Gauche appears to get his memory back, though all his confirmed memories relate to events regarding Lag or things Lag knew.  As a result, Dr. Thunderbird is concerned that, if Noir is still in control, he could potentially pull off enough of a deception as to pass off as Gauche.  This possibility is further made possible by the fact that Gauche suddenly disappears, though that could also be due to Roda suddenly appearing again, and perhaps kidnapping Gauche.  As it turns out, Dr. Thunderbird’s fears are true as it was merely Noir posing as Gauche.

However, Lawrence still seemed concerned that Noir wasn’t on their side anymore, so he sent out people to eliminate Noir, so things have become more complicated as Gauche/Noir may not really be on anyone’s side now.  One doesn’t know if this is due to Gauche and Noir having some battle within Gauche, or whether he was Noir all along, or what.

It does seem like Noir had lost Gauche’s memories, so it’s not like Gauche was pretending to be Noir, though I suppose that’s a possibility now if Gauche has Noir’s memories and came to sympathize with his goals.  Gauche also told Lag that he was sorry he didn’t look into what happened to his mother.  But what if he did, and that’s why all of this is happening now?  I guess we’ll find out soon.

More teen angst in this episode, though none of it really about the transexualism, directly.  Basically, Saorin is mad (and has been mad) at Yoshino for being the object of Shuichi’s affections even though Saorin likes him.  After Saorin is still pissy, Saorin and Yoshino’s shared friend Sasa says that she won’t talk to either of them.  This ultimately leads to Yoshino and Saorin making up in the end.

So we still have the Saorin-Yoshino-Shuichi love triangle going, though at least a bit more stable now after two episodes.  However, we also have some other minor things such as Makoto wondering if he’s gay, and Shuichi’s sister Maho seems to be conflicted or even jealous over her brother’s crossdressing (becoming rather agitated when her classmates remark that he looks cute).  However, this has a payoff later when a boy in Maho’s class uses the incident to complement her.

We also have Chizuru and her friend Momoko who have now joined the Saorin-Yoshino-Shuichi-Makoto-Sasa friend circle, with Sasa becoming friends with Chi and Yoshino still admiring her for wearing the boys uniform on the first day.

I guess there isn’t really very much to dwell on as far as the future goes as of yet, just observations of what’s going on.  Probably the only thing that is for sure is that the teen angst will continue.

Poor Clain goes from hanging out Phyrne, with a time traveling girl who doesn’t mind being seen naked to Nessa, a crazy/spunky girl who Clain doesn’t think is human, but who clearly isn’t a dopple either (and who is strongly suggested at the start of the episode to be the “key to the world”).  Oh, and she can make inanimate objects so crazy too.

Clain’s father also said something which startled him later on: that if they lived at home with Clain, then their freedoms could be curtailed.  It’s hard to say whether he simply meant their personal freedom to move freely (by not being constrained to living in a house) or whether it was meant to be something more broad.  In any case, Clain wasn’t exactly thrilled with the implication that his parents were putting their happiness above his which, really, is kind of the point of the whole dopple system, isn’t it?

Of course, we still don’t really seem to have an idea of what Nessa is, but it seems like whenever Clain wants to be around her, she wants to hang around and he can touch her, but if he doesn’t want her around, he can no longer touch her.  In any case, the three stooges are still intent on knowing who (or what) she is.

For that matter, we still have no clue how the dopples work.  We kind of know the theory, but we don’t know basic info such as…where are the people who are running them, and can they do other tasks while running their dopples (and if so, how?)

It started with what I initially thought was a Dilbert comic come tragically to life before quickly shifting into a case of manufactured dorama for publicity before turning into a case of “Anime is Serious Business”. I’m speaking, of course, about the events involving Funimation over the last week-and-a-half; if you’ve missed the story so far, check out here, here, and here from ANN – the most trusted name in anime news (except when they themselves screw something up) – before reading further.

I’m typically too busy actually enjoying anime to bother writing about anime “piracy” by Americans when it’s always the same old arguments anyways. I’d’ve passed this story over without commenting until I read this entry on Funimation’s blog and realized I did have something I can add to this debate.

Mr. Heiskell made the case for the importance of territorial rights in ensuring the efficient delivery of anime around the world. The big problem in this argument is that it relies on an assumption that is so prevalent in America that I can’t really blame Mr. Heiskell in making it. The truth is that North America is not the center of the English-speaking anime fandom population; it’s not even the majority. This truth would have greatly shocked me several years ago when I was just a very casual anime fan. Even when I started visiting anime blogs and forums, I would have still been surprised that what I thought was a sizable minority of fans living outside of North America was actually the majority. I didn’t realize this truth until I started anime blogging myself and decided I was curious about which far-off countries people came from to visit The Null Set.

North America didn’t make up 75% of my audience like I thought it would; that number was consistently in the 35 – 40% range. If I extend it out to all English as the first language countries, I’m still short of a majority. I embedded a second tracker to see if the results I got were in error and the second tracker yielded almost exactly the same results. I found this to be a much cooler result because that meant I got to interact with tons of people living from a diverse set of backgrounds from around the globe without trying to learn a myriad of foreign languages (3 years of Spanish in high school taught me that I suck at learning a foreign language).

Up until now I’ve only used this knowledge when I’m thinking about the audience I’m writing to; for example, it’s easier for me to not write about politics when I know roughly 2 out 3 readers will not care because they live in a different country than me. However, this fact greatly influences the environment surrounding Mr. Heiskell’s argument and the recent events connected to Funimation.

I realize it was possible that my blog was atypical so for this post I decided to examine other anime blogs to see if this pattern would hold up. I found three other blogs that linked to the information I needed – one was a much more popular blog then mine, the second one is about the same size as mine and the third one is a blog that’s gone dormant but still gets a fair amount of traffic. All three blogs displayed a very similar pattern to mine; which I’ve averaged and will summarize now.

The Top 10 Readerships of English Language Anime Blogs by Country:

United States	32.49%
Canada	5.60%
Philippines	4.46%
United Kingdom	4.10%
Germany	3.77%
Brazil	2.87%
Mexico	2.81%
Australia	2.80%
France	2.58%
Malaysia	2.00%

 

The North American share (US and Canada) is only 38.1%, the UK and Australia add another 6.9% for a total of 45.0%. That means 55.0% of the market for English language anime comes from countries that don’t speak English as a first language and it’s not just a few countries that make up that 55% as the next table shows.

