Fantasy Anime League Spring 2026 edition

 So, it is time for another round of FAL, and time to select the anime's I'm guessing will do well this season!

 

The first week has begun, and my team is ready to do another throw for glory.

 

Now recent editions have been going really well, so I once more hope to end within the top 20% of this seasonal contest.  To that end, my main line anime I picked is the third season of Dr Stone.  Which is an anime I actually should start watching myself soon...

 

Tsugai of the Underworld is a new fantasy series, so that got my pick as well, while Ascendence of the Bookworm season 4 looks like a sure shot series, this fantasy is just bloody good and I hope it carries on it's momentum.

 

I rounded out my 5 anime starting line-up with two series that will also start running in the opening week, with the fourth season of Welcome to Demon School and the lighter hearted Farming Life in Another World season 2.

 

I really aimed for the Fantasy / Sequel combination with the line up... 

 

... and continued that trend for my bench, with Wistoria's wand and Sword season 2 and the comedic The Barbarian's Bride, which is a new series.

 

The only non-Fantasy I banked on this edition is Liar Game, a psycholigical thriller series that debuts during this season. 

 

Will it have been a smart choice to go mainly into a single genre for the season?  Maybe, but in general fantasy series tend to be running well the past year or two, after all the isekai before them.  So this might skyrocket like crazy... or come down burning like a big ball of flames cast at level 20!

 

Let's see how it goes! 

Fantasy Anime League: fall 2024 results

And so the game was on again this Fall, to predict which anime series would do well and score some serious points.

 

 

Like the previous seasons, I aimed to end within the top 50%.

 

So, how did my picks perform this season?  And did my restricted ones perform on top level as hoped for?  Did my wild guess gut feelings pay off?  Let's have a look!

 

Bleach Thousand Year War 3: This came in at 1st place, so a solid score

DanMachi season 5: Hitting 3rd, this meant I had the top 3 of the season predicted

Ao no Hako: The 2nd most viewed anime, and I managed to ace all top 3 for a great score

You are Ms Servant: Ending finally at 20th place, it was a good series for the first weeks before swapping it out

Ranma 1/2: Nostalgia scores my gut feeeling told me, and it came out at 5th place so I was right

Dragon Ball Daima: Always a stable score, the series ended 7th overall

From Common Job Class season 3: Not used in the end, it was a good 8th place

Ao no Miburo: My bad choice, but it didn't get used anyways, as it came in only 44th

 

So, that is a bit of a great result I guess, my 5 main anime's ending with the first 7 spots!

 

On a weekly level, it went like this:

 

Week 1: 306th place with 135461 points, succesfully aced Ao no Hoko

Week 2: 78th place with 355560 points, succesfully aced Bleach

Week 3: 41st place with 678514 points, swapped Ms Servant for Dragon Ball

Week 4: 28th place, 893541 points, succesfully aced DanMachi

Week 5: 285th place, 1104327 points

Week 6: 290th place, 1256897 points

Week 7: 315th place, 1622149 points

Week 8: 326th place, 1756307 points

Week 9: 381th place, 2012409 points

Week 10: 400th place, 2364727 points

Week 11: 418th place, 2530409 points

Week 12: 480th placce, 2785429 points, used Wild Card points bump

Week 13: 287th place, 3636325 points, succesfully aced Ranma 1/2

 

So, I went out solidly out of the gates, scoring some strong points in the opening phase, even getting to 78th place in week 2.   

This allowed the unavoidable fall down the ranking to be post-poned a little, but I kept hovering around the top 1% this edition to my own amazement.  Thanks to being able to ace Ranma 1/2 in the final week, for the nice 75k bonus points, I climbed almost 200 spots on the finish line, putting me in 287th spot in the end, and the top 1%.

So a really good season of predicting for sure, and that of course sets the bar for future seasons on this guessing game!

 

 

 

 

The Spring Fantasy Anime League 2024 result

 Fresh of the back of my best season ever, the Winter 2024 where I ended up in the top 6%, the pressure was on to get at least back in the top half of the table.

Which is a nice goal I've set for myself going forward the coming Leagues, though this all is fickle.

The trick is to get as many aces in, and that is something one does not control unfortunatly, on how people's viewing behaviour will turn out, especially with the dubbed versions often influencing the ratings one or two weeks after the original subbed release.

Anyways, here is my selection of picked anime's for this season:

Yuru Camp season 3: strong performer that I managed to ace

Misfit of Demon Academy season 2: my personal flop, I had expected way more of this

Kaiju nr 8:as it blasted through the tresshold on it's debut week, it couldn't be aced. 

Spice and Wolf: The third most popular anime of the season, so I had some good picks

I'm Addicted to You

Date a Live V: Solid performer, though not spectacular.

Black Butler Public School: not as heavy a hitter as I hoped

Whispering You a Love Song

A varied selection, with solid sequel seasons, and some like Spice and Addicted that I had high hopes for.  So let's have a look how I progressed over the 13 weeks of the challenge.

