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> Iz's WeeabooAF 2017 Entertainment Countdown, el psy despacito
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Iz 🌟
post Jan 1 2018, 08:16 PM
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8. Attack On Titan (Season 2)
(whole series) currently #8 in all-time, S2 is #4 in 2016-2017


'Living this way is my way of getting revenge!! I'm going to be living proof that your fate isn't decided at birth!!'

Genre: Action thriller

Tentacle Rating: 2/10 - Hard one to rate as it is one of the most popular anime of the decade in the west for a reason, it's accessible and fits alongside popular thrilling shows like Game Of Thrones fairly easily and has almost nothing inherently Japanese about it, but it still involves man-eating giants. I've gone for a low 2 because of the fantasy setting but it might deserve even lower because of its accessibility to new anime fans and how it's brought so many into the fold lately. This season in particular though, it's a different, more mature tone that might put it lower or it might make it higher. I didn't rate the first season so I have no real benchmark for this. But either way it's a show that a new anime fan should see fairly quickly and if you raced through season 1 as I suspect you would you'd have no problems going on to 2.

It has really been a while. I saw Attack On Titan in 2015, so it hasn't been quite as painful for me, but it was still too long to wait to go onto the second part of this story and I'm amazed at myself that I never succumbed and read the manga. As such, all of the events (and there were many of them in such a short season) that happened this season were new to me and shocked me fairly well. I did have an inkling on the biggest twist of the plot, the identity of the Armoured & Colossal Titans, well, I figured out the former rather than the latter, being fairly likely because of his hair, but even so, it really made it worth rewatching the whole series with Jacob so that I could pick up on the small details that seem so obvious in retrospect. I reviewed the show weekly throughout the year and for the most part I was really enjoying the fast-paced and high stakes plot as our favourite characters were constantly put in danger. It didn't have as high a body count as season 1, perhaps putting it a bit behind the shows in the West that truly kill off characters with reckless abandon, but what it did much better than season 1 was develop characters I thought we'd never get much explanation at all. Christa and Ymir had a great season, as did Reiner and Bertholdt, and even Sasha got an episode dedicated to her. This was slightly at the expense of the main three members of the 104th squad but I didn't really mind that as I love seeing side characters getting developed and it turns out these side characters are just as interesting, if not more so than Eren, Mikasa and Armin. While a slightly quieter season in terms of action, it made up for it in that character development and general feeling of creepiness as the Titans were a bit more... intimate with previous seasons - you might have characters face to face with a Titan for horror purposes and that more personal and horrific touch made the action sequences a lot scarier. There's a lot to get excited about for season 3 coming next year, all being well, and this was a bit of a bridging season but it was so good to see it back and it was such a highlight of the year that it's got a great spot in my top 10.

Best Episode: Warrior. No commentary necessary, it just has to be the best one. Though 'I'm Home', Sasha's episode was the one that had me the most gripped personally.

Music: SASAGEYO was in many ways the opening of the year as it felt a little bit unable to stand up to the glorious Guren No Yumiya at first but by the fifth episode I felt it had surpassed it. The music in season 2 was as on point as ever, a pastiche of Vogel Im Kafig being used at one of the most critical moments of the season sealing my decision to send that one to BJSC. It's a fantastic OST done by Hiroyuki Kawano and I think this might have been the best OST of the year had it not been for the other show that overshadowed Attack On Titan's return in several ways, music just being one of them...

Best Characters: Krista showed herself to be far more interesting than season 1 had given us an impression of and I think I have to give this season to her, she has proved one of the most interesting of the 104th after all and certainly the group's moral centre after this, even if you're not entirely sure of her allegiances (well, I am, to Ymir, but beyond that...). While I'd have given season 1 to Mikasa quite easily, she wasn't quite as present here. Bertholdt had a good season 2 as well, not speaking very much but when he did speak that made it all the more impactful.
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Iz 🌟
post Jan 2 2018, 11:41 PM
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7. Gamers
#19 in all-time, #3 in 2016-2017 (this may seem weird but it makes sense when I combine everything)



(I'll just leave this gif here without context, but this moment oh my god)

'To enjoy the victory and fret losses is the biggest thrill in gaming!'

Genre: Romantic comedy

Tentacle Rating: 4/10 with some of the more natural teenage relationships you see in anime, although how they get there, that's a whole other story

Gamers was the huge surprise of the year for me and is by some distance my favourite anime that started in 2017. I was first made aware of it when I was looking at the summer listings and I saw this innocuous and boringly-titled anime with the name 'Gamers'. I saw it described as 'Ecchi' (which was a mistake, there's nothing remotely ecchi about it besides the mid-episode title cards which were just bad and out of place with the rest of the anime) but that wasn't why I wanted to give it a try, I was curious where an anime centred around gamers would go and what wrong and assumed stereotypes they'd make up about Gamers™ this time. That it's sitting this high in my list should tell you that there were no lazy stereotypes about gamers and what we got is an anime that is, as is quite apparent once you start watching the series, not really about gaming, but has clearly been made by a group of people who LOVE gaming and are up to date with the industry, and not in a down with the kids way either. The opening animation contains references and homages to popular and obscure games throughout gaming history, from Space Invader style arcade games all the way down to 2017 and a reference to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds of all things. But this anime isn't about gaming! So what is it about?

The reason lies in the title, gamers. See, though the anime tries to fake you out a bit with the gaming stuff, what's more important is just that the 5 main characters are drawn together because of their love of gaming, or in the case of one of them, just having a boyfriend who loves gaming and not really understanding the whole deal. They're all in high school and at the start of the anime they all barely know each other. Amano, the 'lead', if there is one, rejects hottest girl in school Tendou's advances to join the gaming club because it's about competitive gaming and he's not into that (an interesting mirror with Mob Psycho 100 there) and instead starts hanging out with "former nerd now jock" Uehara, who's just a bro and into casual games, and his girlfriend Aguri. And from there, with fifth main character Chiaki fitting her way in there too as a female version of Amano, you basically have a sitcom that fits into 11 short episodes more potential relationships and misunderstandings (involving characters overthinking things GLORIOUSLY) than most equivalent shows do in their entire run. It's played to humourous extremes, I'm not sure whether it's mocking gamers, mocking itself, mocking the entire genre of sitcoms, all I know is that I had a smile on my face the entire way through from the ridiculousness of the web of relationships that five characters can conjure up between themselves. I do not normally like romantic comedies. This one is one of the only ones I've ever seen where the 'comedy' part of that genre title is entirely accurate. Perhaps it was because I'm a gamer and so the reactions that the characters have to these weird situations is actually relatable for once but I do think this show has a special charm about it that will put it up towards the top of my 'non-action' anime list (and indeed, none of the 18 above it I'd say are completely devoid of action so it might just win that) for quite a while.