Readerships of English Language Anime Blogs

North American Countries	38.1%
Other English First Lang. Countries	6.9%
Rest of the Top 10 Countries	18.5%
Top 11-20 Countries	14.5%
All Other Countries	22.0%

 

If you apply this knowledge to Mr. Heiskell’s argument, it quickly becomes apparent why licensing anime titles by country/territory is never going to work. There are just too many countries to cover and there’s also the question of offering English dubbed/subbed anime in countries like France, Germany, Brazil and Malaysia where there might already be a native language anime publisher that might not take kindly to an outside company poaching fans.

Then again, the nature of the internet makes thinking about problems using physical geography seem very antiquated and doomed to failure. A much better approach would be by language since that’s closer to how the internet is actually split-up. It would be a titanic shift from how it’s done now which means as long as the old ways make money, new methods will not be tested. Which makes it sound like it’s up to the anime “pirates” – once again – to get these obsolete business practices eliminated and get better ones put into place. After all, it was anime “pirates” that have historically driven the advancement and innovation of offering anime/manga from creating the market to pushing publishers into releasing anime by the box set and to offer anime online. (I’ve yet to come across a piracy-hating anime fan that wishes companies would go back offering anime a couple of episodes at time for ~$25 or wanting them to stop streaming anime online.)

Looking at the breakdown of where the fans actually live that would be interested in English language anime also shows why streaming anime (by territory) will only have a limited impact on anime “piracy”. That’s not to say streaming anime hasn’t cut down on anime “piracy” but there is just so much Funimation can do when they only control 38.1% of the market. Proof of this, I believe, appears in the documents that Funimation filed to sue 1337 downloaders of episode 481 of One Piece subbed by yibis.

The number 1337 is not just a random number to internet users which lead me, and just about everyone else, to believe Funimation picked that number of people to sue on purpose. I initially assumed that Funimation could have sued many, many more but stopped at that number but a funny thing happened when I looked over the people Funimation was suing. I saw a great number of obvious duplicates. For example, the very first person, “Doe 1”, was identified as using Verizon Internet Services to download the episode in question at 1/9/11 3:27 AM with the IP of 71.172.24.89. The second person on the list, “Doe 2”, was identified using Verizon Internet Services to download the episode in question at 1/9/11 3:33 AM with the IP of 71.172.24.89. This is obviously the same person which got me curious, how many duplicates where there?

To answer that question took much more work then I initially thought. I attempted to copy the information in the 32 page PDF into a text document so I could import that into MS Excel but that proved impossible; even though the text was selectable and copyable in the PDF, I just got gibberish when I pasted it in WordPad, MS Word and Excel. I ended up having to turn each page of the PDF into a picture file and then use Acrobat’s ability to convert the picture file back into a document with selectable text, copying that into Excel and checking that no errors were made in this circuitous method.

Now that I had an Excel spreadsheet, the answer was very quick to find; I found 255 “Does” that appear to be duplicates. A quick check of the torrent in question, since Funimation doesn’t seem to want to take down the actual torrent file, shows that it’s been downloaded nearly 23,000 times. Why have 255 duplicates if there were plenty of people to sue?

The only answer that makes sense to me is that there aren’t 1337 people living in North America that illegally downloaded this episode of One Piece for Funimation to sue. This thought allows for a few interesting calculations. If the 255 duplicates are subtracted from the initial 1337 people, that leaves only 1082 people who had access to the Funimation stream that choose to download a fansub instead (which was a 720p fansub btw). Next, I don’t know the exact number of people out of the 23,000 that downloaded the episode in the first four days (which is the length of time covered by the 1337 names) but I’m going to assume the number was probably around 20,000 – based on how frontloaded torrents are. This means that just 5.4% of the people downloading this episode of One Piece lived in an area where they had access to Funimation’s free stream.

If we use the North American share of the English anime market that I calculated above, 38.1%, then seeing the share of North American downloaders at only 5.4% says to me that free streaming anime has significantly decreased the amount of “piracy” by North American anime fans. If Funimation would include some sort of download-to-own option for those that don’t like streaming or have computers that don’t do streaming well and throw 720p into the mix then they could shrink that number down even more. (Off the cuff, maybe offer streaming 720p for a small price and downloads at 360p for $1 per episode or 12 episodes for $10 dollars and 720p at $2 – $3 per episode or 12 episodes for $20 – $30 dollars.)

Looking at this list of “Does” was interesting in other ways. The top ISP’s of the offenders looked like this:

Comcast Cable	260
SBC Internet Services	179
Road Runner	172
Verizon Internet Services	141
Cox Communications	79
Optimum Online	36
Charter Communications	34
Qwest Communications	25
BellSouth.net	18

 

College students didn’t appear to be a problem at all; out of the 1082 actual “Does”, only 2 each came from The Pennsylvania State University and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with 1 each coming from Ohio State University, Northeastern University and the California Institute of Technology. For a total of 7 “Does” or 0.6% of the total.

At this point, it’s pretty obvious where my sympathies lie but I can’t find myself mustering much anger towards Funimation like I have in the past for the MPAA and RIAA. I think it’s because Funimation is getting ground up between the incompatible wishes of the Japanese licensers and those of the anime fans from around the world and yet Funimation is still trying their absolute best. (Hence the picture at the top.) As such, I think this lawsuit that Funimation brought forth was the price they had to pay to get the stream of Fractale back – saying sorry and promising to do better next time wasn’t going to cut it a second time.

I say “price to pay” because I think Funimation knows this lawsuit is a bad idea all around. The RIAA gave up on their large-scale suing of normal consumers a couple of years ago because the lawsuits cost the record industry millions of dollars, were very bad publicity and galvanized people into continuing to download music illegally (no one likes a bully). No matter the thinking behind it, every dollar spent by Funimation on this lawsuit is a dollar that will now go to a lawyer and his/her quest for another new sports car/yacht/mansion instead of helping “support the industry” as the consumers buying a Funimation item most likely wanted.

I’m tempted at this point to launch into a discussion about how to fix anime but I’m already 2000 words into this post and I don’t want to muddle the central point – North America is not the center of English language anime fandom and thus any decision about anime distribution that doesn’t take this into account is practically doomed to failure from the very beginning.

