(Credit to 9LAW, Dkun, and this person for the images I shamelessly stole off of Pixiv)

(Part of a 12-day series fondly remembering some of the best moments in anime this year. Participants include: lolikitsune, lelangir, Owen S, FuyuMaiden, IKnight, Zeroblade, Nazarielle, ghostlightning, TheBigN, ETERNAL, Mike, A Day Without Me, digitalboy, Josh, otou-san, Culchann and Pontifus, IcyStorm, Cokematic,
koneko-chan, and miz, and you’re welcome to join too!)

Speaking of ‘my roots’, and ’shipping couples’, I’ll have to admit that shonen romances like Haruka’s Secret aren’t as far back as I go.

Rather, for those of you who are more familiar with the extended version of my username – and you really shouldn’t be, because it’s really embarrassing – Cardcaptor Sakura was my first anime, in any form. As such, I can consider it my true defining anime.

Although I haven’t seen it in my modern fansub-watching era, the fact that I watched it 3 times through (at 70 episodes apiece) gives some proof that 1) I was very obsessive in my younger days and 2) it has shaped a lot of who I am and what I watch, whether I think so or not.

As such, I have had more than a little affinity for magical girl shows; or at least the more mature of the lot. After all, what makes this genre most endearing to people like me, isn’t the rampant pinkness, or the fact that everyone’s an elementary schoolgirl, but rather the surprising depth in many of its ilk.

Although shows like Cardcaptor Sakura look like they could only be of use to those with a child’s mind, the surprising truth is that many of the themes and character interactions appeal to the older sect.

After all, how many of you liked romance when you were a kid? And yet, magical girl shows are full of couplings, sometimes not even hetero ones. And there’s this amazing concept of character development. This is what makes magical girl anime, so magical in a sense. They appeal to both your inner child and your inner adult.

But admittedly, not all magical girl anime fall into to this category. There are still those which exist only to pander to the lolicon, or those which are honestly too cutesy and fluffy for their own good (or at least for the good of a college-age male).

Shugo Chara is an interesting case to study, how it falls right on that border of the great magical girl anime.

12 Moments of Anime 2008
#10: Shugo Chara – 44

After a short phase of getting to know Shugo Chara, I was fairly quickly smitten with its ways of almost trivializing the ‘magic’ in ‘magical girl’. The raw, overwhelming power of Amu’s three transformations, for me, deemphasized the aspect of the genre I disliked – overly pink and feminine displays of shiny lights and monster-of-the-week fights.

In its place was a strong core of characters and character interaction, with what looks to be a much less predictable romance endgame. Amu’s weak yet strong character was easily endearing, and I can actually say I don’t know whether she will end up with Ikuto or Tadase (if either) in the end, much less which one is the better choice.

Such fun with character shipping, combined with the generally warm and fuzzy feel of your average episode, made Shugo Chara very much worth it for me.

And then, things began to fade. Maybe it was watching the set of bloggers following Shugo Chara get mercilessly torn apart by fangirls. Maybe it was the endless stream of filler brought on by the announcement of a second season.

But eventually, Shugo Chara had less and less importance in my anime queue. Enough to make me wonder if it really was, as I claimed, the “magical girl for the 21st century”.

Luckily, I am somewhat of a blessed fan. Even though I try to lose faith in anime, try to discredit anime like Clannad ~After Story~ and Shugo Chara, more often then not my skepticism is quickly disproven.

Maybe it’s a lowering of my standards that allows anime to blow me away; an artificial improvement in the anime, as it were. But nevertheless, I’m glad such a thing can happen, to prevent me from becoming a cynic.

I think, one of the best examples was relatively recent in the Shugo Chara timeline, in episode 44. It was my first step back into the anime in months; after the high-quality stunner of a fight with Utau in the previous episode, Recap Filler wasn’t something I was looking forward to at all.

However, since I had a strong desire to catch up with the second season, I decided to push on, despite the stench of “Oh God I’ve seen this already, do they think I’m stupid or what?”

And … well … Recap Filler it was. Until the last few minutes.

That was when Kairi Sanjou decided he’d make this episode worth it.

Kairi has always been, probably my second-favorite Shugo Chara male character. You can imagine why – glasses plus a cool demeanor (not to mention green hair) always is a good combination, almost reminiscent of Eriol from Cardcaptor Sakura.

And so I enjoyed the time with him on screen, especially as he played his double-role as Easter agent and Amu fanboy (er, Guardian). But as the time ticked down on his part, with his last episode – a filler episode – looking to be rather weak.

This was rather a shame for me; my true favorite in the show, Nagehiko, was already long gone, shipped away to Somewhere Else Land despite being, probably one of the more complex, and more intriguing characters, almost Tomoyo-like in nature. I was extremely tempted to put in her (his) last episode (the 24th) as the Shugo Chara moment instead … as that one was solid all the way through.

This moment was more intriguing for its placement and punch. Right as Kairi’s ready to step out of the show for a good long time, he says two things…

“I’m ahead of you, Tadase.”
“Amu Hinamori, I love you. Always and forever, I love you. One day, when I become a suitable man, I’ll come back for you.”

It’s enough to make any girl swoon~! Since I was feeling more masculine at the moment, I had to resort to fistpumping and raising my hands (’it’s good~’) to show my support of this side of Kairi. This was the Kairi that made this show better. The one that was absolute in his resolution, strong like a steel sword and every bit as sharp.

Ahaha~ even I sound like a bit of a fangirl here. Maybe I’ve gone a bit overboard, but that’s what this project is for.

I know Nagehiko’s coming back in the second season, I can only hope Kairi does too. After all, if I can be inspired to this much poetic fangirl ranting, at the end of a filler episode, who knows what other things Shugo Chara might bring us in the future?

-CCY