120) May I Ask for One Final Thing?

- End of Fall 2025 anime -

Didn't expect to laugh as hard as I did, although I think I'm good with it ending here. Unless there is more to this story and it goes in a new direction, it pretty much wraps up the main conflict, and that's all I can ask for atm.

119) The Creep Tapes (Season 2)

Not as consistent as S1, but some memorable entries towards the beginning. If this is going to be an annual thing, I'd forgo adding too much backstory. (Got to save something for the inevitable Creep 3...🤞)

*Gift article (Medium)

medium.com/counterarts/...

Still, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't take the time to balance the scales from time to time, so I'll point you to some worthy reading material for those wanting something a little more to digest.
medium.com/counterarts/...

Ignoring the clickbait, if I were to take this at 100% face value, I have to make some assumptions about your standard:
- you are only looking at "mainstream titles"
- you are only looking at Shonen Jump
- you are NOT looking at non-battle shonen
- you haven't read anything from the last 5 - 8 years

118) Skate Story

A visceral joy to behold, a truly bizarre pot of ideas and one of the best game soundtracks of the year, this is the type of experience I most value in between new releases and my current games in queue.

And that's not including any films that might have passed me by that year. So in conclusion, I guess my work isn't done!

OK, thank you all for coming to this random Thursday ramble. Here's a little something if you made it this far.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJZh...

I think I can make an exception now that we're several years after the fact and no one cares about the minutia.

10. Hi Score Girl S2 (free space)

Actually, let's put a pin on this. On this new pass, there were a few titles up for reconsideration: Boogiepop & Others, Aggretsuko S2, Stars Align...

9. Weathering with You

See the Promare entry. I'm slightly cheating with this one because this premiered in North America after the original list was published. Logically, this would be a 2020 title, but knowing how I procrastinate with these lists and it was early enough in the year-

7 - 8. Dororo/Carole & Tuesday

No significant change, although I did flip their original positions. Of the two, I'd say Dororo aged better. At the very least, I'm more likely to revisit it down the road. And this is coming from someone who distinctly remembers binging the last part of C&T!

And before anyone goes, "well season 1 isn't a real ending, so it wouldn't have qualified under my rule of completion at the end of the year," I say "yeah, well Dandadan did the same thing last year. I think I can give NGL the benefit of the doubt."

My original logic being "well, it's not really finished, so I'll put it up next year." What I did not realize at the time was that the show had in fact concluded at the end of 2019 because "Part II" was actually the official Season 2. Hence this is a long overdue addition and correction.

No Guns Life S1, I should explain in detail. It was originally planned to be on the list at the time of the original publication, but I ended up saving it for the following year since it was clearly continuing in "Part 2" (I combined the two in 2020's list).

5 - 6. Radiant/No Guns Life (season 1)

The next major change. Revisiting the entry for Radiant S1, its previous placement didn't make sense compared to what I had written, so this is a small addendum to the original by bumping it up to top 5. (I'm surprised it wasn't there to begin with!)

Everytime I compiled this list, Astra would always land in the top 3, and that has not changed in the time since. Mob II did extremely well each time as well, although it was a close call. It had a lot going for it at the time, so I'll leave this with it was always going to crack top 5 at minimum.

-AOTY material; it's just that with time, I think I prefer Promare a teensy bit more; especially in current day context.

3 - 4. Astra & Mob (no change). Here's a small secret about how I compile these: The top 3 are almost always the frontrunners or the titles I most consider for best of the year.