It’s once again time to tie up
with the awards season – most specifically, the recently finished Oscars – with
this own blog’s set of random, informal awards.
For this edition, since I made
separate lists for last year’s anime instead
of lumping them
with TV shows in general, I also made separate awards for
them.
So now, for the awards…
Best Movie Hero: Ethan Hunt (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)
A big reason why the character
won the award is because Tom Cruise had been awesome in playing the role.
Best TV Hero: Jack Ryan (Jack Ryan)
John Krasinski’s incarnation
perfectly encapsulates the characteristics that made the fictional CIA analyst
interesting.
Best Anime Hero: Rimuru Tempest (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime)
The main
character of the
best anime of fall season 2018 has proven to be an
outstanding, endearingly benevolent isekai hero.
And even though his arc inhibits some
qualities of the typical isekai power fantasy, it’s nevertheless by and large
packaged uniquely.
Best Movie
Heroine: Riley North (Peppermint)
Seeing Jennifer
Garner do action again made me forget of any other female movie characters that
I might have found remarkable (seriously).
Best TV Heroine: Allura
(Voltron: Legendary Defender)
Gotta give her
props for her powerful sacrifice.
Best Anime Heroine: Violet
Evergarden (Violet Evergarden)
The best of Best Girls in a year overflowing
with great Best Girls.
Best Movie
Antihero: Joe (You Were Never Really Here)
In a year that
had Deadpool and Venom on the big screen, the antihero that stood out for me is
this brutal, psychologically troubled hired gun who rescues trafficked girls
for a living.
Best TV Antihero: Barry (Barry)
A contract killer who begins
dreaming of becoming an actor makes for some great black comedy.
Best Anime Antihero: Devilman (Devilman Crybaby)
Demonic powers and constant
sniveling are traits you don’t usually attribute to heroes.
But that’s who the MC of
Devilman Crybaby is. Just one of the many reasons why to watch that
brilliant anime.
Best Movie Antiheroine: The
Operator (The Night Comes for Us)
I badly want a spin-off movie
centered on this character.
Best TV Antiheroine: Bean (Disenchantment)
The alcoholic, foolhardy princess
of Dreamland possesses a lot of undesirable traits which make her endearingly
unique and funny.
Best Anime
Antiheroine: Ayano Hanesaki (Hanebado!)
Almost all sports anime main
protagonists adhere to familiar and established character archetypes.
Hanesaki started off being seemingly one of
them.
Then her surprising turn into
becoming nigh sociopathic proved that she isn’t.
Best Movie Villain: Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War)
Infinity War was basically the Thanos movie.
(It’s also worth mentioning that the CGI work
to render Josh Brolin into the Mad Titan is strikingly smooth.)
Best TV Villain: Wilson Fisk a.k.a. Kingpin (Daredevil)
Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk
was already terrific during season one, but he lost out to a fellow Marvel
Netflix villain, David Tennant’s Killgrave,
back then.
But now, nobody ever came close of
challenging him for his season three outing for this award.
Best Anime Villain: Kenny
Ackerman (Attack on Titan)
Director Ton is the anime villain
that amused me the most in 2018, but the astounding badassery of Kenny can’t be
overlooked.
Best Movie
Villainess: Emily Nelson (A Simple Favor)
Oops.
This is a spoiler to those who haven’t
watched the film yet.
But, yeah, Blake
Lively’s
Gone Girl knockoff was the
most compelling female antagonist I encountered from 2018 cinema.
Best TV Villainess: Nadia Ali (Bodyguard)
For almost throughout the
show, David Budd – as well as we, the audience – thought that Nadia was just a helpless,
cowed Moslem wife coerced into becoming a suicide bomber by her terrorist
husband.
Then, in a shocking plot twist
in the end, it was revealed that she was the mastermind all along!
Her quick shift from a scared, fragile personality
into an unremorseful, hubristic one was chilling to behold.
Anjli Mohindra deserves to be praised for pulling
it off with her amazing acting.
Best Anime Villainess: Himiko
Toga (My Hero Academia)
I almost gave this to
SSSS.Gridman’s Akane Shinjo, but I
remembered Toga had made a bigger impression on me earlier in the year.
Best Movie Duo:
Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga and Dr. Don Shirley (Green Book)
Screw the
haters. I’m happy a legitimate, optimistic,
enjoyable film like Green Book won
the Oscar, and not just some other propaganda piece pretending to be art. Anyway, a huge part of what made the movie
great is the endearing “buddy” dynamic of its two protagonists, and the
thoughtful character journey they undergo.
