Stuff released during this week:

• Mobile Suit Gundam episode 01v2, now it’s softsubbed by popular claim. Enjoy.  –> Torrent Link
• Toward the Terra episode 11
• GaoGaiGar episode 28
• Votoms (Remastered) episodes 46 & 47

Enjoy these new releases.

Regards.

- The_Soulforged

      

Let me slip in my weekly anime review before getting back to my top anime picks of 2008.

A relatively light week of anime this week, due in part from not watching any last or first episodes. I still plan on getting to a few more of the winter seasons shows like Genji, Kemono no Souja Erin, and Hetalia Axis Powers but that’ll probably be in a few days.

The scores:

Toradora!, episode 16 – 12++/12

Soul Eater, episode 40 – 12+/12

Xam’D: Lost Memories, episode 24 – 12+/12

Michiko to Hatchin, episode 12 – 12+/12
Michiko to Hatchin, episode 13 – 11/12 A+

To Aru Majutsu no Index, episode 15 – 12/12

Minami-Ke: Okaeri, episode 3 – 12/12

Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou, episode 3 – 12+/12

Asu no Yoichi, episode 3 – 8/12 B+

Rideback, episode 2 – 11/12 A+

Maria+Holic, episode 3 – 11/12 A+

Chrome Shelled Regios, episode 2 – 8/12 B+

Clannad S.2, episode 14 – 12+++/12
Clannad S.2, episode 15 – 12+++/12

Which shows have momentum this week

Up – Michiko to Hatchin – We got a real juicy tidbit of info and it looks like the show is ready to get down to business

Down – none

Thoughts and Highlights

We learn in Michiko to Hatchin that the guy Michiko and Hatchin are looking for is really alive and he appears to be some sort of movie star. It’s still unknown if Michiko will remember she saw him in the newspaper after she recovers from a fever that’s been messing with her mind and causing her to hallucinate. Even if she doesn’t though, Michiko’s old friend, the police officer, saw it and will probably make sure Michiko finds out. I think now that the show has finally tipped it’s hand a bit, we should see this show’s plot advance quickly. Or at least I’m hoping because one of the things that hurt Samurai Champloo was that it waited until the very end of the series to reveal most of the real plot of the series.

Clannad Season 2 had not one, but two shows that scored the absolute highest score I give out to single episodes. This current Nagisa / Tomoya arc has been perfectly perfect; the source material by Key has been the best I’ve seen them do and KyoAni is executing the anime above their previous Key adaptation work. A simple summary like: Episodes 14 and 15 are about Nagisa and Tomoya learning to live together as a married couple and how Nagisa’s pregnancy changes people and relationships – doesn’t do the show justice. If you’ve gotten to like the characters at all, these episodes have been riveting like few anime shows are. And it’s the little touches that have really struck me. For example, in episode 14 we are shown a shot of Tomoya’s dinghy, plain apartment before Nagisa goes to live there and later on in the episode we see all the little things she’s done to make the place look homey. Or in episode 15, right before Nagisa says they should come up with a name for the baby, we see a quick shot of Nagisa looking at Tomoya and the love and happiness she is feeling is so abundantly clear by just looking at her eyes that it’s unnecessary and redundant to see them say they love each other or even kiss.

I don’t want to make this so short but none of the other shows really stuck out in my mind so let’s close with a few quick thoughts.

• I’ll chime in on Toradora being awesome this week. The Taiga/Student President fight was really exciting. I thought the change in style helped emphasize the sharp feelings both girls felt.
• I didn’t quite like this week’s episode of Asu no Yoichi, as much as I did the first two. I don’t know if this is the start of a trend or just because they needed to introduce a few more characters. And  Katsuyuki Konishi aka Kamina’s voice actor alert. He’s playing the shadowy unknown bad guy.
• The latest story arc to To Aru Majutsu no Index has me the most interested in the show since the first couple of episodes, which is a positive sign. The first half wasn’t nearly as bad as Shana 2 but maybe we can hope for a second half bounce like Shana 2 had.
• And I’m sorry, I disagree with the Grim Reaper in Soul Eater. I’d’ve killed Medusa and then just assume the worse case scenario which would be the Demon God was working with Arachnophobia and plan for that.
• Even Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou has an onsen episode and this was it. I really liked this episode because it showed for the first time a spirit that shouldn’t have gotten it’s name back. Natsume should be more careful in the future but I hope he doesn’t start to distrust spirits now. I also like this episode because we got a returning character – the guy that works as an exorcist on the side and can see spirits like Natsume.

