One of the great resources in anime fandom of late has been this guy. His charts have become almost indispensable when trying to figure out what to watch in the upcoming anime seasons. Recently, he’s started to compile these charts for previous years and the information that can be gleaned from these charts are extremely interesting and a real eye opener.

Last year, 2008, was the first year of this blog and as a result I watched many shows I probably won’t have otherwise and tried to make sure that I discovered all the “good” anime of a season so I could help other people discover these anime shows. So one of the first things I wanted to figure out was how much of the 2008 anime did I watch in the end.

Percentage of Shows Watched

This is the chart in question that I’m using; you can find it and more here. It lists 130 total anime shows that begun airing in 2008 and looking over these shows I realize there is a handful of shows that are aimed at very young viewers and these shows are never fansubbed, talked about, or licensed so the first step I’m going to do is remove these shows from consideration. I then tabulated how many shows I’ve watched, dropped and completed and I’ll summarize them here.

• 114 total shows (19 from Winter 07/08, 34 from Spring 08, 21 from Summer 08, 37 from Fall 08, 3 from Winter 08/09)
• 50 shows watched (5, 15, 9, 18, 3)
• 19 shows dropped (0, 9, 3, 5, 2)
• 31 shows completed (5, 6, 6, 13, 1)

I should note that the Winter 07/08 season was a season that I essentially took off. I needed the break and the only new show I watched that season while it was airing was Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei s.2. Yes, It is strange that I decided to start a blog during a season I wasn’t actively watching but that just how I like to do things. Because of this, the only shows I watched from this season where ones that I really wanted to see at a later time. This skews some of the results I’ll highlight below.

• Overall watched percentage by season – 26.3% of Winter 07/08, 44.1% of Spring 08, 42.9% of Summer 08, 48.7% of Autumn 08, 100% of Winter 08/09
• Overall watched percentage of 2008 – 43.8%
• Percentage of watched shows that were dropped by season – 0.0%, 60.0%, 33.3%, 28.8%, 66.7%)
• Percentage of watched shows that were dropped in 2008 – 38.0%

While going over the list of shows, I’ve noted that there were a few shows that I still have some interest in catching and could see myself watching at some point in the future, time willing.

• Possible unwatched shows that may be watched in the future by season – 2 from Winter 07/08, 2 from Spring 08, 0 from Summer 08, 4 from Fall 08, 0 from Winter 08/09
• Total unwatched but still interested in shows for 2008 – 8
• 2008 Total of shows watched and possible shows watched in the future – 58 or 50.9% of all 2008 anime shows

This leaves 49.1% of the entire 2008 year of shows as shows that I have not watched nor am I interested in doing so. Just looking at the raw number, it seems like I’m leaving a huge percentage of shows unwatched but looking over the shows the I’ve missed – I don’t think I’m missing much. I wonder how this compares to other anime fans.

Excellent Shows and Strong Seasons

Next, I compiled a list of shows that I consider being the best of 2008 – the titles that I would recommend to other people and would be worthy series to own on DVDs, if possible. I was curious to see how these shows were distributed and if the general thinking about the spring and fall seasons being the strong seasons seemed justified.

• Excellent shows from Winter 07/08 – Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei S.2 and Spice & Wolf – (2)
• Excellent shows from Spring 08 – Wagaya no Oinarisama, Library Wars, Kaiba, Soul Eater, Kurenai (5)
• Excellent shows from Summer 08 – Natsume Yuujin-chou, Birdy the Mighty Decode, Somedays Dreamer’s S.2, Ryouko’s Case Files (4)
• Excellent shows from Fall 08 – Toradora, Clannad S.2, Shikabane Hime:Aka, Ga-Rei:Zero, Mouryou Hako, Kurozuka, Michiko to Hatchin (7)
• Excellents shows from 2008 – 18

Looking at the pure number totals, it appears that the fall season was the strongest season and that’s definitely on way to look at it but I wanted to see it from another perspective.