Best Episode: Gamers and Wipeout "Game Over", midway through the season which just takes everything to its logical extreme and is the ultimate highlight of what passes for plot development here. That sounds a bit snarky, there's a lot of plot development but what happens here is HUGE in romantic comedy terms. The last episode, after the real plot has finished, Gamers and Billing System Talk, deserves mention for pulling a switch on us and finally delivering an episode that just is the characters talking about gaming - and it's a conversation, about gaming industry practices (DLC etc) that I recognise having had a large number of times so it's great just seeing that played out in an anime.

Music: As is only right, the OP is a rather lovely 8-bit inspired pop song. Coupled with that amazing opening animation and you start off each episode of Gamers entirely hyped for the next bout of ridiculous antics the crew are going to give you.

Best Characters: God that's hard, Aguri is just incredibly cute, although she is the only member of the cast who isn't a gamer so that's a point against her. Would probably pick her just for her lovely mannerisms and the way she treats Amano as a kid brother but I do have to mention Uehara, as he's a bro, while Chiaki is adorable in completely different ways as a total gamer girl nerd. Amano's not bad for a stereotypical anime protagonist, he may seem a bit wimpy but he has his guns and sticks to them regardless of what pretty girls may be saying, I respect him for that and even Tendou has her moments. A non-action anime wouldn't be this high without a very good cast and I do really like all of them.
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Iz 🌟
post Jan 3 2018, 09:28 PM
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6. Death Parade
#15 in all-time


'Life really is a mysterious thing. Each and every life spins its own, totally separate tale, yet they become intricately entwined in each other. And no one knows how they will end up.'

Genre: Thriller

Tentacle Rating: 1/10 - there's a little bit of the animegeist in it but this is just used to 'complete' what would be the sort of thing I could easily see released as a '<modern streaming service> original'

So for the second year in a row I have given my 6th place anime of the year to an anime with the word 'Death' at the start of the title. Just one more year to go and my grimoire will be filled. However Death Parade is rather different to Death Note. Instead of following a mass murderer caught up in a game of one-up loving cat and mouse with an autistic savant, Death Parade deals with what comes after death, and how your soul is judged.

Back in Winter 2013 (the anime season), two popular films surfaced that would serve as pilots and hype-builders for an eventual anime TV adaptation some years later, that would surpass those films as far as many were concerned. I wasn't in the anime community then but I like this bit of history, let me have my bit. One was Little Witch Academia, which came to fruition this year. The other was Death Billiards, which tells a slightly extended and slightly different (but basically the same from all accounts) story of the first episode of Death Parade.

In that first episode, two people are brought to a bar, Quindecim, but do not remember how they got there. The bar staff, led by a stern white-haired young man, don't answer any of their questions except to tell them that they must play a game, staking their lives upon a game of darts. As this game progresses, we learn more and more about the couple through their actions and eventually, a winner and a loser is determined. It might be obvious but I shall hide this just in case, they are both dead, the bar is not heaven, nor hell, it's some form of waiting room/purgatory, there are hundreds of bars like this in this dimension, and the object of the game is to decide their fate, whether they get reincarnated, or sent to 'The Void'. Meanwhile a black-haired woman with no memory of her past or name joins the bar staff and hopes to find out her identity from observing the bar's visitors.

And then the exact same premise gets (mostly, with different games, all games you might play in a club, pub or bar, like pool, arcade games, Twister, and different people) gets repeated next week and though I haven't revealed too many of the details let me tell you that that is so gripping. You eventually find out more about the world this bar is located in, the bar staff all have interesting roles of their own, the whole thing provokes so much discussion within the show and without on the existence of self, what happens to your soul after you die, what is the preferable option, what is behind all the mechanisms and workings of the world we're seeing and should it continue. It's an anime that made me think very deeply about some things despite not openly addressing those discussions within the show itself.

I told a lie down at Food Wars, that wasn't the fastest anime I consumed this year. I went through this 13-episode anime from 2015 in merely a weekend, and that's some feat because there isn't really all that much of an overarching plot to this, it's a very episodic anime and I'm not always that keen on those. But the key was that what was going on in those episodes was so consuming and so interesting that I just had to see MORE OF THE SAME. Can I just stress again how unusual that is to me? Death Parade masters the episodic format just brilliantly and that's a very big reason why it's so high up on this list. But the music, the visuals, the story and most importantly of all, the PREMISE, the idea of playing games to decide something important is something I am very drawn to and you'll see that again with another show that's in my top 5.

Best Episode: One of the main reasons to advertise this show is that all the episodes are very high quality. The two parter of Death Rally and Death Counter are very good, and I definitely remember Rolling Ballades and Death Arcade well. One of those.

Music: As you might know if you've read Buzzjack's anime thread extensively (and why wouldn't you?) the opening of this show is rather well loved. It's an audacious disco-funk tune called Flyers by Bradio, and both the anime versions of the OP, which somehow manages to pace itself perfectly to this unusual song while simultaneously revealing almost nothing about the show, many action or mystery OPs have stealth spoilers hidden in them that you'd only understand after you'd watched it, I can find no such ones having looked at Death Parade's OP in some detail, and the just as incredible live-action music video are things that need to be seen to be believed. It's also at complete odds with the tone of the show which, because of its lovable brashness, somehow works. Fortunately the ending song more than makes up for the sonic dissonance of the OP, being this rather haunting and sad tune that provides a memorable outro to each episode. I don't often talk about EDs as they often aren't as memorable but for Death Parade this was absolutely not the case. Incredible music.

Best Characters: They're all a bit inhuman so the cast of this one are rather... odd at best. I really enjoy Nona because she's the sort of odd I'm rather into although Decim really grows on me as the show goes on.
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Iz 🌟
post Jan 4 2018, 08:40 PM
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5. Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)
#16 in all-time



'Everything in this world is just a game and we are merely the pawns'

Genre: Horror/thriller

Tentacle Rating: 6/10 but this is a good show for angsty teens no matter what their cultural background.

