And it all came to an end. 10 years ago today, on March 16, 2001, the grand finale, and the longest episode of FLCL, FLCLimax (originally Furi Kura) was released on DVD. It brought forth the 3rd amazing episode in a row and also provided a worthy finish to this great series, one that left me speechless and sad that it was over. But it didn’t leave me wanting more. Rather, it made me happy that the work was so complete, so well constructed from start to finish.

This is the last post in a series of posts I’ve made celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of each of the episodes of FLCL. As for all the posts before this, I did not rewatch the episode before writing this and instead chose to write based on my memories. The last time I watched the series was in the summer of 2009. You can read the previous posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing) (5: Brittle Bullet).

I don’t know if it came to me upon first viewing or later on, but what stayed with me was how well this final and the 1st episode bookended the series (indeed, there was a symmetry to the whole 6 episode series in some aspect). The most obvious thing the 2 episodes had in common was the manga dinner scene, which was an exact copy of the one in the 1st episode, at least at the start. There was also the title of the episode, Furi Kura, just 1 letter away from Furi Kuri, the title of the 1st episode. The use of The Pillows’s One Life right before the halfway cut as Naota bemoaned the boring life in this town while crying into Haruko’s bosom was similar to the series’s cold open leading to the title shot, in which he was being held by Mamimi. Right down to the overhead view of the iron-shaped Medical Mechanica factory. On a higher level, the episode started off with a slow, melancholy, almost dejected mood before Haruko entered and brought life to the setting, much like the 1st episode. And there was the epilogue as well, showing Ninamori taking Naota’s, a much more appropriate girl for him than Mamimi in the 1st episode.

These couple frames in which Naota became doe eyed somehow felt so significant.

Of course, to get to the epilogue this episode provided the climax proper. The yellow saturated finale, starting with The Pillows’s Last Dinosaur, followed by I Think I Can when Naota took Atomsk’s power remains one of my favorite scenes in anime. It lacked the raw emotional magic of the episode 4 climax or the high octane action of the episode 5 climax, but it was a worthy finish to this chain of 3 incredible episode climaxes. Seeing Haruko really upset for the 1st time was a bit jarring, and it would be some time later that I realized its significance in the series as a whole.

And it delivered the single most powerful moment in the series, when Naota, having beaten Haruko handily, dove at her and… said, “I like you” before stealing a kiss from her (the fansub I had translated the “suki” as “I’m in love with you,” which sounded even more powerful to me, though I’d learn later it wasn’t the best translation). There was something amazing about this simple moment, when our hero finally got the guts to say what he said and do what he did. It was an ultimate moment of catharsis, when all the emotional tension and pressure that had been building up throughout the series was released, with a simple, “I like you” and a kiss. The first one he initiated, one he had wanted so badly from the start.

This image was my wallpaper for a long time after I watched this.

In typical FLCL fashion, it was followed by a literal explosion, but all that was just the aftermath, the falling action before the denouement. I remember being heavily moved by the ending. Some of it was the sadness from watching the series end. Some of it was that it was a bittersweet ending, in which both Haruko and Mamimi left Naota. But more than anything, the ending was one of hope, showing Naota go on with his life, moving on to middle school, with a girl who genuinely liked him, not one who just wanted to use him. Mamimi’s story ended with hope as well, as she moved on from her stuck crush on Tasuku and left the town that had been nothing but abusive to her, to discover her own path (she likely learned a lesson about the futility of revenge as well, seeing what her “Ta-kun” this time ended up doing).

Certainly, life would not be easy for any of our protagonists. But life isn’t supposed to be. It’s about moving forward with what you have, making the best of it. This was how the most mature characters in this series – Haruko and, as this episode revealed during his conversation with Naota’s teacher Miyaji, Naota’s father – approached their lives. By the end, Naota and Mamimi had learned it as well.

Mamimi Samejima. She knew how to make smoking look cool.

