2024 Anime of the Year Nominations Episode!
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Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Way You See Anime's 2024 nominations episode. As always, presented by our favorite car company, Honda. 17 awards are up for grabs this year and on today's episode we will be breaking down the nominations in each category. If this is your first time joining us for these awards,

Our awards work is pretty simple. Any show that aired in 2024 is eligible to be nominated minus one show that aired three days before the new year. So I'm making the executive decision to allow it in this year's awards. Join me today on this episode is my co-host Miles who makes it when he can and

And my seasonal review partner in crime, Cosette. Now that 2024 is over, what are your overall thoughts on the year that was? And is there any agendas you want to push for tonight's episode? Yeah, I really enjoyed 2024. You know, I thought it was a good year. I probably, you know, watch the most anime in a year that I have of any year in 2024, which is about one season for Pete or so. Yeah.

You know, but I had a really good time with the seasons and the show I watched. There's definitely agendas that I want to push. I don't know if I've coalesced them yet, but I do enjoy pushing an agenda, whether I believe in it or not. I just sort of seek controversy and reactions because I'm lonely. So please tell me I'm wrong in the comments. How about you, Cosette?

When 2024 was, it was amazing. I think this is the first year I actually was burnt out a bit from seasonals. Like, I'm trying to take it easy, but I'm not for winter. Because we had, like, Freerun, Apothecary Diaries, Delicious in Dungeon, Dead to Demons, literally my top four of the year. That was, like, amazing. Plus, we had incredible movies, like Look Back, Haikyuu, Spidey. Mononoke.

Modern Oké. Like, it was a really, really good year for animation in general, so I do feel a little burnt out at the end of December. In terms of agendas, I think the number one one is to let Pete allow two characters from the same show be nominated at once, because this was hard. And I just want Yatagarasu to get the flowers it deserves, because it's, like, my favorite show of the year, so...

Yeah, underrated of the year. So, yeah, normally it's one show represents a category. I did make an exception this year for one of the categories. In the past, we have done two characters for best boy from the same show. And sort of what that turns into is it sort of splits the vote on that. So I try to pick one from each show. There are some times where we need both to be included. So...

This year I know exactly who you're talking about for Yatagarasu. I think I picked the character that most people, I think, like resonated with the most, but maybe I'm wrong.

But we'll see when we get to the best boy category. So real quick, so voting is going to start today. You can find the documents located in the description. For every vote, we'll be donating $1 to the Feminine Hygiene Kits for Gaza. This donation will help people devastated by the Gaza genocide with simple items such as sanitary pads, hairbrushes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cotton swabs, wipes, tissues, and other hygienic items. So help us out by voting and you'll be helping others out

at the same time so link to that project will also be located in the description below uh real quick for the categories i'm going to be going over each will have six nominations outside of best boy and best girl which will have 10 each will have a runner-up and a winner voted on by the community and to feed my ego i will also be giving my runner-up and winners for each category so we got six well technically 17 but anime of the year is a uh

Just pick your favorite show. So we have 16 that will be voted on by the community. And we're going to start real quick with our first category, which is Best OP. So you can't start the show without talking about the opening song. So our six nominations for Best OP this year were Wrong World from Girls Bang Cry, Bling Bang Bang Born from Mashal Season 2, Vengeance from Ninja Kamui, and

otanoke from don de don bokua from the dangers of my heart season two in preview of me from go go loser ranger so what are your guys's thoughts oh and just for reference i can't play the songs because i already tried and youtube striked four of the six so uh if you click the voting box there'll be links to the songs

in those categories. So, thoughts on OPs from 2024 and these six in general? Yeah, this...

This category sort of shows me that I, I don't know. I was a little disconnected from the popular OPs this year for the most part. Not that I minded any of these. Like I enjoy the Dan to Dan one and you know, I've heard the mash one a couple of times and I, you know, it's fine. I think a lot of these are fine. However, for the year 2024 wrong world was my number one song of the year. It was the song that I played the most. Um,

So ultimately, the fact that I'm not a fan of like five of the six ends up not mattering too much for my personal taste, because I'll be able to vote for my favorite regardless. You know, but even when I was thinking back on it, I think last year we had so many strong OPs. And this year, I don't think a lot of them really stuck with me besides Strong World.

So I guess like nothing bad, but I didn't think it was as strong of a year as like last year where we had like Idol and all of that stuff. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I think this year there were some, like there's two that I listened to a lot. So I really, really love those. I think for OPs this year, what I liked the most is when OPs visually had a different style than the anime. So like Girls Van Cry and Go Go Lose the Ranger, they both had like different styles, somewhat different styles than what they were in the show. So like those two are actually my top favorite. Yeah.

Girls Behind Cry and Go Go Lululemon. Like I added those songs to my playlist right away. I was working out to them like all year. So like that's like my split pick right now. Like I don't know which one I'm going to go with.

I love Go Go Loser Ranger because Tatsuya Kitani used my favorite OP last year with JJK. So it's so hard to pick OP right now. And I have a few that I wish were nominated, but these two are definitely like my top favorite and it's going to be hard to pick which one. But visually, they're both fantastic. It's really hard to pick between the two because visually they're great. The music is great. It's really hard. It is tough.

Yeah. So this was one of the ones where instead of having two characters from like the same show be in it, we have the same artist twice. So creepy nuts is in here for both Don Don and Mashal.

Personally, I'm more of a fan of the Dandedon one, but Mashle's OP, not only is it the most popular OP of the year in the world, it was the number one song in Japan. So it's sort of like Idle from last year, where it'd be really weird if I left it out, considering how many streams it has. I think just for the popularity, it needs to be included from this top six. There were a few that didn't make the cut that...

I think could have, you can make some arguments. I think for as much as we dislike this show, I think the Noctua OP has some argument of making this. I think it was a very fun and silly OP. Uh, there was a few others just based off of like your preference of music that could have been added here. Uh, like once again, I really liked the Konosuba OP. Uh,

Um, I, there's the same artists that did the OPs from the other season. So seeing that was another show that I would have in my top six, but I understand why a lot of people didn't also have it in like their top, you know, like five, 10 of the year. But I think from like year over year, I think OP, uh,

was kind of on par from last year i think ed is gonna be the huge difference because last year we had just three juggernaut eds where this year i don't feel like we have any and then this year for ops i feel like we had a couple songs that like really stood out in a couple different ways um i think like the lyricist to wrong world the popularity of uh bling bang bang born or whatever it's called um

And then sort of like you said, the artistic stuff of like preview of me from go, go loser ranger where the, the animations and like the kid choir, I think is a really fun touch to the song. So that is our six nominations for best OP moving on to our best ED of the year. Our six nominations are anytime, anywhere version two from Freeran. Uh, the other story from Ari for at the season three, uh,

Tidada from Dawn to Dawn crazy for you this is the second ED from Too Many Losing Heroines Burning from Ocean Hill Coast Season 2 and Zzztai Sakai from Dead Dead Demons what are our thoughts on the EDs of the year I guess like again this is something where for last year I think things just sort of stuck out for me more you know um

Where even those shows that were like split, you know, something like Apothecary Diaries or whatever between the two years, right? Like fall into like winter. I generally like like the first half of those more. Yeah.

I do like the Friar and Edie quite a bit here. It sort of resonates with the tone of the show very well. The animation is nice. It's, you know, sort of a little more, I don't know how to describe the style, but you know, it's not like a traditional anime sort of thing, which is, which is fun.

I don't like anything about too many losing heroines, so I'm sad to see it here. But, you know, what do you do? And I really enjoyed the Dead Dead Demons as well, and the entire show, just sort of like as a whole. I don't necessarily know that there's anything that I...

think is missing though i will have a question about one of these once we hear cosette's opinions okay yeah dead of demons like number one for me like that was an instant add to my playlist um and i'm glad it was actually available like early in the season whereas the op wasn't

I love that. I love that ED. Oh, sorry. Marnie's crying. Free Run, obviously, was so beautiful. I think it's the same ED as the first core, but this part was a different section of the song. Yeah, it's like a second chorus or something like that. Yeah, it was more orchestral, which I love orchestral stuff. There's more strings. I think Evan Call helped collaborate with the artist with this one. So it was really beautiful. I liked... I think it's stop motion. It looks stop motion, but not really. Yeah.

I really thought it was so beautiful. But Burning from Oshino-ko, like that has like 90 grunge style. And I wasn't sure about it at first. And then I just grew to love it instantly.

Dead of Demons probably is my number one pick, but I personally would have loved to add Go Go Loser Ranger again. I think in terms of combo, ED and OP, Go Go Loser Ranger wins, because OP and ED together were fantastic. And then I want to do a shout out to LMYK, who did Without Love for Vinland Saga. She actually did Bye Bye Earth's ED, and it's so beautiful. It's the same vibe as the Vinland Saga one, and it was my favorite ED all year. It's a beautiful song, and I highly recommend it.

But yeah, it was a really great year for EDs. I think I added more EDs to my playlist than OPs, actually. Oh, yeah. Wow. I'm playing Contrarian a little bit. I thought this year for EDs was pretty weak. Just compared to three of the Juggernauts from last year with Mephesto, Without Love, that you mentioned, and Red Birthmark, those three, to me, are like

probably like my top 10 all time like i think those eds are just absolutely insane like picking last year mephesto over red birthmark hurt me because i just think like why'd you do it because the eyes had to pick you had to draw the line somewhere like what which one had like a better impact to the story and i just liked how they transitioned oceanocos he's the one into the ed that was actually my determining factor of why that one won last year for this year i

I do have like one standout, but I just really like the fact, even though like, I mean, we have traditional EDs that like match the style of the story. The other story, the Arifureta ED that's in here, I fell in love with this song once the first time I heard it. Like,

It's such a unique ED. The only thing I can think of that is similar to this is when JoJo had Jodeci as their ED. Where like, this is like a baby-makin' ED. Like, it's hilarious that this is included in like an ED, and I fell in love with the song.

