(image: Hanada Hyou)

Do you care to acknowledge the mistakes of youth?

I do.

Heh, although I don’t ever really know if I can call my anime viewing past a ‘mistake’. I may have gone over the edge on a few anime, a few pairings, a few girls, that really struck my fancy … but what’s life without a little passion?

What else would I define myself by, if not for the times I freeze-framed my way through entire scenes of ef (there is a certain blink in only half the OPs…), the three-hour manga sessions I would spend getting in touch with my inner romantic, the times I lived and died by the heart of the maidens of KimiKiss … well, these are some of the things I look back to from 2008, so far removed now. At least in internet time.

But such a past is important, right? If not to look back upon, sipping a warm beverage and recalling fond memories, then measuring one’s growth and maturation.

And that’s part of the reason I’ve been writing the “Twelve Moments in Anime” series every December for the past two years, and now continuing on to a third.

Perhaps the other reason, that I tend to forget what I like really fast – such is, perhaps, the backlash of lavishing so much affection on anything that has a pretty story (or face, etc) – but that’s not as romantic.

So, as I have every December, I invite you all to join me, from December 14th to the 25th, in recalling your 12 favorite anime-related things of the year. Anime, manga, visual novels, screencaps, meganekkos, internet dramas, etc, whatever. It doesn’t even have to be ‘from’ 2009, as long as you’ve experienced it in the last year.

I’m sure you can make your own creative bounds. Whatever it takes for you to draw out those nostalgic feelings again to keep your heart warm during this winter … I look forward to sharing those with you, and seeing everyone else’s key moments, over the next month. Until then!

CCY