Of course, this being FLCL, it was technically and artistically excellent throughout. One scene that stood out to me was Mamimi’s first meeting with the Terminal Core under the bridge, when she nonchalantly took a giant step towards it and shuffled over next to it discreetly before calmly turning to it and blowing smoke on it. There’s also a shot of her that has stayed with me, when she was enacting revenge on the scooter that had splashed her earlier in the episode, her dead eyes calmly watching the robot devour the scooter, her face only illuminated by the cigarette in her mouth.

Another memorable scene was the aforementioned hug between Naota and Haruko. When Haruko went from playfully poking fun at Naota to seriously asking him if he wanted to run away with her, when Naota’s usual barrier dropped down, his eyes swelled, and he cried into her bosom. The slow pan up to Haruko’s bored eyes as the sensor on her wrist started to clang once again, and The Pillows’s One Life fading in. It was a perfectly directed scene.

"Good bye, Naota-kun." A beautiful transition into the epilogue, Mamimi finally letting go and calling Naota by his real name.

I don’t know if or how watching the entire last half of the series in a row affected my initial reaction to it. As I’ve written before, I consider the final 3 episodes of FLCL to be a set, each a great episode in its own right with a powerful, exciting climax set to a rocking energetic song by The Pillows. The reason that they’re a set is that they worked together to form the final half of this series. Episode 4 saw Naota triumph over his fears of swinging the bat, episode 5 saw his downfall as he learned that he wasn’t “all that,” that the women around him were just using him. And episode 6 saw him triumph again, but differently. As amazing as he had been once he turned against Haruko, he wasn’t filled with joy or excitement afterward. He looked calm, almost serene, as Haruko sarcastically blamed him for losing Atomsk and said good bye.

It was as if he had finally learned that important fact, perhaps the most important fact about being an adult: there is nothing amazing or special about it. The path to adulthood isn’t one with leaps and bounds, it’s one defined by its gradual progression, of growing accustomed to new things little by little.

Naota wasn’t there yet, but he learned what it meant to grow up. And that was all I needed to see.

And as one story ends, another begins. However, it is not FLCL's role to tell that story. This is how it should end.

As this year comes to a close, I have been thinking about what shows or works top my “best of” list for 2010. Well, I didn’t think too long when it came to TV shows: The Tatami Galaxy took the title easily. It occurred to me that, in fact, The Tatami Galaxy was not only my pick for 2010, it was the first one to surpass in my eyes 2006′s The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Other shows had come close, including 2007′s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and 2009/2010′s Bakemonogatari, but The Tatami Galaxy was the first both to match it and to surpass it.

Then it got me really thinking: what was it about these works that had made me hold them in such high regard? One thing that immediately popped out to me was that each one of them had a strong, focused denouement, one that not only provided satisfying closure to the events of the show but also provided a peek into the new beginning of the new beginning of the changed lives of the characters. That last part in particular is quite important; the denouement should not only close out the current story but also acknowledge that life goes on beyond what’s shown on screen. This holds true as well for the show that I see as being greater than any of those mentioned above, FLCL. And for (at least, a classic narrative based show) a show to join the ranks of the elites, to be considered one of the greats, it needs to have such a strong denouement.

(Please note that this post contains spoilers to the endings to Bakemonogatari, The Tatami Galaxy, Strike Witches 2, Angel Beats!, Gunbuster, and various arcs of Amagami SS)

Bakemonogatari was a summer 2009 TV show, but due to delays, its last episode came in the summer of this year. And it was a fine example of a denouement done right. After the climactic encounter between Koyomi and Tsubasa Cat, things return to normal, even if, as Koyomi’s narration stated, things have forever been changed. To drive in the point that this is the end of the story, Meme Oshino leaves, without even saying goodbye, but we’re still treated to the main characters reminiscing about him while exploring his now vacant home. They hardly even exchange words, but their mere actions give that all important sense of closure. And finally, the show ends with the two protagonists, Koyomi and Hitagi, looking to the future to their relationship together. Koyomi’s narration mentions not only this but the fact that he is likely to encounter oddities again – the story of his life is far from over. But he has taken a step forward, and this is a new beginning, where he can face the oddities without Oshino’s help. The show properly ended the threads of the main story while still emphasizing the fact that life goes on.