Filed under: anime, anime news, anime rants/views

Today I bring you a brief post with some recommended reading.  On this past week’s episode of Gosick, we found out the purpose of the Queen Berry.  Rather than working as a social experiment as I predicted, instead it served as a divination tool.  They used the results to predict which nations would band together and succeed in World War I.  Naturally, because this is an anime, they were right.  Some among you might scoff and reason that no one should ever put their faith in such things.  You’re probably right.  However, fortune-telling and its ilk were quite pervasive during the war years.

You see, we have a saying.  “There are no atheists in fox holes.”  The aphorism means that in times of great distress, and few things are more stressful than a war, all people will seek aid from a higher power.  A blanket assumption is a bit unreasonable.  However, I think we can say a large portion of people will look somewhere.  People want to know everything will turn out okay.  Some need reassurance while others may wish for guidance.  If “ordinary” people can’t give them the answers they want, then they would naturally turn to the extraordinary, whether divine or occult in origin.

Interest in the occult actually increased during World War I.  In their largest concentrations, police estimated over fifty practitioners of fortune-telling occupied a single metropolitan area.  The widespread adoption of it had authorities concerned.  It wasn’t just ordinary citizens turning to divination either.  Soldiers and high-ranking officers also paid them visits.  As I said, people wanted reassurance, and overall these fortune-tellers provided it exactly as advertised.  If you’d like a little more in-depth information, you can check out a passage from Witchcraft, Magic, and Culture by Owen Davies, pages 266-269.  It’s available as a free preview from Google Books.

As for Gosick’s next episode, I’ll be out-of-town all weekend at Ohayocon, so it’ll have to wait until I get back.  Have a nice weekend everyone!

So soon we’ll see the release of the 3rd episode of the massively (self) hyped work by Yutaka Yamamoto, Fractale. When the 1st episode came out, it receiveda a decidedly tepid response, and deservedly so. This was a Noitamina show. Yamamoto had staked his career on it. Yet there was pretty much nothing about it that was special. The 2nd episode only continued that trend. Indeed, this is a show we’ve already seen before.

By now, magical-girl-falls-into-boy’s-lap is a well established and rather overused genre in the world of anime. The girl isn’t always magical or even a real girl, and she doesn’t have to literally fall into the boy’s lap, of course, although she often does. But this is something that has gone way past being a mere trope and is a full-on cliche, not the good kind. And that’s exactly what Fractale is, with a dash of the bumbling-villain-trio for fun. The only thing that sets it apart is its interesting vision of the future, wherein people have all their needs taken care of and only interact through virtual avatars or surrogates of themselves from afar.

Or does it really set it apart? No, actually, it doesn’t, and not because the setting isn’t particularly original. In fact, the setting is quite compelling, if only for the fact that it’s one that’s unusual, even if it’s not new. The problem is, plenty of shows have already gone down this route. Anime, by its very nature of being animated, attracts settings that are fantastical. It’s no coincidence that the most popular franchises in anime – Evangelion, Gundam, Haruhi – are science fiction, or that fantasy is such an overrepresented genre in season after season of anime. You can make really cool, fascinating, compelling settings in anime.

But too often, these settings act as little more than backgrounds as the same interactions and stories that we’ve seen a thousand times before play out. At best, the settings serve as excuses to justify whatever magical powers the characters might have or encounter.

For me, a recent perfect example of this problem is in the Index franchise. Academy City is a fascinating place, filled with neat bits of near futuristic technology and students studying and researching with academics the limits of supernatural power as set up in this science fiction world. The story, naturally, should play to the show’s unique strengths and explore this interesting concept, right?

No, the setting becomes an excuse to give people magical powers while Touma goes around shouting self righteous tripe while using his plothax fist against generic villains. Oh, and his superpower is to make everyone else normal. Throw in the magical-girl-falls-into-boy’s-lap cliche as well as a generic harem for good measure. The Railgun side show failed just as hard, except that it mainly consisted of a poorly conceived and executed story of friendship. These were just your typical harem and cute-girls-doing-cute-things shows, just with a neat science fiction fantasy setting behind them.

Why take this goldmine and insert the same old characters and cliches we’ve seen dozens of times before? Even in the same series, the MISAKA sisters and the Last Order arcs showed off that the show could be strong when it took its setting and ran with it. In those, the characters and their interactions weren’t just dropped in there but rather integral parts of the settings themselves. The plot actually went into some of the interesting details of the mechanics of the world and came out ahead thanks to it.

Another great example, perhaps a better one to which to compare Fractale due to their sharing the same studio as well as the type of setting, is last year’s Sora no Woto. The backdrop of the post-post-apocalyptic world, while not original, was certainly unusual, and provided plenty of potential for fun world building and exploration. Instead, what we got was cute girls doing cute things, punctuated by them saving nations from war through THE POWER OF LOVE AND MUSIC! Excuse me while I barf from merely remembering this horrible show.

Another example? Last year’s Ookami-san and Seven Companions. Funny and whimsical fantasy premise, torn down by being a typical boy-protects-tsundere story. While we’re piling on J.C. Staff, why not mention the 2nd season of Shakugan no Shana, which decided to eschew all the fun and exciting action from the 1st season and replace it with a typical run of the mill high school harem love comedy?

This is a problem that plagues even good shows. Katanagatari, for example, is a great show, the best of last year in the opinion of some, but the places where it faltered were those when Togame devolved into a typical tsundere moeblob, completely unfitting for the fantastical past setting. Thankfully, those times became less and less frequent as the show progressed, but when they happened, they distracted from the world of the show and reminded us of this stale, boring, and downright annoying character cliche that is so pervasive in anime today.

If I may anthropomorphize a bit, the way I see it is that these shows are not confident in themselves. They have these intriguing uncommon ideas, but they’re afraid of showing them off, lest they be rejected. So they put on their proverbial masks and instead of showing their true selves, they show what has been tried and true, dozens and dozens and dozens of times before ad nauseum, because that’s what people responded to in the past. Unfortunately, that’s how you create unoriginal, boring tripe like A Certain Magical Index or Sora no Woto.

