Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I intend to review not just the most recent anime season but also the previous season as well. The reason for this is two-fold. The first reason is because these awards are my short-cut method in highlighting which anime I would recommend to potential viewers and I’d be failing in what I see as my duty if I passed over a season that contained praise-worthy shows. (Even though by now I’m incredibly late in covering the summer season. ) The second reason is writing this post will help me better remember this batch of anime shows in the future and it will also serve as a written record I can use if need be.

So, sit back, relax – it’s time to cover 32 anime over 2 seasons with 29 award categories and one countdown bursting at the seams with awesomeness.

Summer Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (4): Katanagatari, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!, Rainbow – Nisha Rokubou no Shichijin, K-On!!

New shows watched this season (10): Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi, Amagami SS, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, Mitsudomoe, Highschool of the Dead, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin, Shiki, Asobi ni Iku yo!, Sengoku Basara 2, Moyashimon Live Action

Shows that got dropped (1): Seitokai Yakuindomo

Fall Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (4): Katanagatari, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, Amagami SS, Shiki

New shows watched this season (14): Ore no Imouto, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, Otome Youkai Zakuro, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, The World God Only Knows, Arakawa Under the Bridge 2, Kuragehime, Star Driver, To Aru Majutsu no Index II, Yosuga no Sora

Shows that got dropped (3): Bakuman, Hakuouki Hekketsuroku, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Note: For shows that run multiple seasons, only the part that ran during the season is under consideration for that season’s awards. (s) denotes the summer season and (f) denotes the fall season

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Best Female Main Character

Winner: (s) – Azunyan from K-On!! ~ (f) – Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Runner-up: (s) – Togame from Katanagatari, Yui from K-On!! ~ (f) – Stocking from Panty and Stocking, Tsukimi from Kuragehime, Nymph from Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Togame from Katanagatari

Azunyan was the linch pin that held K-On!! together and she gave it the needed dimension to turn K-On!! into one of the best slice-of-nostalgia anime ever. (Slice-of-life is just too broad of a term since it covers at least three different types of shows: the nostalgic like K-On! and Hidemari Sketch, the relaxing like Ichigo Mashimaro and Aria, and the contemplative/ambiance type like Natsume Yuujin-chou and Haibane Renmei.) And she was just so likable as a character, as was Nino, the fall season winner. Nino squeaked past a very tough field of contenders this season to repeat her win of this award. It seems like the more time she spends with Ric, the more expressive and human she becomes.

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Best Male Main Character

Winner: (s) – Shichika from Katanagatari ~ (f) – Kuranosuke from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Mario from Rainbow ~ (f) – Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono, Takuto Tsunashi from Star Driver, Shichika from Katanagatari

Shichika turned out, much like Katanagatari, to be a lot more interesting then those first couple of episodes that ran last winter lead us to think. He almost won this award twice but couldn’t quite overcome the cross-dressing, protector of interesting historical buildings – Kuranosuke.

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Best Supporting Character(s)

Winner: (s) – Assistroids from Asobi ni Iku yo! ~ (f) – The Phantom Thief Empire (Arsene, Twenty, Rat, and Stone River) from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Runner-up: (s) – Ui from K-On!! ~ (f) – Kuroneko from OreImo, Sugata from Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Briefers Rock from Panty and Stocking

Asobi ni Iku yo! was a really fun series to watch in part because the people behind it knew their SF and the assistroids were a great example of this knowledge. Likewise, Milky Holmes was a really fun series in part because it was so over-the-top and that included the villains which made picking just one villain impossible.

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Best Screen-grabber

Winner: (s) – Father from Mitsudomoe ~ (f) – Kurara from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Microbes from Moyashimon Live Action ~ (f) – Mom from Ore no Imouto, The spirits of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, Amazoness and Billy from Arakawa Under the Bridge

Just because a character has a small part doesn’t mean he/she/it can’t become a memorable part of that show. Both winners (Father and Kurara) were prime examples of this.

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Best Couple

Winner: (s) – Togame and Shichika from Katanagatari ~ (f) – Togame and Shichika from Katanagatari

Runner-up: (s) – none ~ (f) – Ko and Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Togame and Shichika made a good couple but I wanted to take this chance to mention the worse couple was definitely Usui and Misa from Maid-sama, not because I wanted some other pairing but because I really didn’t like how this shoujo series depicted the relationship between the two of them – you’d think a series aimed at girls would show the main female in a more empowering light.