And I really wanted to get some recognition. So this is a hundred percent executive decision to have this one included. I do think it's one of the best six of the year. It's probably like my number two, listen to ED. I think it's great though. I wanted to give some love. If you've never heard the song before, you should check it out. But this year, I think there's a lot of just like good EDs. There's no, there's no red birthmark. There was no Mephisto. There was no without love. It was just, just like a good year for ED. So, um,

That's all I really got to say about EDs, to be honest, though. You heard it here first. Pete suggests that you watch the entirety of Arifueta season three. No, no, no. It's just a song. He is a big fan of that show and everything associated with it. That is not true. I dropped season one after about three episodes, I want to say. I believe he has said, and I quote here, Arifueta makes him want to have children, and I'm not sure...

what he meant by that is weird to say let's move on to our next category which is best action and adventure so we got um we combined the two as we've done in the past so our six nominations are free run re-zero uh i'm gonna put this as like part one since it is broken up but like mal doesn't have it that way delicious and dungeon dawn to dawn windbreaker and kaiju number eight

What are our thoughts on best action and adventure for 2024?

Yeah, lots of good shows here. And also the third season of ReZero. You didn't even watch it. It was insane. I'm sure it was. Look, I said this last episode with Cozat. I get why people meme this shit on ReZero. This season was nuts. I don't know, man. I'm looking at this preview art and there's just like seven cat children at the front. I don't know what happens. But as far...

Just take my word for it. It was pretty good. Okay. This show was nuts. It was pretty good. It was nuts to me. If you watched it, you would think it's pretty good. I truly believe that. I'm just hating on it for fun. Remember, I have to find my agenda. So we're trying ReZero is mid out right now. And we'll see how that one does. See if I stick with that one.

So my favorite show out of these nominations is probably Freerun. I mean, it's probably, it is Freerun, spoiler alert. But as far as like being the best action or adventure show, I don't think I would like pick it here. Mostly because I don't, I don't know. I don't really like Freerun for the action as much as like other aspects of it. And while the fights like do go hard, it's just, I don't know. It's not the first thing I associate with the show. For sure. Yeah.

And so I would have to choose probably Dan to Dan, which I really been enjoying. I still have like two episodes to finish up for the end of the year. So maybe those will be terrible and I'll change my mind, but I doubt it. And then, I don't know, I guess like this is just me liking mid as I made fun of other things, but I really enjoyed Kaiju Nobunaga.

number eight. Like, I had a great time with that. I thought it was fun. I liked the action a lot. I just had a great time, and I like it when people shoot big monsters. So, you know, those are probably what I'd be splitting. I mean, what do we think, Cosette? Well, I think I mentioned this a lot. I said, like, action, I'm, like, half and half. And, like, I enjoyed most action shows this season, or this year. There was, like, a big mix. Like, haiju fighting, there's fist fighting, there's magic, there's supernatural stuff. So it's really hard to pick between

all of them and i get what you mean miles about freerun that like you don't really see it as an action maybe adventure i can see it adventure yeah for sure yeah yeah but i think like between freerun and delicious and dungeon is probably like the hardest thing before me because they're like the two that i'm like debating on because i do like the variety of fight styles in both because like obviously there's magic but there's also like sword fighting and there's

fantasy shit and I love both so it's really hard to pick I know everyone loves Dan and Dan but between Freerun and Delicious and Legend it's hard to pick so um but yeah I don't know and then Kaiju was really cool actually I was actually really surprised by how Kaiju number eight actually turned out despite the art style and actually like I forgot about it pretty quick watching the show so in terms of like pure action I really liked Kaiju but in terms of like action and adventure it's probably between Freerun and Delicious and Legend

Yeah, I want to give a shout out to Windbreaker for the specific action part of this. It had the best choreography in anime maybe ever. It's insane how they choreographed the fights. Like, they used, like, real-life references from The Raid. If anyone's seen The Raid, like, it's so cool that they did that. If you mix, like, the two together and sort of, like, how I view this is, like, personally, I'll be basing Free Run on just, like, the second half.

Since the other half wasn't that aired in 2023. This is just I can't like that's why if you ever see like people do like, oh, free rent part two. It's so hard to have people just judge it on that. They like forget which episode. So I just do everything. But I guess personally, I can kind of break it up.

So, like, is, like, the second half of Free Run better than, like, the entirety of Delicious and Dungeon? I think that's, like, what makes these type of categories fun, because while Free Run was an absolute juggernaut for me, I don't know if it was better, if the second half was better than some of these other shows that we got. So, it's a category that usually comes down to...

like i think last year was like very contested like i think we had like four shows within like one or two votes from each other so this is always like a really fun one depending on how people vote on so i'm intrigued to see if people will i think free run one last year i'll be intrigued to see if it wins again this year just based off of what people vote for and some of the new properties like dawn to dawn which was so popular if it can overtake it so uh that is best action adventure and it wouldn't be action adventure without some fight so let's get to our best fights of the year

Our nominations are we had the acrobatic Silky from Dawn to Dawn. We had Sakura versus Togame from Windbreaker. We had clone Freeran versus Fern and Freeran from Freeran. Tokiyuki versus Shokan from The Elusive Samurai. Sunraku versus Weatherman from Shangri-La Frontier. And Kafka versus General Shinomiya from Shokan.

kaiju number eight uh miles you are the shonen meathead what are your thoughts on the best fight of 2024

Yeah, I love fights, right? I'm always like, these are my favorite parts of shows. I definitely have never fast-forwarded through any sort of fight in any sort of long-form shounen, which wouldn't include several episodes of some shows. Or I just Google who wins, and then I continue on. So you know when I was saying that I didn't really think of Free Run as an action show? This fight goes really hard.

There was, like, for sure a really good one. But, I don't know, the Acro Silky one from Dan to Dan also is just so good. It hits you with, like, a lot of stuff at once. A lot of stuff. Yeah, you know. It did things, yeah. You'll either like the show or you won't. There we go! You know, so I...

You know, I'm not sure where I would vote. It would probably be between those two for me, though. I guess I'm a bit surprised to see a Shangri-La Frontier fight on here, which I guess is a testament to maybe it's like second half. Because what are we thinking?

I also don't like I'm joking. I do care. Sometimes the show usually when there's like some sort of like powerful like character arc or like emotional moment. That's usually when I remember it when I feel something from it. So free reign was just literally iconic like that was like when I read in the manga and I watched it. I was like, this is perfect.

But besides that, like, Kaiju No. 8, that one was actually pretty awesome just because there was a bit more emotion with it. Like, Kakua's literally trying to defend his humanity and he loses control. And I think that fight scene was just so powerful out of, like, the entire show. But with Elusive Samurai, and I totally forgot to mention in action, I wish Elusive Samurai was nominated because it was fantastic as an action show. Yeah.

um but i think like if anyone watches the fight scene it's literally a summary of like how elusive samurai is it's like violent but it's also like childlike and goofy but it's animated really really well so like those are the ones that like stood out to me but the other ones that i had in mind in my head was like wistoria yeah with will julius that was one that was in my head yeah and also oshinoko like one of the tokyo blade fights like i feel like that that

It wasn't like a fight fight, but to me it was a fight. So it's a fight for sure. Right. It's like a fight for acting dominance. That's 100% allowed. The first ever awards we did, we had a Haikyuu match in best fights.

Well, then, there. So I would have... Wow, huge risk, Pete! No, but, like, the ones that we have in the nomination, like, I would have chosen one of the six. But, like, I think... The story was also, like, incredible, I think, in general, as a show for fights. I really loved it.

Yeah, I'm going to touch on a few of those. Like Miles said, for as much as I dislike Shangri-La Frontier, I thought this fight was absolutely insane. It was animated incredibly. I didn't watch Elusive Samurai, but that fight was everywhere on Twitter. Like Cloverworks absolutely knocked it out of the park with that fight. It was, you could not, it felt like, yeah,

like demon slayer light a little bit when episode 19 of season one dropped and that was like everywhere on the internet this fight was like everywhere on the internet like halved i guess so it was still super popular but this fight just like the animation of him like running around the person was just like mind-blowing uh freerun you already know my thoughts on freerun i love it

Uh, with the windbreaker fight, I just think the choreography and the show is nuts. And this was one of the reasons why I picked this fight specifically because I thought the choreography of this fight was just mind blowing. Uh, the acrobatic silky with the emotional hits impact is my, the biggest thing for me when it comes to fights, the impact for this fight was,

it you can't like miss it it was it was my wife cried during it was a really good fight scene it was a really good episode in general it was like my number three episode of the year like this episode was nuts so like i had so much jam packed into it and then uh the kafka fight while i i do like kaiju number eight i think that this was the peak of the first season of kaiju number eight i love this fight i love like you like you said kozat fighting for his humanity um

shinobi as like the general having a you know something that he needs to do even if he doesn't necessarily want to do it but like i kind of felt that with him where like he understood that he was fighting like a human but you know humanity doesn't really know a lot so he has to do what he needs to do type of thing so i like that contrast between those two characters so this year with fights were just i thought this was a great year for fights um

big big fan of what we got so that is our nominations for best fight we're gonna be moving on to something that has fights but is also kind of fun this is gonna be our best fantasy slash sci-fi uh combine the two uh just because sometimes sci-fi can mesh into fantasy and fantasy can mesh into sci-fi like we saw with one of these shows

So our nominations are Delicious and Dungeon, ReZero Season 3 Part 1, Dead Dead Demons, Yatagrasu, Bravern, and Freerun. What are we thinking for Best Fantasy slash Sci-Fi? Yeah, so here I have found agenda number one. This is official, right? So I've decided...

I'm not going on the zero hate train. I don't think that's really spicy enough. But what I am going on is these are two different genres. What the hell? And that is important to me as a nerd. You know, it's like, come on. Sci-fi, fantasy. I hear your concerns and I am disregarding them.

Fair. Here's the thing. We had 16 categories and we had best fantasy and we had best sci-fi. And I was like, we need to condense. We don't need more categories. We need less categories. We should do best drama and or romance next time then. Not while I'm host.

um i feel like we need more of a miles bias tell you what you can luigi me and take over the podcast but jesus christ holy shit okay um yeah i mean if you're offering um speaking of luigi people my choice here is very very clear to me it is dead dead demons destruction um

I absolutely adore this show. It is like everything to me. The characters are everything to me. I thought the story was great. I thought that like the friendships and stuff that were displayed were amazing. I thought the way that people talked and acted and stuff was extremely unique and great for anime. It just felt very real. All of the relationships and friendships between these characters felt like just very authentic and written in a way that I am not used to seeing things be written, which is neat. Um,

So that is, that's my pick. You know, obviously a completely stacked category this year, right? So I want to give Pete a shout out for getting Bravern in here because that was a great show. I think it deserves it. I do too. I just think that it's also something that maybe could have fallen to the wayside.

