Let’s face it. I watch a lot of harem shows. I can call them visual novels, I can call them crying games, I can call them whatever, but it still boils down to a superb girl vs. guy ratio and a lot of moEmotion.

Yes, I still like coining new terms. I hate coupling portmeanteaus (see: Tadamu, Amuto, my internal organs forcing themselves out my mouth) but when it comes to inventing words, I become a bit of a hypocrite.

I shall call this moEmotion a subset of the visual novel / harem / Stuff CCY Watches Genre, a mixture, as you may imagine, moe, and emotion.

Because I like emotional tugs at my heartstrings, what with all the deathly sick girls (Kanon) and girls with exceptionally poor memories (ef) and whatever KimiKiss has … but such emotional pulls are reinforced by any connections I have with the characters.

And while I’m not supporting bathing characters in a bath of 110% superconcentrated moe, I find that a little dab goes a long way; again, returning to the term of ‘hyper-realistic’, a character which may not be easily found in the real world, but one that you can imagine exists, if only in very small amounts.

A little bit soft and weak, but still a strong and crisp character, kind of like a cookie fresh out of the oven. And everyone knows how tasty those are.

But tangents on made-up genres and terms aside, sometimes it’s worth it to expand out of that shell of moEmotion. If not because it’s a Good Thing to Do, because there just isn’t a good enough quality ratio in the visual novel genre anymore. There is barely any middle ground between “pantsu and breast service show” and “massively pretentious emotional tearjerker of legend”.

And so I am often reminded, sometimes quite loudly by the otakusphere, that there is Other Stuff Out There. I exaggerate a bit, because sometimes I delve to watching Other Stuff, sometimes stretching to the far out lands of GARmbling (a frustratingly lonely genre), Shiny Sparkly Shoujo, and I Swear This Shonen Romance Is Better Than Your Normal Stupid Shonen Romance.

But as I search for the next big thing in anime, at least personally, I am reminded of the fact that sometimes quality transcends genre, and so I often make a note to watch certain shows that have their names treated like gold in the otakusphere.

I think, next year, I shall finally make good on my promises. Time to watch some new stuff, even if it kills me. Can’t be a bigger waste of time than Akasaka or Shuffle! Memories, anyway.

So, here’s the short list:
* Super Suteki Relaxing Slice of Life: Aria
* Manly Mecha Full of Manliness and Memes: Gurren Lagann
* It’s a Trainwreck or Something lol also Lelouch is Bishie Bait KYAAAAAAA~: Code Geass

And a few others that are less important but still there:
* I Still Have No Idea What This Is But The OP is Damn Sexy: Baccano!
* Supposedly This Magical Girl Anime Is Actually of Interest to People Older Than 5: Princess Tutu
* Hehe, Just as Planned, Hehe: Death Note
* I Still Can Picture That Badass Manly Anime Reviewer Meme Post: Ouran High School Host Club
* Rise is Possibly the Best OP, Aurally and Visually, From an Anime I’ve Only Seen 4 Episodes Of: Ghost in the Shell (yes I know Rise is from second season)

And MAL loves Junjou Romantica, so maybe I need to go hurt myself with some yaoi again. I may be a bit harsh, but the last time I tried it, there wasn’t much worth watching for (except for, I guess, buttsex).

Feel free to suggest others I missed, naturally.

In Computer Science, we learned of the concepts of ‘countable infinity’ and ‘uncountable infinity’. Such an idea makes my head hurt a lot – just as how my cousin tried to explain to me that ‘two-dimensional infinity’ is more infinite than ‘one-dimensional infinity’, it makes sense in a quasi-logical way, but trying to rationally prove it is a bit harder beyond the step “well, it just is”.

I mean, infinity is infinity, isn’t it?

One would think that, but my looming backlog of visual novels is quickly trying to teach me this concept of differing infinities. For it really seems that the amount of visual novels I have to read (in addition to the ones I HAVE to read) is quickly approaching this ‘uncountable infinity’, at least in my reference frame.

This is mostly because visual novels, English or not, are somehow being released faster than I can read them, and even my pile of translated novels is managing to grow every time I even think about reading one.

The problem partially stems to the fact that while the amount of VNs approaches infinity, my reading speed approaches zero. No one knows why.

Maybe it’s just that reading them seems like a major time commitment – like I have to be ready, and have a block of Reading Time, while anime I can pick up and put down whenever I please. A result of higher expectations.

As a result I would prefer phases like where I powered through Tsukihime, breathing, living, eating it, in a week (hey, I had school after all), rather than make VNs like Ever17 suffer the fate of me reading about an hour’s worth in spring, two hour’s worth in summer, and so on. I will probably restart that one, now.

And so I end up with more visual novels than I really know what to do with. Observe:

* Ever17: bought a boxed copy off RightStuf at least a year ago when it was on sale. Installed it immediately. Played an hour. Stopped.

* Fate / stay night: Have been urged by at least three people to play it, forwards, backwards, and sideways. Vowed to marathon it over Thanksgiving break. Haven’t touched the executable.

* Clannad: It’s as translated-ish as it’s going to get, as far as I know. I was holding out for an official release but it’s getting more and more tempting by the minute, if only to fill in whatever holes KyoAni left in the story. Then again, this one’s long …

* Chaos;Head: This one sort of ninja’d out of the blue, shouting “hey look I’m translated too” (I think, since I can’t find it in the database per se; a patch leak?). The anime had a very intriguing premise, looking to be Higurashi-style mindscrew with a bit of general insanity all-around, but it sort of floundered. However, I’ve been told that the visual novel is much better. Thus I shall try.