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Best Character Ability/Power

Winner: (s) – Seeing microbes from Moyashimon Live Action ~ (f) – The ability to make super-powered samurai with only a kiss from Samurai Girls

Runner-up: (s) – Glasses girl’s ability to get mixed up with the supernatural from Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin ~ (f) – Arsene’s Toys of Resplendence from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Moyashimon Live Action is only here because of where it ran and because the microbes were animated. It wasn’t a particularly good show but the ability to see and communicate to microbes remains a very cool power. And speaking of squandered potential, Samurai Girls was set in a very interesting world with a very interesting animation style and it wasted both by being a boring harem show. It was still a cool power, though.

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Best Cast of Characters

Winner: (s) – K-On!! ~ (f) – Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Runner-up: (s) – Sengoku Basara 2, Rainbow ~ (f) – Kuragehime, Sora No Otoshimono Forte

These were two relatively easy picks to make. I just noticed that Kuragehime is the only completely new show (neither a sequel or continuing from an earlier season) listed. In a certain way, that makes it the best because it accomplished the most.

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Best Character Development for Cast

Winner: (s) – Highschool of the Dead ~ (f) – Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Rainbow ~ (f) – Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Count me as the odd one that enjoyed Highschool of the Dead not for the fan-service or for the zombies but for it’s social commentary and character development. My favorite example was the gun otaku who went from social outcast in modern society to local hero and ladies man when the zombies arrived. Thinking about it, both of the winners share a commonality; if it wasn’t for the extraordinary event at the beginning – zombies appear and Kuranosuke saving the jellyfish – neither cast of characters would have had the opportunity for growth that they had.

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Best Character Development of a Single Character

Winner: (s) – Sanada Yukimura from Sengoku Basara 2 ~ (f) – Tsukimi from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Scam from Rainbow ~ (f) – Garterbelt from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

One of the most important threads in Sengoku Basara 2 was the development of Sanada Yukimura into a man capable of being a general. It wasn’t always pretty to watch but it turned him into a real man; a really cool and epic one that can fight the Japanese equivalent of a Archimedes’s Death Ray and win. And for a complete change of pace, Kuragehime’s Tsukimi was the obvious pick for the fall season. All the characters in Kuragehime have had the chance to grow but Tsukimi’s transformation has been the most pronounced and the most heart-warming to see.

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That’s the end of part 1; I hope to have the second part up within a day. Comments and feedback are always appreciated – I’d love to see what others would pick.

 

Filed under: anime, awards

Steven called this week the lull week and that so fits; the old season has just about totally ebbed away and the new season is still rushing towards shore. I never look forward to this week in the season but I can’t deny that it presents a good opportunity for a little change of pace. So with this abundance of time I have, I wanted to share what anime-related things I’ve been doing this week instead of trying to watch 17 different anime.

I finally had the time to marathon an anime series and I had a couple in mind. The first was the first season of K-On!.  I’ve mentioned in the past about how I fell into the very small group of people who neither rabidly loved or rabidly hated the first season of K-On!. I wanted to see if I still felt like that or did my feelings change after watching the second season and falling completely head-over-heels for it. If I was a betting man, I’d’ve guessed that I would like it more; much like how the start of Lucky Star was so much more enjoyable the second time around because I could draw from the empathy and love of the characters that developed later in the series.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I still liked the first season of K-On! about the same as I did the first time. I originally found it very difficult to really get into the show because it felt like it couldn’t decide which type of show it was. The pacing was too fast for K-On! to be a relaxing, slice-of-healing anime but a lack of focus on really trying to make it as a rock band made it near impossible to take it seriously. This inability to decide what type of show it was still intruded on the enjoyment of the series during the rewatch, even with all the love the second season added to the franchise. The pacing also muted the best part of the series – the characters and their friendship. For example, I remember not really liking Mugi in the first season and being shocked how much I got to like her in the second season. Rewatching the first season I realized the sole purpose of having first-season-Mugi in the show was to have a walking ATM machine that could advance the story along rapidly with the use of her magic money and connections. It was only in the second season that Mugi becomes  real,  she’s a sheltered girl looking for friendship and to stuff as much fun into her high school life as possible. She quickly becomes one of the best characters of the show int the second season.

If I was scoring the first season, which I’m about to do, I’d give K-On! season 1 a Final Series Score of 8/12 B+ with Rewatchablity: 1/5 – Low, Ending: 2.5/5 – Average, Animation: 4/5 – Excellent.