It was one of the... I think it was the last... I think it was nomination number six. This was one where we had to go to the panelists, a.k.a. the Discord, to get their thoughts on some shows. Yeah, I mean, you have Free Run that's an all-timer, ReZero, which I've recently made up with. This episode, actually. Yeah, like, over the course... We broke up and got back together in the course of the last seven minutes or so. Yatsugurasu, which I have not watched, but people...

exclusively rave about and like delicious dungeon is something that i think is going to be like a heavy cultural impact on our little hobby for a long time coming so cuz that what are our thoughts the agenda i want fantasy and sci-fi split yes it's so hard to pick between dead dead demons and freerun and delicious and dungeon and yatagarasu perfect that's the whole point

No, I don't like being, I like, they're all my babies. I'm not going to choose a, I'm really not going to vote. I'm joking. There is a no vote option. I might do that. It's so hard because like Dead to Demons on its own as a sci-fi is like absolutely incredible, but I'm a fantasy girly and I love Delicious Dungeon and I love

Free Wren. Yatagarasu, I put more on the drama category. I get why it's in this category, but in my head, it's like drama, even though they turn into birds. I'll say they literally turn into giant birds. Oh, I know. I literally put like, I don't know. I just, anyways, it's going to be really hard to decide. And honestly, like all of you are convincing me to start Brave Wren at some point. So I don't know when, but I will eventually. Um,

But yeah, I think like the one that, I mean, I didn't finish the show, but I started Terminator Zero a few months ago and it looked incredible. I just didn't have the time to like sit down and watch it. But visually as a sci-fi, like it's incredible. I watched like one episode and I was like completely hooked, but then I just didn't have time to finish it. So I think I would have loved that if nominated, obviously. And then maybe Undead Unwanted Adventure because I was a really good fantasy this year too. But this is already like stagnant.

stacked. I don't know how anyone's going to vote. So yeah, something that I guess I would have, I mean, it won't fit in here, but a show I enjoyed that, that like almost no one else enjoyed was the new Gundam from this year, Requiem of Vengeance, which was like CG and admittedly looked really bad at times. However, I thought there was a lot of like really good scenes and they did a very good job of like

exploring that universe in a in a pretty unique way um and i'm just sad it wasn't like animated well um so i would say it shouldn't get up here but like in my world maybe i'd like throw it in there yeah secret seventh nomination so um so so one of the reasons why i like kind of combined it is sometimes it's hard to find like six sci-fi shows and it's hard to place them somewhere

And it's also like why the bear gets nominated for best comedy when it's not a comedy. Like we kind of just have to like,

fit places where they can kind of belong so fantasy and sci-fi i thought this year was like stacked there were some great shows that missed the cut uh wrong way to use healing magic uh didn't get nominated konosuba season three didn't get nominated uh if you're a pedophile jobless reincarnation didn't get uh nominated so like there's a handful of shows that like probably could have made this list but had to cut down to six based off of like

Personal stuff, like what, I mean, like this is for our community and everything like that. So like what our community enjoyed watching. So.

Everybody who watched Yatagarasu raved about it. I mean, it was an incredible show. Bravern, we did an entire episode on it. Freerun, I already said that enough. Dead Dead Demons, probably the most under-watched show of 2024. Like, it's crazy that you go on MAL and it has like 50,000 members. It's just like, how? This show is fucking insane. And then Juggernaut's like Delicious and Dungeonry Zero. Just an absolute stacked show.

category I think it can go a multitude of ways especially since Free Run won this last year will people vote for it again this year probably probably will but also like this year was like

You could also, I think, make a case for Dawn to Dawn to be in this as well. There's just so many shows that could have gone in this category that didn't make the cut, but we have to make it six and make it challenging and make people like Cosette stress over a voting selection. That is our nominations for Best Fantasy. Moving on to...

Best Drama. Our nominations are Orb on the Movements of Earth, Girls' Band Cry, Sound Euphonium Season 3, Oshinoko Season 2, Yatagrasu, and The Apothecary Diaries. Miles, what are we thinking?

Yeah, really surprised not to see my dear friend Yocatan here. Yocatan. Yocatan, whatever. Because of the amount of drama it caused from people who were coping during the first three episodes and thought it might still be salvageable. Me! Um...

So, also, I mean, again, very stacked here. Insane. This category is nuts. It really is just absolutely crazy. Unfortunately,

I have to, I mean, it's, I say it's stacked, but also for me, it's a slam dunk. Yeah. Um, it, the only show I will say that it makes me sad that I have to not pick it is girls band cry, which, uh, I loved, I thought was great. It's our highest rated watch club show of all time. Um, I just love the general energy, uh, from that show. Um,

a lot. And it's unfortunate that Girls' Band Cry, of course, is currently being unseated as the best Girls' Band show by Ave Musica. That's another agenda I'm going to be pushing. That's next year's agenda. Ready for that. Because it does not matter if the next nine episodes of that are just reruns of No Katan episodes one through three, I'll still pretend it was good. But yeah, you know, there's obviously like Oshino Ko is a,

series. I love it too, but it's not Apothecary Diaries. We already talked about Yatagarasu and not only was that right when she said it was more like a drama. It is right here and I suspect it could do pretty well here. Sound Euphonium, again, like a mainstay

hear a classic show from a beloved studio that's that's great too yeah and orb um has definitely made more waves than i thought it was going to right like it is and i'd love to see that so it's it's good tons of great shows you can't really pick wrong um

But it's going to... I'm going to pick the public characters. I'm going to pick wrong. You can't really pick wrong, but I'm going to vote no vote. I'm going to abstain. Cosette, what do we think for drama? I might do no vote as well. God,

God, there were so many good dramas this year, and it was, it was, there were so many good surprises, like, Orb and Yatagarasu were, like, the biggest, one of the few biggest surprises. Oh, and Girls' Bank Prize, well, they were just so surprising to me this year. Like, I was so gunning for Apothecary Diaries, because I was like, oh, Apothecary Diaries, like, number one anime of 2023 and 2024, easy. But then Yatagarasu came out, and I was like, oh, shit, this is, like, Game of Thrones the anime.

And then Tokyo Blade totally surprised me. I was like, shit, I like this season more than season one. So it's gonna be really hard. I think it's gonna be between Apothecary Dies and Yatagarasu, just because I'm gonna vote for Girls' Bank Cry for a different category. But I kind of wish Jellyfish was in here, but I don't know where Jellyfish... Jellyfish wouldn't replace any of these either, so I get why it's not in here. Yeah, it's hard though, because I really... Maybe it would play Sound Euphonium, to be quite honest, but...

Yeah, it was just such a good year. Yeah, it really pains me not to have Jellyfish on here. I really wanted to. If this was just like a personal list, it would have been 100% on here. It was definitely a show I think me and you were the highest on. I think a lot of other people thought it was like, okay, whatever.

I don't really think anyone thought it was bad or anything like that, but sort of the reception I got kind of was the reason why I left it off the list, even though I would be praying. Or I guess I could have. I guess I could have just executive decision made, but I felt like these were the best six, just in general. Solufonium wrapping up everything in the way it did. I thought its conclusion was perfect. I did have some issues within the middle, but how everything ended with this was still good. Apothecary Diaries...

This part of the season had my favorite episode of the year with episode 24 with Lachan and him finding his wife. Like, it was my favorite episode. Yatagarasu. I mean, there's so many moments where it's just such heavy drama and suspense. It was incredible. Oceanoco, Tokyo Blaze, my favorite arc in the manga. And they absolutely killed it in the anime. The adaptation was near perfect. Hot take, maybe even better than the manga. I thought it was so, so...

so good and then orb being just every week i am just stunned by what orb is doing with how you make heliocentrism like so enjoyable but like also dreadful in the same way it is a very interesting show drama to me i think to me it's like four that i have to narrow it down to like um like like these all six of these shows i have at nine or above like

Oh yeah. Yeah. I love all of these shows. So it's gonna be really hard to pick my top two, but I have three tens on. Yeah. Most of these are tens. I think right now I have two tens and four nines, but in terms of like, there's other elements that I like, like, like sound euphonium, like,

I'm way more into the music, but I thought this season with the drama was like really well done with how it like encapsulated everything and finishing. So like the drama was good. Girls Make Cry was drama was also great. Oh man, this one's gonna be tough. Just based off of some of the early voting we had with our discord is going to be a fight.

yeah so so far every show is getting votes and it's a very even fight so I'm very intrigued once we open it up to the full public how that is going to change but best drama always super fun looking forward to see what wins that let's move on to our next category that we are talking about which is the best category of them all which is best romance our nominations are a sign sorry wait what'd you say

Well, you said I was waiting for a good category. That's my apology. Oh, that's... I see, I see. Miles sucks. Okay, our best romance nominations are A Sign of Affection, The Dangers in My Heart Season 2, Pseudo-Harem, The Magical Girl and Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Arch Enemies, Kimi ni Tadouke Season 3, and Too Many Losing Heroines. Miles, since you are

a hater why don't you go laugh i'm just gonna you go ahead yeah no um so it's gonna be tough right because as we all know the dangers of my heart season two is the best rom-com of the decade yes um and we very foolishly didn't for audio listeners we didn't review it in our um no sequels allowed review of whatever season it was in and we were lambasted uh for it um

I'm not picking that show. Color me shocked. Yeah, lots of really good options here. And also too many losing heroines. Yeah, there we go. This isn't even like an agenda. This is just like part of who I am. It is baked into my being. Yeah.

