, while Hoozuki’s two seasons were totally consistent with each other, the two seasons of Kekkai Sensen could hardly been more different and still recognizably been adaptations of the same manga.

As to the nature of those differences, well – I went into that in some depth in my series finale post already.  I love what all this says about Nightow’s source manga (that it has a strong enough identity to stand out in both incarnations), and also what it says about Bones – that they would give the first season to a quirky young genius like Matsumoto Rie, and choose to go in a totally different direction with Takayanagi Shigehito for “Beyond”.  For moments of shock and awe, of sheer brilliance, Matsumoto’s season is hard to beat.  But as a matter of storytelling and as a true adaptation of the source material, there’s no doubt in my mind the second season reigns supreme.

Which is “better”?  As different as chalk and cheese, these two seasons are, and for that reason I think it depends almost entirely on mood and personal preference.  I’m glad we have them both, and I’ll be very interested in seeing what sort of direction Bones – who remain, for my money, the most consistently excellent studio in the anime business – decide to take the third.

 

#7 – Hoozuki no Reitetsu 2nd Season 

If there are arbitrary cutoffs in this year’s list, this is probably one slot where one exists for me – everything from here on upwards is a pretty clear step up from the rest of 2017’s anime.  These are the seven series that unequivocally feel like top 10 shows to me – ones that would be on the list in almost any year, apart from a truly extraordinary one.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu’s 2nd season is currently airing, so as ever I’ll be a bit brief in my reflections for now (the series review post is only a few days away), but it’s the second of the first four series on this list that’s a Fall 2017 series.  It’s also, as the #7 series of the year, in exactly the same place as the first season was three years ago.  That doesn’t always mean the sequel and the prequel are objectively equal, but in this case I think it’s near enough as to be effectively true.  2014 was an anime year not unlike 2017 – strong at the top and not at all deep.  And I’d be hard-pressed to pick which season of Hoozuki I liked better – I love them both, and both have improved as the season has progressed.

As I’ve noted ad nauseam, comedy is about as personal as it gets when it comes to entertainment.  I know Hoozuki no Reitetsu is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m utterly defenseless against it.  It’s pitched exactly at my frequency in terms of tone and style, and (even with the shift from Wit to Deen) remains one of the most visually beautiful comedies in anime history.  I hope we get another season, and I hope it doesn’t take almost four years to arrive – if there’s any blessing to that illogically long (the first season was a monstrous commercial hit) wait, it’s that it allowed Eguchi Natsumi’s manga to rebuild its lead over the anime.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu is distinctly Japanese, even by manga standards – and yet, somehow, it manages to be universal.  I always love it when a series does that, because it’s a reminder that even people from distinct cultures (and Japan’s is among the most distinct there is) are a lot more alike than we pretend.  Shows like this are really why I started watching anime in the first place, because you just don’t get this sort of thing anywhere else.

 

#8 – Natsume Yuujinchou Roku

Natsume Yuujinchou has been with anime for a long time, that’s for certain.  It’s certainly been on my radar since before I ever began this blog, and every time a new cour has come along it’s always been a part of my end-of-year deliberations.  Some years it’s been in the Top 10, some years the second – but it’s always been a factor.  Surely, this is one of the most consistent series in anime history in just about every way that matters.

Why is “Roku” in the Top 10 this year, then?  In part, no doubt, it’s due to the fact that 2017 was a pretty shallow year for truly elite anime.  But it was a rock-solid season, too – not the best Natsume Yuujinchou has ever put out there, but far from the worst.  While the production values for the franchise have slipped a bit since the move from Brain’s Base to Shuka, that’s not really a big deal for me.  In every other respect the series continues apace, and we’re even starting to make some headway towards answering some of the big questions that have hung over the story since the beginning.

We’re probably at the point where there isn’t a whole lot I can add about Natsume Yuujinchou in broad terms – it should be pretty clear how I feel about the series by now.  “Roku” was a good fit for me, because a fair amount of the focus was on the youkai rather than the human side, and it managed to squeeze a couple of elite episodes into its run.  I’m pretty certain that we haven’t seen the last of it in TV anime form (and we know there’s a theatrical film coming in 2018), and I fully expect to be writing about the seventh season when it comes to summing up the best shows of 2018 – or whatever year it’s released.

 

#9 – ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka is a funny sort of show to be including in this list – but then, it’s a funny sort of year that way.  I can think of a few shows that are going to be left off the Top 10 list that I liked better than ACCA – maybe even enjoyed more.  As I noted in my series review post, I never felt that this series closed the emotional loop – I never fully bonded with it in the heart as I did in the brain.

Yet here it is, and you know, once I started seriously putting the list together I never really considered leaving ACCA out of the Top 10.  This is a series that’s stayed with me to a peculiar extent, like Jean’s wise and sad eyes, possibly because it’s such a strange one – so totally unlike anything else that aired this year (or most other years).  Part travelogue, part food porn, part the most chill thriller plot ever – that was ACCA: 13-ku.  Maybe you could say this was 2017’s Concrete Revolutio – a series of dizzying intellectual ambition and brilliant visual flourishes that traded more on ideas and world-building that traditional character arcs.  It’s an inexact comparison at best – but I can’t think of a better one at the moment.

A lot of the success of this series comes down to two Natsumes – director Natsume Shingo and mangaka Ono Natsume.  Both are firmly established and successful (in addition to being hugely talented), and as weird as this series was, it was clear there was never any consideration given to dumbing it down or ironing some of the wrinkles out of the narrative style to make it more mainstream.  That would have been a fatal mistake, because it’s this extreme idiosyncrasy that makes ACCA so appealing as a series.  That Natsume Shingo could find success with shows as diverse as ACCA, One Punch Man and Space Dandy shows just how versatile he is as a director – and Ono-sensei has penned some of the most stylish and quirky manga of the 21st Century.