Speaking entirely objectively, there is no way that Mirai Nikki (I prefer the Japanese name, it means the exact same but it just flows better) deserves to be up this high. It's derivative of about five other well-regarded shows mashed together in an unholy mess and it's got plot holes large enough to pilot a plane through. But I'm not a serious anime critic and I'm ranking these on enjoyment factor alone and I was completely gripped, enjoyably so, by Mirai Nikki when I watched it in the summer. And though I noticed all of these things that would give it a low score instantly and recognised them as being bad things to do in a piece of media, I admire this for its audacity. And that is a theme with my anime watching, I'm partly into the medium because it gives me these TV shows that I'd never get from watching a Western show, as it seems like anime is never afraid to shy away from an interesting or audacious premise just because of the tiny problem that there'd be a lot of issues with the writer pulling things out of his arse in order to get some semblance of a plot going. Mirai Nikki is BRAVE and though it doesn't always work, it works enough times that I have a lot of respect for it for trying. Plus I think if it did somehow pull it off perfectly this wouldn't be as interesting, there was a lot of me doubled over thinking 'they didn't actually just think that was a good idea did they?'.

Yukiteru is a wimpy boy who never really talks and just writes everything he sees into his flip-phone's diary (this is from 2011, so a bit of a mishmash between that era and the smartphone era). He has an imaginary friend called Deus who he talks to and everyone just thinks he's really very weird. Except the other contender for weirdest (and she outstrips him) in his school, Yuno, who is always staring at him because she loves him because of one thing he said to her one time and now she's crazy in love with him. Really crazy. Beyond what you're thinking. One day he finds that Deus isn't actually imaginary but is actually the GOD OF THIS UNIVERSE (a name like Deus, who'd have thought, eh?). But weirdly for an omnipotent being, he's dying and so a successor must be chosen. He chooses 12 people, in which Yuki and Yuno are both included, as the 'First' and 'Second' (codenames). They don't know the identity of the others, but they must all try to kill each other. Last one left standing becomes the new god of the universe. Now if you're thinking that Yukiteru and Yuno sound like familiar names, you're paying attention, each one of these 12 is named after a god in the Roman pantheon in some fashion. They're not all as obvious as Jupiter and Juno but they're there. Some of the characters display their god's temperament, others, not even close.

Oh and there's one more important thing. Yuki's phone diary now tells the future, THE NAME OF THE SHOW KLAXON. In fact, all of the 12 now have diaries that tell the future. If the phone is destroyed, the holder dies (and here is where a lot of the plotholes open up in later episodes), but you can use your phone to plan your actions around what you read and try and change it and that part's really interesting. The fact that all of the twelve diaries work slightly differently, for example, Yukiteru's diary always mentions what happens around him but never what's happening to himself - because he has no self-esteem, while Yuno is obsessed with Yuki so her diary always tells her what's happening to him, adds another layer of depth to the ensuing conflict. And what a conflict it is. Characters are killed off left and right, no one is safe, and the entire universe is at stake so things get pretty ridiculous as time goes by as the surviving participants come up with even more incredible ways to win. I never knew what would happen and in spite of its imperfections I really enjoyed this.

On the vast list of shows it is basically the same as, there's a huge similarity with Death Note as the omnipotent skeletal beings giving out supernatural powers and writing about death are still there, just with the latter reversed in how it's applied. And of course, fighting in a battle royale TO THE DEATH for the ultimate prize in the world is basically Fate's deal, so I often describe this as Death Note and Fate/Zero's unearthly child and there are ~edgy~ anime out there like this like Deadman Wonderland & Danganronpa that I haven't watched but also shares some elements with. There are elements of Steins;Gate with weird applications to modern technology and time travel, while I've also heard that Eden Of The East does a similar thing with phones and survival games. Basically, there are a lot of shows like Mirai Nikki. And the ones I've watched look like a list of my favourite shows, so in spite of its unoriginality, I still really really enjoyed it. Plus there's one element which I'd say is an original selling point and I'll cover that in the characters section.

Best Episode: I'll give it to Sign Up, the first episode. Which I have basically laid the plot out of but it does a great job of setting up the series and presenting the death game in an intriguing fashion. That's not to say the following episodes don't stand out but it's the only one where I didn't notice flaws as well as exciting shit. I was rather satisfied with the ending which appears unusual and is probably why I'm able to rank it so high compared to what seems like the opinions of everyone else. It's an EDGY TEEN I CUT MYSELF EMO SHOW PERSONIFIED and even though I saw it at 23 and not when it came out when I was the right age for it, I still unashamedly love it. I still love emo rock, so why would you assume this was any different?

Music: There's a nice soundtrack to this one, I love the emotional Here With You in particular and then the openings and endings are all INCREDIBLE. I entered one to Nuggets, Kuusou Mesorogiwi, which sets the tone for the show amazingly starting out like a church choir and then descending into madness, listing off the names of the Roman gods and talking about death games while it pans over images of blood, gore and skeletons. Just so you know what sort of show you're watching. Because I never grew out of my edgy teen phase I had a gif from this opening in my signature for a while. And that's the least impressive of them. Blood Teller, the first ending, has a really cool melody and pans over each diary owner 'glitching out' (some of whom you don't even know the identities of at this point) with the knowledge that they're mostly all doomed to die and it's chill-inducing. Dead End, opening 2, is a bit of weird song with sung English that doesn't sound right half the time but that just adds to the creepy atmosphere, as it sings 'do you kill your friends' and things like that. There's a great moment in this song where it's singing 'Nothing's going to change with you in the world', panning over a tearful Eighth as the song's title flashes on the screen - it hits me more than most as the Eighth is a very sympathetic character. And the second ending really delves into Yuno's psyche through images and my god THAT is needed: see character section.

