Category: Other:

Kimi ni Todoke Dropped+ Which Series do You Want Me To Blog? Continuation

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Look, I’ve been thinking about this and yeah, I’m going to drop Kimi ni Todoke. It was an interesting enough experience, but it’s at this point become too much of a chore to blog it, as a lot of people pointed out. It could have been a nice slice of life-series, but having to write about it on a weekly basis, it just got on my nerves a little too much.

Now, the question is what to replace it with: what series can I use in replacement to keep me busy this season. I have enough problems finding enough series to blog during this season, so finding an eighth one is going to be virtually impossible. Some people suggested to just blog an older series, and you know what? Why not? This blog started out partially as a review blog of old series anyway.

On top of that, since Kimi ni Todoke was the winner of the “What Show do you want me to blog”-contest back in September, I do want to make up for it somehow and spend the rest of Kimi ni Todoke’s airtime on something more worthwhile.

So here:s the thing: post a comment, leaving the names of up to three anime. The only restrictions are:
– Only 14 episodes or less.
– I haven’t watched it yet. For a quick list, I compiled a quick list here (note the beautiful lay-out) and note that those titles are listed in the way that they appear on AniDB. Any anime not on this list is eligible.
– No movies.

Apart from that, I don’t care: TV-series, ovas, whether they’re 2 years old or 20. Whether it has 13 episodes or only 2 or even 1. Whether it’s an original series or just a continuation. Recommend me the best series with 14 episodes or less that I haven’t seen yet, and I will cover it on a weekly basis just as I do with all of the other series I’m blogging. I don’t care whether it’s only available in raw or even German or French (although do note that it should at least be available somewhere). If the series with the most votes only has 1, 2 or 3 episodes, I’ll probably end up with the top-ranked series that total about 13 or 14 in amount of episodes episodes.

This is a quick poll, the deadline is upcoming Friday January 8th, 23:59GMT and any votes after that won’t count. After that, I’ll start to blog whatever series has the most votes.

Here are the results so far:
Ah! My Goddess – 1
Aria – The Animation – 46
Aria the Origination – 2
Armor Hunter Mellowlink – 1
Bakemonogatari – 1
Black Blood Brothers – 1
Boys Be – 1
Bubblegum Crisis – 1
Cyber City Oedo 808 – 1
Dance in the Vampire Bund – 6
Denpa teki na Kanojo – 2
Diebuster – 6
Divergence Eve – 1
Dual! Parallel Trouble – 1
Durara – 7
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World – 1
Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu – 1
Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid – 1
Gag Manga Biyori – 2
Genshinken – 7
Gravitation – 3
Gunbuster 1988 – 10
Halo Legends – 1
Hatsukoi Limited – 1
Honey and Clover II – 8
I My Me Strawberry Eggs – 2
Innocent Venus – 7
Jinzou Ningen Kikaider – 1
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 1
Kashimasi: Girl Meets Girl – 1
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Kyuuketsuki Densetsu Satsujin Jiken – 1
Kita e ~Diamond Dust Drops~ – 1
Koi Kaze – 50
Loveless – 2
Macross Plus – 9
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto – 1
Maria Holic – 2
MazinKaiser – 1
Meine Liebe Wieder – 2
Midori no Hibi – 4
Mnemosyne – 6
Nodame Cantabile Finale – 4
Onegai Teacher – 3
Ookami Kakushi – 3
Patlabor OVA I – 1
Patlabor OVA II – 1
Photon – the Idiot Adventures – 1
Read or Die OVA – 1
Record of Lodoss War – 2
Seikai no Monshou – 11
Sketchbook – 6
Sora no Oto – 4
Sweat Punch – 2
The Five Killers – 1
The Great Horror Family – 3
Tide-Line Blue – 1
Victorian Romance Emma – 4
Windy Tales – 8
Yami no Matsuei – 1
A Certain Scientific Railgun – 1
Aria – The Natural – 2
Battle Angel Alita – 1
Black Lagoon – 1
Blue Submarine no.6 – 1
DNA2 – 1
FLCL – 7
Gankutsuou – 3
Ghost in the Shell SAC – 1
Gungrave – 1
Haibane Renmei – 1
Honey and Clover – 6
Hoshi no Koe – 1
Jyu Oh Sei – 1
Kemonozume – 1
Key The Metal Idol – 2
Kikoushi Enma – 1
Kino no Tabi – 4
Kurau – 1
Last Exile – 6
LovelyComplex – 1
Macross – Do you Remember Love – 1
Monster – 13
Mushiuta – 1
Muteki Kanban Musume – 1
Paranoia Agent – 14
Pet Shop of Horrors – 2
Planetes – 7
Princess Tutu – 11
Sengoku Basara – 1
Shamanic Princess – 1
Tenchi Muyo – Ryo-Ouki – 1
Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo – 1
Toradora – 1

The series in italics don’t fit one of the restrictions. Out of the posts that suggested more than three series, I selected the first three that met the restrictions.