* CCY-senpai wa 17-sai: For some suicidal reason, I am acknowledging this game’s existence. I love you, kouhai. Although you scare me. Your representation of me scares me too.

* All those short novels translated in al|together: THERE’S LIKE A BILLION OF THEM OH MY GOD WHAT please don’t tell me all of them are good

* ONE ~kagayaku kisetsu e~: I’ll never get down here, and if I do, I probably won’t play this. It was kind of lame. I still think the Nanase H-scene was funny for the fourth wall breaking, even if I don’t care for H.

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Well, what I make may not be serious business works all the time, but I’m serious enough about them. I’ll work on whatever my impulses bring me, but there are at least four projects (i.e. three too feasibly many) that I hope to be able to say more about in 2009. Until then, I’ll just be a jerk and tease the fact that I’ve been doing interesting things~

Halfway there – how can I manage to watch half of three series (well, two are movies)? Easily.

I watched Five Centimeters Per Second (twice, as you may recall), and got about halfway through a dorm screening of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time before the film froze right at one of what I imagine is one of the climatic moments of the film. It’s like an induced cliffhanger … one that’s still going today.

And Honey & Clover, I’m attempting to be a Good Person and wait for Viz to release it, but the more and mroe it looks like it’s not going to happen, the more and more I become less of a good person. Probably, I will give it until I finish or get bored with Bokura ga Ita, since the two seem to fall a bit close in feel.

Uh … I think the response here I need is, SQUEE KANON SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE.

But unfortunately I’ve kind of fallen behind on my Kanonism, and like all religion, it’s quickly becoming something mythical and untouchable. I haven’t watched more than two episodes of Kanon (guess which two) in the last year and yet I still won’t give up on any argument featuring it. It makes specific points hard to argue.

Still, thanks to the wallet-draining magic of RightStuf, I now am the owner of at least four Kanon DVDs (which is the subset in the intersection of the “before ADV asploded” and “ones that were on sale” categories), so a rewatch can definitely be put on the cards, at any time. It may be needed to see if my tastes have changed…although I’ll need some bravery to admit anything there.

Also I need to figure out what to do with a deck of Kanon trading cards and a Shiori light novel. Learning hiragana at the speed of DS homebrew software~

Apparently, it actually is just how it looks, in ‘za-wa za-wa’. So I can’t really figure out what they whisper in every scene when Kaiji is stressed, since it sounds more like “Jiiiii~” (i.e. staaaaare~) than anything else; although you can hear slight zawa-ing going on in the background.

In any case, I ran through Kaiji approximately twice, once alone and once in a crowd, and both times it was large amounts of fun; it works both as a gripping, mentally twisted solo show, and something you can watch almost like a long, overdramatic sports game with friends. I’ll bring the nachos and dip.

I guess I can call this complete, although I’m fairly certain there was word of a second season of Kaiji. It’s coming, I guess. After One Outs, with any luck. I would like to make GARmbling a permanent weekly staple in my anime diet.

After amassing about 500 worksafe images of Nagato in my imagefolder, I realized I was never really going to use more than about 10% of them, and even then only for random header images in posts, so I kind of stopped. And since that was the only reason I went to the Haruhi imageboard at SOS-dan, I kind of stopped with Haruhi fandom too.

But it’s a sentiment I’ve seen around the otakusphere; Haruhi’s next appearance is more likely to be on a milk carton (”Have You Seen This God?”) than in season 2 of the anime. Or, more seriously, there will probably be a couple dozen rather uninteresting games for various consoles.

C’mon, I would rather play Haruhi: The Minigame Collection than Hare Hare Yukai On Wii. And I’m still not dropping ~$180 for a PSP and the Haruhi game for it so I can have a Nagato alarm clock (although I spent around a day searching for a PC version of the clock).

Well, I won’t hold my breath for Haruhi Suzumiya Forever (I think koneko-chan already made that joke), but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it still. Although, I don’t even remember what it’s about.

I hope they’re still adapting Dissapearance (book 4), as one of the rumors said, since I rather liked that book. After all, I still have the capability to go blind Nagato fanboy on command, even if I don’t have a continually-expanding collection.

Sia. Probably Sia.

My Shuffle! rewatching attempts have gone roughly as abortively as my Kanon ones, although I do actually sport the full six-DVD set; a bit unfortunate, given how RightStuf put them on sale for a ludicrous price (I guess the bonus panties in the box set – no, I’m not kidding – didn’t fly to well).

Then again, I tried watching it with my usual anime-watching group, whose inclination towards fanservice (a trait I certainly didn’t pass to them) was easily demonstrated by their loud pointing out of any breasts or panties Shuffle put on display. And remembering that the first half of the show is straight-up fluff, that’s a lot.

And for the same reason, I can’t really be driven to rewatch it alone, especially when I’m behind on pretty much every single show in the history of mankind.

The same march of time that has fogged my mind’s memories of Kanon has pretty much obliterated any of the minor details of Shuffle; so I can really select Sia as one of two girls I don’t remember as just one phrase (Kaede: “yandere, WAH’s whore”, Nerine: “huge”, Mayumi: “needs route translation nao”, Primula: “not a loli”). Asa’s a fairly good character too, since she reminds me of Otoha, or a lesser Minori (Toradora), but eh, she’s got enough love, right?