There were too many great shots in the denouement to Bakemonogatari, but I decided to go with this one. The main characters happily saying goodbye to Oshino in their own way.

The Tatami Galaxy did very much the same thing with its last episode. The climax came, of course, when Watashi leaped to Ozu’s aid, followed behind by a swarm of moths, only to fall into the river. And, just as important, there was him finally returning that doll to Akashi, allowing them to take a step in their relationship. With Watashi having learned his true path to happiness and escaped from the maze of his constantly repeated timelines, he finally gets started on his new, happy life, with Akashi and Ozu both beside him. The show is explicit in that Watashi and Akashi really are in a relationship, but also emphasizes that that relationship is not part of the show (Watashi’s comment that “there is nothing as boring as a story of successful love” both rings true and tells us everything we need to know). Similarly, we see Watashi make peace with Ozu, coming to see him as another human and a friend. Plus, he now gets to turn the tables on Ozu and torment him just as he was tormented. But, importantly, the show only tells us that that’s what is going to happen. The story of the show is over, and the denouement performs its job to show us that what follows is a new beginning.

The final shot of our 3 protagonists, ready to move forward in their lives together. Note Watashi's face, playing the role of Ozu to Ozu.

But it seems to me that this focus on the denouement is something that is all too often ignored by studios that seem happy to build everything up to the climax then call it a day. While a good build up and climax can make a show still be good, not having a proper ending keeps it from being great. There were a few shows this year that confirmed this to me.

Look at this summer’s Strike Witches 2, an otherwise excellent show that was happy with giving us a simple full stop immediately after the climax. The only glimpse at an ending we got was a brief scene of Yoshika taking care of a bird at her clinic back home over the credits. A real ending that showed how the lives of the members of the 501st went on afterward would have left the series on a high note and could have made the show great.

AIC’s other summer show, Amagami SS, had the same problem, but multiplied many times due to its parallel story structure. 2 of the arcs – Kaoru’s and AI’s – ended right after the climax with no closure or even an attempt at trying to show us how this marked the new beginning of their relationship. A couple others – Haruka’s and Tsukasa’s – gave limp attempts with brief “10 years later” scenes that showed the couple only after the real “next story” had occurred. These weren’t real endings; they were either awkwardly placed full stops or lazy failed attempts at providing closure. And though there was certainly a lot more wrong with Amagami SS, its failure to provide a competent denouement to any of its arcs was a major factor in why it is such a poor show.

It's not like this final scene was amazing - certainly not as good as the school gym scene - but it served its purpose and ended the show on a high note.

On the flip side, what about Angel Beats!, a show that was just as full of problems as Amagami SS, but which devoted the entire final episode to the ending, the main characters saying goodbye to each other? Though the show may have been horrible, this final episode gave us some genuinely heartwarming and hilarious moments (I’m thinking Mapo Tofu) between the main characters and an amazing school gym scene as the characters disappeared one by one. And though that last twist involving the shared heart between Kanade and Otonashi was detestable, the very final scene hinting at a new beginning for these 2 main characters left us with hope, instead of the crushing despair that the time we spent watching this horrible show is something we’ll never get back.

It’s commonly said that the ending can ruin or make great a piece of work. At the same time, there’s something to be said for the idea that it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Of course, the rules of fiction are not set in stone, and this is not a dichotomy. For most works, the rising action, climax, and denouement are all things that matter. But there are works that comfortably break these rules and come out ahead thanks to it. The End of Evangelion and Gunbuster are examples that immediately come to mind. The problem is that such works need to be exceptional in execution to pull this off, and most shows aren’t exceptional. For a narrative based work of fiction to excel, it needs to have a strong denouement, one that provides closure and adequately shows the start of something new. In 2010, The Tatami Galaxy and Bakemonogatari stood as shining examples of just how much a positive impact a strong denouement can have to a show.

Gunbuster didn't NEED no stinking denouement to give us one of the greatest anime endings of all time and induce manly tears across the fandom.