Well, so much for the poll. I just discovered that someone has been spamming nearly 30 votes for Koi Kaze. If you’re really going to be that immature about it, then I’ll just cancel this little contest.

I’m still going to blog an old show. Instead, I’ll just pick the series that seems the most interesting out of the ones you suggested. I’ll decide which one it’s going to be after I get home from university.

Some Quick first Impressions: Sora no Oto, Cobra the Animation, Reform Withuot Wasted Draws – The Legend of Koizumi

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation, Some Quick First Impressions, Sora no Oto

Sora no Oto

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to learn to play the trumpet.
Haha! Finally a good show this season! I like how this series created its own city with its own culture and customs, which will prove to be very interesting if explored correctly by the rest of this series. The lead character is obviously moe, but likable, and definitely not among the stereotypes that give moe a bad name: she has a potentially interesting background, she’s got a goal that’s she’s willing to work hard for. If the creators write the rest of the series right then we could have a potential gem here. I also love the soundtrack (French lyrics! With an actual French guy singing them!). It’s not without its problems, though. It’s a bit cheesy at times, and that legend that tells about the five girls… it’s a shame that shows are still relying on such an overused plot device. Still, this should be relatively minor if the rest of the series gets developed properly, and doesn’t get stuck inside pool, beach and hot spring episodes.
OP: Great! Gentle and upbeat, a contender for the best OP of the season.
ED: This one’s obnoxious J-rock, though.
Potential: 70%

Cobra the Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass and gets lots of women.
So after two OVAs, Cobra finally got his own remake TV-show. I didn’t really like the OVAs, but thankfully the story in this episode was much better built up than that of the OVAs. Here you can really see that it made use of its extra time now. I also admit that the soundtrack is very nice and great for building up tensions. This episode was far from perfect, though. It’s pretty silly, but for a show that seems to be geared at entertainment, the animation is pretty bad, and the villains are just nonsensical (Haha! I have a hostage! Now let me release her and flee like a coward!). The action-scenes don’t make any sense and are poorly built up, and if the rest of the series is like this then I feel like it’s not going to work.
Edit: I just noticed that Osamu Dezaki is doing the screenplay and storyboard. What happened to him,? He could have made the visuals far more interesting to watch with this limited budget.
OP: Terrible lyrics, but pretty good sound.
ED: Decent enough ballad.
Potential: 30%

Reform Withuot Wasted Draws – The Legend of Koizumi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the former president of Japan.
Ah, yeah. The only thing I had read about The Legend of Koizumi was that it was supposed to be a political Mahjong series. I had no idea how the creators would plan to do that, but it sounded interesting at least. Well, so it turns out to b ea parody: the show grabs various world leaders and makes them play Mahjong in an over the top fashion (with Koizumi obviously playing the Schwarzenegger-inspired lead character). It was funny, and I laughed, but the direction is outright terrible. It establishes nothing, it pulls all sorts of random plot twists out of its ass, the Japanese are portrayed as regular anime action heroes, while the rest of the Asians are a bunch of stereotypical fascist pigs. It overplays the incredibly overreacting facial expressions. I can’t see this one remaining funny for long.
Potential: 20%

Hi no Tori Uchuu-Hen Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



You know these really good athletes, performers or artists? And how they make what they do, whether it’s sports, acting, acrobatics, painting or whatever, look so incredibly easy? Well, that’s this movie. I mean seriously, I can wind a long story around it, but it’s just a brilliant movie. In fact, the Uchuu-hen and Houou-hen have a very good chance of becoming my favourite movies of the seventies and eighties!

It was a real eye-opener: to see how good the story of a movie can be if it’s small enough to fit into such a small time-frame without being rushed. This is exactly the example of how you should tell a story in a movie right, and I’ve only seen a select other movies that had such a solid storyline as the Hi no Tori movies.