Posted in anime, weekly anime review      

Soldiering on, this next set of awards cover some of the many different types of anime out there. I enjoy many of these types of anime and this sometimes leads to odd pairings; for example, I remember watching Kaiba and Maid Guy back-to-back on several occasions. There are a few categories you won’t see like best shounen or best shoujo because I just don’t watch enough to feel confident in those picks. Though I can say that in matters of shounen, Soul Eater is superior to Bleach and probably Naruto but I only watched the first 25 or so episodes of Naruto before I was bored of it – maybe it got better. As for shoujo, I liked Earl and Fairy and Skip Beat so maybe I should watch more.

Best Action

Winner: Kurozuka

Runner-up: Shana 2

Kurozuka is a bit of aberration for me because it never took the time to really do much character development and the story was only the barest of skeletons for most of the series; and yet, I didn’t mind because I was too busy enjoying the polished, pure action series that Kurozuka was. The fights where excellent and I loved when Kuro slipped into vampire bullet-time because I knew he was about to cleave a path of destruction through those around him.

Best Fight

Winner: The Sabrac fight from Shana 2

The best overall fight went to the Sabrac fight towards the end of Shana 2. Anytime a fight lasts for two episodes, it’s going to either feel epic or boring and drawn out; this fight was a stellar example of the first. The first reason is that all the characters where going all out, none of this “I’ll use 43.25 % of my full power” that artificially extends a fight. Another reason is that the good guys had to out-think and plan actual strategy to beat Sabrac and when they did get him, it wasn’t because Sabrac did something stupid to allow them to win. It also helped that by this point in Shana we’ve gotten to really like the good guys so it was like we we’re personally invested in the outcome. And the final thing that really made this an awesome fight was the way Shana and friends finally beat Sabrac, it was unexpected, theatrical, and just plain cool.

Coolest Weapons

Winner: Ga-rei: Zero

Runner-up: Soul Eater

Ga-Rei: Zero had one of the most diverse set of weapons I’ve ever seen. We had the standard sword and guns but we also had a guy wield two suitcases that shot small missiles, a guy that used a weapon that turned his hands into drills, a woman that had a Gatling gun for an artificial leg, a motorcycle that had anti-monster incantations in the tread of the tires – just to name a few. There was several more spare weapons that are shown like an iron that used holy water steam. And even some of the more standard weapons had their own twist like a sword that would use the recoil of discharging a bullet to speed up the user’s swing and also allow the wielder to change directions mid-swing very quickly.

Best Comedy

Winner: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Runner-up: Maid Guy

The year didn’t have many pure comedy shows that were genuinely funny but it did have many non-comedy shows like Clannad, Toradora, and Natsume Yuujinchou that used humor for great affect. Instead, many of the comedy shows like Kemeko DX and Kannagi tried too hard to either be different or be more then just a comedy show. Maid Guy was one show that did a good job remembering it was a comedy show and if the ending had been stronger, it could have won. Another show that never forgot it was a comedy and still found the time to comment on society and poke fun at people was this year’s best comedy, Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I will admit that this comedy isn’t meant for everybody but it’s unique blend of comedy was something I just love.

Best Slice-of-Life

Winner: Natsume Yuujinchou

Runner-up: Someday’s Dreamers Season 2

You really can’t go wrong with either show but I gave the slight edge to Natsume Yuujinchou, aka Natsume’s Book of Friends, because it gave me a better relaxed slice-of-life feeling and I like the ending more. Natsume excelled at those areas that you’d expect a slice-of-life show to do so such as: interesting characters that develop over time and a story that can make the viewer feel a wide range of emotions. One little thing I particularly enjoyed was how everyone had a different name for Nyanko-sensei.

