2018 in Review:

The most important aspect of every year is what went on in the world of anime, because anime is the highest form of art in this world.  How did we do this time around?:

2018 Year in Anime Reviewed:


How did 2018's great franchises stack up against each other and what were they?

1.  Naruto Kai
2.  SAO Alternative GGO + SAO Alicization (beginning)
3.  Fairy Tail (Avatar arc + Alvarez arc beginning)
4.  Index S3 (1st half)
5.  Ryuuou no Oshigoto!
6.  Death March
7.  Nanoha Reflection (finally translated)
8.  No Game No Life Zero (finally translated)
9.  Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory
10.  Yama no Susume S3
11.  Major 2nd
12.  Shingeki no Kyojin S3 1st cour + Lost Girls ova 2
13.  Girls und Panzer das Finale ova 1 (finally translated)
14.  Dragon Ball Super (Greater Universe tournament end)
15.  FGO Moonlight + 3rei specials  + Snowflake Oath Special + Heaven's Feel movie 1 (finally translated)
16.  Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card hen
17.  One Piece (Big Mam arc continued)
18.  UQ Holder ova's 2-3
19.  Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru S2 final episode.
20.  Precure Super Stars
21.  Liz to Aoi Tori
22.  Wake up, Girls! Shin Shou final episode.
23.  Utawarerumono kuon ova
24.  Yu Yu Hakusho ova

Naruto Kai revolutionized the Naruto anime, getting rid of all the filler and streamlining the series to its proper manga-based length.  SAO, Fairy Tail and Index were brilliant.  Ryuuou and Death March were high-ranking new inclusions to my hall of fame.  Full Metal Panic! was nostalgic.  No Game No Life Zero and Nanoha Reflection were splendid despite being just standalone movies.  Yama no Susume's maidens were as angelic as ever.  There were very few newly ranked series this year, and very few series overall, but I find myself strangely content with this year.  Honestly, I think it was better than 2017.

Nanoha Detonation, Zokuowarimonogatari and Dragon Ball Super: Broly came out in 2018 but will hopefully be translated in 2019 and thus will count towards next year's glory. 

In addition to the great anime that came out this year, a goodly supply of good anime, which were watchable in full, also contributed their part to this year's quality:

Slow Start
Sora yori mo Tooi Basho
Yuru Camp
Uma Musume Pretty Derby
Gurazeni
Fate/Last Encore
Steins;Gate 0
Bolt
Basilisk ~ Oka ninpo cho ~
Emiya-san chi no kyou no gohan
Kira Kira Pretty Cure a la mode
Hugtto! Pretty Cure
Hyakuren Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria
Angolmois
Harukana Receive
Goblin Slayer
Tensei shitara Slime Datta ken
Ken en Ken: Aoki Kagayaki

Added to that were the series I rewatched this year because sometimes the new stuff just isn't enough:

Naruto Scarlet Spring, Mitsuki ep
Bake-(etc)-monogatari
Eromanga Sensei
Sailor Moon Crystal S3
Rokka no Yuusha
No Game no Life Zero
Kyoukai no Rinne
Granblue Fantasy the Animation
Dragon Ball Super
High School Fleet
Futari Ecchi
Ryuuou no Oshigoto!
Fate/Apocrypha
BanG Dream S1
Suka Suka
Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory
Princess Principal
Imouto Sae Ireba Ii
Index Seasons 1-2 and movie
Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry
SAO Ordinal Scale
Mahoutsukai Precure
Kemono Friends
Cross Game
Love Live! Sunshine! S2
UQ Holder
Inuyasha

That's right, I even rewatched series that had only just come out earlier this year.  They were good enough that it was already worthwhile.

Even all this anime put together was not enough to occupy the whole year, however.  That's where books, music, manga, movies, televised sports, Magic: The Gathering, visual novels and video games came in.

I read an extraordinary amount of books this year, ranging from Ann Coulter to Solzenitsyn to Jeff Shaara to Alice Tale to Hai to Gensou no Grimgar to SAO to Hataraku Maou-sama to GATE to Rokka no Yuusha to Eromanga Sensei to Suka Suka to Spice/Parchment and Wolf to Death March to Lazy Dungeon Master to Index NT to No Game No Life to Gaara Hiden to Uchi no Musume.

Sadly, I'm all caught up on every translated light novel series, so I won't be able to read anything like this much next year.  But it was fun while it lasted.

Music became my focus early in the year and maintained that position throughout.  I searched through the discographies of all my favorite composers, including even Beethoven, and found 1000 new songs worthy of inclusion in my music hall of fame.  The music came from all over, both the east and the west, from Sarah Brightman to Motoi Sakuraba.  I just wanted more good music to listen to and I stopped at nothing to get it.