Week 1: 115773 points, 2435 th place, succesfully aced Spice and Wolf

Week 2: 216602 points, 3166 th place 

Week 3: 526163 points, 3184 th place, swapped in Date A Live for I'm Addicted to You,

Week 4: 722229 points, 1907 th place, succesfully aced Yuru Camp

Week 5: 995107 points, 1358 th place, succesfully aced Date A Live

Week 6: 1140488 points, 1796 th place, swapped Misfit for Addicted

Week 7: 1474541 points, 2595 th place

Week 8: 1588911 points, 2906 th place, swapped addicted for Love Song

Week 9: 1832045 points, 3981 th place 

Week 10: 2167417 points, 4170 th place, swapped Love Song for Black Butler

Week 11: 2322103 points, 4696 th place

Week 12: 2565915 points, 5080 th place, used the Bomber Up wildcard

Week 13: 3316521 points, 4805 th place

So right at the finish line, I managed to sneak 200+ places in still, ending up at a nicely done 17% from the top.  While this was achieved with the best and the 3rd ranked anime of the season, to be honest the rest of them didn't do that well at all as can be seen above.  This also resulted in only being able to play 3 out of my 5 aces, so that is a lot of bonus points I couldn't use unfortunatly.

 

So yeah, with some decent though not spectacular performers apart from the obvious Kaiju nr 8 and the good performing Spice and Wolf, I still managed to end in the top 17%, so going over my aim of top 50% once again.

 

There will be no Summer league this year it seems, so that means more time to prepare a strategy (insert hilarious laughter) for the next seasonal contest when it hits!

Win a Sergeant Castus promo figure at Wayland

 Wayland Games is running a cool contest this weekend, running from the 21st until the 24th.

And the rules are actually pretty simple!

All you have to do is buy a Games Workshop product they have in stock and will be shipped out during the contest, and hopla, you are entered into the giveaway.

So click that Wayland banner at the top of the blog (it helps out this poor little fella that is rejuvenating his Chaos Dwarf force!), buy something GW and keep fingers crossed you are one of the lucky 8!

Good luck

Project "I won" in 2017

Well, if you are around on this blog for over a year, you might remember that at the end of 2016, I decided to have a look if all those "you win free LEGO etc etc" easily.

And as such, I entered a lot of YouTube contests, Facebook likes, blog giveaways and more during the past 12 months... and I must say it is actually true.

Down here is a selection of all the things I actually won as such, as well as some words of explanation where no YouTube video's are included...

This giveaway was for an unused set of Dimensions Scooby Doo set, and it swiftly arrived.

A big giveaway, and I had to luck to come up in third place, taking a nice stack of LEGO goodies.

This was a roulette that entered you if your bought from them on BrickLink.  It`s a custom fig with some lovely parts, and who am I to say no to additional freebies.

Through a Facebook contest I got a set of LEGO cards, not available in Belgium.  Nice little thingies to have.

My price from the yearly Eurobricks Christmas Raffle arrived as well the past year, granting a heap of ghostly themed models.

Through Owen`s Lab, I obtained a set of LEGO Batman Movie CMF figures this year.

And that is it for the LEGO side of things... but there where more contests, and more stuff I snatched up

Through the excellent flemish blog, 80sGeek, I won a digital copy of 8-Bit Kids, telling the lovestory of one man and his Commodore 64.  Expect a review during the coming year on this one for sure!

Greebo Games ran a "Price is right" contest for their limited edition Fang N Hood model, and I guessed the price, and won the draw.  The model is expected somewhere first half of 2018.

On the same note, as in under way in the post, is a Power Rangers Alpha-5 action figure, which I got through the Fo Real Toys Youtube channel.

The final free loot this year wasn`t a draw, but a gift for entering the AHCP8 just as recent as two weeks ago.  Barrage Miniatures sponsored all participants with their digital copy of Rattenkrieg, which if you count the vouchers in the book is a gift of 20 euro just for entering... mighty fine.

So that`s it, the heap of stuff I actually obtained for doing things like sharing and commenting on whatever social media platform it ran.  Barely any effort, but a nice pile of stuff, which if you count it all is easily a 100 - 150 euro value just for free.

So yes, the stories of winning free stuff... are true.  Tested it, and if I really, really wanted to push it, I could have reacted to a lot more of contests to be honest instead of those really intresting me.

I won: Greebo Games Fang 'n Hood

A bit of a suprise as I was tagged on Facebook a day or two ago.

Greebo Games launched a Kickstarter for their Fang 'n Hood model, which is an epic take on Little Red Riding Hood fighting the Big Bad Wolf.

This will be a limited edition model, down to 500 copies, and through their page, you could try and guess the price the model would cost when going onto Kickstarter.  From those giving the correct price (which is 45 euro btw), a winner would be drawn.

And that turned out to be me.

I`m really happy for this one, it`s a great looking sculpts and will be one of those figures you paint to display in your cabinets instead of risking damaging it on the gaming table in all probability.  The Kickstarter is set to ship in February 2018, so I estimate my figure will be arriving then as well.

I`m really excited to get my hands on this one!

I won: BrickGeekz Collectable Cards

A little luck yesterday night, as I won a raffle from BrickGeekz.

The price?  A set of the UK trading cards from Sainsbury, so not available here in Belgium.

All you had to do was the "like, share, tag someone" routine from Facebook, and tadaaa, after three years of knowing Phil and often hopping by on his streams (unfortunatly, time hasn`t been gentle to do that the past months) I came out on top at last.

Patience is a virtue indeed...