Best Characters: There's two characters who really make this show what it is, and I've barely mentioned them in the show's plot for some reason. It's not Yukiteru, he's awful and wimpy, until some point far too late when his balls actually drop, but it's the people with the second and third most amount of screentime. One is Uryuu Minene, a literal TERRORIST (careful you don't cut yourself with that edge Mirai Nikki) who is rather hard to kill, dips in and out of the story, sometimes helping Yuki, sometimes hindering (again, she's a TERRORIST, with bombs and other things that terrorists have), but she's just a really enjoyable presence despite the whole terrorism thing and a bit of a wildcard. Not like this show is short of wildcards as it has the biggest one of them all in Yuno Gasai, who is probably the main reason I love this anime so much. She is incredibly watchable, her voice actress always carries a steady hint of menace hidden behind cutesy DEVOTED LOVE TO YUKITERU, while she protects him against ANYONE WHO WOULD HARM MY YUKI and it's so overdone you wonder if it's all an act to get his guard down or if she really does love Yuki that much. Either way, she's incredibly handy with an axe, or a knife, or really any kind of deadly weapon and her presence on the screen almost always inspires fear. This is called a yandere in anime parlance, someone who will be violent to protect their love, in some cases even going so far as to kill their love and cradle their detached head in a dark room forever (that's not a spoiler for this one, it's just something yanderes do sometimes). It's a really creepy character archetype and Yuno is it done well, you never really know what's up with her, a lot of the time, you don't know where she is, or she's off to the side in creepy stalker mode, and her voice, as cute as it is, becomes absolutely terrifying the more of this anime you watch. I adore Yuno, not in the 'I want to protect her' way like I do most anime girls I love, but more because I'm really scared of her and she pretty much singlehandedly made this show into the HUGELY enjoyable mess that it is.
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Iz 🌟
post Jan 5 2018, 09:42 PM
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4. My Hero Academia (Season 1 & 2)
#14 in all-time


'Whether you win or lose... You can always come out ahead by learning from the experience.'

'Heroes and villains both thrive on violence, but we're still categorized. "You're good." "You're evil." That's how it is!! Symbol of peace? Hah!! In the end you're just a tool for violence, made to keep us down! And violence only breeds more violence.'

Genre: Superhero shonen

Tentacle Rating: 4/10, I'm not sure where to put it really, it's very anime but more in the sense that many children grew up on anime in the 00s, that type of anime. While you wouldn't exactly have a child watch My Hero Academia as it is more of a 12-A rated thing compared to Naruto, it's of the same cloth and it's so popular that it can't really have a very high rating.

Imagine a world where a large number of people, in fact, nearly all people, have a superpower. So many have superpowers that being a 'hero' is a full-time job akin to a peacekeeper or special police as criminals with enhanced powers appear to terrorise the well-meaning citizens. You may know this world, you've seen a very similar one in One Punch Man, and I'm sure there's some low-rated Netflix series that has that premise. But I said large number. In the world of My Hero Academia, over 80% of the population has a power, or Quirk, as they're called, that makes them physically unique from everyone else. Some are good powers for fighting crime, like growing bigger or controlling fire. Others are more utilitarian, like telekinesis, healing or light emission. Some people now look like partial animals, or have an extra appendage. But everyone has something that will be useful to them. Almost everyone. Izuku Midoriya is one of the unlucky ones who has no Quirk. And what's worse is that he used to watch heroes on television growing up, wanting to be like them from a young age and vowing that he'd join the exclusive U.A. High School for Heroes, in order that he could graduate as a hero. Nearly everyone he meets tells him this is impossible, until a chance meeting with his childhood idol and All-Japanese #1 Hero - All Might. Side note: I was completely prepared to hate All Might given his American apperance in an obvious Superman getup but he's come out as one of my favourite characters just because his demeanour is entirely infectious. Anyway, All Might sees Izuku is worthy, gives him some of his power and Deku (a nickname given to Izuku by his childhood friend and rival Bakugo, as it means 'one who can't achieve anything') gets to enter U.A. along with Bakugo. He and his classmates learn what it is to be a hero, and must confront a threat to the school.

That was season 1, and it took me a little while to get through it. I was unsure exactly how much I wanted to commit, given when I first started, in fact, since I saw it surfacing last year, I thought, this isn't going to be my thing. You know, that thing that like with Naruto and One Piece, I never really got into fully and that's not REALLY why I'm in anime, that it would be a generic story with generic characters and not very interesting. I largely picked it up this time because of the shockwaves that season 2 was sending through the community, even as I was prepared to not like it as the characters were dominating and destroying all my faves in a certain Best Girl contest on reddit. See, from a fairly popular show in 2016, it just went stratospheric this year and like with Re:Zero in the spring and summer of last year, it became the show that you HAD to be watching. I was still thinking that it wasn't that good until around episode 6, because it all showed the hero's journey tropes at their most basic and I wasn't so into it. Then You Say Run played.

Not literally just that, although it did form a key part of the first really enjoyable moment I had in this anime. The first full on confrontation between Deku and Bakugo in their training in U.A. really showed me the potential of the show. Deku is a great character to root for as though he does have access to great power, it is so punishing for him to use it that he always uses it meaningfully and has to think of other ways out of situations. Contrasted against Bakugo in this fight, who prefers to go for the angry, direct approach, it suddenly all clicked together for me. And it only got better from there, the climactic moment of season 1, again using You Say Run to its fullest potential, was just as awesome.

Come Season 2 that everyone was hyping and it got even better, all the characters we'd seen before, and several we had not, came together in a glorious tournament of fights and discovering new things about characters (fights in anime are some of the best ways to discover stuff about characters through the emotionally charged moments and both the participants and spectators giving out backstory like there's no tomorrow. Plus there were many many cool action scenes and I loved it all. But that wasn't all, because season 2 was twice as long as season 1 and we had to go EVEN FURTHER BEYOND (I'm sorry)

Specifically to bring back the more real plot, because the villains that showed at the end of season 1 are still out there, they're growing in number and they're getting even more dangerous as they thrive off showing their worldview to the underclass of the cast-out and the marginalised Quirk users (it's illegal to use an offensive quirk in public unless you're an official hero), plus, there's a Hero-Killer on the loose and things aren't going to go back to normal at the end of the episode like they would in older anime.

There has been a lot said about My Hero Academia. Particularly that it's not really doing anything new. It IS a generic premise with fairly generic characters (at first) and a fairly generic setting (at first), yet none of this works against it as the author uses the commonality of each to its full potential. Even though it is fairly generic for an anime, its execution is superb. In many ways, that makes it the anti-Mirai Nikki, which has incredible premises and incredible characters but a flubbed and flawed execution. My Hero Academia sticks to what it knows works, and uses the world it has created to ask some very relevant societal questions, how do you stand out when everyone around you has a much easier time of standing out, can people who set out to do good and stand out be corrupted by the celebrity status that many of the heroes in this world gain, how acceptable is vigilantism or 'freedom fighting'? And above all, it has a large, well-rounded cast where everyone is given time to stand out and show off what makes them unique - in that aspect, it's the successor to Assassination Classroom, another anime with a large class and a number of charismatic teachers.