Well, Mission-E, the second season of Code-E, is turning out rather fine, if I say so myself.

I haven’t finished it; one of my main weaknesses with ’simple’, fluffy shows is that I have little motivation to continue watching it, compared to more dramatic shows that leave me hanging. On the plus side though, these shows are always there for me; they’re easy to pick up and continue, and offer nice, relaxing watches.

Such a mindset even applies in a show with relatively high amounts of action, like this one; it’s not complex action, after all. Mission-E is really a show you can have fun with, instead of having to break your mind analyzing; which is what I end up doing in every other show.

Just how Mission-E will turn out in the end, I’m not sure; after all, it took Code-E until the end to fall on its face. But I have hopes that it will work out; the character set is strong and it looks like the storyline is finally covering all the characters from the first season.

And, well, Clannad is still continuing. I guess I didn’t quite see the After Story thing coming; although I’m rather glad that it did. Although I didn’t play the visual novel, it seems that the story of Clannad is absolutely enormous, continuing beyond the standard ’school life’ stuff and into what we term the real world of adult life.

And I definitely appreciate it for such; although the adventures of Tomoya, Nagisa, and crew were funny, cute, and emotion-invoking in their basic form, the perspective After Story allows (once you get past the initial, sort of mediocre arcs) is somewhat one-of-a-kind.

Clannad has been a rollercoaster as a result, in both senses of the word; the quality has veered back and forth, especially depending on your opinion of side characters and gym locker rooms, and it’s thrown down a few emotional gauntlets as well. And from the looks of it, there are more to come. Lots more.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is in much the precarious position as Mission-E, being a show which doesn’t leave much impetus to watch; although amusingly and ironically enough, it’s much more intensive than Mission-E.

Although, it’s for a different reason than most mindscrew anime; Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a brain-killer to watch, but it’s out of a mixture of sheer crack and reference overload.

Such a property makes it equally great for when I’m feeling out of my head, and just need a minddump of ADHD insanity to spin down the gears. As such, I’ve enjoyed Zetsubou Sensei in the few times I’ve watched it this year; I still haven’t per se finished the second season, but they’re queued for whenever I feel completely mindless.

All I remember is the general consensus that the second season sucked. It was probably fairly close to the truth; I remember watching, way back when, about 4 episodes of Okawari, before stopping. Whether it was out of General Lack of Compulsion to Watch Things Like This, or out of disgust at the quality of the show, I can’t remember.

Still, I have fond memories of the first season, at least, which is why I’m looking forward to the third season, with some simple tips for the production team: more sisters, more traps, more Ninomiya-kun. It should work fine.

Like Haruhi, my fire for DNAngel has understandably cooled in the approximately three years or so it’s been since I first came in contact with the manga and anime. Although I still have a few of the songs from the anime on my playlist, more or less I have become completely disengaged with the franchise, to the point where I can’t be arsed to go find the easily accessible scans of the manga which has suddenly begun running again.

I mean, I was at the library sifting through books at a sale of discards, and I saw the 11th volume of the manga in English, for only a dollar. I put it back in the box.

Maybe if it was one of the earlier volumes – for I always felt more in touch with the stories of Daisuke and Riku than whatever Argentine rubbish they’re throwing around – it would have been different. But recursive nostalgia, how I am fondly remembering only the old parts of an old series I am tryign to fondly remember, isn’t exactly a good sign in itself.

My prescribed medicine, as for all problems I have, is a rewatch (or rather, reread). The issue, as always, is time.

Oh, Marmalade Boy, now that’s old school.

And honestly I don’t have much to say of this, given that I only watched it at the beginning of last year; my library continues to only have the first box set of four – remember, this is a massive series of around 70 episodes – and so I’ve only experienced the first 17 episodes. Only, I know.

There’s not much to remember, at least at this point, I discussed with a friend while at the above book sale, the evolution of shoujo, at least in our eyes. Marmalade Boy to us was one of those manga (and anime, by extension) that is good in memory, but maybe not good in reading. It flares up on the dramatic end of the scale of shoujo, which is rather dramatic-skewed to begin with.

In terms of new and old shoujo, I’m slowly mellowing my tastes away from dramatic love dodecahedrons like this; Bokura ga Ita seems a good, moderate mix (although that may just be the passive, always-moderated voice of Nana speaking). And Kare Kano, probably does fly a bit on the dramatic end when you get into the deeper parts of the manga, but the top layer, of two people looking to find their true selves (hello, Shugo Chara, I should mention), just appeals to me more.

My final judgment for now is that I’m probably not buying Marmalade Boy any time soon, but I would grab it from the library if it ever shows up.

At this point you may note that my 12 Days posts are beginning to fold in on themselves in a sort of painful repetition where I repeat many of the same topics over again.

And although I would like to wax more poetic on KimiKiss and Higurashi in some form or another, I shall hold myself back until I watch the respective OVAs for these series. Maybe then I will have new thoughts in addition to the praise already offered in these two posts.

Heck, it’d be a challenge to say “School Days” with a straight face, especially in the way it ruthlessly parodied itself in its two OVAs (if I count correctly – Valentine Days and Magical Girl Kokoro).

Of the two, neither were particularly standout. School Days was probably only really compelling for the ruthlessly horny nature of Makoto Itou and the twenty-odd girls he did the dirty with (one may want to keep count in a future rewatch – was Kotonoha ever even included in that list?), in addition to the infamous-for-all-eternity-like-it-or-not ending. If you just had the characters by themselves in a simple love story (i.e. remove the cheating and the violence), School Days would be rather plain. Although I wonder whether it would be the same story at all.