The Uchuu-chapter of Hi no Tori takes, like its title makes you suspect, place in space. Where the Houou-hen focused on folklore, the Yamato-hen focused on romance, the Uchuu-hen is a full fledged mystery story. There’s a lot of emphasis on the past and backgrounds, with the eventual answers turning out very imaginative, like you’d expect from Osamu Tezuka. Again, Rintaro did an awesome job in building up the tension, and slowly revealing this backstory. It’s an excellent example of mystery done right.

This movie has the same elements that made me such a big fan of the Hi no tori franchise in the first place: lots of emphasis on character-development, characters with huge flaws, themes of betrayals and punishments and the celebration of life and progression also is prevalent in this movie. The creators yet again manage to weave them into a gripping science-fiction story. Even though it doesn’t exactly have a big budget to work with, it’s a terrific example of how to correctly write a movie.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Truly excellent mystery and build-up.
Characters: 9/10 – Lots of terrific character-development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Good animation; awesome soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – Tons of nice ideas and details thrown into the setting.

Anyway, this concludes my movie spree, and it’s probably going to be the last one I’ll be having in a long time. It’s been a great way to close off the decade and start a new one, especially considering how I’m getting less and less confident to find eight bloggable shows for the new season.

Hi no Tori Yamato-Hen Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Yamato-hen is a bit of a step back from the Houou-hen, but really: who cares. With such a brilliant franchise as Hi no Tori, it’s still a very good and enjoyable movie!

I think that the biggest flaw for this one is that it becomes a bit too preachy in the end, the morals and values it tries to push on in the end are a bit too obvious, and the love story between the lead male and female just doesn’t live up to some of the other stories of Hi no Tori. It just misses something.

However, it has plenty of good stuff to boast. Like all of the Hi no Tori stories: it’s a great celebration of human evolution and progression. It tells of conflicting ideals, difficult choices that have to be made, betrayal and tragedy. It again puts a huge emphasis on character-development (something that a whole lot more movies should do!), which is powerful and creative.

I have a lot of respect for Osamu Tezuka, but that’s mostly because of his creativity, and his will to go with things that nobody else would think of. With Hi no Tori, however, he established himself as a truly brilliant storyteller, and Rintaro again did justice to this story, even though it’s not as good as the Houou chapter.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Tons of creative twists, despite the simple story.
Characters: 8/10 – Well developed, but some of them are a bit preachy at times.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Good art, animation and music.
Setting: 8/10 – One of the very few stories that tells about Japan’s tribal age.

Hi no Tori Houou-Hen Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



One thing that I’ve noticed with movies is that they’re often too short: they just don’t have the luxury of TV-series, which can take their time in building up their story. It’s much harder to create an awesome movie than an awesome TV-series because of this. I think that Movies tend to be a bit too ambitious for their own good at times. They should be excellent mediums to adapt short stories, but instead I’ve seen tons of them that try stuff much larger stories into their airtime than what’s good for them.

Now, this may just be me who has a bias for folklore, but holy crap, this movie is really amazing. The Houou chapter of Hi no Tori is THE example of how a movie can be done right.

This movie doesn’t exactly have the best animation (though it’s pretty good nonetheless), and even the setting isn’t that big, the action also isn’t why you should watch this, but on the other hand: it really is storytelling at its finest. Osamu Tezuka wrote a brilliant original story, and Rintaro did an awesome attempt in putting the story into an hour-long movie.

It basically follows two men, with completely different backgrounds, around the 7th century AD. What makes their stories awesome is the way its told, and the excellent characterization of these two. It plays around with tons of morals and values, and both these lead characters go through some very powerful developments. They’re complete anti-heroes, and yet you can see the reasons for their actions and their development.

The pacing is slow, but through one of the best soundtracks I have heard of any movie from the 70s and 80s it really gets the best out of the characters. It’s one of those rare movies that just “works”, thanks to its excellent source material. You also don’t have to worry about overlap with the TV-series of Hi no Tori, which was produced in 2004: apparently Osamu Tezuka wrote so many awesome stories for his Hi no Tori manga that there was plenty to choose from from the anime creators. And here I thought that there couldn’t possibly anymore brilliant stories aside from the ones that the TV-series adapted!

Storytelling: 10/10 – Clever, powerful, excellent pacing. Just about everything went right here.
Characters: 9/10 – For a movie they’re really impressive, and shine in their character-development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Beautiful art, good animation, fantastic soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – In what other anime do you get to see the rise of Buddhism in Japan?

Black Jack The Movie Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Black Jack is a medical thriller, and one of the most popular characters that Osamu Tezuka created. For this movie, one of his stories was adapted by Osamu Dezaki. The combination of these two makes it into quite a unique movie, which is actually pretty good.