Season 3 is continuing this anime next year and I expect it to put in a strong performance for 2018 too. But overall, 2017 belonged to My Hero Academia and for giving me so much enjoyment once I saw its brilliant execution and let myself go into it, it deserves a clear 4th place on this list.

Best Episode: No doubt about this, among all of the great episodes, the one that blew me away was the second season tournament fight, Shoto Todoroki: Origin, the battle between that character and Deku. You learn so much about each character, the battle itself is breathtaking to watch and it's a defining moment for the tournament if not all of season 2.

Music: And no doubt about this either, the best music comes from You Say Run, the theme song for Season 1 OST that returns in Season 2 in a slightly altered fashion. It soundtracks so many of the emotional moments, it sounds incredible as a piece of orchestral music, it's an action pumper, I genuinely thought when I shared it to Buzzjack that it'd be something everyone would love without context, but that might be because it comes on SO STRONG when you actually watch the show that it just takes over the moment and converts you to its beauty. Watch this show and you'll want to give You Say Run top marks, I guarantee it. Though I guess I should mention the OPs, and they're good too, they have incredibly on-message OP images (the third one, like You Say Run, became a brief meme), and the songs themselves are very strong male pop, I particularly like the second one, Peace Sign, but all are going to be classics of the anime OP genre in a few years.

Best Characters: Momo Yaoyozoru would be my ultimate choice among the students, she's intelligent, has a VERY cool power where she can create anything out of her body, she's not that confident in her abilities and she's attractive. I identify quite a bit with her, she got an amazing focus episode (especially as she's a side character, most shows don't do this) called Yaoyozoru: Rising, which almost was my best episode. Though Asui is pretty amazing and so is Todoroki, Iida and even Deku, as generic a hero as he is, he just keeps better and shows real growth such that this is already FURTHER BEYOND where most anime get to and it's going to keep on with his growth. Among the teachers, they're all pretty excellent, particularly the dour and sarcastic Eraserhead (paired brilliantly with flamboyant radio DJ teacher Present Mic) although I have to give it to All Might as far as the adults go, he's just too inspiring a character and it's impossible to not match his smile when he does it - and when he does get angry, it means you messed up hard.
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post Jan 6 2018, 09:19 PM
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3. Konosuba: God's Blessing On This Wonderful World (Season 2)
#10 in all-time (whole show), #1 in 2017



Genre: Comedy set in an RPG-world

Tentacle Rating: 4/10 - the upper limit for a popular comedy that among all of the anime comedies, should actually be fairly accessible, despite all of the weird creatures you'll see, I wouldn't call any of them expressly anime

At the start of this year, fresh off an amazing 2016, we weren't quite sure what the first big event of the year would be. Last year had been big on the shows that transport their losers to another world but doing something interesting with them, thriller/horror/depression for Re:Zero and comedy for Konosuba, but would this year be the same? Well, we got a sequel for the latter, and it was bigger in the community, with more colourful, worse animation and even funnier than the amazing first season! Enough that it's my favourite show of 2017, narrowly beating out My Hero Academia for its skill in making a joke funny through consistent usage. Not many series can do this but Konosuba just revels in its comedy.

Professional loser and leader of the worst adventuring party in the history of adventuring parties Kazuma starts out this season in a bit of a tight spot, having committed destruction of an important person's property in the final episode of the first season, he's locked up, and it's up to his companions to get him set free before he's executed. When this consists of Aqua, a useless drunkard goddess, Megumin, a teenage mage whose standard response to any problem is blowing it up and Darkness, a knight who just loves the idea of bad things happening to her, his odds don't look particularly good.

And from there it's basically more adventures involving these four screwing things up in the funniest way possible, with a bit more of a focus on their relationships with each other. And this time round there are successes as well as failures. It wouldn't be so interesting if they were guaranteed failure and a return to the status quo each time as so many sitcoms do, but not constrained by using the same set and with the justification that they're living in a fantasy world and pretty much anything is possible, what they see reaches new heights of quality comedy that I never expected. They go into dungeons, face quality and charismatic villains (Vanir was an exceptional new addition to the cast), they head to spa towns with creepily obsessed villagers, there's a very amusing rivalry between Aqua and the goddess who took her place, Eris. It's hard to write about comedy because explaining the jokes just takes all of the fun out of it, so just trust me when I say this is an incredible setup and an anime that is at the pinnacle of current anime comedy.

It was everything funny about anime in the first half of the year and really, though I wouldn't want to pinpoint any single reason for why it's up this high, there's the last episode of the show. As it currently stands, there is no announcement on season 3 and with the seasons being short even by anime standards there just isn't enough Konosuba to go around, so the last episode was suddenly emotional as the team went into one final confrontation, and I loved every minute of it.

Best Episode: As said, God's Blessing on This Wonderful Party, which sums up the two seasons pretty beautifully in one episodic confrontation where lives are at stake - in a comedy as well. Like with Re:Zero, I'd love some more but I don't know when or if we're going to get it. Sightseeing In This Pitiful City comes very close as an excellent 20 minutes of comedy, whereby Aqua has an episode where she's actually competent for once.

Music: Tomorrow, the OP is a rather wonderful piece of music. Geoff of Mother's Basement explains it a lot better than I could but the gist is basically that it's an OP that tells an actual story along with some pretty inspiring sounding J-Pop.

Best Characters: All about how likeable these guys are. Not as friends, you understand, because Kazuma and Aqua would be too lazy and Megumin and Darkness too unpredictable. But they're all adorable to watch screwing up. Incredibly so. Plus with the talented Vanir showing his face in this season, it's stacked with interesting and unforgettable characters.
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post Jan 7 2018, 12:30 PM
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Haven't seen Death Parade, but I love the theme song.
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post Jan 7 2018, 09:46 PM
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2. No Game No Life
#7 in all-time, beaten out by Angel Beats, Re:Zero, Assassination Classroom, Haruhi Suzumiya and then the top 2, which includes this countdown's #1

Genre: Fantasy surrealist comedy



'In fairy tales, when the protagonists end up in a different world, they do their best to get back home, right? But who would want to go back to a world like that?'