• Percentage of overall shows that were excellent by season – 10.5% of Winter 07/08, 14.7% of Spring 08, 19.1% of Summer 08, 18.9% of Autumn 08, 0% of Winter 08/09
• Percentage of overall shows that were excellent for 2008 – 15.8%
• Percentage of watched shows that were excellent by season – 40.0%, 33.3%, 44.4%, 38.9%, 0.0%
• Percentage of watched shows that were excellent for 2008 – 36.0%

Looking at the number of excellent shows in the context of the rest of the season shows, it turns out that the Summer season squeaks in front of the fall season as having the highest percentage of excellent shows. If the saying about how only 10% of anything is worth fighting for and the rest is garbage then one can’t complain about the quality of anime from 2008 since it beat that by a bit.

Why It’s Hard To Be a Fan of Anime Without Resorting to Fansubs

I want to say up front that I’m not writing this to defend fansubs per se nor am I trying to pick a fight – it’s been my observation for a while that oftentimes when an anime is announced as being licensed, I’m disappointed because it’s not one that I felt deserved to get licensed and I want to see if this observation is backed up by the data.

The first thing that needed done was to compile a list of what shows where licensed from 2008. I started with the list that animesuki keeps of shows that are licensed and thus they no longer list and then I checked out the various licensing articles from anime news network and finally I checked crunchyroll. I might have missed a couple but they won’t be enough to change the conclusions that I discovered. Onto some data.

• Total number of anime shows licensed from 2008 – 32
• Total number of licensed shows that I watched from 2008 – 13
• Total number of licensed shows that I completed from 2008 – 9
• Total number of licensed shows that I consider excellent shows from 2008 – 5
• Total number of excellent licensed shows that will come out on DVD – 3
• Total number of excellent licensed shows that will be dubbed on DVD – 2

I’ll note here that of the 19 licensed shows that I have not watched, none are on my list of shows that I might be interested in watching so those figures are final. Without running the exact numbers it’s pretty apparent what can be concluded but let’s run the numbers for completeness sake.

• Percentage of total anime shows that were licensed from 2008 – 28.1%
• Percentage of total anime shows that were not licensed from 2008 – 71.9%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I watched – 40.6%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I completed – 28.1%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I consider excellent – 15.6%
• Percentage of excellent licensed shows that will be released on DVD – 9.4%
• Percentage of excellent licensed shows that will be dubbed and released on DVD – 6.25%

The one glaring conclusion that I have to conclude is that the “anime fan” that the North American companies are going after is not me. If they were, I’d expect to see almost all of my excellent shows as having been licensed. (Afterall they should be picking the best titles to maximize the number of DVDs bought.) That’s not the case, though, and looking over the shows that did get licensed I find a lot of shounen/fighting shows, fan-service shows, and shoujo shows. I can’t help but feel that one of the results of a licensing pattern like this is that once an anime fan has been sated with enough shounen, fan-service, and/or shoujo shows that these fans discover they are no longer anime fans because anime has become either too childish or repetitive.

The reason I took the category down to excellent licensed shows that will dubbed and put on DVD even when I’m not the biggest dub fan is because there’s a segment of anime fandom that are people who like anime but don’t want to read subtitles and also want to watch on a TV. My one sister is like this and in the end she buys almost exclusively manga because she can find so little anime that interests her. When I was starting up my blog she told me that she’d read my site to find shows to buy but she quickly realized that this was not possible. I don’t blame her, of all the shows that I’ve watched and blogged about in 2008 there is a total of two shows – Soul Eater and Spice & Wolf that I could possibly recommend to her to buy and I don’t think she’d like Soul Eater. That leaves Spice & Wolf as the only anime out of the 114 anime that started airing in Japan during 2008 that I could recommend her to buy.

I feel like I should repeat that; for the entire 2008 year of anime, there is only one anime that I could recommend to my sister as being good enough that it’s worth buying on DVD. And these companies complain about the fans – maybe it’s not the fan’s fault.

I realize that 2009 saw a large increase of shows getting quasi-licensed on crunchyroll so by now it’s possible that my title about having to almost having to resort to fansubs may not hold as much water but I’ll leave that to a follow-up article in the future to see how the numbers work out. I want to hold off for a while to see how many of the 2009 shows get physically licensed and which ones will get dubs. Also left for a later article is my thoughts on how exactly to get the North American anime scene going in the right direction; here’s a hint, I don’t think there will be many people who will become fans of anime from having crunchyroll stream subtitled anime.

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As an aside, if you happen to be looking to buy a good anime series on DVD (maybe for a Christmas present) and want a quality show that will get rewatched more than once, let me point out that Bamboo Blade is coming out soon. And there’s Spice & Wolf as well but it’s coming out the week of Christmas.

Posted in anime, anime rants/views

Only a month later then just about everyone else .

I thought 2008 was another very solid year of anime, with good shows to be found in most, if not all, major genre types. The fact that I became an anime blogger this year pushed me to watch more shows then I would have otherwise and I was rewarded in finding several quality shows.

Before getting to the countdown I wanted to clarify the status of a few shows. Last year, I decided to consider Kanon a 2007 show and the first season of Clannad as a 2008 show in the matter of ranking the show. The same reasoning will push the second season of Clannad to 2009 so for this countdown only the first season is eligible. Also pushed back are Xam’d: Lost Memories and Michiko to Hatchin because too much of the story was unresolved by the end of 2008. Toradora is getting split, the first 13 episodes will be considered for this countdown and the rest for the 2009 list. I did this because the show seems to have been structured in such a way that it could have been aired in 2 – 13 episode seasons.

10 Soul Eater

Shounen series were what got me into anime and they still hold a special place in my heart. One of my favorites had been Bleach but it had finally struck out from the combination of poor filler, failing to excite even when they finally got back to the storyline, and the appearance of Soul Eater. Soul Eater oozed style and felt fresh when compared to the well-known shounen series so I could finally stop torturing myself with Bleach and watch a better shounen show.

It wasn’t quite smooth sailing at first though. Up until about episode 20, the show felt a little slow. The individual episodes where good but collectively they didn’t feel like they were really building towards anything. That changed at the episode 20 mark and since then the show has really been on a roll. So for 20 episodes of good anime, 16 episodes of great anime, a unique style, a likable cast, good animation, and for showing that a shounen show can still feel new, Soul Eater makes the top 10 at number 10. Now, I’m just hoping the final 15 episodes of Soul Eater won’t disappoint.

9 Someday’s Dreamers Season 2

Count me in the small camp of people that actually liked the animation style of the series. It wasn’t perfect but I thought it worked with the subtle nature of the show because it helped deemphasize the individual characters. And the show was subtle which caused me on several occasions to rewatch a scene to make sure I saw what I think I saw.

This slice-of-life show had many excellent qualities: a diverse cast of characters that were likable, good vocal performances by the seiyuu, an interesting setting, an engaging story and memorable music. The one thing that prevented it from ranking higher was the ending. The ending itself isn’t the big problem but how abrupt the show shifts it’s tone to get to that ending. It could have been handled better; maybe if the series had been longer, they could have. I’d still recommend this show to anyone looking for a great slice-of-life show, just know that the ending will probably feel different then what would normally be expected.

8 Wagaya no Oinari-sama

This was a show that I really only caught because I was blogging and thought for completeness-sake to catch an episode or two before dropping it for being generic and fan service laden. I was surprised when I found myself starting to like the characters, especially with Sakura’s appearance in episode 3, and not being subjected to mindless fan service in the place of real content. So it didn’t get dropped like I thought it would and my opinion even slowly creeped up with each passing episode.

At about episode 8, I fully realized why I liked this show. It was always entertaining, it focused on the characters and allowed the characters to drive the events of the show, the story never felt stale and it could make you laugh or suck you in with a bit of drama. The show also ascribed to the K.I.S.S. rule – Keep It Simple, Stupid. It never tried too hard or made itself overly complex; it never relied on the latest meme or character type to be funny and entertaining. I wish more shows would follow this show’s lead.

7 Library War

The show’s slightly absurd premise and short episode count only mildly marred my liking of this show because this show seems to have been created with me in mind. I loved the idea of libraries creating armies to defend themselves from the censorship proponents and their thugs.

A quick way to describe this show is to compare it to Planetes because they share a lot of similarities. The big difference is that at only 12 episodes, Library War wasn’t as able to explore the topics relevant to the setting as Planetes was so it focused more on the relationship of the two main characters. I hope we see more Library War in the future, it was too good of a show not to want more.

6 Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

If you found this show’s warped sense of humor funny and odd visual style interesting then you’ll agree that the show belongs somewhere on this list. If you didn’t then you won’t and probably wonder what’s wrong with me.

I thought the first season tailed off at the end a bit too much but this season stayed more interesting throughout it’s run. I liked the introduction of more male characters during this season, it helped set up different possibilities with the show. Assuming there’s still plenty of source material, I would like to see a full third season in a year or two.

Posted in anime, awards      

Last year I had a single award given to the most memorable moment of 2007. It went to episode 10 of Manabi Straight when it’s revealed that the school festival will be held. This year, I wanted to go a little further in depth to spotlight my favorite episodes and memorable moments. Since I don’t want to spoil a bunch of shows for those readers that haven’t seen them yet, I’m going to just list these without explaining why. First though, there’s a couple final awards that felt like they belonged in this part.

Best Final Episode

Winner: Natsume Yuujinchou

How do you end a slice-of-life show and still give the show a bit of closure that non-structured shows normally don’t have? You do what Natsume Yuujinchou did and bring back several of the characters from the series and reflect upon how Natsume has changed over the course of the series. It simply was perfect.

Best Ending

Winner: Bamboo Blade

The ending of Bamboo Blade was able to walk the fine line that shows based on source material that continues past the end of the anime series has. It was able to give an actual ending that tied up the plot threads introduced in the first season. As well as slipping in a few tantalizing hints at possible plot points if there is a second season without these new characters and stories interfering with the feeling of a satisfying ending.

Best Show No One Saw

Winner: Kaiba

Runner-up: Wagaya no Oinari-sama

If this award was based solely on the number of people that talked about the show then Wagaya no Oinari-sama would have won because I saw far fewer people mentioning this show. Wagaya was a good show and if the animation had looked a little better or if it had come from a more popular studio then it would been a huge hit. Kaiba did get talked about more often but I could tell that outside of the more adventurous viewers and the SF viewers, almost no one watched it. In the end, I gave Kaiba the award because they were both relatively unwatched but Kaiba was a better show.

Memorable Moments

• Ending of episode 1 of Ga-rei: Zero
• Tennis match from episode 18 of Clannad
• The play from episode 22 of Clannad
• Tomoya’s marriage proposal from episode 12 of Clannad season 2
• Iku Kasahara’s media interview from episode 12 of Library War
• Air reference from episode 11 of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
• The race from episode 13 of Toradora
• The Soul Ascension ceremony from episode 5 of Wagaya no Oinari-sama
• Sora’s first official job as a mage from episode 12 of Someday’s Dreamers Season 2

Favorite Episodes

• Episode 26 of Bamboo Blade
• Episode 3 of Kaiba
• Episode 7 of Kaiba
• Episode 52 of Hayate the Combat Butler
• Episode 2 of Natsume Yuujinchou
• Episode 7 of Natsume Yuujinchou
• Episode 9 of Ga-Rei: Zero
• Episode 2 of Toradora
• Episode 4 of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Next part of my 2008 anime year in review is the first half of my top 10 anime of 2008 and should be posted within the day.

Posted in anime, awards      

Soldiering on, this next set of awards cover some of the many different types of anime out there. I enjoy many of these types of anime and this sometimes leads to odd pairings; for example, I remember watching Kaiba and Maid Guy back-to-back on several occasions. There are a few categories you won’t see like best shounen or best shoujo because I just don’t watch enough to feel confident in those picks. Though I can say that in matters of shounen, Soul Eater is superior to Bleach and probably Naruto but I only watched the first 25 or so episodes of Naruto before I was bored of it – maybe it got better. As for shoujo, I liked Earl and Fairy and Skip Beat so maybe I should watch more.

Best Action

Winner: Kurozuka

Runner-up: Shana 2

Kurozuka is a bit of aberration for me because it never took the time to really do much character development and the story was only the barest of skeletons for most of the series; and yet, I didn’t mind because I was too busy enjoying the polished, pure action series that Kurozuka was. The fights where excellent and I loved when Kuro slipped into vampire bullet-time because I knew he was about to cleave a path of destruction through those around him.

Best Fight

Winner: The Sabrac fight from Shana 2

The best overall fight went to the Sabrac fight towards the end of Shana 2. Anytime a fight lasts for two episodes, it’s going to either feel epic or boring and drawn out; this fight was a stellar example of the first. The first reason is that all the characters where going all out, none of this “I’ll use 43.25 % of my full power” that artificially extends a fight. Another reason is that the good guys had to out-think and plan actual strategy to beat Sabrac and when they did get him, it wasn’t because Sabrac did something stupid to allow them to win. It also helped that by this point in Shana we’ve gotten to really like the good guys so it was like we we’re personally invested in the outcome. And the final thing that really made this an awesome fight was the way Shana and friends finally beat Sabrac, it was unexpected, theatrical, and just plain cool.

Coolest Weapons

Winner: Ga-rei: Zero

Runner-up: Soul Eater

Ga-Rei: Zero had one of the most diverse set of weapons I’ve ever seen. We had the standard sword and guns but we also had a guy wield two suitcases that shot small missiles, a guy that used a weapon that turned his hands into drills, a woman that had a Gatling gun for an artificial leg, a motorcycle that had anti-monster incantations in the tread of the tires – just to name a few. There was several more spare weapons that are shown like an iron that used holy water steam. And even some of the more standard weapons had their own twist like a sword that would use the recoil of discharging a bullet to speed up the user’s swing and also allow the wielder to change directions mid-swing very quickly.

Best Comedy

Winner: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Runner-up: Maid Guy

The year didn’t have many pure comedy shows that were genuinely funny but it did have many non-comedy shows like Clannad, Toradora, and Natsume Yuujinchou that used humor for great affect. Instead, many of the comedy shows like Kemeko DX and Kannagi tried too hard to either be different or be more then just a comedy show. Maid Guy was one show that did a good job remembering it was a comedy show and if the ending had been stronger, it could have won. Another show that never forgot it was a comedy and still found the time to comment on society and poke fun at people was this year’s best comedy, Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I will admit that this comedy isn’t meant for everybody but it’s unique blend of comedy was something I just love.

Best Slice-of-Life

Winner: Natsume Yuujinchou

Runner-up: Someday’s Dreamers Season 2

You really can’t go wrong with either show but I gave the slight edge to Natsume Yuujinchou, aka Natsume’s Book of Friends, because it gave me a better relaxed slice-of-life feeling and I like the ending more. Natsume excelled at those areas that you’d expect a slice-of-life show to do so such as: interesting characters that develop over time and a story that can make the viewer feel a wide range of emotions. One little thing I particularly enjoyed was how everyone had a different name for Nyanko-sensei.

Best Science Fiction

Winner: Kaiba

Kaiba is a really good example of what’s possible with science fiction. It extrapolated a future to tell a story that would be impossible using our current level of technology but at the same time it was able to make the story resonant with us, the viewers. Another reason I was impressed with Kaiba was that most SF shows can’t match print SF in terms of depth, intellectual complexity, and creativity but Kaiba was able to.

Most Entertaining

Winner: Library War

Runner-up: Wagaya no Oinari-sama

For any type of show to be successful, it needs to entertain on some level so I’m going to define “Most Entertaining” as the show that the best at making me feel good after watching it. Library War wins because I enjoyed the characters and how they interacted with each other. I also thoroughly enjoyed when the Library forces where able to beat the censorship thugs, if only it was so easy in real life.

Best Mind Trip

Winner: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Watching Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a rather unique experience.

Every aspect of the show seems designed to give the viewer a very surreal feeling. There’s the animation – at times it’s very standard looking and other times it’s hyperstylized or made using various other mediums. Add to that the amount of text we see. Some of it on signs in the background, telling jokes and making references that oftentimes has nothing to do with what’s going on in the foreground. Other text is conjured by the characters to prove a point and will often fly by so quick that it’s only possible to read by pausing individual frames. And let’s not forget the use of a real picture of some guy’s hairy face. (I know he’s connected to the manga but can’t quite remember how right now.) He pops up multiple times in an episode and in various locations; though, he is frequently used when they want to censor something. The show also has a touch of ADD to itself and can feel like the show’s creators are randomly switching channels in their minds. I do mean all this, in the best possible sense because I like the uniqueness of the show – as you’ll see when I get to my actual top ten shows of the year.

Best Story

Winner: Kaiba

Runner-up: Xam’d: Lost Memories

The story of Kaiba accomplished a lot in the time it had. The first half of the show focused on the main character, Kaiba, as he tried to figure out who he was. A more complex question when a person can swap bodies and add/subtract memories from their mind. It also introduced to the viewers many of the problems that mind uploading would present to society. The second half of the show focuses on the efforts of a terrorist group to usurp the king and Kaiba’s effort to reconnect with the woman he loves after her memories have been altered to further the terrorist group’s agenda. One of the things that surprised me was that I had thought, based on the rather experimental animation, that the story would be too artsy for me but it turned out to be very accessible and down-to-earth.

Most Interesting Setting

Winner: Kurozuka

Runner-up: Kaiba

The mix of the familiar with the alien that post-apocaleptic worlds often have is something that has greatly interested me since I was very young. In this case, the world of Kurozuka helped set the proper mood and make the show feel plausible instead of pure fantasy. I’m not saying Kurozuka was plausible; but, like how the recent Batman movies feel more realistic then the previous movies and series, the setting helped give the show a more realistic feel.

Posted in anime, awards      

It’s finally time for me to write up my favorites and top picks in anime for 2008. Between waiting for some series to finish, wanting to marathon a couple of missed series, and catching the new season of anime – I didn’t have the room in my writing time to do this until now. I also wanted to be comprehensive then my seasonal awards and my previous yearly top picks and was successful on that front.

This time before I get to my awards, I wanted to mention what shows I watched this year. It’s these series that will be up for the awards; if a series isn’t on this list, I either dropped it very early or didn’t watch it (for various reasons) and thus you won’t see it mentioned. For the shows that either started in 2007, will continue into 2009, or have a slower sub release schedule, I have marked the episodes watched in 2008.

Some shows like X’amd and Michiko to Hatchin would do poorly in my top 10 ranking because too much of the story is still unrevealed; therefore, I’m shifting their consideration in the ranking to next year.

Winter Season

Bamboo Blade eps. 13-26
Clannad
Shana 2 eps. 13-24
Minami-ke Okawari
Hayate eps. 40-52
Shigofumi
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Spring Season

Kaiba
Soul Eater eps. 1-36
Maid Guy
Library War
Wagaya no Oinari-sama
Nabari no Ou eps. 1-17 (want to finish but haven’t felt like it)
The Daughter of Twenty Faces eps. 1-20
Kure-nai
Zettai Karen Children eps. 1-14 (can’t bring myself to continue)

Summer Season

Zero’s Familiar S.3
Birdy the Mighty Decode
Ryoko’s Case Files
Natsume Yuujinchou
Someday’s Dreamers Season 2
X’amd eps. 1-20

Fall Season

Mouryou no Hako eps. 1-6
Michiko to Hatchin eps. 1-10
Skip Beat eps. 1-12
Yozakura Quartet
Earl and Fairy
Toradora eps. 1-13
Chaos Head
Kemeko DX
Ga-rei Zero
Shikabane Hime: Aka
Kurozuka
Clannad Season 2 eps. 1-12
Index eps. 1-13
Kannagi

Now it’s time for the Anti-Awards. These are awards that the winners probably wouldn’t like winning and instead of spreading them out in the various parts, I’m going to put them here. Also, the awards will have a higher level of spoilers then I normally use but I will still try to keep them to minimum.

