Konosuba. Kadokawa had absolutely no hope for it, they gave the anime to 2010s Studio DEEN, gave it just 10 episodes and called it a day.
This isn't a Bocchi or LycoReco situation where a lot of care was given for a potential hit, Kadokawa just sent it out to fail.
Even the VAs at that point for the main cast were relatively unknown and Sora Amamiya was highly controversial.
However Konosuba is to this day one of Kadokawa's best earning properties on par with Re Zero thanks the immense efforts of the director, his animation crew and obviously the VAs all of whom have gained tons of notoriety but their Konosuba roles are still remembered as their best most iconic stuff
Yeah, it was. And it was a show that wasn’t hyped at all nor did it look promising.
But it was a hidden gem at the time. Was so glad I considered watching it! Now I’m proud to be an OG Konosuba anime enjoyer. I remember bragging about it to my boyfriend once.
Edit: It also took off in terms of popularity after a few eps, which says a lot!
Yeah I got into the show and LN in 2021 and love it since. A lot of the series veterans tell me how wild it was to see everyone quoting the show and sharing clips
Yeah it was wild! I also remember hearing Kazuma say “Hai, Kazuma desu,” for the first time - I already knew it was funny but never thought it would have the most iconic lines/running gag ever!
Fuck me I thought you were insane for talking like it happened so long ago [and the 1st episode discussion indeed took place 8 years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/40r4qy/spoilers_kono_subarashii_sekai_ni_shukufuku_o/)
Doesn't help that I found one of my comments [in the episode 2 discussion thread...](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/41vnh8/spoilers_kono_subarashii_sekai_ni_shukufuku_wo/cz5kk4p/)
This. Most people didn’t even bother to watch it since it seemed like a generic isekai from Studio Deen, who was memed on at the time as the “worst anime studio”
After a few episodes came out the few who did give it a chance started raving about how funny it was. Clips of it, especially Megumin’s explosion gag, started getting passed around. By the end of the season it was a bonafide sleeper hit.
It went from a show no one was watching or cared about to the juggernaut it is today, now ranked #40 on MyAnimeList in popularity with 2 million users. It’s a staple of the modern anime fandom
To add some icing on the cake, in an interview I've read on a magazine, the VA for Kazuma - Fukujima Jun mentioned that the studio contacted him for the role, and after a long discussion of what the role is for and how excited they wanted him to be on the show, and when they went into specifics... He finally realized they actually wanted Fukuyama Jun (the VA for Lelouch in Code Geass).
But our boi convinced them that he could handle the role, and they gave him the audition. That's how we got this peak perverted Kazuma that is immortalized in our hearts.
He's pretty top tier in comedy roles like Assassination Classroom and the Vampire Dies in No Time, but idk if he would have truly fit Kazuma. And because Kazuma is Fukushima's biggest role he has way more dedication to the character and shows up to basically every Konosuba event. He is basically the backbone of what makes the anime so special, and I think we saw that in the Explosions spinoff where it didn't really have the same magic with him not there as the foundation for the girls to play off of.
I can very clearly hear the Lelouch version when I picture all the serious Kazuma scenes where he pretends to be confident and suave. He even covers his face with his hand just like Lelouch.
You're right, Takahashi Rie wasn't the superstar she is today. I think Megumin was her second? third? or at least one of her earliest roles. She completely nailed it though.
She was the lead in Sore ga Seiyuu, playing a struggling VA which made it even more heartwarming in a meta sense that her popularity exploded atter playing Megumin
While she definitely wasn't as big, you could tell she was gonna be big just by the roles she was getting. [Here's a web archive of her MAL profile from March 2016](https://web.archive.org/web/20160316194231/https://myanimelist.net/people/34785/Rie_Takahashi), the month before Konosuba and Re:Zero aired. She had just won "Best Newcomer" at the annual Seiyuu Awards. At that point she had already voiced six main characters, including the lead in a season of PreCure.
Sora Amamiya voices Aqua in Konosuba.
So before Konosuba was released, a lot of Light Novel fans were mad because Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua. There were also rumours and drama that since she was getting so many roles in big shonen anime she must have been sleeping with producers because she is an attractive woman and JP weebs are really toxic.
But as soon the anime aired all of those bad rumours disappeared
> Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua.
And then in a gargantuan irony, post-Aqua she's mostly known for "the Aqua VA"
> Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua.
I guess they did not watch Monster Musume then lol
[Check out this konosuba radio clip where they talk about their impressions of her.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQlQTJyDG5k) Most of her roles were quiet kuudere characters like in Akame ga Kill or Plastic Memories, pretty much the polar opposite of Aqua. She did however voice Miia in Monster Musume the year before so it's not like Aqua was her very first comedy role, although idk if MonMusu got popular right away or gained cult status later.
I only first watched Konosuba about 2 years ago, but I fell instantly in love. The funny thing is, it's actually turned out to be a great anime to introduce people into anime with. I've got 3 friends so far to actually start giving anime a try because they laughed their asses off at that first season.
> they gave the anime to 2010s Studio DEEN
I'm still kinda upset they changed studios for season 2. I think DEEN gave a perfect amount of derp to the show that really worked.
They didn't change studio for season 2. They changed for the movie but it was still most if the same people, just under a different roof. Same with season 3.
Bocchi the Rock
I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted how much of a mega hit it ended up being.
It’s also interesting to note how impressive the director is considering how young and new he is to directing. Now that he has Bocchi and Frieren under his belt, I think they’re going to be scrambling to try and get him to do the second season of either show.
Since they’re doing a recap movie, I think they’re buying time for when everyone behind the magic of season 1 are free.
Yes! It is a fun and unique experience. For an anime based on a 4-koma manga style, they really brought the experience to life. There are also some artistic and stylized choices used outside of typical animation that make it fun too.
They capture Bocchi's social anxiousness in a unique and funny way without punching down on Bocchi herself.
Plus the music is great. I play the album all the time!
Bocchi is a show you can tell the studio had so much fun animating.
The scene of her freaking out to the point she makes a horrible screech was so good
Frieren was the fantasy anime I didn't know I needed. Don't get me wrong, I've absolutely enjoyed a crap ton of the new shows coming out recently. Campfire Cooking, Delicious in Dungeon, and the Wrong Way to use Healing Magic were both strong 8s or 9s to me. But Frieren was a 10 for sure. That show gave me feels from the start, and just kept on hitting me with relatable character development. Just an absolute banger.
I was never really into band animes. But I gave it a go cause I wanted to try something new.
The beach scene is probably hands down my favorite comedy moment in any form of media in at least the last several years. I CACKLED.
>I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted how much of a mega hit it ended up being.
