I have seven hobby halls of fame in my permaposts: Anime, Manga, Music, Video Games, Visual Novels, TV/Movies and Books. In 2017 lots of good stuff happened in all seven categories, but what about 2018?
All the great anime we were promised for 2018, Index, SAO and Fairy Tail, still haven't been scheduled to actually air at any point this year. With Dragon Ball Super ending, 2018 has zero star power left. As things stand 2017 > 2018 in anime.
I just discussed how bad the manga scene is in 2018, with scanlators basically not scanlating anything. 2017 manga > 2018 manga.
I have added hundreds of great new songs into my music list in 2018, but I added thousands of great songs in 2017, so it's just no contest. 2017 > 2018.
In video games DW9 and SO5 are 2018's champions, but that's still a weaker lineup than Uta 3 and Tales of Berseria. 2017 > 2018.
For visual novels all 2018 gets is Imouto Paradise 2, which is nothing compared to Little Busters!, Majikoi S, Majikoi A, Da Capo III, etc, etc, etc. 2017 > 2018.
TV/Movies for 2018 features a lot of great sporting contests, but fewer exciting movies and tv shows. Now that the marvel and dc tv shows aren't worth watching, and with no Game of Thrones this year, I think I have to go with 2017 > 2018 yet again.
As for books, I had a great time reading the Red Wheel and 200 Years Together by Solzenitsyn. Rokka no Yuusha was also great. But again it doesn't compare to the enormous number of good books I read in 2017, which included Sword Art Online, Ero Manga Sensei and Hai to Gensou no Grimgar. 2017 > 2018.
It's only March, so maybe all of this will turn around. It's too soon to declare 2018 a total loss. But here's the problem, not only has nothing really good happened so far in 2018, nothing is slated or scheduled to happen either. I can't rely on any important anime to come out any time this year, because nothing has been scheduled to happen.
I have no reason to believe manga translations will suddenly spike upwards, it's more likely that they'll actually continue to decrease.
There are no important video games scheduled to release this year. No important visual novels are scheduled for translation, either. Dracu Riot and Tenshin Ranman, maybe, but there's no way they're as good as Da Capo III and Majikoi S/A even if they do come out.
There are no important movies slated for release in 2018. Some Marvel movies might be good, but I doubt they'll be any better than Captain America: Civil War, much less Logan.
There are no important soundtracks coming out that might bolster my music list.
It's not just that 1/4 of 2018 is inferior to all of 2017, you would expect that to be the case. I'm saying that the 1/4 of 2018 that has actually happened plus everything that's scheduled to come out in 2018 is inferior to what actually happened in 2017. Unless something really surprising comes out, that isn't scheduled to appear, 2018 has no chance.
It's the exact reverse of all my predictions, that said 2018 would be way more fun than 2017. All my expectations have been betrayed. And mostly it's because these three damn anime series, SAO, Index and Fairy Tail, simply aren't happening. They promised me they would happen but they aren't happening. Lots of series have already announced they'll be airing this summer or this fall, but SAO, Fairy Tail and Index aren't on those lists. They just have vague promises of '2018' or 'coming soon.' Those promises are worth toilet paper. I've seen series scheduled to 'come out soon' for 10 years and never actually come out -- like Savannah Game, or Girls' Work. If you aren't scheduled for a specific season, you aren't really scheduled. Even when you are scheduled for a specific season, like Full Metal Panic was, it can just be delayed until next year, like they did with Full Metal Panic. It was supposed to come out in the Fall of 2017, but now it's supposedly finally coming out in the spring of 2018. That's six months later than promised.
So if Index promises to come out in the fall of 2018, that means nothing. It could actually take until the spring of 2019 before the first episode actually airs. And right now we don't even have that tenuous promise. We have absolutely no indication that anything will actually happen at all.
If Fairy Tail, Index, or SAO really were coming out in 2018, why wouldn't they have already announced that it would be airing this summer or fall? Why the vague lack of specifics? It already can't possibly happen this spring, that lineup has already been finalized and is only weeks away from airing. So it has to be this summer or this fall. So which is it? If they can't specify such a simple question, doesn't that mean that the series just aren't ready? It's not that they're strategically keeping it secret for some dumbass reason, they just don't have the product. That's the only sensible explanation. They have no product so that's why they can't announce anything.
And even if they do all come out in the nick of time in the fall of 2018, that's still weaksauce. Because all of these series are multi-cour, so if they had come out earlier we would have gotten twice as many episodes of the show or more than if they come out in the fall. 12 episodes in the fall isn't as good as 52 episodes of Fairy Tail, which would have been possible if they had started this winter. A fall 2018 release is already too late. It's a pale shadow of what we could have been enjoying this year, by then most of the benefits already spill over into 2019. It's a bait and switch at that point.
If Index, SAO and Fairy Tail aren't at least scheduled for this summer then 2018 is totally screwed. It won't surpass 2017 in a single aspect. And time is ticking out for such a scheduling to happen. The summer season is only three and a half months away.
2018's loss is 2019's gain, so maybe 2019 will be a great year in anime. But that doesn't help 2018 any. It's just gloom and doom from here on.
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