This movie can boast well-drawn surgical operations (and quite disturbing ones at that!) that really show a significant amount of medical knowledge. It’s also got great characterizations for every character involved. Even the smallest side-characters stand out with their own character-designs, role and personality, which really is typical of Osamu Tezuka. The lead villain’s story is also well explored, and she feels complete at the end of only 90 minutes.

The story itself has quite a few interesting ideas thrown into it. The concept of super-humans was fascinating, and it’s well developed throughout the movie. My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t always flow too well. Some events in the movie feel forced, and just there to keep the story going. One particular plot twist involving wine is just downright stupid.

Overall, I like this movie a bit more than the Two Doctors of Darkness, but the difference isn’t large. This one just has a better direction (courtesy of Osamu Dezaki), but they’re both pretty interesting movies. The one thing that I’m not sure about is whether Black Jack really needed this many adaptations. I mean, he’s gotten three movies, 14 OVA episodes and 78 TV-episodes. Isn’t that a bit overdoing it?

Storytelling: 7/10 – Good direction, though a tad forced at times.
Characters: 8/10 – Good characterization.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Great art and visual effects.
Setting: 8/10 – Very nice amount of medical knowledge for the creators to work with.

Air The Motion Picture Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Many of the criticisms and praises I had for the Clannad Movie also go for the Toei version of air: their big disadvantage lies only in their length. They’re short, and therefore not as engaging as the Kyoani-versions. But they’re still excellent movies that did a great job of cutting up their stories in only ninety minutes. If Osamu Dezaki would have gotten the same amount of episodes as with the Kyoani series, then I’m sure that the end result would not have been inferior to them. Both Air and Clannad have wonderful story-lines, and both Toei and Kyoani did a wonderful job in adapting them.

The visuals: also pretty much the same story. In technical terms, Kyoani did a more fluid and consistent job, but on the other hand the Toei version loves to play with different camera angles, visual direction, filters and interesting screenplay, that makes it a visual feast in its own way, and yet it doesn’t get in the way of the storyline unlike some of Shaft’s productions.

The characters? The same can be said again: the side-characters are still wonderful, and the lead female is actually much more strong-headed than she was in the Kyoani-version, which gives a completely different dimension to her. In exchange, the male lead again just isn’t as interesting as he was in the Kyoani version: again, instead of the male lead helping the female lead amidst his own problems, this movie shows the female lead as she helps the male lead amidst her own problems. It actually works really well.

Air again cuts away all of the side-stories, to focus completely on the main storyline of Air. It’s much more of a straightforward romance story this way, instead of a strange pseudo-harem, and it works pretty well. But yeah, the climaxes just aren’t as emotional due to the small airtime. In any case though, Key really was lucky that its works were adopted twice, by people with great but completely different talents. At this point, I hope that Genji Monogatari wasn’t the last we’ve seen from Osamu Dezaki, because this guy is a truly unique director, and he shows it in this movie yet again.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Great cut and paste job to fit the story into 90 minutes.
Characters: 8/10 – Needed more time to flesh out characters, otherwise excellent in a different way from the TV-series.
Production-Values: 9/10 – A visual feast thanks to Osamu Dezaki’s visual direction.
Setting: 8/10 – Pretty nice, but not the main focus.

Clannad The Motion Picture Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’m not exactly sure what’s up with Kyoani and Toei’s key rivalry (when one of them adapts a key work, the other one does at well and vice versa), but the Clannad movie premiered about a month before the start of the TV-series. It took me this long to watch it due to the spoilers, but I’m glad that I did in the end, because Osamu Dezaki did the story a surprising amount of justice, considering how he managed to stuff such a huge story that took Kyoani 50 episodes, into just 90 minutes.

When you look at the big picture, this movie is obviously inferior to the TV-series, because it has far less time to flesh out its characters. Nevertheless, when you look at the individual details, there’s quite a lot to like about it. In fact, even though the movie and the TV-series have the same story, the execution, focuses, themes and characters are so completely different that they’re both worth watching in their own ways.

First of all, the graphics. The TV-series actually has better animation, but the screenplay of the movie, with typical Osamu Dezaki effects, camera-angles and filters is far more interesting to watch. The visual direction may be less consistent, the budget of the movie is actually smaller than Kyoani’s version, but it’s much more interesting to look at.

