Ben’s Picks for the Upcoming Crunchyroll Anime Awards

The Crunchyroll Anime Award nominations will be announced soon, so I wanted to promote my personal top six shows that I think should make the lineup for Best Anime. As always, I’m not even close to having seen every anime that I should, but these are the six that left an impact on me.

Spy x Family: Loid, the uber competent and devoted spy from Westalis, needs a fake family to infiltrate Eden Academy in Ostania to get near an enemy. He ends up getting orphan Anya, a precocious six year old girl who can read minds, and Yor as his wife, who is also a professional assassin for the Ostania government and wants a husband for cover in her day job where being a single woman is looked on with suspicion. While all this sounds very intense this is actually a very funny comedy. Anya is the only one who knows the truth though with her kid mind she has a very simplistic view of the situation of her parents’ jobs. Yor, despite being an assassin, is shown on the show more as being a terrible cook and more desperate to be a good mother (sometimes involving her impressive assassination skills). Anya hides her abilities and tries as best as she can to help out unless she’s distracted by peanuts and overall being the cutest anime character of the year. And Loid is exasperated by some of the chaos a family brings to his life but is slowly letting feelings in.

Split into two parts this year, the second half seemed to be spinning its wheels with little mini arcs still being funny though some of the momentum went out of it. However, the last five episodes of the season were among the show’s best, ending on an incredibly high note for an overall delightful show.

Call of the Night: Ko, a fourteen year old boy who has become dissatisfied with the world, has taken to sleeping all day and walking the streets at night when he runs into vampire Nazuna. Nazuna is amused by him and also thinks his blood tastes delicious. So they end up spending time together with Ko deciding he wants to become a vampire as well. But to do so he has to fall in love with Nazuna when she drinks from him and he has never had those feelings or at least has trouble identifying them.

Besides the fact that this show had some of the best animation of the night sky ever it takes a different tack with the vampire story. They are never depicted as good or bad. We know that their nature is to seduce people to get blood and to make more vampires, but we never see them kill (though we are aware they do if threatened). Instead they are more like people with deep issues that they sometimes hide from others because of embarrassment, worry about hurting people and themselves etc. Nazuna has some interesting issues that are brought up as the show progresses that really move the story. She also has fun teasing Ko with sexual innuendos, yet real intimacy makes her blush.

Ko has a journey about what being a vampire means to him that is not a selfish wish but part of a lifestyle he thinks suits him, and that also opens him up to friendship that has been lacking. Yet he is not the misunderstood loser. He is awkward, sure, but we see that it was through his own inaction he lost some friends he had at school, and as with most things in life, there is more to him than we originally think. This is a complex story about belonging with gorgeous animation and fun characters that should be recognized.

Chainsaw Man: With the title and imagery I thought at first it seemed silly but many people were really anxious about this. I came in open-minded and was incredibly surprised at what I found. Denji, a young man who has been on his own since he was a child, has gotten by with his cute little chainsaw devil Pochita hunting other devils for a mob boss. But when he is betrayed and killed, Pochita merges with him and we get a man with chainsaw for arms, and a head for taking out bad devils who is then recruited by the government’s devil hunting agency.

This actually took on a very different style than its premise implies. Denji is a very simplistic guy who is happy to have a place to stay and doesn’t care for social niceties. Dying isn’t a huge concern for him and he doesn’t care about things in the long term. Makia, his mysterious boss, says if he takes down the gun devil she will be intimate with him and that is all Denji needs to keep hunting. He makes for a different kind of protagonist to follow while still letting us see the dark aspect of this world where devils taking on human fears run rampant and death is sadly common because of it. It is a serious show that can have humorous moments but never lets us forget the stakes, while hinting at darker things to come.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: This show was one of the first anime I started watching as it came out instead of years later on DVD, and it has remained one of my favorites over three years. This season is no different. While still centered on Class President Miyuki and Vice President Kaguya trying to get the other to admit they love the other, it has expanded to the rest of the student council, adding more and more new relationships, both romantic and friendships, to this group of students.

