2020, a wretched year, but watcha gonna do?:

The most important thing that happens every year is the anime that enriched it, so how did this year look?

How did 2020's great franchises stack up against each other and what were they?

1.  Railgun T

2.  Love Live! Nijigasaki + muteki believer ova + song for u ova.
3.  Major 2nd S2

4.  Star Twinkle Precure (ending) and movie (finally translated) + Healin' Good Precure
5.  Boku no Hero Academia S4 (2nd cour)

6.  Nekopara

7.  SAO Alicization (conclusion)

8.  Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

9.  Kami-tachi ni Hirowareta Otoko

10.  Strike Witches s3
11.  Honzuki no Gekokujou (2nd cour) + 14.5 ova

12.  Kamisama ni Natta hi

13.  Puella Magi Madoka Magica - Magia Record S1

14.  BanG Dream S3 + Film Live

15.  Girls und Panzer das Finale ova 2 (finally translated) + Taiyaki War
16.  Hibike! Euphonium: Chikai no Finale (finally translated)

17.  One Piece (Wano arc continued)
18.  Fate/Grand Order Babylonia (2nd cour) + Prisma ova (finally translated)

19.  High School Fleet movie

20.  Chihayafuru S3 (2nd cour)

21.  Shingeki no Kyojin Final (beginning)

22.  Kud Wafter

23.  Granblue Fantasy Djeeta ova's.

24.  Inuyasha Epilogue Chapter embedded within Yashahime ep 1.

There's no hiding it, covid-19 wreaked havoc on this year.  Far less came out than intended.  I think we can safely say this was the worst year in anime since at least 2005.  Nevertheless, a few series pulled through -- Railgun, Love Live! and Major 2nd were excellent.  A few great series debuted, replacing extremely weak sempais.  Hero Academia suddenly got good.  The world is better off and richer for the anime received than we were a year ago.

The Shirobako movie, Grisaia ova, Fate/Heaven's Feel conclusion, etc., came out this year in Japan but will count towards 2021's glory once they're available to English viewers.

On top of that there were plenty of good, worth watching in full, series that added flavor to a rather meager 'great' repast:

Bofuri
Dragon Ball Super Heroes
Hatena Illusion
Ghost in the Shell SAC 2045
Hamefura
Argonavis from BanG Dream

Lapis Re:Lights

Appare Ranman

Burn the Witch

Tonikaku Cawaii

Hanyou no Yashahime

Higurashi Gou

100-man no Inochi

Ochikobore Fruit Tart

Assault Lily Bouquet

Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020)

Majo no Tabitabi

Mewkledreamy

Jujutsu Kaisen

Magatsu Warheit Zuerst

King's Raid

Almost all of whom came out this very fall season.  What an explosive season it has been.  Without the fall season anime would have been close to nonexistent this year, but with it the year is close to average.  Good job!

The next most important issue for the year was the Presidential election.  My main complaint for the year is that Trump should have won but didn't.  After delivering 4 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, the electorate or shady voting machines turned on him and gave him a pink slip in response.  What the hell is that?  Are people so easily manipulable by the media that results don't matter at all?  Whatever happened to judging a tree by its fruits?  Everyone readily admitted in the polls they were better off today than they were four years ago, but somehow Trump is still Hitler.

Luckily Trump's success was enough to stave off a full Democratic party takeover.  I'm still confident we'll win the runoff elections in Georgia.  Once that's confirmed the country might be better off without Trump's loud mouth causing endless needless controversies.  I could do for some peace, quiet, and stability in the country for the next four years.  And please, dear God, don't let Trump run again in 2024.  He was already too old for the job this time around, 4 years from now he'd be Biden 2.0.  Let new, scandle-free, articulate conservative voices emerge in his place.  The Republican party will be the better for it.

The biggest problem with summing up 2020 is we don't know the result of that runoff election.  If it turns out we lost the Senate then hoo boy we are in deep trouble.  If we win that election we might be even better off than before.  The media won't have bad orange man to beat up on anymore, and they'll find that idea vs. idea our party is way more popular.  Take out the punching bag from the equation and we'll win in a landslide.

I don't see much point in a red-state secession.  Republicans are so close to Democrats in policy and values that nothing much would change -- we'd still drift leftwards into full California soon enough.  And what's the use when red states like Texas are set to flip blue in a few years anyway?  What I want is a white nationalist state with dramatically different laws and values, so different that living in it would be like night and day from life as we know it.  A complete break with the past, a revolutionary new model of living, a year 0.  A red state secession, which would preserve nonsense like Christianity, Democracy, Equality, Freedom, hard work, education, blah blah blah, would only take me further away from that goal because it would serve as a release valve and keep people from dreaming of bigger things.  I may as well live in a united America with our current laws at that point and save myself the hassle.

