Some Personal Anime Favourites From 2020
- A Certain Scientific Railgun T
- Ascendance of a Bookworm (season 2)
- Assault Lily Bouquet
- Asteroid in Love
- Attack on Titan: The Final Season
- Bofuri
- Darwin's Game
- Deca-Dence
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (technically, this is a 2019 anime, but I only saw it in 2020)
- Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai
- Drifting Dragons
- Fire Force (season 2)
- Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma: The Fifth Plate
- Fruits Basket (season 2)
- Golden Kamuy (season 3)
- Heya Camp
- I'm Standing on a Million Lives
- In/Spectre
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (season 3)
- Isekai Quartet (season 2)
- Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (season 2)
- Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story
- My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
- Plunderer
- Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World (season 2, part 1)
- Rent-A-Girlfriend
- Sakura Wars the Animation
- Sing "Yesterday" for Me
- Somali and the Forest Spirit
- Strike Witches: Road to Berlin
- Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld (part 2)
- The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?
- The Case Files of Jeweler Richard
- The Misfit of Demon King Academy
- Tower of God
- Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina
- Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon
That is actually a fair bit of anime. If you just assumed that every anime was 12 episodes of 21 minutes, then that is 160 hours of viewing or over 6.5 solid days of viewing. I didn't watch them all in full though. I can say that I dropped Asteroid of Love, Tower of God, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Plunderer, Drifting Dragons, Darwin's Game after a few episodes for various reasons ranging from insensitive treatment of material, dumber than normal, to boring.
There were some real gems in this batch of anime though, although I do miss watching some mecha anime. The ones I really like were the ones were I couldn't wait to see the next episode next week and they were really fun to view.
Super Fun To Watch
These were the anime that really stood out from the pack for me as I appreciated the story, characters, originality or treatment of the idea/theme.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun T
I mainly enjoy the Railgun series for its main character Mikoto and the series itself has had ups and downs. Mikoto's electromagnetic powers are pretty awesome and you have to like how she can do lightning, fire a coin like a railgun, manipulate metal particles into weapons, and much more. The backroom plotting that goes on in Academy City (aka esper central) is kind of ridiculous, as most of it is unethical and covered up - typical anime trope, but this season was much better as it developed the surrounding characters and Mikoto better. The whole arc involving Misaki Shokuhou and her mind control was well done to show her true personality and motivations. - Ascendance of a Bookworm (season 2)
An isekai anime where a librarian is reincarnated into the body of a young girl who has great magical powers, but loves to read and wants to invent mass produced books for all in a fantasy world. This was a fun little season where her character and the characters around her develop into more rounded individuals and you learn more about how the nobility works. A fun isekai series with more politics and societal bias to overcome rather than fighting with a sword. - Bofuri
I think this was the funniest and most enjoyable anime of the season as it really played with online MMORPGs in a friendly and humorous way. This is a show I would rewatch, kind of like Laid Back Camp, just to unwind and relax. Maple and the hi-jinks that follow her as she learns how to have seriously high defense and play online games was just a blast to watch and no one dies! - Fire Force (season 2)
This show set in a rebuilt Tokyo after a great burning that consumed the Earth hit a few rough patches, but the story picks up and begins to tie loose ends up in a very satisfactory manner as Shinra Kusakabe, 3rd generation pyrokinetic, begins to solve the mysteries around the Great Disaster and what happened to his family. - Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma: The Fifth Plate
Can you say jumped the shark! This cooking anime has great art and reactions to food. The storyline and crazy NOIR chef villains in this final arc were ridiculous. I think the first 2 seasons were the best, followed by seasons 3 and 4. This season's episodes were entertaining and frustrating as the villain was so ridiculously overpowered, but at least it wrapped up nicely. Food Wars is still my favourite cooking competition anime. - Golden Kamuy (season 3)
This historical anime is great for the characters and the Hokkaido frontier setting after the Russo-Japanese war in the early 20th century. Saichi Sugimoto, a veteran of the war, is on a quest with Asirpa, a young Ainu girl, to find a lost gold hoard. In this season, the two were mostly separated, but that allowed all of the other characters and backstory to be better filled in. - Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (season 3)
The first season of this show was pretty good, so was the second. I felt that this season was probably the worst of the bunch (but still good) as it was way more serious in nature and the convoluted plotting really slowed the show down. Bell Cranel, the Little Rookie, and his goddess Hestia stuck in the middle of the plots of the gods and only their skills and good friends can get them out of it. You learn more about the dungeon and what a monster is in this season. - Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls
In many ways this was a show that is a lot like many sports anime. I like some shows like Bamboo Blade and Tsurune in this genre, and this show really wasn't all that original. I still found that I liked it quite a bit because it was about competitive climbing, had some interesting animations, and the characters and story were good enough to make me watch this more than once. The show kind of wrapped up super fast though - so the pacing was a little strange at the end. - Jujutsu Kaisen
The next big shonen anime with sorcerers battling Curses, creatures born of the negative emotional energy from people. Much of this first season is about introducing the protagonist, Yuji Itadori, his new sorcerer friends, and world building, but there are some good battles where you learn more about the magic system at work. Lots of action, death, and drama. The show is a little too dark for my tastes, but I'm liking it quite a bit. - My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
Another isekai anime where our female protagonist is reborn as Catarina Claes, a young noble woman, in a visual novel. Unfortunately Catarina is the villain and she meets various demises based on the ending chosen for the novel. So our heroine sets out to be nice, in an air headed kind of way, to change her destiny and not be a villain. This anime is a lot like Bofuri where there is a lot of heart to it. It is fairly light going until the end, but it was a very enjoyable series to watch. - Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World (season 2, part 1)
Subaru Natsuki is a NEET who finds himself transported to another fantasy world in a blink of an eye. Here he falls in love with a half-elf wizard named Emilia and finds out he has the power of Return by Death which allows him relive a section of time after dying. Subaru dies a lot and is constantly using this power to protect and help Emilia and his new friends. Season 2 pretty much does the same as season 1 and digs deeper into the various pasts of the many characters in this show and also begins to explain the powerful witches that have terrorized this world. If you liked season 1, you'll like season 2. - Rent-A-Girlfriend
This was a pretty entertaining anime with a typical good hearted guy, Kazuya Kinoshita, who can't get a girl, yet has an ex-girl friend and rental girlfriends around (two of them). The characters are fairly well developed and the story is fairly good - even if contrived around the grandmothers. You do wonder how the relationships will play out and you learn a bit about the rental girlfriend/boyfriend industry in Japan. Good drama overall and looking forward to a second season. - Sing "Yesterday" for Me
A more serious romantic drama about a slightly aimless college graduate, Rikuo Uozumi, who has feelings for a college friend, Shinako Morinome, but doesn’t express them well. A younger girl, Haru Nonaka, likes Rikuo, and is chasing after him for most of the show. There is a resolution of sorts to the love triangle by the end of the anime and it was nicely done. - Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld (part 2)
It is Sword Art. What more can I say? Kirito is still trapped again in an online world, but real world forces are at work to steal artificial intelligences FLUCTLIGHTS, that populate the world he is in. Some really good world building happens in Alicization, and the characters, including Alice are really awesome. The original Sword Art companions play a role near the end, but the show is really about Kirito and Alice. - Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina
The episodes were up and down in this series. Elaina is a newly minted witch who travels from place to place. The episodes are kind of like fairy tales with a moral to them, some of which are quite dark, so the shows bounces between fun and death. Neat show and different from your typical witch anime. - Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon
I cannot complain about having more stories set in the world of Inuyasha's feudal Japan. So, yay! This series stars Towa and Setsuna, the twin daughters of Sesshomaru, and the Moroha, daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, The show is basically Inuyasha - the next generation, and the episodes are very reminiscent of the original series. I love it so far as it is still running as I write. They even managed to get Towa to be raised in modern Japan so you have that Kagome time travelling vibe to the show too! Very enjoyable. - Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
This show is technically from 2019, but I only watched it in 2020, so it was a highlight for the year. I tried to watch it once before, but fizzled out after three episodes. After I saw all of the hype then I tried it again in the fall and it hooked me this time. The relationship between Tanjiro Kamado and his sister Nezuko is at the heart of the show and was very well portrayed. I liked both the main characters, with Tanjiro becoming a demon slayer while trying to find a cure for his demonized sister who battles to retain her humanity. The story line was quite gripping and the powers of demons and demon hunters were very well developed in the show. Plenty of action, interesting characters, great animation, and human foibles (even if they've turned into a demon) make this an awesome show. Even the opening and ending songs were good.
That's a wrap for now. Hope you enjoyed reading and if you haven't caught some of these shows, give them a try if they appeal!
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