The finale sets up a lot of major changes with Miyuki and Kaguya moving forward in a big way. It also gives a lot of progress for class secretary Yu Ishigami and Auditor Miko Lino are starting their own odd dance that they do not even realize. Yu is becoming less of a loner and really trying to be a part of things and is taking a chance on a relationship. Miko is letting go of some of her desire for order. Their mutual respect/antagonism is played in such a way that they could be something more and, if not, it still is a great dynamic. This show has great characters and storylines, and is still absolutely hilarious. It deserves all the praise it continues to get.

My Dress-Up Darling: Wakana Gojō is a high schooler who is so focused on creating hina dolls that he is very isolated from his classmates until Marin, the most popular girl in school, catches him sewing and begs him to make her cosplay outfit because she is terrible at sewing. Marin is bubbly and fun and tries to be nice to everyone, and loves that she can share her love of anime with Wakana since none of her friends like it and he finds joy in making the outfits, partly just to make Marin happy but also to help him with his art.

These two are adorable together and this little slice of life anime really grabbed me from the get-go. There are no huge arcs or issues, it is making outfits, going to cosplay events, or setting up photoshoots. It is watching these two enjoy each other’s company, and each learning and trying new things, while also getting in hilarious and uncomfortable situations. Marin comes to the door in a robe and underwear but she is more embarrassed that she doesn’t have her contacts so her eyes are different color, much to Wakana’s confusion. Or Wakana, benignly flustered taking Marian’s measurements, yet determined to be professional but still a teenage boy around an attractive woman who seems oblivious to that fact.

The supporting cast is delightfully nice as well. Wakana’s grandpa, who runs a hina doll shop, gets into some misunderstandings while also being incredibly supportive to his grandson. When he sees Wakana is watching a video game with porn like elements he figures he is at that age, not realizing it is to get an idea of an outfit for Marin. He encourages his grandson to do this extra work, always just wanting to support his grandson. Or Sajuna Inui, a professional cosplayer who Marin loves and wants Wakana to make her outfits. Even getting somewhat pushy and primadonna-like at times, you can tell she is passionate about cosplaying and is appreciative of what Wakana and Marin are doing for her.

I love everything about this show: the animation work, the characters, the slice of life aspects building these characters up through normal situations being bigger because of who these people are and how they are growing as a result. Plus the overall building of the relationship between Marin and Wakana is so cute to watch. Even if we never see them as a couple, the fun they have together is infectious to watch and I just want more.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Entertainment District Arc): I caught up with the first season last year while the second season was going on but didn’t catch up with season two until recently. It is even better than season one. Season one does a great job of setting up protagonist Tanjiro Kamado as a teenage boy in a fictional version of Japan around 1912-1920 where people can be turned into demons and demon hunters are trained to try to stop them. With Tanjiro’s family killed except his sister Nezuko (who is now a demon but still a good person), he has trained to stop others from dying and to hopefully find a way to reverse what happened to his sister.

The first season does a great job of setting up all the characters, the stakes, and rules to this world and we get to go on many adventures. In the second season we are settled into one place and dealing with one main villain and introducing us to Tengen Uzui, another demon slayer who gets you invested in him very early on which was quite impressive.

These changes made it so it didn’t feel like a rehash while keeping the show’s strength of demon slayer skills with sword versus different magic each demon has. We pack one big battle into six episodes and the momentum keeps going through all six of them by sharing the feelings of the desperation of our characters fighting these incredible powerful demons. Within that fight we get a really emotional moment between Tanjiro and Nezuko that had me tear up a bit. And a finale where the show always makes certain we know that, no matter what the demons have done, they were humans once but were corrupted beyond their control. It was intense, touching, and emotionally satisfying the whole way through.

So those are my personal choices. Voting begins on Jan 19-25 at Crunchyroll.com, and the awards will be handed out on March 4.