With that mildly disappointing experience under my belt, I went to the next show on my rewatch list – Sora no Otoshimono. I wanted to see how well it would hold up the second time and to make sure I remembered the important parts for the second season that is about ready to start. Last time, I gave Sora no Otoshimono an 11.5/12 (Near Perfect) for expertly cultivating an absurdist, over-the-top feel that repeatedly surprised, delighted and entertained. For the rewatch, it no longer had the element of surprise so it was going to have to work harder to earn the same level of success and I anticipated that it just couldn’t meet the much higher expectations. So, no surprise, when Sora no Otoshimono didn’t live up to being a 11.5/12. I still really enjoyed it though; the comedy was killer, I liked the characters even more, I could still appreciate how intelligently put together it was, I still got sucked into the plot and Icarus’s crowning moment of awesome was still just as awesome. Upon finishing, I still felt like the show really needed a sequel and this time I only need to wait about a week to see it.

Since I’m in the scoring mood, Sora no Otoshimono Season 1’s amended Final Series Score is 11/12 A+ with Rewatchablity: 4/5 – Medium to High, Ending: 4.5/5 – Sublime, Animation: 4/5 – Excellent.

The final anime that I marathoned was completely by accident. I wanted to check one little thing out in Asobi ni Iku Yo! but I found myself popping the next episode in as soon as the previous one finished. This one was definitely better the second time through much like Lucky Star was. If I had to summarize the difference in viewing experiences I’d say Asobi ni Iku Yo! was just easier to enjoy the second time. I liked the characters from the moment they were first introduced and the early plot twists made much more sense this time around. I was also able to better catch and enjoy the references to science fiction that infused the series this time as well as see how the fluffy exterior hid a rather well thought-out story of first contact between two cultures. I’ll forgo the grading Asobi ni Iku Yo! here since I plan on rating it in my seasonal anime top pick award posts that I’m already starting to work on. I hope AIC Plus+ decides on doing a sequel since I think there’s plenty of interesting ways the story for this can go but it’s, probably, really up to DVD/Blu-Ray sales as to if we see Asobi ni Iku Yo! Season 2 or not.

The other thing I did this week was spend time excited over the new anime announced.

I know there’s always been anime movies but doesn’t it feel like lately they’ve become even more popular? Don’t get me wrong, word of a Sengoku Basara movie and a K-On! movie leaves me feeling very excited, especially if the K-On! one will feature all new material like the Sengoku Basara one will have. The two seasons of Sengoku Basara have been fun but they could have been really fun if they had been paced better and more fighting was involved. Which is why I think a movie might just be the perfect form for Sengoku Basara – they won’t have the time to draw the talking and angsting out.

I’m really curious about the K-On! movie. The second series ended absolutely perfectly but since this is a slice-of-life series there’s no reason the story needs to end with them graduating high school. I’d like to see what happens to Yui, Mugi, Mio, and Ritsu when they go to college and I want to see what happens to Azu-nyan, Ui and the light music club. Can one fashion a good, super laid-back, slice-of-life movie or will the movie be more plot focused – maybe on the college version of Afternoon Tea Time making it big or Azu-nyan’s efforts to save the light music club. I hope more details are forthcoming soon!

The third newly announced anime project that got me excited is Berserk. I’m not a fan of Berserk, per say, but I’m curious about the franchise after learning my one sister (the D&D playing one) loves the manga and the original series. When I first heard of a new “animation project” for Berserk, I started thinking about who I’d want to work on the project from my limited understanding of the source material. The name I kept going back to was Madhouse. They have the animation quality and the experience with darker series like Mouryou no Hako, Rainbow, Death Note, Paranoia Agent, Blue Literature, Kurozuka and they have many of the best anime production people in the business working for them. It appears, after a couple of days, that Studio 4˚C will be doing the animation and my guess was completely wrong  . This is a very interesting choice; on one hand I’ve been very impressed with all the works of Studio 4˚C  that I’ve seen but on the other hand they don’t seem very prolific and I wonder if they have the expertise to plan out and execute a long running series (which I’m hoping the announcement is for). I guess we’ll just have to wait a few more days for more information.

That’s how I spent this lull week, what did you do?

Filed under: anime, anime news, general anime interst, series review

Figures that mere hours after finishing my previous post about Occult Academy and Asobi ni Iku Yo! that I’d find something else I wanted to include.   I hemmed-and-hawed as to if I wanted to double post about Asobi ni Iku Yo! but I finally decided why not.