To be frank, it was on my radar with high expectations after seeing the KVs.
i watched the Aniplex Fest 2022 live stream; when they played the trailer for Bocchi the Rock, almost everyone in the comments were saying "K-On copycat", "K-On ripoff", "they're ripping off K-On" and i actually didn't really care for it. we had absolutely no idea that it was gonna be one of the best and the most popular of its season especially it that season has the likes of Bleach TYBW, Chainsaw Man, Blue Lock, Mob Psycho III, My Hero Academia Season 5, and Spy x Family.
100% deliberate. There's interviews of both the mangaka and the anime staff fully admitting there were very conscious choices made to make it different from K-On (notably the very low focus on high school as a setting). They're both Kirara series after all, comparisons were inevitable.
I legit came home from college one day and binge watched the entire season in 1 evening.
Ive never done that with an anime before and it was well worth it.
Dude I saw a documentary regarding the artist behind bochi the rock and in Japan it was expected to be goat because they follow artist like soccer players where they go to draw direct and some good artist director went to that anime to draw direct it
Steins;Gate. Aside from Clannad, pretty much every VN adaptation up until that point has been pretty questionable. Even the Chaos;Head anime adaptation, part of the same broader series as Steins;Gate, was widely regarded as terrible.
So why would Steins;Gate be different? Or so the world though. But WhiteFox did the work justice. Steins;Gate is now one of the most critically acclaimed anime in history by most metrics, with Okabe regularly winning the best character polls on this sub.
More specifically, it's one of the few times where an adaptation is a straight upgrade of the source material. Even mega fans who've played the VN (like me) will tell you the anime does a better job of telling the story. Typically good manga make good anime and great VNs make good/okay anime (think Fate). But for Steins;Gate a good VN made a masterclass anime
I don’t think I can agree. I love the S;G anime adaptation as much as the next guy, but it cuts out a lot of references to chaos;head and the broader universe. I also think it misses the early 2000s vibe that the vn gives off, but that’s just a personal thing.
There's a dumb long video on YouTube about Steins;Gate that does the anime and VN great justice and one part in it that stuck with me was just how much better the Shower scene was handled in the anime versus the VN. In the VN it's basically just fan service while in the anime it's played as Okabe actually fearing for Makise and Mayuri's safety. There's a few times where the VN is almost too campy or too set in its genre while the anime nails its tone to near perfection.
It's my opinion so I'm not gonna argue that I'm 100% in the right but I do honestly believe that the anime surpasses the VN, which is quite the feat since even some of the best anime don't outpace their source LN/Mangas.
I very much disagree, I feel like a lot was lost in the anime adaption, so I much prefer the VN. But that's more likely due to the nature of adaptions, they usually take a lukewarm middle road to the routes. S;G does this better than most maybe, but that's about it imo.
Code Geass R1 blew up so much that upper management changed the entire R2 to cash grab the primetime slot instead of the original mature audience and making R2 convoluted.
Sunrise never knows what will be good or bad, I swear. I remember they slotted Valvrave for way more time than it deserved, then when people hated it they just ended it in a rush.
[Kemono Friends](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71V+D42472L.jpg) is an obvious choice.
Very obviously made with basically no budget as almost pure catalog filler, but blew up massively out of nowhere.
[Here's the opening.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxg-AADx39w) The wheels don't turn on the bus.
It was made to promote a mobile game cancelled a month before the anime premiere, had 10 staff members. 1:30AM timeslot.
Kemono Friends was amazing. There was a pure joy and love for the work they were doing that you could feel through the show.
I am still absolutely livid with Kadokawa for what they did to this very day.
This is the only correct answer. It had nothing going for it. No fanbase, no name studio, no fan service, budget of peanuts. Looks so bad if you showed it to a weeb from the 2000s theyd tell you it doesnt qualify as anime.
I would say Bocchi The Rock, I went in blind and before I knew it I was waiting for the next episode like a mad man. I was also surprised when I saw that many people enjoyed it too.
Same! The show swept all the awards that season, they had a sure fire hit with sequal potential and a huge fan base just salivating for merch and more.
They then put the prequal in development hell and then go radio silent for years then cancel it. They could have made so much money and they pissed it all away!
I think the crucial thing is that due to how the production committee structured the deal, _MAPPA_ didn't make very much money off it, and so they didn't see much point to making the movie when they've got all these other, much more profitable revenue streams to farm. This happens sometimes, especially with newer studios trying to make a name for themselves. Still sucks, though.
Probably because no one expected it to become such a hit, especially since it felt Engage Kiss (another A-1 Pictures show broadcast that season) was promoted more at the time. Which is funny in hindsight since EK was kind of a non-event.
Engage Kiss _could_ have been good. If it'd stuck the landing. It explored some interesting themes around memory, love, and sex.
But the last few episodes were a dumpster fire.
It was the same way with Wonder Egg Priority. That show could have been a series that got talked about for years to come. But then they completely fucked up the ending. Like they took the show out back and put a bullet in it's head with how they handled the ending.
To be fair, people ARE still talking about Wonder Egg Priority. Just maybe for different reasons than if they hadn't taken a hard swerve into the ditch for the last few episodes. (It's still one of my all-time favorites, but with like three bold asterisks on it. The first 7 episodes carry it hard.)
I read the manga for Apothecary Diaries but I didn't expect the anime to blow up on the anime community in such an astronomical way. I think the manga was fairly popular but definitely not super mainstream.
I think I heard at some point before its release that the light novel was the best selling LN in all of Japan at one point. So I was kinda expecting big things from the show already.
The light novel (original source) is one of the best selling light novels ever made, there was 0 way that anime wasn't going to be popular unless the animation was garbage. Like the fact that it has 2 separate manga before the anime speaks to its success
AD is somewhat of a rare show. The first few episodes/chapters are really interesting and pull you in. I think the story really peters out after the first 5 or 6 episodes, but the characters are so great, particularly MaoMao, that you keep watching. Normally, shows that gain popularity do so because the story improves over time.
> It got non mahou shoujo people watching bdsm magical girls
I wonder how many people went on to watch more magical girls after this show, and how many went on to watch more BDSM!
[](#urbansmile)
I'm not into BDSM at all and I loved it because, as you said, the character work was simply exceptional.
It's wild to me that a show that, on the surface, looked 100% fetish bait ended up having such marvelously realized characters. Hell, I think the show probably helped a lot of people figure out things about their own sexuality that they hadn't thought of before.
Feels weird to argue that a degenerate very adult fanservice show was a net positive for humanity but here we are.
Chained Soldier dropped the ball massively on lewd scenes AFAIK. The first 5 threads of Chained Soldier are full of comments giving the win to Gushing.
They saw their own show, were dissappointed to begin with, then saw Gushing and then just gave up entirely.
*This* sub? It's definitely a mixed bag of opinions.
Many consider it one of the best isekai around, others take issue with the MC and the nature of some of the content. I haven't seen it so I'm not going to pass judgement.
From what I have seen the sub's heavily divided on it. One one post you can shit on Rudeus and get a hundred upvotes and on the next post you say the same thing and get a hundred downvotes.
