2010 Anime Review

God Tier

So Ra No Wo To

Some of the most gorgeous art this side of Yoshitoshi ABe; characters who’re instantly endearing and have a natural chemistry; an engaging central narrative that pushes it one step farther than shows of its like—Sora no Woto wasn’t only great, but surprising. I loved it from the first episode, but it constantly found new ways for me to love it—for the art and animation, the impressively developed characters, engrossing world, fantastic directing, and consistently interesting episodic plots—tied together by an even-more-interesting dramatic plot. What makes Sora no Woto my favorite anime of 2010 is that there are so many aspects which I adore, and which have kept me rewatching the episodes, finding new things to say or to think about them. It’s a show that nags at the back of my mind, asking me to watch it again and find the next gem of knowledge or interpretation that’ll make me love it even more. This is the kind of show I’ll still be blogging about years down the line, and I love that, because it’s so much fun to blog.

Posts I did on this anime: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Eps 4 and 5, Episode 6, On Talent

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st

Never has the tale of a girl winning the friendship of her rival looked so god damn good! The Nanoha movie is special not just for being amazing, but for being amazing in replacement of a shitty series, and creating a magnificent springboard into the second season, which it rivals in brilliance (perhaps surpassing it by way of production quality). This film is wildly fun to watch and easily rewatchable, not to mention a perfect excuse to introduce my friends to the wonder of mahou shoujo anime. I love the genre, and Nanoha takes everything that makes it great and writes it for an adult audience without losing any of the magic. The final scene is one of the best emotional climaxes in anime, even if it was already done in the original show. What the original doesn’t have, however, is one of the best aerial dogfights I’ve seen.

Posts I did on this anime: Recommendation

K-On!!

The dialog and seiyuu performances in this series almost transcend anime as I know it. I can’t think of any pair of characters whose interactions are as entertaining as those that Satou Satomi and Toyosaki Aki create in Ritsu and Yui respectively. I single them out for their godliness, but that’s not to mistakenly forget that the other actors and their characters are all superb as well. Kyoto Animation continues to prove that they’re amongst the best production studios in TV anime. No other studio has the sheer attention to detail that they do, nor the general brilliance in directing. K-On is always entertaining, and at times even profoundly emotional. It has an unmistakable stage presence not unlike its own characters, which is no-doubt intentional. Add to that some excellent openings and endings, which are vitally important, because while a weak opening or ending can rarely hurt an anime, a strong one can make it all the more legendary. The only thing holding me at bay with K-On is that not every episode is equally brilliant. There are definitive god-tier episodes, great ones, a slew of average ones, and a couple of rather poor ones. The great outweighs the merely good, though, and rewatches should prove vital to the series’ strength.

Posts I did on this anime: Eps 1-6, Episode 7, Episode 20

Strike Witches 2

I couldn’t have prepared myself for how much awesomeness would come from season 2 of Strike Witches. I enjoyed the first series a lot, even if I never thought of it as something special, so I was expecting the same kind of laid-back enjoyment from this. Instead, I got a show that constantly kicked ass from start to finish and left me begging for more. The only thing that could’ve been better about Strike Witches 2 is that it could’ve been longer. Besides that, every episode had a crowning moment of awesome for one of its characters, and all of those characters etched their names into my heart. From a special attack that rivals the awesomeness of a super robot move to one of the most ingenious action scenes of the year, I was always impressed. Episodes flew by and made me look forward to watching them again, which I’ll be doing sooner rather than later with the uncensored blu-ray rips coming out. This is the best kind of popcorn entertainment, and something I want to show my friends.

Posts I did on this anime: Moments

Digiboy's Character Database of Love – 9. Yamada & 10. Saten Ruiko

This is the fifth post in Digiboy’s Character Database of Love.

9. Yamada – B Gata H Kei

Completed: B Gata H Kei – How To Make An Excellent Show With No Rewatch Value

(Note: I couldn’t decide how to title posts for shows that I finished which aren’t part of “Finish or Fail” series, and I didn’t want to call them “Reviews”, so I’m instituting the “Completed” title for them. Also, there will be spoilers, but they don’t really matter, and will probably sell you on the show anyway, haha.)

B Gata H Kei is rock solid – I have nothing negative to say about it. I was constantly impressed by it’s writing, which created a hilarious and believable romance that, for once, made real progress at a satisfying pace as the series continued. Every episode made me laugh, and the jokes struck me with their cleverness – often the punchline is a bit of music, a very quick cut-away, or a background detail, so that the joke doesn’t feel too obvious nor intrusive, but a bit of fun cleverly spliced into a continuing scene. The running gags stayed funny and didn’t get old, which is way more than I can say about most school anime with running jokes.

Seasonal Struggle – That Show Ruined Me For That Show

When a new season begins with a whole wave of new shows, a few of them are bound to be similar in some way, even if it’s only surface deep. You might get two of the weirder Shinbo-esque (or outright Shinbo) shows, one or two action or drama series (usually one of which is great and the other is terribad), a ‘slice-of-moe’ show or two, and then, of course, your fanservice shows, be they harem comedies or more dramatic romance.

Ordinarily, there isn’t much that I see myself as unable to watch. If a show really doesn’t work for me, I drop it, but I have a pretty good ability nowadays to find something to like in most shows. However, when there are two shows on TV that have similar reasons to like it, they sort of become in contest. I feel that if one of the shows is significantly better, it ruins me for the other show.

This no longer interests me.

The first time that I remember this happening was in the Fall 07/Winter 08 season. The two shows in question were Kimikiss Pure Rouge and ef ~a tale of memories~, which were only really similar in being pretty serious romance shows with love triangle setups in them. Even though Kimikiss seemed to be pretty good at the start (reviews seem to confirm), I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than a couple of eps after having marathoned ef. Because ef had presented the love triangle setup in a way that won me over so hard, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy what I saw as a lesser presentation of the setup.

This seems to happen pretty often, especially with fanservice shows that have a lower threshold for enjoyment to begin with. For instance, last season I mildly enjoyed Omamori Himari and even more enjoyed Chu-Bra, which left me with little patience for the less enjoyable Ladies vs. Butlers. Bringing up LvB though, the fact that it didn’t even remotely live up to the excellent and incredibly similar Kanokon hurt it even further – however, that would have made me unable to watch LvB regardless of when it aired, while the phenomenon I’m talking about is more of a time and place thing. After all, I probably would have been able to watch Kimikiss if it hadn’t aired at the same time as ef.

This season, I started off watching just SD Gundam Sangokuden, Mayoi Neko Overrun, and Working!! However, I dropped Working!! after episode 2 and decided to pick up B Gata H Kei in it’s place. I quickly discovered that B.H. is totally damn awesome, too, but it created a quandry, because it served a similar purpose in my watching list to Mayoi Neko Overrun: fanservice comedy. And what’s more, Mayoi Neko Overrun is really generic and has little to offer whereas B.H. is excellent. If I hadn’t picked up B.H. then I might have been able to keep watching Mayoi Neko, even if I wouldn’t really enjoy it all that much, but now that I’ve seen such a higher-level fanservice comedy on the air, I find myself less patient with Mayoi Neko. I was tempted to drop the show after episode 2, but the awesome loli side character wouldn’t let me. I don’t think I’ll last beyond episode three, though.