So this is going to be the exact opposite of a take that I had before, but, and it's good. I don't know. This will sound dumb. I think my favorite on this list is probably a sign of affection. And I, I guess like I, I've been historically like a little down on it just like based off of what I, what I have like said. But really it's just cause I'm jealous about how hot eats me. And yeah,

And like, you know, when it comes down to it, uh, you know, he has good, uh, chemistry with Yugi. They are in a relationships for a while that progresses. It like focuses on that aspect of the romance. Well, while having a little bit of a B, well, they won't, they sort of thing going on. I really liked all the details that were paid attention. Uh, how, um,

We had perspectives from Yuki and stuff. I know this doesn't have anything to do with romance, but I generally am just picking the best show or my favorite show from the list. That's fair. Yeah. And so I think I, that's probably what I would pick though. Pseudo harem might give it a run for its money. I do just sort of really enjoy their dynamic. But I think,

overall, you know, the much better produced show with like a story that isn't like a series of shorts and stuff is probably going to win out. And for me, that would be a sign of affection. Oh yeah. What do we think? No vote.

There were so much good romance. Honestly, there were so much good romance this year. Shoujo fans ate this year because we got Sign of Affection, we got Kimi ni Todoke Season 3, we got Condition to Cut Love. We got just so many great shoujo romances and also just regular romances as well. Whatever. Some were animated beautifully, like Magical Girl, Evil Lieutenant. That was a surprise to me this year. Even though it was a shorter anime, I loved it so much. I think the whole Discord was raving about it.

And I just love the variety of romance this year because we have obviously we had the high school romances, but then we also had some adults like casually dating. We had actual couples. We had a senior couple that was like one of my favorite romances of the year. Like it was a really, really great year. So it's really hard to pick. My heart says Kimi ni Tadouke. Like Kimi ni Tadouke is literally all over my wall. So I feel like my heart says I should pick Kimi ni Tadouke because it was a really good season with Ryu and Chizu.

And Ayane Akanto. But then Sign of Affection was the one I've been waiting for. And so when it was animated, I was like so happy about it. The only one that I wish was nominated was Twilight Out of Focus because it was literally like the sexiest anime of the entire year. There was multiple sex scenes and I'm surprised it's not nominated. But it was...

pete did you know about this focus yeah i know what it is i just didn't get a chance to watch it yet i not many people watch it it's okay but like the masses did barely watched it but me me and stoney did and jay so that all tracks that all tracks uh and then grandma and grandpa i'll just give a shout out because that was literally like this was a senior romance it was so adorable and it just

Give me butterflies. So I loved it so much. But honestly, like the split. Did that have multiple sex scenes? No, unfortunately not. Okay. You'd see like making moments, but yeah. The split's going to be A Sign of Affection and Kimi ni Tadouke. I think that's the two that I'm undecided on right now.

Romance this year for me was really tough. Leaving off All Guy Mixer was really hard. I just felt like it wasn't watched enough to where I feel like it might get swept under the rug a little bit. It will be in other categories, but that was...

maybe my the most fun i had watching a romance show this year uh in terms of best romance uh it's a slam dunk for me for which one's gonna win so this is more of who's gonna win second place i think i can make a case for the other five well four of the five that would be on my radar for uh being my runner-up but i thought this year was really good you mentioned grandma and grandpa we also had like the conclusion of duke of death has made um

That was a really good conclusion, I think, to the series as a whole. I just think, like, in the middle, it sort of, like, had some wavering trying to get to the ending, and that's why I personally didn't put it on this list. But yeah, some really good ones. Like, Pseudo-Haram, I think sort of being, like, the show that it was having as good of a romance as it did was a huge surprise. I thought it was going to be very stereotypical, like,

high school will they won't day and then ended up them being married by the end of it which was awesome so shout out to shows like that where they kind of like exceeded my expectations in terms of what I thought they were going to do versus what they actually did I was much higher on like shows like too many losing heroines I thought the show was super fun I think the romance that they showed was it was a unique experience

telling of being rejected even in its anime form yeah I know Miles has some issues with it he's giving me like the dirty eye right now but I don't care I liked it I had fun with it I know a lot of other people that like yeah yeah wait wait a minute wait this is the other agenda and this agenda is wrong yeah I don't care we're planting the flag where's all yeah where is it it's better than too many losing heroines fight me Pete you might be the only person that

Who thinks that? No, I have Sora. We have two people and we're on this hill and we are dead. Should we go through what Sora gave Ted? I'm just kidding, Sora. You should not. No, I want to help my agenda. Definitely some shows that missed the cut that could have been added. But I thought these six represented the year well. So those are our nominations for Best Romance. Moving on to the second best genre of them all. And that is Best Slice of Life.

our nominations are laid-back camp season three this was my executive decision one which is pokemon concierge which came out three days before the new year so f it we ball it's in here love live season three uh kino coin you mushroom pup all guy mixer and not to me's book of friends season seven miles take it away i've watched one of these

Yeah, and it was Pokemon Concierge. So I am active in this category by a technicality. True.

So as we all know, you know, like I like to, I make fun of some of these other genres, but I've seen a large amount of those shows and I enjoy them. I just, I just like teasing Pete sometimes. Slice of Life, I just don't, I don't get it because I have crippling anxiety and I need to be anxious. And these shows aren't anxious. They're all like, what if we enjoyed our life and had a good time and went camping? And I'm like, what if my house burnt down while I was camping? Yeah.

And so I don't have, you know, I'm more of like a uptight camp kind of guy. Nice. So waiting for that one to come out. So anyways, my extremely well-informed vote would go to Pokemon Concierge, which I did enjoy. Cosette, how about you let our viewers know anything about any of these shows?

I only watched one, two, three, four of the six, which is surprising for Slice of Life because Slice of Life is like, you know, the genre I always go to, but I haven't watched a chunk of these. Just two, though. There's a season seven in here and no one can reasonably be expected to have

done that, frankly. It's a lot of seasons. I would say, though, I'm really glad Pokemon Concierge is in here because that was the highlight of the end. Before the new year, I guess. I just love stop motion. It's such a great art form. It was so sweet. I think we're getting enough. We are. We're getting more. It was incredible. It brought some nostalgia. I like the slice of life Pokemon stuff. I don't care about the battling spit stuff. I just want Pokemon to be happy.

But honestly, what I would pick, it's probably Laidback Camp. But like my number one slice of life are not even nominated. It was Ramanaka Neko and Negative Positive Angler. Ramanaka Neko was like...

I gave it a 10. Same with Negative Positive Angler. They're like my top, top favorite slice of life of the year. Late Back Camp, I really enjoyed as well. But I think from an emotional standpoint, I think I connected more with Ramen Nakaneco and Negative Positive Angler. And Mixer was obviously a great time. But I think for slice of life-ness, I'll probably go for Late Back Camp or Pokemon Concierge. So yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So slice of life was tough because some of these shows don't even have the slice of life tag on them. And they're like, clearly that like Pokemon concierge on Mal does not have a slice of life tag. It's like clearly a slice of life. So I kind of had to like do some personal judgments on what I felt was this were like shows like how,

all guy mixer while yes there was romance i think it was just like a lot of them just doing stuff and so that's kind of why i included it into this one like they didn't really go on like dates it was more of them the one they did a lot of times it's like them just hanging out as a group and going for drinks going on dates can be slice of life you can't i mean like it's like a thing people do during their life i don't know it's always made the genre a bit confusing

for me no 100% I but I feel like if you said like a date I think that probably fall more into like the romance but when it's like a group setting I feel like it's a little bit different than like romantic where it's more of them just sort of having fun and that's kind of like the vibe that I got with it and so that's why I included it shows like not to me his book of friends is

Was like the highest rated slice of life by a ton. So I felt like I absolutely needed to include it, even if it wasn't technically like watched by anybody like our discord. But I feel like when you're like.

the juggernaut of that genre you should probably be included uh stuff like love live was obviously a nod to like the people that are active in our discord while the show is one of the rare shows that actually did have the slice of life tag on it i felt like it needed to be included and then we had shows like laid back camp which is an all-timer for me and a show like kina koinu which absolutely blew me away this year it was one of the best iyashikis i've ever watched i absolutely adore mushroom pup so it's still my profile picture discord today so

I think that says a lot so this was a that's what that is yes my name is mushroom Pete in discord if he never watched the show he wouldn't have known that I feel like I posted the mushroom pop like 40 yeah no this is this is on me I'm just slow it's it's been it's been a day okay or a year or whatever

But yeah, for the year that it was for slice of life, I thought that this was okay. It was an okay year for slice of life. Um, you know, laid back camp. I think if it was the same studio as a season one or two, probably would have a much higher reception compared to season three. While I still absolutely adored it. I get why some people didn't resonate with it as much as season one or two or the movie. So yeah,

That is our nominations for Best Slice of Life. Let's change gears and laugh a little bit. Let's do Best Comedy. Our nominations are The Magical Girl and Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Arch Enemies, Dawn to Dawn, Too Many Losing Heroines, How I Attended an All Guys Mixer, Delicious in Dungeon, and Konosuba Season 3. Miles, you've seen all six. What are your thoughts? Nice. That's what I meant.

Okay. Sorry how I answered it all, guys. Make sure that was fall, I believe, which was... I was busy doing stuff, sadly. I'm all with Cooper up right now. I have to do things with him. Yeah, so a lot of good shows here. This is always...

Comedy is always, like, tough for me because, like, so many shows have comedic elements, and, like, I view a lot of these things as, like, not comedy shows that have... that are funny sometimes, right? Like, Delicious in Dungeon. Like, I...

And like, this is just me. This isn't to say that it isn't like a comedy or anything, but like when it was nominated, I was like, oh, do we like think it's a comedy? And everyone was like, yes. And I was like, okay, my bad. You know, and I would think of that for like Dan to Dan as well. And potentially, no, like too many losing heroines is definitely like a rom-com.

Right. So I would say that has it Kono Tsuba and magical girl are like the shows that I would strictly view as like capital C comedy. And for me,

This is a bit surprising because I do adore Kona Suba, but Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant would probably be my pick. Specifically for a character that we will be highlighting in an upcoming category, possibly the best addition to our award shows yet. So I'll leave the complete analysis there. But I thought there were a lot of really funny moments in the show. And there was one character who had one bit, but my God, every time I laughed, every single time.

You know, so I thought that that was good. And it's probably like what I would have done highlighted for comedy in this year. So that's my thought. Cosette, what are we thinking here? Comedy is always hard for me because like I either like it or I don't. It's very like a lot of miles now.