But Kokoro-chan and Valentine Days sort of flopped, mainly because they leaned on their memes rather hard instead of throwing in any particularly large amount of new or funny content; I had more than a few laughs, and even at the Nice Boat moments (like the sea of blood at the end of Kokoro-chan) … but in the end, School Days needs to stay down. It works well enough – in a shocking, ridiculous, WTF way – as it is.

Uh … it still exists? Shira Oka, as with most things developed by a small team very few people have heard of, is taking its sweet time in being created. Although, such a thing is not always bad – one can hypothesize that Okashi Studios is busy putting quality into this TokiMemo-esque visual novel, after all.

And there have been decided signs of life, no matter how meager, for Shira Oka, so it’s definitely not vaporware – or at least I believe so.

In addition, they had a minor presence at Fanime 2008, holding a panel to discuss and demonstrate the game, and it looked functional, for sure. It’s been a while since I played a visual novel, but it looks professional – at least more so than the doujin efforts, understandably. ‘Twas entertaining to watch, since I remember being in a turbulent emotional state before the conference and in a quite upbeat state after. A healing visual novel in a meta sense. (I can’t actually speak for the tone of the game yet, though.)

Well, news has been sparse, but if a release ever comes on the cards, you bet I’ll let you all know.

Have I? I don’t know. Running probably about half a minute in length, they’re pretty hefty, even by the usual magical girl standards, moreso if the show decides to transform half the guardians at once (insert laughing at Tadase’s fabulous transformation here).

What is certain though is that I’ve still got at least some vested interest in Shugo Chara, in some way, shape, or form. I’m preventing myself from getting spoiled through the internet or the manga, which for me means that I still want to watch the anime.

I’m just at the end of season one (i.e. non-Doki, circa 50), and haven’t seen an episode in about a month. But I found it comes in phases; after slowly trickling my way up to the Utau fight in 43 and then putting the show off for a few months, I spammed Shugo Chara for a weekend to ‘catch up’ (although I’m still behind). I think such a marathon would be beneficial again sometime soon, especially since I found a close friend of mine is beginning to follow Shugo Chara.

After all, despite all the filler, it still is a top-grade magical girl show, one that harkens back to the old school.

I guess I must have been pretty tired when writing the original post, given that I got the timeframe wrong (it’s actually 13 hours), but I can understand the feeling, given the multi-paragraph response to every resolution.

I feel like I’ve waxed poetic (or linked to waxing poetic) for ef more times than I care to know about over the last 18 days or so, and while I’d much like to do more, I’m sure your eyeballs will forgive me if I do not at this moment.

I also want to put off any more ranting until I rewatch, probably the entire 24 episodes of both seasons, which is rather ambitious but very worthwhile given the raw emotional power and the many artsy secrets and deeper meanings of the show. It’s, ironically enough, probably a higher priority than some of the anime I haven’t even seen yet.

I guess, ef is my new Kanon, in that sense. The god of this world.

OK, so I still haven’t touched my Cardcaptor Sakura DVDs – partially because I’ve got things like school to contend with, partially because they’re low-quality foreign-subbed probably-pirate DVDs, and partially because there are a million different awesome forms of Cardcaptor Sakura to consume now, including the old R1s, the remastered Japanese version, and very soon, blu-ray.

Yeah, Blu-Ray Cardcaptor Sakura. I don’t understand why, but it’s still awesome.

Still, the fact that I walked into the kids’ section in library and checked out half the Cardcaptor Sakura manga (the Sakura Card half) is probably a sign that I still want to Remember Love. The manga will be a good catalyst, being marginally quicker than the 70-episode anime; maybe then, I will be inspired, to do and watch great things.

Chinami has always been a personal favorite of mine from the Code-E series, practically from the get-go, and one can definitely see why.

The saying always goes that opposites attract, but maybe that is in real life (although my experience begs to differ) or something, because I rather like looking into the mirror of anime and seeing myself. And while I lack a second X chromosome, the clumsy, glasses-sporting, shy yet happy-go-lucky (depending on which season you look at) attitude of Chinami is one that takes very much after my own heart.

Or perhaps, Chinami earns bonus points for me for lying on that border of moe – she is strong and self-servient (running her own show, so to speak) enough to toss all charges of moeblobbery to the side, yet has a distinct charm to her that one doesn’t see in many characters. If I can throw in that term of ‘hyperrealism’ again, that I’ve grown attached to, I think that would fit.

Kind of like, if you saw a girl like her in the real world, she might be really cute or she might not, but here, it works so well.

Despite having no link between the three except for the same animation team, Kaiji and Akagi in the end almost amount to just prototypes for this man, Toua Tokuchi, perhaps the ultimate (so far) in the line of badass GARmblers.

Well, in terms of balance, anyway. Both Akagi and Kaiji are, in a sense, specialists; Akagi is the unparalleled intellectual king with a cold heart, and Kaiji the humble hero with far more root in emotion.

However, due to the situation Toua is in, he ends up riding a line between the two; while far closer to Akagi in terms of outward emotion, his two expressions being a smirk and a blank face, Toua almost does have some humanity, some passion to him, in the way he inspires his team to victory through emotional bait and logical reasoning.

