(Part of a 12-day series fondly remembering some of the best moments in anime this year. Participants include: lolikitsune, lelangir, FuyuMaiden, 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!)

Today, as I breach the halfway mark of this post-a-thon, I find myself in a funny position.

Not like defending H2O is enough of a funny position, as a lot of you detractors would believe. Rather, I find myself with a sudden influx of moments to fit this sixth slot.

I was originally planning on heaping praise on the final episode of H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~, the final derailing of the metaphoric train, the absolutely senseless but incredibly gripping finale of the series. It was the finale that showed the strong will of H2O, which had toiled so hard out of the depths of Fanservice Hell to bring itself up to Mindscrew Limbo – and for me, that’s usually a swift judgment as to whether to let it ascend to the heavens:

But suddenly, while perusing the 12 Days choices of the otakusphere, I found myself blindsided by perhaps two bloggers who made, perhaps, wiser choices than I.

The first, and the one I shall discuss today, was ETERNAL, who I consider a bit of a partner-in-crime, our crime being really, really loving moe-moe stuff and visual novel conversions. And he, like me, at least looks back on H2O with a little bit of fondness, having given the eighth episode of H2O a slot on his Cirno Special countdown.

And when I looked back and weighed episode 8 versus episode 12, I couldn’t help but agree.

12 Moments of Anime 2008
#06: H2O ~footprints in the sand~ 08

You may understand a bit, if I take this post to be a bit of a break in my essay-composing endeavors. After all, I am just reiterating a moment already posted on.

ETERNAL and has already described in good detail what this moment are, and why is was quite excellent at invoking feelings of love and awesomeness. Therefore I shall try to prevent this post from becoming long enough to serve as a self-standing visual novel, but I am CCY, the man who bleeds tl;dr. I will try my best.

I’ve ranted about H2O on one occasion, following Moogy’s lead and comparing it to Clannad and True Tears. I was under the impression it would compare quite favorably to at least the latter, which holds a high status as perhaps the more canonical choice of Good VN conversion.

And while H2O tends to get torn apart for many things – gratuitous amounts of fanservice, nonsensical plot, stupid moe VN conversion factor – I saw it in quite a different light. Math by addition, instead of subtraction, as you may.

Because while I was pretty close to going Level 5 on myself during the first few episodes of H2O, it picked itself up. It decided that it was tired of living a life full of shoving asses in people’s faces, and that it wanted to do something different.

So it did.

Admittedly, like most people who try to pick up their life, not a whole lot of H2O’s old habits changed. It still ran around being a fanservice machine. However, it picked up many new tricks, like how to throw kinks in the plot with the best of dramatic anime.

And by dramatic anime, I mean the solas and the Higurashis. Anime that break all the rules of How To Be A Good Plot-Driven Anime and do it in style. They know they’ll never succeed if they try to be believable (as mentioned in the Kodomo no Jikan post), so they don’t try to.

Instead, they try to be an incredible thrill ride. And that’s what H2O does quite masterfully.

Maybe I’m a bit of a sucker for drama, but I managed to be drawn enough into the H2O universe (although the characters aren’t as ace as other visual novels) to enjoy it. Your mileage may vary.

Episode 8 of H2O was everything that I enjoyed about it. It was unmistakably different from pretty much every episode of harem anime ever; it was self-parodying, legitimately funny, more than a bit ef-esque in its nonsensicality and artsiness near the end.

And above all it was Otoha’s swan song in style.

Similar to Yoriko’s moment in 12 Days 2007, Otoha is my personal halo character for H2O, the one that carries the show. As a sort of Asa Shigure Mach II (alternatively, a Minorin v0.5), Otoha’s eccentric enthusiasm is always a treat to watch.

And although I was sad to see her exit the show, she couldn’t have ended it on a better all-around note. Her final scene was touching, it was sweet, and it ended in a kiss. How can you go wrong with that?

The closing moments of H2O, in its melodramatic, mindscrewing, and pseudo-allegorical nature, may be more questionable, but I think, an episode, and an episode with a conclusion like the eighth of H2O’s, is all-around solid.

Ai Ai Otoha?

-CCY