Ever since Crunchyroll started doing their Anime Awards, I've made it my personal mission to make my own awards that represent the actual year in anime!

I already posted my silly awards list (with the truly important categories such as: prettiest boy and biggest trainwreck) so here are my serious picks. Don't take anything too seriously. These are just something fun I like to do every year. I can't watch everything.

Anime Of The Year

Dungeon Meshi

Dandadan

Go Go Loser Ranger

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth cour 1

Re: Zero (season 3)

Ranma ½

Best Comedy

Mayonaka Punch

Konosuba (season 3)

My Deer Friend Nokotan

Ranma 1/2

VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream

Acro Trip

Best Drama

Jellyfish Can’t Swim In The Night

Senpai wa Otokonoko

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction

Girls Band Cry

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth cour 1

If My Wife Becomes An Elementary School Student

Best Romance

A Sign Of Affection

Blue Box

Cherry Magic- I’m not typing the full title

Kimi ni Todoke (From Me To You) (season 3)

Tasogare Out of Focus

365 Days to the Wedding

Best Slice Of Life

Mr. Villain’s Day Off

Welcome Home (Tadaima, Okaeri)

The Yōkai Next to Me

Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi

Negaposi Angler

Dungeon People

Honorable Mention: The Magical Girl And The Evil Lieutenant Used To Be Arch Enemies

Best Action

Wind Breaker

Bleach Thousand Year Blood War (part 3)

Brave Bang Bravern

Bucchigiri?!

Kaiju No. 8

Dragon Ball Daima

Honorable mention: Viral Hit

Best Fantasy

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End cour 2

Dungeon Meshi

Re: Zero (season 3)

Spice And Wolf

Isekai Suicide Squad

Dandadan...more of a sci-fi than fantasy but oh well...

Best Boy

Asamine Matakara (Bucchigiri?!)

Yuichi Kurosawa (Cherry Magic)

Buchio (The Yokai Next To Me)

Shion Yoshino (Tasogare Out Of Focus)

Natsume Takashi (Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi)

Keisuke Niijima (If My Wife Becomes An Elementary School Student)

Honorable Mention: Nukumizu (Too Many Losing Heroines)...this poor guy deserves some love but everyone else edged him out just a little bit 😅

Best Protagonist

Sakuna (Sakuna: Of Rice And Rain)

Masaki (Mayonaka Punch)

Fighter D (Go Go Loser Ranger)

Hibino Kafka (Kaiju No. 8)

Ciel Phantomhive (Black Butler Public School Arc)

Lawrence Kraft (Spice And Wolf)

Honorable mention: Mao Mao (Apothecary Diaries cour 2)...I love her so much but I already nominated her last year so I felt like it wasn't fair to do her twice

Best Antagonist

Sirius Romanée-Conti: Sin Archbishop of Wrath (Re: Zero season 3)- There are 3 great villains this season, but I could only pick one to represent and Wrath was my favorite 😅

Red Keeper (Go Go Loser Ranger)

Mika Hanaoka (Senpai wa Otokonoko)

Melon (Beastars Final Season cour 1)

Nowak (Orb: On the Movements of the Earth cour 1)

Chika Shiraishi (If My Wife Becomes An Elementary School Student) I know she’s only an antagonist at the beginning of the show, but dang, she’s a good one.

Best Girl

Holo (Spice And Wolf)

Marcille (Dungeon Meshi)

Sawako Kuronuma (Kimi ni Todoke season 3)

Harley Quinn (Isekai Suicide Squad)

Koshi Torako (My Deer Friend Nokotan)

Hina Chouno (Blue Box)

Best Supporting Character

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

“Youko Satou” (The Fable)

Kouji Shigemoto (Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.)

Peeps (Sasaki and Peeps)

Chrome (Acro Trip)

Nyanko Sensei (Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi)

Best Character Design

Delico’s Nursery

Oshi no Ko (season 2)

Isekai Suicide Squad

Dungeon Meshi

Beastars Final Season cour 1

Ranma 1/2

Best Score

Girls Band Cry

Spice and Wolf

Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi

Kaiju No. 8

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night

Bleach Thousand Year Blood War (part 3)- I will keep nominating it every year until it wins the actual award!

Honorable mentions: Orb: On the Movements of the Earth cour 1

Best Animation

Oblivion Battery

The Elusive Samurai

Blue Box

Beastars Final Season cour 1

Too Many Losing Heroines

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Honorable mention: Shoushimin Series (I guess I’d categorize this as “most cinematic” over “best animation”), also Wind Breaker's animation deserves a shout out too.

Best OP

(BASED ON BOTH SONG AND VISUALS! so, sorry Viral Hit and The Fable...)