Tentacle Rating: 10/10, basically every reviewer who's ever reviewed this has had their main problems with the fanservice. Its bright colour palette means it stands out on your screen and once someone catching you watching it sees what may be on that screen...

As we reach the business end of this countdown, it's probably only right that we cover an anime that is the epitomy of everything that people who don't watch anime say about anime, that it's a show with an excessive amount of fanservice that drives the plot through wish fulfillment characters being unquestionably amazing at everything. And they're right, No Game No Life uses its fantastical setting to give us the same basic levels of fanservice as DanMachi, as Monster Musume, as Kill La Kill or Keijo. In fact it probably has more than those. The many female characters are dressed provocatively and everyone seems to be very loose about showing their bodies even when not relevant and it looks like a pervert's paradise from the outside. So why can it get away with this so much that I not only like it but love it such that it nearly wins here?

There's one big reason that stands out in my mind as to why NGNL is so brilliant for me, and that's because it revels in one of my personal favourite philosophies, that the world is a series of games to be overcome. I function much better when I think what I'm doing is a game or has game-like rules, so I often try to trick my mind into thinking that when I have a task I need to complete. Main characters Sora and Shiro here are masters at this and it is endlessly enjoyable to watch them overcoming countless enemies, many of whom cheat or bend the rules. Basically, in a world where everything is a game, they, collectively Blank, are the masters.

The story is that Sora, an 18-year old shut-in who's weirdly outgoing for someone like that, and his 11-year old stepsister Shiro, do nothing but be basically #1 GAMERS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD from their dark room in central Tokyo. They have an incredibly unhealthy fear of going outside or even being apart from each other for too long. They are the perfect pair, Sora represents the strategies and is basically the Sherlock of the series, pulling conclusions that you'd never expect from his head, while Shiro is a prodigal genius at maths, numbers, and logic. Together, if you're the absolute best at strategy and logic, you are basically unbeatable at a game, and they are.

So naturally a god of another universe finds them and pulls them into his universe where EVERYTHING, neighbourly disputes to wars to succession crises, is sorted not by violence but by games, rock-paper-scissors, chess, shiritori, and they all are slightly different in this universe, and when I say slightly I mean a lot. It's basically a dream come true for them as of course they excel and start putting a lot more meaning into their life as they quickly rise up in the ranks, making friends with the old king's granddaughter Stephanie Dola, who's quite a good game player but treated like a butt monkey for Sora and Shiro, before setting their sights on making all sixteen of the sentient species in this universe bow to them. Imanity (yes, said like that), or basically humans, are ranked 16th on the Species Game Leaderboard and therefore easiest to dominate. They also make friends with Jibril, a Flugel (looks an angel and ranked 5th I believe), and she joins them because they're something new, she loves searching for new knowledge, being the guardian of the angelic Flugel library and they have knowledge and devices from their world, hence that wonderful gif where she's salivating over a tablet. Then they start to take on the Warbeasts, humans with animalistic appendages ranked 15th, but all the while there is a plot from the Elves going on behind the scenes...

There's a movie for NGNL, came out this year actually, but I haven't watched it and the anime only covers the first part of a much bigger story so I don't feel like I got enough from the anime, but what I did get was a romp of a show that through its complex game battles where, the games being a real part of a fantasy world, have different rules to spice up the action, and it has so many characters outdoing each other at one of my favourite hobbies, and the main cast form a great team to watch towards the end, a bit reminiscent of Devil Is A Part-Timer as they aren't all amiable with each other but will still work together against outside threats, it left a tremendous impact on me and its bright pastel colours will always make me smile.

There's also the humour, which I haven't touched on much. It's not primarily a comedy like Konosuba but it has several incredibly funny moments that are best experienced for oneself. Overall, No Game No Life did everything right that contemporaries like Sword Art Online or DanMachi did wrong, and in many ways is a 2014 prelude to both Konosuba and Re:Zero in a fantasy isekai anime that breaks some of the 'established rules' to create a unique and innovative show. Except instead of going only comedic like Konosuba or action-oriented like Re:Zero, No Game No Life manages to do both, although it's a lot closer to the former than the latter.

Best Episode: I've said this several times this year, I think it's currently my favourite single anime episode of all-time, Interesting, where Jibril is properly introduced and she and Sora play a game of shiritori where Blank bet that tablet against Jibril coming with them and helping them as their servant. Shiritori, in English is a game where you say a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. There was some incredible translation work done so the episode still worked in English, as obviously it's done in Japanese with kana characters. But yes, there's one difference. The words they use disappear or appear from the environment, which makes it a game of survival - and that the setting changed so much during the episode that I had my breath taken away every minute. You do definitely need to bear in mind the fanservice though, it goes a bit far at times, not enough to interfere with my enjoyment but I'm normally just blase about fanservice, if it's there it doesn't bother me, if it's not there it doesn't bother me either. I'm unusual in that regard.

Music: Konomi Suzuki's This Game leads off the anime with an incredible piano intro before a great pop song that's fairly indicative of fantasy anime, while Oracion, the ending, is a lighter and quieter song seemingly from the perspective of Shiro that is quite heartbreaking around the middle of the series.

Best Characters: Oh god. It breaks my heart not to pick Shiro, who as a super-intelligent 11-year old, is incredibly cute and whenever she disses her brother, hilarious. Or Sora, who is someone I want to be in terms of his gaming ability, he's incredible to watch on the 'battlefield'. And there's why this show is so high, the two main characters are an incredibly watchable duo. But Jibril is unbeatable. As a super-powerful angelic with tendencies of destruction, yet also a huge fan and collector of knowledge, a writer and basically a powerful aid to Sora and Shiro after she joins them, she's the member of the team I'm always watching for a comment for. And that's partially why Interesting was my favourite episode. I was already hugely a fan of Sora, and then this girl comes in and sells herself as the best girl ever in an incredibly short time, and then seeing them across the board, it was a heavenly match to watch.




1. Steins;Gate
#2 in all-time, behind Fate/Zero, for now...


'Deceive your other self. Deceive the world. That is what you must do to reach the Steins Gate. Good Luck. El Psy Congroo.'