No, like, I'm serious. Like, every time the Discord raves about, like, 100 girlfriends, you're all loving it. I'm just sitting here like... Oh, you got Miles. You got Miles on your back. I don't get... Miles hates that show. I hate that show. I don't get Konosuba. I mean, no offense to Konosuba fans. I just... There's, like, a 50-50 chance I'll like it. Same with action, so... But the ones that, like... Honestly, the show that generally made me laugh a lot was Delicious in Dungeon, even though it's not, like...

completely a comedy. Like, the siren scene is, like, my favorite scene of the entire year that made me laugh every single time. But, like, losing heroines, like, Anna was so fucking funny. Like, I loved her. She's pretty funny. She's so funny. She's goofy. She reminds me of me when I'm having a good day. So... And a bad day, actually. So it's really funny. But then, like, Magical Girl had... Oh, God, I forgot her name. The Gremlin. Yes! Oh, yeah.

As soon as Magical Girl added her, I was like, oh, fuck, this is funny. She said the same thing. Yeah. It's like, Dandy Dan, sure, it was goofy, but I don't think I ever laughed in the show that hard. So I actually don't know what I'm going to choose right now. And obviously Mixer was a fun time. I laughed, but not as much as Delicious in the Dungeon. So I'm literally going to vote it on which one I laughed the most. So it's probably between Magical Girl, Heroines, and Dungeon for me. So we'll see.

Yeah, I guess for me, it's like how everybody else also said, it's just like the style of comedy where KonoSuba, I feel like, has a lot of punchlines, right?

and delicious and dungeon is like wouldn't it be funny if we wore frog suits it's like yes yes it would be funny if you wore frog suits that was that was super funny uh the facial expressions of anna and too many losing heroines was great um i think some of the other girls definitely had some comedic moments but anna was the standout donadon we had like late with like gg and his personality really i think upped

the comedy Magic of the World of Luton we already mentioned it like Hibana is just so fucking funny it's she's she's great she's so funny hold up hold up hold up

Let me finish my last one. And then something like All Guys Mixer with Asagi and Fugi and them reenacting her manga in order to get the correct action shots. I thought that shit was absolutely hilarious. Him being handcuffed in the diner and stuff like that. Him just not being aware of the situation he's in. Some really good moments. To me, there's one that's like a slam dunk. This is another one for me that will be fighting for runner-up.

Um, but I thought this was a really good year for comedy. A lot of fun, a lot of fun shows that I watched and different forms of comedy as well. So I, I appreciate that. All right, miles, what were you saying? Because I, you know, I go first and I can't always think of things. Then you say things and I'm like, Oh, this is another scene from that show. That's funny. Uh, so, uh, delicious, a dungeon, the scene where they like body swap or whatever, and they're all like drawn like each other, I thought was like amazing. Um,

And then I just want to say a thing about Dan to Dan that I think is funny, but it is sort of like a hard to translate thing. The words for testicle in Japanese is literally gold ball. Like that makes it's made up by those two kanji. So the word for gold and the word for ball. So like when they're throwing the gold balls at him to like give his testicles, but it's like literally like a play on words sort of punny thing there, which I thought was pretty funny though. Hard to, I guess,

translate in a way that isn't like giving you a note on the etymology or whatever um

So, yeah, I thought, I don't know. All these shows are pretty funny. I do hate on too many losing heroines. Anna is hilarious. The faces are funny. I mostly just don't like the guy and how much Lemon is naked. Those are the two things I don't like about the show. But there's a lot of really funny moments in it and a lot of good, like, reaction gifs and things like that. And that's what humor is in 2025. And it's better than all of us, though.

It's not, but that's okay. Pete just doesn't see the vision. Wait, call Zach tiebreaker for this. Don't do that. I'll put you on the spot. On the spot, pick one. Between two main losing heroines and Alia. And I said you're not allowed to tiebreak. Oh, see? She doesn't know. So two main losing heroines wins by default. Let's go.

All right. I think we laughed a little bit too much. No more fun. Let's move on to our next category, which is biggest surprise. So I think these were like shows that were on paper or reading the synopsis. It maybe looked like something generic or something that we've seen before, but then we actually watched them and they're a little bit more

Either dynamic, complex, fun, better animation, etc., etc., anything that you want to put into a SAR. Six shows that we included were Wistoria, Wand and Sword, Too Many Losing Heroines, Windbreaker, Girls' Band Cry, The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, and Bravern.

Mr. Miles, would you like to start it out for us? I really can't escape too many losing heroines, huh? People really like the show. Yeah. In fact, people were surprised by how much they liked the show. I wasn't. So...

Yeah, but a lot of shows that did surprise me are in this category. With Storia, I think if we are measuring by pure surprise from where I thought we would be to where we ended up,

I would probably pick Wastoria here because to me, it seems like a very generic show and it was, but it was one that I really liked. I thought if you compare it to something like Mashal, which is like a very similar setting, I think it just sort of like does that, but a better setting.

You know, it still has humor. It's not as funny as Mashal. It's not trying to be, but it differentiates and stuff from like generic Harry Potter knockoff world number seven, like just enough for me to like have a good time with it. The characters are kind of tropey, but I enjoy that. And I think they do have enough of a unique spin on them where they're not completely two dimensional and

And then another show, I guess, that I would like to highlight here is Girls Band Cry, which is one of my favorite shows of the year. And, you know, I enjoy certain girl band shows enough, but this really blew me away. And I think it's very, it was surprising how unique it was from that formula because it is a very formulaic genre. So those are the two that I guess I'll highlight before kicking it over to Cosette.

I agree. With Girls Van Cry, I remember I watched the trailer and I was like, oh, this animation style is different. But it was enough for me to want to check it out. I think one of the biggest surprises was that no streaming services picked it up simultaneously. It took like six months. That was the biggest surprise of the year. That was the biggest surprise of the year. But...

was pleasantly surprised by the first season for the first episode and I was shocked and I didn't think I would like it because I don't watch many girls brand shows actually so and I think the music was also fantastic as well but then Astoria was a show that like I wasn't planning on watching at all I was forced to watch it at Anime Expo but I was pleasantly surprised because it has that like Harry Potter-esque kind of

you know, theming, but, um, it has a sword in it. So that kind of made me be like, Oh, that's cool. Uh, so I really liked that. Windbreaker was one that I was like, I knew it was going to do well only because it's Cloverworks. Everyone loves Windbreaker. So I was like, that's probably gonna do well. Um, so it's probably in between Wistoria and Girls Band Cry for me. Um, I really liked them both. I think the other one that I was really surprised with was Ramen Akaneco actually, because the art style does not look great. Um,

But it had food. So I was thinking it was going to be like a six or seven and then it ended up being a 10. So that was when I personally was the biggest surprise for me.

Right on. Well, then I'll talk about some of the other shows that weren't mentioned. Something like The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, which sounds like a very generic Isekai light novel, and it absolutely is. However, I thought the cast was great, especially Rose. I think she was the major standout of the show, where if you have one S-tier character in your cast, it can make you continue watching that show.

Like, I thought she was such a great character and standout in that show. And it's getting a second season where it's like, I think I would be perfectly content with watching a show like this one season and not continuing it. But I'm very excited to see where the second season goes just because of the cast itself and especially Rose. Something like Bravern for me, why it was a surprise was...

Coming into this without like a new property where it's like, where'd you got like Gundam and the, you kind of have an idea of what to expect with Gundam when it comes to like new Mecca properties. I think of something like grid man or Dyson Amon, which I wasn't the biggest fan of. I thought they were just like, okay. So coming into this thinking like, Oh, it's going to be another grid man. Hey, it's going to be pro mayor or something like that. And it being something completely different, like,

elevated it for me so much more like Braverman was an absolute blast to watch something like Wistoria I think you guys mentioned though uh

On paper, I think it's a standard generic show, but when you animate it so well, you have such a great OST. It was one of my favorite OSTs of the year. If you're a big OST fan, definitely check out Wistoria's OST. It was fantastic. Definitely elevates those style of shows for me. And we did a whole episode on Girls Might Cry, so if you want to hear me and Miles' thoughts on that, you can check that out. And then Windbreaker, to me, the story itself was just about high school kids fighting, but

And how can like you get 12 episodes or more out of this? Cause I felt like it was going to get really stale, really fast, but the cast is so good. It's so fun.

You're rooting for not just one character, you're rooting for a bunch of different characters in their class, which I think is a testament to character writing and making Windbreaker sort of like the meathead beat-em-up that it is. But something better than, unlike Baki or Kengen Ashura, where it's just pure fights all the time, when you have a full-blooded cast that is enjoyable to watch and you're cheering for, that's what makes Windbreaker Windbreaker. So I was definitely surprised by how much I really enjoyed Windbreakers.

Those are our biggest surprises, but we got to do the yin and the yang. What comes up must come down. Our biggest disappointment of 2024. We had Tower of God season two, Miles' favorite show, Blue Lock season two, my dear friend Nokoton, the Suicide Squad Isekai, Ninja Kamui, and Metallic Rouge season

Miles, you're itching to talk. Why don't you go ahead and start things off for us? Yeah, this one's a little difficult for me because I knew No Catan would be bad because I have eyes. Shut the fuck up. I'm so smart. Look, I've said I'm dumb a lot, but this time I was right. It's...

You know, I didn't think Isekai Suicide Squad was, like, that bad, all things considered. And I also don't think expectations were super high for it. Maybe they were. I don't know. Maybe it was mostly because I talked to you and some other people about it, and I'm not, like, in the greater scheme of social media. But, like, I read the description to you, and you were like, I will not be watching this. So, really, using that as my baseline, it's hard to be disappointed in a show.