In a sense, he’s not just fighting for himself, or to destroy his opponents, in the way Akagi would, but he is also fighting for his teammates, and for the good of the sport as a whole. And for that, I bow to Toua.

Minori! Energy! Minori! Energy! Genki awesomeness, hyper awesomeness, crazy awesomeness, more awesome than your anime has room for~

Minori’ll be so entertaining Ami Kawashima will be like “slowwwwwwwwww dowwwwwwwwn” and Minori’ll be like “HIGH CALORIES!” and tickle her in the stomach with her energy fingers.

(Original: http://www.videosundry.com/funny-spoof-videos/power-thirst-energy-drink/)

Minori. The best genki girl this side of … no, just the best genki girl. These types can be really hit or miss, so I’m glad she turned out well; I was not a fan of Tomo (Azumanga) nor Miharu (Da Capo), for example. But Toradora is five flavors of excellence and it makes everything it touches turn to gold, even silly little mean princesses like Ami.

And behind Minori’s SUPER HYPERNESS is a good story, as well, as evidenced around Toradora 9-10, where she has a nice heartfelt chat with Ryuuji about the metaphor of ghosts and love. So it’s no question that even I’m a Minoriist at times. Although, she earns a spot on this list, because I still worry that Taiga has this race fairly wrapped up…

This one is straight-up moeblob, pretty much. Nagisa’s probably a better rounded character – Tomoyo as well – but Kotomi strikes some moe nerve somewhere that makes her click. Probably ye old “somewhat shy, really smart, quite spacey” demeanor. Can’t go wrong with that.

And saying that, it makes me wonder if Kotomi is just Chinami with a brain transfusion from Osaka. Mmm. Linear combinations of anime characters. I’ve created a monster.

I rather like her looks too. Does it go without saying? For some reason, a lot of characters who I find attractive have dark blue or purple-ish hair. I’m not sure why; I wonder if it’s a coincidence. Who knows. At least I’m not a crazy glasses fetishist still (although it’s always a plus).

Too much ranting to fill space in this one; it’s probably mildly awkward, but at least it’s over a two-dimensional character and not a fellow aniblogger (hi lelangir, you’re becoming a meme now, kthx). Suppose I could say “I also like Kotomi because no one really likes Kotomi.” Damn, I’m a rebel.

Genki girl number two, I suppose. Otoha is fairly upbeat, has a killer final episode (that’s episode 8, episode 12 doesn’t count), and enjoys the fact that the cast around her is frustratingly weak, so she stands out even more.

Such is the power of the halo character, who always makes me smile when they’re onscreen. They make an anime much better, although one can become in despair very easily if their halo character doesn’t show up for a long time, or leaves the show early. ‘Tis the perils of rabid fandom.

In any case, Otoha is a fairly cool character, especially if you consider the circumstances she’s in. It’d be hard for me to be so happy in such a situation, but, I guess she would rather want everyone else to be happy, so such a demeanor fits. Fight on.

Quiet, I know I was going off the hook for Yuumi Hoshino pretty much this entire year, but Eriko Futami is subjectively the more intriguing character in KimiKiss … just the less shippable one. I feel I could devote a rant or two to Eriko if I tried though, so a place in the end-year list she gets.

Mixing the cold, intelligent genius demeanor with a objective, self-distancing view on the world, Eriko Futami seems like the kind of person you would almost meet as an aniblogger somewhere. One of those people who almost seem disillusioned with the world, and toy with it uninterestedly. She experiments in a search for reason, just as people like us rant and rave in search of something similar.

I guess the difference between the two is that Eriko, does not in the same sense, escape to any fantasy. Maybe Kazuki becomes her fantasy.

Anyway, the point is, Eriko’s mature demeanor, and her chocolate-candy like personality (hard on the outside, soft on the inside) makes her quite a treat for refined palates. Someone worth viewing, almost as an equal, on less of a moe and more of a personal basis.

I have a feeling Miyuki was probably left here from last year’s list, being my personal (and probably only my) champion of Lucky Star. There was an OVA released in 2008, so I can cheat like this.

Well, I like to be cool and rebellious like so; Konata’s overly otaku attitude never really clicked with me, being a bit hard on the pandering side. Kagami and her tsundereocity wasn’t much to revel in – maybe I lack a training in yuri-spotting (or yuri-worshipping). Tsukasa was cute, ridiculously so, although she could overload a moeblob scanner with even the slightest mention of a cell phone.

Miyuki seemed a tasteful middle ground, Tsukasa Lite with a shot of Kotomi. After all, it’s not like I just like smart clumsy meganekko or anything.

My rationale for Miyuki, at least, is that she’s kind of Aria-esque in nature. Such a thing will get me burned for blasphemy by at least two anibloggers for putting Aria and L*S in the same context; but the laid-back, relaxed attitude of Miyuki seems to fit such a theme. The moe on top is just a plus.

NOT DESPERATE TO RECAPTURE THE MAGIC OF TRUE TEARS AT ALL, NO.

To be honest, I forget a lot about true tears, which hurts me, as it’s probably the best series I can’t remember this year. I remember rooting for Noe, a lot, while watching true tears; she was always my preferred pick over Hiromi, despite the latter’s meganekko picking-clothes-off-clotheshanger-with-foot skills.

It’s probably an inverse relationship with sanity. I always liked me a bit of the crazy. Maybe because it is just a work of fiction, I want to see someone new and exciting, more than someone realistic. Or maybe, as I keep saying, I want something different from the norm, rah rah fight the power?