Week in and week out, ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka never failed to engage me – even if it never made me feel as deeply as I sometimes wanted it to.  There are other shows – very good ones – which I could have included here at its expense, but it just wouldn’t have felt right to leave ACCA off this list.  Series this smart, this literate, and this respectful of the audience are one of the great treasures of anime as a medium, and the rarer they get the more I appreciate them.

 

#10 – Just Because

I’ll spoil this year’s list just a bit and say that on balance, it wasn’t one of the stronger ones I’ve ever compiled.  But the #10 spot was easily the toughest out of the Top 10 – not for the same reason last year’s final slot was so tough, sadly (there were too many legit Top 10 series for 10 spots) but because there were simply a cluster of shows I had ranked very, very close.  And not only that, a couple of them were still airing this season, which makes the decision that much harder.  In truth it was almost a coin flip at the end, but I did what I occasionally need to do – stared at the titles on the list until I knew in my heart one was the right choice.

Just Because doesn’t really feel like a Top 10 show in a good year – or at least a deep one, but then 2017 was anything but a deep year in anime.  My gut says that whole cluster of shows I referred to are #11-20 shows, but that’s the sort of year 2017 has been.  As with all #11-20 shows over the years I’ve done these lists, I have deep affection for them – they just don’t quite measure up, on balance, to what a Top 10 series should be.  That said, Just Because made the cut “because” it’s an ambitious, intelligently-written and really insightful series that does as good a job enlightening that frightening time at the end of high school as any anime in recent memory.  And that, friends, is no small compliment.

As is my custom with current-season anime on the year-end lists, I won’t talk about Just Because extensively – I’ve been doing that for the past 11 weeks.  I will say that it’s a slightly unsettling thing to place a show on the list before the finale airs (something I haven’t had to do very often), because endings do matter – a lot.  It’s entirely possible my overall esteem for Just Because could change significantly (in either direction) after next week’s finale, but I had to go with what I had – and in doing so, I place a certain amount of faith in Kobayashi-sensei and Kamoshida-sensei to get the ending right.  Original series can have a leg up in that respect, since they have the opportunity to envision what the entire picture will look like before they start painting.

While it might not have cracked the Top 10 in a stronger year, there’s just an awful lot to like about Just Because.  To see a new director and a young studio like Pine Jam really try to do something different (and largely succeed) – a teen drama that’s restrained, subtle and deliberate – is so encouraging given the larger trends in the production committee era.  There’s romance here, but this is not really a romance series – it’s about a difficult time in our lives and how we cope with change more than the relationships themselves.  There’s something very universal and incredibly authentic about the emotions portrayed in Just Because, and I hope against hope we see a few more anime like it in coming years.

 

Honorable Mention – Pokemon Sun and Moon

Pokemon Sun and Moon is one of those shows that’s the beneficiary of the rules I use for this list – it’s still airing, but it aired for all of 2017.  It hasn’t exactly been an easy show to follow, either, because it’s not licensed in subtitled form through any streaming service and fansubs have been few and far between (though they’re catching up now).

Still, though, in the end I wanted to call attention to it because I think “Sun and Moon” is crazy fun – in many ways, I think of it as the Gundam Build Fighters of the Pokemon universe in that it resolutely refuses to take itself too seriously and, in the process, punctures some of the silliness attached to the parent franchise.  It also features a fantastic ED and – on occasion – some pretty fabulous art and animation.  I’m not what you’d call a huge Pokemon fan generally, even as a kid, but “Sun and Moon” is simply a show I can chill out with and enjoy any time I need a break from the world.

If I had an “honorable honorable mention”, BTW, it would be Chi’s Sweet Adventure.  It lacks the visual flair of the original Madhouse series of course, but for a 100% CGI series it looks pretty decent.  And given that it packs all the charm inherent in the franchise and features Kochi, whose friendship with Chi is the best part of the series, you forget about the CG pretty quickly anyway.  A must-series for cat lovers.

A Refresher on Eligibility:

I’m going by the same eligibility standard I used for the 2012-2016 lists – that is, shows that finished airing during the year or split-cours that finished in 2017.  Split-cour series which finish in 2018 are not eligible for this list, but series that ended this year and weren’t officially confirmed as split cour when they did are eligible. As ever, “split-cour” is an elusive term to define – I allowed Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and Boku no Hero Academia eligible despite the sequels being announced before the end (or at the end, in Rakugo‘s case) of the first season, because they didn’t air until three seasons later.  So in effect, the only shows not eligible for this list are the multi-cour series that began airing from Spring 2017 onwards and are still airing into Winter 2018, or true split cours that will finish in 2018.

I always like to do a little contest, so…  The winner will be anyone that guesses the Top 10, in order. If no one does that, I’ll go with the closest guess. Guesses made by 0700 JST 12/23/17 will be eligible.  Here’s the prize: I’ll do a writeup on any anime airing in Winter 2018 and being covered on LiA, in the voice of any anime character from any series I’ve covered start-to-finish.  For example, you could say “write a post on Mahoutsukai no Yome in the voice of Nanachi from Made in Abyss“.  If you choose a character from the same series as the show you want me to write about, I’ll do it.  As long as it meets the two main criteria it’s eligible but the example I just used is off-limits (just because I want you to think of one yourself).