You can thank Winamp and it’s non-random random shuffling for this post.

I have a super condensed anime music playlist that I like to listen to; it’s only 230 songs long and there’s a handful of songs on this list that when I’m in the right mood will get me to shed a tear. Last night I wasn’t much in the mood but out-of-the-blue Winamp starts playing every sad song on the list in a row and even repeating some more than once so now I’m in that mood.

It’s probably not a good idea to marathon a Key series right now so instead I’ll write this post.

Oh, and there’s some spoilers so read at your own risk.

Natsukage – from AIR

Let’s start off with an obvious show that could generate a tear inducing song – AIR. This anime holds the personal record for the most tears shed while watching it (Clannad is a close second). See, I was a relatively new anime watcher at the time, mainly subsisting on a diet of shounen shows and wasn’t aware of the emotional depths that could be found in anime. It also didn’t help that I had absolutely no knowledge of what to expect and was lulled into a false sense of security by it’s light-hearted start. Therefore, when the story turned tragic, I wasn’t ready for it and ended up crying for just about every remaining episode.

Natsukage is the name of the instrumental track that KyoAni used for many of the emotional scenes during AIR and thus when I hear it, I’m reminded of those scenes.

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Koikogarete Mita Yume – from Cross Game

The show’s first closing is another song that can bring me to tears and was able to from the very first time I heard it, which was in episode 1.

That episode completely blew me away. I wasn’t expecting to see enough character building and tragedy to fill most series all within those 24 minutes and by playing this song at the saddest scene meant that I’d always link this song to that first episode. Nor has that episode and that song lost it’s power to move the viewer, recently the animators essentially reshowed the first episode in it’s entirety for the episode 30 recap.

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Kanon by Pachebel – from Kanon

The wedding standard got repurposed for another of Key’s works – Kanon. This time, the characters actually referenced the song in the show and provided a strong means for the viewers to attach the often tragic nature of Kanon to the song. At least when I hear this song in public it’ll probably be at a wedding and it’ll be more socially acceptable to cry to it.

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“Libera me” From Hell – from Gurren Lagann

I’m convinced that Gurren Lagann is one of the greatest anime ever made and should be required watching for, not only those who profess to be an anime fan, but also for every single kid that grows up watching the insipid tv shows that pass for kid’s shows these days.

This song was used in many places throughout the show, primarily when it was time for the good guys to kick butt which makes it a strange song to cry over. And it would be but for it’s use during one of the best scenes to Gurren Lagann which happened in episode 26. The hero of the show, Simon, was given the choice between the easy way out and the harder path that true heroism calls for. He chooses the path of heroism and as a result is able to break himself and his comrades out of a devious trap laid by the enemy. The whole scene is very emotional, a testament to Gainax’s stellar character development and story telling ability, and having this track play during the entire scene meant that those emotions come back whenever hear it.

And within the entire scene there’s a small part that absolutely gets to me every single time I see it. The trap that Simon breaks everyone out of gives each person the ability to live in whatever dream world they wish for. One of the people trapped is Viral; he’s a beastman which means he looks human but was created sterile and he has a tough-as-nails personality so one would expect his dream world to be some sort Valhalla battlefield but it’s not – it’s living in a little cottage in a country meadow with a wife and a daughter that calls him “Papa”.

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Dango Daikazoku – from Clannad

Yes, another song from a Key/KyoAni anime, this time it’s from Clannad. This was used as the first season ending but it wasn’t until the second season that this became tear inducing. Though in the case of Dango Daikazoku (or “Big Dango Family”), the song brings tears from being linked to the tragic parts to Clannad and also from the happy parts.

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Love is a Flower, You are a Seed – from Only Yesterday

In many ways Only Yesterday is my favorite Studio Ghibli work so I find it an absolute travesty that it’s the only Studio Ghibli movie not released in America.

This is the only song that exclusively makes me shed tears from happiness alone. It’s the end song to Only Yesterday and the animators had it playing while the movie had it’s climatic scene before going to credits. So, like the others, those emotions got transferred to the song and hearing this song gets to me every time.

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Anyone else want to share? Or is everyone too busy getting in the Halloween mood today?

Posted in anime, anime rants/views, general anime interst

This half of the list will probably leave more then a few scratching their heads. So let me say again, this is a list of anime that influenced me as an anime watcher and not a list of favorite shows. There where many wonderful shows like Ghost in the Shell or Azumanga Daioh that for reasons like ‘I was already a fan of intelligent SF’ or ‘I saw similar shows before it so it wasn’t a new experience’ where not influential to me.