Well, Noe brought some great chicken metaphors, at least.

As Fuuko would say, “BEST CHOICE~”

Maybe “X is a trap” is not the best story out there, but it’s fairly new ground for the mahou shoujo, and episode 25 won me over. Nagehiko’s cool and collected demeanor (again, Aria-esque), the contrast of her dark side, and the gender-balancing issues, with the changes in character dynamics as a result, it all works for me.

And that’s why I can put her over the pompous, Standard Bishie Boy prince; the fairly intriguing, fairly flirty, but just not appealing in a shippable way Cool Angsty Teenager cat guy, nyan~; and even the sharp-as-nails, Eriko-esque, double agent Samurai Man.

Have at me, fangirls.

It’s just too bad I know which port the Nagehiko Shipping Boat travels to.

(Oh and I didn’t mention Kukai, because while he is an equally enjoyable character for his great upbeat, chill attitude, the same thing makes him shipping-prone. He is -too cool- for women.)

Moeblob, otaku side~ I’ll admit that more than a fair bit of my list are moeblobs to some degree; perhaps this is a reflection of my taste. But I just hope that this is because the characters that I enjoy for their deep stories and complex personalities, do not rise easily to such an adjective as ‘favorite’ character – they cannot be reduced to such a thing.

So pretend this list is just really biased, and that I did not just add another clumsy, cute moeblob to my list. Haruka is a bit different since she has a bit of an anime-fan side to her, that may resonate a little bit – but ironically, she is probably one of two otaku-types I admire, and in both cases it’s more of a side-bonus than the main reason.

Haruka’s just too adorable in general, anime fandom aside. I think she makes this list especially so if I add “and Yuuto” to this entry, since the two of them together form a sort of romantic fantasy in my mind. The image of two people perfect together.

Well, at one point I was watching Akane-iro ni Somaku Saka. Back when I was young and naive and desperate for VN conversions.

Despite the horrible start, I was hopeful that it would pick up. It never did, so I hoped I would at least be able to enjoy the near-trainwreck nature of the plot, with little more than typical fluff and nonsensical developments. And with the way the ending turned out apparently, I might have been happy.

But somewhere along the way, I realized, Akasaka just wasn’t bad enough – and certainly not good enough – to justify watching. It trended up towards mediocrity, and without friends to lambast it with, my interest faded. But still, there was one thing that stuck with me – this song.

It’s fairly generic, being a rock-pop mix, but I’ve never been averse to any song I can imagine in Rock Band. “Confusion…” is a nice, upbeat song which can get my foot tapping and my fingers air-guitaring. Especially with the opening few riffs that sound like they were taken right out of Through the Fire and Flames. High marks for that.

One of two songs I’ve recently become addicted to, that I can hardly watch with a stoic face. However, it’s not out of laughter, but rather, emotion.

Featuring trademark KyoAni graphics and a slightly new tune (as opposed to the straight-from-the-VN-OP songs of Clannad, Kanon, and AIR), Toki wo Kizamu Uta is a particularly strong song at first glance, and only gets stronger once you look at elements like the lyrics.

It’s easy to see, just with knowledge from the movie (and I imagine the visual novel would provide more insight), that Toki wo Kizamu Uta is one of those songs that actually is quite relevant to the content of the anime it bookends. Unlike many generic pop songs which just sound cool and that’s it, this OP has definitely a strong correlation to the events of Clannad past and to come.

Oh, and that piano piece with soft-spoken lyrics at the end? Quite ace. Haven’t seen anything like that.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t been sold as much on Kannagi as many of the others in the otakusphere have been. It’s certainly a very watchable show, but with limited time, I found the vaguely similar substance of Toradora to be much preferable in any way. Or perhaps, it’s that the two shows are way different, in that while Kannagi is interesting episode-to-episode, Toradora provides a reason for me to continue from one episode to the next.

And the infamous dancing OP of Kannagi was much the same. It was above average, at least, at first glance, but nothing horribly catchy. Still, one day, during my Computer Science final, I just couldn’t get those words out of my head. “The kiss is too pl-ain~” and whatnot.

It’s then I realized, it’s actually a quite nice OP, in sort of a retro way. The instruments all remind me of old 90’s song, for some reason. The dancing … ? Maybe that’s just sort of slick in general; more realistic and less memetic than the Lucky Star or Haruhi dances, yet still quite memorable.

Like the song itself.

This may be a bit of bias here – I’ve always been one to pimp the Code-E series (and its sequel Mission-E), thanks to a perceived lack of interest for it. I never quite understood why – it’s just a touch away from something shonen-esque, with a nice bit of action, some cute girls (Chinami, Chinami, Chinami), and general lighthearted fun. (or, for the first season, slice-of-life romance fun)

And the instrumental OPs have always been somewhat of a great throwback in themselves, somewhat reminding of Cowboy Bebop or an old 90’s detective anime. What I picked here though, is the equally retro complement to the OP of the second season, “feel so easy!”, which could masquerade as an 80’s pop song with any luck.

Still, it’s inexplicably catchy with its high-energy, intensive beat, and cheerful lyrics, so I still loop it when I need to get my feet moving (yes, I have an workout mix full of anime tunes). And plus, it has a slightly different, slower and deeper mix in about a quarter of the anime episodes – any song with more than one in-anime mix (see: Sora no Yume) gets automatic cool points.

