Top 5 Anticipated Anime of 2025

5. Zeshu

It’s an isekai, but not a standard isekai and that has me very much interested in it. Mainly because the main character, they are an artist. And they realize that they, in this other world, have the ability to rewrite it. It’s really the premise that catches my attention on this one. That idea is just unique and I think it could be a lot of fun in terms of a story. And I want to know how it plays. Is it serious or not? Or is it just going to be a fun time, because as a fun time, I think it could really shine.

4. Witch Watch

An ogre is tasked with being a bodyguard or watching over his childhood friend who is a witch as she completes her training. That storyline sounds interesting to me. And my big concern would be that this is just another action anime. Is it going to be another anime with episodes that are just a big epic fight. Nope, this is supposed to be a more light hearted and fun anime that is going to offer some humor to it and heart. I like the sound of that a lot and often times that is the type of anime that is going to draw me in the most.

3. Lazarus

I want to know more about this one because of the director around it. Shinichiro Watanabe is the director behind Cowboy Bebop an anime that I really like. This is one that sounds very interesting as well. A drug is shortening the lives of people, even though it is supposed to be a miracle drug. So now a group needs to try and saver everyone from the side effects of the drug. The question is, how do you do that?

I like the sounds of this story a lot. I expect that there is going to be some action in the show. Cowboy Bebop is not a show without action. But I also expect that there is going to be a lot of good story and intrigue to the show. And I would not be surprised if it is dips into the idea that the unplanned side effect, shortening lives, wasn’t as unplanned as it may have seemed. But that is a mystery to unravel with this show.

2. Honey Lemon Soda

Normally there is more than one anime on the list that I’ve read the manga for. But this time, that is not the case. At least this far on the list I haven’t made it to another one yet. Honey Lemon Soda is not actually a manga that totally drew me into it. But it’s a romance story, and I find that I like a lot of those adaptations into anime as much or more than I like the manga.

Uka Ishimori is a very shy person and wants to shake that. She meets a boy with lemon colored hair, and he helps her gain confidence. This is not a very unique story, but it is a trope and idea that works well. How can someone who wants to be more take that step to being more to stepping out of their shell. I think that idea resonates with a lot of people, even if the circumstances aren’t the same as it is for them.

1. I Got Married to the Girl I Hate Most In Class

One thing was missing from the list. I didn’t have an anime with a long name, and while this isn’t the longest, by any means, of something I’ve watched, it is fairly long. I think that the same in some ways says it all. This is going to be a comedy anime with two characters who get stuck in a marriage or relationship that they don’t want. Or at least, something that they expect isn’t going to work because of their previous history.

It reminds me of other mis-matched character anime. I think of A Couple of Cuckoos as one in this genre as well. And I like this type of show because it is just going to be fun. And it means that I can sit down, relax, and kind of turn my mind off for a few moments to watch and enjoy it. But it isn’t to the point where it’s just action fluff, it’s going to make me laugh and give me a few heartfelt moments as well along the way.

Final Thoughts

Now, to be fair, this will not have some of my most anticipated on the list. Why, because they are season two or threes. So I want to call them out here. I could have almost made a separate list, but let’s just shout them out.

• Solo Leveling season two starts in a couple of days, and I’m very excited.
• Dandadan was announced for a season two this summer.
• And My Dress-up Darling announced for a season two this year as well.
• Spy x Family is always a blast to watch and it’s coming back for a season three, so I want to have more wholesome spy fun.
• Another odd one is Fire Force coming back for season three which should be more over the top action and a barely coherent plot.
• And speaking of crazy plots we have The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You back for season two.
• Plus Oshi No Ko is letting us dive into that mystery more which I’m hear for.
• Finally, Kaiju No. 8 is also set for a second season this year.

Is that a complete list of everything that is returning. I expect that answer is no. And for some people it won’t even include some of the ones that are returning that they are most excited for. Let me know what returning and new anime you are most excited for?

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Top 50 Anime – 30 through 21

30. Gamers

Some of these it’s been a while since I watched them, but I remember liking them. Gamers is one of those. It’s about a high school game club, not this time it’s video games. But it’s about the characters, really, who go from being a unique group to actually be a group and working together. They learn what the others are best at, and they grow together. There’s some romance sprinkled in as well, because, well, that’s a good enough reason for one of the kids to join the club that the person he likes is in it.

29. Little Witch Academia

Next up is Little Witch Academia, another one that I watched a while ago, but one that is again a lot of fun. What would you do if you really want to be a witch, but you aren’t that good of one. That’s the struggle of the main character as she tries to make it in magic school. The story is cute, it has some fairly classic anime feel to it. The character who is overcoming everything, the typical bad guy groups, but it’s a really enjoyable show. Mainly because the main character is do endearing.

28. A Couple of Cuckoos

A newer watch on the list is A Couple of Cuckoos. And I enjoyed it a lot, though how it ends season one, I feel like it was a bit disappointing. It has some of the typical harem anime style story to it, all the girls fall for the main guy, kind of. But the big hook is the two main characters find out they are arranged to be married. But they don’t know that’s the case to start the show. It is a fun premise and made even better by some of their interactions before they find out.

Now, why it is likely to drop is because of the harem aspect. I wish it just focused on the two main characters getting to know each other and how both of them are weird in their own ways, but also why they like that about each other, that’d be fun. But now it mixes in a bit more, and where it ends, I won’t spoil that, just feels lazy and like the writer didn’t have a good plan on how to stretch out the story. So they went with the most simplistic and harem focused approach.

27. Beast Tamer

A fantasy story, this one is not an isekai like a lot of the fantasy ones that I watch are. But it does have the harem elements mentioned above, but it’s less romantic in nature. The main characters “beasts” that he tames are all legendary creatures with female forms, that’s the main thing. And they protect him versus being damsels in distress almost all the time.

The plot is fun as well. The main character is kicked out of the heroes party because he’s just a beast tamer. That’s not that big a deal or that important. Turns out, he’s the best beast tamer that there is, and not just by a little bit, but by a ton. So no the question is, is he maybe the hero instead. But it’s not something that he really wants nor is it the title the other hero wants to give up. So the story has some standard things to it, but I like the beast tamer powers and how they play that out.

26. Restaurant to Another World

This is one that I’ve watched a couple of times. I like the food in this anime and the story is pretty simple but it works. There are doorways in another world that appear once a month. And those doorways open up to a restaurant in another world. Mainly, it’s a restaurant on Earth in Japan that is open to creatures and characters from this other world. You get their stories as you go through and you get to see lot of different foods. It’s a cute one that has some solid feel good elements to it which I really enjoy. I find it to be a nice relaxing anime to watch.

25. Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

In standard isekai the main character appears from another world. But the goddess who summons him, well, she thinks that he’s disgusting and worthless. So instead of making him one of her heroes in the wars against the demons, she drops him off on the far side of the world.

Turns out that he is way less useless than she had thought and he starts to develop his own way in the world. It has a lot of Reincarnated as a Slime to it. There is city and society building, but really it’s about the character and how he’s navigating the world. I enjoy that sort of story. And this one doesn’t get bogged down into some kind of weird side stories or long stories that Slime does.

24. My Roommate is a Cat

Do you want an anime that is all about a lot of heart and a cat, this is the one for you. And it’s actually surprisingly emotional for just having a few characters and not that many settings. A novelist who just likes to stay by himself is adopted and adopts a cat. Well, that cat leads him into some new relationships and helps him through some tough times and some meaningful growth. But it’s also saving the cat as well, which is just adorable.

What really drives home this anime is that you get the episode played back, most of the time much more quickly, from the cats perspective. Of times that fills in some really meaningful and cute pieces to the story.

23. Cowboy Bebop

We’re going a bit more serious here with Cowboy Bebop. I say a bit because Cowboy Bebop does have a lot of light moments to it as well. But the story is much heavier in terms of the overall plot. But it works so well. Cowboy Bebop is a classic masterpiece of an anime that has some of the best music if not the best music for an anime ever. Each episode has it’s own well crafted score and that really drives the feel for that episode. It just works. I don’t know what more to say than that this is an anime that every anime fan should watch.

22. My Love Story with Yamada-Kun Lv999

Another romance and this one I watched just recently. Lv999 as I’ll be referring to it as, is the story of a girl who is dumped by her gamer boyfriend. She swears of gamers as all being horrible. Turns out, they aren’t as horrible as she thought when her life bumps her into Yamada. It’s a will they – won’t they – can they admit their feelings for each other sort of story. Neither of them really wanting to, or knowing how to as their relationship grows and starts to mean more to both of them, obviously. It’s really cute and the stakes are never that high, so it’s relaxing and enjoyable to watch as well.

21. Dagashi Kashi

And wrapping up this section we have Dagashi Kashi. Another one that I haven’t seen a bit, but it’s a cute story about a dagashi store being run by basically a kid. If you’re not familiar with dagashi, it’s basically cheap candies and snacks. They are one of a few of these stores that is still family run and owned. And it’s about that, but it’s also about the history and story of the food.

The cast of characters is fun, there’s a bit of romance to it, and overall just another one of those relaxing and enjoyable watches. It’ll make you want to try all of the foods as well, which is good and bad all at the same time.

Final Thoughts

I really love so many of these. Little Witch Academia is one where I feel like I want to watch again. And this time it’s a little bit less funny and more cute or heartfelt anime on the list. Is there one that stands out to you as a favorite? Or is there one that you’d want to watch?

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Top 15 Anime

HM: Fruits Basket, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, Restaurant to Another World, After School Dice Club

These were all close. Fruits Basket is so heartfelt. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is really funny. And Restaurant to Another World is a lot of fun with great food. After School Dice Club is about board games, and it’s good but not as great as it could have been so just misses as well. All of these, probably, could have made it only my list.

15. Ghost Hunt

Oddly enough, this is the only horror one on my list. Ghost Hunt is about a kid who can deal with ghosts who has his own agency. But he’s not the main character, the main character is a girl who gets roped into being his assistant and might be better at the job than he is. He knows how all the things work but is too cold and calculating. It’s a nice balance of everything for an older anime.

14. BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense

There are some premises for anime that just get me. BOFURI is one of them. A girl joins an MMORPG and she’s worried about it. What will it be like to die, will it hurt, and she really doesn’t want to die. So instead of leveling up by going out on epic adventures, she levels up by grinding and focusing only on her defensive stats. It’s a fun play on the genre with a character getting really over powered, but in such an odd way.

13. Gamers!

This follows another trope that I really enjoy. A main character who maybe is a bit out there, they have their own nerdy hobby or odd thing that they do that makes them not quite fit in. Gamers! follows that character who loves video games, into finding out that there are more people like them in the world directly around them. It’s cute and heartfelt and just works well.

12. Dagashi Kashi

Dagashi Kashi is all about yummy snacks, their history and eating them. Mixed in with all of that is a slice of life show that is a lot of fun. You might notice there are a few shows on the list about food. Anime tells a lot of really enjoyable stories about food and Dagashi Kashi gives more of a unique flare to it than some. While not the highest on my list, it is very realistic and focused on tradition of these snacks and shops.

11. Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? does some of my favorite anime tropes. Mainly the clueless main character so focused on one goal he doesn’t notice the group forming around them. This isn’t the best I’ve seen of that, but Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? works well and especially for the first season gives a fun romp. I don’t like season two nearly as much, but it is an anime that I keep on coming back to. There is just something wholesome about the main character that makes this fantasy, and fairly standard fantasy, but with good twists, fun to watch.

10. The Devil is a Part-Timer

This Isekai really handles the genre differently. Most Isekai a character gets pulled out the real world and into a crazy world. In this case, the Devil is pulled out or leaves their own world and ends up on Earth without enough power to go back. So now he needs a part time job. This is another one that I need to watch again, I started the 1st season because a 2nd season just came out. But it’s fun and well done.

9. Cowboy Bebop

Used to be higher on my list. And in terms of technical, this is probably the best anime on the list. An anime that tells interesting stories and all set to different types of music, it’s just fascinating. But it also falls into that category of an anime that I’ve watched, and I’d watch again, but I’m less likely to pick it myself. Still, the music in it is so good and just the story that it weaves, it’s done so well.

8. Space Dandy

Space Dandy is another anime set in space and this one is easier to watch again, mainly because it’s such a comedy. The main character, Space Dandy, is not a competent character at all. But through dumb luck he somehow survives. He doesn’t do so well, but with a cat and a robot he somehow makes it work. Just well done comedy throughout this series.

7. Food Wars!

Food Wars is odd to me that it’s so high. Mainly because it can be a bit inconsistent. There are some arcs in the show that are amazing. It is also one of the highest on the list that has this amount of fan service. But it’s generally fan service overall and played for a very specific reason. But the whole concept of the show is about being the best chef that you can be, and the enjoyment that can come from food.

