Fans, and no less anime fans, can’t resist a list.
Every week, the Fandom Post community suggests and votes on a new Top 5 list about something in anime, most often from the current season. It’s our way of highlighting something fun or interesting or strange—or even meaningful—about what’s airing now, or about anime in general.
Week 1 of The Fandom Post Anime List Project, the topic was Best Partnerships of the Summer 2015 Anime Season. Our panel of staff and community members voted on a Top 5 from a long and deserving list of nominations, covering 17 different shows.
Not simply romantic pairings, not only friendships, these are pairings that say something more about the stories they appear in than any of the characters (animate or inanimate) can by themselves. And they say a lot about how a fully revealed partnership can change our opinions of the characters alone.
And now, the list:
5. Nicolas and Worick, Gangsta
Long time companions, one with a gun, one with a sword, in a violent, corrupt town full of…eh, let’s just say they’re the ultimate badass team this season and get it over with. But as far as partnerships go, this one has more meaning than the pile of corpses they leave behind. They’re joined at the hip by a brutal common past that makes this particular partnership as heartbreaking as it is uncomfortable to see unfold.
4. Kiyoshi and Gakuto, Prison School
Kiyoshi wants only to escape to meet a girl on a date. Gakuto wants only a figurine that goes on sale but once every four years. Both were already brothers in arms against the Underground Student Council’s attempts to keep them locked away from the general population of this once all-girls school. But their at first selfish goals cause them to eventually depend on each other in the most surprising, and intimate, ways, sacrificing almost everything for this partnership to succeed.
3. Kurumi and Her Shovel, School Live!
Yuuri has her log. Miki has Kei (through Taromarou). Yuki has Megu-nee. Kurumi? Kurumi has her shovel. Better than an attempt to keep order, a unrequited memory, and a coping mechanism, this partner lets her survival depend on her own two hands and a spade of forged steel. (Thanks Gardening Club! She has knee pads, too. Can’t forget those in the apocalypse.)
2. Erina Nakiri and Hisako Arato, Food Wars!
Erina’s a victim of her near perfect taste, dooming her to perceive the slightest off-flavors as bodily assaults, and being not the least cold and imperious about it, ridiculing all who fail her unique tongue. Her lieutenant in all matters at Toutsuki Culinary Academy, Hisako, was always seen as her simple lackey, somehow coasting through on coattails alone. But their bond goes beyond food, into a redefining statement on how a true partner compensates for her companion’s shortcomings, and even heals her.
1. Renge Miyauchi and Dagashiya (Kaede Kagayama), Non Non Biyori Repeat
The poster child of Non Non Biyori, the wide-eyed, ever-curious six-year-old, Renge, is not lacking in charm. Either from discovering something new and strange about her town, or just being alive, or from poking the egos of her older friends. Everyone seems to care for her, in one way or another. But for Kaede, the 20-something operator of the local dagashiya (penny candy store) from which she gains her nickname from the local kids, who has known Renge since she was a baby, it’s something more; but even she couldn’t say what. This one builds from the first season of Non Non Biyori, from a flashback there to the then teenage Kaede attempting to babysit preternaturally rambunctious Renge, the youngest sister of her best friend. She has a bond she can’t quite explain or admit from that point, and in Repeat, this transforms into a present day soliloquy on Renge, now growing up and becoming independent beyond the immediate care of Dagashiya, who has no siblings of her own. And it’s all about her helping Renge learn to ride her bike without training wheels, all on a long and knee-scratching summer day. Partnerships come in all shapes and sizes, ages and circumstances, but seeing Dagashiya try to hold onto her own with Renge to the moment she knows she has to let her go hit a chord with viewers this season, making it the undisputed number one partnership of Summer 2015.
And that’s the Top 5 Best Partnerships of Summer 2015. Join us next week for the Top 5 Best Places to Visit from Summer 2015. To have a say in what makes it on that list, and the next list after that, check out the forum thread, read up on the rules, and join the Fandom Post Anime List Project today!