'In Another World with 100 Waifus' is the perfect portrait of what life would look like in that year 0 world of my dreams.  As such, improving upon the book with additional edits and proofreads across the entirety of the year was my most productive activity and my proudest accomplishment this year as well.  Someday, farwhen, I hope it inspires a culture and a movement to actually live the dream, because it's just too attractive to ignore once you've read about it.

Since January of this year, I went over the book 8 more times, correcting and adding things as I read along.  It started with extra scenes for Sakura Haruno, Rin Nohara, Suguha, Nekone, Mumei, Rin Tohsaka, Sae, Rosa, Rinoa and Lyria and ended with a complete child name overhaul that threw out all the weak, inappropriate misfits in exchange for a completely stellar fictional character hall of fame.  The most recent change was only a week ago.  This was a project that occupied the whole year and was fruitful the whole year.  The book is, like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, far superior to what was available the year before.  All 8 additional re-reads were incredibly fun and rewarding, I can only imagine how great it would be to read this fully polished book for the first time.

The biggest setback of the year was my stocks sinking with the onset of Coronavirus, and then never really recovering even when the rest of the market did.  I expect this issue will correct itself next year as skittish investors see sense, but it's been really frustrating in the meantime.  All that money I made in 2019 gone with a poof in 2020.  Surely once the vaccine is freely available the economy will take off again.

I can't say much in favor of live sports this year.  The coronavirus has ruined pretty much all of them.  There was, of course, a fun super bowl and NFL playoff and bowl season before covid struck, but I can't even remember them now, it feels like it was in such a different world.  I guess LSU beat Clemson for the national championship?  Too bad about Burrow, he went on to the NFL and immediately tore his ACL.  It's just been that kind of year.

Manga had a good showing this year, with the introduction of Kanojo mo Kanojo, 100 Kanojo, Kimetsu no Yaiba and others to my hall of fame, and the conclusion to several eagerly anticipated series like 'Omoi, Omoware,' Btooom!, Dimension W, etc.  If you've already viewed the top 200 anime in my rankings, by all means consult my manga hall of fame for what to do next.  It's all value added, apart from whatever the anime adapted.

Books, other than my own, didn't do as well.  The ending to Death March was anticlimactic, Lazy Dungeon Master's continuation barely readable, Sword of Truth an embarrassment, etc.  The high points were Tom Wolfe's books, Grimgar, and Solzhenitsyn's March 1917 Node III Book 2, all early in the year.  At least in 2021 we can look forward to the ending of Outbreak Company.

Visual novels started strong and ended nowhere to be seen.  I've rarely had as much fun as reading Senren * Banka and Summer Pockets back-to-back.  But for most of the year we've had to rely on subpar offerings as strangely half as much was translated as the year before.  Aiyoku no Eustia will make up for the huge gap whenever it comes out, but that will count towards 2021's glory.

Dragon Quest V and Midway were the only non-anime movies I enjoyed this year, and they both technically came out in 2019. . .  Covid destroyed this genre too.

Video games were a godsend this year, with the absolutely spectacular Final Fantasy VII Remake, embellished by Shenmue III and World of Warcraft.  When there's nothing to do, sinking hundreds of hours into bottomless pits is always the way the go.

I predict a strong comeback on all fronts.  Due to the setbacks and delays of 2020, anime, movies, visual novels, sports, video games, everything will come back stronger and more plentiful than before.  Even my stocks.  Manga can't make a 'comeback' because it did brilliantly this year as is, but everything else is going to be much better.  Tokyo 2021 Olympics!  I can't wait for my year delayed fun.  Finally, some new Marvel movies!  Edens Zero!  Bleach!  Utawarerumono!

Imagine a non-hysterical political environment where covid has been cured and 'democracy' has been saved because Biden is in office, the economy humming along splendidly because Republicans maintain the status quo via Congress, all those delayed products hitting the market for our amusement, sports played in front of roaring crowds again, and my music hall of fame listening project ticking along.  If I don't complete it next year then surely in 2022.  2020 didn't add many songs, but it did get me a lot closer to that golden number of 100 for all.  With so little else going on, I was able to make lots of progress on this last remaining grand project.

There's solid cause to be optimistic about the coming year.  Once you hit rock bottom there's nowhere to go but up.  Looking back, I choose to look forward to what's coming next.