I divide my time as an anime fan into 3 parts. The first span was the time that Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho where the only anime that I knew. This phase lasted awhile and of this phase, only one show made the list. The second phase started when I purchased the first Witch Hunter Robin DVD and committed to becoming an anime fan and lasted till roughly the fall of 2005. Because of the price of buying DVDs, I tended to stick to shows that were like other shows I liked and where well-reviewed – mainly shounen or action titles. Of course, I still got series that ended up not being worth the purchase and slowly I shifted to buying manga. I could look over what I was buying before buying it, it was cheaper to follow a series in manga form and I’ve enjoyed books since I was little. Even then though, I pretty much stuck with the same types of titles and it didn’t help that was the lion-share of the market. Numbers 2 – 6 fit into this phase.

The third and current phase started when I stumbled upon fansubs while trying to find out information about the anime version of Bleach because I was loving the manga and couldn’t figure out why the anime wasn’t here as well. Once I learned about fansubs, I became curious as to what other shows where being shown over there and not being brought over here. So with the twin desires of seeing different types of anime and using fansubs to decide if a show was worthy of purchase when it eventually came out over here, I dove in to see what else I liked. The final four series have come from this phase and at this point I think there’s little chance of encountering another series that belongs to this list. Maybe in a few years when I become a bitter anime fan and complain about everything was better back in the day, I can add titles that influenced me to dislike anime.

6. Paranoia Agent

The sixth, and final series from my second phase, is Satashi Kon’s masterpiece Paranoia Agent. Paranoia Agent, if you haven’t seen it yet, tells the story of the creator of Miromi (a plush doll sensation, set to become the next huge anime series) and how a city is turned upside-down when Lil’ Slugger, always on rollerblades, begins to attack people with a golden bat.

This was one of the titles that I knew belonged on this list even before I started because it influenced me in a few different ways. The first was that it showed me that anime had the ability to seriously mess with my mind and still remain entertaining. Also, this was the first anime that I watched that had significant amounts of realistic-feeling and often disturbing violence. And it wasn’t just because it showed that anime could be violent but, in addition, that violence could be vital to the story and not gratuitous.

7. Melancholy of Haruhi

Having grown comfortable with fansubs and reading anime blogs at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, I was looking forward to the spring season 2006. I diligently used the preview guides to find what seemed to be the popular series and planned on which I was going to watch. A strange thing happened that first week; a show that didn’t even make most preview guides, and had absolutely no hype, suddenly was being talked about by everyone. I had to investigate for myself.

When I watched it, I was blown away. Then I went to the blogs and reading different analysis’s, I particularly remember a couple done by film students that pointed out all film errors that Haruhi’s amateur movie committed, and ended up rewatching that first episode at least a dozen more times. The sheer audacity shown by KyoAni with this first episode, the attention to the very small details that were needed for such a brilliant and purposely mediocre movie, the little hints that something more then just being a school comedy, the very original characters we meet and the promise of more next week all contributed to almost melting my brain that first week. This episode seemed to exist on a totally different plane then every other anime I’ve ever seen.

It would have been disappointing if the rest of the show failed to live up to the promise shown in the first episode but it turned out that the show was more than a one-trick pony. The non-linear storytelling was different and also allowed us to see Haruhi develop into a real character that we could sympathize with. Kyon’s sarcastic nature and non-suckiness was a breathe of fresh air from the prevalence of Shinji-clone male anime protagonists. There was also the show’s ability to incorporate many different types of shows into itself and still work as a show.

For shattering my perceptions of what an anime series could be and being the Tiger Woods of anime – permanently raising the bar – the Melancholy of Haruhi easily earns a spot on this list.

8. Kasimasi

As I worked on this list, I started thinking about certain shows I’ve watched recently and started thinking back to the first examples of them. This show, Kasimasi, was one show that I was surprised when it came up. The more I thought about the more I realized it did belong.

Kasimasi focused on three characters: a boy, the boy’s female childhood friend who is secretly in love with him, a female classmate of the boy who the boy likes but has rejected his confession of love. The boy gets hit by an alien spaceship but instead of dying, the aliens save him by reconstructing the body but also change the body into a completely female body. The show explores, in a mixture of seriousness and humor, how the boy’s transformation affects the relationships amongst the three.

This was my introduction to not only “gender-bending” anime but, more generally, absurdly premised anime shows that use the premise to tell a story that’s impossible to tell in another way. Having never seen anything that could be considered gender-bending in mainstream American entertainment, I initially didn’t quite know what to do with this show. I realized during the course of the show that it wasn’t dissimilar from other anime in that it had a story to tell and it was going to tell it, and I came to like the show. So for introducing me to gender-bending anime and absurdly-premised anime as well as making me comfortable with gender-ambiguous characters (traps and reverse traps, for example); this show earns a place on this list.

9. Air

I was somewhat reluctant to put a second show by any one studio on this list but neither Haruhi or Air could have been left off this list. From my recent review, I wrote how the story dealt with one man’s search to find the girl connected to a 1000 year curse and what happens when he meets a girl who dreams of her other self beyond the clouds. And how I was drawn into this story and shed many tears over the course of the show. If you read that, you might think that Air is listed because I cried. That’s only partly true, the reason why I cried and why it’s getting listed here is because the show – through it’s story, visuals, music, and voice work – made me care far deeper about a character then I have ever before. Because of this series, now anytime that I watch a show and it creates real characters with depth; I end up caring about them more.

