Author: psgels

I’ve noticed that usually when doing these end of the year lists, most people (myself very much included) tend to ignore the OVAs and movies that came out that year. So, here’s an entire post devoted to the OVAs and movies that came out in 2010, because it was a great year for both of them. I decided to make a top 10 for both of them separately, because they’re just too different to be properly compared.

I especially liked Sunrise and Production IG this year, and it’s interesting how both studios have been treating these mediums: Prodiction IG’s television series of 2010 were surprisingly mainstream. Instead they used the OVAs and movies to experiment with A TON of different concepts which covered the entire spectrum, from absolutely abysmal to incredibly good. Sunrise meanwhile completely put its attention to its OVAs and Movies this year, with its only new TV-series being that really cheesy Romance of the three Gundams, or whatever the title was.

Worst Production

Haiyoru Nyaru-Ani

Usually with these kinds of summary posts I try to hand out most awards in a positive way, but this time I feel that there are too few entries to really make it worthwhile without making me repeat myself. I’ve said everything I wanted to say about them already in the top 10s below. I however do want to say a few things about the bad stuff this year, because dear lord: the anime creators again turned out some crap here. Haiyoru Nyaruani goes in particular. I’m currently lumping both the OVA and the TV-series together because they were equally awful, but seriously: this could have been made by a bunch of 12 year old kids with the right equipment. And it still would have been better. Atrocious dialogue, dirt-poor animation. It only lasted a few minutes and it still was painful. Why was this made in the first place?

Biggest Waste of Great Visuals

Shoka

This award is for OVAs that had gorgeous graphics, but left a lot to be desired in the other departments. Black Rock Shooter surprised many by hardly focusing on the Black Rock Shooter at all, despite the gorgeous graphics. There was one OVA however that did this even worse: Shoka. It really had some great animation and the visuals were quite imaginative. It’s all messy, but in a really good way. The rest though… shallow at best. The characters aren’t really characters but just stereotypes, everything is just there for the style.

Worst Commercial for a Manga

Toriko

Even though I’m not the target audience, I like watching these one-shot OVAs that come bundled together with manga volumes in an attempt to reach a broader public. This can be done well (Azazel-san)… or not well at all. A huge example is that latest Kurenai OVA, or the awful Nougyou Musume. At least Kurenai was supposedly faithful to its manga, though. Toriko is apparently a manga that is really awesome, but by watching the OVA, I really had no idea why. Sure, it has nice monster designs, but that gimmick got old after five minutes. It’s full of people screaming and overacting to the slightest things and boring fights. If the TV-series is going to be like this, then I’m going to drop it very quickly.

Biggest Rip-off

Hiyokoi

Hiyokoi is pretty much a poor man’s Kimi ni Todoke: shy girl joins school, is alienated and suddenly the most popular guy in school falls in love with her. If that’s just the whole story, then I could have just forgotten about it, but after writing an entry about it, I suddenly discovered that it wasn’t produced by a cheap studio trying to cash in on Kimi ni Todoke’s success, but by Production IG itself. It also wasn’t directed by some random guy, but by Naganuma Norihiro, the assistant director of Kimi ni Todoke. What the hell? These are the kinds of cash-ins you’d expect from Toei or Sunrise, not Production IG…

Biggest Disappointment

Musashi – The Dream of the Last Samurai

It’s Mamoru Oshii, for god’s sake! A documentary about Miyamoto Musashi sounded really interesting on paper, but if I knew that it would be ninety minutes of a very poorly animated old man rambling incoherently about god knows what (I’ve forgotten most of it already at this point), then I would have passed it up. Another big disappointment was Loups Garous. Trans Arts is the production company that I really want to like: unlike just about every other company out there, instead of going towards safe and marketable moe or bishies, they continue to come up with potentially interesting and diverse premises…. only they don’t know how to execute them. Loups Garous was the same: a HUGE waste of potential due to poor writing and no opportunity given to flesh out the cast and setting.

Top 10 OVAs of 2010

#10: Kou, Koi wo Hajimemasu

Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu is a shoujo that very nicely takes advantage of its OVA format to deliver a compact yet touching little story about a couple. There’s nothing of the “will they won’t they” stuff that usually drags these shoujo series down, and instead it’s all about their relationship. It’s low budget, but the visuals are still quite nice, and I especially love the character designs for the lead female. It’s a bit cheesy, but I liked it.

#9: Hen Zemi

2010, especially its first half, showed a disturbing trend of a whole slew of series that tried to upstage each other in terms of controversy and risky topics like Chu Bra, Ladies Versus Butlers, Seikon no Qwaser KissXSis, etc. Most of them were forgettable or just abysmal. Then… Hen Zemi came along. I mean it’s far from the funniest comedy out there, but its dialogue unlike any other fanservice show this year really managed to get under my skin. It’s completely disgusting, vulgar and perverted and that combined with its energy pretty much took along with Panty and Stocking the cake in terms of disturbing comedies this year.

#8: Yondemasu, Azazel-San

Azazel-san is only ten minutes long, but it won me over with its very cute sense of humour. In fact, its length really works in its advantage here because that turned into such an easily accessible comedy here. It’s a real recommendation for someone looking for a bite-size chunk of comedy.

#7: Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

The thing with Gundam Unicorn is that I’m not much of its target audience: it’s pretty much a nostalgia trip for Zeta Gundam, and I didn’t really like that series. Nevertheless though, it’s still worth watching because of how ridiculously solid the overall production is. It’s absolutely clear that the creators spent a ton of time and money on it, and that makes it definitely at least worth watching.

#6: Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail

2010 only showed the beginnings of Roberta’s Blood trail so it was mostly building up, but the way in which it was done caught my attention. It’s really well directed, with over the top action that at the same time tries to remain believable. Episode 2 actually had very little action, but the tension it built up was nail-biting.

#5: Tales of Symphonia

Tales of Symphonia turned out to be an excellent example of how to adapt a game by keeping a great balance between faithfulness and own input. The events are rearranged to get to the essence of the game and it worked really well. 2010 finally showed us the parts that I personally had been really looking forward to: the focus on the side-characters of Sheena, Presea and Regal and they really lived up to my expectations.

#4: Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi

This one is mainly this high on the list because it has a fantastic animation director as its director. The way he breathes life to all of the characters is just amazing, and the action scenes are great to look at. At this point only one episode has aired yet, so there’s not much to say about the story yet, but the characters are a quite interesting to watch in a way that makes me wonder how the TV-series managed to screw it up anyway?

#3: Darker than Black Gaiden

With this OVA, Darker than Black yet again proved what an incredibly diverse series it can be: the four-episode Gaiden OVA is again unlike anything I’ve seen so far of the franchise, detailing Yin and Hei together. The scenario is slow, but stunning, as it answers a ton of questions that the two series left behind.

#2: xxxHolic Rou

The Tsubasa Chronicle anime has turned into a bit of a mess of continuity issues and I’m not even sure how many manga chapters were skipped between the Shunmuki and Rou arcs of xxxHolic. It worked really well, though. The developments were really shocking and gave a total new spin to just about the entire cast.

#1: Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc

Like with Darker than Black: just about every part of Votoms is significantly different, only this universe is twice as big and has many different instalments. The Phantom Arc just came and tied everything together, working both as a nostalgia trip and an original story of its own. It had many things that made Ryousuke Takahashi into a unique director, like the down to earth battles and the focus on religions, but at the same time it also brought new topics into the franchise, like the children of God, and one of the oldest casts you can run into in an anime nowadays. Seriously, more than thirty years have passed at this point.

Top 10 Movies of 2010
This is a list of my favourite movies of 2010, and by “2010”, I mean the ones that got released on video this year and that I had the chance to check out, so no Redline or Space Show.

#10: Symphony in August

Nishizawa Akio is a criminally underrated movie director. His best work still is Furusato Japan, but Symphony in August is also a really interesting look and one of the few non-fiction anime out there. It’s a great portrayal of Kawashima Ai‘s rise to fame. It’s realistic and surprisingly touching. And it’s a shame that the entire ending that the movie was building up to was so cheesy. They were the crowning moments of awesome of Furusato Japan and Nitaboh, and if it was better executed I would have ranked this movie much higher on this list.

#9: Mai Mai Miracle

Mai Mai Miracle was another one of those movies that portray a young child growing up, filled with gentle slice of life only to get darker near the end. It’s a pretty uneventful movie for those standards and mostly just focused on portraying the life of a bunch of kids (who are portrayed very life-like by the way). It’s also well balanced: the quiet parts at the first half of the movie don’t feel like they’re just build-up, but everything is equally important. It wasn’t an ambitious movie at all, but what it did it did well.

#8: Eden of the East II – Paradise Lost

It’s a shame that pacing issues turned out to be the major flaw of Eden of the East: there was so much that it wanted to do, but it just didn’t mesh well together. Paradise Lost really felt like a rushed conclusion to the Eden of the East Saga, which could have been amazing if given the right time. It’s still a very good movie, though. It’s an action and plot twist packed finale with strong messages and ideas.

#7: Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22:You Can (Not) Advance

Evangelion may not be my favourite movie of 2010, but I do agree that it had without a doubt the best action of the entire year. The entire movie is pretty much a visual orgasm: incredibly imaginative and well directed. It’s just a shame that the characterization wasn’t nearly as good as compared to the TV-series.

#6: Eden of the East I – The King of Eden

The King of Eden is after the first two episodes of Eden of the East most likely the most solid instalment of the entire franchise, and the part that I enjoyed the most. Whereas Paradise Lost tried to stuff too much in its airtime, this one did not and felt perfectly paced if you ignore the pacing of the other instalments of the franchise. It’s slow but very down to earth that allowed the story to catch a breath after the really rushed finale of the TV-series.

#5: Macross Frontier – Itsuwari no Utahime

This was the biggest surprise of the year in terms of movies. I had many problems with the original Macross Frontier TV-series, and here this movie comes and actually avoids most of them. It’s much more tightly paced and doesn’t have the useless and annoying moments of the TV-series. The animation is either recycled or even better than ever, the love triangle is actually interesting. If you’re interested in Macross Frontier I really recommend this movie over the TV-series.

#4: Halo Legends

I love these compilation movies that consist out of several smaller, separately produced works. Halo Legends was very diverse and it sure had some hits and misses, but in the end the total is larger than the sum of its parts. There were a vast amount of different styles and stories on these shorts and the creators really made use of their creative liberties in order to portray the Halo franchise.

#3: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

This was without a doubt the best thing I’ve seen from the Haruhi Franchise. It’s a really long movie (two hours, forty minutes), but it’s amazingly told and packs a huge amount of character development for especially Yuki and Kyon. It’s excellent mystery and it’s almost scary how often the creators are able to create perfectly fluent animation here.

#2: Tales of Vesperia

Here is another one who caught me by surprise. It started out as your average fantasy story, but it packs a ton of character development throughout its airtime with great life-like characters and excellent yet down to earth action scenes. Most RPG adaptations go for these epic stories, but by taking the scale down a notch the creators were really able to focus on the characters themselves and this worked really well.

#1: King of Thorn

Now, I probably have some explaining to do here, as I did rate this series lower than Tales of Vesperia when I reviewed it. The reason why I’m considering this my favourite movie of 2010 is a very subjective one, and it all has to do with the effect the movie had on me. Seriously, I thought that along the middle it pulled a few too many twists and that the CG overuse was a little too glaring, but the ending and the movie itself haunted me for weeks. It’s that indescribable feeling you get when finishing something really impressive, that’s what hit me here. And of course, this movie has an absolutely fantastic opening. In the first twenty minutes, nothing really is happening and it’s simply counting down for the action to really being. The atmosphere during the prologue was just perfect and another reason why this was my favourite movie of 2010.

And here is the second out of four 2010 Summary posts I’ve planned for this year. I’ve noticed that during previous years, I paid rather little attention to the different characters that appeared in each year, so this time I decided to devote an entire post to them. This post contains a bunch of character-based awards, along with my top 6 of favourite supporting characters, male characters and female characters. These were really the characters who caught my attention the most and made the biggest impression on me, so yes: they’re quite personal lists. Feel free to share your own favourite characters of 2010 in the comment section. 😉

Most annoying character

Ookami Kakushi – Hiroshi Kuzumi

This award only goes up for the series that I finished watching. If I didn’t drop Amagami SS on its half-way point, half its cast would probably have walked away with this award. Another character who really annoyed me this year was Elcea from The World God Only Knows as an incredibly obnoxious moeblob, but Hiroshi, the lead character from Ookami Kakushi takes the cake. Throughout the entire series, he’s supposed to be the central character, and yet he does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. He just runs around randomly, says the most generic lines and never gets the story anywhere. This guy… who found it a good idea to make him the central character?

Worst Character

Iron Man – Tony Stark

Again, this only goes for the shows that I actually finished this year, but dear god. At the start of this year, I really could not have guessed that I’d pick an adult for this category. Still, there’s so much wrong with Tony Stark’s character that I hardly know where to start. It’s a complete bastardization of a Cobra-wannabe, who runs after women with cheesy one-liners at one time and keeps on sprouting ridiculously corny morals the other. As a superhero he also makes some of the dumbest decisions out there. I really hope that Wolverine will fare better. A honorable mention goes to Il Re from Togainu no Chi, just for what the heck he turned into in the final two episodes of that series.

Best Cast of Minor Characters

Giant Killing

This award goes to the series that had my favourite side and supporting characters, both major and minor. With this award, I especially want to congratulate the series that came with huge casts, and yet gave every character his own purpose, story and development. Full Metal Alchemist and the Armed Librarians were especially good at this, but also Shiki and the way that it gave a unique feel to all of its villagers stands out and Star Driver is also doing a pretty good job so far. None were as good as Giant Killing though: the entire series is about teamwork, and how everyone involved with football is important, from the players to the coaches, the management and the supporters. All of the characters in Giant Killing were great to watch and together they painted a wonderful whole.

Best Voice Acting

Sarai-ya Goyou

This year had a lot of comedies where you could really hear that the voice actors were having the time of their lives: Gag Manga Biyori and Tentai Senshi Sunred had very simple animation, but this gave their voice actors a lot of freedom that they used really well. Beyond that, Full Metal Alchemist also had a very inspired voice cast and Yojou-han’s endlessly fast monologues were also a delight to follow. Ookiku Furikabutte delivered a greatly realistic and down to earth performance, but in the end I decided to pick Sarai-ya Goyou for this category. The voice actors are both restrained and deliver with a lot of emotions, and they really seem to understand their characters.

Best Character Development on a single character

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – Watashi

There were a few characters this year that were really well developed throughout their series. A simple form of this is Kobato, who grew up wonderfully as a character. Then there also are these long-running series like Full Metal Alchemist and Cross Game who make great use of their time to show the span of several years. Especially Kou, Aoba and Edward go through these great, subtle changes. For great changes that are anything but subtle, there was Shiki with Toshio who really hardened up as a character with all of the things that happened to him. The best though, was Watashi: the entire series is devoted to showing his antics, and in how many different ways he can change depending on the choices that he makes. Usually the series with the great character development are the long ones, but this is one series that puts more character-development in than most other.

Best Character Development on an entire Cast

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

Armed Librarians was just amazing: in every arc, it just took a bunch of characters and developed them in a way that just kept surprising me. Even the long series of Cross Game and Full Metal Alchemist, which both had around twice the amount of episodes to develop their cast didn’t do it as interesting as Bantorra did it. They do take up the second and third place, though: the way in which they show several years subtly change their entire cast made them into some really memorable series. I also want to give a honorable mention to Rainbow: granted there was a lot of stuff wrong with its characterization, but it really tried to give its seven main characters as much development as possible, and that’s really what saved that series from being yet another cheesy drama.

Top 6 Supporting Characters

#6: Rainbow – Ishihara

Ishihara is actually a character that I for a long while considered way too over the top to be likable, often dubbing him “Psycho Guard”. But in the end that’s what his charms turned out to be: he was such a ridiculously over the top character that he became priceless at the point where Rainbow’s plot really got interesting. He’s the ultimate of sadistic characters, but at the same time his development and conclusion had me nailed to the screen.

#5: Kuroshitsuji – Alois Trancy

I only noticed this once I had fully compiled this top list, but my favourite supporting characters of 2010 are chock full of testosterone while surprisingly this isn’t necessarily the case for my favourite main characters. The characters on this list are just so out there that they immediately caught my attention, despite not being the central characters. In the end, Ciel and Sebastian remained the central characters of Kuroshitsuji’s second season, despite all of the hints that previously pointed at this sequel. I still believe that Alois should have been good enough as a lead character himself: his flamboyance totally dominated every scene he was in and it was always great to see his rambling.

#4: Giant Killing – Kazuki Kuroda

Much less over the top than the two previous entries, Kuroda was the lovable nagger of the series: he was constantly complaining and annoying the people around him, but he did it in such a way that it just instantly became charming. Especially when he was trying to pick a fight with people much taller than him. As the series goes on, we also learned quite a bit about him and some of the soccer players around him.

#3: Shiki – Tomio Ookawa

Tomio Ookawa is hard core. He mostly stood out in the latter half of Shiki through his actions, but this guy genuinely impressed me. The exact reason why is riddled with spoilers, but as a supposedly random villager, his change and development were a part that made the final act of Shiki truly memorable.

#2: Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – King Bradley

The thing with King Bradley is that even the animators loved him as a character: every single action scene involving him portrays him as an unstoppable beast with absolutely gorgeous and imaginative drawings. This guy is ridiculously competent and at the same time his backstory gives him a surprising amount of depth.

#1: Shiki – Tatsumi

When I first saw Tatsumi, I laughed at his ridiculous haircut. Throughout the series however, he really made me take all of that back. He is an excellent villain: just when things are starting to look good, this guy shows up. His loyalty and aggression really made him stand out as one of the top characters of 2010, especially considering how he as a villain has so relatively little airtime.