For a lot of anime, the value of an OP and ED quickly grow thin. I may obtain the song later for use in general activity (i.e. looping over and over while writing a humanities essay) but during the actual animation, I tend to use that minute-long break to get snacks, stretch, or, in some anime, scream in agony.

However, for a select few, I end up on the other end of the scale, stretching a 25 minute episode to 35 minutes, solely out of looping the short mix of an OP or ED. The animation tends to contribute a bit to this, although the song is likely also strong on its own.

Toradora, in addition to being awesome in every way ever, has an ace pair of songs at both ends; both seem like quite standard pop-ish fare, but have a strange appeal to them. This is probably due to the driving bass-techno beat that back up both songs; such a thing always gets me head-bobbing and dancing in a particularly embarrassing manner.

All four of Higurashi’s songs have a place on my long-term song rotation. This is something that amazes me, because at one point I disliked every one of them.

But as I got into the dark, psychological, maniacally insane mood of Higurashi, all the songs caught on with their unique style, all perfectly fitting to the anime. I couldn’t think of better songs to match with Higurashi; from the dark Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, to the wistful why or why not, to these two.

I eventually grew to love the songs of the second season more than the first; I can’t quite determine why. The OP song, Naruku no Hana, is more relaxed, maybe closer to the standard Anime Opening Song than Higurashi, but is still undoubtedly in line with the show, with the whining guitar licks and the ominous chanting. The lyrics have an amazing punch to them, as well, which really impresses me.

And “Taishou a” is a great chill song, maybe even more so than the first season’s ED. It’s something you could imagine seeing at a coffee shop or in a lounge somewhere. With its melancholy yet hopeful mood, it’s very Higurashi, and very moving. Great stuff all around.

The perfect example of an Anime Opening Song Done Right. It’s undoubtedly, completely, utterly generic, with that unmistakable J-pop style; yet the strongly-sung lyrics and wailing guitar make it stand out from the crowd. Almost like Haruka’s Secret as a whole.

The song has easily memorizable chords and lyrical patterns, which make it an ideal song to get stuck in your head for hours on end. And the way the last note in the final lyric, “hanasana-i-de~~~” is held, is simply magical.

As usual, I’m completely and utterly broken by ef, so don’t take this as a surprise.

I really feel that ‘ebullient future’ is an improvement over ‘euphoric field’ in every way; the two songs are quite the same, but as one blogger who I can’t place commented, “The song is very much ‘once more with feeling’”.

And I definitely feel the feeling of ebullient future; the slow, emotional lyrics, and the fast, powerful chorus work together to almost tell a story with the song itself, a story that you could probably draw ties back to the actual anime.

Plus that guitar solo in the center? Masterpiece.

I’m probably a bit biased by the raw emotional power ef now holds over me, and the OP song brings those emotions back to memory every time I listen to it in the car (or at least, makes me scream “Gah, I need to rewatch ef”). Not to mention, all the wankery Shaft did with the OP this season, counting the instrumental, English, and Japanese versions, with all the color permutations in-between.

But nevertheless, this is still one of the best anime songs this year for me.

‘The RONgasm’ really describes it all. One of those moments that’s funny (in almost a trainwreck fashion) with or without having knowledge of Akagi. But in context, it’s probably the climax of the Washizu arc, as Akagi completely takes to pieces the once-calculating genius geezer, defeating him at his own game.

It’s got all the relevant insanity, strategy, and emotion, which form together so often to make Akagi and Kaiji great.

Well, I decided to lump these all together for a natural reason. I found out I have utterly zero resistance to any form of tangible romance in Clannad; this is why on a weekly basis the raw chemistry between Nagisa and Tomoya will melt me, and why these three moments kept me going on Clannad.

The first is Tomoya’s original confession to Nagisa, the second is the end scene of the Tomoyo OVA, and the third is from Misae’s arc, when Generic Beaten-Upon Shota #2 does some cool romancey stuff (or perhaps it was when Misae realizes that one other guy didn’t like him). In all three, my heart melted. It melted so heard.

In the end, I’m probably as soft as the Pillsbury doughboy. Hee hee~

Haibane Renmei is a bit of a mark on my anime-viewing record; I’m pretty sure I have mentioned it next to zero times on my blog proper, and maybe only once or twice elsewhere. It holds the great status of having absolutely no rating on MAL, which is unique.

This is because Haibane Renmei is supposed to be this Amazing Great Awesome work, and for me, it just sort of passed by. I fell asleep during a lot of the early episodes.

And while I understand the masses can be wrong, I feel that I am more off the mark here, simply because of episodes like the last one, with a strange, almost Shinbo-esque artistic punch which worked really well to sock me in the gut. This is where Haibane Renmei really stood up for me.

Somehow I imagine Haibane Renmei is a bit Aria-esque in that I can’t try to beat it, as a round peg, into the square hole of my mind with a hammer. Rather, the mood has to be right, or something.

Maybe it deserves a rewatch … right after I finish Aria first.

HiguKai may have had more of the emotional punch (or rather angst and suffering), but for raw, gory, edge-of-your-seat snuff film action the first season of Higurashi was nearly unparalleled.

As I summarize to my friends when trying to convince them on Higurashi, “they die pretty much every four episodes.” One almost gets a sense of sadistic glee every time you know the end of the arc is coming. Higurashi is intriguing with its balance between meticulous exposition and gratutious violence, two things that need to mix … more. I think.

