As another year draws to an end, it is time to list what have been my personal highlights out of every anime release made in Australia during 2014. Three of these titles will go on to win either a 
Gold, 
Silver or 
Bronze trophy, whereas the remaining series will still go on as honorable mentions.
As always, there are a couple of rules that I have abided to this year. However there have been a couple of amendments since 2013 to represent what has been an incredibly hectic year for myself and also the need to better reflect what is the ideal Australian Anime Release of 2014. These are:
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Requirements to be Eligible for Australian Anime Release of the Year 2014
- The series MUST have been published in Australia during 2014 by either Madman Entertainment, Siren Visual, Hanabee Entertainment or Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2014.
- Must be a first release in the region, not a re-release or budget priced pack. If it was released in North America or Japan during 2013 and published in Australia during 2014, it would be permissible.
- Although online streaming and simulcasting has risen in Australia during 2014, only physical releases are covered by this award.
- The series must have received at least a final grade of A- in its review. UNLESS a grade of A+ was been awarded to its Storyline / Character Development criteria.
- The final volume/collection/episode in the season MUST have been released during 2014.
- The series must have not won any awards in previous years.
- Due to severe time restraints in the latter half of this year, there will be some titles listed that have yet to receive a full review on The Otaku’s Study. I have however watched all the series listed below, and have given the unreviewed ones a full score (As you would expect to see in any regular review). These titles, alongside others, will be receiving mini graded reviews in the next couple of weeks.
Rule #8 will be exclusive to 2014, as my time should be much freer in 2015. All other rules will likely carry over to 2015 and beyond.
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Nominee #1 – Little Busters! from Hanabee Entertainment
To honour the final year of Kyousuke, the leader of the childhood group of friends dubbed ‘Little Busters’, they aim to fulfill his one last whim – form a baseball team! Except they’re five members short and it is up to Riki Naoe and Kyousuke’s little sister, Rin, to recruit the remaining members.
But recruiting members for their baseball team is not the only mission they’ve been tasked with. Receiving a series of messages delivered through cats, Riki and Rin are on a quest to complete a set of tasks from an unknown source that will apparently uncover a secret to their world. Sounds simple enough, right? Not really, when Riki suffers from narcolepsy and Rin is so crippling shy that talking to anyone outside of the Little Busters group is a tall order.
But the members of Little Busters are nothing but resilient and they will do anything in order to fulfill their dreams, so prepare to batter up!
Nominee #2 – Monster from Siren Visual
What would you do if a child you saved grew up to be a monster?
An ice-cold killer is on the loose, and Dr. Kenzo Tenma is the only one who can stop him!
Tenma, a brilliant neurosurgeon with a promising future, risks his career to save the life of a critically wounded young boy named Johan. When the boy reappears nine years later in the midst of a string of unusual serial murders, Tenma must go on the run from the police who suspect him to be the killer.
Nominee #3 – Good Luck Girl! Binbogami Ga! from Madman Entertainment
Ichiko gets lucky a lot. She’s rich, beautiful, smart, stacked, and better than you at everything. But there’s a reason life always goes her way: she unwittingly steals happiness energy from everyone else! Momiji – a poverty god with a freakishly huge syringe and a bunch of oddball charms – has to take Ichiko’s extra good fortune and return it to her various victims of circumstance.
Like an Adderall-raddled cat-and-mouse chase in a funhouse full of pop culture references, the spirit of shortcomings and her self-absorbed subject stick each other with jabs, gags, bizarre bets, and dirty tricks aplenty. It’s a side-splitting ride, and everyone’s seatbelt is defective. But how many blows to the ego can Ichiko take before she grows a sympathy gland and stops hogging all the happiness?
Nominee #4 – Girls und Panzer from Hanabee Entertainment
Life at Ooarai Academy is never boring when you have tanks at your disposal!
The girls of the Tankery division are off in a series of their own hair-brained adventures. Whether shopping for swimsuits, camping out or learning to do the Ankou Dance they are sure to do it with their own certain brand of flare.