As for the characters, the movie dumps most of the side-stories and instead gives its full focus on the main characters (while not forgetting to spend about a minute of background on the major side-characters, in order to make them more than just one-dimensional paper bags). I was especially surprised by Nagisa and Sunohara, who are actually more interesting to watch than their versions of the TV-series. Nagisa is a much stronger character here in this movie, so much actually that she reverses the entire role of her Tomoya: where it was Tomoya who looked after Nagisa in the TV-series, here Nagisa looks after Tomoya. Sunohara is actually much more of an extreme character here, but the visual comedy around him makes him actually quite charming.

The after story also has quite a different approach to it. While not as impressive as in the TV-series, I liked it, as well as the role that the side-characters played in it. Overall, these people were really enjoyable to watch, even though the movie had very little time to really explore them individually. They do a great job in supporting the main storyline without overtaking it.

Where this movie drops points, however, is with Tomoya himself, especially his angst. He’s just too gloomy throughout nearly the entire part of the movie, and doesn’t really feel like the dynamic character he should be, for the role that was given to him. And that’s a bloody shame, because he’s the main character!

The thing with Osamu Dezaki is that his works are either brilliant and imaginative, or they flop gigantically. The Clannad movie belongs to his better side, and he showed that the Clannad Story even works in movie format with the right amount of cutting. This is really what recap movies should realize: you can’t tell a story just by cutting things randomly, you have to create a good standalone story as well.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well paced, creative and actually puts 50 episodes into 90 minutes while standing on its own as a solid story.
Characters: 8/10 – Tomoya is too angsty, but all the other characters have their charms.
Production-Values: 9/10 – The animation quality itself isn’t special, but the visual direction makes more than up for it.
Setting: 8/10 – Simplified, but it works.

Marco the Movie – Haha o Tazunete Sanzenri Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



What a tear-jerker of a movie. I don’t exactly know how this movie compared to the original TV series of the seventies, but damn, it was so worth it. An excellent recommendation if you’re looking for a sad and depressing movie that’s full of emotions.

This is just one of those recap movies that just works: the creators successfully stuffed the story it’s based on in 90 minutes, and they more than gave the lead character of Marco credit. When a recap movie can get such a huge emotional response out of me like with this movie, I really don’t have any complaints.

The story of Marco is an endearing one, as he travels from the middle of Italy to the middle of Argentine in order to see his mother again. The reason why this movie works is his fantastic characterization throughout his journey. He’ such a lovable character and yet he has to go through so many ordeals in order to get to his destination. And it’s not like this is a stereotypical world in which everyone is against him either: some people are nice, others are just tired of street-kids and treat him roughly. Like most of Nippon Animation’s literary adaptations, the setting is very realistic.

As for the flaws… it does make use of the “useless mother”-cliche, but heck: for once it’s central to the plot, so it’s not that big of a deal. At heart, this movie doesn’t just show the ordeals of a small kid, but also tries to show us who he is, what drives him and what he wants to be when he grows up. It’s a movie that has lots of the charms of a regular World Masterpiece Theatre series, cropped up into just an hour and a half. I’m still amazed at how well and complete the result turned out.

In any case, this is the last thing you’ll see of me this decade. Have a happy end of the year, everyone!

Storytelling: 9/10 – Realistic, heart-wrenching and yet not overdoing the drama.
Characters: 9/10 – Marco is such an engaging character.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Simple graphics, but the animation is fluid and the music is powerful.
Setting: 9/10 – Ah, the realism!

2009 Summary

by psgels, posted in Yearly Summaries

Overall 2009 wasn’t exactly the best year ever, but it still had its share of awesome series and concepts. Here’s my list of the ones that stood out the most:

Biggest Disappointment

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai

Gundam 00 is a heavy contender in this category. While the first season had a complex political story, the second season merely degenerated into “Kill Ribbons”. The side-plots hardly ever went anywhere, not to mention the dumbest way to waste military resources ever with the Trans-Am Kamikaze Gagas. Still, even this was trumped by the Munto Remake. Here the characters had the chance to remake a series with a fascinating setting and give it give it the time it deserves. So what do they do? A bloody recap! If this was any other studio it might make sense as a way to save budget and all, but this is KYOANI: out of all the production-companies out there, they should be the least worried about money-problems.

Worst First Episode

Abunai Sisters

I still consider it as one of the highlights of this year that I was actually asked by a professional company to review the first episode of this, but I really can’t deny that it was also the worst first episode of not just this year, but of the whole decade. There were so many things wrong with it, the voice acting, the humour, the graphics.