A phrase I think of often is “ambitiously itself.” This refers to works that don’t fall into the traps mentioned above. They are confident about what they are, and, for better or for worse, they’ll go about doing their own thing without catering to what they think you want. Surely, this is a formula that can – and has, often – fail. It can create niche products that appeal to just a few. But it also has given rise to some of the greatest, most memorable works in anime. Look at a couple fairly recent huge science fiction successes The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. They each had a clear vision for what they wanted to do and executed on them, using their unique settings to full effect. That is how they ended up in such high stature, that is how they found success.

So, what am I trying to say here? Certainly, not every science fiction or fantasy work needs to fully exploit its setting. In fact, it can be a lot of fun to see an otherwise normal piece of work take place with something fantastical as the backdrop. What determines the work’s quality, then, is the execution of the narrative itself, regardless of the setting. And that’s something true for all works. Simply having a fascinating world such as the one in Fractale or A Certain Magical Index or Sora no Woto is not good enough. In fact, it’s nothing. The actual story that takes place within must be compelling as well, and for the setting not to go to waste, the story must use it to shine in a way other works can’t.

What is sure to lead to mediocrity is to shove cliches we’ve gotten sick of years ago into the setting and to call it a day. In the end, A Certain Magical Index is just another supernatural harem show despite the really cool city in which it takes place. Sora no Woto is just another cute-girls-doing-cute things show despite it taking place in a post-post-apocalyptic world. And so far, Fractale is just another (genki) magical-girl-falls-into-boy’s-lap show, despite the post-scarcity science fiction setting. I’ve seen this show before. So have you. And we both know that it’s not something worth watching again.

So Touma wins a trip to Italy which, predictably, ends up with him getting mix up with trouble with the Roman Catholic Church again, after running into Orsola, who is moving from Italy to London, with the help of the Amakusas.  Except the Roman Catholics seem to be up to something really big this time, considering that they are sailing with a fleet of ice ships, where Touma and Orsola are trapped.

As I alluded to above, I knew the instant he said he won a trip to Italy that he’d get into something with the Roman Catholics.  At least Index was actually useful this time getting in the way of some Roman Catholic guys trying to cause some trouble, and in fetching the Amakusas so they could save Touma’s ass.

Whatever is going on, it seems like Agnese knows what she’s doing, though I’m still not sure we know the full story of what the Roman Catholic’s goal is.  All we really know is that the spell they want to use can not only destroy a city, but erase it’s entire history.  They were facing a lot of battle nuns, though they apparently didn’t seem to take too kindly to being sacrificed by the flagship, so I wouldn’t be shocked if they helped Touma and friends in the end.

Other than that…I’m not sure what more to say.  There seems to be a Amakusa girl who, I guess, has a thing for Touma and keeps handing him towels.  Somehow I don’t think she’s going to get much attention, though she’s cute enough to deserve some lol.  Also, this show once again portrays the Roman Catholics as pretty brutal, basically declaring Agnese and her entire unit heretics for, I’m assuming, failing during the Orsola ordeal earlier in the season.

Last night, I finished The World God Only Knows, for whatever reason.  I suppose I wanted to finish what I had started.  However, I’m glad I did, because it sparked this thought in my head.  In the last episode, Keima laments all the time he has spent trying to capture real girls hearts.  It’s kept him from completing all those lovely dating games.  Now, he’s fallen too far behind to ever catch up, so he comes to the only obvious solution.  He must complete multiple games at the same time!  As you would expect, the anime takes it up to insane levels where he eventually collapses and/or hallucinates from exhaustion.  We could just write it off as filler because they lacked enough time for a proper arc.  However, it actually points out a struggle some of us might have: entertainment overload.

Well, let’s face it, in this technological age people can create content at a pace that far outstrips any single person’s ability to consume.  Youtube estimates 24 hours of video get uploaded every single minute.  A brief conversion will give you four years of content uploaded over the span of a day.  I have a feeling their reported number might be blown up a bit, and obviously there’s a lot of duplicate material.  Even scaled back, it’s insane.

Perhaps more relevant to our interests, right now we’ve got 21 new anime series airing, and this isn’t even the busiest season.  Altogether, it generates 8 hours and 24 minutes of material to watch every week.   The number doesn’t include series that carried over, such as Index or Bakuman.  Nor does it include any other viewable content, such as OVAs or movies.  Forget about trying to figure manga and light novels.  Obviously, I don’t expect anyone would want to watch every series, every week, all the way through the season.  In all likelihood, you’ll only watch a small fraction.  In my case, I’m juggling 6 series.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, and of course, it really isn’t.  There’s so much else you or I probably want to do though.  For one, we’ve got these things called backlogs, anime we want to watch but haven’t quite found the time to do it.  Right now, my list is populated with 424 episodes, not including the incredibly long Keroro Gunso or Gintama which I’ve barely started.  I also like video games, and I have the misfortune of enjoying RPGs the most.  I think my backlog there is about 20 games deep.  There’s also books, American television, blogging, and so forth.

Of course, there’s other things that must be done, such as sleeping, working, schooling, and maintaining a social life.  All of these are far more important than anything I’ve listed up until now.  I’m also realistic.  There is no way in hell I will ever catch up with everything in my backlog.  Still, I have a desire to at least try to chip away at it.  So what’s a guy to do?

Well, I’m typing this while watching television, if that’s any indication.  Last night, while I was watching TWGOK, I was playing Phantom Brave.  Probably later tonight, I’ll try and knock out a good bit of School Rumble while I play something.  Tactical games really are good for this sort of thing.  So yes, I’m multitasking, and this isn’t a unique experience.  Most of the people I know are working on at least two things at the same time.  This isn’t to the comical extent of Keima, but it’s multitasking nonetheless.

It’s kind of funny that Keima points something else out about his games.  They used to be savored.  You got drawn into a game and really immersed yourself in the story or the gameplay.  Naturally, he tosses the idea aside immediately.  However, there are still things that receive my undivided attention.  When Gosick is on, the mystery is all that’s running through my head.  Katanagatari had scads of dialogue you couldn’t ignore, not that you’d want to if you were a fan of its storytelling.  Nor can I divert my attention away from a good round of Team Fortress 2, unless I really wanted to die.  This is entertainment I want to fully enjoy.  You could probably make an argument that anything I don’t give my full attention to doesn’t need to be watched, played, read, or whatever.  You’d probably be right too.

I suppose I’ll cap this post off by opening the floor to you.  Do you feel at all overwhelmed by the amount of entertainment?  If so, what do you do?  Do you try to do multiple things at once, or do you still try to savor every experience?