6. Assassination Classroom

Assassination Classroom might push Food Wars! for the weirdest anime on the list. Part of the moon is destroyed and an alien decides to become a teacher of students who are poor students so that they can try and assassinate the alien. That sounds so crazy, but what worked for me with it is that it tells a good story of the characters coming together. Yes, it is an completely absurd situation and setup, but somehow it manages to work.

5. My Senpai Is Annoying

Now we hit a few that fall more into that slice of life category. My Senpai Is Annoying is about an office worker who has an annoying senpai that she is under. Well, maybe he’s not quite as annoying as she thought. It’s really a romantic comedy of characters liking each other but not knowing how the other character likes them back. Plus a whole lot of fun and crazy situations to get into revolving around work. I think the whole work setting is a lot of fun and works really well for this type of story to make it feel different than high school.

4. Komi Can’t Communicate

But speaking of high school and romance we have Komi Can’t Communicate. It’s about Komi who is the prettiest girl in the class and seems aloof. But really she just has crippling anxiety when talking to people and can’t for the most part and it is a lot of effort for her when she does. Tadano, new to the class ends up making friends with her through writing and agrees to help her with her goal of making 100 friends. This is a sweet show with a lot of weird characters.

3. Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki

And then another high school series. This one again about a nerdy character who loves the game TakFam, think Smash Bros sort of game. To him, it’s the best game ever, much better than life. When he finds out that the #2 player of the game in Japan is in his town too, he’s #1, they decide to meet up. It turns out to be a classmate, but not one who is a bottom-tier character like him, someone who doesn’t think that life is a lousy game. Can she convince him and level him up so that he’s not a Bottom-Tier character anymore?

2. Steins;Gate

Constantly a high one on my favorites list. And it’s also one that I probably would watch again, but man, would it be hard to watch again. There is so much depth in this time travel story with tragedy and distress. But the story is told and woven together so well that it just stands out. While Cowboy Bebop can be heavy and gorgeous, Stiens;Gate for heavier anime on my list, just tells such a good complete story. And it handles time travel in such a good way.

1. Sword Art Online

Finally, and I know this one bounces around a lot for me, we have Sword Art Online (SAO). SAO is just comfort food of an anime for me. It gives me big adventure, romance, comedy, all wrapped up in one. But it is mainly about that adventure and how the characters are navigating different worlds, of computer games, as they go. And the craziness that can end up following from these games into the real world or the other way around. Plus, there is just so much story and so much work done on developing the characters, you care for them as you go through it.

Final Thoughts

It’s tough to do a Top 10, it’s even tough to do a Top 15. I’ve really found myself gravitating towards watching anime a lot. It used to be and it does happen in certain time periods, of throwing on a cooking show or some house remodeling show. But there is just so much anime out there that I need to checkout still and want to checkout. I actually went through recently and created a massive list, I just don’t know when I’ll have time.

And I am guessing that I’ll think about it and come up with a show that I missed that I really enjoyed. And for as many good or great anime as I watch, there are a lot that are just fine. Pretty rarely do I end up sticking with and watching one that is bad. But if it’s short enough I might power through it. I can think of one example which just went from being okay starting out to so bad at the end.

What are your top anime?

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I could go through and do different ones all at once, but I want to spend more time talking about why a game works for that theme. And some of are going to be more specific than just a category, like anime, but I’ll get to those in the future.

Board Games That Feel Like Anime

So this is an interesting category to talk about. There are a number of games based off of Anime or Manga, and a lot of them are Japanime Games. The issue with that is Japanime games tend to be pretty hit or miss for me. And they are the ones who put out Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows. But the point of this list isn’t that the game needs to be based on an anime, it needs to have the theme. So I went looking for other games that maybe feel more like an anime.

Middara: Unintentional Malum

First one that I thought of and this one was easy. Middara gives you that Anime art style and theme for sure in the game. This is a big dungeon crawl game where you are a person who was taken from Earth and through a connected portal brought to a new world. This world has magic, weapons, and you’re being trained to go out and adventure. It’s a dungeon crawl game with definitely an Anime flare to it. Very straight forward with how Middara connects.

Clank Legacy

Clank Legacy is a bit more of a stretch. But one thing about anime is they often are a bit goofy. And Clank Legacy is going to be that, as it is based off of Acquisitions Incorporated D&D Campaign. This is very goofy and a lot of fun to watch. And the situations they get into, while definitely fantasy based, tend to lean into that absurd that you see in Anime.

Super Fantasy Brawl

This is an Anime fighting game. Your team of characters transport in from another time and face off against each other. There are humanoids, animals, and basically all sorts of cool and epic creatures. Then the game itself is a tactical battle where you try and knock out your opponent and complete objectives. This will give you the feel of moments like in Dragonball Z where there is the tournament or My Hero Academia.

Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters is a goofy pirate game with voice acting for the story. If you want an epic high seas adventure, this is going to be it. And I think that gives it some of that Anime sort of feel to it, the whole epic pirate adventure but with humor added in as well. Plus, it uses I believe some of the crossroads system from Dead of Winter, so adds in some good choice.

Say Bye to the Villains

Say Bye to the Villains is a Japanese themed game. You play as different Samurai or Ninja who know of villains they will be facing. You have ten days to prepare to face off against the villains, researching their tactics, preparing your skills, and helping others. This is a really hard cooperative card game, in fact, I still want my first win. But it gives you the Japanese theme, and the villains and Samurai or Ninja are larger than life, so definitely an Anime vibe.

King of Tokyo

I doubt this one is too much of a shock for the list. King of Tokyo is all about giant monsters and mechs fighting. While some of it feels more like Godzilla and King Kong than anime, the whole cartoon look and giant things fighting, easy choice for me to add to the list. The game it also really accessible for new gamers, so one that’d be easy to get to the table with Anime fans.

Village Attacks

Sometimes you just want an Anime about an edge-lord, and Village Attacks is going to give you a bit of that in a board game. You all play as the bad guys, the monsters who terrorize the village. And now, you want a peaceful evening, but the village is there with pitchforks and torches ready to destroy the heart of your castle. A dark themed game but plays fairly absurd.

Under Falling Skies

Under Falling Skies is a solo board game where a player defends against waves of aliens attacking. The small ships come down all the time the mothership is making it closer and closer to landfall. Can you research a way to stop the mothership and scramble the jets to blow the smaller ships out of the sky. The game is a ton of fun, but the whole aliens or something crazy coming to earth, that happens in a lot of Anime, or at least a number I’ve watched. So this gives me some of the anime vibe as well as Space Invaders and Independence Day.

