Awesome EDs, ~2011 Edition

A couple of years ago I posted my “top 10 unskippable EDs”—titled that way because I used to skip EDs a lot of the time. Now I don’t do that unless it’s really bad. Anyway, all the embedded videos are broken in the old post and I watched a *lot* of anime in the past two years, so here’s a new list of memorable EDs.

TO BE ON THIS LIST I had to like the ED as a whole, meaning song and video both. There are some ED songs that I liked where the video is unmemorable (think Mawaru Penguindrum’s “Dear Future”—amazing song, boring vid). Some also might be awesomely bad.

These videos are alphabetized by the shows they came from. And no, I have absolutely nothing better to do, and yes, I’m very tired right now.

April Anime Review – What Did We Do to Deserve So Much Win? (And a 4-Year Spring Retrospective)

[Part 1 of my plan to totally cover a season for once. This post isn’t going to say much in spite of being so many words, but I’ve taken a liking to these little things that keep my thoughts on the shows intact across the season. I guess I’m learning the appeal of episodic blogging.]

Screenshots from random current shows that I haven't gotten to use.

Spring 2007 was my first season watching anime fresh from its release, and over the years I’ve continued to think of it as the best major season I’ve been around for.

The Big 400!

Today I reached 400 completed anime! Sure, probably 100+ are OVAs, specials, music videos, and movies; and sure, there are probably 5 or so that I haven’t actually seen every episode of (Yugioh, DBZ), but marked complete anyway. Nevertheless, it’s 400!

Since I knew I was going to hit this benchmark, I wanted to make my 400th completed series something special. I was going to make it season 1 of Gintama since it’s my favorite anime and season 2 is started now, but since I still have nearly 50 eps to go, I knew I’d end up finishing too many shows in the meantime. So instead, I went for another favorite with a second season coming out now, Seikon no Qwaser.

What can I say? I couldn’t have picked a better 400th finisher! Qwaser is the most fun I have watching anime, giving me consistent joy over the course of the entire year that it took me to complete.

Here’s hoping that s2 uncensored eps will not be in the shittiest, lowest-quality-imaginable form like the only subs for s1 were. And I’m really god damn curious about where the new series is going to start, considering the anime-original ending of s1.

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

On the Second Day of Kurisumasu My Imouto Gave to Me: Pussy-Lickin’ Good Entertainment from Seikon no Qwaser Episode 4

[nsfw] Seikon no Qwaser was some of the most fun I’ve ever had watching anime. The only group who was subbing the uncensored version of the show (it’d be utterly meaningless to watch Qwaser censored) was SubDesu, who used shittily-encoded 360p videos and had blatantly not-proofread subs which skipped lines and almost never used proper grammar. Even so, the shittiness of the video kinda added to the wonderfully trashy experience of the series, which is what made it so great to begin with.

Qwaser is kind of like a modern grindhouse film—it’s not that the show is awesomely bad, but that it’s purposefully awesomely bad, and that self-awareness is what allows it to simultaneously be just plain awesome. Qwaser gave me a number of truly spectacular moments, and I may highlight more than one in these 12 days, but the most memorable of all comes from the forth episode.

I’ve Finally Fallen For Hanazawa Kana

Glasses and ponytail! *dies*

The first roles that I would’ve heard Hanazawa Kana in, had I been able to ‘hear‘ seiyuu at the time, were Kajiwara Sora in Sketchbook ~full color’S~ and Potemayo from the eponymous anime, both of which aired in late 2007. The irony there is that the former is a character who’s too shy to speak aloud—so all of her dialog is mental narration—and the latter is a 2-foot moeblob who can only say two syllables per breath and mostly makes noises. —Not exactly roles that tell you if an actress is going to be good, in spite of being leads.