Note:

• Other examples of anime works this past year that were enhanced by good denouements are: Durarara, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.
• Other examples of anime works this past year whose poor denouements took away from the works are: Ookami-san and Seven Companions, Black Rock Shooter, Highschool of the Dead, Kimi ni Todoke, A Certain Scientific Railgun.

So this is a bit of a cheat, as it’s about something from 2000, not 2010. It’s about something exactly 10 years ago, in fact, as today, December 21, 2010, is still the 10th anniversary of Gainax’s release of the 5th episode of FLCL, Brittle Bullet. This is part of a series of posts I’m making on looking back at FLCL 10 years later. Like all my other posts, I opted not to rewatch the episode for the post and to write based only on memory instead. You can read the other posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing).

I see this as a bit of an odd episode. It was right in the middle of the tour de force that was the entire 2nd half of FLCL, yet it didn’t have the same magic of episode 4 or the significance of being the true climax of episode 6. Still, this episode was a major part of the reason that the last half of FLCL was as amazing as it had been, and it provided some of the best action sequences in the show while also pushing the plot along.

What got me about the episode at first was the action. It was full of it, from the opening BB gunfight between Naota and his father, to Amarao’s encounter with Haruko at the barber shop, to the climactic scene in which Haruko, dressed up as Gainax’s old Daicon girl, battled it out against the gigantic gunslinging hand robot.

I remember fondly the John Woo style scene at the barbershop, in which Haruko decimated Amarao’s troops with ease (speaking of John Woo, I loved the reference to him at the beginning of the episode, when the Nandaba family was watching some action movie on TV in which doves suddenly start swarming everyone, eventually escaping from the TV and entering their living room). One shot that stayed with me was when she was shown dodging bullets, not by avoiding them per se, but rather by changing the shape of her body to have holes where the bullets would hit. Or what about the scene just before, when Haruko cleanly sliced in half Amarao’s bullets using nothing but a pair of shaving razors? Talk about fucking badass.

This single take sequence is one of my favorites in any anime.

Of course, if you want badassery, what about taking down a gunslinging hand robot while riding a bass guitar like a hoverboard and using a slingshot as the weapon? Haruko’s devil may care attitude as she performed beautiful acrobatics, flying around and shooting and running on the gunslinger’s gun was a joy to watch. As was her display of more of her unique bullet dodging abilities. There was a great humorous touch of realism as well, as the oversize shells from the robot’s guns fell right into the path of Amarao and Kitsurubami (those shells actually reminded me a lot of Gainax’s earlier masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion, in which the gigantic humanoid robots got proportionately sized tools and objects). And of course the climax was distinctly FLCL, featuring Canti pulling out a glowing guitar from his face as both Haruko and Amarao, watching in awe, yelling out in unison, “That’s Atomsk’s Gibson EB Zero, 1961 edition!” And just as the all of The Pillows’s Crazy Sunshine played in the background during the final action sequence of the previous episode, their Blues Drive Monster played through this one, providing upbeat, energetic accompaniment to the equally playful scene taking place.

One of the truly iconic shots from this show. Let it never be said that FLCL was subtle.

I haven’t even mentioned its beautiful use of guns for transitions. Gunshots were used to connect many scenes, from the opening BB gunfight to a flashback of them watching an action movie the night before, from Amarao and Haruko’s initial exchange at the barbershop to Mamimi shooting Naota with the BB Uzi, from Kitsurubami freaking out on Canti back to the completion of Amarao and Haruko’s exchange at the barbershop, and even Ninamori seeing the dumped and depressed Mamimi through the green squirt gun she won via the aforementioned popsicle.

I would be remiss not to mention the famous South Park parody scenes. They were stuff just out of left field and helped add to the crazy, surreal feeling that was so important to the FLCL experience. It didn’t occur to me until a later viewing, but the latter scene, in which Naota played the role of Kenny, unable to produce anything more than muffled sounds when talking to Mamimi, may have been a foreshadowing of how his ego was about to get killed in a couple of gruesome ways in the rest of the episode.