10. Kamichu

The last show to make the list, Kamichu, first came to my attention when I saw a picture of the show. Something about it drew me in and made me want to see it but I had no clue what show it was. By happenstance, I was reading through old posts from Anime on my Mind (now Derailed by Darry) one day and came across the anime that the picture was from – Kamichu. If I remember correctly, the show had received the author’s “Best anime no one watched” award. I decided it was worth a watch.

I mentioned that Kino’s Journey has a slice-of-life structure to it but Kamichu was a slice-of-life show, through-and-through. It, like other great slice-of-shows, can find magic in the mundane and reveal secrets from the simple stuff of everyday life. So for making me a slice-of-life fan and learning that anime can be relaxing, Kamichu earns the last spot on this list.

And with that last show, I’ve became the anime watcher I am now. This probably helps to explain why I enjoy so many different types of anime. To close,I’d like to thank everyone that read and commented on the first part of this list. I didn’t intend to write as much as I did about each one but hopefully, I made your time worthwhile. I’m happy for any comments – positive or negative – that you might feel like writing. I’m also thinking about doing my 5 most personal influential non-anime animated shows at some point in the future, so be ready for more personal ramblings about shows.

Posted in anime, anime rants/views      

In preparation for KyoAni’s version of Kanon back in 2006, I decided to catch their earlier adaptation of another of Key’s works – Air. I knew Kanon featured “sad girls in the snow” but I had no clue what Air was going to be about.

Final Series Score: 12/12
Rewatchablity: med-high
Pros: The story draws in the viewer and makes us care for the characters as well as being very different and interesting, marvelous background music, is as good after rewatching it several times as the first time
Cons: Source material is shoe-horned into the episode count and as a result the show can feel a little abrupt in it’s transitions and speed at telling the story

Story

Yukito is an itinerant entertainer, always on the move, living off his ability to control a small plush doll through no physical means. He continues to search, as his mom did before him, for a girl that’s connected to a 1000 year curse. The show starts when he gets stranded in a small seaside village and meets a high school girl, Misuzu, that dreams of her other self beyond the clouds.

Thoughts and impressions

The first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Air is the required box of tissues that needs to be ready when watching it. Many people, when reviewing this show, will mention this and those that don’t, probably still need the tissues but won’t admit to. At the time of my first watching of Air, I had never watched a sad anime and was unprepared when I marathoned the series over the course of 3 days. I have no qualms with admitting to shedding tears in multiple episodes of this series. The second time I watched this show, I stretched the episodes out over two weeks and found I didn’t tear up as much but the third time I watched, I once again watched it over a couple of days and once again found myself shedding tears during many of the episodes. So maybe the box of tissues is not required if you plan on stretching out your viewing of the show but, otherwise, it’ll be a good idea to have a few tissues handy.

The second thing that comes to mind is how the small amount of episodes forced the show to have very fast pacing with not a single minute wasted. I’ve read other reviews that mentioned feeling lost because of the quick pacing but I, personally, had no trouble outside of the transitions at the start of the second and third story arcs but in both cases I quickly recovered.

Many of the anime adaptations of visual novels, as Air is, contain strong harem elements to them because of the source material. Some people like this and others don’t, so since Air is a visual novel adaptation I wanted to mention that this isn’t true in Air’s case. Yukito does not collect a harem over the course of Air; instead, the story surrounding the curse and Misuzu’s connection to that curse is what the focus is. So if you object to harem shows, you can rest assured that this show does not feature them.

One trait that all Key shows feature is the use of magic. This isn’t magician magic or magic-girl magic but real magic that feels almost mythical. In Air’s case there is really a 1000 year curse and Yukito can really make the little plush doll move by just willing it to. In other Key works, for example, we have a comatose character that is hospital-bound yet at the same time, also physically living a normal life and interacting with people; in another show, a cat takes human-form so he can grant one wish to a character. In all cases, we, the viewer, are never asked to believe in something that feels impossible, it always feel real. This gives Key shows added depth and assures that they are not predictable or cliched.

If you’ve never seen a Key/KyoAni show before, I recommend to everyone that it’s worth at least trying one out, if only to see a show that can effortlessly switch from gut-busting humor to tear-inducing sadness and back again over the course of a few minutes. And of the three (Air, Kanon, Clannad), the best to start off with is Air.

Essential Information

• 12 episodes, 1 recap episode, 2 special episodes
• genre: drama, supernatural
• animation studio: Kyoto Animation
• director: Tatsuya Ishihara
• OP: “Tori no Uta” by Lia
• ED: “Farewell Song” by Lia
• Seiyuus of note: Daisuke Ono , Aya Hisakawa, Tomoko Kawakami, Kikuko Inoue

View Poll Posted in anime, series review