Best Science Fiction

Winner: Kaiba

Kaiba is a really good example of what’s possible with science fiction. It extrapolated a future to tell a story that would be impossible using our current level of technology but at the same time it was able to make the story resonant with us, the viewers. Another reason I was impressed with Kaiba was that most SF shows can’t match print SF in terms of depth, intellectual complexity, and creativity but Kaiba was able to.

Most Entertaining

Winner: Library War

Runner-up: Wagaya no Oinari-sama

For any type of show to be successful, it needs to entertain on some level so I’m going to define “Most Entertaining” as the show that the best at making me feel good after watching it. Library War wins because I enjoyed the characters and how they interacted with each other. I also thoroughly enjoyed when the Library forces where able to beat the censorship thugs, if only it was so easy in real life.

Best Mind Trip

Winner: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Watching Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a rather unique experience.

Every aspect of the show seems designed to give the viewer a very surreal feeling. There’s the animation – at times it’s very standard looking and other times it’s hyperstylized or made using various other mediums. Add to that the amount of text we see. Some of it on signs in the background, telling jokes and making references that oftentimes has nothing to do with what’s going on in the foreground. Other text is conjured by the characters to prove a point and will often fly by so quick that it’s only possible to read by pausing individual frames. And let’s not forget the use of a real picture of some guy’s hairy face. (I know he’s connected to the manga but can’t quite remember how right now.) He pops up multiple times in an episode and in various locations; though, he is frequently used when they want to censor something. The show also has a touch of ADD to itself and can feel like the show’s creators are randomly switching channels in their minds. I do mean all this, in the best possible sense because I like the uniqueness of the show – as you’ll see when I get to my actual top ten shows of the year.

Best Story

Winner: Kaiba

Runner-up: Xam’d: Lost Memories

The story of Kaiba accomplished a lot in the time it had. The first half of the show focused on the main character, Kaiba, as he tried to figure out who he was. A more complex question when a person can swap bodies and add/subtract memories from their mind. It also introduced to the viewers many of the problems that mind uploading would present to society. The second half of the show focuses on the efforts of a terrorist group to usurp the king and Kaiba’s effort to reconnect with the woman he loves after her memories have been altered to further the terrorist group’s agenda. One of the things that surprised me was that I had thought, based on the rather experimental animation, that the story would be too artsy for me but it turned out to be very accessible and down-to-earth.

Most Interesting Setting

Winner: Kurozuka

Runner-up: Kaiba

The mix of the familiar with the alien that post-apocaleptic worlds often have is something that has greatly interested me since I was very young. In this case, the world of Kurozuka helped set the proper mood and make the show feel plausible instead of pure fantasy. I’m not saying Kurozuka was plausible; but, like how the recent Batman movies feel more realistic then the previous movies and series, the setting helped give the show a more realistic feel.

Posted in anime, awards      

Part 2 is somewhat of a mishmash of awards. I started out just having multi-character awards but while figuring out where everything went I realized I needed a spot to place various awards that didn’t fit anywhere else.

Best Couple

Winner: Tomoya and Nagisa from Clannad

Runner-up: Iku Kasahara and Atsushi Dojo from Library War

Even though I think Taiga and Ryuuji of Toradora make the perfect couple, the show really hasn’t shown them together as a couple so they weren’t as strong of contenders they could have been. On the other hand Tomoya and Nagisa seem to be perfect for each other and from the start the show reinforced this to the viewers. And the second season has really shown how good of a couple they are together and has gotten to the point of them getting married.

Best Cast of Characters

Winner: Toradora

Runner-up: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

The cast of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is full of really great characters but they fall short of Toradora mainly because they never evolve as the characters of Toradora do. I like how every character of Toradora is different and not different like each character falls into preset character types; instead, they feel like they could be real people and their problems feel realistic for who they are and not just to fit convenient plot progressions.

