The Best Anime of 2017

You might be thinking “this is awfully late, even best of 2018 stuff is past it’s trending date now”.  Thing is I feel time needs to pass before you can truly pass judgment on something, and in the over a year that’s passed since 2017 ended my opinions on the Anime I watched that year have shifted a bit.  Nothing has completely flipped from a like to a dislike or visa versa, but I wouldn’t now rank them the same as I would have in January 2018.

I don’t feel like 2017 was the best year in Anime history, but right now I’ve seen more Anime from 2017 then any other single year so I feel it’s the year I’m most qualified to pass judgment on.  Part of why this is would be it being the first full year I watched Anime seasonally, and then plenty I didn’t watch when it was new I have seen since, I've even finished some shows I originally dropped.

I have currently completed 38 Anime from 2017, and there are others I have On Hold and even a few I dropped.  I’ve completed over 360 Anime, of which close to half are less than a decade old and only about 66 are pre 2000.  So yeah I’ve definitely seen more of 2017 then any other year.  If you wanna know all the shows I watched in 2017 here is my MAL profile.
https://myanimelist.net/profile/KuudereKun

Don’t think a failure of something I saw to make this post is an insult against it, if it’s a TV anime I had to have been enjoying something about it to have completed it at all, and I’ve given nothing from 2017 lower then a 6.  I’m not even structuring this as like a Top 10 list or anything, I’m just gonna talk about everything I gave a 10 and only some of what I gave a 9.

Section 1, what I gave a 9.

Section 1a, Movies:  As a warning, movies in general aren’t what I’m mostly into Anime for, as such I’ve seen no completely stand alone movies from 2017.  And when I do see A Silent Voice, I seem to be the only person who remembers that was 2016 in Japan.

Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale was a fun satisfying filler movie similar to how the Endymion movie works for Raildex, it’s not gonna be great to people who don’t like the series, but if you do it’s about as a good as a filler movie can be expected to be.  I’m not that big of an SAO fan so that’s why this can only get a 9.

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Movie: Sekka no Chikai shouldn’t be watched as a Magical Girl movie, but it’s a pretty satisfying Fate/ AU and decent Prequel to the Prisma Illya series as a whole.

No Game No Life Zero was a very good movie, not as great of a Prequel as the Star Wars Trilogy or Fate/Zero, but pretty satisfying nonetheless.

Section 1b, TV Anime.

Fate/Apocrypha is not the only TV Anime of 2017 I gave a 9 but it is the only one I’ll mention here even though plenty of others I probably like more then the movies I mentioned, but I don’t want to overload this post.  This is the one I’m choosing because I’m slightly tempted to upgrade it to a 10, but in the context of being a Fate/ Anime I don’t want to give the impression it’s on the same level as the UFO Table shows.  Speaking of which I feel I can’t fully pass judgment on any Heaven’s Feel movie till I’ve seen the full trilogy, and that’ll be awhile.

Fate/Apocrypha is ridiculous but fun.  I recommend watching the Dub even though I don’t like the decision to say “Heroes of Charlemagne” instead of Paladin. 

I’ve talked about this show on this Blog already, and it indeed demonstrates what I was talking about on how my perspective on this year of Anime has changed with the passing of time.  I was enjoying it at the time but was not expecting I’d consider it a potential best, but the more time has passed the more I keep returning to this show over so many others I thought were better at the time.

Section 2, TV Anime I give a 10 (no Movies made it).

New Game!!, this series as a whole has the potential to become the K-On of Cute Young Adult Girls shows, including how season 2 topped season 1.  But it needs a 3rd season and/or a movie to cement it.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon-Maid is still the best of the Winter season which I originally considered the season I most enjoyed.  It’s the most like what I used to enjoy about Sitcoms of any comedy Anime I’ve seen.  I recommend the videos on it from the likes of Digibro and Pedantic Romantic.

Princess Principal, with Yuki Kajiura on the music is the closest any recent Anime has come to making me feel like the Bee Train Girls With Guns formula is back.  It’s also a fun spy show that reminded me of the BlackCoatPress and Tales of the Shadowmen style stuff I enjoy, as well as Les Miserables.  And I again highly recommend the Dub, I was skeptical of the ability of Anime Dub actors to do British Accents well, but these pulled it off.

In Another World With My Smartphone is the only show from the last few years to make my 3x3.  I’ve talked about it on this blog already.  There is nothing ingenious about it but I simply love it’s basic charm, it’s unapologetic wish fulfillment and I love the non-monogamous resolution to the Harem.

It’s a personal favorite, I don’t expect to convince anyone else it was the best show of 2017, but I’m hoping in time to shut up everyone who dismisses it as worthless.