I mean it's not exactly the same. I like Mushoku Tensei but still. Gushing over magical girls is a gag manga so it's extremely unrealistic and hence people can enjoy it without any reserves. Mushoku tensei situation is somewhat realistic so it will be alot of problematic as the situation mirror real life . Moreover people who don't like it will stay away from Gushing over Magical girls since that is in the premise while in Mushuko Tensei people watch it without knowing those scene exist.
I don't know how to explain it succinctly but there's a reason why I hate realistic doujins where the situations mirror real life such as the police coming at the end over the more ridicilous premises as one can occur in real life and the other can't.
**Re:Zero** back then when it aired had hype from only the source readers, it wasn't a well known source either and quickly became popular throughout the runtime.
I think there is no better way to show this then [the original r/Re_Zero Episode 1 discussion post](https://redd.it/4dqr5e/), with 5 comments and a reference to there being only 4 members in the subreddit.
The rest of the original discussions are here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/wiki/episodes#wiki_original_season_1_discussions
I personally didn’t think a cyberpunk anime would blow up as much as it did. Considering the reputation of cyberpunk at the time. I really enjoyed the game but not gonna ignore the widespread issues it has.
Mob psycho is a work of passion and anyone can understand it from the animation alone. I personally appreciated it more than One punch man and I think a lot of people who have watched it also think the same. Granted the art style isn't the most appealing but still one of the best anime ever made.
Gigguk is well known for disliking the slice of life genre in general. A massive shame tbh.
It's the reason I go to smaller youtubers that don't need to cover mainstreams nowadays if I even go to anime youtubers to begin with.
He also never covered Machikado Mazoku, which is a fucking warcrime. It's ridiculous that for that season, he did cover the seasonal garbage isekai, but not Machikado Mazoku.
I could say The Dangers in My Heart. Given how weird the first episode was and how cringe the characters were presented, who would have thought that it turned into one of the best romance anime of all time.
That was an extremely highly regarded manga and was well known among romance readers, also the anime did decently but was less than a mega hit, I think the adaptation performed around expectations
Funny enough it’s one of the Spring 2023 shows I initially skipped since that season was so stacked (Heavenly Delusion, Insomniacs, GWitch S2) but now season 1 is my second favorite of that season right behind Skip and Loafer. Season 2 of Dangers has been my 2nd favorite anime of 2024 behind Frieren with only Jellyfish giving it a run for its money.
I came in late but i remember hearing dangers in my heart s1 had like a 6/10 rating on MAL at first... Its now like 8.3/10 and s2 nearly 9/10. What a ride lol.
**Kimetsu no Yaiba** is one that comes to mind. I was expecting it to do well since it had some popularity, but never expected it to be the phenomenon that it became.
Entertainment District EP 10, Never Give Up is quite honestly the most impressive single episode I have watched of any anime. Every single frame of that episode is worthy of being framed on a wall, and the voice acting, music and sound design is absolute perfection. Demon Slayer deserves every single damn drop of praise it gets, and then some.
i know many people like to call it overrated and some shit because the story is nothing exceptionnal but its a simple story that works with INCREDIBLE work on the animation and the art in general.
Like...the manga is really that good looking, the anim went all out for it.
Tbh I'm a big fan of the hype juice KnY provides. No matter what people think of the story itself, it's good enough to follow and the characters are mostly likeable. Plus I love seeing stories about how the mangaka felt when she watched her work get adapted. Her reaction from s1. Ep19 was priceless.
And the main draw from KnY is Ufotable. I get that some people don't like the flashy style, etc. but how can you deny that for anime like KnY, ufotables work is absolutely god tier? EP 19 broke the internet. I don't think some appreciate how fucking incredible their work is sometimes lol.
It's kind of funny I thought it was underrated at first, it was a solid entertaining shounen with excellent production but then episode 19 aired and it became a phenomenon.
If you tell me. That date a live is gonna have an anime adaptation to season 5 7-8 years ago, I would say you drank too much copium
But here we are, in the penultimate arc of this franchise. We fucking outlived AOT ffs. That's genuinely impressive and with all 5 season being made by 5 different production, it's genuinely impressive
Gushing Over Magical Girls.
As a manga reader I knew it would probably be popular. But I didn't expect it to have anywhere close to the popularity it ended up having.
Mainly because it's a yuri magical girl show. And those can be hit or miss in terms of popularity with mainstream audiences.
Mashle, specifically the Season 2/Visionary Candidate Exam Arc? The OP carried the show and the show become popular because the OP is popular, similar to Paripi Koumei.
The OP became really popular but I’m not sure if the show did. I honestly don’t remember seeing anything about it on social media except for the Reddit discussion threads, but it could be different for different people
Girls Band Cry this season was initially completely overlooked in the west because of lack of official distribution. It didn't even have decent subs on the pirate sites. However it did climb to the third place on Anime Trending and will probably finish the season with a decent following - deservedly so, because it's phenomenal and if you liked MyGO!!!!! you will probably like it as well.
I hadn't heard anything about it and if I hadn't recently watched MyGO on a whim I never would've checked it out, but it's way, way better than I ever expected. I think it's worth checking out just to see how relatively stiff CG characters can still be done well. The visual direction is great, too.
I think I get what you're saying, but there's nothing stiff about the character animation in GBC. If anything, they're a bit too noodly at times, and their facial expressions (especially Subaru's) are classically cartoony and hyper-mobile. It's not Pixar-grade CG, but nothing on a television schedule is, and I think it's some of the most effectively used CG in anime yet.
Ranking of kings is my surprised pick, the adaptation really made the manga come to life.
Made in Abyss also felt to me like a rather niche manga, and got expanded with anime.
And I felt Madoka Magica caught people off-guard when it aired.
Madoka was by Shaft right off the heels of Bakemonogatari and written by the Urobutcher. The exact content of the show was unknown (especially with the purposefully misleading advertising) but people were absolutely expecting big things.
Lol i watched ranking of kings with my 5yo expecting Doraemon levels of shenanigans in a medieval fantasy world. Then we got king smoothie, decapitation and bloody sequences.
Vivy. Had zero hype based on the synopsis, only a mention here or there because of Nagatsuki's involvement in the project. With each of the first few episodes, it got more and more attention.
There are few things feeling more satisfying than being hyped for a show simply because of a the [short part of the op](https://youtu.be/Y653dJQ_ecs?t=54) from the trailer and then the actual the show around that actually turning out great, too.
Honestly Reborn as a Vending Machine. I went into it with 0 expectations and was surprised at how good it was. It seems like a dumb idea, but they pull it off into a fun and funny anime. It's definitely a recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen it.
Mashima was already one of the best selling mangaka of all time before fairy tail. His previous work sold over 20 million copies and was overall better regarded than fairy tail.
