Of Anime First Watched in 2016, Some Favorites

Not in any particular order:

• Boku Dake ga Inai Machi (Erased): If you can return to the past, can you really change anything?  In a world where children aren't usually taken seriously, can you save a friend from adults in positions where everyone trusts them and not you?
  
• Steins; Gate and the sequel Steins; Gate: Fuka Ryouiki no Deja Vu.  One of the best "parallel timelines/realities/time travel" stories I've found, in any medium.  A little too much creepy obsession with the trans character, and the usual sexism toward scientists who are also female, but I decided I would keep watching anyway for what shaped up to be a very well-done plot.  Slow to get started; almost 10 episodes before the storyline really starts to unfold. 
  
• Sarusuberi Miss Hokusai.  Amazingly beautiful historical fiction, seamlessly incorporating some of Hokusai's best known works.  Touching and sad yet also hopeful. 
  
• Flying Witch: everyday life with a witch and her friends.  Nothing much happens, but life is peaceful and good.  I learned the best way to chop an onion.
  
• Rokka no Yuusha: six heroes are chosen to go and fight the demons who periodically try to destroy human lands.  Lush, brilliant colors, panoramic landscapes, startling personalities, and a nice twist on the typical fantasy setup.
  
• Mushishi (and all sequels): "Perceived as strange and alien, inferior and grotesque, these are beings who appear entirely unlike flora and fauna familiar to us."  Yet not malicious, not evil.  Everyone and everything is just trying to get by, just trying to live.  When mushi and humans come into conflict, Ginko the mushishi (mushi master) tries to mediate.  
  
• Thunderbolt Fantasy: egregiously over-the-top tale of swords and sorcery.  For when you want amazing costumes, flamboyant monikers, male posturing (so much male posturing), rage-worthy sexism toward women doing anything other than having babies (yeah, I would have been happy to skip those parts), unbelievable explosions, and puppets killing each other with magical swords, this is your anime, right here.  
  
• Katanagatari: take every fantasy trope about a quest for magical swords and turn it inside-out and upside-down and toss it through a black hole.  Take what comes out and animate it so that everyone looks exactly like what they are (maybe), in a phantasmagorical way.  One of the most visually intriguing but saddest fairy-tales I've encountered.