Tower of God Season 2 is probably where I'd go or Metallic Rouge so the reasoning behind this is like oh okay we have like a new property from like a great studio that does invocative like preview art oh no one cares about this at all and it's not good and it's done nothing it was the anniversary project for yeah yes and they shit the bed yeah so like that that's like a pretty big like to me it's like

so disappointing everyone has already forgotten about it yeah and that that is like the condemnation right so like you know we all remember no katana bet it wasn't that great but like i don't know again we got some reaction gifts out of it and we can make some jokes about it and it did yeah we have you know there's the dance we'll always have that op um

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything about metallic Rouge after like episode two aired, like it was just immediately bam. Um, and then tower of God season two was like very anticipated. Um, I know that it's like adapting for in like the Monwall, like a well-loved sort of like the, whatever the arc's name is. I forget workshop. Yeah. So, um,

you know, people were looking forward to this and stuff and it didn't deliver. And to me, that's again, disappointing, especially when you have as strong a basis as like season one of Tower of God gave. So not to be able to like,

capitalize on that is is pretty disappointing um i'll never say a bad thing about blue lock um you could show me a microsoft powerpoint about the fascist soccer show and i would enjoy it and that's what i got powerpoint of it um so i have you know i'm gonna put my money where my mouth is and uh say i enjoyed that um and those are my thoughts uh goes out what are we thinking

I didn't watch a chunk of... Actually, no. I watched a few of these shows. But I think Tower of God was the one I was most disappointed only because I bit... Because you all praised it. And I was like, okay, I'll binge it before season two. And so in season two, I kind of expected the same camaraderie, like the same kind of group in season one. And we didn't get that. I was already like...

not falling for it because I missed the original group in season one. So I think it was just a story thing that I was disappointed with. I actually don't know if like the animation or anything fell through but just from the story I just I was I got bored pretty quickly. But Metallic Rouge man like we didn't even nominate it for best OP but it was a really good OP. Really good OP yeah. It was a really

It was a really good OP, but it had elements of, like, a really good anime. It had great VAs, the music was awesome, the art style was really cool. Honestly, it was just the story and, like, I guess the characters were kind of there, but the story was, like, what really killed the show. And I think if they just spent...

Another year. Didn't do an anniversary project and just waited a bit more and fleshed out the story. I think it would have been really, really good. So I think that was disappointing. But I'm in between Tower of God and Metallic Rouge. I didn't even try to watch Isekai Suicide Squad. I don't think I could have watched it in Canada, actually. So whatever. So I think it's between Tower of God and Metallic Rouge for sure. No Gatan, I'm like Miles. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like it anyway. It just had that comedy aspect that I knew I wasn't going to like. So...

yeah so fair enough i'll touch on some other shows something like ninja kamui which through the first like three or four episodes had an 8.4 on mal it ended with a 6.67 like it fell off a fucking cliff i think i didn't watch it but i think they did the yasuke thing where like it's about ninjas and then they added like robots or something it's just like it's a show about ninjas why did you add robots type of thing

Metallica Rouge was a huge bummer coming into this with like

it looked good it sounded good uh i think the premise was there it was just so fucking boring it was so boring i i think i dropped it after one and a half episodes tower god i read this arc in the manhwa i wasn't like super high on the arc in the manhwa i think everything leads up to the next arc which is insane however like if they would just done like an average adaptation of workshop i would have been happy with it i felt like this fell pretty far short

uh east sky suicide squad the property behind it uh just having all those names attached to it and wit studio uh and then you deliver like a very mediocre show is tough when you are a top tier studio that's kind of why i included it in biggest disappointment and then blue lock

Everybody, if you're on social media, you saw what they put out, whether it's from cringe dialogue or PowerPoint presentations. You got that in Blue Locks, though. I think this is a pretty good summarization of our biggest disappointments of 2024. Moving on, I think this is Miles' favorite new category. We have Best Gremlin. So a gremlin can be described as like a bunch of different things, right?

Um, I usually just say it's like somebody who is chaotic, uh, but at the heart of their soul, they're a good person, but they kind of just like do some stuff that, um,

is annoying but can kind of get away with it by either being funny or cute or something along those lines it's usually girls but um a gremlin can be anybody so our nominations for best gremlin of the year uh we had nina from girls band cry we had yuki from alia sometimes speaks in russian we had oran from dead dead demons

We had Mamoru from My Wife Has No Emotion. We had Hibana from The Evil Lieutenant and Magical Girl Used to Be Our Enemies. And last but not least, we had Lulu from Bravern. Miles, take it away, Mr. Gremlin. This is the hardest category for me. It's stacked. It is stacked. It's very hard for me to...

dissect how I want to go about this. There's like a few different ways, right? One, which one of these would I not want to feed after midnight? I was going to use the other Gremlin thing, and that would have been bad in context. And, you know, but like, there's just so much different energy. Someone from...

What some people are calling the best comedy and best romance of the year. Alia sometimes hides her feelings in Russia. Like Yuki. In Russia. Damn. In, in, in Russia. You have to go find them. Um, they are really hard. Uh, yeah, they're somewhere in there. It's a big country. Um, in Russian.

Has a lot of Gremlin energy, but is also sort of like a mastermind character. Which I love that Little Sister is secretly evil and a mastermind trope from shows such as Drake and Josh or whatever. So I was a big fan of that. Auron is maybe my favorite character of just like the year, but...

you know, is very good. But Nina, Nina is great. I adore Nina. I adore everyone in that show. I feel like you could have thrown any of the girls almost from Girls Band Cry into this category or at least half of them. But Nina is definitely like the exemplification of this sort of energy. But Hipana is so funny and such a gremlin and just,

I don't know. I haven't made a decision. I don't know if I'm going to make a decision. I think Havana probably is most gremlin-y. She is the most pure gremlin because she is magical and also a gremlin and uses her magical gremlin. I don't know who Mamoru is, so I can't speak to this robot. Use the child robot from My Wife Has No Emotions.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know what any of that means. So, you know, it would be between the other five to me. I like Lulu a lot, but I just don't think she quite stacks up in Gremlin level to these other four. Um, because that, I do know that, you know, who Mamoru is. And so I don't know how many of these, you know, but what are your thoughts on best Gremlin? I mean,

remember we were just a sweetheart? You're just a kid. Like all kids are gremlins, aren't they? God, yes. Cooper for best gremlin next year. That's it'll be Cooper versus my niece and best gremlin. Um, yeah, I honestly, I didn't know what the heck a gremlin was until Pete listed out who, and I'm like, okay, so I guess it's like a vibe. Oh,

Yeah, it's 100% a vibe. Yeah, it's a vibe. So, obviously, like, I don't know Lulu or Yuki, and then, obviously, I know Nina. I mean, Oran and Hibana are, like, the top two, I think. I want to say Oran just because she's been there for, like, the entire season, and we've seen her groundedness for, like, a million episodes. But Hibana, oh, man, when she swore. It's so funny. It's just so funny. I...

And having it as a selection on the forum makes it just a good reminder of how chaotic she was. So this is actually going to be really hard because my heart was set out on Auron, but then there's Hibana. And it's a split vote. And in my heart, I was like, oh, Anna from Losing Herriman is also a bit of a gremlin herself. Same with Chizu, actually, because I loved her. Part of me also thought Kiyomoto from Lookback as well, but she's more like a quiet gremlin. But...

I think it's probably going to be Oran, but I don't know. Hibana, she might change my mind. So we'll see. I'm glad this category was added. So now I know what the heck a gremlin is. Yeah. So I made this category based off Nina. I think she was sort of like, sorry, getting my gremlin gears rotating and then kind of realizing that this year is filled with gremlins. Yeah.

I'm sort of in the same camp as you. I think it's like a three-way battle between Nina, Habana, and Oran. I could see people liking Yuki a lot, sort of the shit that she did in Alia with like the, oh no, my brother cucked me again type of shit. Like, people really liked that type of thing that she was joking, obviously, but like,

People like that dialogue that she brought in Lulu and Braver and just say, was it like Gakupy or like all the time? And then I had to throw in Mamoru. He sort of emulates what a gremlin is, but in child form and a robot form. So I really liked that, that combination, him like not knowing how to like drink coffee and just like splashing water around and everything like that, because he's literally a kid and he's learning.

Um, definitely resonated with like gremlin energy that I really enjoyed, but yeah, I think it's all comes out to three of them. So it'd be interesting to see who gets this vote. Uh, because based off of what we have for early voting, it is a three-way race. So if you are interested in voting for the other three, you better start campaigning. Cause I think this will be a three horse race between best gremlin. That is our, one of our new categories from this year. Another new category that we're doing this year is best ship.

So not the going Mary, but these are people in their shows that have energy and connections with each other. However, they're not in a confirmed relationship.

So that is the difference between ship and couple. So our nominations are Momo and Okaroon from Dawn to Dawn, Fuji and Asagi from All Guys Mixer, Mau Mau and Jinchi from Apothecary Diaries, Nina and Momoka from Girls Bearing Cry, Marcel and Fallon from Delicious and Dungeon, and Shun and Byakuya from The Magical Girl and Evil Lucana used to be Arch Enemies.

Miles, I know you're a giant shipper on Tumblr. What are your thoughts on these six? Yeah, so again, we're learning about my disconnect from people. Yes. Just in general. One, I'm not a Momo Okorun shipper.

I have more refined taste. I like my women to be kind of mean and worse. Right. And so the pink haired girl whose name is escaping me. Are you?

Her name is, yeah, Ira. Ira. Is who I would ship him with, because I think it's funny. And, you know, I don't know. Now, the Marcel and Fallon thing is apparently massive. Oh, yeah. Because it has art of it. Okay. I never...

I never picked up on that while watching. Spoiler alert, Fallon's in like one episode of the show. Well, she's in more than that. She's in like two. It's like legitimately two. Man, I watch the show. She's not in a lot of episodes. She's the first time Mira for like four episodes. Not actively. She's running amok in the dungeon. They don't see her. They reference her.

okay she's alive in spirit she is the mcguffin of the show you are correct um in the same way that the ring in lord of the rings is a character thank you um so like i guess i don't really get that one but i could see it um and maybe like it's it would be bigger in the source material um

And I really like Fallon. So like you can ship her with whoever you want. Like I'm down. I'm not Fallon. Yes. Fallon. No. Marcel. What am I doing with my life? Um,

i'm literally they're i'm looking at them but the picture and the names are reversed and like people who can't like read a color if it's in a different color i can't do that but i i need to i need to talk for like half a second here mao mao x gen c is a terrible ship it is awful and no one should fucking vote for it that is insane it is psychotic mao mao

Should never ever marry anyone. She should be devoted to being a girl boss and being a scientist and burning herself with chemicals. Okay? She doesn't need this fucking pretty boy coming in and ruining her life in that way. Okay? Um... Fucking... Jinchi would be fucking lucky. Okay? And he's not. As we've seen in the show. Um...