Worst Series

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

Of course, this award only goes for the series that I actually completed, OVAs and Movies excluded. I didn’t watch any series that were too terrible this year, but the bottom of the ladder is for me populated by Saki (too much moe, too many clichés and stereotypes, way too little substance), Kurokami (pointless action with a very underdeveloped backstory), Munto TV (only what? 3,5 episodes of new material?). But this one really takes the cake. 90% of the time it’s just not funny and simply repeating itself over and over again, and the very few funny moments didn’t excuse the pain it was for me to sit through this.

Most Promising Studio

David Production

This is the award I hand out every year for production-companies that are either new or have put forth major improvements. This year, I’m in no doubt of which studio to give it to. David Production came from absolutely nowhere, and yet they already put forth two very impressive series with their own distinctive style, which both were very refreshing for their respective genre: Ristorante Paradiso is a very gentle slice of life series, while Armed Librarians had a very bold execution, breaking heaps of clichés and stereotypes in the process. Of course, there’s also that matter of Dogs Bullets and Carnage, but ah well.

Best Animation Studio

Bones

Bones really surpassed itself this year in terms of animation. It didn’t have just one awesome-looking series, it had four of them that I loved (Bonen no Xamdou, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Tokyo Magnitude and Darker than Black Ryuusei no Gemini). They weren’t always paced well (coughXamdoucough) but all of them had a lot of creativity and very good production-values.

Biggest Surprise

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

This category is simple: what series surprised me the most during the past year. Birdy the Mighty is for example a really heavy contender in this category: its first season had plenty of faults, and there the second season came and improved on it in every single aspect. Or take the new Mazinger: I really didn’t expect beforehand that it would turn into such an epic series with an actual linear storyline. Still, I’m going to hand out this award to the start of Tokyo Magnitude: it started off with a seemingly mundane episode in which nothing happened. The huge contrast with the dark and bittersweet second episode managed to land it this award.

Best Old Series I Happened to See This Year

Strange Dawn

I’ve watched a lot of great series this year. Ashita no Nadja, Glass Mask (2005) and Kaleido Star really deserve a special mention here because of their amazingly developed characters, but the series that impressed me even more was Sato Junichi’s Strange Dawn. There’s so much detail put into the storytelling, and the characters are just incredible. It’s a very dramatic series, but for me the drama really worked and culminated into an absolutely stunning ending.

Best Animation

Bonen no Xamdou

Okay, I’ve talked about Xamdou’s amazing animation often enough already, but seriously: it does have the best animation of any TV-series I have seen thus far. Every episode is just incredibly well animated, ranging from the quiet scenes to the busy action scenes. Runners up are Hashire, Melos! from Aoi Bungaku, Canaan, Aoi Hana and Eden of the East.

Best Background Art

Guin Saga

Eden of the East had gorgeous backgrounds, but granted most of them were just filtered photos. The really great stuff in terms of background art this year came from the fantasy architecture: the Atlas building of Shangri-la was jaw-droppingly beautiful, the architecture of the various buildings in Armed Librarians was full of imagination, but the Guin Saga really deserves the most credits here, because it feels like every single building was designed with epic in mind: huge, imaginative, colourful. They made sure that there was always some kind of eye-candy to look at.

Best Music

Phantom

It’s getting a bit boring to keep giving away these awards to Bee-Train (this is the fourth year in a row that a Bee-Train series walks off with the award for best music in my summaries), but they just keep making these series with awesome music. With this soundtrack, Hikaru Nanase solidified herself as my favourite soundtrack composer along with Yuki Kajiura. The soundtrack of Phantom is varied, exciting and powerful. There are so many styles in this soundtrack and nearly all songs kick ass. Runners up are Michiko e Hatchin (hey, it was produced by the director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo) Guin Saga (epic, just like the series) and Birdy the Mighty Decode 2 (excellent in creating a dark atmosphere).

Best-Looking Graphics

Aoi Bungaku

This award isn’t for animation quality, but rather: which series looked the best? I was ready to hand out this award to Casshern Sins again, but then Aoi Bungaku appeared. It had six different animation and graphic styles that, each of which looked absolutely beautiful and they were full of eye candy. That’s not to say that Casshern Sins dulled in, of course. It still was an absolutely beautiful series with some of the best character-designs out there.

Best Action

Birdy the Mighty Decode 2

2009 had 3 series with beyond epic action-scenes: the new Mazinger, Bonen no Xamdou and Birdy the Mighty’s second season. Xamdou’s action had some of the best animation to back it up with, the Mazinger was always fun to watch with its over the top storyline, but I decided to give this award to Birdy the Mighty due to Kazuki Akane’s powerful directing that made even the least impressive action scenes stand out and make impact.

Best Comedy

Marie & Gali

2009 was a great year for comedies: we had such gems as GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, which always provided fresh and interesting jokes around various art topics. Then there was Skip Beat with its hilarious sense of humour when it wanted to, and let’s not forget Tentai Senshi Sunred with its typical style of combining extreme realism to extreme stupidity. Still, for me Marie & Gali was without a doubt the best in the comedy genre this year. Every single episode, it comes with something incredibly creative and imaginative to make fun of the principles of physics, and every single episode, it delivers and cracks me up. Now that’s what I call a good comedy.

Best Slice of Life

Cross Game

2009 was an excellent year for the slice of life genre. There were countless series that provided a great take on something so seemingly dull as just showing the daily lives of a bunch of people. Ristorante Paradiso was a very gentle and well-paced series (in which the characters are actual adults for once!), Tentai Senshi Sunred took this to the absurd with its parodies of the Super Sentai Genre, and GA was also a delight to watch simply because of its characters, even during the times when they weren’t trying to make jokes. Cross Game wins in this category though, because of its always tongue-in-cheek execution that loves to play around with all of the different characters. When the characters are living their daily lives, there’s always something interesting going on.

Best Mystery

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

This is of course a no-brainer. The other great mystery-series of 2009 were Pandora Hearts and Full Metal Alchemist, which both had really well integrated mystery into their settings, and both just kept the twists coming. Umineko however took this even a step further. Nearly every episode had me form countless of theories about what the heck was going on, why things happened the way they did and which one of the tons of plot twists actually wasn’t a red herring.

Best Movie (out of the ones that I watched anyway)

Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea

It’s always a bit tricky to figure out which movies I can put into these categories and which ones not; this year there were four movies that made the biggest impression on me: Furusato Japan (quiet but very solid and great songs), The Sky Crawlers (Mamoru Oshii doing something completely different… and it actually works), the fifth Kara no Kyoukai movie (great and complex storyline) and Ponyo. It sounds clichéd, but I’m really going to have to say that Ponyo is the best of those four. Miyazaki really showed that he’s still able to make wonderful movies with amazing visuals and charming characters.

Best Romance

Aoi Hana

2009 was an excellent year for romance. There were so many quality romance shows that aired this year, that I’m probably going to remember this as a year of romance. There were great romance series as Genji Monogatari, Sasameki Koto and White Album, and the romance in other shows also rocked, like in Birdy the Mighty, Clannad After Story, Cross Game, Ristorante Paradiso, Spice and Wolf II and Shikabane Hime Kuro. Still, Aoi Hana did it best in my opinion. Even though it’s lesbian romance, it still was very detailed, engaging and realistic. It made excellent use of its characters and their development and the romance was never cheesy or unrealistic.

Most Imaginative Setting

Michiko e Hatchin

Full Metal Alchemist really surprised me how deep its setting was, especially considering the first season. Armed Librarians is also looking out to a great setting here, and Umineko really revolutionized the mystery-genre with its background story. Still, I’ve been the most impressed by Michiko e Hatchin and its depiction of Brazil a few years back. It felt like the creators did a huge amount of research in order to make it come across as authentic as possible.

Best Character-Development

Birdy the Mighty Decode 2

What an improvement the characters made over the first season. It feels like every single one of them had some memorable development. The new characters also rocked, and even they went through subtle changes. I also really liked how Phantom developed its characters throughout its arcs. It was a bit over the top, but the main cast was always engaging. Other greatly developed characters were Touya (White Album I and especially II), Remus and Amnelis (Guin Saga), Hatchin (Michiko e Hatchin) and Erin (Kemono no Souja Erin).

Best Story

Michiko e Hatchin

This is a tough one, but I decided to give Michiko e Hatchin this award, because pretty much everything clicked. It was varied, it had a great conclusion, it was fun, endearing, tense and all sorts of other things throughout the series. Of course, Birdy the Mighty Decode also had a great story, Guin Saga had great politics, and Full Metal Alchemist and Armed Librarians are looking to be great contenders for next year’s version of this award.