Spire’s End

Spire’s End is pretty new to my collection but one that I think has an Anime feel to it. The whole premise, a spire popping up out of the ground is weird. Then you add in Mushroom Men, keys that are alive, and trying to rescue townsfolk who have been taken away into the tower. That seems like an Anime plot. And while the game is dark it is a lot of fun to play, and a good solo game.

Sleeping Gods

Finally, Sleeping Gods. It and Spire’s End you can watch game play of on Malts and Meeples. But this game is a bit crazy. Sleeping Gods plays as an Isekai. You are the crew of the Manticore going from Hong Kong to New York. One day, as a storm clears, you find yourself in an unfamiliar land and are told you need to wake up the Sleeping Gods who once were active. Then you go off and explore and adventure. Definitely an Anime feeling plot for the game.

Final Thoughts

I’d have loved to put some games that are based off of actual Anime on the list. Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie is one that I own and should play. I’ve played Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows, and honestly, I just want better games based off of Anime. Give me a dungeon crawler set in Aincrad, let me play as a random character trying to clear that world and death game.

If I were to pick others, besides Sword Art Online. I think a good pick-up and deliver epic game for Cowboy Bebop would be fun. Demon Slayer as a one versus all fighting game could be cool. My Hero Academia and Dragonball Z with their tournaments would both make nice one versus one games. I mean, My Hero Academia Dice Throne, I’d be all over that.

What anime would you like to see a good board game of, and what type of game would it be?

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Unplayed Board Games 124 to 101

124: Monza

This is a kids car racing game from Haba. It is one that I will play when the toddler is ready to play it. But, for right now, it has some cars in it. And the toddler can match up the cars to spots on the board. Or roll the dice and have fun with it. Not one that’s likely to get played this year, I’d think, but maybe towards the end of the year the toddler will be ready.

123: Dragon Tea Society

This one, and the next one, fall into that same category a bit. Though really Dragon Tea Society and Monza. Dragon Tea Society is a deck building style game. You draw cards, play them out, get more cards, but a simple one at that. It’s cute, I want to try it, but again, this is probably more apt to get played when the toddler is older.

122: Hey, That’s My Fish

As we get out of the games for younger or family audience, we have Hey, That’s My Fish. It is a game about collecting fish. And as you collect fish you break up the ice flow so that it limits where your opponent can go. That seems a little mean, but the concept is easy to grasp. It is one I could see waiting for the toddler to be ready to play it, or playing it with adults just for an easy game.

121: Danger Park

Next we have Danger Park. I bought this game when the company was going out of business. It’s about building out your amusement park, and clearly you don’t care that much for the safety of your park goers. I like the concept of pushing to see how you can build out the park so that it’s risky but you can make the most money or points.

120: The Faceless

This is a game I saw a while ago on Kickstarter, and it looked cool, in concept. I’m not sure what was going on, but I bought it cheap as the stock was being sold off. The Faceless has you playing as kids trying to avoid a monster. And the monster moves around based off of magnetic pull from where the kids are. The concept seems cool, we’ll have to see how good it is. Because I’d love to be able to manipulate where the monster goes via magnets.

119: 8Bit Box

This is one that I’ve owned for a while. And I keep on meaning to play it, or play one or two of the games in it to see how it is. 8Bit Box promises a game system that has a retro arcade feel. You can pull out some base pieces and a cartridge for a specific game, and that is what you play around with. I don’t know if it’ll be good, I expect it’ll be okay. And it’s a fun concept to mess around with.

118: The Terrifying Girl Disorder

Another one that is not new to my shelf. I bought this game when it was on a sale because it seemed intriguing. A small box card game, the most intriguing part is that you score based off of one of the girls. But you don’t know which it’ll be when you start the game. So you are looking to gather cards in a way that will score you points.

117: Boy Band Builder

My wife backed this one on Kickstarter. A game from a small and new company here in Minneapolis. It is about building a boy band, and it looks funny. It’s one of those games that we’ll see how good it is, but I also have it higher than some on the list, because I expect for one play, it is going to provide a bunch of good laughs.

116: Starship Samurai

Next up is Starship Samurai. I like mechs and this game has cool mechs. Beyond that it is area control, negotiation – it seems, set collection, a lot of mechanics that I enjoy in the game. I think that the game itself looks better than the box looks, which is a shame. The artwork on the box doesn’t sell me on the game.

115: Unicornus Knights

On the flip side, Unicornus Knights looks good. And I really like the concept of the game. The princess is traveling the land to get to a big bad and fighting as she goes. But you, as knights around her know that she can’t win every fight and shouldn’t get into them. So you manipulate where she moves and deal with threats for her. I like the concept of the main character, the princess, but no one plays her.

114: Copenhagen: Roll & Write

It’s a roll and write game. I got it cheap. I don’t need to say more than that. And honestly, I don’t know a ton more about it than that. It’s one that I should just bust out and play and see how it is. I need to get rid of a few more roll and writes as the roll and writes take up 3 full Kallax cubbies.

113: Journey: Wrath of Demons

This is another game that I should know more about. I keep on researching it, because it keeps on being on sale. Eventually a sale was good enough, and in person, so I grabbed it. It’s a cooperative adventure game based off of a classic Chinese novel. That little bit is enough to keep me very interested in the game, so I want to see how it plays. Plus the cover looks impressive.

112: Cowboy Bebop: Board Game Boogie

This one I picked up because of theme. I really like Cowboy Bebop. It’s up there for my favorite anime, and aesthetically, it is amazing. This is a cooperative game where you are all part of the crew and you try and complete bounties. Each character also wants to do specific things for their own story. So it’s a push and pull of that. I don’t know how great this one is, but it is worth it to me to play it for the theme.

111: Detective: City of Angels

Detective: City of Angels, on the other hand, I am very confident will be a great game. It is a crime solving game with a lot of cases. Each person plays a detective racing to solve the case first. Except for one person who plays the chisel, they basically decide on how answers are given. The reason this is low, even though I really want to play it, is that most likely I end up being the chisel. This is a game I want to experience the cases as the detective, but since I own the game, I’ll likely learn it and play as the game master.