It's funny that now in 2010, 10 years later, Gainax once again parodied South Park with the beach episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Were there any others in between?

But more significant than all the heart pounding  action was the intense character development taking place throughout the episode. One scene that I didn’t fully understand the first time around was the imagery of fellatio created by Ninamori sucking on her popsicle. Of course, it represented the overwhelming praise Naota was receiving from his friends in that scene. But what of when she bit the popsicle off? Did it show how Ninamori was one who had not been taken in by the hype and didn’t see him as some super hero? Or was it a foreshadowing of what would happen later in the episode, when Naota would be taken back down to Earth by learning that, in Mamimi’s eyes, he was still not equal to his brother?

That was the heart of this episode: Naota’s realization that even after everything he did throughout the show, to Mamimi, he was still nothing more than “Ta-kun,” the little brother to the one she really loved, a replaceable substitute. He was brimming with confidence as he forcibly dragged her to the cafe then tried to get a kiss, only to be rejected. But the breaking point was when they were on top of the gunslinger, Mamimi yelling out for help over and over again not to him but to his brother, “Tasuku-senpai,” even though he was right there next to her. His anger blew up then, and it was clear that he was trying to hide the immense pain he felt from Mamimi rejecting him so completely.

This was easily one of my favorite and most powerful moments in the show. It perfectly delivered the anger and confusion that the adolescent Naota must have felt at this rejection.

It was a pretty powerful moment. The episode ended with Naota getting rejected by another female, this time Haruko, who carelessly landed right on top of him to get next to the awakened Canti as she looked on with admiration. What this episode showed both to Naota and to the viewer was that despite everything, Naota was nothing more than a tool to these women whom he liked and thought cared for him. If the ending of Full Swing showed Naota hitting his zenith, the ending to Brittle Bullet showed him on his way to rock bottom.

At the beginning of the episode, Haruko was on top of Naota, wearing nothing but a towel, in bed. Here they are again, but in a very different way.

Looking back now, it’s hard to believe just how chock full of things this episode was. It started with the threads from the previous episode of Naota and his father competing over Haruko and Mamimi’s disappointment at seeing that Naota was one to swing the bat and ended with Naota being dumped by two women whom he thought liked him. In between, we got to learn a little more about Amarao’s past with Haruko – how he had been unceremoniously dumped by her when he was no longer a use to her – we got to see the effects of Atomsk’s manliness in Kitsurubami falling in love with Canti, and we were finally treated to the first glimpse of the “final boss” since the first episode, the red Canti without Naota within.

But more than anything, the nonstop wild action was what I took away from this episode on my first viewing. It was just plain fun, and it was a reminder that, for all the notoriety it gained with the ending to the Evangelion series, Gainax was an action oriented studio, and even if it wouldn’t do it in the most traditional of ways, it could still blow your socks off with its action. And even though, again, this episode didn’t have the power or significance of either of the episodes sandwiching it, it was a key component of what had made the last half of FLCL so special, and the Blues Drive Monster scene is one that easily stands toe to toe with any other action sequence in anime.

I leave you with another one of my all time favorite shots, so cool that Gainax decided to show it twice, from different angles!