Top 10 2009

I’m not going for a top 20 this year, for two reasons. First one is time constraint (hey, last years I didn’t have to write a decade summary at the same time as well), but also because I noted that as I compiled my list of favourites, that I really didn’t have any particular order for the numbers 11-25. There were a lot of great series this year, but just don’t ask me to rank them beyond a top 10. If you want to know which series I mean: Shangri-La, White Album, Pandora Hearts, Bonen no Xamdou, Ristorante Paradiso, Cross Game, Shin Mazinger, GA, Spice and Wolf II, Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae, Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini, Hajime no Ippo – New Challenger, Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood and Shikabane Hime Kuro. All of these were great, just don’t ask me to rank them. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s my Top 10 for this year:

#10: Guin Saga

The Guin Saga was epic fantasy done right. It started out in a land full of creative creatures, races and locations, and gradually moved to a more politically oriented story, both of which rocked. Now granted, it is a very incomplete story (still waiting on that second season announcement…) and the animation at times wasn’t sufficient to capture all of the epicness of the storyline, but it’s a great series nonetheless, with a terrific soundtrack and background art.

#9: Aoi Hana

I really liked the concept of Noise: Fuji TV’s attempt to create a second Noitamina. All of the series that resulted from it were excellent, but it’s a shame that it didn’t work out in the end and the timeslot was dropped. Nevertheless, Aoi Hana was a truly excellent series with a great direction and production-values. It’s was very realistic for a romance series, and the characters were very charming and engaging to watch.

#8: Clannad After Story

This sequel of Clannad earned its place on this list, mostly due to the amazing developments it took during its second half. While most of the series was just a regular high school series (that has been done much better by other series this year, like Aoi Hana and GA), it really set itself apart from the rest during this second half. I’m not going to spoil what exactly happened, but the character-development that the lead character got out of it was amazing. Just a shame of that ending.

#7: Casshern Sins

Casshern Sins remained a very strong series throughout its second half. It still was beautifully drawn and animated, and the main storyline was very impressive. While it didn’t surpass the first half in terms of individual episodes, when you look at the total picture it remains a very impressive series with creative and well written dialogues and scenarios.

#6: Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

While this is the only series on this list that hasn’t finished yet, I do want to include it somehow because of its terrific execution, which was a true breath of fresh air in the fantasy-genre. The way it weaves tons of different storylines into one is done almost brilliantly, and it really makes use of the past in order to flesh out the present, and give every character sufficient and memorable development. Hamyuts Meseta herself is my favourite: a unique anti-heroine that kicks ass and yet isn’t your stereotypical evil overlord…ess.

#5: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

Tokyo Magnitude: a series that shows what would happen to Tokyo if it were struck by a huge earthquake today, all seen through the eyes of a young girl. And boy, was it impressive. It was a bittersweet series and the biggest tear-jerker of the year for me, and Mirai was such an engaging character. I’ve seen quite a few people who didn’t like the final twist at the end, but I personally loved the results of having this included. It made for a very memorable series.

#4: Phantom

Phantom turned into my favourite Bee-Train series after .Hack//Sign. It has many of their staples, but executed even better than usual. The great character-development of Ein and Zwei throughout the series is memorable and makes excellent use of its time-frame. The excellent music also adds. At times the drama may be a bit unrealistic and overstatement, but it had me hooked from start to finish.

#3: Michiko e Hatchin

I personally loved how this series had its moments of silliness, tension, action, drama and always made it a mystery what it would focus on next. On top of that, Hatchin was an awesome character, Satoshi was an awesome villain, Michiko was an awesome anti-heroine, and the chemistry between the entire cast rocked. The portrayal of Brazil was very accurate in my view, and this series always had something interesting. Definitely in my top 3 of this year.

#2: Aoi Bungaku

Madhouse did it again with this series. Amazingly stylish in six different and distinct ways, Each of the stories is different and stands on its own as a great story. The storytelling is just awesome, with as highlight Hashire Melos, but all of the other stories were amazing as well.

#1: Birdy the Mighty Decode 2

So my number one isn’t that much of a surprise for those who’ve been following my blog for a while now. The first season of Birdy the Mighty was pretty nice, but too childish at times. Then this series comes, and improves on it in every. single. way. The graphics are amazing, the action is fantastic, the characters gained tons of depth, it still pays attention to the setting and the people living in it, the storyline is compelling, the villains are awesome, I could just go on and on with singing praises over this series. It’s a well deserved favourite of this year, and only established Kazuki Akane even more as my favourite director ever.

Well, that’s it. A happy new year to everyone in advanced. And what were your favourites of 2009?