I watched the first season of this, and it was pretty good, and the second season of it seemed like an obvious thing to pick up. I’m kinda glad a second season was made of this. A lot of times shows like this get made, and then leave you kind of hanging. I should note, there is an “Episode 0,” but it is mainly just a recap episode, in the form of flashbacks by Kurumi, as she goes to buy Valentines chocolates for Kazehaya.

Ugh, why do shows have to be like “yay! they’re together” and then something happens (in this case, winter break and a new seating arrangement” and they’re back to where they were half a season ago.  I know Sawako is still insecure and naive, but really?  Of course, Kurumi being up to no good didn’t do anything to help the unsure Sawako at the end of the first episode, but that didn’t want me to just reach through into the TV and smack her around.  I felt back for Kazehaya because I’m sure he was all unsure now after seeing other people get chocolates from her but not him.

This ends up carrying on until the new school year in April, when a new rival for Sawako shows up, which starts making Kazehaya doubt himself more, as the rival, Kento, is more assertive in his dealings with Sawako as  Kazehaya is.  And even with Kazehaya tries to do something to stave off this rival, Sawako still seems to back off.  It’s enough to make me once again to ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! and make me want to shake some sense into Sawako.  I know that Ayane is trying to be respectful by staying out of things, but maybe she should have a word with Sawako or something lol.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t some big new revelation or twist for Marino’s disappearance, but that things were exactly what most had been speculating for a few weeks now. That Marino was nothing more than a creation of Mizuno. The only thing this episode did to solve that puzzle was provide us with the details. Now did Mizuno create Marino mainly as a way to avoid dealing being abandoned by her mother or was it to avoid Zero Time. I don’t know, and at this point it doesn’t really matter as there are other questions to answer.

This episode finally gave us a little background on Takuto’s past, and much to my surprise, Takuto hasn’t always been as galactically pretty as he is now. There was that nice flashback scene with his old friend Natsuo living life to the fullest before he died to illness, but I really don’t understand how Takuto’s recollection of these events led him to the fourth phase. Furthermore, I don’t really understand what Mizuno was doing in Takuto’s flashback, but it did give her a chance to draw parallels between her life and his, and that she needed to face her fears rather than run away from them. Still, I don’t know what it had to do with Takuto beating Head.

Don’t get me wrong, that fight between Takuto and Head was really interesting, and by far the best fight scene in the series thus far, but it feels like this show is only maintaining the status quo of having Takuto one phase ahead of the Glittering Cruz because the show doesn’t know what it wants to do. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Head after this fight. All signs point to Head being somehow related to, or being, Takuto’s father, so it would have seemed that if someone was going to beat Takuto, it would have been head. Now I don’t think Takuto knows who Head is yet (even though he was standing next to his father’s painting before he entered Zero Time), so there is still time for a few big twists and turns. Also, what will become of Head in the Glittering Crux now that he has lost? I imagine he will lose some credibility with his peers, but I don’t think he is just going to give up his badge or his leadership position without a fight.

As for Mizuno (and Marino), I really did enjoy their characters, even if there are a few glaring plot holes. I mean was it only Mizuno’s aunt who realized that Marino wasn’t real, or did other people realize it as well and just keep quiet about it, like they do with everything that involves Cybodys. Someone else must have realized that Marino just suddenly appeared one day. Regardless, this was a pretty good arc and I am sad to see Mizuno and Marino leave the show, and we even got a happy ending with their reunion. I suppose you could read into the fact that Mizuno is still able to use her first power abilities after having her seal broken and off the island, but I’ll let it go for now.

With all that said, it will be interesting to see who the Glittering Crux turns their attention to now. Will they go back after Wako or will they turn on Keito.

 

The actual birthday was on January 21st, which makes The Null Set exactly the same age as Hanner’s Anime Blog.

I’d like to thank everyone that’s taken time to read The Null Set over the past three years; it’s been a more successful and gratifying experience then I’d’ve ever imagined and it’s because of you. I would also like to thank those that take the time to comment on The Null Set (except the spammers out there); I oftentimes don’t reply promptly or even at all or leave comments on the blogs run by the commentators (even when I really enjoy their blogs) but I read and cherish each comment made.

The highlight of this year for me was my last minute entry into the Aniblog Tournament and then somehow squeaking into the Top 8 (where I got pounded by one of my favorite blogs – Kurogane’s). Now, I don’t think I’m nowhere near being the eighth best aniblog out there – I could easily pick at least 20 other blogs that I think that are miles better – but it did feel great to see people actually voting for this blog. I’m sure the next time I’ll get paired against someone like Star-Crossed or Baka-Raptor and lose in the first round.

Somewhere along the way this year I realized that I probably will never stop blogging about anime. I might post at a slower rate but I don’t see myself stopping. Anime still has the power to wow me and I like the community that’s been built up around anime blogs. (Where else would I find such a diverse cast of interesting characters from the far corners of the earth?)

Last year I pledged to make the upcoming year the best year yet for The Null Set which didn’t really happen so this year I’m not pledging anything for the upcoming year. However, I do have a big surprise for readers of The Null Set coming soon that might just be the biggest thing that’s ever happened here.

And because there’s probably a few people out there that will find this interesting, let’s do some stats. As of this post I have had:

• 402 total posts
• 818,550 views
  
• 1603 comments and
  
• 12,681 spam comments.
• top day was 2,925 views on December 4, 2010
• and my top week was Dec 6-12 with 12,856 views.

My top ten posts of the last year are:

The 5 Personal Most Influential (non-anime) Animation Shows		25,751
Merry Christmas!!		10,070
Soul Eater Wallpaper 3		7,200
Toradora Wallpapers		6,454
The 10 Most Personal Influential Anime, Part 1		6,231
Film Review – Pixar’s UP		5,946
Fall 2009 Anime Preview and Watchlist		5,554
Winter 2008 – 2009 Anime Preview and Watchlist		5,257
Soul Eater Wallpaper 2		5,227
Best in Anime 2008 – Part 4: Music, Voice, and Animation Awards		5,210

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And let’s close with a screen-shot of Yuki. Why? Because it’s my party.

Filed under: anime, meta/office keeping, youtube

It’s been a couple weeks, and we’re already about a quarter way into this show. I wrote mainly about the art style and potential for things to get interesting in my post on the first episode, and episode 3 saw this show make good on that potential. Now, this should be assumed for any episodic blog post, but, be warned, there are spoilers ahead.

