The Anime Awards happened over the weekend so I thought I would go over some of my favourite winners. If you are looking for something new to watch this will be a great place for a couple recommendations. Also, I have watched all of these with an English dub and think that is a perfectly fine way to watch them.
Spy Family – Best Supporting Character, “Must Protect At All Costs” Character, Best Comedy, Best New Series, Best Ending sequence,
Spy family is the big new show that took the world by storm this year as you can probably tell from all of the awards that it won. It makes sense that it won best new series and best comedy due to the hilarious antics the characters get up to. The show follows twilight a spy that is put on a new mission…to become a father…kind of. In order to gain more intel on a target he must enroll at a private academy. In order to do that he needs a family so he ends up finding a daughter and someone to be his wife. He, of course, can’t let anyone know he’s a spy because that would put the mission in jeopardy. As it turns out he isn’t the only one keeping a secret. The woman pretending to be his wife is secretly an assassin. The daughter he has adopted is secretly a telepath. All of them end up working towards a similar goal all while keeping up their identities secret from each other and well you can expect what kind of fun that might lead to. The daughter Anya won best supporting character and “Must Protect At All Costs” Character. I originally read the Manga that this was based on and it was great to finally see it get adapted. They did a really great job. This is a show definitely worth checking out.
Demon Slayer Entertainment District Arc – Best Animation, Best Action, Best Fantasy, Best Character Design, Best Director
Demon Slayer Entertainment District Arc is the newest season of demon slayer and it was very well received. Throughout the show, we follow Tanjiro on his quest to heal his sister that has been turned into a demon. The only way to do so is to defeat the demon that started it all. The art style is very unique, especially since each character fights with different techniques and they have shown this in very stylized animations which has led it to get best animation. This is a great action fantasy that if you love a great adventure will be worth checking out!
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War -Ultra Romantic- – Best romance
This show will get you laughing. Kaguysama love is war is a romcom…with a heavy emphasis on comedy. We follow the student council president and vice president as they try to win each other over through mind games. They want the other to confess without giving away their true feelings. Hence the title love is war. They are in a constant tug of war as to who will give in first. This leads to many hilarious scenarios as one will set up an elaborate plot to get the other to admit their feelings only to be outwitted…or all plans come falling apart when one of the many other characters tends to interfere. Either way, if you are looking for a good laugh check out Love is War!
Lycoris Recoil – Best Original Anime
Lycoris Recoil won best original anime which means that it is not based on a previous work like a manga or light novel that others tend to be. I love it more for it. A lot of the time anime will be an adaptation of the books that came before it which, although can be great, if you have already read them can leave you unfulfilled sometimes. The freshness that Lycoris Recoil brings is great. We focus on a splinter group of an underground association of high school girls. They take out crime and make sure that society functions perfectly without anyone knowing. I have heard it described as anime john wick by a few people as well. The fight scenes and animations are great and I loved the characters and places this show went so I would definitely recommend checking it out!
Cyberpunk Edgerunners – Anime of the year, Best VA Performance (English)
Cyberpunk edge runners won anime of the year and for good reason. This show utterly broke me when it came out. It is based on the infamous video game cyberpunk 2077 and takes place in the same world. A few years before the events of the game take place. You can find locations and items from the show in the game. If you don’t know anything about the game don’t let that stop you from watching the show. I actually watched the show before I started playing it and it is great! We follow our main character David Martinez as he becomes an edgerunner. A mercenary for hire. As we soon find out night city, the setting for the show, is a very unforgiving place. David soon learns that as friends and family are taken from him. Although he keeps fighting to secure a dream he believes in. Speaking of our protagonist David Martinez is played by Zach Aguilar who has risen to prominence over the last couple of years and did a wonderful job bringing the character to life. He did such a great job he even got the best English performance. This is another one I would definitely recommend checking out.
Once again, these are just some of my thoughts on some of the shows that were featured at the awards. I would highly check them out if you haven’t and if you want a complete list of the awards you can find it below.
-Jared Gomes
