Time for my first Anime Awards of 2015. In a season that’s been full of bears, ships, food and other general weirdness, I’m going to take a look back and present arbitrary awards based on my personal preferences.
Here’s what I watched this season:
- Aldnoah.Zero 2
- Assassination Classroom
- Fairy Tail Series 2
- Go! Princess PreCure
- Gourmet Girl Graffiti
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Battle in Egpyt
- Kantai Collection
- Log Horizon Season 2
- One Piece
- The Rolling Girls
- Shirobako
- Yuri Kuma Arashi
As ever, there are potential spoilers for those shows in these awards. Now, award time.
Best Opening Theme
“Hito ni Yasashiku” by THE ROLLING GIRLS
The opening theme for The Rolling Girls is a cover of a Blue Hearts song from 1987, sung by the four main cast members. It’s a high energy track that is just a joy to listen to.
Runners-up: “Miiro” by AKINO from bless4 (Kantai Collection); “Seishun Satsubatsu-ron” by 3-nen E-gumi Utatan (Assassination Classroom)
Best Plot
Yuri Kuma Arashi
Of the shows I watched this season, only about half of them that finished had an actual plot. Most everything else was slice-of-life stuff. Still, Yuri Kuma Arashi certainly had an interesting tale to tell. Human-eating bears, a wall separating humans and bears and some incredibly “subtle” imagery at the beginning…
Runners-up: Log Horizon Season 2; The Rolling Girls
Best Protagonist
Aoi Miyamori
Shirobako‘s main character. Her dedication to her job is an incredible sight to behold, and it’s clear that she is a character that can be relied upon.
Runners-up: Shiroe (Log Horizon Season 2); Fubuki (Kantai Collection)
Best Antagonist
Koro-sensei
The teacher of the Assassination Classroom. He’s an octopus-like creature that has blown up the moon and intends to do the same to the Earth. He is also the best teacher that the kids of Class 3-E have ever had. Koro-sensei is definitely not a traditional villain, despite his ambition to destroy the Earth.
Runners-up: Abyssal Fleet (Kantai Collection); Slaine Troyard (Aldnoah.Zero 2)
Best Cast of Characters
Musashino Animation Staff
Shirobako takes a look at the process that goes into producing anime, which can’t be done without a large number of people. Everyone at Musashino Animation has their role to play, and these people are an interesting bunch.
Runners-up: Fleet Girls (Kantai Collection); Class 3-E and their teachers (Assassination Classroom)
Cutest Character
Ai Kunogi
One of the key animators in Shirobako. She is extremely shy and can barely utter a sentence. However, she works just as hard as everyone else at Musashino Animation. Ema is able to understand her, even with a lack of speech.
Runners-up: Chiaya Misono (The Rolling Girls); Kirin Morino (Gourmet Girl Graffiti)
Most Badass Character
Nagato
The secretary ship in Kantai Collection is most often seen relaying orders to the other Fleet Girls. However, when she does go into battle, she isn’t afraid to get up close and personal with the enemy to deliver some physical attacks – not bad when there are torpedoes and aerial attacks everywhere.
Runners-up: Jotaro Kujo (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Battle in Egypt); Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)
Best Couple
Kureha Tsubaki & Ginko Yurishiro
Kureha and Ginko certainly had to deal with a lot before reclaiming their lost love, but it was all worth it in the end.
Runners-up: Kitakami & Ooi (Kantai Collection); Ryou Machiko & Kirin Morino (Gourmet Girl Graffiti)
Best Battle
Calling Fortress Raid Boss: Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning
The last battle in Log Horizon Season 2 has Shiroe and his guild teaming up with other key adventurers from Akihabara. During the battle, we get to see Shiroe’s Full-Control Encounter. He is able to direct everyone perfectly, despite not really having fought alongside them before. Taliktan also has three forms, so he doesn’t go down easily.
Runners-up: Nyanta’s train-top battle (Log Horizon Season 2); Jotaro Kujo vs. D’Arby (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Battle in Egypt)
Best Soundtrack
The Rolling Girls
When a soundtrack features covers of a Japanese punk rock band, I am going to enjoy that soundtrack. All the music in The Rolling Girls is a joy to listen to, and I have to mention the concert in episode eight.
Runners-up: Log Horizon Season 2; Yuri Kuma Arashi
Best Finale
Promise Kiss
Yuri Kuma Arashi was building up to that moment between Kureha and Ginko. Kureha remembers everything about her meeting with Ginko, and what she gave up to try and improve Ginko’s life. Ginko finally gets her promise kiss from Kureha, thus allowing the pair of them to be together forever. What exactly they do after that is vague, but it is the kiss that earns Yuri Kuma Arashi this award.
Runners-up: Operation MI (Kantai Collection); Calling Fortress Raid (Log Horizon Season 2)
Best Ending Theme
“STONES” by Kaoru Kubota
Honestly, any ending theme from The Rolling Girls would qualify. However, this one was my particular favourite – particularly as it was the song that played during episode 8’s concert.
Runners-up: “Fubuki” by Shiena Nishizawa (Kantai Collection); “Hello, shooting-star” by moumoon (Assassination Classroom)
Best Anime
Log Horizon Season 2
This season has been a pretty good one, but only one anime can be considered best. In this case, it is Log Horizon Season 2. I love practically everything about it: the characters, the soundtrack, game mechanics being used to build the world and an abundance of scary shiny glasses.
Runners-up: Yuri Kuma Arashi; Shirobako
I really enjoyed this season, with Shirobako being the best surprise – I had high expectations for Log Horizon Season 2 and Yuri Kuma Arashi, and they managed to live up to them.
That’s it for this season, see you at the end of the next one.
Rory Muses 