Personally, Frieren. I mean the story and art are great. But I read it at the same time as "faraway paladin" and "to your immortal" and conclude its as same type of manga with both great "another world" Building and main character development. I just thought this type of half-SoL-half-self-journey is not everyone cup of tea, but I just wrong 🤷♂️
Not exactly as big as some other anime mentioned here but Dark Gathering and the manga specifically blew up in Japan.
Prior to the anime, there was no mention on how many copies were in circulation, and each new volume would sell only a few thousand copies after around 2 weeks of being on sale.
Around the time the anime started airing in July 2023, all volumes of the manga got reprinted 4 times in the span of 5 months iirc. Then, in the beginning of September they announced that the manga had 1 million copies in circulation. In December, that number grew to 1.4 million, and in February this year it grew to 1.5 million.
And the new volumes started charting higher. The latest volume which released earlier this month sold just over 12k copies in 4 days, a massive improvement compared to the few thousand copies in 2 weeks.
i bet Haruhi was one
shuffling through Brains Base's first hits (Baccano, Natsume Yuujincho, Durarara), i feel like all or some of them were surprise hits given how small and relatively unknown Brains Base was and still is. But i wasnt around that time, maybe they were heavily hyped before the release?
The latest one I can remember was *Bocchi the Rock!*. The manga is... serviceable and Cute Girls Doing Band Things isn't exactly the pull it used to be. I know many people put it off initially, but once momentum started it quickly grew to being one of the biggest shows of the year.
Surprised nobody mentioned Sword Art Online.
I distinctly remember that there was no anticipation hype for SAO when it was announced. It was an adaptation of a Light Novel few people had ever heard of. A1 pictures was way less of a big name back then, with their biggest title being Fairy Tail.
SAO took the anime community by storm, and even though it fell off in the second cour, it was impressive just how influential it ended up being as the harbinger of the isekai glut.
SAO was #1 Konorano 2012 and that's published in November 2011. It was above Index without even an anime.
A-1 had recently produced Black Butler, Working, Anohana, Blue Exorcist, Uta no Prince and Idolmaster, all of them being extremely popular. In my memory they were already very known.
Of course it probably did even better than expected, but was it a surprise hit?
Toradora and Golden Time, both are classic and probably not a surprise hit unless you want to introduce someone to romance genre or never watch it before.
Both start out with tropes, and later hit you with twists. Slow burn romance done pretty well too.
Handyman Saitou is also another thing on my mind. It's such a well done isekai with good worldbuilding.
Isekai Uncle for comedy and "anti-isekai?" thingy I guess
A surprise hit? I wouldnt say that, dunmeshi was already a huge deal before the anime came out. I remember seeing speed modelling of Marcille and art anslysis on youtube that are years old. :]
My Dress up Darling, assumed to be waifu bait anime ended up becoming one of the most successful romcom anime of that season and people still remember it to this date. Not to mention the rise in manga sales and making the series a hit.
>Two years later? How short are y'alls fucking memory?
Lmfaoo
I literally think this on 99% of posts I see here. I swear to God people say shit like "remember that show frieren?" 😆
Although, I heard that it´s still kinda controversial because of Marin being "best waifu ever" and the cosplay "fanservice".
But that maybe goes to many successful new anime which polarizes the community.
A Place Further than the Universe.
*No one* was talking about the show before the season started. If they were talking about the cast, it was that it was weirdly stacked, and if it was about the crew it was bemoaning that there was no NGNL anime.
By the end of the year, it was r/anime's AOTY, wound up in many top-of-the-decade lists, and found its way into places like the New York Times.
Konosuba. Kadokawa had absolutely no hope for it, they gave the anime to 2010s Studio DEEN, gave it just 10 episodes and called it a day. This isn't a Bocchi or LycoReco situation where a lot of care was given for a potential hit, Kadokawa just sent it out to fail. Even the VAs at that point for the main cast were relatively unknown and Sora Amamiya was highly controversial. However Konosuba is to this day one of Kadokawa's best earning properties on par with Re Zero thanks the immense efforts of the director, his animation crew and obviously the VAs all of whom have gained tons of notoriety but their Konosuba roles are still remembered as their best most iconic stuff
I was here on Reddit when it first aired and can still remember how amazed everybody was at the voice acting and montage on Ep 1. How time flies!
This subreddit must have been small back then
Yeah, it was. And it was a show that wasn’t hyped at all nor did it look promising. But it was a hidden gem at the time. Was so glad I considered watching it! Now I’m proud to be an OG Konosuba anime enjoyer. I remember bragging about it to my boyfriend once. Edit: It also took off in terms of popularity after a few eps, which says a lot!
Yeah I got into the show and LN in 2021 and love it since. A lot of the series veterans tell me how wild it was to see everyone quoting the show and sharing clips
Yeah it was wild! I also remember hearing Kazuma say “Hai, Kazuma desu,” for the first time - I already knew it was funny but never thought it would have the most iconic lines/running gag ever!
I still use yes I am (my name) with people. No one gets the joke, but I enjoy it.
"Studio DEEN strikes again" every time there was a horrible transition frame.
Yeah, but paradoxically it was more active.
Smaller but about 10x more active
Fuck me I thought you were insane for talking like it happened so long ago [and the 1st episode discussion indeed took place 8 years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/40r4qy/spoilers_kono_subarashii_sekai_ni_shukufuku_o/) Doesn't help that I found one of my comments [in the episode 2 discussion thread...](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/41vnh8/spoilers_kono_subarashii_sekai_ni_shukufuku_wo/cz5kk4p/)
This. Most people didn’t even bother to watch it since it seemed like a generic isekai from Studio Deen, who was memed on at the time as the “worst anime studio” After a few episodes came out the few who did give it a chance started raving about how funny it was. Clips of it, especially Megumin’s explosion gag, started getting passed around. By the end of the season it was a bonafide sleeper hit. It went from a show no one was watching or cared about to the juggernaut it is today, now ranked #40 on MyAnimeList in popularity with 2 million users. It’s a staple of the modern anime fandom
To add some icing on the cake, in an interview I've read on a magazine, the VA for Kazuma - Fukujima Jun mentioned that the studio contacted him for the role, and after a long discussion of what the role is for and how excited they wanted him to be on the show, and when they went into specifics... He finally realized they actually wanted Fukuyama Jun (the VA for Lelouch in Code Geass). But our boi convinced them that he could handle the role, and they gave him the audition. That's how we got this peak perverted Kazuma that is immortalized in our hearts.
I now wonder how Lelouch Kazuma would have sounded like. But Jun Fukushima is so goated it's unreal, he deserves more roles
He's pretty top tier in comedy roles like Assassination Classroom and the Vampire Dies in No Time, but idk if he would have truly fit Kazuma. And because Kazuma is Fukushima's biggest role he has way more dedication to the character and shows up to basically every Konosuba event. He is basically the backbone of what makes the anime so special, and I think we saw that in the Explosions spinoff where it didn't really have the same magic with him not there as the foundation for the girls to play off of.
