Year’s Biggest Surprise: Log Horizon
Runners-up: The Devil is a Part-Timer!, The Eccentric Family, Meganebu
Again, there was a broad spectrum of opinion as to what show constituted the greatest (pleasant) surprise for the year. Part of the reason might be that we all have different tastes and what might surprise one of us as good might just be accepted without surprise by another. Despite that, there was a clear feeling that our winner did do something to make itself stand apart when I can say for certain I was not the only one who came into Log Horizon thinking “this is just a rip off of Sword Art Online” (a show I have a rather negative opinion of, which did not help Log Horizon’s chances). Instead, many of us were pleasantly surprised by this work from Mamare Touno, who also created last winter’s Maoyu. I was especially impressed by the complex tale of political maneuvering as well as a deep look at the mechanics involved in living inside a world that resembles a massively multiplayer online role playing game. Kate O’Neil, also worried by the surface similarity to SAO, went into the show with caution. “I didn’t have high hopes, we’ve been down this road before too many times. I wanted it to be good, but didn’t expect it to be and was so grateful that it is! It’s the ‘stuck in an MMO’ anime we needed and deserved.”
The other major surprise noted on her list was The Devil is a Part-Timer!, which got Bryan Morton’s top vote for this category. “I was expecting this to be another dumb harem show, but while there are some elements of that, the adventures of Maou and ‘friends’ managed to give a refreshing twist to the idea that turned out to be hugely enjoyable to watch. Demon general Alciel’s role, essentially playing Maou’s ‘wife’ for the series, was one of many highlights.”
For the other runners-up, Kestrel Swift noted that The Eccentric Family “was no doubt something very different and intriguing from the very beginning. [Being] from the author of The Tatami Galaxy, which was similarly questionable when it started but proved to be shockingly brilliant in the end should’ve made me expect more. While it didn’t end up nearly as good, it moved from one of my least favorite new series of its season to probably my favorite in its brief run.” As for Meganebu, Thomas Zoth summed it up briefly as “Studio DEEN adapts a series of audio-drama CDs about hot guys who wear glasses and love it, helmed by a 22 year old first time director… and it’s fantastic. Much of the credit must go to director Soubi Yamamoto who lends the show a distinctive visual style and writer Deco Akao who takes the simple premise of ‘liking glasses’ to its logical, and illogical extremes.”
