This is it, folks. I have officially hit rock bottom. I’m going to be boring. I’m going to give you my five favourite shows of the year, and my thoughts on them, and that’s it. So put on your beige shirt and produce some kind of monotonous grunt to express your excitement in a respectable fashion. Here are — deep sigh — the shows of 2022 I want to shout ou— err, I mean, highlight. Boringly.
2022 is an interesting year for anime. What it lacks in an obvious high profile mega-hit, it makes up for with a lot of surprise hits. I laughed a lot with anime this year, and that’s worth something. Join me as I reminisce about the anime I watched this year, both the good and the bad. I’m not going to lie people, I threw this together at the last minute. I hope it’s coherent?
When I whittled down this year’s list of watched shows down to smaller and smaller numbers, it turned out that almost everything on there was some kind of adaptation or reboot. What’s up with that? Were they any good?
Scotland Loves Animation returned this year, bringing a curated selection of movie premieres and classics to the big screen. Three of us attended the latest instalment, where we watched thirteen different films in the cosy Cameo cinema.
Horny teen extraordinaire Ataru Moroboshi is randomly selected to be the representative of the human race in a contest of honor against invading aliens, and wins, saving the planet Earth! However, he accidentally proposes to Lum – the invaders’ princess – in the process. Now Ataru’s stuck between an unwanted suitor from space and his grumpy girlfriend from home, and both ladies are ready and willing to “correct” him should his eyes stray in the wrong direction.
Just as the Bleach anime returns after a decade long gap to cover the final arc of the manga, the Quincy faction returns after a thousand years to take their ultimate revenge against Soul Society. Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends might be the world’s only hope, etc. etc.
Devils, the physical embodiments of mankind’s fears, terrorize humanity. Devil Hunters are tasked with combatting them. Denji, a young man who’s known nothing but the rock bottom of society, becomes Chainsaw Man, a human with a devil’s heart and the unwitting protector of the human race.
The Japanese national soccer team has yet to win a world cup. In a bid to create future champions, they take modern, drastic measures: putting 300 high school strikers into a building to decide who joins the under twenties team.
It’s a new anime about cute girls doing cute things at high school, this time with power tools.
The Stylish Ruffian Slayer is a teenage boy who goes around with a bag of crowbars because it makes him feel strong. After playing out his hero fantasy and saving the girl, he quickly becomes acquainted with truck-kun.
Ad Stella 122. Mobile suit and space colony development are monopolized by the Beneritt Group, an omnipresent conglomerate of corporate entities. The Beneritt Group also sponsors The Asticassia School of Technology, a training program for mobile suit pilots and a glorified proxy battleground for the young scions of the various corporations. Suletta Mercury, a girl from the far reaches of space enrolls in the school. She and the Gundam Aerial are bringing change.
Aileen Lauren Dautriche is the villainess, so she’s taming the final boss.
In the sequel to the 2009 tokusatsu series ‘Kamen Rider W’, the Narumi Detective Agency protects the windy city, Fuuto, from attack by hideous monsters known as Dopants. The agency is headed by wannabe hard-boiled detective Shotaro Hidari, and his mysterious partner Philip. Together, they are the world’s first two-in-one Kamen Rider.
Haru, Rio and Kyouka are working hard to take their idol unit TiNgS all the way to the top, but their efforts aren’t translating into audience turnouts in the slightest. When their disbandment seems imminent, the president of their talent agency decides to give them one last chance… but in order to make anything of it, the girls are going to need a manager who can do the impossible.
Guy dies from overwork at a pharmaceutical company, wakes up in fantasy world with medieval level medicine. Also he has magical powers, a maid, and no shadow.
Urushi knows that her underclassman in the shogi club, Ayumu, is smitten with her. Much to her frustration, however, he refuses to ask her out until he’s managed to beat her in fair game. As his shogi skills leave a lot to be desired, Urushi tries to get him to confess in myriad other ways, but his impenetrable poker face is as much of an obstacle to her as Urushi’s superior play is to him.
Directly following on from the events of ‘Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul’, Riko, Reg, and Nanachi have overcome the monstrous Bondrewd and look to continue their journey deeper into The Abyss. Ahead of them lies the Sixth Layer, from which no human has ever returned, and the legend of a mysterious Golden City
Seventeen years ago, some uncle got isekai’d. However, he was just in a coma and woke up back in the real world with an obsession with SEGA and wanting to know how they did in the console war. Oh, he can still do all his magic powers and stuff, and there’s regular shared flashbacks to mid-isekai uncle, so it’s just an isekai flashback show apparently.
Deadbeat college student Amamiya Yuuhi wakes up one morning to find a talking lizard on his bed. It proclaims that his destiny is to join up with the other Beast Knights and protect the Princess (who turns out to also be his next door neighbor, Asahina Samidare), lest the gigantic Biscuit Hammer fall and smash the entire planet. Though indifferent over the fate of the world, Yuuhi swears to follow Samidare after she declares that the Biscuit Hammer won’t destroy Earth; she will.
Five girls in a magic academy sit down for tea and scones.
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