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Best Anime of 2019

Twwk

With 2020 just beginning, we want to look back at a fantastic year in anime, one that featured a number of very strong series and a few that may eventually turn into classics. We asked you to determine which of them was the very best anime series of 2019. While we normally throw our polls up for social media followers to vote on, this time it was solely up to our beloved blog readers, though we did ask our subscribers to help us whittle down the group. Here were the ten you got to vote on:

Going into the voting, which lasted through the month of December, I had my eyes on these three series in particular as those that I thought might win:

Demon Slayer (The Popular Favorite)

Demon Slayer has already been crowned the top anime of 2019 by various outlets and many individuals, especially on AniTwitter. And it’s hard to argue against that—it’s the most popular new series of 2019, and one whose animation (Ufotable delivers again) has been adored by almost every viewer. The story, too, is highly regarded for being hard-hitting, fast-moving, and unrelenting. While it shares the typical shounen genre conventions, they’ve rarely seemed so cutting edge. It feels almost unstoppable.

Vinland Saga (The Critical Darling)

Coming on strong during the last half of 2020 was Vinland Saga. This anime blogger was astounded to read this sentiment over and over on social media: “Yeah, Demon Slayer is good…but have you seen Vinland Saga?” The Viking anime deftly mixed strong action scenes and at times graphic, medieval violence with a strong narrative—rarely has historical fiction in anime been this fun to watch. Perhaps there are enough viewers of this lesser known show to put it over the top in the race for best anime.

Fruits Basket (The Dark Horse)

Can a romantic comedy—and one based on a manga over a decade old—survive against anime with sensibilities of today? I believe the answer is yes! Fruits Basket intended to take one of the most beloved manga of all-time and improve upon its adaptation, and so far, it has—strong animation, excellent voice acting (in Japanese and English), and production that doesn’t stray from the emotional and tear-jerking original material. Maybe among all the slicing and dicing, this story of love and grace might just slip ahead.

So…did any of those three end up as anime of the year? My predictions were strong—each received over 10% of the vote. But to find out whether one of my predictions won, or another of the nominees, you’ll need to hit the link below!

And the winner is… >

Best Anime of 2019: The Promised Neverland

A surprise? Maybe it shouldn’t be! The Promised Neverland was similar to Demon Slayer in these regards: It was heavily promoted, highly watched, and well-regarded for its story and production. But it had an even stronger following that Demon Slayer in the run-up to the series; it was also very well-adapted—the direction was spot-on, exciting when necessary, spooky when needed, and always unsettling. It also produced one of the most shocking scenes of the year (the climax of the initial episode), three heroes for the ages, and crossed over and bent a number of different genres.

The Promised Neverland might also be our favorite anime of the year, at least if we’re judging by the number of posts we wrote about it. Thathilomgirl dug deep, writing about each episode from a manga reader’s perspective, while Twwk jumped in each week as a newbie. Each of us found the show exciting and well-made—and it’s apparent that many, many of you did as well.

That’s a wrap! Thank you to all who voted this year—it was certainly a tough choice. A number of the other nominees that I didn’t mention were well-deserving, too, feeding the opinion that 2019 was a wonderful year in anime. Here’s hoping 2020 is full of great shows as well!

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