Best TV Duo: Colleen
Wing and Misty Knight (Luke Cage and Iron Fist)
The scenes they
shared in the season twos of
Luke Cage
and
Iron Fist, brief they might be,
should have made the case for the necessity of a
Daughters of the Dragon show.
Hopefully, Marvel’s former Netflix shows get revived in another
platform, and in that very same platform, a
Daughters
of the Dragon show gets made.
Best Anime Duo:
Tori Muhyo and Jiro “Roji” Kusano Muhyo (Muhyo
& Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation)
To be honest,
they only won this award because there weren’t any other true, clear-cut anime
duo in 2018 to consider.
Still, Muhyo
and Roji are a good albeit derivative duo.
Best Movie
Couple: Jackson and Ally (A Star Is Born)
Best TV Couple:
Lance and Allura (Voltron: Legendary
Defender)
The final
season saw the two finally becoming a couple.
That’s why the finale was simply heartbreaking.
Best Anime
Couple: Romio Inuzuka and Juliet Persia (Boarding
School Juliet)
Bunny Girl Senpai’s Sakuta and Mai were
also a terrific, adorable couple.
But I
give the slight edge to this excellent, amusing anime reinvention of the Shakespearean couple.
Most Adorable
Movie Character: Paddington (Paddington 2)
The live-action
Pooh in
Christopher Robin rivals
Paddington on being winsomely adorable.
Paddington only wins here because he was on a superior film.
Most Adorable
TV Character: Giant Beebo (Legends of
Tomorrow)
The Tickle Me
Elmo-inspired toy was an integral element on making season three
fantastic.
And it manifesting as a
giant, living avatar of good in the finale was pure genius.
Most Adorable
Anime Character: Franchouchou (Zombie
Land Saga)
This may be
cheating a bit since I’m giving the award to a group instead of a single
character.
But I really did find each
member adorable in her own way. Also, they are definitely more adorable as a
collective.
But if I’m ever forced to pick
just one to hand the award to, I guess I’ll have to go with #0, the “legendary”
Tae Yamada.
Best Movie
Ensemble: The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy (Avengers: Infinity War)
I hesitated a
bit of giving it to them since they never got to assemble together as a complete group
in the same place (this is probably reserved to happen in this year’s
Endgame).
Nevertheless, all these comic book characters
packed in a single movie is still a meaningful, tremendous cinematic
occurrence.
Best TV
Ensemble: Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Adrian Alucard Tepes (Castlevania)
Best Anime
Ensemble: Franchouchou (Zombie Land Saga)
Them
again.
Because this idol group is plain
awesome!
Worst Movie I
Saw: A Wrinkle in Time
Worst TV Show I
Saw: Supergirl
I finally
dropped it during the current season.
Couldn’t
stand anymore how it was primarily focused on pushing its Leftist
agendas.
Worst Anime I
Saw: Angels of Death
Best Movie
Smile: Venom (Venom)
Best TV Smile: Dawn Granger (Titans)
Also, easily the hottest TV character of 2018
Best Anime
Smile: Anzu (Hinamatsuri)
One would need
to watch
the show to understand fully the emotional might of this ugly cry/smile moment.
Best Movie
Fight Scene: Ito vs. Arian (The Night
Comes for Us)
Best TV Fight
Scene: Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard vs. Vampires (Castlevania)
Best Anime
Fight Scene: Naruto and Sasuke vs. Momoshiki (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
Best Dance: Almost Every Franchouchou Performance (Zombie Land
Saga)
Seriously,
their choreography rivals Momoland in entertainment value.
Best “So Bad,
It’s Good” Movie: The Predator
Best Song:
“Shallow” (A Star Is Born)
A powerful love
song that unintentionally articulates
a universal existential yearning.
Best Musical
Number: “Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life” (Teen Titans Go! to the Movies)
A hilarious lampooning/deconstruction of clichéd 80’s movie anthems.
Best Cameo:
Brad Pitt as Vanisher (Deadpool 2)
Yep.
Better than Darth Maul’s in
Solo.
Best Movie Plot
Twist: Abi and the Happy Sunshine Camp Are Just Burn’s Schizophrenia-Induced
Fantasy (My Perfect You)
I actually
called it while watching.
But that didn’t
negate the fact that it was a brilliant twist that totally worked beautifully in
the context of its storytelling.
Best TV Plot
Twist: Nadia Ali Is a Cold-Hearted Terrorist Mastermind (Bodyguard)
See “Best TV
Villainess” above.
Best Movie
Poster: A Simple Favor
Seeing Jennifer
Garner do action again made me forget of any other female movie characters that
I might have found remarkable (seriously).
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