Best Dressed Characters

Winner: Clannad

An easy award to give because KyoAni seems obsessed with having their characters dress in as many different outfits as possible. It is realistic though, how many people do you know that wear the same couple of outfits day after day. And each time something new is worn, it’s genuinely new and tasteful. This might sound shallow but it does add a degree of realism to the show and keeps an element of surprise to itself.

Best Character Development for Cast

Winner: Toradora

Runner-up: Bamboo Blade

Many shows have good character development for the main character and sometimes even a few of the side characters but it’s rare for a show to have good character development for all of the main characters and principal side characters like Toradora has. It’s really amazing that they’ve been able to fit such a high level of character development of the entire principal cast in only 13 episodes and judging from the first few episodes of the second half, it’s not slowing down in the least.

Best Character Development of a Single Character

Winner: Yomi from Ga-Rei: Zero

Runner-up: Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou

Almost the entire show of Ga-Rei: Zero is focused on the character of Yomi and how she is corrupted to become an evil killing machine. Even when I knew what happens in the future, I couldn’t help but like her before she turns evil and I can even understand why she did what she did. That moment of despair that she has while in the hospital was masterfully done and felt very real.

Best Character Ability/Power

Winner: Kogarashi from Maid Guy

I already mentioned some of powers Kogarashi has earlier but there’s others including Maid Guy Voice that can stun people, Maid Guy Hair Sensor where he uses his hair as mobile sensors, and Maid Guy Levitation. It’s hard to pick a single favorite but the ability to link a printer to your brain using a USB cable and being able to print things by just thinking about them is a very awesome power.

Best Anime Movie Seen in 2008

Winner: Evangelion 1.01 You Are (Not) Alone

I’ve mentioned before that even though Evangelion is an important anime work in the historical sense, it stinks as a show due in part to the very poor ending. After Gurren Lagann and it’s superbly crafted ending, though, I have some confidence that this time Gainax will get it right and the first of four movies seems to be a very good first step. My sister, who’s never seen the original series but seen clips of it in AMVs and such, was thoroughly impressed with the movie. I hold little hope of actually seeing this in theaters but would dearly love the chance to do so.

Best Anime OVA Seen in 2008

Winner: Clannad Episode 24 OVA

This was a separate story from the series though officially it’s episode 24 of the first season. It still features Tomoya and he’s still best friends with Sunohara but his girlfriend is Tomoyo and we meet no other characters from the main series. I know KyoAni was aided from the fact that we know the characters from the series but they manage to tell a full story in only 21 minutes that was interesting, moving, authentic and in many ways, superior to the first season of Clannad. It showed the full potential that Clannad had and made me excited about the forthcoming second season.

Best Anime Extra

Winner: Gurren Lagann Parallel Works

These where a series of short pieces done by Gainax employees using music from Gurren Lagann. All but one of them where meant to be separate from the show – hence the name Parallel Works. They featured the characters of Gurren Lagann in alternate settings, like a medieval world, or with alternate circumstances, like having the good guys be bad and Viral be the hero of the resistance. One though acted like a prequel in that it showed how Lord Genome became the ruler of earth and why he imprisoned humanity underground. Each was done by somebody different and thus had wildly different visual style though it was always fun to see some visual element that was done in one of these and remember something similar in the show. They where posted for free viewing on their website on a weekly basis over the summer and early autumn. I thought these showed that more can be done with the characters of Gurren Lagann and the world, in general, and hopefully Gainax will agree and revisit this world at some point in the future.

Most in Need of a Sequel

Winner: Ryoko’s Case Files

The way the first season ended greatly increased my desire for a second season. How often do you get the chance to see a love triangle form that includes a clone, the original, and the guy they both like? Between that and the chance to see Ryoko and Izumida solve more mysterious cases should make a sequeal a no-brainer. Hopefully, this will be case and more Ryoko’s Case Files will be seen in 2009.

Posted in anime, awards      

I start with the character awards partly because I feel once a show establishes a great cast of characters then it’s 70% of the way to ensuring that I’ll like it. And it doesn’t matter what type of show, any show can be improved with good character development.