Dandadan (“Otonoke” Creepy Nuts)

Go Go Loser Ranger (“Preview of Me” Tatsuya Kitani)

Beastars Final Season cour 1 (“Into The World” issei)

You Are Ms. Servant (“Otozure” tricot)

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth cour 1 (“Kaiju” Sakanaction)

Tower of God season 2 OP 1 (“Rise Up” NiziU)

Honorable mentions: *This is the hardest category every year for me, so I just have to shout out some others*

Yuru Camp season 3 (“Laid Back Journey” Kiminone)

Oshi no Ko season 2 (“Fatal” GEMN)

Wind Breaker (“Absolute Zero” Natori)

Mashle season 2 (“Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” Creepy Nuts)

Best ED

Isekai Suicide Squad (“Go Getters” Mori Calliope)

Brave Bang Bravern (“Sounen no Shouzu” Ryota Suzuki and Yohei Azakami) There was no way in hell I was leaving this off the list. If you watch no other anime endings this year, please watch this one 😆

Go Go Loser Ranger (“Sekai wa Iranei” NANAOAKARI)

Ranma ½ (“Antanante” riria)

Frieren Beyond Journey’s End cour 2 (“Anytime Anywhere” Milet)

Too Many Losing Heroines ed 2 (“Crazy For You” Shion Wakayama) *I love the other 2 endings as well, but I could only choose one*😭

Best Japanese VA Performance

*I'm terrible with this category. I really don't know how to judge good voice acting performances at all*

Hasegawa, Ikumi as Masaki (Mayonaka Punch)

Ueda, Hitomi as Yoshino (Yakuza Fiancé)

Seki, Toshihiko as Muzan Kibutsuji (Demon Slayer Hashira Training Arc)...This arc may have sucked, but he acted the shit out of it.

Inoue, Kazuhiko as Nyanko Sensei (Natsume Yuujinchou shichi)

Nagase, Anna as Harley Quinn (Isekai Suicide Squad)

Fujita, Saki as Koshi Torako (My Deer Friend Nokotan)

*I don't watch enough dubs to do nominations for English voice actors, but I want to shout out SungWon Cho as Senshi from Dungeon Meshi and Abby Trott as Ayase from Dandadan. They understood the assignment.*

Happy Birthday to Aoi Yūki!!

Dandadan

I remember trying the manga when it first came out, dropped it after the second chapter since I fucking hate high school shit, but the anime looked well animated and the intro kicks ass, so I gave it a second chance and hooooly shit, it’s really fucking good! The start is indeed sloppy, but once aliens and spirits make their debut, it’s all uphill from there!

Great animation, characters and fight scenes galore, plus a surprisingly heartfelt and tragic story in the seventh episode, 10/10 so far!

Ranma 1/2

I grew up with the OG series, so it holds a special place in my heart, and man if the remake hasn’t disappointed me in the slightest! Great animation, amazing music, the characters feel even more charming than before, and even Akane got toned down from her bitchy self I still clearly remember from way back when.

Apparently the adaptation is much closet to the manga than the OG series, hence why it has faster pacing and somewhat more mellowed characters, and after reading that that means that piece of shit happosai is no longer becoming a recurring nightmare, I can honestly say I’m even more excited for this one !

Dragon Ball Daima

I’m latino, if I don’t watch this I’ll be banned from ever enjoying arepas again… Naw, I’ve been watching Dragon Ball for basically all my life, so of course I have to watch this one, plus OG DB was always my favorite, and this one truly captures the essence of that story!

Also, since its kid Goku again, his stupidity, which Super turned up to 11 for no good reason, finally makes in-universe sense, so that’s another plus!

TsumaSho

What everyone, myself included, wrote off as yet another ultra degenerate anime, this time about a dead wife reincarnating as a 10-year okd child, turned out to be quite the wholesome, if ultimately tragic (especially after the last episode ) series about a broken family of a dad and an adult daughter slowly recovering from 10 years of grief and darkness after the said death wife AND mother comes back and basically tells them “time to get your shit together you stupid idiots”, which, they do.

The mom character is the best, as while she’s reconnecting with her old family, she has to deal with her new one in the form of a broken divorced mom who keeps unintentionally hurting her, all because her own home life was a living nightmare, while her love life is nothing but betrayals.

It sorta reminds me of the weird telenovelas I used to watch at a friend’s house, but in a good way, don’t let the weird premise drive you off, it is not perverted in the slightest!

And that’s about it! I tried another anime about a slime girl, dropped it one episode in (I didn’t like its humor), then another about a sentient robot arm thing, dropped it after the third episode (mainly because the tone was all over the place), and another about the fan of a magical girl accidentally becoming evil, kinda like THAT degenerate anime from the beginning of the year, only not degenerate, gave it a try because of that, turned out to be the most boring shit I’ve ever watched in a long while.

I just skimmed the Wikipedia article and thank fucking God, it actually sounds like a well-written story about processing grief and living life to the fullest. Most importantly it doesn't involve pedophilia! A premise like this makes you fear for the worst, lol.

Chika's backstory shown in EP6 of TsumaSho was an emotional gut punch seeing how much her own mother abused her as a child. It was hard for me to sympathize with her since she eventually became what she hated by abusing her own daughter but she eventually reached a breaking point with betrayal after betrayal... and when Marika got sick, she cared deeply because her daughter is the only thing she had left. That talk with the Niijimas finally pushes her to start over again with a clean slate after hearing Marika wanting to stay with her despite the truth behind her reincarnation...

Just as Marika said earlier in the episode, you can't just judge someone after meeting them once and that's what Keisuke and all of us saw with her being an abusive parent. What Chika did was inexcusable and irresponsible as parent, but deep down in her heart shrouded with all the emotional pain in her life, she still loved her daughter and is now getting another chance to fix their relationship and make up for the bad parenting she committed. 🥲