10 years ago yesterday, on August 23, 2000, the 3rd episode of Gainax’s OVA series FLCL was released to DVD. It probably wasn’t until a year later that I first got to watch it. I wrote a corresponding post on the 10th year anniversary of the 2nd episode, wherein I explained how I came across this series. I downloaded Marquis de Carabas only after having downloaded the first 2 episodes together and having watched them multiple times. Episode 3 was downloaded by itself, and it would be another few days before I got to see the last 3 episodes of this series. In retrospect, after watching the rest of the series, I can appreciate this episode for what it did. It set up Eri Ninamori as a proper foil for Naota, to show us a different way that someone going through the same things could act. Eri was a kid at an adolescent phase, just like Naota. Though her troubles undoubtedly manifest themselves in a much more mundane manner. However, at the first watch, Marquis de Carabas was a huge disappointment to me, especially after the incredible first 2 episodes this series had had. My main source of disappointment was that this episode lacked that moment. You know, that moment. When it feels as if all barriers between the director’s brain and your heart have been broken down, and your emotions are his to play with. When you feel as if you are at the presence of something great, that you’re lucky to be watching what you are watching, even if you don’t quite know why or how. It’s that moment that makes you want to watch it again and again, if only to marvel at the excellence of direction. These moments are usually fleeting and short. But they are also the ones that can define a piece of work. They’re the ones you remember later and turn to when you think of why you liked a piece of work. The first two episodes had several. The One Life and Never Knows Best scenes in Fooly Cooly. The Hybrid Rainbow scene and the Little Busters climax in Firestarter. Marquis de Carabas had… well, it didn’t really have anything, which is my point. When I think back to the episode, no singular scene or sequence of scenes stand out. Even the climax, with the rare non-Pillows soundtrack – it was actually a piece called Galloping Comedians by a Russian composer named Dmitry Kabalevsky – wasn’t that well directed, and its transition to the denouement and credits was jarring. In fact, the entire second half of the episode felt shoddy and thrown together. It lacked the polish and tightness of direction that had made the first two episodes so unforgettable. What did stick with me from this episode was the character of Eri Ninamori.

I gotta admit, even the first time around, I thought her in the glasses and too-short pajamas was fucking hawt.

Eri was a tough nut to crack. She had been given a few lines in the first two episodes, but I hadn’t expected her to play any major role. But here she was, ostensibly the main character of Marquis de Carabas. My first time watching it, I was surprised at what appeared to be the entrance of a third heroine. What about all the stuff with Mamimi and Haruko that had been set up in the first two episodes? Given that this OVA was only 6 episodes, could they really afford to add another protagonist and spend an entire episode on her? As I wrote above, I realized after the fact that Marquis de Carabas was important in placing Eri Ninamori into the role of foil to Naota. Her story was that of the divorce of her parents. Like Naota, Eri struggled with what it meant to grow up. Also like him, she perceived herself to be more grown up than the kids and adults around her. This despite her still childlike tendencies that were featured heavily in this episode. She cheated to get herself and her crush roles in the school play. She went for the mild Little Prince curry at Naota’s house. She wore a shampoo cap. She hid her need for eye glasses due to her vanity. All the while, she considered herself superior to those around her. Like her father’s cheating secretary. Or Naota for skipping the rehearsals.

The perpetually bored/disgusted/superior facial expressions of Eri Ninamori.

She was the very reflection of Naota. She showed us the ugly manifestations of Naota’s way of thinking. I don’t know that this episode showed her develop out of that immature phase. We were told that her parents divorced, but her reaction to it wasn’t revealed (until episode 6, that is) beyond her cool demeanor at the school play. Most damning is, of course, the final shot, showing her declare her glasses as being fake. It was a sudden reversal after the initial surprise that she had shown everyone that she wore glasses. To the end (of the episode), she remained a cynic, wanting to pull one over on everyone else. That’s probably why, even though Eri Ninamori stuck with me after I watched this episode, neither she nor the episode as a whole left me very fulfilled. I sometimes have a hard time choosing which of the episodes was my favorite. But I can say without reservation that Marquis de Carabas was my least favorite. Even though Eri and the episode were redeemed by the events in the final episode (which I should be writing about around March 16 of next year), it didn’t meet the standards set by the previous episodes, nor the ones that would be set in the coming episodes.

As to be expected from GAINAX, the fanservice was pretty good. Alas, 10 years ago, like Naota, I was not at the age to appreciate it for what it was.

Do you remember watching this episode for the first time? Was it during the Adult Swim run in 2003 that had made this show so huge in the US? Was it before, when you had to scour IRC or one of the filesharing clients for low quality fansubs? Was it after, on that high quality, though expensive, DVD release by Synch Point? What was your initial response to it, negative like mine, or positive for reasons not stated in this post?

