First off, I want to say thank you to all 25 of you in the thread that voted. I probably should've made this poll a separate topic. Maybe next year, but at least we got a decent sample of the regulars to the General Anime Thread in the Giant Bomb forums. I have tallied the votes and come up with both weighted and unweighted totals. I will post the full vote totals at the end of this blog post. Before I announce the winners, I'd like to pay tribute to a few that were ineligible.

Honorable Mentions

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica: There were a couple of Madoka movies that came out in 2012, but the voter did not specify which one, so this one is ineligible. Even so, for those who have not already seen the show, I encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience. It is that amazing.
• Asura's Wrath: Technically a video game but as a throwaway vote it's a pretty good one. Pretty much like a playable Dragonball Z, and it's probably cheap to buy now if you're curious.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Not a Japanese anime, though it is animated. Also, I didn't know they made another one until I saw this one pop up on a ballot.
• TRON Uprising: See above.

Okay, I've gotten those out of the way. Now to announce the Top 5 Winners! Winners were ranked first by unweighted vote, and ties were broken by weighted score. Save your inevitable arguments over my vote-counting methods in this unofficial poll for later.

#5: Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun ("My Little Monster")

A story about a girl. And a boy. And a chicken. And a weird girl. And some bullies. And another guy. And another girl. Light-hearted high school romance ensues. Even if it tilts more on the shoujo side of things, I liked this show as well as several of those who decided to slip it into a bottom 3 spot on their ballot. Worth watching if you're looking for something on the lighter side of things.

#4: Nisemonogatari

The next entry in the -monogatari series, originally written by the weird NisiOisiN and adapted for the small screen by the infamous duo of Shaft Studios and Akiyuki Shinbo. As much as I usually like ShaftxShinbo adaptations, honestly, I thought the creepy factor was ramped up a bit too much with the incestuous undertones and the molestation in the first couple episodes and I didn't finish this series. Others in this community thought differently about this show, that's all I can say without putting words in anyone's mouth.

#3: Fate/Zero (Season 2)

It is my regret that I haven't seen more than a few episodes of this series so far (it's in my backlog, okay?). A story of seven legendary fighters serving seven different mages to obtain a Holy Grail that will give them immense power. Being the prequel to Type-Moon's acclaimed visual novel series Fate/Stay Night, there's quite a bit of screentime that just shows people talking to each other in lengthy diatribes about one aspect or another of the story's universe, but when the Servants get involved that's when things get interesting.

#2: Hyouka

In both weighted and unweighted votes this one was so close with Fate/Zero, but it beat Fate by 1 in the weighted department so Hyouka is #2.

What is this show about? I heard it described as a group of four students form their own mystery-solving club. Kind of like Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine, minus the stoner and the talking dog and the old guys in masks who are always the culprits. Take that how you will, because I have not seen this show yet.

#1: Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou ("Daily Lives of Highschool Boys")

When this show appeared at the beginning of 2012, no one expected much to come of it. All we had was the description, and we thought it was just going to be "K-ON with dudes." Oh how wrong we were.

Take the hilarious source material by Yasunobu Yamauchi that draws from realistic events in the lives of high school boys, sprinkle in the Director and several voice actors from the Gintama anime adaptation (which you should also watch), and you have a Japanese comedy that for once doesn't rely solely on the manzai routine of "Person A says something stupid in a flat tone, Person B overreacts." Some of these jokes actually broke through the language barrier and you could relate to them, doing stupid shit that seemed cool at the time you were younger (and if you didn't, I feel sorry for you).

The best part of the show? The Funky Highschool Girls. The possibly-psychotic Yuu Kobayashi really shines as she voices the hot-blooded Yanagin in her short but sweet appearances in this series.

Though there won't be a second season due to the manga-ka deciding to stop writing this series, the adaptation we did get is amazing, and worthy of the #1 anime of 2012 among those who deigned to cast a vote for it.

Thank you all for reading this. Shows 2-5 can be found for free (legally!) in Crunchyroll if you wish to view them for yourself. Feel free to tell me how right I am in comments below. Or complain that your show wasn't picked. Or tell me to make a seperate poll thread next time because I am a dumbface that should have thought of that instead of study for finals at the time I started it in the anime thread. Or whatever else comes to mind.