Additionally, the fourth (fifth?) arc, starting with episode 16, is probably the most intense in all of Higurashi, being the answer arc to the second arc. It takes off quickly and keeps going, revealing more and more about Shion (although I need to rewatch to find how much is relevant to the final results) and just how wrong everything has went. It’s … impressive.

This was the original So Much Stuff Happens episode, before it was replaced by Toradora episode 2. ItaKiss has the problem of being a shoujo show, after all, a genre that I’ve had a tentative relationship with.

I like a lot of its ilk in some form – Kare Kano, Toshokan Sensou, Bokura ga Ita, this – but I’ve never really had the drive to finish a series from this genre. Maybe all the drama and the ZOMG SHINY BISHIES that are so common get to me after a while.

Still, ItaKiss 14 is a good reminder of how shoujo can simply just work sometimes, with touching confession scenes – the rain scene here, if I remember correctly – and intriguing developments you really don’t see in other anime. Where else do characters get married halfway through the show?

…Although I really couldn’t tell that the two were husband and spouse afterwards. Maybe the bar for Look We’re a Couple is higher in harem shows…

Yes, three Kaiji moments. I love me some Fukumoto gambling mindgame action, and these three moments pretty much explain it all.

Well, they all explain unpredictability, at least. Episodes 14 and 15 are the hardcore side of the Brave Men Road arc, where there is a lot of 30-meter drops off skyscrapers (i.e. dying) and a lot of psychological action. Mostly overcoming fear, which leads to introspectives on the nature of men, and Kaiji x Sahara slashfics. This is mainly up here because, well, ISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…

Kaiji 20 features one quote that particularly resonated with me for no good reason, “This is the last of their voices from beyond the grave!”, whose accompanying monologue I like to quote whenever I feel the need to be badass. Additionally, the revelation that WHAT THE HELL HE CUT OFF HIS EAR was … uh … mindblowing.

And in the end, the outcome of Kaiji’s game versus Hyoudou is both unexpected and entirely sensible. It’s an ending to the series that fits in perfectly with the themes and morals, yet is not a ‘good’ ending. I like endings like this.

Especially when they lead to second seasons. Which get produced. Right? Right?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF ERIKO WHY ARE YOU SO MOE WHEN YOU ARE SHY

This should be the episode where Kazuki brings flowers to Eriko’s door, and she absolutely flips out in a moe fit of moeness that locks my brain at about the level of the Kyou storage room scene. Except I feel much less guilt.

Man, come to think of it I should have an obsessively irrational crush on Eriko instead, given her eccentric, genius, cold-hearted nature. I’ll get back to you on that.

Ah, the musical episode. I really have nothing to say about this (which is not a hint that this post is running a bit long), since it’s a bit of a filler episode, but c’mon. If you’re going to have a filler episode, at least do it right like Kure-nai.

In addition, I have more than a bit of guilt that Kure-nai didn’t show up anywhere else in the 12 Moments. It shares a spot with a few other anime in this list that I really wanted to heap love on more, but just couldn’t. Thankfully, other bloggers have.

“You can’t just think ‘it’s fine’ all the time, you know!”

Empowering quote number two. Are you listening, shy guys?

Yeah, Sakura’s arc was probably one of the high points of this show. A quote that sticks doesn’t hurt either.

There should be some moment, I swear, but it’s so hard to find one in a slice-of-romance-comedy like this one. Nothing sticks out, but everything is above average.

And I haven’t even watched the second season, if there’s one show I need to get in the mood for, it’s this…

I have a note next to this episode that say “FINALLY SOMETHING HAPPENS”, and given how incredibly, painfully slow the first half of Shana II was (hi Konoe, we still hate you), that’s probably a fairly big achievement.

I can’t decide whether to be a Nagehiko shipper or a Kairi shipper – although I do refuse to use portmanteau couple names.

Nagehiko is probably the more developed character, thanks to a relatively unique backstory and killer episodes like this. Kairi just pushes more buttons, so he gets an easy ride.

Hmm, who knows, I wish it was a choice between these two instead of Tadase (boring) and Ikuto (flirty but otherwise unexciting)

This episode had THREE language tracks, not counting English subtitles. Let that sit for a bit.

In case you’re counting: 1) gibberish, 2) correct Japanese translation, 3) nonsense Japanese translation. I love you, SHAFT pretentious crack.

Another series which tips the scale of “I really should write something about this, since I remember thinking it was good, but I can’t recall anything at all.”

Probably just button-mashed the same Sappy Romantic buttons with a slightly different story and an annoying goat-beast-thing to create something that made me tear up a bit (although, spotting the date, I probably could blame my emotional state). Parallel storylines are always a plus too.

In the end, I can say at least this: it’s not bad, and it’s only two episodes, so why wouldn’t you watch it?

“Now, let’s fly. But Raigomaru’s stomach churned…”

Quote number three. How many people can account for that feeling?

And the final scene, with Noe refusing to let her true tears out until the very end – if she did at all? cursed poor memory – was really sort of a sonic boom of emotion (I think I used this analogy before with the ending of Byousoku 5cm). Usually I get hammered pretty hard by stupid piano cues and anything regarding couplings, but it took me a while on true tears.

But then, it all came at once, right when the show was over, and I was rocked.

true tears, as you may expect, is with Kure-nai and Nodame on that list of things that were Exceptionally Awesome but not List-able this year. It makes me want to write more about all of them, but maybe I will settle for re-reading some of the posts I and others have written. It’s a good retrospective.