Best Female Main Character

Winner: Ryoko from Ryoko’s Case Files

Runner-up: Iku Kasahara from Library War

An accurate description of Ryoko would be a cross between an adult Haruhi Suzumiya and the police skill of the Major from GiTS:SAC. A very potent combination and it helped make the show a must watch. My favorite Ryoko-ism was towards the end of the series when she took refuge in an empty underground mall, trying to hide from numerous soldiers trying to kill her. She realizes that her clothes are torn and dirty so she picks a killer outfit out, leaves her charge card, then calmly showers and dresses as if she’s going to a party and not to a firefight. We really need to see more shows like Ryoko’s Case Files that focus on characters that are adults because it’s so refreshing for the change of pace.

Best Male Main Character

Winner: Ryuuji from Toradora

Runner-up: Kogarashi from Maid Guy

Everyone has their little problems that they have to live with. For Ryuuji, it’s the fact that he looks like his Yakuza father – mean and dangerous. This is a problem because Ryuuji is a nice guy and just wishes for people to treat him normally. He happens to be a bit odd though because a sale at the grocery store or having the chance to clean away mold makes his day. What makes him the best male main character is that he’s truly a really nice guy. He’s also fiercely loyal to his friends, willing to go to whatever means necessary to help them with whatever their problems are and he’s also insightful and thoughtful.

Best Female Supporting Character

Winner: Minorin from Toradora

Runner-up: Ami from Toradora

I didn’t think Ami would become a character I like when she was introduced but she’s been slowly rising in the ranks. She’s a completely different person then either Taiga or Minorin but she’s shown her own positive qualities. It wasn’t enough to dislodge Minorin from the top spot because Minorin has been awesome since the beginning. Her energetic outbursts and attitude always steel the show when she’s onscreen. However, this spastic personality hides a more serious personality that she doesn’t allow people to see though she seems to be lowering her guard to Ryuuji. So for her screen-stealing personality, sunny disposition, and being a good friend to Taiga, Minorin gets my nod for best female supporting character.

Best Male Supporting Character

Winner: Dan-kun from Bamboo Blade

Runner-up: Sunohara from Clannad

One of the surprising things about Bamboo Blade was Dan-kun, Miya Miya’s boyfriend and friend to Yuuji. He was short, looked very egg shaped, and seemed to be there for comedic purposes. Over the course of the series though, we see him mature as he works hard at learning Kendo. He also is a good boyfriend by providing support to Miya Miya so she can face her inner demons and her external tormentors. He earned a lot of respect from the characters and by the final episode, he is elected the head of the kendo club which was something that would have been unfathomable at the start.

Best Non-human Character

Winner: Nyanko-sensei from Natsume Yuujinchou

Runner-up: Kuu from Wagaya no Oinari-sama

Nyanko-sensei is a spirit that had been sealed into a Luck Cat statue until Natsume accidentally lets him loose. He makes an agreement with Natsume to be his body guard under the condition that when Natsume dies, Nyanko-sensei takes ownership of the Book of Friends. At the time I thought that Nyanko-sensei would just kill Natsume at the first opportunity but Nyanko-sensei never seemed to even think of doing so. As the show unfolded, I realized that Nyanko-sensei actually likes Natsume as a friend. His gruff, catlike personality with his liking of alcohol is a great counterpoint to the often sad events of the show. And because he’s strong in his original form and also because he’s well-known amoung the spirits – oftentimes he is the one that saves Natsume from being killed.

Strongest Female Character

Winner: Sora from Someday’s Dreamers Season 2

Runner-up: Nagisa from Clannad

I’m defining strong in a more general sense then just being physically strong and both Sora and Nagisa strike me as being strong women. Neither are particularly physically strong but they both have problems that would make most normal people despair, yet they can smile and live as if nothing is wrong. Sora edged Nagisa out because we still have half a season of Clannad left and much of her story still left to see.

