It’s been said before that Haruhi raised the bar for moe anime, being as it was an ultra high-budget, far-reaching, excellent TV series that was probably the first thing to be all at once so thoroughly moe-centric, so well-produced, and so successful. Haruhi came out in 2006, and since then, there have been many well-produced moe series, especially from the likes of Kyoto Animation, A-1 Pictures, and J.C. Staff (not that everything they do looks as good as Raildex or Toradora). But this post isn’t about how moe anime have gotten all nice-looking and big—it’s about how moe anime are becoming the best-looking stuff on TV, period.
I watch a lot of monthly sakuga AMVs—that is, collections of all the awesome animation tidbits from each month of currently-airing anime. Usually, sakuga AMVs are pretty dominated by shows from studio BONES, which hasn’t been true this season as their only show, No. 6, contains minimal sakuga moments.
So, what shows are putting up the strongest sakuga showings this season? The Idolm@ster (A-1 Pictures), Nichijou (Kyoto Animation), and Hana-saku Iroha (P.A. Works), all moe-heavy shows. The only action show putting up a lot of great sakuga moments is Sacred Seven (Sunrise), which is right up there with The Idolm@ster in quantity of sakuga scenes. But when you watch the videos for July and August, there’s definitely more moe shows with awesome sakuga scenes than anything else. Not to mention all those Usagi Drop scenes of Rin doing cute shit… those count, right?
My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull 