I love doing these seasonal awards but I have to admit to feeling a weight falling off my shoulders now that I’m about to finish. But let’s not terry, it’s time to countdown anime.

4 – Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

At the beginning of FMA:B there was no mention of it animating the whole manga (or that the manga was ending) so I kept wondering how Bones would finish the show without repeating the debacle that was the first Full Metal Alchemist. I figured there was a good chance at another poor ending since so many of their otherwise great shows end so terribly. Prior to the Spring season this wondering became worrying and started to intrude upon how much I enjoyed the show. I was relieved when it became known that the manga was ending and Bones was on-track to animate the ending.

I breathed a big sigh of relief; not only did I not have to worry about the ending, getting the manga ending promised to see Full Metal Alchemist go out with a bang.

Which ended up happening, gloriously so. And I even loved how they managed to make the ending completely satisfying while leaving themselves with an angle for a sequel (which I really, really hope they do).

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3 – The Tatami Galaxy

When I found out about The Tatami Galaxy, I was giddy because it was being directed by Masaaki Yuasa who’s last series was Kaiba, my pick for the top anime of 2008. I tried to keep the giddiness in check since sky high expectations often only result in disappointment but I was only partially successfully. Good thing for me that The Tatami Galaxy was able to beat my high expectations. It had the interesting animation style that hid how well-animated it was animation that I expected. It had the intellectually interesting premise while not forgetting to have good characters, solid character development and an entertaining story that I expected as well. It had that unique quality to it that set it apart from everything else even while reminding me of so many other books and shows vibe that I expected from an accomplished master of storytelling like Masaaki Yuasa.

I also expected that The Tatami Galaxy would be largely unwatched by people like Kaiba was but that turned out not to be the case. It was shown (as many people know) on the TV block Noitamina in Japan which has earned a fan following around the globe for it’s consist high-quality anime programing. This pushed many people to give the show a shot and, in a not very shocking to me turn-of-events, they liked it. Now, I hope the popularity of The Tatami Galaxy will spill over to Masaaki Yuasa’s other works and get people watching them as well (hint, hint go watch Kaiba ).

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2 – Rainbow – Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin

In the rush of trying to catch all the new shows at the start of a new season, invariably, there’s a few that I miss. During the spring season one of those shows that I intended to catch was Rainbow because Madhouse was animating but it somehow slipped through the cracks. Several weeks later, after the dust had settled some, I looked around at the various blogs to see which shows I missed and if t
hey were worth sampling. There wasn’t much coverage of Rainbow and most of what there was considered the show way too melodramatic to be any good. Star-Crossed had a more positive outlook about the show so I decided to give it a shot.

And I’m glad I did, Rainbow is an awesome show.

I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when I started watching Rainbow; I kept waiting for the absurd, over-the-top drama and waiting and thinking that surely I was watching some other show then everyone else. The moment passed and I realized that I was watching the same show but I got it. Granted, I was maybe more ready to watch Rainbow then some. I had just finished reading Samurai! and it touched on the brutal hardships faced by many after the war and how the war disrupted the basic fabric of Japanese society. Which fit well with what I learned of the time period from reading and from anime like Millennium Actress, Magical Arcade Abenobashi and Natsu no Arashi. I think the portrayal of the time period is accurate and anything less would be a fanciful fantasy that would paint over the despair and grittiness of the time period.

If I had to pick an anime to compare Rainbow to, I’d pick Gurren Lagann. The two share many of the same qualities that made Gurren Lagann more then just a dumb movie with giant robots. For starters there’s the single-mindedness of our main characters to overcome the perceived wrongs of their world with hard work and self-determination and the help of their friends. And let’s not forget that society is often a poor judge of people as both anime remind us as well as the hardships of trying to be a hero. Rainbow and Gurren Lagann also show the power, beauty, and majesty of a courageous person which always warms my heart to see.

It’s comes juuusst a bit short of the top spot but if it can continue on this same level over the summer season, it might just be snagging the top spot. Before moving on there’s another similarity the two anime shared that I want to mention. It was how both far surpassed what I imagined the end point of the anime to be. For Gurren Lagann, I thought it was going to end with the defeat of the Spiral King and for Rainbow, I thought it was going to end with the kids getting out of prison. I know I wasn’t the only person who thought this of Rainbow and it sounded like it might have kept some from giving Rainbow a chance which is why I wanted to mention it.

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1 – Arakawa Under the Bridge

Inching ever so slightly ahead of everyone else this season is Arakawa Under the Bridge. When Shinbou and Shaft get it right, they really get it right; not only was this my top show of the season, it was the one I would most look forward to between episodes.

It’s perfect. That’s the only word that feels right when describing why this show deserves to place in front of so many other fine shows but it’s not terribly descriptive. It’s perfect in the same way that the perfect way to end the day is eating your favorite ice-cream, on the beach, listening to the waves lap at your feet, as you watch a spectacular sunset with family and friends. Which is still not very descriptive but will have to do.

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So there it is. I finished the spring awards just in time to start considering the summer seasonal awards . I’d like to thank all the people that read my 5000+ word review of the Spring 2010 season; I hope you enjoyed it and maybe discovered an anime or two that you want to watch now.

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Spring 2010 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 2: Genre and Misfit Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 3: VMA Awards
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #8 – #5

Filed under: anime, awards

The final part of my look at the surprisingly decent fall season is the countdown of the best titles of the season. This is always a difficult process since I enjoy so many different types of shows and there’s no clear-cut way of comparing a slice-of-life show to a shounen action show to a thought-provoking SF drama set in the near future but at the same time, it’s fun because it helps me focus on exactly why I like certain shows.

The first step in the process is to figure out how many places will this season’s top list include. The number changes from season-to-season based on the number of quality shows that I feel deserve to be mentioned. This narrowed the field down to eight shows and now the task turned to ranking these shows that I considered great shows of the season. Picking the number one spot was fairly easily but the rest of the list felt like pulling teeth so; whereas, I’ll argue that all eight of these shows belong on the list, I won’t argue to hard over the exact order.

And with that, let’s head to the countdown.

8 – Blue Literature

The use of classic modern Japanese literature as source material pretty much assured that Blue Literature was going to be this season’s most unique and thought-provoking anime. And because it was Madhouse animating this, Blue Literature also had this season’s best production values as well as high quality storytelling. So, with all that going for it, it might seem strange why this isn’t ranked higher; I’m even a bit shocked why I just couldn’t place this higher and believe me, I kept trying. In the end, I realized what stopped this from going even higher is that, while it’s obvious the stories picked are very well written, only one of the five stories used ended happily and it’s much harder to really get swept away by sad or depressing stories. I know that sounds shallow, and maybe it is, but I read plenty of depressing books and it’s not like current events have looked positive in a long time so is it so bad to gravitate towards those anime that make me laugh or feature characters that are just a bit better/heroic then the vast majority of people walking this planet, myself included.

7 – Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

I continue to deeply love where the story of Full Metal goes; the conspiracies get deeper and more insidious, the dangers get more threatening, and the world of FMA gets more complex as new characters and their ambitions get introduced. The majority of this season, however, had the show in build-up mode with very little pay-off which explains why this didn’t get ranked higher; I expect next season to contain much more pay-off in the form of super-awesome confrontations/fights and resolutions to at least some of the plot threads that have been introduced and will probably rank much higher.

6 – Sasameki Koto

At first, I wasn’t expecting too much from Sasameki Koto but I was quickly won over by the quality of the characters and the show became one of my favorites that just happened to be a yuri show. The main character, Murasame Sumika, was dealt a very tough hand – she likes her best friend, Ushio, in that way and Ushio likes girls as well, just not tall athletic girls like Sumika so Sumika has to bite her tongue and be the caring best friend after Ushio gets rejected by the cute girls – and her struggle to do the right thing over what she wants to do help made Sasameki Koto a great show. Other memorable characters included the boy who fell for Sumika and started cross-dressing (and became a female model) because he knew she liked girls or the girl who always, and I mean always, had some sort of food in her hands. Sasameki Koto could have finished higher if the ending had been better.

5 – Sora No Otoshimono

The biggest surprise on this countdown is the presence of Sora no Otoshiomono on it; not because it’s a terrible show but because it wasn’t a terrible show. It should have been just like almost every other ecchi comedy series – generic and not very good or funny. Instead, Sora no Otoshiomono expertly cultivated an absurdist, over-the-top feel that repeatedly surprised and delighted.

4 – Cross Game

What can I say, Cross Game just continues to chug along making awesome look easy. The highlight of this season was to see how a new character shook the show and it’s characters up but that was hardly the only thing that made this cour of Cross Game good. We got a marriage proposal whose answer depends on if Kou’s team can make it to Koshien, new possible pairings like Azuma x Aoba, general Kou coolness, and new storylines like Aoba trying out for Japan’s national female baseball team.

3 – To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

After the second episode of Railgun I was ready to drop it because I was sure that the manga author had once again screwed up; this time focusing on shoe-horning as much Kuroko antics as possible into a manga and disregarding such important items as plot, characters, and story. Then a funny thing happened, the show started to actually work. The four main characters were fleshed out and developed a great chemistry between them, a deeper story was first hinted at and then expertly told, and let’s not forget how cool Misaka’s rail gun ability is (especially when J.C. Staff has the budget). I think I actually squealed in joy when I realized that Railgun was going to run past the fall season into the winter season.

2 – Astro Fighter Sunred Season 2

Okay, I admit to holding this list up so I could watch enough of this season of Sunred that I could place it on this list and feel justified in doing so. I just love this show to bits. I was a little worried that the second season would start to feel a little stale but each episode seems to offer a different reason why this show is so awesome. For example, one episode featured the leader of evil organization explain how they have to itemize all their expenses so the worldwide headquarters will reimburse them, another episode featured both the hero and evil leader attending the neighborhood meeting and the hero get called to task for not properly sorting his garbage like the evil leader, another episode featured a gadget the evil organization created that allowed them to pinpoint where the hero is but all this did was force them to attend a funeral, go to a very high-end restaurant, and almost receive a very serious beat down by two other heroes when they finally realized that they could just call the girlfriend of the hero (who has made friends with the evil organization) when they wanted to know where he was located. I’d go so far to say that once I get around to rewatching this show, I think there’s a good chance that Astro Fighter Sunred would earn a spot on my top 5 comedies list.

1 – Kemono no Souja Erin

And as much as I loved Sunred, it still didn’t get real close to unseating Erin from this season’s top spot. Once I realized how good this series was, I just knew that this last cour of episodes when all the various stories were threaded together would seriously rock and it did. What I didn’t expect was the little tease they did at the very end for the next two books of the source material that’s coming out this summer. It’s a great scene by itself but I’m already salivating over the idea of Kemono no Souja Erin getting a sequel. One of the ways this show really sets itself apart from a lot of other anime is the process in which the show’s hero is tried and tempered before stepping into the role as hero; it made her an especially memorable character and made her convictions that she fought for all that more real and worthy to fight for. I’ll say right now that Kemono no Souja Erin has better than a 50% chance of getting named my top anime of 2009 when I get to that list.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards

Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 2 – Genre and Misfit Awards
Part 3 – VMA Awards

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So this fall season turned out better then I initially thought it would but I don’t see myself saying the same thing for the winter season. There’s a couple of good shows but it’s just a couple and I’m be talking about them soon.

Filed under: anime, awards

For this next set of awards, a surprise show is making an appearance. (Maybe not so much of a surprise if you realize where the top picture comes from .) Based on how much I was loving Sora no Otoshimono this season and GA: Art Design Class from summer, I decided to give another show from AIC ASTA a chance after passing it over before. After devouring the first season over the past couple of weeks, I’ve just started on the second season – which started airing during this season – so while I’m not far enough into it that it has a chance to rank as one of my top shows of the season, there’s a few awards that I know it deserves to win.

Enough rambling, let’s head to the next batch of awards.

Best Action

Winner: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Runner-up: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Neither of these shows is a true action series because a significant amount of the series is devoted to character development and story development. I know this disappoints some but I greatly prefer it this way; caring about the characters and worrying about what happens to them makes their fights much more attention-grabbing and emotional. In both of these cases, though, when we get a fight – it’s a good fight. Railgun edges out FMA mainly because I liked how varied the character’s powers where used in Railgun and stay slightly disappointed by a lack of variance in the alchemy of FMA.

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Best Fight

Winner: Railgun vs. Multi-skill and Monster from ep.11-12 of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

This fight is a great example of what I mean in how a character will use their power in many different ways. Misaka uses her power to stick to the side of a bridge column, as a taser, as a way to read someone else’s memories, as a way to pull iron from the ground and use as a shield and a weapon, as a way to literally cook her opponent, as a cutting blade, and of course as a rail gun like her nickname implies. And when all this is going on we’re still getting character development and plot development.

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Best Comedy

Winner: Astro Fighter Sunred

I had to give this award to Astro Fighter Sunred; it’s simply one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen. The basic setup to the show is that Sunred is the local hero tasked with keeping his city safe from the clutches of General Vamp and the evil organization Florsheim. A typical setup but the twist, and the reason why it’s here, is this show subverts what we expect from this sort of setup. Sunred is a lazy, good-for-nothing jerk that mooches off his live-in girlfriend Kayoko and General Vamp is a kind, considerate guy who always sorts his trash and helps old ladies cross the road. Kayoko considers Vamp a friend so she gets Sunred to help Vamp move and Vamp will invite Sunred/Kayoko over to dinner. And so on. It initially took a few episodes to get used to the animation style and show’s sense of humor but that’s common for many comedy shows. I’ve really glad I gave this show a shot and I think many other people out there would also like it too.

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Most Entertaining

Winner: Sora No Otoshimono
Runner-up: Kobato

One of the easiest picks this season. Oftentimes this season I’d have 7-8 anime episodes to watch and invariably I’d pick Sora no Otoshiomono first or second to watch. At first I was surprised when I found myself picking that one but eventually I realized that I was guaranteed to enjoy my time watching this show.

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Most Interesting Setting

Winner: Tatakau Shisho ~ The Book of Bantorra

While I really wish that this show’s storytelling was done better (it feels very disjointed), the show’s setting has been a constant source of interest and a main reason why I continue watching.

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Best Plot

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Runner-up: Kemono no Souja Erin

This season of Full Metal has been full of plot revelations and twists. It’s really kept me on the edge of my seat and I’m really glad that the decision was made to remake this series.

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Best Story

Winner: Sasameki Koto
Runner-up: Cross Game

Since Sasameki Koto follows on the heals of Aoi Hana (last season’s best story winner), it needed to distinguish itself from Aoi Hana if I was going to think highly of it. It did, as you might guess, in part by adding a comedic bend to the show and being able to switch from drama to comedy and back again without the show feeling awkward. Sasameki Koto would have easily won but I disliked how there was no resolution at the end, hopefully that means there’ll be a sequel in the future.

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Best Villain

Winner: General Vamp from Astro Fighter Sunred

When I say best villain, I don’t necessarily mean the most evil, the most devious, etc. Oftentimes I’ll pick that truly evil villain like the Demon King from Sengoku Basara and if that was case this time I’d’ve picked somebody from Full Metal but the single most memorable villain from this season is General Vamp, even if he’s a poor villain and a pretty nice guy. (And there’s so many villains in FMA maybe that’s the problem, it’s hard to focus on any one villain.)

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Most in Need of a Sequel

Winner: Kemono no Souja Erin
Runner-up: Sasameki Koto, Sora No Otoshimono

In the case of Sasameki Koto, I want to see the story advance and for Sora no Otoshimono, I want to see more of Tomoki being manly and those supposed higher beings getting what they deserve. Neither of these, however, was able to dislodge Kemono no Souja Erin from the top spot as most in need of a sequel. It is true that the ending of Kemono no Souja Erin was truly satisfying but the author of the original two books that Kemono no Souja Erin is based on is releasing the next two books this summer and just that thought (and the one scene that the animators slipped in from these books) makes me giddy for a sequel.

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That’s it for part 2, the next part is the VMA awards.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards
Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 3 – VMA Awards
Part 4 – Top 8 Shows of the Fall Season

Posted in anime, awards