It's a good thing too, because I found so many remixes and bad songs I had to cut, that otherwise my hall of fame would have been shrinking rapidly all year.  It's amazing how many remixes were still left after I thought I had purged them all years ago.  I wonder how many more there are I've yet to find?  It feels like an endless struggle.  I had to cut 'Data Screen' and 'Short Fanfare 10' for violating the remix clause just today.

Between the cuts of older songs and the inclusion of so many new songs, this year's music ended up becoming nearly 20% of the whole.  I've lived a long time, so 20% of all the best music I've ever enjoyed being discovered in a single year is pretty impressive.

It will take many years to fully digest this incursion of new music and get used to all the new tunes alongside the old.  I've guaranteed myself auditory heaven for the foreseeable future.

When it came to manga, naturally I enjoyed the 75 well established series as they came out, like One Piece and Hunter x Hunter, but I also ambitiously added in many new series, which were adaptions of isekai light novels, like Shikaku Mon and Honzuki no Gekokujo.  This giant influx of new manga made the medium relevant again.  2017 saw the nadir of the 'old' manga system, so 2018's isekai revival really saved the day.  It also helped that old manga authors started new series, like Hiro Mashima's Edens Zero and Takahiro's Hinowa ga Yuku!  These authors are as good as ever so having them back working again is a godsend.

It was a special year for Fairy Tail manga -- we finally got to read the conclusions of Fairy Tail Gaiden and Blue Mistral, while also getting to read the new spinoffs of 100 Years Quest, City Hero and Happy no Daiboken.  When I explained that Fairy Tail wasn't over years ago, it was certainly a prophetic look into what happened this year.  There still looks to be plenty of Fairy Tail to come, too.

The good movies of 2018 were all due to Disney -- starting with Thor: Ragnarok, then Infinity Wars, then Ant-Man and the Wasp, and finally The Incredibles 2, Disney produced yet another excellent and memorable lineup.  Solo was a disappointment, but oh well.  The others more than made up for it.

Supposedly there are other movie making companies out there, but none of them were of any consequence.  A complete goose egg.

No television shows were any good this year, but there were plenty of televised sports to take their place.  2018 is one of those lucky years that receives both an Olympics and a World Cup.  Both featured fantastic moments and soaring beauty.  There was also a very competitive college football national championship game, a very competitive Super Bowl, competitive NFL playoff matches, a fun regular college football season, March Madness, etc, etc.

If anyone came out of this year unhappy with what tv had to offer they had to be living under a rock.  It really doesn't get any better than this.  Even the conclusion to Game of Thrones coming next year pales in comparison.  (On that note, I also rewatched the latest season of Game of Thrones this year in preparation for the conclusion.)

Magic: The Gathering was tons of fun this year as I tried out tons of new decks built out of discarded cards I couldn't figure out how to win with.  Some of these decks worked out -- most of them didn't.  But it was a creative and explorative experience throughout.

I played many visual novels this year -- Imouto Paradise 2, Hatsukoi 1/1, Tsui Yuri and Sabbat of the Witch, but they were only decent at best.  I severely missed the prior diet of Da Capo, Majikoi and Little Busters!  There's always next year.

Video games went much better.  Dynasty Warriors 9 was addictive fun.  I spent hundreds of hours in the open world of ancient China, usually just riding around and exploring the edges of the map.  It was so fun to just do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, while also getting to see the most complete rendition of the 3 Kingdoms period ever.  The new characters were all great.

Though Star Ocean 5 came out years ago, I only had time to play it this year, and it turned out to be a huge hit.  It might even have been better than Star Ocean 4, and I played that game into the ground.  More hundreds of hours were wiled away here.

Lastly I got all my WoW characters to max level at the end of Legion, one of my favorite WoW expansions ever.  I probably will never match that feat again, as the new expansion just isn't very compelling.  But it was certainly fun while Legion lasted.

I had genuinely believed that Trump's great reign over the past two years would convince Americans to turn nationalist and support him, but the power of the press's lies turned out to be greater than the reality of economic growth.  This was a severe disappointment, though it was already predictable given what happened to Roy Moore.  The saving grace is that we kept the Senate, which means we'll keep the Supreme Court for many decades to come.  The midterms were bad, but at least we averted a catastrophe.

Lastly, I thoroughly reviewed my old blog posts and found many hidden gems which I promoted to permaposts on the sidebar.  Reading over them, I'm constantly reminded of what a genius I am.  In addition to all the greatest hits over the past decade, I added ten more of my fiction novels for the world to enjoy, improved my halls of fame in a great variety of ways, carefully researched and promoted the top 100 2d waifus ever made for everyone, not just me to get to know and love, and made a few striking political insights worthy of permapost status over the year, like 'A season for all things' and 'Eagerly Awaited Inventions.'

Add it all together, the fictional novels, the golden oldies and the new insights, and this was my most productive year in blogging.  When you combine the people who have viewed my articles on this website with those who have viewed mirrored versions on other websites, I've reached over a million people over the years.  I couldn't be prouder of 'The Road Less Traveled' and the people it has reached.