110: The Ravens of Thri Sahashri

Another that isn’t new to my shelf. A two player game that I really should pull off the shelf when my friend who I teach a lot of new games to comes over. But the idea is that one person is playing out cards, the other person is trying to pull them back. I forget exactly how it works, but it’s a puzzle of a game to get cards split into certain groupings which looks really interesting.

109: Shadows of Kyoto

Shadows of Kyoto, from the same company as Hanamikoji, is another two player game. In some ways it gives me a little bit of a feeling of a Stratego sort of game. You try and capture enemy agents, or pass along fake intelligence, or escape an agent to win. It plays fast, and I hope that it’s as punchy and interesting a decision space as Hanamikoji, but I suspect it might not be.

108: Ascension: Immortal Heroes

This is a different version of Ascension, but more different than a lot of the expansion/standalone boxes. So I’m curious to see how this one plays. I hope that it keeps a lot of the core mechanics, but maybe makes the game more directly battling versus so purely deck building. I honestly don’t know that much, I got it on a good sale.

107: Pioneer Days

The second game I bought as a company went out of business, this time TMG (Tasty Minstrel Games). Pioneer Days looks like a dice drafting game, and I like dice drafting. It is supposed to have a bit of an Oregon Trail feel where you are heading up west, getting what you need but also having to deal with troubles, weather, sickness, and the like, as you travel. I like the concept of the game a lot, and the artwork on the box is great.

106: Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write

Another roll and write game. And there are a number more on the list. This one is a roll and write version of Portal Games Imperial Settlers. That is an engine building game, so I’m guessing it’ll be similar for the roll and write. Or in roll and write terms a combo building game. Another one that I just need to play to see if it’s a roll and write that sticks around.

105: Quarto

Part of a line of abstract games, it’s been on my shelf too long. And I really like the concept of the game. You are trying to complete a row that matches. But you don’t get to pick what piece you place, your opponent does. So there are shapes, heights, colors, hollow or not, that can all cause a row to be completed. Can you back your opponent into a corner where they need to give you a piece that lets you win.

104: Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

One that is lower on the list because it was kind of a grail game for me. By grail game I mean a game that’s out of print or harder to find that you want to get, the holy grail. But it was only kind of one. I want to see how the game is, mess around with it, because it’s kind of a living card game that is done. And it has some nice designers on it. Plus, I like Cthulhu.

103: Escape the Room: Mystery at the Stargazer’s Manor

Escape room games are hard to know where to rank. I like escape room games, but even in my Top 100, they don’t make it. So when ranking them, it is harder to rank. This has a Lovecraftian theme, which is always a plus for me. And it is in a bigger box than stuff like Unlock and Exit. I don’t know if it means it’s a bigger game, but I’m curious, and I know I’ll like it when I get people over to play it.

102: Mesozooic

A smaller game, Mesozooic just looked like a fun game to get. And like a lot of games on my list, it was on sale. It’s about creating a dinosaur themed part, which is a common theme in games. But it’s in a small package, light, and fast, and the artwork looks great on it. Plus it’s a real time game for part of it and then drafting as well, so I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and a good filler to try.

101: TAGS

Finally, we have TAGS to round out this chunk of the list. TAGS is a party game where in teams, I believe, you try to come up with words that match a prompt and a letter. This isn’t that unique, but the game plays fast, and by that I mean you have 15 seconds to guess, then the next team gets 15 and the next. So you need to be very fast in the moment. Seems like a chaotic and fun time.

Final Thoughts

This chunk of the list I do think I’ll play a handful of games. I’ve love to play the escape room game as well as TAGS. And the roll and write games I can knock out solo as well. Mesozooic seems like a good one as well. There are others, mainly Detective: City of Angels that I really want to play, but do I want to put the time in right now to learning that game and playing as the chisel.

Which game would you play first from this group of games?

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10 – My Roommate is a Cat

This is just a really fun anime, slice of life story about a writer who has a cat adopt him. The writers life is hard, his parents have passed away and he’s living in the house he grew up in. But with the help of the cat, he’s able to start to reach back out into the world, though not always because he wanted to. The story does a great job with it being focused on what the human is doing, but then the second part of each episode gives you the cats perspective on everything that happened and what the cat is worried about with the human. It’s very adorable and just one of those anime that is relaxing to watch.

9 – Space Dandy

He’s a dandy guy in space. This anime is just a completely silly romp as you follow around crew of the Aloha Oe as they travel space looking for exotic and new monsters to bring back to the central processing agency in order to get a reward. Now, it would work better if he was even remotely competent at his job, but he’s not and his crew is even less competent than he is, possibly? All the while, well doing this, they are being chased by Dr. Gel who is out to get them. The whole thing is just absurd but such a good time.

8 – Dagashi Kashi

Another sillier and lighter anime, this one delves into the world of dagashi, cheap candy and snacks. The main character works at his families dagashi shop, Shikada Dagashi but doesn’t want to take it over. When someone from the Shidare corporation comes to try and get Shikada Dagashi to join them, the owner agrees but only if they can convince his son, the main character to take over the shop. The story is just little vignettes for the most part and stories about how certain dagashi came to be. It’s a lot of fun and has more energy than the previous two, but is still very relaxing to watch.

7 – The Devil is a Part-Timer

Another slice of life anime, I do like them quite well and they tend to run less into fan service, though, this one has it’s fair share, The Devil is a Part-Timer focuses on what happens to the devil when he ends up on Earth with no way to get back to his realm. That means that he has to take on a part time job and a lot of weird adventures ensue has he starts to figure out how to deal with the mortal world and maybe, it turns out, the Devil isn’t such a bad guy after all. Very much a slice of life, but has more of a full through storyline running along in the background than some others.

6 – The Disastrous Life of Saiki K

Saiki K has special powers. He can teleport objects, read minds, and do many amazing crazy things. But for the most part, he just wants to be left alone. Of course, he can’t be, and it’s even a bigger issue because he doesn’t notice the pretty girl who everyone notices, so she wants him to notice her, he can’t read the mind of an idiot so he can sneak up on him and wants to be Saiki’s friend, and of course, there are the evil forces of Dark Reunion, a completely made up organization. It’s completely absurd and just little vignettes into Saiki’s life but very much worth checking out.

5 – Sword Art Online

SAO, one of those classic anime that really isn’t that old but has gotten a huge following and even a spin off show, which I didn’t like. Sword Art Online is the story of what happens when full dive MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) go wrong and everyone becomes stuck on it. The only way to get out of the game is to clear the game and if you die in the game you die in real life. This could have been a massive hack and slash adventure type of game, but instead we get an interesting look into the minds of those trapped in there, those who want to survive, and those who have something to fight for, and those who let them game twist them.