The ninth episode of Asobi ni Iku Yo! was a bit of a departure from previous episodes in terms of tone and pace and probably was used to cleanse the palette for the finale, if episode 10 was a proper indication of how the show will end. I liked it, though. I’ve already mentioned how I have the habit of finding odd things to enjoy about an anime. This time I had another personality quark scratched. From a young age I’ve tried to take the saying about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to heart, even if it’s just a book or anime.

For episode 9 of Asobi ni Iku Yo! I imagined what it be like if I traveled across the universe to meet an alien race and discover that their culture could create something that resonated with me.  I’d like to think if/when we meet an alien culture that some things are universal (though, hopefully, blowing things up if one doesn’t understand them is not one of them). I also gave some serious thought about the Assistroids. The idea of making them incapable of speech and keeping them “simple” for their own happiness really struck me as wrong. I know I’m over thinking this but if I was Kio I think I’d be pushing for Assistroid emancipation. (There goes my American cultural superiority complex kicking in, thinking not only are these people wrong but it’s my duty to fix them. )

Becoming a willing participant in the future robot rebellion wasn’t the biggest reason why I enjoyed this episode. I loved the science fiction reference that permeated this episode and discovered a freaky coincidence. I knew who Captain Future was from a very memorable novella written by Allen Steele several years ago. What I didn’t know and was completely shocked about was the author of the Captain Future books, Edmond Hamilton, was born in Youngstown – my hometown.

I was flabbergasted at this connection. Here I was watching an anime in Ohio that referenced the late 1970’s anime (which ran for 53 episodes) that adapted the stories and novels of Captain Future written during the 1940’s and 50’s half-a-world away by a guy that born more than a hundred years ago in the same town I was born in and still consider my hometown.

I also found out that there’s a Captain Future Hollywood movie in the works. Seems the director grew up in Germany and loved the 1970’s Captain Future anime that had gotten dubbed and released there. If it does, in fact, get made I’ll probably go see it just to enjoy the string of events that led me to see a Captain Future movie.

There were a couple other same items that stuck out to me during this episode as well.

Filed under: anime, episode review, general anime interst, science fiction

Both Occult Academy and Asobi ni Iku Yo! have been fairly enjoyable series, not classics, but, well-suited for the laid back summer season. For me, I’ve been finding some rather incidental (and not much tied to the story, plot, or characters) ways to enjoy these anime and now that I’ve done with the Spring season, I’d like to share.

One way that I’ve been enjoying Asobi ni Iku Yo! has been some of the word play and choice by the fansubbers.

In the screen shot above, I’d like to think the use of “dogmatist” was purposeful since the speaker was a member of the Dog-like aliens that are nominal villains of the show. I had to actually pause the show because I was laughing too much.

Next up:

Wench is one of those insults people hurl at women that just make me giggle uncontrollably. I don’t know why, I just do. Other terms that’ll get a laugh from me include “strumpet” and “saucy tart”.

The time-travel aspect to Occult Academy and the setting of 1999 made me think about technological advances society has made from 1999 and today. We’re only talking about slightly more then a decade but there’s been so much change that I start feeling nostalgic. I find my eyes often drawn to the background to seek out these once cutting edge pieces of technology.

Of course with time travel, sometimes things get overlooked. In this first screen shot, it appears that there’s poster of Lebron James in the corner. I could be wrong about it being Lebron James, I’m not much of a fan for basketball, but it certainly looks like him.

In the next screen shot we see the future phone at work. It certainly wouldn’t look out-of-place in the near future but when it was brought back to 1999, it should have been the cause of much amazement and wonder to the people of 1999. Maya should be dumb-founded over this phone but she starts using it like it’s normal for the day. Which it isn’t, the first camera phone was also the first color screen phone and it wasn’t introduced until more then year later. It retailed for roughly $500 dollars and featured a 0.1 megapixel camera and a 256 color screen and even that phone would have looked primitive compared to the future phone.

Even finding these small mistakes is fun.

I’ve mentioned before how I was a fan of science fiction long before anime and I love it when an anime can speak to my SF side as well. It’s become obvious that the people behind Asobi ni Iku Yo! love science fiction on a fairly deep level. The references to Star Trek weren’t that hard-core:

But then they mention Clarke’s Third Law:  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

How can you argue with a show that quotes Arthur C. Clarke?

Just like how it’s impossible to not enjoy it when an anime like Occult Academy includes awesome, over-the-top faces.

Filed under: anime, general anime interst, science fiction