Top 6 Male Characters

#6: Cross Game – Kitamura Kou

First and foremost, Kitamura Kou is a wonderful character to watch during the many slice of life moments in this series. His often-faked nonchalance is consistently witty and enjoyable to watch. He forms a good combination with just about every other character of Cross Game, but his relationship with Aoba really stands out with the way that the creators just consistently kept subtly poking it. His development is amazing, with fifty episodes dedicated to his growth from elementary schooler to a high school student.

#5: xxxHolic Rou – Watanuki

Watanuki only appeared in one single OVA this year, so he counts too as a character of 2010. I mean, before this OVA Watanuki already was a really well developed and sympathetic character, and here the Rou OVA comes and SPOILER is suddenly SPOILER and not to mention that SPOILER. It’s a very spoilerific OVA so I’m not going to detail what happened in this Summary, but he really impressed me.

#4: Sarai-ya Goyou – Yaichi

Sarai-ya Goyou had sublime characterizations, so a few characters were bound to turn up in these lists. Yaichi was an enigmatic character throughout the entire series, subtly menacing, yet he had a ton of different sides. His conclusion was especially stunning, but he was portrayed consistently excellent throughout the entire series.

#3: Shiki – Toshio Ozaki

The reason Toshio is amongst my favourite characters has a lot to do with the things he does through the series. Again due to spoiler reasons I can’t exactly explain what part of him left such a huge impression on me, but those who watched the series can probably imagine what I’m referring to. I will say that we don’t often get doctors as main characters, and this makes him a unique main character for this series to work with.

#2: Sarai-ya Goyou – Masanosuke Akitsu

Masanosuke was completely unlike your average samurai, lacking in confidence due to his timid personality. He had a subtle background, and the entire series was about him coming to terms with both himself and his new friends where he was forced to question his own morals. He was a terrific lead character with excellent development throughout the series, and the chemistry he had with the rest of the cast worked in just about every way.

#1: Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – Watashi

This top 6 is really dominated by Noitamina, but both Shiki, Sarai-Ya Goyou and Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei featured some truly terrific characters, al in their own way. My favourite was Watashi, though. It’s like I said above: every single episode was dedicated to developing Watashi in a different way, depending on the choices he made. He was generally a loser, but in some he was actually successful. In some he was an idiot, in others he turned into a prankster and in others he completely wasted his time. Everything comes together wonderfully at the end, everything about his development feels completely calculated. And that’s what made me chose him as my favourite male character of 2010.

Top 6 Female Characters

#6: Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – Noloty Maruchie

Noloty could be a main character or a side one; Armed Librarians always was a bit vague on who its main characters were, but with the impact she made on the story, I’m considering her a main one. The thing is that with Noloty, she could have easily been a really annoying character: she’s the epitome of morality. But the creators played it so pure, making her naivety both a cure and a curse with long-lasting implications. Because of this she avoided the problem that most characters with strong morals have: becoming preachy.

#5: Seikimatsu Occult GakuinMaya Kumashiro

Occult Gakuin’s biggest fault was that it spent too much time on Maya’s character, and too little on the plot. This left a really unbalanced series. But granted, Maya was an awesome character in the end. She was ridiculously fun to watch as a strong character with plenty of flaws and her deadpan attitude to everything was consistently entertaining. On top of that, Occult Gakuin is one of the first shows who can actually boast some good five-minute DVD-specials that show a very cute younger version of her.

#4: Cross Game – Tsukishima Aoba

The creators really had a knack for portraying Aoba in situations that turned out completely different from what you first thought they were. Aoba is a very talented baseball player and teacher to Kou, and yet it’s tragic that due to being a girl, she can’t really participate in official matches. Her loyalty to Wakaba combined with her wonderful realistic portrayal made her a character who was consistently enjoyable throughout 50 episodes.

#3: Letter Bee – Nichi

Nichi is awesome in just about everything she does. Her innocence is both comedic gold and captivating in the serious scenes. She works well in combination with just about every other character due to her childish jealousy and loyalty.

#2: Kobato – Hanato Kobato

Clamp… you did it again. I’m not sure why, but they really have a talent to create captivating characters with really strong developments, and Kobato was 2010’s addition to this. For most of Kobato’s first half, she was this typical ditzy female character who just runs around, but as the series moved on, she more and more grew up, found her identity and her conclusion was amongst the best of the year. I usually like strong characters, but Kobato’s charms and innocence really won me over.

#1: Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – Hamyuts Meseta

This number one spot was a no-brainer for me. Hamyuts Meseta is in a completely different league from all of the other characters this year. She single-handedly took the concept of a strong female character and gave a totally new meaning to it. She was just a fantastic anti-heroine throughout the entire series, and her wishes to die were only a slight hint to her eventual back-story. Hamy consistently kicked ass when she appeared on the screen and her entire appearance was like a steam train: nearly unstoppable.