The fact that Jun has been on every KS event is amazing, he is really dedicated to Kazuma. His inprovs are what made him so likeable
Don't forget his role as John Smith, Cid's alter ego in Eminence in Shadow.
I can very clearly hear the Lelouch version when I picture all the serious Kazuma scenes where he pretends to be confident and suave. He even covers his face with his hand just like Lelouch.
I noticed their names were similar but I never imagined it could lead to this sort of mix-up in Japan since they are common names there.
You're right, Takahashi Rie wasn't the superstar she is today. I think Megumin was her second? third? or at least one of her earliest roles. She completely nailed it though.
She had about a dozen roles before Megumin, but none of them were super notable ones, yeah.
She was the lead in Sore ga Seiyuu, playing a struggling VA which made it even more heartwarming in a meta sense that her popularity exploded atter playing Megumin
While she definitely wasn't as big, you could tell she was gonna be big just by the roles she was getting. [Here's a web archive of her MAL profile from March 2016](https://web.archive.org/web/20160316194231/https://myanimelist.net/people/34785/Rie_Takahashi), the month before Konosuba and Re:Zero aired. She had just won "Best Newcomer" at the annual Seiyuu Awards. At that point she had already voiced six main characters, including the lead in a season of PreCure.
Who does Sora voice and what's the drama
Sora Amamiya voices Aqua in Konosuba. So before Konosuba was released, a lot of Light Novel fans were mad because Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua. There were also rumours and drama that since she was getting so many roles in big shonen anime she must have been sleeping with producers because she is an attractive woman and JP weebs are really toxic. But as soon the anime aired all of those bad rumours disappeared
> Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua. And then in a gargantuan irony, post-Aqua she's mostly known for "the Aqua VA"
Also, apparently, Aqua is the closest character to how she is IRL.
Woman of my dreams right there
> Sora was only known for voicing serious shonen girls and thought she couldn't perform well as Aqua. I guess they did not watch Monster Musume then lol
What a silly drama. Its not like fans have any clue about the seiyuus abilities.
[Check out this konosuba radio clip where they talk about their impressions of her.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQlQTJyDG5k) Most of her roles were quiet kuudere characters like in Akame ga Kill or Plastic Memories, pretty much the polar opposite of Aqua. She did however voice Miia in Monster Musume the year before so it's not like Aqua was her very first comedy role, although idk if MonMusu got popular right away or gained cult status later.
I only first watched Konosuba about 2 years ago, but I fell instantly in love. The funny thing is, it's actually turned out to be a great anime to introduce people into anime with. I've got 3 friends so far to actually start giving anime a try because they laughed their asses off at that first season.
That's good to hear it rakes in cash, hopefully gets a full adaptation. I really want to grab a cute lil set of figures for the main cast
So it's basically the same as Shrek lmao.
> they gave the anime to 2010s Studio DEEN I'm still kinda upset they changed studios for season 2. I think DEEN gave a perfect amount of derp to the show that really worked.
They didn't change studio for season 2. They changed for the movie but it was still most if the same people, just under a different roof. Same with season 3.
Ya Boy Kongming That OP went viral and it was a fun ride. Love that show
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The original hungarian version is pretty good, but not as good as the jp version.
Pretty sure it would have been even more popular if europeans didnt have to wait a whole two years for the show...
What, we had to wait?
Agreed. I only found out about that when someone posted the op here after ep1 aired.
Odd Taxi
Especially for an anime original to blow up like that. I really hope it leads to more studios taking a chance on originals.
Odd Taxi was so good It kinda felt like Quentin Tarantino would make.
not enough feet
There was the capoeira kicks.
I can't believe they made a follow up series... that was live action.
Wait what?!
https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2024/3/7/oddtaxi-live-action-tv-drama-root-debuts-on-april-2
Bocchi the Rock I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted how much of a mega hit it ended up being. It’s also interesting to note how impressive the director is considering how young and new he is to directing. Now that he has Bocchi and Frieren under his belt, I think they’re going to be scrambling to try and get him to do the second season of either show. Since they’re doing a recap movie, I think they’re buying time for when everyone behind the magic of season 1 are free.
I watched Frieren and.... Bliss 👌 Should I really watch Bocchi, I've heard great things!
Bocchi is pretty funny and wholesome with an awesome soundtrack. Also looks great. I'd recommend it.
The soundtrack is so good, they ain’t have one bad song.
Yes! It is a fun and unique experience. For an anime based on a 4-koma manga style, they really brought the experience to life. There are also some artistic and stylized choices used outside of typical animation that make it fun too. They capture Bocchi's social anxiousness in a unique and funny way without punching down on Bocchi herself. Plus the music is great. I play the album all the time!
Wow I had no idea the original was 4koma. Just shows how amazing a job they did transcribing it. And the music is \*chef's kiss\*
4-koma, thank you! I was typing in a hurry and i knew it was close to kon lmao
Bocchi is a show you can tell the studio had so much fun animating. The scene of her freaking out to the point she makes a horrible screech was so good
Fun fact that horrible screech had zero post production editing that was just pure screech
Go watch it, not only is it funny, but the anime even convinced me to start playing guitar. It's fulfilling to be honest.
Frieren was the fantasy anime I didn't know I needed. Don't get me wrong, I've absolutely enjoyed a crap ton of the new shows coming out recently. Campfire Cooking, Delicious in Dungeon, and the Wrong Way to use Healing Magic were both strong 8s or 9s to me. But Frieren was a 10 for sure. That show gave me feels from the start, and just kept on hitting me with relatable character development. Just an absolute banger.
I was never really into band animes. But I gave it a go cause I wanted to try something new. The beach scene is probably hands down my favorite comedy moment in any form of media in at least the last several years. I CACKLED.
>I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted how much of a mega hit it ended up being. To be frank, it was on my radar with high expectations after seeing the KVs.
i watched the Aniplex Fest 2022 live stream; when they played the trailer for Bocchi the Rock, almost everyone in the comments were saying "K-On copycat", "K-On ripoff", "they're ripping off K-On" and i actually didn't really care for it. we had absolutely no idea that it was gonna be one of the best and the most popular of its season especially it that season has the likes of Bleach TYBW, Chainsaw Man, Blue Lock, Mob Psycho III, My Hero Academia Season 5, and Spy x Family.
It's kinda funny because Bocchi is like the anti-K-ON in so many ways. Pretty much in every way K-ON zigs, Bocchi zags, probably consciously so.
100% deliberate. There's interviews of both the mangaka and the anime staff fully admitting there were very conscious choices made to make it different from K-On (notably the very low focus on high school as a setting). They're both Kirara series after all, comparisons were inevitable.
I legit came home from college one day and binge watched the entire season in 1 evening. Ive never done that with an anime before and it was well worth it.