Anyways, I'd probably pick Nina and Momoka. I think they have, like, pretty good energy. This is, like, I guess a weird mentality, but Shun and Byakuya from Magical and Evil Lieutenant are, like, too close to dating for me to, like, have any energy into shipping it, I guess, because, like, I just feel like if in a world where that series would continue, it would just...

do that for me, and so I don't need to care. Which is similar with Momo and Okaroon, right? That is just something that I suspect will happen at some point, probably later than sooner based on the fact that it's like a... Oh, maybe sooner than later! By the look Pete gave... No! Maybe...

Okay, later rather than sooner. There you go. Okay. That was my initial thought, but I thought the look you were saying was like, actually, you'll be surprised. Nope, it was good read, Miles. You will not be surprised because it's exactly what you think it's going to be. Yeah, so it'll take forever and there'll be a billion road bumps in the road and then they'll have like an arc or two at the end of the whole manga where they're dating. Cool. Glad I could call that one. Kozak, what are we thinking here?

It was really interesting where you were like, oh, if they're close to being a couple, I'm just going to ignore them. Because now I'm like, oh, because I'm basing this on butterflies, like which ship gave me, you know, the butterflies, the honey glows. Even though I do have Marcel and Fallon right here, I do. I did love Fuji and Asagi a lot in Mixer. And they weren't like my first couple that I liked on the show.

I like them at the end, obviously. I agree with the Mao Mao Jinxi scenario, because I originally saw Mao Mao as aromantic, but you can still be a couple if you're aromantic anyway. But I just got butterflies from both of them so many times in the show. Same with Shun and Byakuya. There's so many butterflies. I love them! Marcel and Fallon are a ship that I'm like, yes, I don't know if they're going to be together, but I ship them hard. So it's going to be a hard...

decision because i love all these people momo and akaroon i know that i have a feeling that's also end game but it's also shonen so it's probably not going to happen for another what 200 episodes so yeah that's the yes yeah so um in my heart of hearts it's probably mao mao because she's best girl but i don't know well i'll surprise y'all i don't know why i'm picking it uh yeah so far i'll say so far the early voting uh everybody has been voted on so far so it's fun to see it's fun to see that um

The Shonen Byakuya, it's like they're pretty, they might as well be a couple, but like it's not confirmed. And like, I feel like it's tough. This was a really tough one. I feel like they need to be on ship or couple, but,

I had to like make a distinction. And so I put them in ship just because they're not like a confirmed relationship. Um, I mean, this is all just for fun, so it's whatever, but like stuff like Nina and Momoka, like Nina in an episode, like this is me confessing my love to you to Momo. It's like pretty hardcore shipping. Um, Asagi and Fugi, I bet will be a couple at some point in the show, but until then they're just there. Golden retriever and master relationship, which is super fun. Um,

I'm all for Jinchi and Maomao because I just think it'd be great because I think Maomao could whip Jinchi into shape and that'd be really fun to see. Um, Okaroon and Maomao, I'm with Miles. I like, I like the pink girl girl more just like in blue box or I, yeah, just like in blue box. I like the pink girl girl more. Um,

I like Momo as a character, but I don't know. Maybe it's my bocce tingling. You know what? Iroh went for it. She was like, I like you, let's do stuff. And being forward like that is admirable. Shoot or shoot. That's why Nino's the best girl in Quince.

You heard that first. There we go. But yeah, a fun category because it looked like she was going to stab me based on what I said, but it's all good fun. I promise if they're in best shot. Absolutely shocked. All right. So best that's best ship. Let's get to the actual confirmed couples in their shell and do best couple. Our nominations are itsumi and yuki from a sign of affection. Anna and Kiyo from the dangers of my heart. Sawako and Kazahaya from Kimi ni Dake season three.

three uh rin and eegie from pseudo harem reshae and arnold from seventh time loop and jinn and g she g she is how you pronounce it yeah she yeah yeah from twilight from twilight out of focus miles i don't know um

Yeah. So, you know, for me, again, the difference between these two is like energy for ship. I feel like you have to have someone to fight and you need to like, believe in your side. Right. Where this is stuff that's just like more cut and dry. It's like less zealotry and like faith in like nothing. Right. Like I, like when quints was airing, I would like, you know, if I found like an itsuki shipper in the street, I would stab them, you know, because I need to clean my territory. Right.

But for this, it's all pretty cut and dry. And I think we have a lot of good couples here. Now, my personal favorite is going to be Rishay and Arnold. And that's because they have some stuff that every couple needs, in my opinion, right? An inherent distrust for each other. They can't, right? Two, the fear that maybe, maybe you could get murdered by the other. I think this is important for relationships. I think it keeps you in line.

It's kind of sexy. Kayla can come through this door at any moment and kill me. And you would never know. One time she gave me a Valentine's Day card that said they will never find your body on it. So... It's just generally our energy. But I really liked Ren and Eiji in Studio Harem. I thought the interactions between them were great. And I thought the way that they took...

the dynamic of her having like the different personalities and like the opposite way of, I was expecting it where he was like, Oh, I just like, like you the most, but she had put so much effort into like crafting, uh, these things that like, she was like upset that he didn't also still like, like the other personalities was fun. Cause I expected that to cause like jealousy in her, uh, it's so me and Yuki are obviously like a great couple. Um, it's so me though is, as I've said before, too hot, uh,

um which does generate uh it lowers them down a little bit for me because he is like the platonic definition of a hot guy and it's just too much for me i can't i can't take it but and i don't like anna and kill for sure i don't sue me best rom-com of the decade my ass um cosette what are we thinking

I just want to say overall for the year, I'm just happy with the representation we got this year with couples because we got we got our first Omegaverse BL anime this year. There's a lot of BL animes this year. There wasn't enough Yuri though, so I will flag that.

I'll flag it for Veronica. Um, but I do like the representation this year and I'm really glad that Jin and Gichi actually like made it on here. Cause like I said, Twilight of Focus was extremely sexy and they're basically enemies to lovers, which is like my favorite trope. So they were, they were fantastic. See, you got to start off not trusting each other. But they weren't going to kill each other. Metaphorically, whatever, you know, it's just a tomato, tomato. Um,

And like, I mean, yes, Sawako and Kasehaya. Yes, I do love them. They're right here. But Ryu and Chizu forever. So they're my favorite couple. But honestly, I think I'm going to go with Itsumi and Yuki only because we finally got an adult romance. Itsumi is a man. He knew how to take care of a woman. And I like that. I like that. A lot of these romance shows have just like a shy guy and a shy girl. And I was kind of over it. So it's nice to just have a man just be romantic and go for it.

So yeah. I'm going for it. Arnold is a man, the emperor of an entire country, just went for it, proposing day one. That's a little too forward. There's limits to how forward you should be. Shoot or shoot. Also killed her. Yeah. He doesn't know that. To be fair, she was trying to kill him.

I don't know. And then Rin and Eiji, I did like the fact that we got to see them from, like, high school to, like, obviously adult days. So that was really nice. But honestly, it's sign of affection for me, like, hands down. Like, that's the one I'm actually, like, deciding on in terms of, like, a couple. So, yeah.

Right on. For couples, I love this year. I love the amount of solidified couples we had this year. I think that was a huge breath of fresh air. A lot of the will-they-won't-they, go read the manga to find out. Maybe you'll find out in season two. And some of these shows just got straight to the point. And either they were new couples or something like Kazehaya and Sawako, which developed their relationship more since they get together in season two.

And a season one, I think. So like sort of just like at it, developing that, that category of like established couples was a really great, um, for as much as I think the dangers of my heart is like a perfectly fine show. I did like the confession scene a lot in season two. Um, I think that there are pretty solid couple, uh,

um it's me and yuki i side affection is one of my favorite romances i'm like up to date with the manga so that says a lot about that written eegie were just so much fun like an absolute blast couple probably my favorite like the most fun i had with a couple were those two just when they were together their dynamic was fantastic i didn't see twilight out of focus uh so i'll take your word that it's spicy but if uh people need that to win go vote for that for sure reshade arnold

I thought they were okay. They were probably my bottom of the six, but I more enjoyed the two as characters themselves rather than them being a couple. Where someone like Itsumi and Yuki, I really enjoyed their dynamic as a couple. So that's kind of like the difference between the two.

Those are our nominations for Best Couple. We are now down to our last two nominations you can vote for, and this is always where we get spicy. These are our Best Boys and Best Girls of the Year, which will have 10 nominations each. So, our nominations for Best Boy for 2024 are...

takaki is that his name yeah takaki takaki from negative positive angler uh yukia from yata garasu itsumi miles's favorite fan from sign of affection oxy from orb uh kafka from kaiju number eight and toki yuki from the elusive samurai miles we got yeah um

This is an interesting thing, too, because we have, like, a lot of... It's not a lot. I'm afraid to say this. Is this a safe space? Actually, yeah. Best Boy is safe. Best Girl is not a safe space. Okay, that's fair. But Best Boy is fine. I don't get the Laos thing. I don't get it. Oh, man. Um...

Yeah, you shouldn't have said it was a safe space. I would have put, like, Senshi up there. Thank you. It's probably, like, how I would have done it for Delicious in Dungeon. Um...

You know, I just, I don't get, I don't know. This like sort of goes into my issue with Delicious in Dungeon, which is all the cooking scenes. The delicious part. Yeah, I'm more of a dungeon kind of guy than delicious. You know, I don't know. I was just like, if I was trying to save my sister so that she could date my elf friend, then, you know, I wouldn't spend all that time cooking, but that's just me.

Um, it sort of just feels like maybe he is secretly responsible, uh, for Fallon's kidnapping. So he has an excuse to do all this cooking. Uh, and then that is nefarious and also canon. Um, eats to me as we talked about is a very good choice, but he does like a variable overflow thing for me where he's just too hot. Uh, and therefore I cannot vote for him. Um, Aqua is, is very good, but also like a little sort of like edgy. So, uh,

I'm not sure exactly where I'll be going there. So who do you like? Yeah, that's a good question. I think the plan for me is to, before we reconvene in two weeks, is to watch all of Orbs so I can vote for this guy. That's the plan, and I'm going to stick to it. Okay.