Notes:

• A couple months ago, there was a nice little post made on Anime Diet about the 10th anniversary of FLCL as a whole. It’s a nice, quick little read. I added a link to it after putting up my first post, but in case you missed it, check it out.
• Funimation is supposed to release a Blu-ray edition of FLCL some time later this year. Reports of the Japanese release – out last week on the 18th – indicate that the HD versions of the episodes are mere upscales, and poor ones at that. Shame on GAINAX for not keeping higher resolution masters!
• This episode also featured the triumphant entrance of Naota’s homeroom teacher, Junko Miyaji, played by none other than the wonderfully lispy voice of Yukari Fukui. She went on to make a name for herself with two more works by GAINAX (Aim for the Top! 2 and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) and remains one of a handful of FLCL’s cast still in the anime voice acting industry.

A hint about my top pick, and no, it's not as simple as it seems.

I was not planning on taking this long to finish this part of my top 10 anime but as I tried to write something for each anime, I found it increasingly difficult to do so. Some of the anime on this part I could write thousands of words about and still not get everything said I want to say about them which made writing only a paragraph or two about them extremely challenging. I finally finished, though, and present the second half of my top 10 anime of all-time now.

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Vintage: Summer 2005, OVA1 – Spring 2007, OVA2 – Winter 2009
Director: Takuya Sato
Studio: Daume
Times Watched: 4

It’s only been a year since I first watched Ichigo Mashimaro, aka Strawberry Marshmallow, which makes it the newest-to-me anime on this list. I avoided it for several years because it just didn’t look that interesting to me but I finally decided to give it a try after I realized it was made by the same studio that did the first season of Minami-ke, my favorite anime comedy. I realized almost immediately that, underneath the cute, slice-of-life feel to Ichigo Mashimaro, the characters and their roles in the show were deeply thought out and expertly put together allowing it to excel in many of the same ways that made Minami-ke so good. Miu, much like Kana in Minami-ke and Haruhi in the Melancholy of Haruhi, is the spark plug that directly or indirectly creates and drives the show; take her out, and there’s no show. Chika plays the straight-man, Ana and Matsuri play the victims (Ana wants to hide the fact that she no longer remembers English even though she was born in Cornwallis, England as well as her last name and Matsuri is an innocent soul willing to believe anything that’s told to her), and Nobue plays the lazy authority figure that allows everything to happen and sometimes is the facilitator of the action.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a show being cute, having a relaxing slice-of-life feel to it, or the ability to lighten the viewer’s mood. Last fall, after my younger sister’s guinea pig died, I used Ichigo Mashimaro to get her to smile again after days of crying and being completely crushed. And I used Ichigo Mashimaro to help get through this past February when it snowed practically every day and the sun totally disappeared for the month.

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Vintage: Fall 2007
Director: Masahiko Ohta
Studio: Daume
Times Watched: 4

Squeaking past Ichigo Mashimaro is Minami-ke which I was just saying is my favorite anime comedy. As many of you know, the second and third seasons of Minami-ke were handled by a different animation studio and since those seasons were so glaringly deficient, I’m not including them here. The difference between them boils down, I think, to two key differences. The first was that Studio Daume was able to handle the large cast to Minami-ke, never spending too much or too little time with the various characters, and the second was Studio Daume had great comedic timing.

One of the reasons why Minami-ke is my favorite anime comedy and my number 4 top anime is because the show is built around three sisters and the family comedy on display here reminds me of my family growing up. I’m the oldest of 6 siblings but after me came 4 sisters and the first 3 younger sisters have personalities that the Minami sisters emulate pretty closely.

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Vintage: Summer 2000 – Spring 2001
Director: Kazuya Tsurumaki and others
Studio: Gainax
Times Watched: at least 9

FLCL was another series that Cartoon Network introduced to me but unlike Paranoia Agent I never stopped watching FLCL; it’s like an itch I need to scratch every so often. As a result, it’s been a constant companion as I’ve grown in my anime fandom and it seems like every time I watch it, there’s still something new to appreciate about it. I still remember the first time I actually got the Lupin references in FLCL and recently, the realization of how old South Park is dawned on me when I saw it referenced in FLCL.