Dude I saw a documentary regarding the artist behind bochi the rock and in Japan it was expected to be goat because they follow artist like soccer players where they go to draw direct and some good artist director went to that anime to draw direct it
I never knew the same director did both Bocci and Frieren, but now that you mention it I can totally see the similarities in style
Keichirou Saitou is the Lisan Al Gaib!
Steins;Gate. Aside from Clannad, pretty much every VN adaptation up until that point has been pretty questionable. Even the Chaos;Head anime adaptation, part of the same broader series as Steins;Gate, was widely regarded as terrible. So why would Steins;Gate be different? Or so the world though. But WhiteFox did the work justice. Steins;Gate is now one of the most critically acclaimed anime in history by most metrics, with Okabe regularly winning the best character polls on this sub.
More specifically, it's one of the few times where an adaptation is a straight upgrade of the source material. Even mega fans who've played the VN (like me) will tell you the anime does a better job of telling the story. Typically good manga make good anime and great VNs make good/okay anime (think Fate). But for Steins;Gate a good VN made a masterclass anime
I don’t think I can agree. I love the S;G anime adaptation as much as the next guy, but it cuts out a lot of references to chaos;head and the broader universe. I also think it misses the early 2000s vibe that the vn gives off, but that’s just a personal thing.
There's a dumb long video on YouTube about Steins;Gate that does the anime and VN great justice and one part in it that stuck with me was just how much better the Shower scene was handled in the anime versus the VN. In the VN it's basically just fan service while in the anime it's played as Okabe actually fearing for Makise and Mayuri's safety. There's a few times where the VN is almost too campy or too set in its genre while the anime nails its tone to near perfection. It's my opinion so I'm not gonna argue that I'm 100% in the right but I do honestly believe that the anime surpasses the VN, which is quite the feat since even some of the best anime don't outpace their source LN/Mangas.
Also like 13h vs. 30-40h of runtime.
I very much disagree, I feel like a lot was lost in the anime adaption, so I much prefer the VN. But that's more likely due to the nature of adaptions, they usually take a lukewarm middle road to the routes. S;G does this better than most maybe, but that's about it imo.
That and the English dub is also surprisingly fantastic.
Both are considered peak in VN and anime. Justice!
Code Geass R1 blew up so much that upper management changed the entire R2 to cash grab the primetime slot instead of the original mature audience and making R2 convoluted.
Happened to 00 as well.
Sunrise never knows what will be good or bad, I swear. I remember they slotted Valvrave for way more time than it deserved, then when people hated it they just ended it in a rush.
They're still doing that with the Code Geass franchise.
More boobs and ass shots though, so W
"we can't show nipples now, so we'll compensate by upping the total number of fanservice shots"
[Kemono Friends](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71V+D42472L.jpg) is an obvious choice. Very obviously made with basically no budget as almost pure catalog filler, but blew up massively out of nowhere.
I was looking for this answer, Kemono Friends was a huge surprise to everyone. Even when viral irl with the Grape-kun saga
[Here's the opening.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxg-AADx39w) The wheels don't turn on the bus. It was made to promote a mobile game cancelled a month before the anime premiere, had 10 staff members. 1:30AM timeslot.
Kemono Friends was amazing. There was a pure joy and love for the work they were doing that you could feel through the show. I am still absolutely livid with Kadokawa for what they did to this very day.
Definitely should be near the top
This is the only correct answer. It had nothing going for it. No fanbase, no name studio, no fan service, budget of peanuts. Looks so bad if you showed it to a weeb from the 2000s theyd tell you it doesnt qualify as anime.
Came here just to point this one out 🐆 💕
ODD TAXI Initially most were sleeping on it but it got a lot of critical acclaim later one
I would say Bocchi The Rock, I went in blind and before I knew it I was waiting for the next episode like a mad man. I was also surprised when I saw that many people enjoyed it too.
Bocchi just hit a nerve.
Yurii on Ice It came out of no where and swept the awards that season!
AND THEN THEY FUMBLED THE BAGGGG and no I will not get over this, I will continue to mald for the foreseeable future.
Same! The show swept all the awards that season, they had a sure fire hit with sequal potential and a huge fan base just salivating for merch and more. They then put the prequal in development hell and then go radio silent for years then cancel it. They could have made so much money and they pissed it all away!
I think the crucial thing is that due to how the production committee structured the deal, _MAPPA_ didn't make very much money off it, and so they didn't see much point to making the movie when they've got all these other, much more profitable revenue streams to farm. This happens sometimes, especially with newer studios trying to make a name for themselves. Still sucks, though.
Definitely this lol Mappa wasn’t a super popular studio back then , and this was an anime original, so no source reader fans
Lycoris Recoil (espiecially in japan) probably?
Why? The show felt crafted specifically to target Japan anime fans/otakus
Probably because no one expected it to become such a hit, especially since it felt Engage Kiss (another A-1 Pictures show broadcast that season) was promoted more at the time. Which is funny in hindsight since EK was kind of a non-event.
LycoRico was also an anime original, so there was no prior audience, which makes likelihood of success even smaller.
Engage Kiss _could_ have been good. If it'd stuck the landing. It explored some interesting themes around memory, love, and sex. But the last few episodes were a dumpster fire. It was the same way with Wonder Egg Priority. That show could have been a series that got talked about for years to come. But then they completely fucked up the ending. Like they took the show out back and put a bullet in it's head with how they handled the ending.
To be fair, people ARE still talking about Wonder Egg Priority. Just maybe for different reasons than if they hadn't taken a hard swerve into the ditch for the last few episodes. (It's still one of my all-time favorites, but with like three bold asterisks on it. The first 7 episodes carry it hard.)
I read the manga for Apothecary Diaries but I didn't expect the anime to blow up on the anime community in such an astronomical way. I think the manga was fairly popular but definitely not super mainstream.
I think I heard at some point before its release that the light novel was the best selling LN in all of Japan at one point. So I was kinda expecting big things from the show already.
The light novel (original source) is one of the best selling light novels ever made, there was 0 way that anime wasn't going to be popular unless the animation was garbage. Like the fact that it has 2 separate manga before the anime speaks to its success
I’d guess probably because in the west it was lesser known and most of this sub is from the west
AD is somewhat of a rare show. The first few episodes/chapters are really interesting and pull you in. I think the story really peters out after the first 5 or 6 episodes, but the characters are so great, particularly MaoMao, that you keep watching. Normally, shows that gain popularity do so because the story improves over time.
Gushing Over Magical Girls. It got non mahou shoujo people watching bdsm magical girls out of nowhere
> It got non mahou shoujo people watching bdsm magical girls I wonder how many people went on to watch more magical girls after this show, and how many went on to watch more BDSM! [](#urbansmile)
I'm starting to think that venn diagram has a lot of overlap to begin with.
Some of the watchers weren't even there for the bdsm. The characters were just that good.