4 – Assassination Classroom

An alien has landed on earth after destroying half the moon, and what he really wants is to die. But he won’t go easily and he won’t let just anyone kill him, because most normal methods of death, he can avoid. Instead, he wants to teach a class, and those students, through training, will be the ones who will be creative enough how to kill them, plus, they just might learn something along the way. A completely absurd premise, but they do a really good job with the anime and with the students. It’s less about assassination and more about how he ends up helping all the students in some way. Also, he’s a human size yellow tentacle monster, so there’s that weirdness going on as well.

3 – Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon

It’s a long title and one that seems like it should just be a dumb fantasy anime, and in some ways it is, but it is really entertaining. There’s some fan service in it and falls into the trope known as a harem anime, but it feels different, probably because the main character never puts together that hes the person the harem is forming around, he is too innocent and pure. All he cares about is becoming strong enough to be worthy of the girl, Aiz Wallenstein who saved him from a Minotaur in the dungeon. It’s a lot of fun, and it takes something that you see a lot in anime, leveling up, and codifies it into the story so that while it is silly that it’s in the world, it makes a lot of sense. A light hearted fantasy anime that’s definitely worth checking out.

2 – Cowboy Bebop

Now if we’re talking revered anime, Cowboy Bebop has to be up there. This space opera follows a group of bounty hunters as they travel around to different planets, meet different people and tell their story. However, what really makes this anime work is the music. The music is just amazing and it’s a new for each episode. And each episode has it’s one distinct style and feel to it because of the music, the story was woven into the music, not the music put around the story. It’s just so well done and while it might not tell some massively epic tale throughout everything, it creates a mood that just works so well and you care about the characters.

1 – Steins;Gate

I don’t thin there will be many surprises with my #1, I’m pretty sure every time I do a top five, it’s my number one as well. But Steins;Gate is just so good. It’s a time travel story, which generally I’m a sucker for, and it tells it really well. The characters are so sympathetic and what seems like just a silly quirk early on ends up revealing way more about the character than you’d think later in the show. The time travel aspect is well done and while there are some completely implausible things, overall, I think it works really well. There’s just a sense of the conspiracy around it and the story just speaks so much into the characters and the world. Clearly I highly recommend this one, it can be intense and times, but so very good.

There are a few that just missed the list that I wanted to mention as well. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I need to finish watching it, but I did enjoy it. Ghost Story, just a really enjoyable anime and something different in how it told it’s stories. After School Dice Club which is about board game. There’s so much out there that’s good that I probably could have done a top twenty, also a lot that is pretty crappy, so hopefully this’ll give you some new shows to checkout.

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5 – Sword Art Online
#5 was actually the hardest spot to fill, because I have a number of anime that I want to put here after a definite few that are some of my top ones. But Sword Art Online (SAO) is just a solid anime that has had multiple stories through it, regular SAO, Gun Gale Online, Ordinal Scale, and they are all solid. It tells an interesting story in the first season as well, where you have the main character (and a lot more people) who are going into a full immersion video game, like they’ve done before, but the creator of the game is making his masterpiece and legacy and traps them all in the game. And, if you die in the game, you die in real life, but if you can beat the final boss of the game, you can escape the game and free everyone from it. But that means clearing a lot of levels. SAO isn’t a show about clearing levels, though, it’s about how people adjust to living in this digital world and the problems that arise from it. Then the other seasons deal with more virtual reality or augmented reality, but not in the same way as the first season. There’s definitely fan service in this show, but not a ton, and the story can be simplistic at times, but the premise was interesting to me.

4 – Assassination Classroom
A silly anime, it actually ended up having more heart to it than I expected, which I enjoyed. Assassination Classroom is an insane premise, which most anime area, and from the sounds of it should be about a classroom full of assassins, instead, it’s about a class of middle school (maybe junior high) age kids who have been tasked by the government to kill their teacher, a weird yellow tentacle monster. That is an insane premise, but what you get is a classroom of misfits who eventually have to start working together and growing after getting in trouble previously, all of this being led by their weird yellow tentacle monster teacher. I don’t think this anime is for everyone, but I think it did a good job of doing what it was trying to do and tell a compelling story of the growth of the kids.

3 – Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
Long title, good fantasy anime. This is one of the things that really got me checking out LitRPG on Audible, for better or worse (fairly often they were worse), but in Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeons (IIWTPUGIAD (not catchy)), it does a good job of creating an interesting world and an interesting story. And it does a trope that I enjoy, the clueless hero, he’s very earnest, and he wants to do the best possible after being rescued from this magical resetting dungeon by Aiz Wallenstein, this extremely talent female dungeon delver. Then there are a bunch of other characters who may or may not be interested in the main character. It has some of the harem anime feel to it, which isn’t a genre that I care about, but the main character is so earnest and caring that it doesn’t feel as gazy as some of them, but it does still have fan service in it. I also like how it ties in real world pantheons in an interesting way, so it’s not just a generic fantasy setting.

2 – Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop is a very immersive space opera that pulls you in not just through the story telling, which is well done, but so much through the music. The music of each episode helps inform the story that is being told and draws you further into what you are watching. It also is really well done and the variety of music throughout the show, because each episode has it’s own feel, is really impressive. This is an anime that has good character depth as well, even with being thrown into the middle of their story, you start to get an idea of who the characters are, and what they have gone through in their lives.

1 – Steins;Gate
This has been #1 for me for a while, this time travel anime is just well put together with a good cast of characters. I really feel like they do a good job of developing those characters as well. And while there are definitely characters that can fall into various anime tropes, they do a really good job of keeping most characters out of them and even the tropy characters end up having more depth than it seems. The time travel is also really well done. Time travel is one of those things that I generally like in concept, but too many shows and movies end up having time travel become so convoluted that it doesn’t work, or too simple that you can poke holes in how they are doing things. Steins;Gate does a good job of making something simple enough that you can generally understand the concept of it, but complicated enough that it doesn’t feel like time travel can be easily solved.

As always there are some honorable mentions that I need to add in as well.

Honorable Mention:
Ghost Story
Fruits Basket
The Devil is a Part-Timer
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
My Hero Academia
My Roommate is a Cat
Dagashi Kashi

There are a lot of anime out there that I want to watch more of that I either can’t easily find on Funimation or just haven’t had the time for yet. But Ancient Magus Bride, Fairie Gone, and Afterschool Dice Club are all that I’ve watched a chunk of and want to watch more that could make it to my list eventually.