I mean, I'd rather you watch Yeta Karasu over Orb, but... Okay. The plan is... Okay, there's too many boys. I need boys and men separated. Best man or boy? Best man. Best man, because that would be Kafka and Senshi. Come on. I agree with Miles. I'm a team Senshi. Senshi was my number one man. If he was on here, he would win instantly. But he's not.

I love Takaki. He was one I was pushing for because he is literally the best boy friend you can have. He literally pulled someone that was homeless, took them in, and took care of them. So he was incredible. But I'm in between Yakuya and Tokoyuki only because there were boys that literally protected their people.

Yukiya protected Wakai...Waka...I always forget how to pronounce his name. The lead guy in Yadakurasu. For me, the best boy is someone who literally is unselfish and takes care of their own. So it is a hard decision. Itsumi does not really fall there for me. So it is between Yakiya probably and Tokiyuki. And then maybe Takaki as well. I need to...

I need to evaluate, but it would have been Senshi in my heart. And also Uba from dead, dead demons, actually. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I'll touch on some of the other people that were missed or weren't talked about Subaru this year. I thought was fantastic. His speech during, I think it was like episode seven was awesome. We showed a lot to his character and then just him. The last episode of ReZero, I'm not gonna do any spoilers, but him kicking down the door was really cool. This is the next part of,

Aqua in Oshino-Ko, I thought he just absolutely killed it in Tokyo Blade. I think his character in all of this was great. Okurune, super fun character. Both sides of him, whether it's his depressed ghost side or his just nerdy Pete side is just really fun. I'm a huge Lyos fan. I thought he was great. His awareness to situations is...

all over the place, which makes him just like a really fun character to root for because he's kind of dumb, but like he has like a heart of gold and he's like the protector of his entire team. Like I'm a big fan of that. Um, Oxy was just so good. What an incredible character from orb, like his, his path of being sort of a, uh,

second hand guy like a right hand man to sort of changing the landscape of orb itself is kind of massive like the the impact that he has in like the 9 10 episodes he had of orb is just next level kafka super fun uh nice to see 32 year old representation and in anime um

But yeah, I thought this year was like a very solid year for Best Boy. I don't think there's a standout to me. I think this could really go down to like six or seven of them. But yeah, because last year was Thorfinn and that was like super easy to nail. This year, I think it could be a shootout. So Best Boy, that is that. We're moving on to the last nomination. Best Girl or Woman or whatever. It doesn't matter. Our nominations are... We got...

Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau Mau mau Mau mau Mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau mau low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low to low

Yoshino from Yakuza Fiance, Yuki from Shoshimen Series, Akane from Oshino Co., Anna from The Dangers in My Heart, Rin from Pseudo Harem, Free Rin from Free Rin, another Anna from Too Many Losing Heroines, and Nina from Girls Band Cry. Miles, you're voting Mao Mao. Tell the people why they should vote Mao Mao. Okay, yeah.

I have to think about this. There's agenda pushing, because the correct answer is Mao Mao. If you are voting, vote for Mao Mao. Mao Mao is...

Just an absolutely amazing character. She is hilarious. She is like the embodiment of a curious person who gets things done and looks at things in a unique way and is able to problem solve. I think she is my favorite sort of like analytical scientist character in anime where she is

I don't know. She doesn't always get there like immediately. She isn't like a super genius. Like she's obviously extremely intelligent or anything, but it's not like, oh my God, I'm so smart. Like, um, Eagles MC squared boy from like Dr. Stone or light Yagami or whoever, you know? So it's just, I love her character. I love that whole like little world they're in and the mysteries they set up. Uh, this category though is like, holy crap. So Mal Mal won last year as well. She should have as well. She should win everything she's in.

But I have other characters I like, and maybe they won't get another chance. This is what I have to do. I have to do the plus or minus. We can see my poster of Akane on the wall.

You know, if I don't vote for Akane now, you know, like, do I give Akane the Joel Embiid vote? Where like, she doesn't really deserve it, but like Mao Mao is just going to win the last, you know, MVP. And then like, maybe she'll win the next two probably. So like, ah, there's an argument to be made for Akane. So like, let's throw her the vote. I loved Yuki from the Sochimen series. Yeah.

Honestly, maybe a miss on best gremlin. Like she could have been there like a more nefarious gremlin. Right. So like once you get the gremlins, once you feed them after water, they go from like the little fuzzy things to these creatures that don't eat you and kill you.

And that's her. We haven't even established like the hierarchy of gremlins because there's gremlins and then there's goblins. Yeah. Hobgoblins. And I feel like Yuki might be in a hobgoblin territory. So, um, in a month, Pete and I will be doing an episode on the ecosystem of gremlins in anime. So please tune in for that. Um, and,

Uh, there's just like so many, so many good Nina is one of my favorite characters ever. And like, honestly, she might be like third or fourth for me this year. And it's just how stacked it is. You know, someone we've already talked about, like Momo from Dan to Dan, who is just like extremely likable and happy and just a good, genuine human. And like, I'm like, I don't know, six or seven or something. It's like so stacked this year. Uh,

Um, like written from pseudo harem who I adored. I'm just like, get her out of here. She's not even in this conversation. Um, you know, um, I didn't like too many losing heroines, but I did like Anna. Um, that's another great character. I mean, there's two Annas. We have too many Annas this year. Too many losing Annas. Yeah. Um, I mean, Fry written's here and we haven't even talked about her. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? I, it's just an absolutely stacked year. Vote Mal Mal. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I think you all know who I'm voting for. But, I just love the amount of badass intelligent women characters this year. Like, they all can murder you. Like, Yuki especially. She will murder you. Okay, so wait. Okay, it's good now? Murder is good now? Well, a

There's levels. Yeah, there's levels. Like, Mamo could kill you, but, like, she'll do it in a way that's, like, considerate, I guess. Okay, you already said amazing things about Mamo, so I'm not even going to talk about her. But, like, I really loved Yoshino. I think they used literally being a Yakuza daughter. Like, she represented that so hard. And she wasn't a ditzy, spoiled girl. She literally, like, lost to tooth fighting.

She was so impressive this year. She hit the face with a hair dryer. And then she, yeah, she was great. She was so badass. Momo, honestly, it's between Momo and Seiko for me because I love them both. But they're all just equally just badass women. I mean, the first top six. The remainder are okay for me. The first six in the form I'm rooting for.

It's definitely Mammal, though. It's always been Freerun or Mammal, but I'm always Mammal number one for me. But I'm just so happy with how many strong female characters we had in anime. And I'm just really happy with it. And they're all just so much fun and so much great personalities. And it's really hard to pit them against each other, so this might be a no vote, too. But it's definitely going to be Mammal. It's a given. But I'm surprised if someone beats...

I'll be really surprised. She won last year. Probably will win this year and she will also be nominated next year. So she could do the Patrick Mahomes and maybe three-peat this category.

I just gotta say, for someone like Rin, my favorite voice acting performance this year was Rin's voice actress. And something like that definitely adds an element to me. Like, I fell in love with Rin's character, and the voice acting was from that. Yuki, I think, is just, like, the underdog. I thought she was absolutely incredible. I think if anybody watched the show, you understand why Yuki is in this category. Like, she is...

She blew me away. Someone like Nina, while also being a gremlin, I thought was a fantastic character. One of the Annas I liked more than the other, but I did thoroughly enjoy both of them. You mentioned it, Kozab, but someone like Yoshino...

I think this is all stemming back from reading Yakuza Lover instead of Yakuza Fiance, where the character is more a little bit like plays back and lets the man do everything. Yoshino is full head of seam all the time. She doesn't wait for anybody else. She does things on her terms, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then we have, you know, the juggernauts free-ridden, Mao Mao, which...

I mean, you guys defended them enough. I would just say, like, Free Run in the second half, I really enjoyed, especially in, like, the Free Run, the fight with the clone, I really enjoyed her character and those little elements and, like, the fun, like,

I guess it's still her character where like she hugs that one girl and she's like, oh, you smell nice. Like stuff like that. It's like makes Freerun such like a fun character. It's not just like this life adventure that she's going on. It's also like the fun quirky moments that she has with like Fern and stuff like that where it's like, oh, look, I'm patting Fern on the head and Fern's like, yay, I learned laundry smells. So there's a lot of elements that go into these characters that change it and then like

Someone like Akane where I am a Kana fan for Oshinoko 100%. But this is Akane's season. Like absolutely just killed it. Her performance like on Tokyo Blade and just sort of like her realization and coming forth with all the information that she's getting outside of the play as well and sort of like

um banding with aqua was awesome so her character was fantastic this year i think to me i i have my winner for like who's gonna win but i think runner-up is gonna be between like four or five other people so uh we're really looking forward to see how people vote just because i think mao mao like destroyed last year um

by quite a bit. Let me just get the results real quick. Most people watched Apothecary Diaries. Yeah, that's another thing for sure. Maomao has a cat named Maomao now. Yeah. How do you beat that? Last year, Maomao had 28% of the votes in a 10-person category, which is... Jesus Christ. So she beat Mitsumi from Skip and Loafer by 13%. So, kind of shows you how well she did last year.

And if early voting says anything, she's probably going to be a repeat this year. But we'll see. We only got early voting in so far. We still got like 80% of hopefully the public vote left. Stop the count. Stop the count. But we shall see. But that.

is our nominations episode. Really fun. Last year, I think I just went through it and ended the episode. I actually want to do a full episode this time around. So thank you, Miles and Cozette, for joining me. This was a lot of fun. You have a week to vote.

So you have seven days to vote, and then we'll be counting them, and then we'll do the actual episode in two weeks. We'll be going over that. I'll be letting you know how many votes we got. Last year, we just got under 100. This year, I'd like to get over 100. That would be awesome. That is the goal. So spread the word. If you're friends with anybody who watches anime or if you're in any other discords or Twitter spaces, that type of thing, it would be great if you shared this information to everybody.

And that way we can get a better representation of what the community out there enjoyed and what they voted for. So that is that. Thank you again. And yeah, if you've made this far and want to support us, like, comment, subscribe, leave a review on whatever platform you're watching or listening to us on. Next week, we will be doing a watch club of Helsing. But other than that, in two weeks, we will be doing

our anime of the year for 2024. And you two will be joining me as well as I think Pat. Still got to see if his schedule lines up, but at least these two and myself will be there for that episode. So I want to say thanks again and we will see you next time. Peace. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.