A couple things about Magical Girl Madoka Magica have been surprises so far. First, Shaft is actually doing action well! Of course, Shaft is notorious for using cost cutting measures wherever possible in order to reduce the number of frames drawn. Not ideal for action, which is why most of its shows are comedies that rely heavily on the writing. Its weakness in action was demonstrated by last year’s middling Dance in the Vampire Bund.

Episode 1 of Madoka Magica didn’t contain any action. The scene with Mami’s multiple single shot guns at the end of episode 2 was quite nice, but even Vampire Bund had had flashes of brilliance, after all. Then the action in episode 3 was even better, with great choreography, timing, and animation while Mami took down those black… things. I think we are seeing a genuine pattern here, not just a flash in the pan. These weren’t crazy over the top high octane scenes you expect from a Gainax or Madhouse production, nor were they particularly long, but they were still among the better action scenes I’ve seen in TV anime.

But you already know that that’s not the most fun surprise from this latest episode.

A lot of speculation about the “dark” nature of the story had gone up after episode 2, and I had been deeply skeptical. Ooh, a quotation from Faust in the background, making a blindingly obvious allusion to the nature of the contract magical girls have to make in this world. Give me a break. This is still a magical girl show, after all. Let’s see some bodies before we talk about how “dark” or “subversive” this show is. I point out posts at THAT Anime Blog and 2DTeleidoscope as examples of posts that had me rolling my eyes.

Well, I happily stand corrected. Even throughout most of the episode, I was rolling my eyes at how typical and predictable everything was. Of course Sayaka had someone sickly (who is also clearly extremely rich, based on his hospital room) for whom she wanted a wish. Of course some other magical girl had tried using her wish for someone else, and of course it’ll be Homura, whose current angst will be explained by her wish having gone wrong, most likely due to the object of her affections ending up happy with someone else.

Of course Kyubey was starting to sound like he had ulterior, perhaps selfish, motives when discussing Madoka’s massive potential. Of course Mami’s wish had been made under duress, and her role as a magical girl was a life-long prison sentence, not some glorified triumph. Of course Mami was starting to show a darker side in needlessly tying up Homura, working with Kyubey to pull Madoka into the world of magical girls. *yawn*… yeah, we know, these characters aren’t all they seem, they already shoved that down our throats last episode…

Of course Madoka led such a happy life that she had no wish. Of course she would make Mami happy through the power of FRIENDSHIP and LOVE. Of course they were going to waste the wish on something banal, like a cake, which they would have to celebrate once Mami took care of this episode’s Monster Of the Week. Of course Mami would get her head bitten off at the climax, just when it looked like she was about to win. Of course-

Wait, what?

Yeah, so they killed off one of the primary 4 magical girls from the initial promotional material just 3 episodes in, and it had exactly the intended effect. The particularly gruesome way in which Mami died and Madoka’s and Sayaka’s horrified looks contributed a lot to the impact of the scene.

What was so satisfying about Mami’s death isn’t that she died, but how it was presented. It came suddenly, and it was followed quickly with the episode ending, Mami and Sayaka still in shock and tears from what happened. That’s what makes death scary in fiction, when it happens randomly and without meaning, when it just blindsides a character who you didn’t think had it coming. It establishes that, much like in real life, death is just something that can hit anyone at any time for any reason. The plot armor that we’re so used to seeing protect our protagonists isn’t there any more. It helps to make the rest of the work feel more tense and significant.

Where does the show go from here? I figure Sayaka’s wish will play a prominent role pretty soon. As I mentioned above, it seems to me that they’re setting up Homura as Sayaka’s foil, a magical girl who wished to help someone only to have the wish backfire on her. Homura’s disattached, deadpan face even after knowing that Mami had died reeks of the typical “jaded and cynical because life screwed me” character. This goes along with her constant attempts to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl presumably to save her from suffering the same fate as herself. Clearly she doesn’t want Sayaka to become a magical girl either, but I wonder if Sayaka will end up learning something from her anyway in order not to mess up at the same place she had.

On Madoka’s own journey to being a magical girl, I already mentioned how creepy Kyubey looked when telling Madoka that she had the most potential of any girl he’d met (that unchanging smile and unmoving lips get a little unsettling when the conversation topic turns heavy). It’s pretty clear that this was purposeful, but why is Shaft doing it? I think they’re setting up for a classic double-twist, where we first learn for sure that Kyubey is indeed not all he seems, but then they turn it around so that he still turns out to be a good guy. It would be too simple if they played it straight and made him be the bad guy. I also think Madoka’s family life will play a major role in her story going forward, what with the shadier part of her mother’s work life rearing its ugly head the last couple of episodes.

What this show needs to do is to keep going in the same direction. One easy way that it could mess up is if it reverses Mami’s death. Now that it’s made its point about magical girls dying, dead needs to mean dead, not briefly inconvenienced. I want to see Madoka and Sayaka be put through the wringer. I want to see them under pressure, I want to see them forced to react to more horrific things, because that’s what’s fun to watch. With Mami’s death, the show has already pushed them down towards a painful journey, and I can’t wait to see it do even more.

This post is mostly in sparked by Tsuki over at the Emory Anime Club.  In his post on this episode, he brings up how he doesn’t like Victorique’s increasing dependence on Kujo.  I can understand.  I think some of us want to have a strong female lead that can take care of herself.  However, I think her dependence is natural and her actions logical given the situation.  I figured using Tsuki’s thoughts would be a good springboard to explore Victorique’s personality.

First, let’s tackle the fear aspect of her character.  One place she showed fear was around Ned Baxter, when he “died.”  You can note two important things about this outburst.  First, when Kujo came over to her, she immediately changed her composure and assumed control of the situation.  That isn’t the behavior of someone who is scared for her own wellbeing  Second, as AmberFebruary points out over at MAL, her outburst prevents Kujo from checking Ned’s neck for a pulse.  The tennis ball only stops the pulse to one arm, so the trick offers an obvious place to check: the wrist.  It worked really well on the kids, because they probably wouldn’t think to check elsewhere.  Kujo did.  Had he examined further, he would have learned Ned was still alive, and they all could have been in danger, as they were unarmed.

