Year in Review 2019

Uta no Prince Sama Maji Love Kingdom

I already started a list of things to write for the year but we made a last-minute decision to travel back to my hometown. So there goes my plan for posting Year in Review a few days before the New Year's. The past year was life-changing for me and as a result, I am back to focusing and making a lot of changes with Reverse Harem Garden. Let's start with the review and the reverse harem shows/movies for 2019:

anime:

Meiji Tokyo Renka** 

Uta no Prince Sama Maji Love Kingdom (movie)**

Stand My Heroes: Piece of Truth*  

Kimi Dake ni Motetainda (movie)  not confirmed 

dramas: 

Hajimete Koi o Shita Hi ni Yomu Hanashi**  

Unique Lady / Lascivious Lady**

Legend of Prince (movie)

Meiji Tokyo Renka (TV)

Meiji Tokyo Renka (movie)

Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy (movie)**

Coffee and Vanilla**

Doubt~ Usotsuki Otoko wa Dare? (movie)

I have 3 Boyfriends*

Triple Fling S1 and S2

I also made a classification of reverse harem (see Levels of Reverse Harem). Under the three flowers and two flowers we have the following:

anime:

B-PROJECT ~Zechhou*Emotion**

Ensemble Stars**

Fruits Basket **

Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy**

Waiting for Spring (Harumatsu Bokura) (movie)**

She's Gotta Have It S2**

Love Alarm**

Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency*

Marigold in 4 Minutes*

I didn't notice that there were a few anime this year. Uta Pri is a concert anime while Kimi Dake ni Motetainda is an unconfirmed reverse harem. The only two straight-up reverse harem is Meiji Tokyo Renka and Stand My Heroes. I probably didn't notice due to the fact that I finished catching up on my anime backlog of nine anime! Good job self! Plus, I completed all the watchlist for winter 2019. 

The list for the dramas is not updated. There are more that are tagged as reverse harem on Mydramalist just take note of the year. For books and manga, there are so many that I will not even dream of tracking them but I was able to read webtoon, My Dear Cold-Blooded King and book series, The Veil Diaries and Kit Davenport. I have not watched all anime and dramas but without further ado my top reverse harem for the year are:

Special mention to non-reverse harem: Ensemble Stars, Fruits Basket and Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy. I'll be posting reviews soon.

Now let's get down to trends and notable news for the year. As usual, the reverse harem anime are from otome games while reverse harem manga goes to live-action route (Hajimete, Hot Gimmick, Coffee and Vanilla). But for the first time, we have not only one but two live-action movies based on otome games, Meiji Tokyo Renka and Doubt. The first otome gane to drama, is Hakuouki SSL in 2015.  

The biggest newsmaker for the year is Uta Prince no Sama Maji Love Kingdom. It has earned more than 1.8 billion yen (about US$16.45 million) as of December 12 and sold 1,150,000 tickets as of December 15 after 27 weeks in the box office. It ranked 6 on its opening weekend, And for the first time, I get to watch a reverse harem in a cinema in my country! 

This year a lot of people related to reverse harem attended anime convention in the US. For Anime Expo: Bisco Hatori of Ouran High School Host Club, Uta Pri voice actors: Takuma Terashima (Ittoki Otoya) and Mamoru Miyano (Tokiya Ochinose) and Utako Yukohiri (manga artist and character design artist for B-Pro and Bonjour Koiaji Patisserie). Otakon also hosted three of Fruits Basket voice actors: Makoto Furukawa (Hatsuharu Soma), Manaka Iwami (Tohru Honda), and Nobunaga Shimazaki (Yuki Soma).

In the tradition of Sengoku Night Blood and Idolish7 of introducing the female protagonist at the last hour, the same happened with Stand My Heroes and Ensemble Stars. 

For 2019, I'm going to skip stage adaptations and localizations of otome games because they are just too many. I'm tired of listing them now. XD The year is still big on Switch games and ports and mobile games. There are announced revivals and remakes: Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 4, QuinRose Reborn, new Angelique, King of Fighters for Girls and a new localization of TAISHO x ALICE.

There are games that ended service: Yumeiro Cast, Dynamic Chord Jam app, Dame x Prince app and Sengoku Night Game app. Asgard filed for bankruptcy while Honeybee and Black Butterfly were transferred to Arithmetic. 

Likewise, mangas that are about to end or has ended: Short Cake Cake, Black Bird, Harumatsu Bokura, Demon Prince of Momochi House, Seirou Opera, Kaze Hikaru, Oresama Teacher and From 5 to 9. Akatsuki no Yona is also 70% complete. 

2019 was rocked with scandals again...Jung Yoo Ahn (of Top Management) and Akitaro Daichi (director of  Fruits Basket 2011, Kamisama Kiss and  Meiji Tokyo Renka) for sexual harassment. Yoochu of Sungkyunkwan Scandal is jailed for illegal drugs. Vic Mignogna's case against  Funimation, Monica Rial and Ron Toye were dismissed. Vic has voiced (dubbed) Tamaki of Ouran Host Highschool Club and more while Monica voiced, Misaki Ayuzwa of Maid Sama, Yona of Yona of the Dawn and more.

Song Joong Ki (Sungkyunkwan Scandal) and Song Hye Kyo quietly divorced while Goo Hye Sun of (Boys Over Flowers) and Ahn Jae-Hyun's (Cinderella and 4 Knights) plans for divorce was very public. 

Ai Morinaga of My Heavenly Hocket Club, Sulli of To The Beautiful You and Jeon Mi-Sun of Hwang Ji Ni passed away. :( 

On a more positive note, Ryusei Yokohoma (Hajimete Koi o Shita Hi ni Yomu Hanashi) took the grand prize of most searched for 2019 in Yahoo! Japan. While Yuki Kaiji (Attack on Titan as Eren, Brothers Conflict as Wataru Diabolik Lovers as Kanato Sakamaki etc) is the most searched voice actor. 

For reverse harem enablers. I noticed there are more reverse harem cdramas. I only watched one only though which is Lascivious Lady. Netflix has Love Alarm and She's Gotta Have it S2 and for 2020, Did We Love? and To All The Boys I've Loved Before sequels. For remakes, we'll have In A Class of Her Own (Chinese remake of Sungkyunkwan Scandal kdrama) and Thailand version of Boys Over Flower.   

The year is not complete with fun or weird otome games. Special mention to: Kemono no Jūsha to Ōji no Hanayome (beast men - cat, iguana, eagle and more),  Cafe Enchante (headless horseman) and I love you, Colonel Sanders (where you can date the bishonen younger Colonel Sanders). Disney is also making a bishonen game of villains with Twisted Wonderland. It's not an otome game but seriously hoping it would get an adaptation with a female protagonist like in the case of Sanrio Boys manga adaptation.

If 2019 was the year of finishing anime backlog. I am claiming it now, 2020 is the year of manga! I tried Ayakashi Romance Reborn and finally understood what SR and SSR cards stand for. But gacha type is not my cup of tea. Maybe 2021 we'll be a year of otome games? We'll see. I'll be posting my top ten anime soon. I have so many plans that are now slowly becoming completed. Please be patient with me. :D Cheers to a new year and new decade. And to the universe, kamisama, law of attraction or whatever, more manga to anime pleaaaaaseeeee!!!!) Thanks for supporting Reverse Harem Garden.

I've also updated Happy New Year 2020 and January calendars.


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