Board 8 > Save My Favourite Anime Series 11: Results [SMFAS]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Final Results:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - 214
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War - 76

Congratulations to Frieren for winning in its first attempt.
The series is coming off as a bit of an instant classic, topping the MAL charts and finally dethroning Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Incidentally, that one was our inaugural champion.
We've come a long since in the world of anime. I kinda feel that 10 years ago, anime in the west was still something of a niche, it was starting to make inroads but still hadn't quite exploded.
These days its noticeable when even in a UK Waterstones, the section for manga is huge compared to the past.
Bit of a boom period/golden age.

Frieren ticked many boxed, a good fantasy story that ditched the Isekai crutch. It gave you both comfy slow paced episodes that endeared you to the characters.
But it also delivered some great action sequences when it needed to.
You had the absolute hottest act in all of Jpop perform the OP and while some think it didn't fit, it didn't hurt to have their association with the show.

But although it lost big a big margin I do want to give Kaguya its props, its now a longtime entrant that has always done well in these contests because it is a good show.
The TV anime ended on a high with season 3 covering some of the manga's best content. While the manga's last few arcs left wuite a few unsatisfied, the anime we got was brilliant and consistently good.
The author's follow up was also another smash hit, looking forward to the live action Amazon movie.

Now where do we go from here?

I think if DBZ had made the finals it would have had a solid shot at winning, but we'll never know.
In the past we started to build a bunch of series that did well but were kinda just waiting their turn to win like Steins;Gate, Monster, Death Note, A Place Further than the Universe, Haruhi.
We've now sort of built a new class of such shows in Kaguya, Haikyuu!, Madoka and yes even Monogatari (though if it doesn't do well after the upcoming seasons then it has nothing left to produce).

We might see the next winner from such a class, or it could be from a new season like Frieren managed.
But do we even have such a hyped show on the horizon? While I'm excited for Blue Box and Sakamoto Days I don't think they'll get quite the same treatment
Dandadan could start hot, if we go the Madhouse route again then Trillion Game is a very exciting proposition, what's been translated of the manga is great.
Story from the Dr Stone/Eyeshield author and art from the Crying Freeman/Sanctuary illustrator.

Of course its possible we'll just see a repeat winner. I've liked all prior winners so far and while its not my preference it has been a while.
So what did you guys think of this edition on the whole and which new shows will you be checking out afterwards?

I've got on my docket at least 7th Time Loop and The Dangers in my Heart

Final Standings:

01. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
02. Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
03. Dragon Ball Z
04. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
05. Monogatari
06. Baccano!
07. Haikyuu!!
08. Beastars
09. 7th Time Loop
10. Mushishi
11. BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!
12. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
13. Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
14. Detective Conan
15. Steins;Gate
16. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
17. The Apothecary Diaries
18. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
19. Monster
20. Kaiji
21. The Dangers in my Heart
22. Odd Taxi
23. Tokyo Pig
24. Yu Yu Hakusho
25. Dragon Ball
26. Dark Gathering
27. A Place Further Than the Universe
28. A Certain Scientific Railgun
29. Xenosaga: The Animation
30. Dennou Coil
31. Mob Psycho 100
32. Aggretsuko
33. Sonic X
34. Cowboy Bebop
35. Yona of the Dawn
36. Dr. Stone
37. Oshi no Ko
38. Spy x Family
39. Delicious in Dungeon
40. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
41. Bocchi the Rock
42. Fate/Zero
43. Psycho-Pass
44. Zombie Land Saga
45. Slayers
46. Made in Abyss
47. Lupin III
48. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
49. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
50. One Piece

Frieren is a good winner, but damn. That was every bit the blowout it appeared like.

Thanks for running the contest, Voltch

Congrats to Frieren! I only started helping after 7th Time Loop went out, but I'm glad it won. For such a recent anime to do this well, I guess it truly has earned that dominant #1 spot on the myanimelist ranking.

Good work and thanks to all Frieren savers!

Thanks for running the contest as always voltch

Monster post incoming so I apologize in advance for it.

Firstly, congrats to the Frieren supporters for a resounding debut victory! I knew it was a contender right from the start and also remember calling it partway through the contest, let me grab a screenshot of my post...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4688f8e5.png

(the log site doesn't like umlauts I guess, but yes I am still down badder than ever for bel, and with Frieren's victory it has locked in a place in my "to watch" anime queue! probably rocketing to the top in fact!!)

As for Kaguya, funny thing is I've never watched it and literally know nothing about it other than the Chika dance and uh, some scenes that I would've swore were from somewhere else if they weren't confirmed to be from the OVA. But I decided I wanted to support it this year, I was a massive shithead on Day 98 three years ago and it bothered me ever since. I was on the fence last year and missed my chance to support it before it was eliminated, so decided to dedicate this year to it.

Goal was to make the finals, anything less would've been a failure for me, and things were really looking pretty rough in the early going of the top 20. But it gradually picked up support and I really cannot thank the users who came onboard for the run enough. Obviously the two users who I always considered the main Kaguya supporters over the years, handsomeboy2012 and TheArkOfTurus; and later savers Inviso, Yankees, Bane and lefty.

Was terrified it'd be another third place finish so when it survived Day 48 I was just so happy and relieved, mission accomplished, was already looking forward to next year and the series I was like 99% sure on supporting then, but after this final I'm back to feeling terrible. I can't help but feel like it was a bad finals match-up and with a different opponent it could and would have gone differently, possibly even victory? So many "could go either way" users all piling up in one way this time.

Is this Kaguya's last hurrah? I don't think I have the heart to run it back or if anybody even wants to see a retry, people probably want to move on to supporting other series. I guess we'll see what happens next year. I'm just sorry it turned out so lopsidedly in the end for the fans of the show, it deserved better.

I've also got updates on tables i put together last year, combined in one so ideally it's not too compressed...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8fee343d.jpg

Really breaking the consistent range of winner percentages of past years, damn. Lots of new records there.

Frieren also breaks the streak on "older debuts beating newer debuts" in past contests, joining Brotherhood and HxH 2011 but the tally is still 8-3 for the older series. We'll see if next year's winner lowers it down to 2/3 or back up to 3/4 for older domination!

Frieren is a fantastic winner, but that tally hurts my soul.

I'm almost certainly moving on to supporting Pluto next contest (if this board exists next year), so I dunno if I'll have many spare saves to throw Kaguya's way, but we'll see.

TheArkOfTurus posted...

I'm almost certainly moving on to supporting Pluto next contest (if this board exists next year), so I dunno if I'll have many spare saves to throw Kaguya's way, but we'll see.

Pluto is a plan that I can get behind.

What an utter domination from Frieren. Don't think I've been more confident in a show winning than I was the further we got in this contest. Frieren was never in any real danger and just kept picking up savers.

My goal is to watch all the past winners and runner ups that I havent seen yet this year. That means the following are on my list (some have been for awhile):

Monogatari
From the New World
Monster
LotGH
A Place Further than the Universe
Kaguya-sama

That's more than I thought! Some of these are gonna be hard too I believe...

It's a very good set. I usually pick a few entrants each year to watch. I'm thinking of 7th Time Loop, Dark Gathering, and Delicious in Dungeon

I was expecting Kaguya to lose just not this badly. As for next year, I'm not sure what I'll be supporting (probably not Conan again), but will definitely keep throwing some saves to Kaguya when it's needed.

If you're wanting to watch Monster, it's on Netflix, which is the first time it's been on a legit streaming channel in years, so I'd do it now.