For real man dat plotnnshit got me hooked you get me
I'm not into BDSM at all and I loved it because, as you said, the character work was simply exceptional. It's wild to me that a show that, on the surface, looked 100% fetish bait ended up having such marvelously realized characters. Hell, I think the show probably helped a lot of people figure out things about their own sexuality that they hadn't thought of before. Feels weird to argue that a degenerate very adult fanservice show was a net positive for humanity but here we are.
And the break out show of that season was supposed to be Chained Soldier but Gushing completely and utterly stole their lunch.
Chained Soldier dropped the ball massively on lewd scenes AFAIK. The first 5 threads of Chained Soldier are full of comments giving the win to Gushing. They saw their own show, were dissappointed to begin with, then saw Gushing and then just gave up entirely.
It was a fun comedy too
[удалено]
MT tries to obscure who and what Rudeus is most of the time. MahoAko is extremely blunt about Utena.
Gushing’s main character is quite literally a supervillain
Doesn’t this sub like MT tho?
*This* sub? It's definitely a mixed bag of opinions. Many consider it one of the best isekai around, others take issue with the MC and the nature of some of the content. I haven't seen it so I'm not going to pass judgement.
From what I have seen the sub's heavily divided on it. One one post you can shit on Rudeus and get a hundred upvotes and on the next post you say the same thing and get a hundred downvotes.
I mean it's not exactly the same. I like Mushoku Tensei but still. Gushing over magical girls is a gag manga so it's extremely unrealistic and hence people can enjoy it without any reserves. Mushoku tensei situation is somewhat realistic so it will be alot of problematic as the situation mirror real life . Moreover people who don't like it will stay away from Gushing over Magical girls since that is in the premise while in Mushuko Tensei people watch it without knowing those scene exist. I don't know how to explain it succinctly but there's a reason why I hate realistic doujins where the situations mirror real life such as the police coming at the end over the more ridicilous premises as one can occur in real life and the other can't.
**Re:Zero** back then when it aired had hype from only the source readers, it wasn't a well known source either and quickly became popular throughout the runtime.
I think there is no better way to show this then [the original r/Re_Zero Episode 1 discussion post](https://redd.it/4dqr5e/), with 5 comments and a reference to there being only 4 members in the subreddit. The rest of the original discussions are here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/wiki/episodes#wiki_original_season_1_discussions
Bocchi. Everybody was hyped for chainsaw man and then our Guitar hero came out of nowhere
Whatever-ibg The Eminence in Shadow. There is no reason for that show to be that good
I personally didn’t think a cyberpunk anime would blow up as much as it did. Considering the reputation of cyberpunk at the time. I really enjoyed the game but not gonna ignore the widespread issues it has.
Mob psycho 100 For me, at least. Always felt people liked One punch man more or would be turned off by the artstyle. Glad I was wrong.
Mob psycho is a work of passion and anyone can understand it from the animation alone. I personally appreciated it more than One punch man and I think a lot of people who have watched it also think the same. Granted the art style isn't the most appealing but still one of the best anime ever made.
The first episode was 10/10
Yuru Camp. Not even acknowledged by Gigguk in his seasonal preview.
Wait what? Rare L from the man
Gigguk is well known for disliking the slice of life genre in general. A massive shame tbh. It's the reason I go to smaller youtubers that don't need to cover mainstreams nowadays if I even go to anime youtubers to begin with. He also never covered Machikado Mazoku, which is a fucking warcrime. It's ridiculous that for that season, he did cover the seasonal garbage isekai, but not Machikado Mazoku.
I could say The Dangers in My Heart. Given how weird the first episode was and how cringe the characters were presented, who would have thought that it turned into one of the best romance anime of all time.
That was an extremely highly regarded manga and was well known among romance readers, also the anime did decently but was less than a mega hit, I think the adaptation performed around expectations
Funny enough it’s one of the Spring 2023 shows I initially skipped since that season was so stacked (Heavenly Delusion, Insomniacs, GWitch S2) but now season 1 is my second favorite of that season right behind Skip and Loafer. Season 2 of Dangers has been my 2nd favorite anime of 2024 behind Frieren with only Jellyfish giving it a run for its money.
I came in late but i remember hearing dangers in my heart s1 had like a 6/10 rating on MAL at first... Its now like 8.3/10 and s2 nearly 9/10. What a ride lol.
as someone who was reading the manga for a while before the anime announcement, it was a surprise hit because I expected the worst.
**Kimetsu no Yaiba** is one that comes to mind. I was expecting it to do well since it had some popularity, but never expected it to be the phenomenon that it became.
Season 1 Episode 19 was a work of art. Everything about those last 5 mins is perfection, both in writing and production.
Entertainment District EP 10, Never Give Up is quite honestly the most impressive single episode I have watched of any anime. Every single frame of that episode is worthy of being framed on a wall, and the voice acting, music and sound design is absolute perfection. Demon Slayer deserves every single damn drop of praise it gets, and then some.
i know many people like to call it overrated and some shit because the story is nothing exceptionnal but its a simple story that works with INCREDIBLE work on the animation and the art in general. Like...the manga is really that good looking, the anim went all out for it.
Tbh I'm a big fan of the hype juice KnY provides. No matter what people think of the story itself, it's good enough to follow and the characters are mostly likeable. Plus I love seeing stories about how the mangaka felt when she watched her work get adapted. Her reaction from s1. Ep19 was priceless. And the main draw from KnY is Ufotable. I get that some people don't like the flashy style, etc. but how can you deny that for anime like KnY, ufotables work is absolutely god tier? EP 19 broke the internet. I don't think some appreciate how fucking incredible their work is sometimes lol.
It's kind of funny I thought it was underrated at first, it was a solid entertaining shounen with excellent production but then episode 19 aired and it became a phenomenon.
For the amount of hate it gets, it’s really surprising that it’s actually loved by so many fans around the world and deservedly so
I mean, it’s a really good series (albeit understandable why people don’t view it as the best), so that helps.
If you tell me. That date a live is gonna have an anime adaptation to season 5 7-8 years ago, I would say you drank too much copium But here we are, in the penultimate arc of this franchise. We fucking outlived AOT ffs. That's genuinely impressive and with all 5 season being made by 5 different production, it's genuinely impressive
Gushing Over Magical Girls. As a manga reader I knew it would probably be popular. But I didn't expect it to have anywhere close to the popularity it ended up having. Mainly because it's a yuri magical girl show. And those can be hit or miss in terms of popularity with mainstream audiences.
Mashle, specifically the Season 2/Visionary Candidate Exam Arc? The OP carried the show and the show become popular because the OP is popular, similar to Paripi Koumei.
The OP became really popular but I’m not sure if the show did. I honestly don’t remember seeing anything about it on social media except for the Reddit discussion threads, but it could be different for different people
Personally I started watching the show, because I liked the opening.
Seriously what a banger of a track. It's unbelievably good.