Genre: Time-travel science fiction

Tentacle Rating: 3/10, it has a few traits of 'typical anime' fairly present in it, but like all things, it uses them incredibly well. And you know what, this is my new #1 anime to recommend to anyone looking for a good show if they haven't seen any anime before. I actually first heard about it in real life, before I was really into anime, so it is something that several people have seen, but if you haven't, just get on it as soon as possible because this is a classically incredible TV show, 26 20 minute episodes and a ride that will leave any fans of TV amazed.

As I continued on my anime journey, I knew it would be fairly inevitable that when I got around to watching Steins;Gate, I would love it. It has a score of over 9 on MyAnimeList, which means that almost half the people who watched it thought it was worthy of a 10/10, the highest score possible, and most didn't give it much below that. It's widely considered a stone-cold classic of the anime genre. And most of all, it's about one of my favourite subgenres in media, time travel. It was a classic waiting to become one of my new favourites. So in about March this year, I started it.

And at first it was a bit slow. It takes its time, drawing you in, drawing you in to the world created by college students (yes, actual college students, no highschoolers this time *.*) messing around in a dilapidated flat above a repair shop with old technology, where one thinks he's a mad scientist in his lab and the others are just politely humouring him because he's that charismatic. Some weird things happen, and some of the promised time-travel happens, in what I must say is an incredibly realistic-seeming way. I'll talk about the time-travel in a bit. But basically I wasn't quite sure that I was into it as much as I expected, until one particular moment that I really can't say anything about, and I'm certainly not saying where it is in the series. But after that moment the entire series became an intense compulsion to see the next episode, something that I don't remember ever happening to quite the same extent before. I was staying up all night to see some of these episodes against all better judgement because it was just that engrossing, to see what became of Okarin and his companions at the end of the series and where all of their time-travel would lead. I finished it in about a week once I got to that point.

Okabe (called Okarin by his childhood friend Mayuri) is a 20-year old college student who has delusions of grandeur, wears a lab-coat at all times because it makes him look clever and though we never see him in his classes, is probably failing them just by not being there, though he is incredibly clever. Mayuri and a large guy by the name of Daru, a 'super hacker' are the people in this 'lab' with him at the start of the game and they just treat it as a place to hangout, doing weird experiments that I'm sure Okabe thinks are going to cause lightning to shoot out and paint him as a mad scientist in a dramatic pose. Through a certain incident, he discovers that one of these experiments has allowed him to send a text message to the past and he starts researching it, gathering other people who he meets as lab members, like Kurisu, a brilliant researcher and daughter of a leading scientist, Moeka, a shy girl who communicates only through her phone, Suzuha, the new part-time worker at the shop below the lab, Faris, a colleague of Mayuri's who wears cat ears, and Ruka, a member of the local shrine family and a guy. All interact with each other and Okabe fairly brilliantly, Faris, Ruka and Moeka were a bit less essential than the others but all played their part in showing the changes to the timeline.

The time-travel itself is really grounded, working through logical steps in the technology available to these students, and ensuring they are only able to change what seems natural and possible - it works through it all so well, you never get lost even though they're using really complex jury-rigged technology. It uses the famous time-travel hoax of John Titor (a poster who showed up on message boards in the early 2000s claiming to be from the future, he comes back for a second go in 2010 as that's when this is set) as an anchoring point for the plot, and once the plot kicks in, my god. It is the most satisfying set of time travel stories I have ever seen, and I count Back To The Future among my favourite films. The sheer detail, the feeling of polish, the plot that works absolutely perfectly and I was absolutely satisfied from seeing this anime, by far and away the best anime I've seen in 2017. Just thinking about this by writing it makes me wish I could watch it again for the first time.

Speaking of which, I bought the visual novel it's adapted from in the process. Once I've finished Higurashi in that department I will have to play that and get more Steins;Gate.

Best Episode: I really don't want to give away which episode it was that sold me on this as I feel this show is best watched completely blind... but somewhere in the middle is an episode that is an exquisitely crafted piece of TV. The episode name is Dogma In Ergosphere and what happens is amazing.

Music: A great atmospheric soundtrack, Gate Of Steiner being the standout track I remember. But it contains an OP too of course, and that opening pairs with this being my favourite anime of the year as being my favourite SONG of the year. I'm going to cover songs in a post after this but Hacking To The Gate was my favourite track that I discovered this year, and little wonder as I was hearing it associated with a show that was expounding brilliant episode after brilliant episode every 20 minutes some nights. It has some awesome translated lyrics, 'I'll cross world lines to be with you' being one of my favourites, appearing as many Kurisu's are rushed past in the opening.