Best Half and Half

Winner: Shana 2

The first half of Shana 2 was atrocious. Sometimes I can’t believe that I got through it. If I hadn’t liked Rie Kugimiya as Shana and known how good the show could be, I probably wouldn’t have stuck around for the second half. I did though and a funny thing happened – the show got good, very good. At first my sister and I thought we were hallucinating when we starting thinking to ourselves – I can’t wait for the next episode. So for going from zero to hero, this show deserves the best half and half award.

Worst Half and Half

Winner: Daughter of 20 Faces

On the other hand, Daughter of 20 Faces started out very good. As a Lupin fan, I enjoyed the set-up of the show and eagerly awaited the next episode to see the further adventures of 20 Faces. Roughly a third of the way in, something happened that radically altered the show and it became a very different. I hoped this would pave the way for an even better show but by the halfway point, it became apparent that the creators where just coasting. The show just slowly lost more and more steam and so it earns the worst half and half award.

Most Disappointing Ending

Winner: Kure-nai

Kure-nai was an excellent show with many interesting characters and it quickly became one of my favorites from the spring season. Muraski’s freedom from her deranged family was obviously what the climax was going to center around so I won’t complain too much about how the characters suddenly had to act really dumb to allow Muraski’s family to recapture her. The problem, instead, was how it was resolved. Muraski’s family ascribed to very old traditions and they dictated that Muraski had to live in the Inner Sanctuary, away from everybody and all modern conviences, and had to marry her older brother. Our hero Shinkurou goes in and beats the family within an inch of death and should be able to get them to agree to freeing Muraski but instead Muraski convinces Shinkurou that she will work within the family to loosen the family’s restrictions and they leave her with the family. You don’t leave a kid in a pit of vipers, even if the kid is intelligent. So for totally screwing up the obvious ending and giving us a very bad ending, Kure-nai has the most disappointing ending of the year.

Most in Need of Being Longer

Winner: Library War

This isn’t a horribly bad award to get but I wanted to recognize that even though this was a very fun show, full of awesome moments, it was still hurt by being too short of a series. This could have easily been a 24 episode series. One obvious improvement this would have caused was the various side characters could have been fleshed out further. As it stands, their full depth of character is merely teased to us. Another improvement would have been additional time for a more rigorous anti-censorship message. From what I heard about the source material, much of this was stripped out of the anime due to time restraints.

The Your-Doing-It-Wrong Award

Winner: Minami-ke: Okawari

The second season of Minami-Ke earns the Your-Doing-It-Wrong Award not because the animation couldn’t match the first season but because they messed with the formula that made the first season so funny. As a person that has 5 younger siblings, I know something about how siblings interact and the first season of Minami-Ke nailed it perfectly. The second season monkeyed with this and in several episodes the three sisters where just plain mean to each other and it felt wrong and out-of-character. Then there was the decision to not show the Minami brothers for the entire second season. Another failure was the introduction of the boy that moves in next door. They spent a lot of time on this one character to the detrement of the show. He’s not funny nor does he generate laughs with his presence – bad in a comedy. He’s dweeby and nothing is done to make us like him; whenever he was on screen, I deeply wished someone would just punch him. I would even sometimes imagine a scene where Shinji from Evangelion would just show up one day and roundhouse this kid because Shinji couldn’t stand the kid either.

And on that note, let’s end part 0 and tomorrow I’ll put up part 1, the character awards.

Posted in anime, awards