Of the 41 great anime franchises with new translated content in 2015, what was the order of their importance in terms of overall contribution to the joy of anime over the course of this past year? What series made this year special? Who were the real banner carriers of anime for the year? Who actually made anime great this revolution around the sun? #1 is Fairy Tail, with the amazing, beautiful, emotional roller coaster ride that was the tartaros arc. From there on, let's see. . .
1. Fairy Tail - tartaros arc
2. Pretty Cure - Princess Precure + Happiness Charge Precure movies/end of tv series
3. Fate/Stay night: UBW 2nd season + Fate/Kaleid Liner ovas, specials, herz
4. Shirobako 2nd half + two ova's.
5. Owarimonogatari
6. Grisaia no Meikyuu + Rakuen
7. Hibike! Euphonium + ova
8. Working! s3
9. Dragon Ball movie 15 - Fukkatsu no F + Dragon Ball Super episode 1 + Dragon Ball Kai ending
10. To Love-ru Darkness 2nd + ovas
11. Utawaremono s2 1st cour
12. Sailor Moon Crystal 2nd arc
13. Joukamachi no Dandelion
14. One Piece - dressrosa arc (continued)
15. Nanoha Vivid
16. Kyoukai no Rinne
17. The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls
18. Gate s1
19. Sore ga Seiyuu
20. Strike Witches operation victory arrow
21. Naruto - great ninja war arc (continued) + The Last: Naruto the Movie
22. Assassination Classroom
23. Yuru Yuri s3 + ovas
24. Akatsuki no Yona 2nd half + ovas
25. Hello! Kiniro Mosaic
26. Love Live! The School Idol Movie
27. Non Non Biyori Repeat
28. PapaKiki ova
29. Angel Beats ova 2
30. Prince of Tennis ovas
31. Durara shou + ten + shou 4.5 ova
32. Tamayura Sotsugyou Shashin ova 1-2
33. Jojo Stardust Crusaders 2nd half
34. Code Geass Akito ova 3-4
35. Shingeki no Kyojin ovas
36. Amagi Brilliant Park ova
37. Gekkan Shoujo specials
38. GITS Arise + new movie
39. Locodol xmas ova
40. Yama no Susume ova
41. Steins;Gate ova
The Saki ovas, the Girls und Panzer movie, the Princess Precure movie, Tamayura's 3rd movie and the Wake Up, Girls! movies were never translated, so they're impossible to rank. Their value will be carried over to the 2016 competition if they ever do get translated. The same is true for the 2014 Tari Tari special that's never been translated yet. If by some miracle it gets translated in 2016, I'll mention its addition to the anime world then.
These are the 41 gifts anime has given us over the course of the year, in the order of their importance and quality. When looking at these rankings, assume a Lotka curve, where the top ranked is much higher than 2nd place, which is much higher than 3rd, and so on. I think the falloff in massive discrepancy between the franchises listed in quality is probably around #10, where it switches over to a gentler bell-curve like drop from rank to rank.
As you can see, the major contributors are old, well known epic franchises like Fairy Tail, Precure, Fate, and Dragon Ball. It helps to have 50 episodes per year to work with to work your magic. Hibike! Euphonium was the only new franchise that made a major impact in 2015, ranking #7 of the year in quality. Special attention should also be paid to Owarimonogatari, Grisaia and Shirobako, who performed stupendously considering how short the length of their contributions were during this year.
I dearly hope Shirobako gets a sequel. It's been fantastic so far, but it really doesn't feel like an ending when these girls' careers have only just begun. Can't they have many more adventures of note in the future as well? Well, it all depends on the creator, whether they still have more creative ideas for these characters, or whether they're tapped out and have nothing left to say about them. If they're tapped out, I certainly don't want more Shirobako, but if they have any good ideas left, please please show them to the world. Even the Shirobako ova's about non-existent pilot episodes of non-existent anime franchises have been better than almost everything else airing out there.
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