What’s more perplexing is her behavior when confronted by Maurice.  When he pulls a gun on the party, Julie and Ned react with shock.  Kujo, while a little more reserved, still has a change of complexion.  Victorique just stares at him.  In fact, the only reaction she even has is to call Maurice a fool when he finishes his little speech.  What you can see here is wildly inconsistent behavior.  It doesn’t make sense for her to show no sign of fear with a gun pointed at her head while trembling at other times.  At the very least, I don’t think she fears for herself or her own mortality.  Does she fear something else?

In this episode, we find out a very important aspect of Victorique’s past.  She’s the bastard daughter of a woman who’s considered dangerous by the government.  As a result, she’s lived a life of isolation.  Studies have shown isolation can increase a person’s cognitive state, and sure enough, she has a strong, deductive mind.   Living in a library allows her to harvest even more knowledge.  However, it also leaves her at a bit of a disadvantage.  It’s likely she rarely, if ever, had seen the outside world before their little adventure.  All the book learning in the world won’t fully prepare you for the real world.  This is why she reacts with such wonder to the world around her.  She has a bit of a dependence on Kujo here, because he actually has experience.  He’s also her only route out of the library.

Isolation has another price tag, though, and the payment is quite steep.  Most humans have a need for some kind of social interaction.  We want companionship.  Her life has blessed her with an incredibly sharp mind, but it has also cursed her with loneliness.  She doesn’t mention having any friends.  In her position, I doubt her family would have wanted her to interact with anyone.  This makes Kujo a very important person in her life.  He is likely her first real friend.  Given this, it’s no small wonder that the genuine fear she shows is not for herself, but for Kujo.  When Kujo carries her across the water, she’s realized he’s willing to place himself in harm’s way.  When Ned was playing dead, she was afraid he’d attack her friend.  When the boy decided to fight alone, she feared he might die.  How would you feel if you lost your only friend?

Did that just really happen? Did Mami just get mauled by a witch? DID SHE JUST GRUESOMELY DIED!? This…ah…umm…wow, don’t really know what to say. I want to say it’s awesome for a mahou shoujo anime to do this…but that makes me sound like an ass. SHE JUST GOT MAULED TO DEATH AND I LIKE [...]

Well, it’s the final day of our awards, and after covering the music and characters awards, then the special interest ones, we come the actual meat of them, the genre and medium awards. Here are the shows we considered to be the very best in their respective genres or mediums. The ones that we could point to and say, “This is what other anime should strive to be like.” The ones that we fell in love with. The ones that left us wanting more or overwhelmingly satisfied. In short, these were the best anime of 2010.

Note: due to a dearth of good OVAs this year, we have decided to omit that category and to create a new one, Best TV Show With An OVA-like Release Format. (I’ll give you 12 guesses as to which show won that one).

Best Action: Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance

It’s cliche to say, but Evangelion 2.22 was a jaw dropping tour de force of high octane action with eye popping visuals that kept you on the edge of your seat. Feel free to quote me on any part of that. From Mari’s delightful romp to begin the movie to the desperate last stand to protect NERV by 3 Evas against Zeruel, Evangelion 2.22 was chock full of the most intense, beautiful, and exciting action scenes in any anime, not just last year, but ever. For that reason, it receives Borderline Hikikomori’s Best Action of 2010 award.

Dissenting Opinion: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Episodes 1b and 6. Seriously, that’s all the explanation you need. Starting from the introduction of the demon sisters, episode 6 was just a nonstop roller coaster ride, a perfect blend of CG and cartoony action with a nice mix of vehicular chases and crude gun-kata. And all of it had simply perfect cinematic timing. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt was yet another affirmation that, more than anything, action is Gainax’s main thing, and they’re really, really good at it.
 

Best Comedy: Seitokai Yakuindomo

While I’m not really a fan of shows adapted from 4 komas, this show was an exception in my book. Did a lot of the jokes fall flat? Yeah. Did I understand all of the cultural references? No. But it didn’t matter. Seitokai Yakuindomo was an express train full of jokes, one after the other, and there was bound to be more than enough jokes each episode for anyone over the age of 14 to enjoy. Plus, it’s blatantly perverted, and you can never go wrong with that.

Dissenting Opinion: Working!!
Milder and warmer than Seitokai Yakuindomo, Working!! really hit its stride later on in its run (with the appearances of Yamada and Kotori). Like the winner of this award, the series knew its characters well, using their established quirks to good effect. It was a real treat to watch the staff members of Wagnaria interact, fall in love, wreak havoc and have fun. Here’s hoping for a second season!
 

Best Drama: Rainbow

Drama is what Rainbow does. It starts by following seven young men in a detention facility. This is not just a crash course in survival, not just the fast track to growing up, but also an eye opening example of corruption in those who profess to uphold the law. It continues to follow them afterwards as they struggle to make headway in the world. They seek out their dreams even amidst heartbreaking failures at every turn. Sometimes it does overplay the drama, especially towards the beginning, but overall it tells a very strong story set in 1950s Japan.

Dissenting Opinion: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
Disappearance is a work that succeeds in many genres, such as science fiction or mystery, but what defined the movie was, as expected, the relationship between Kyon and Haruhi. After all, the purpose of the entire premise was to set up Kyon’s quest to find Haruhi after her mysterious disappearance. Though Haruhi was indeed missing for most of the movie, the effects of her relationship with Kyon could be felt throughout. The powerful climax did not concern Yuki or the mystery, but rather came when Kyon finally worked past all the layers of his internal denial and accepted his own feelings with regards to Haruhi. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was not only a magnificent piece of entertainment, it was also an exceptional work of human drama.
 

Best Thriller: Shiki

Shiki began slowly and fairly quietly, with a tremendously menacing atmosphere and lots of general eeriness. As the weeks went by, these elements were gradually built upon, and things became more and more tense. This all led up to a nerve-fraying, horrifying, relentless, and truly memorable final act. At times brutal and heartbreaking, and often chilling, Shiki‘s strength lay in its exploration of the courses of action its characters took when times turned dark. It sits comfortably among the best works of 2010.