Best Character: And the final best character of this one, with runners-up to Mayuri's cuteness and Kurisu's tsundere disdainfulness, goes unquestionably to Okabe "HOUOUIN KYOUMA" Rintarou. His mad scientist stick is so watchable, though he would be unbearable in real life he has such an air of coolness about him, without seeing him active in the series you get a sense that he's actually a competent character from his image before you know him (though he is somewhat competent or he wouldn't make it through the plot) and you know he does at heart want to do right by his friends. He's just a really really fun lead, making this show with one grandiose declaration after another.


~~~







Okay that's done. Weeb shit cleared out, thread is safe to enter again. Some (much shorter) paragraphs on what I can scrounge together on the music of 2017 coming in the next few days.
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post Jan 14 2018, 06:50 PM
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SONGS OF 2017

I really had a lot of issues with popular tracks this year. 2016 was a worse year all told, I think, but this is a first year when I found basically no compulsion to care whatsoever. It was a struggle to run Record Of The Decade even. I don't want to fall completely out of love with the charts as this has resulted in hits I don't hear for months and that's weird. But it's happening. If there's a random low top 20 hit now, I'll probably never hear it unless I actively seek it out. And this is why the name Stefflon Don still means nothing to me besides 'that person on that Pupok hit in one of the BJSCs'. I'm never going to figure out who she is now. And that I was in another country for the last third of the year really didn't help me knowing any of what was coming out - although I'm making up for it now, Havana is played about 12 times a day at work currently so I'm very aware of that now. At the least.

There are therefore very few pop songs that I want to give accolades to. And over in indie music, if you discount my addiction to BJSC, it's almost even worse, the only new albums I've really played from 2017 are from Gorillaz - Humanz(an old favourite of mine as the only reason I picked this up), Lights - Skin & Earth(only reason I picked this up was because of Jacob and it's quite good) and Twilight Force - Heroes Of Might & Magic (a mild obsession of mine that produce some wonderful camp power metal). Songs I have picked up on outside of recommendations via song contests are few and far between so it doesn't seem worth making a list. When I finish my countdown in BJSC I'll give a short list that will be probably the most representative of tracks from there I've played this year.

Now, on to songs I have played this year. It's very hard for me to do this without talking about Nanobii, and more importantly, what he represents. Basically, my music discovering tendencies have almost entirely shifted to a few select Youtube dance channels that slap a visually appealing anime background on a video, letting the track play and informing you of the genre with it. You know these, MrSuicideSheep (although less reliably), KitoMusic, Diversity, a few nightcore channels that have diversified in the wake of nightcore's fall, make up a lot of this. It is basically the successor to Nightcore for me, as I tend to gravitate towards the ones with dance genres I like, dance genres that were all fairly prevalent or close to nightcore, hardstyle, happy hardcore, electro, complextro, that sort of thing. Nanobii is one of the more standout parts of this crowd, with a willingness to experiment and a bubbly happy sound to him that just makes you want to smile. Therefore, Chipland, Bubble Beam, and Rainbow Road all stand quite high in my tracks of this year because of how happy and chill they are. Other tracks that stand out from this lot that I've discovered this year include Stonebank - Ripped To Pieces, Darren Styles - Us Against The World, Balduin (feat. Alanna) - Dizzy and Vonikk - Phoenix, all great dance tracks that I'll have to introduce some of you to some time.

Anime music continues to be a big part of my year, as is incredibly obvious. As I said above, my #1 track of the year, if I were to choose any at all, would be Itou Kanako - Hacking To The Gate, for its crashing chords and big female rock anthem but it's also helped by its association with Steins;Gate. Most of the highlights from my year I've pretty much already mentioned in my extensive anime countdown above in this thread, so go check that out xx

~

And now, on to the bit that might get people actually responding to my thread because it contains music they have heard of (maybe), I haven't been doing a lot of EOY responding this year because of complete unfamiliarity and apathy towards most of the tracks and there's no reason why I shouldn't expect everyone else to do the same. Let's go with what I liked that was actually a hit. Well, the Chainsmokers I'm always fairly impressed with, despite some people deriding them as everything that is wrong with music. But that's because in the dance vs RnB war that has consumed the industry now rock has disappeared completely from the equation and pop is as ever a minor discredited annoyance that occasionally helps out one or the other of the main two participants but eventually wins the day in the legacy of its tracks, I'm firmly on the side of dance. So The Chainsmokers' weapons in this war were largely Closer from last year, but teaming up with Coldplay to produce a dance hit that in its limited lyrics namedrops Hercules and Achilles, I'm rather on board. It's not quite the moment that Closer was but Something Just Like This, as cynical as the collaboration obviously was, was a big highlight in the early year and remained so as the year went on.

Latin music now. Now I am just going to be incredibly basic and say that while I do have a soft spot for Latin music, have done ever since I was getting into music and thought Enrique Iglesias was pretty cool, I can't really recall any of them all that well aside from the obvious one, the monster, Despacito. And I do really rather like it, although Bieber as ever makes my skin crawl and the fact that he was thought necessary for English-speaking countries really feels rather racist on somebody's part or other, the record industries or the buying public, I'm not sure which. But that aside, the fact that I, unsolicited, heard this so many times, as everyoone did, and still find it a tune that's enjoyable to hear out is proof to how good it is. It may be completely trite in Spanish, but I'm glad a new sound has taken over from tropical house as 'the sound of the summer', and now I'll have to follow the charts more to see where it goes. I like the history of the charts, maybe that's a reason to try and get back into it, to see where the next genre dominator, whatever it is right now, takes us.

2017 was an even more disappointing year for rock than every year prior and I feel like I'm going to continue saying that as the years go on sadly. Paramore released their weakest album, although having just seen them live I am very well disposed to Fake Happy and Rose Coloured Boy as the highlights, I even have a T-Shirt for the former now. PVRIS did alright with What's Wrong, as did Arcade Fire with Everything Now, although neither track grabbed me as much as those artists had done in the past. Meanwhile in gothic metal the split of Eluveitie into two separate bands, one keeping the name and the other becoming Cellar Darling was probably the most notable thing that happened in a disappointing year for the genre. Nightwish having a compilation album in March of this year doesn't really help the cravings I'm getting for more either. As usual, there probably is a ton of rock I was never introduced to and would probably like but those tracks that are meant to find me will find their way to me and hopefully I'll have more of a list to give for next year.

If I were to pick one chart hit from 2017 that I really liked and really stayed with me, although mentions should go to a recent new fave from the unexpected presence of Rita Ora in Anywhere, there's only one option and it goes to a predictable favourite of mine. But this time, they made Zara Larsson listenable! There's something about Clean Bandit's Symphony, the title and sweeping strings evoking good memories of Your Lie In April, the metaphors of music working exceptionally as they desperately plea for love, or how fantastic it all sounds put together, right from the start when the synths quietly announce a masterpiece. It's a bit of an indictment of 2017 when I say that Rockabye is still better than this but my number one track released in 2017 that was in any way popular is quite clear.



yes I know that's a basic as hell summary of popular music in a year, forgive me but I just don't pay attention anymore, someone from the Skype clique force me to listen to the chart more. also Man's Not Hot is a tune
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post Jan 15 2018, 07:33 PM
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Ooh the bit I can actually comment on laugh.gif

Anywhere and Symphony were both great tunes although they did both wear on me in time, the fact Symphony hasn't left the Top 100 all year is interesting also wink.gif

I actually really like Everything Now, but I can see why you might not like it as much as their previous stuff, certainly a change of style for them.

I'd like to see Latin spend another summer in the mainstream, but not sure whether it will sad.gif
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HarryBorelli
post Jan 21 2018, 08:59 AM
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I don't know I personally think After Laughter is their weakest maybe their last one is for me but still really good.

Yes for Symphony and the Anywhere mention wub.gif
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post Jan 21 2018, 12:59 PM
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Symphony and Anywhere are both big highlights for me too wub.gif superb pop tracks.
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