Then there’s a deeper look behind the scenes with a crash course in the operations of the Oorai School Ship, a look in Yukari and Erwin’s reconnaissance against Pravda and a contest that’s sure to showcase Oorai’s many hidden talents.
Nominee #5 – Karneval from Madman Entertainment
Circus is a super-powered security force of entertainers who keep villains off the streets by serving up justice with a side of razzle-dazzle. Despite their best efforts, a sinister organization named Kafka is gaining power throughout the world using grotesque monsters to carry out their plots. When Circus saves a mysterious boy from Kafka’s grasp, the kid gets swept up in the crime-fighting spectacle – but why was Kafka after him in the first place?
Nominee #6 – Gatchaman Crowds from Hanabee Entertainment
Let’s update our world!
GALAX is the latest social app to sweep the world by storm. Make friends, play games and help save the world, there isn’t anything that GALAX can’t do. But this great social app might cause more problems than it solves when people become involved with the CROWDS system, a self-empowering side app to GALAX.
Providing ordinary individuals unprecedented power and led by a half-crazed individual named Katze, who wishes to destroy the world as its creator – trouble is surely afoot. But there’s one more line of defense before it all turns to chaos and they’re known as Gatchaman. Hidden superheroes with unique powers, they will solve all of our problems.
Nominee #7 – Bayonetta: Bloody Fate from Madman Entertainment
Twenty years after her awakening, Bayonetta is still searching for clues that could help unravel the mysteries of her dark past. Aided in her quest by the clandestine weapon smith Rodin and his deadly creations, Bayonetta continues to leave a trail of angel corpses in her wake. Her search for answers leads to encounters with a mysterious – and eerily familiar – little girl, a vengeance-obsessed journalist, and a deadly white-haired beauty that seems to know more about Bayonetta than the witch herself.
Nominee #8 – Attack on Titan from Madman Entertainment
Many years ago, the last remnants of humanity were forced to retreat behind the towering walls of a fortified city to escape the massive, man-eating Titans that roamed the land outside their fortress. Only the heroic members of the Scouting Legion dared to stray beyond the safety of the walls, but even those brave warriors seldom returned alive. Those within the city clung to the illusion of a peaceful existence until the day that dream was shattered, and their slim chance at survival was reduced to one horrifying choice: kill – or be devoured!
Nominee #9 – Robotics;Notes from Madman Entertainment
Kai and Aki dream of building a giant fighting robot based on a super-popular anime, but that’s going to be impossible if they don’t get more members into their school’s Robot Research Club. They’ll take anyone they can talk – or force – into joining them, including an eccentric robotics champion with a secret identity and a l33t video-game designer who’s spent one too many late nights online. Finally, their goal looks like it’s within reach.
But when a sentient AI program tells Kai about mysterious documents hidden on the internet, things start to get strange for everyone. As the club members track down the secret messages, they realize that the information might be far bigger – and more dangerous – than they expected.
Nominee #10 – Watamote from Hanabee Entertainment
Popularity isn’t a choice, it’s a lifestyle.
Tomoko Kuroki’s lack of social life is all due to others incompetence. After all, having clocked up hundreds of hours in dating sim games, Tomoko is well prepared for any situation that life happens to throw her way.
So when it’s three months into Tomoko’s high school life and she hasn’t made a single friend, least of all spoken to anyone, something has to change. Does the blame however lie in others or does Tomoko need to properly look at herself in the mirror?
Nominee #11 – Psycho-Pass from Madman Entertainment
Get ready for Psycho-Pass, a hardboiled, gun-slinging sci-fi series from the creator of Madoka Magica and the studio that brought you Ghost in the Shell.
In the future, even just thinking about a crime is enough to make you guilty – and justice is dispensed from the barrel of a gun. Detectives work in teams made up of Enforcers and Inspectors. Enforcers take out the bad guys, and Inspectors make sure their partners don’t cross the fine line between good and evil. The great equalizer in the war against thugs is the Dominator, a futuristic weapon that can read minds and assess the probability that a citizen will turn criminal. There are no trials. Only Enforcers, Inspectors, and the Dominator. Commit a crime in your mind – and the Dominator will make sure you pay the ultimate price.
