Anime Reviews by Awards

All awards for Anime listed in alphabetical order (Positive awards use blue frames, negative in red). Awards are only given in outstanding cases, where something is especially noteworthy, negative or positive. On any review page, you can hover your mouse over an award icon to see a description.

Have a suggestion for a new award that isn’t covered by the current list? Contact me here.

Positive Awards:

Award	Description	Count
	Charm – Has an undeniable charm that draws you in, and you can’t help but smile.	37
	Deep Narrative – A multi-layered story that delves deep into its subject matter and characters, far beyond the ordinary.	35
	Engaging Dialogue – Dialogue that makes you pay attention through quality writing.	13
	Extensive Character Development – Expect characters to evolve extensively in believable and interesting ways.	37
	Fluid Animation – Smooth animation with a high key-frame count. Note that the artistic quality can still be bland even with great animation.	61
	Great Music – Music that synergises with and enhances the visuals and narrative.	51
	Great Opening and/or Ending Sequences – For those who like great opening and/or ending credit sequences.	19
	Hilarious – Warning: you may die of laughter. Nefarious Reviews is in no way responsible for such deaths based on my recommendations.	34
	Holy S***! – Contains moments that will leave you in awe or take you to another level of headsplosion. (Does not necessarily mean mind-blowing twists.)	33
	Phenomenal Villain – The heroes must face a cunning villain with varying degrees of good and evil.	20
	Recommended English Voice Track – This anime is superior in English. (Does not necessarily mean that the Japanese track is bad.)	30
	Riveting Action – The action is well choreographed, doesn’t lose the audience with each cut, and goes beyond the meaningless flurry of repetitive punches.	25
	Stellar Voice Acting – Voices crafted by great actors to bring characters to life on a vocal level.	47
	Strategic – Whether it is the battles or mental sparring, proper thought was put into the back and forth between opponents.	9
	Strong Lead Characters – The leading cast is fully developed with varying degrees of strengths and weakness and not wholly good or wholly bad. (Strong doesn’t refer to physicality.)	77
	Strong Support Characters – The supporting cast is fully developed with varying degrees of strengths and weakness and not wholly good or wholly bad. (Strong doesn’t refer to physicality.)	28
	Stunning Art Quality – Gorgeous art that makes you pause to admire the visuals.	52

Negative Awards:

Award	Title	Count
	Atrocious Story – A story so bad, you wonder what the hell you just watched.	24
	Awful Dialogue – You cannot believe what you are hearing.	28
	Deus-Ex Machina – Twists occur and situations are resolved abruptly in a contrived manner by something from out of nowhere.	8
	Disappointing – More was expected based on the set-up or pedigree of the series.	39
	Ear-grating Voice Work – Make it stop. Just make it stop!	13
	Hollow World Creation – Little to no thought was put into creating the world. Even a real world setting is no excuse for a lack of thought and depth.	37
	Horrendous Action – Action sequences with little purpose, poor visual narratives, frequently lose the viewer, or lacking in strategy.	19
	Incoherent – The series as a whole, from the characters to the narrative, can’t maintain a direction.	16
	Incomplete – Missing the ending or resolutions for too many plot threads. (Does not necessarily mean the series is bad outside of this.)	10
	Induces Stupidity – Characters, plots, events, or ideas are so obviously stupid, you will lose intelligence by mere exposure.	32
	Lacks Conflict – There is no true conflict for the characters. The narrative tries to fool you with false conflict.	15
	Mary-Sue Characters – A character  whether male or female, often the protagonist, who is idealised, too perfect without any real flaws and is loved by all just because the writer says so. Clumsiness is not a real flaw.	13
	Misleading – The narrative is set-up one way, but goes off in a far different direction. Bait and switch.	8
	No Development – The narrative and characters do not evolve by the end.	35
	Not Funny – Constant attempts at humour that just are not funny. (Only applies when the intention is to be funny.)	11
	Poor Pacing – Whether fast or slow-paced, the narrative speed is off.	28
	Repetitive – Haven’t I seen this before? Haven’t I seen this before?	22
	Rubbish Major Characters – Flat characters, stereotypes, black and white characterisation, worthless weaknesses, etc.	45
	Shallow – An overall lack of depth in nearly all aspects of the series.	40
	Shyamalamalam-Worthy Twists – Twists that are either laughably bad or materialise out of nowhere in an attempt at eliciting a shock response.	4
	Terrible Start – A start bad enough to make you quit an otherwise great series. Stick with it for a little before deciding if it’s for you.	9
	Torture Music – A soundtrack that does not fit the narrative.	4
	Ugly Artistic Design – Art with little to no redeeming qualities.	28
	Useless Side Cast – The supporting cast should have been deleted.	29
	Weak End – An ending that does not live up to the series that came before. (Does not apply to a bad series with an equally bad ending.)	21