Strongest Male Character

Winner: Kogarashi from Maid Guy

Runner-up: Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou

I had to give this award to Kogarashi. I can’t say he’s emotionally strong like Natsume because I’m not sure that Kogarashi has emotions. He’s more like a force of nature that’s not totally explainable to us mere humans. He can control crows, has x-ray vision, can plug a USB printer cord into his ear and print images from his mind, he’s taught at M.I.T., can wrestle with a panda bear, and the list goes on. In the show he works as a maid and strives for perfect service, even if his master disagrees.

Best Female Screen-grabber

Winner: Sakura from Wagaya no Oinari-sama

Sakura wasn’t in the show much, maybe once every couple episodes, but when she was, she made her persence known. With an imagination almost as outlandish as Hosaka’s, the ability to come to absurd conclusions, and a talent for over-analyzing a situation – she always made the viewer laugh and at the same time hope she would successful in getting Takagami’s attention.

Best Male Screen-grabber

Winner: Hosaka from Minami-ke: Okawari

Hosaka is another person that isn’t in the show too often but his mere presence is enough to get a laugh. The over dramatic posturing and habit of unbuttoning his shirt helps though. He is consumed with getting Haruka Minami’s attention but a combination of personal shortcomings and bad luck have so far stymied him. His overactive imagination is always a source of laughter – just look at my the recently posted clip from episode 2 of the third season. And the sad thing is that he’s genuinely sincere, has his good points, and would probably make a good boyfriend for Haruka.

Best Villian

Winner: Kazuhiro Mitogawa from Ga-Rei: Zero

I love a villian that’s intelligent and evil and he’s both. As we get through Ga-Rei: Zero, we see that he has this complex plan to eliminate the good guys largely through their own failing and he’s been very sucessful. He’s gotten rid of one of the most powerfullfamilies, reduced another to a single member, and killed or injured to the point of retireing several other very high level people.

Posted in anime, awards      

I just decided to do these on a whim.

Click on the icons for textless versions where possible.

Three Allelujah, two Setsuna, one Lockon and no Tieria. Coincidentally, the number of avatars I made coincides with the order of my liking of the characters. Allelujah being my favourite, and Tieria being my least favourite character.

These won’t be updated in the Gallery because I’m thinking of creating another website to act as my Gallery.

      

It’s finally time for me to write up my favorites and top picks in anime for 2008. Between waiting for some series to finish, wanting to marathon a couple of missed series, and catching the new season of anime – I didn’t have the room in my writing time to do this until now. I also wanted to be comprehensive then my seasonal awards and my previous yearly top picks and was successful on that front.

This time before I get to my awards, I wanted to mention what shows I watched this year. It’s these series that will be up for the awards; if a series isn’t on this list, I either dropped it very early or didn’t watch it (for various reasons) and thus you won’t see it mentioned. For the shows that either started in 2007, will continue into 2009, or have a slower sub release schedule, I have marked the episodes watched in 2008.

Some shows like X’amd and Michiko to Hatchin would do poorly in my top 10 ranking because too much of the story is still unrevealed; therefore, I’m shifting their consideration in the ranking to next year.

Winter Season

Bamboo Blade eps. 13-26
Clannad
Shana 2 eps. 13-24
Minami-ke Okawari
Hayate eps. 40-52
Shigofumi
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Spring Season

Kaiba
Soul Eater eps. 1-36
Maid Guy
Library War
Wagaya no Oinari-sama
Nabari no Ou eps. 1-17 (want to finish but haven’t felt like it)
The Daughter of Twenty Faces eps. 1-20
Kure-nai
Zettai Karen Children eps. 1-14 (can’t bring myself to continue)

Summer Season

Zero’s Familiar S.3
Birdy the Mighty Decode
Ryoko’s Case Files
Natsume Yuujinchou
Someday’s Dreamers Season 2
X’amd eps. 1-20

Fall Season

Mouryou no Hako eps. 1-6
Michiko to Hatchin eps. 1-10
Skip Beat eps. 1-12
Yozakura Quartet
Earl and Fairy
Toradora eps. 1-13
Chaos Head
Kemeko DX
Ga-rei Zero
Shikabane Hime: Aka
Kurozuka
Clannad Season 2 eps. 1-12
Index eps. 1-13
Kannagi

Now it’s time for the Anti-Awards. These are awards that the winners probably wouldn’t like winning and instead of spreading them out in the various parts, I’m going to put them here. Also, the awards will have a higher level of spoilers then I normally use but I will still try to keep them to minimum.

