Jan 27
AniTAY’s Top Anime of 2022: Part Three, The Top Ten
Well, here it is: the best of the best. AniTAY’s top ten overall favorite anime of 2022. They are:
10th Place (44 points):
Lycoris Recoil — One first place vote
9th Place (49 points):
Chainsaw Man
8th Place (50 points):
Call of the Night — Two first place votes
7th Place (53 points):
Ranking of Kings — One first place vote
Tied for 5th Place (60 points each):
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners — Four first place votes
My Dress-up Darling — One first place vote
4th Place (73 points):
Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun — One first place vote
3rd Place (77 points):
Mob Psycho 100 III — Two first place votes
2nd Place (94 points):
Spy x Family — Three first place votes
1st Place (96 points):
Bocchi the Rock! — Six first place votes
By the skin of its teeth, the top AniTAY pick for anime of the year 2022, is Bocchi the Rock!
Various musings and final thoughts:
- Yes, this is by far and away the closest ever finish between the first and second place picks for the top overall spot. This couldn’t have only flipped with just one more ballot, someone could’ve given Spy x Family just three more points and it could’ve snatched away first place for itself.
- As for the rest of the top ten, it’s a bit of a wide spread. First place has nearly twice as many points as tenth place, and it’s kind of segmented between the first two 90 pointers, the third and fourth 70 pointers, and then a ten point range between places seven through ten. Another year where one or two more ballots could’ve completely changed the final outcome, which I think speaks towards how 2022 was defined by only a handful of shows really grabbing people’s attention.
- I think this is also why I’d characterize this year's overall poll results as “lumpy”, with part one having close to half nearly half of all the shows (but still very weird as there were no entries that got exactly 3, 5, or 6 points total, hence why it has an uncharacteristically low number of images used as there were so many ties), whereas part three is so far above part two that not only was 30 points not enough to crack it like it has been in the previous few years, but Kaguya season 3 would have needed another nine points to crack the top ten. Compared to 2021, the results really do show that not only where there fewer shows, but only a select few really caught people’s eyes.
- Anime movies also got a bit… not “shafted” per se, but I think the results do reflect how movie theaters still aren’t doing too well with covid still going on. All of the movies listed are found between the eight-to-eleven-point range, despite anime movies continuing to have much better distribution in the 2020s compared to past decades.
- And thus, very much by a “by default” sentiment, I’m calling Jujutsu Kaisen 0 as AniTAY’s anime movie of the year.
- Annoying to me, I can’t give out a “point for place” award, as no show got exactly the number of points to its overall placement (18th place got seventeen points, and 17th place got eighteen points), but I can point out how there was somehow an eight-way tie between the shows that got eight points each, thus giving 2022 the odd honor of the largest tie ever for a year-end poll I conducted.
- Mob Psycho 3 getting third place is very pleasing to see. Sequels can be blown all over the place in these polls so seeing it place that high not only speaks to the overall quality of the show, but also to how devoted the fanbase is in making sure this series gets the credit it deserves. And since this is the last season of Mob, definitely a fitting ending for it.
- Similar sentiment goes to Made in Abyss’s second season, especially considering the looong wait we had to endure for it.
- And credit is deserved for Ranking of Kings, with a respectable finish in spite of being a carryover from 2021, and the second half being received a bit less warmly than the first half.
- And finally, Chainsaw Man… I’m actually a bit surprised this got the top ten, considering this show got such a wide-ranging reception, this being the weakest part of its story, and getting here without a single first place vote. Very interested in seeing where it goes from here in the following years and polls…
- As for my own list, three of my own picks got into the top ten, so… decent year for me.
And there we have it: AniTAY’s top anime of 2022. Best of luck to all of us in 2023, and happy watching!
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