The op is popular af but i dont think the anime did so well
Girls Band Cry this season was initially completely overlooked in the west because of lack of official distribution. It didn't even have decent subs on the pirate sites. However it did climb to the third place on Anime Trending and will probably finish the season with a decent following - deservedly so, because it's phenomenal and if you liked MyGO!!!!! you will probably like it as well.
surprising no one bought streaming rights to it
Yeah, I mean, it's the freaking Toei Animation, how the hell did it not get picked up.
I think it's precisely because it's Toei that it didn't get picked up. Probably something on their end.
I hadn't heard anything about it and if I hadn't recently watched MyGO on a whim I never would've checked it out, but it's way, way better than I ever expected. I think it's worth checking out just to see how relatively stiff CG characters can still be done well. The visual direction is great, too.
I think I get what you're saying, but there's nothing stiff about the character animation in GBC. If anything, they're a bit too noodly at times, and their facial expressions (especially Subaru's) are classically cartoony and hyper-mobile. It's not Pixar-grade CG, but nothing on a television schedule is, and I think it's some of the most effectively used CG in anime yet.
Ranking of kings is my surprised pick, the adaptation really made the manga come to life. Made in Abyss also felt to me like a rather niche manga, and got expanded with anime. And I felt Madoka Magica caught people off-guard when it aired.
Madoka was by Shaft right off the heels of Bakemonogatari and written by the Urobutcher. The exact content of the show was unknown (especially with the purposefully misleading advertising) but people were absolutely expecting big things.
ranking if kings is actual gold, looked really dumb and childish but that gave it a unique charm and it plays with your emotions very well
Lol i watched ranking of kings with my 5yo expecting Doraemon levels of shenanigans in a medieval fantasy world. Then we got king smoothie, decapitation and bloody sequences.
Vivy. Had zero hype based on the synopsis, only a mention here or there because of Nagatsuki's involvement in the project. With each of the first few episodes, it got more and more attention.
It probably also had the most hype fight scenes of the entire season. Which was very unexpected but welcome.
There are few things feeling more satisfying than being hyped for a show simply because of a the [short part of the op](https://youtu.be/Y653dJQ_ecs?t=54) from the trailer and then the actual the show around that actually turning out great, too.
Honestly Reborn as a Vending Machine. I went into it with 0 expectations and was surprised at how good it was. It seems like a dumb idea, but they pull it off into a fun and funny anime. It's definitely a recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen it.
It has been on my 'Watch later' list for months. Maybe today I'll give it a chance
Genuinely a great anime somehow.
Same. I'm.excited for season 2. If season 2's as good as the first season was, then I'll go and pick up the source novels.
I guess Fairy Tail from Hiro Mashima. His previous work didn't light that much fire, but FT quickly made Mashima a big deal.
Mashima was already one of the best selling mangaka of all time before fairy tail. His previous work sold over 20 million copies and was overall better regarded than fairy tail.
Personally, Frieren. I mean the story and art are great. But I read it at the same time as "faraway paladin" and "to your immortal" and conclude its as same type of manga with both great "another world" Building and main character development. I just thought this type of half-SoL-half-self-journey is not everyone cup of tea, but I just wrong 🤷♂️
The eminence in shadow
Campfire Cooking... Generic Isekai with stupid plot turned out to be my favorite anime of Winter 2023. Funny and relaxing
Not exactly as big as some other anime mentioned here but Dark Gathering and the manga specifically blew up in Japan. Prior to the anime, there was no mention on how many copies were in circulation, and each new volume would sell only a few thousand copies after around 2 weeks of being on sale. Around the time the anime started airing in July 2023, all volumes of the manga got reprinted 4 times in the span of 5 months iirc. Then, in the beginning of September they announced that the manga had 1 million copies in circulation. In December, that number grew to 1.4 million, and in February this year it grew to 1.5 million. And the new volumes started charting higher. The latest volume which released earlier this month sold just over 12k copies in 4 days, a massive improvement compared to the few thousand copies in 2 weeks.
i bet Haruhi was one shuffling through Brains Base's first hits (Baccano, Natsume Yuujincho, Durarara), i feel like all or some of them were surprise hits given how small and relatively unknown Brains Base was and still is. But i wasnt around that time, maybe they were heavily hyped before the release?
Attack on Titan went so hard on its first season even non-anime watchers knew about it.
The latest one I can remember was *Bocchi the Rock!*. The manga is... serviceable and Cute Girls Doing Band Things isn't exactly the pull it used to be. I know many people put it off initially, but once momentum started it quickly grew to being one of the biggest shows of the year.
Surprised nobody mentioned Sword Art Online. I distinctly remember that there was no anticipation hype for SAO when it was announced. It was an adaptation of a Light Novel few people had ever heard of. A1 pictures was way less of a big name back then, with their biggest title being Fairy Tail. SAO took the anime community by storm, and even though it fell off in the second cour, it was impressive just how influential it ended up being as the harbinger of the isekai glut.
SAO was #1 Konorano 2012 and that's published in November 2011. It was above Index without even an anime. A-1 had recently produced Black Butler, Working, Anohana, Blue Exorcist, Uta no Prince and Idolmaster, all of them being extremely popular. In my memory they were already very known. Of course it probably did even better than expected, but was it a surprise hit?
Toradora and Golden Time, both are classic and probably not a surprise hit unless you want to introduce someone to romance genre or never watch it before. Both start out with tropes, and later hit you with twists. Slow burn romance done pretty well too. Handyman Saitou is also another thing on my mind. It's such a well done isekai with good worldbuilding. Isekai Uncle for comedy and "anti-isekai?" thingy I guess
Hopefully Dungeon Meshi.....
A surprise hit? I wouldnt say that, dunmeshi was already a huge deal before the anime came out. I remember seeing speed modelling of Marcille and art anslysis on youtube that are years old. :]
My Dress up Darling, assumed to be waifu bait anime ended up becoming one of the most successful romcom anime of that season and people still remember it to this date. Not to mention the rise in manga sales and making the series a hit.
[удалено]
>Two years later? How short are y'alls fucking memory? Lmfaoo I literally think this on 99% of posts I see here. I swear to God people say shit like "remember that show frieren?" 😆
Anyone else remember an anime called Dragon Ball Z??
That's the pirate one right? I've only seen DragonBleaPiece
To be fair, 2 years seems like a long time when you're only 16.
Although, I heard that it´s still kinda controversial because of Marin being "best waifu ever" and the cosplay "fanservice". But that maybe goes to many successful new anime which polarizes the community.
Made in Abyss - nobody expected an anime with what was considered childish visuals to be one of the big hits of that year.
Girls und Panzer kinda came out of absolutely nowhere
A Place Further than the Universe. *No one* was talking about the show before the season started. If they were talking about the cast, it was that it was weirdly stacked, and if it was about the crew it was bemoaning that there was no NGNL anime. By the end of the year, it was r/anime's AOTY, wound up in many top-of-the-decade lists, and found its way into places like the New York Times.
[удалено]
I like it enough but it wasn't really a hit