Best Half and Half

Winner: Shana 2

The first half of Shana 2 was atrocious. Sometimes I can’t believe that I got through it. If I hadn’t liked Rie Kugimiya as Shana and known how good the show could be, I probably wouldn’t have stuck around for the second half. I did though and a funny thing happened – the show got good, very good. At first my sister and I thought we were hallucinating when we starting thinking to ourselves – I can’t wait for the next episode. So for going from zero to hero, this show deserves the best half and half award.

Worst Half and Half

Winner: Daughter of 20 Faces

On the other hand, Daughter of 20 Faces started out very good. As a Lupin fan, I enjoyed the set-up of the show and eagerly awaited the next episode to see the further adventures of 20 Faces. Roughly a third of the way in, something happened that radically altered the show and it became a very different. I hoped this would pave the way for an even better show but by the halfway point, it became apparent that the creators where just coasting. The show just slowly lost more and more steam and so it earns the worst half and half award.

Most Disappointing Ending

Winner: Kure-nai

Kure-nai was an excellent show with many interesting characters and it quickly became one of my favorites from the spring season. Muraski’s freedom from her deranged family was obviously what the climax was going to center around so I won’t complain too much about how the characters suddenly had to act really dumb to allow Muraski’s family to recapture her. The problem, instead, was how it was resolved. Muraski’s family ascribed to very old traditions and they dictated that Muraski had to live in the Inner Sanctuary, away from everybody and all modern conviences, and had to marry her older brother. Our hero Shinkurou goes in and beats the family within an inch of death and should be able to get them to agree to freeing Muraski but instead Muraski convinces Shinkurou that she will work within the family to loosen the family’s restrictions and they leave her with the family. You don’t leave a kid in a pit of vipers, even if the kid is intelligent. So for totally screwing up the obvious ending and giving us a very bad ending, Kure-nai has the most disappointing ending of the year.

Most in Need of Being Longer

Winner: Library War

This isn’t a horribly bad award to get but I wanted to recognize that even though this was a very fun show, full of awesome moments, it was still hurt by being too short of a series. This could have easily been a 24 episode series. One obvious improvement this would have caused was the various side characters could have been fleshed out further. As it stands, their full depth of character is merely teased to us. Another improvement would have been additional time for a more rigorous anti-censorship message. From what I heard about the source material, much of this was stripped out of the anime due to time restraints.

The Your-Doing-It-Wrong Award

Winner: Minami-ke: Okawari

The second season of Minami-Ke earns the Your-Doing-It-Wrong Award not because the animation couldn’t match the first season but because they messed with the formula that made the first season so funny. As a person that has 5 younger siblings, I know something about how siblings interact and the first season of Minami-Ke nailed it perfectly. The second season monkeyed with this and in several episodes the three sisters where just plain mean to each other and it felt wrong and out-of-character. Then there was the decision to not show the Minami brothers for the entire second season. Another failure was the introduction of the boy that moves in next door. They spent a lot of time on this one character to the detrement of the show. He’s not funny nor does he generate laughs with his presence – bad in a comedy. He’s dweeby and nothing is done to make us like him; whenever he was on screen, I deeply wished someone would just punch him. I would even sometimes imagine a scene where Shinji from Evangelion would just show up one day and roundhouse this kid because Shinji couldn’t stand the kid either.

And on that note, let’s end part 0 and tomorrow I’ll put up part 1, the character awards.

Posted in anime, awards      

Here is the stuff released during this week:

• Cowboy Bebop (HD Remastered) episode 06
• Towards the Terra episode 10
• Votoms (Remastered) episodes 44 & 45

Hope you’ll enjoy them.

Regards.

- The_Soulforged