What are some of your favorite anime? Do any of the ones I’ve listed here sound interesting to you?

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Episode 1: A New World

We start out this anime, in a pretty common way, especially for a school anime. The main character, Miki, is a quiet and shy character who just does her own thing and really doesn’t know how to have fun. That changes when a fellow classmate, Aka, accidentally runs her bike into a river/stream and decides to teach Miki about having fun. Together, they decide to follow their class representative into the “entertainment” district, because that’s expressly forbidden for the students to be there after 6, and it’s night. There they find out that she works at a game shop and the shop owner decides that the girls should learn how to play some board games.

Thus far the anime hasn’t done anything that really stands out, except for the fact that there are board games in there. And not that there are games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Uno, Skip-Bo, etc in the anime and in the game store, there are games like Ice Cool, Marrakech (more to come on that), and so many more in the store. Even the ones that only had the title in Japanese on the game, I could recognize a lot of them. There has clearly been a lot of effort making it seem like an actual board game store and keeping the stock of the store in a modern setting. It isn’t that uncommon to see a random copy of Monopoly or something like that in a show, but for an anime to create a store with that much detail it’s impressive.

That said about the anime, while it might not have set itself apart from some other slice of life animes, it hasn’t been week in telling it’s story. The characters, while tropes, are pretty well done, and the shop keeper of the board game store is amazing. He reminds me of Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop, though, I have to thank Kristen for putting that into my head, but it works wonderfully. And I think that there is going to be room for the anime to grow. It kind of feels like they are using board games to help get their little messages or little bits of character development across, and that’ll be interesting to see how they can tie it all together.

One thing I want to do in these reviews is talk about the games that they are playing in a given episode. In the first episode the game was Marrakech. In the game everyone is a rug salesman trying to get as much money as possible. To do this, you are moving around a character Assam across the board. Depending on where he ends, you have to pay other players for their rugs, if you land on one of theirs, counting the connected pieces. Then you place one of your rugs down, but you can’t fully cover up another rug. The game goes until everyone has played all of their rugs, then you get money for how many rugs of your color are showing, plus whatever you had from before, and the person with the most money wins. This game, from what they showed in the show, seems like a very interesting abstract puzzle with a fair amount of luck thrown in, because Assam moves as few as one space each round, and as many as four, based off of what you roll on the dice. So you can hopefully plan some, but you won’t be able to fully plan. There seems to be good depth to the game, though, as you try and force your opponents or at least increase the likelihood to land on your rugs so that they have to give you money. The game seems like it would play quite quickly as well, which is fun. Overall, this is a game that I would like to try before I’d add it to a collection, but I can see it being a game that would have a lot of cheering moments as you get the roll that you or the opposite on a low roll.

I’m excited to watch the next episode and see where the show goes. I love to see board games show up in more popular culture. Already this year we had Nemesis from Awaken Realms show up on an episode of South Park, and now we have an anime that is completely about board games. If you enjoy board games, and after one episode, check out this anime. It’s streaming through Funimation, and they are dubbing it, so I’ve only watched the dubbed version, which was good.

Let me know your thoughts on this anime. Is there another show that you’ve found about board games out there? Would you want to or have you played Marrakech?

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Let’s talk about what’s coming to my game table soon:

Welcome To… Doomsday and Welcome To… Spring – So this is just an expansion to a game that I already love, Welcome To. These add new things to the board, where in the first game you were building neighborhoods, pools, and parks, in these two, you get to add in new things. The Spring has Easter eggs scattered about, and if you fill in those houses, you get points for collecting eggs. In Doomsday you are building bunkers for the inevitable nuclear destruction of your neighborhood. You can save as many people as the house number, but the person who saves the most gets the more points, but will it mess up your neighborhood?

Hats – This Alice in Wonderland Tea Party themed game is a fairly small card game that comes in a beautiful package. I had seen it played on Man Vs Meeple youtube channel, and it looked like a lot of fun. I picked it up, and it was a lot of fun. The interesting thing about the game is that while you are collecting cards, you aren’t using the cards from your hand to score. Instead you are placing them out into a scoring track, and taking a card from that track that you’ll score at the end. But it’s possible that at the end of the game certain colors won’t score, which could keep you from getting points on something you’ve collected. It’s a simple game of placing cards and scoring cards, but because you really don’t score your own hand of cards, there is a nice twist on it. And it look great, the plastic cookie in it, looks almost real.

The Grimm Masquerade – In this game, you play three rounds where you are a different (possibly) fairy tale character at a masquerade. You are trying to collect the item that you want, but you don’t want to be too obvious about it, otherwise the other players can force you to take what you don’t want. This is a smaller social deduction game with some actual game to it. On a turn you draw a card and can either keep it for yourself or place it in front of an opponent, and then you draw a second card and do the opposite thing. If you get three of your item you get the end of round points, but if you make it too obvious people can guess as to who you are for a couple of points or give you the items that you don’t want. Can you properly hide who you are while deducing what other fairy tale characters are at the table with you. At the end of three rounds, most points wins. This one seems very interesting and looks great. I like social deduction games that put in more of a game than you get from Resistance and Werewolf.

Tokyo Highway + Expansion – I didn’t get this one for myself technically. Kristen and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary in a few weeks. And with that, you get anniversary gifts for each other and we often try, just for the fun of it, to match the randomly assigned theme from years ago that you can google. For five years it is wood. And Tokoyo Highway is a pretty looking dexterity game that has a lot of wood components. In the game you are trying to build a highway system in a way that you can get all of your cars onto the roads before your opponent. But to be able to place a car, your road either needs to go above or below another road, so it becomes tricky to place them. The expansion adds in some different shaped cars, so it might be easier to place the small cars early, but does that mean you can’t place a truck later on, because it won’t fit?

Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a cute little roll and write game. In it you are setting up your cat trees to attract the cats in the cat cafe over to you. You get points for getting toys and treats in certain arrangements and for completing cat trees. It seems like a good roll and write game, and with two different strategies the first time that I played it, the game ended up being close. For a cute little theme, this is actually more of a thinky roll and write than I thought it would be. I will knock the game a little bit because the dice are bad in the game, but it gets some of those points back because the pencils that come in the game have erasers, which is unheard of. I, however, laminated my boards so I can play it even longer.

Cobwboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I actually don’t know a ton about this game, except for what the saleman told me at GenCon. But I also got a free game with it, Albion’s Legacy, that I know even less about. In Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie you are taking on the roles of the main characters from the show. You are trying to complete missions, get small bounties, but you really want to get the big bounties and compete your own objectives. What is interesting about this game is that each character has their own powers that they can do that are supposed to be fairly thematic. I’ll be curious to get this game to the table as it looks interesting, and I really like the Cowboy Bebop theme.

Sagrada The Great Facades – Passion – Another expansion, this one for a game that I really love. Sagrada is just a beautiful game to get to the table. And this expansion adds in some shiny clear dice. These are used in place in one of the powers that you can use, but the dice doesn’t count as any color making it easier to place. I think that it adds in an interesting challenge to the game, making it easier, but those power seem expensive. You also get to add in some more scoring objectives that can make the game trickier and give it more variety as you play. I’m waiting to get this one to the table soon.

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and Expansion – I love this game, but I haven’t owned it and it’s been hard to find. But, of course, it was available at GenCon, so I had to grab it. This is just such as good social deduction game, and a mystery game. It’s fun, as a detective, to try and figure out the clues that the Forensic Scientist is giving you. And sometimes, a clue just isn’t going to be useful, but as the detectives, you don’t know that. I’m waiting to get this back to the table soon.

Detective: City of Angels – This is the biggest game that I got, but I’m a sucker for detective games. I do have to get them to the table more, as I also want to get Chronicles of Crime, which we demoed. But this one is interesting because it isn’t a cooperative game. In fact, there is one person who runs all the suspects who is intentionally trying to get mislead the detectives so that they can’t figure it out. And, along with that, as a fellow detective, you can send in someone to spy and get the same information, but it’s going to cost you money. Can you balance all of that to figure out what is going on, and can you figure out when to lean on a suspect to get that last piece for information, or were they telling the truth? I think this game seems like fun on either side, but I would love to be a detective in it.

Loup Garou – From the same company that made Detective: City of Angels, this is something completely different. It’s part of their graphic novel series. I don’t know a ton about this story, but it looked cool, and was the sales persons favorite of the books. What is interesting about these books is that they are a choose your own adventure graphic novel. That doesn’t seem like something a board game company would do. But, it is because you have a character sheet with abilities that turns this reading adventure into a game. I’m curious to try it out, and if I like it, they have a lot more titles that I’ll want to get my hands on, including a cooperative graphic novel adventure that is more child focused, but if you are playing the tall character, your panel is going to give you more options than you’re the strong character if, for example you’re standing next to a fence, but less options if you are standing by a boulder blocking a cave entrance. These seem really cool and fun to try.

I think that’s all that I got. You can see that I have a lot of games to get to the table. And I missed out on a couple that I’d love to get my hands on, mainly Letter Jam. But it’ll be fun to get those to the table this year, plus the other big box games that I have coming from Kickstarter eventually.

What of these games would you be most interested in trying? Was there a game that you were really looking forward to coming out at GenCon?

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So, one thing that I’d do differently, but I was glad that I did this time, was that we stayed at my friends parents place so we didn’t have to pay for a room, that saved a good chunk of change. The downside to it, was that their place was an hour and fifteen away from our parking spot. So that was a lot of driving at times. Now, if I were to do it again, I would maybe see about doing, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at a hotel, but keep our same driving schedule of getting there on Wednesday and going back on Monday. That way my friend would be able to see his parents, but being closer to the convention would be really nice.

The other thing that I’d do differently is be a bit pickier on games. Now, I think basically all the games that we played in were great, and that it was a good number of games, I think we ended up doing six events in total, but we skipped one game on Sunday to get into a demo of another game. That was a great call, since as interesting as the Harry Potter miniatures game sounded, the price point was too high, so we likely wouldn’t have started playing it even if we loved it. Instead, we got to demo a game that we both decided we wanted after playing it.

That really takes me to one of the big highlights. There are so many games there, and we spent a ton of our time wandering the dealer floor and looking at games, getting games explained to us, and best of all, getting games demoed. There are so many games that if you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have to do any organized events. We got to demo God of War, Deranged, Last Hour, Homebrewer, Bottom of the 9th, and so many more, and I’ll be touching on some of them in future articles. In fact, it took us a day and a half just to walk around what we thought was all of the dealer space, only to find that we had missed some and then remember that we had skipped some bigger booths to start because they were too busy when we went by them the first time.

Oh, and the events, the events that we went to were great. Marc Gunn performing Hobbit drinking songs was a fun and goofy old time. There was the North American Championships for Ice Cool (I was a semi-finalist), and that was a blast, most of the people were there to just have fun with it, so everyone was having fun. The best event was playtesting the Alpha version of Role Player Adventures. It’s a RPG-Lite sort of game, where it’s more about some dice manipulation, but we had a great group to play test with and we made some silly decisions and had a lot of fun with it.

There is so much to talk about, and I did pick up a number of things, so let me give a fast rundown of what I picked up:

1. Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I like Cowboy Bebop a lot, and the game looked fun
2. Albion’s Legacy – Got this one for free with Cowboy Bebop, and it’s a big box game which is interesting.
3. Hats – Good simple card game with a lot of interesting and challenging choices. You kind of have to forget what you know about card games to get your brain wrapped around this one.
4. Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a roll and write, but it’s actually more complex than you’d think for the theme. Definitely a fun one with the time I played it.
5. Loup Garou – A choose your own adventure book, really, but you have a character sheet, so there’s a game element to it.
6. Detective: City of Angels – Big box detective game. In it, one person is the “chisel”, person giving clues, but they don’t want anyone to solve the case, but if they lie all the time, people will know that too. And all the detectives are racing to a solution.
7. The Grimm Masquerade – Which of the fairy tale characters are sitting around the table and trying to collect their item of choice? Can you call them out before they succeed, or maybe bust them with the item that they don’t want. Seems like a fun and interactive social deduction game with an actual game there.
8. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong & Expansion – Not a new game, but my favorite social deduction game.
9. Tokyo Highway & Expansion – Not a new game either, but hard to find, it’s a pretty looking wood game where you are building out roads and trying to be the first to place your cars.
10. Welcome To… Fallout and Spring Expansions
11. Sagrada Expansion

Oof, I have a lot of board games to get through. So I want to talk more about games that I demoed in a future articles, games that we paid for and played, including a Dresden Files skinned Savage World game, and more. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot of fun was had, and I definitely want to go again next year.

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