Dissenting Opinion: Durarara!! First Half
The first half of Durarara!! was an impressive accomplishment in narrative, taking us through the maze of the players of Ikebukuro as well as their conflicts, weaving a complicated and multifaceted tale that kept us hooked the whole time. We fell in love with Celty’s unending search for her head, learned to respect Izaya’s detestable sociopathic tendencies, were creeped out by the unhealthy obsessions of the Yagiri siblings. All the while, a remarkable tale about the power of today’s social networks unfolded around these characters, leading to an unforgettable climax as the Dollars finally made their move. Though the second half of this show left plenty to be desired, the first half was an excellent tale on its own that displayed the best of how an anime can tell a thrilling, complex, modern tale.
 

Best Movie: Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance

Come on, it’s Evangelion, in movie form, with less moping, plus it goes in a completely new direction. Sure there is the stellar animation, music, and story, but if you’re reading a site like this, do you really need me to say anything you haven’t already heard about Eva?

Dissenting Opinion: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
For a more complete explanation, you can read my full review of this astounding movie. See, Evangelion 2.22 was a fine movie. But it was building upon a franchise that was already on a roll. Disappearance had the challenge of resurrecting what once used to be a great franchise – possibly the biggest of the decade – from a disastrous 2nd season that had taken it straight from the top all the way to the bottom. And somehow, it did it. It made Haruhi good again. Not only good, it reached levels of greatness that equaled that of 2006′s Melancholy, the one that had started it all. And it used no gimmicks, no tricks, no smoke and mirrors. It just did all the traditional stuff: narrative, pacing, writing, humor, art design, cinematography, music, and did them all exceptionally well, easily up to the standards of any movie, anime or no.
 

Best TV Show With An OVA-Like Release Format: Katanagatari

Over twelve months, Katanagatari presented us with an epic journey driven in equal measure by its plot, its characters, and its dialogue. Banter between Togame and Shichika shed light on their personalities, their thoughts and their feelings, and discussions between them and the antagonists shed light on insecurities, mental states and more. The story itself was also a success; the format would have become dull had it not been for variation between months, but Katanagatari delivered a tremendous amount of that. Indeed, things were consistently made interesting thanks to the colourful cast and storytelling and thanks to author Nisio Isin’s desire to both subvert and embrace all sorts of tropes. Admittedly, though, it was the finale that ended up making the series; it capped off the quest and the personal growth of the characters in a manner that was grand, memorable, and terrifically fitting. It was perfect for the show, and was a wonderful way to finish a wonderful series.

Dissenting Opinion: Katanagatari
Katanagatari has gotten a lot of recognition in this post because it’s done a lot of things right. It tells a story of anti-heroes and anti-villains, all with their unique and memorable characteristics. Few are truly evil are truly good. Instead, everyone is firmly planted in a moral grayness that makes you question who, if anyone, is truly right. Even the ending doesn’t answer the question; it only tempers it. It has a very nice art direction going for it, filled with vibrant and full color pallets and fluid animation. Actually, the style of the series is what first drew me into the series. Much of Katanagatri is fought with a war of words, with excellent voice acting. However, when it finally comes to blows, the short battle sequences are still quite impressive. Even the broadcasting style is a bit unique. It easily tops my list of series watched in 2010, and I wish someone would pick it up for release in the overseas markets.
 

Best TV Show (Traditional): The Tatami Galaxy

With its narrative, The Tatami Galaxy succeeds in doing what most anime don’t even attempt, but which is required for any work of fiction truly to be great: it tells us something meaningful about the human condition. There are many messages that it successfully delivers, most of them banal, about taking personal responsibility, the complexity of humans, appreciating what you have. But the most powerful message of this show ties perfectly with the show’s central Groundhog Day concept, regarding second chances: in real life, there are none, but there is nothing wrong with that, because it is never too late to reach for happiness. In ending the show with the protagonist starting a new life after his wasted 2 years, this is the message that it leaves us with. Of course, The Tatami Galaxy succeeds in all the more typical things as well. It has a wonderfully distinct and expressive art style. The stories it tells with its cast of characters are consistently interesting and entertaining. The writing is funny, aided by the lightning quick delivery of the protagonist. In combining this endlessly fun product with a set of powerful and relevant messages about humanity, life, and the pursuit of happiness, The Tatami Galaxy is deservedly Borderline Hikikomori’s Best TV Show (Traditional) of 2010.

Dissenting Opinion: Angel Beats!
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats. Seriously, this show had everything you could have ever possibly wanted in an anime (and if it didn’t, you’re dead inside). From Yui’s antics to Kanade’s quest for Mapo Tofu to GirlsDeMo, it was almost as if the creators used a checklist to make sure that every anime trope was present and accounted for. Was it perfect? No. But then again, isn’t it life’s imperfections that remind you of how great life really is? Sure, there were a lot of things that seemed random and out of place in the show, but I assure you that this was no accident.
In a way, Angel Beats took a path that was remarkably similar to its characters. Perhaps the randomness of it all, the checking off of the standard character types and situations, the confusion, the loudness, and yes, even the infamous love scene, were meant to convey to us what exactly was going on in these character’s minds. And then, it all came to an end rather quickly, much like a lot of things in life.
Alas, I wasn’t able to convince my comrades here at Borderline Hikikomori that Angel Beats deserved to be the best show of the year. In fact, they all seemed to all have some level of contempt for it. But I know better, and now, you do to.
 
 

Well, there you have it. That’s it for our 2010 awards. If you’re keeping score at home, Katanagatari was the big winner, with 4 wins in some of the most important categories: Best Female Character, Best Characters Overall, Best Ending, and Best TV Show (its own category). It also garnered a dissenting opinion, for Best Concept, which it lost to The Tatami Galaxy, which won the Best TV Show (Traditional) category. The Tatami Galaxy also got the nod for its Best Concept and Best ED, while playing second fiddle Best Characters Overall and Best Male Character, which it lost to Durarara!!‘s deserving villain/anti-hero Orihara Izaya. Durarara!! also impressed us with its Best OP, while its impressive 1st half was enough to earn a dissenting opinion for Best Thriller.

Among movies, the two big guns, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya were the story. Besides taking the spots in the Best Movie award, they managed to impress with their Art (Disappearance), Action (Eva 2.22), Drama (Disappearance, dissenting), and Music (Eva 2.22). Perhaps overshadowed was Angel Beats! which, despite not winning anything, managed to get a dissenting opinion both for its Music and Best TV Show (Traditional).

Anyway, I write again, 2010 is in the books, and it was a good year for anime, we like to think. Here’s to hoping that this year will be even better!