When I first watched FLCL, I didn’t give much thought to it’s uniqueness; I thought it was a typical anime show and that I could find many more shows like it. I eventually learned otherwise; FLCL showcased Gainax at it’s creative best, with everything – story, plot, characters, animation, animation style, music, and voice work – working together perfectly and there’s almost no one that can come close to competing. Even having Gainax hitting that same level of perfection is exceedingly rare, by my count it’s only happened one other time, though the near perfect efforts by Gainax (like Magical Arcade Abenobashi) are still treats.

FLCL is unique to me in another way. It is, so far, the only anime that I enjoy the English and Japanese dubs equally as much.

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Vintage: Spring 2003
Director: Ryutaro Nakamura
Studio: Studio Wombat
Times Watched: 4

Outside of being one of my favorite shows, Kino’s Journey also became quite influential in turning me into the anime fan I am today and helped ensure that I would stay an anime fan. Before Kino’s Journey I had only watched and been exposed to shounen/action anime like Yu Yu Hakusho and Kenshin and I thought this was what anime was. If I would have continued to operate under this impression, eventually I would have grown tired of anime but I happened to give Kino’s Journey a shot and it opened my eyes to what’s possible with anime. From there, I started discovering the many various types of shows anime offered, especially if one removed the filtering agent known as R1 DVD companies, and now I’ve taken the search one step further and try to watch everything, relishing the moment when I find a great anime show in an unlikely place.

Kino’s Journey remains one of the shows I most want to see a sequel of, though I realize with each passing year it becomes less-and-less likely as are the chances of every getting to read the light novels that Kino’s Journey is based off of. I remain hopeful, maybe once the current crop of anime fans start getting tired of the current big action/shounen shows and start wanting something different there’ll be a chance to introduce a show like Kino’s Journey to them. Which reminds me of the most recent time I rewatched Kino’s Journey. It was with my youngest sister and I’d been waiting until she seemed old enough to appreciate the show. I wasn’t surprised that she really liked it; nor was I really surprised when she told me afterwards that she’d watched a couple of episodes over my shoulder, years ago, and didn’t like it one bit.

Kino’s Journey also remains, due to it’s ability to be very entertaining and very thought-provoking, part of my gold standard when evaluating new anime.

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Vintage: Spring 2007 – Summer 2007
Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi
Studio: Gainax
Times Watched: 5

Drilling through the past favorites and kicking all new competitors to the curb is my top anime – Gurren Lagann.

By rights, Gurren Lagann should have failed at some point; it took so many risks with it’s story (character deaths, characters being introduced late, time skips, plot twists, etc.) that it seems inconceivable that Gainax pulled every single one off. It made for a very thrilling and memorable viewing experience that first time because no one, except the Gainax staff, knew what was going to happen. Watching Gurren Lagann the first time the way I did, having to wait a week for the next episode to air and be fansubbed, also allowed me look at the series in a much deeper way then watching it on DVD ever could. I couldn’t marathon the whole series in a few days or even watch multiple episodes at one time or go read spoilers; instead, the only way to feed my desire for more Gurren Lagann was to watch the episode multiple times, pick it apart, and try to guess what was going to happen next. Of course I bought it when it came out on DVD but, much like Haruhi, if I hadn’t been a fan of Gurren Lagann before the DVDs came out I don’t think the reviews over here would have convinced me too.

One of the reasons I really liked Gurren Lagann and think it’s deeper than many people give it credit is it’s portrayal of heroism and the costs heroes have to pay to become heroes. It’s not something that’s seen too often on American television anymore or discussed about in society so I liked when Gurren Lagann focused on it.

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Did anyone figure out the hint? I used a screenshot from the latest Evangelion movie because it felt like Gurren Lagann was definitely on the minds of the creators of Evangelion when they put together the second movie. See also the screenshot below for another example.

Replace that missile with a giant drill and doesn't it remind you of a certain scene in Gurren Lagann?

Filed under: anime, anime rants/views