Category: Yearly Summaries

Compiling my top OPs and EDs of the year always is the most annoying part of writing up my yearly summaries, because this means that I have to listen to hordes of utterly horrid J-Pop songs in order to separate the cream of the crop. Still, having cringed for god knows how many times at some utterly terrible songs that eventually instantly made me turn for the off-button like some sort of reflex, I do want to highlight the series that do put in effort to create a memorable opening or ending. Whether it’s based on a simple well executed idea, or an ambitious project with a really interesting creative vision. I don’t care for OPs that just introduce the cast or hint un-subtly at random spoilers, or EDs that just contain a mellow ballad with a still image, I want to see something different or more. These too are great opportunities to showcase great animation.

So ere you have it, my top 23 of favorite OPs and EDs of the past year. Why such a random number as 23? Well… I miscounted. actually thought that I was making a top 20, but only found out too late that I had three entries too many for that.

Continue reading “2011 Summary Part 1: My Top 23 OPs and EDs” →

Okay, so this is the final part of my 2010 Summary: the part in which I talk about all of the series that aired during the past year.

Overall out of all of the years that I’ve been blogging, 2010 was the worst one so far. It had a lot of causes, mostly with the huge decrease in different series: this allowed for a lot less series that could try out something unique than usual. On top of that, less series than ever dared to go beyond 13 episodes and a lot of potential was cut short. This is the year in which you can really see the effects on the economic crisis on anime. On top of that, Gonzo died, Sunrise only focused on OVAs and Movies, Madhouse focused most of its talent on Redline and Production IG only released surprisingly mainstream series, so many of the usual heavy hitters weren’t in their top shape. Instead, AIC released more moe shows than ever, and other studios were pretty much doing the same in going for the moe and fanservice.

At the same time though, I also can’t say that this was a bad year for the anime industry. Perhaps only the Winter Season was mediocre, but there still were a lot of interesting series. Especially Noitamina had its best year ever, and there was no shortage of good comedies throughout the entire year. I in any case disagree with the people who say that “anime is dying”, because in any case 2011 is looking to be very promising. We just hit a little dip this year that simply made it not as good as the other years. There’s still plenty of good stuff, and that’s what the rest of this post will be about. Of course, these are all my opinions. Feel free to share your own in the comment section.

The Sleeper Hits of 2010
This section has been added to this list on request by Kalandra, and it’s basically a list of series that I feel went under the radar. It’s not a list of the most underrated series, instead I really want to give some attention to series that many people didn’t give a chance. It’s basically a “list of series that I liked but didn’t have many members on MAL who watched it. It’s not in any order, because I have no idea how to properly rank these. This includes sequels that may have gone beyond people’s radars. I’ve limited this list to just ten spots, and interestingly Yojou-han and Sarai-ya Goyou despite my fears didn’t make it in (though granted, they do take up places 11 and 12…)

Cobra The Animation

Cobra was just one of those series that came from out of nowhere, did what it wanted to do and then just disappeared again. Most of it is indeed forgettable, but it does have an array of pretty neat ideas stuffed into its stories. In fact, it’s the entire point of the Cobra franchise to have these dream-like adventures that may not make any sense whatsoever, but do take the viewer to many different and imaginative places.

Gag Manga Biyori+

I believe that this was the only series this season that wasn’t aimed at kids and that didn’t even get its first freaking episode subbed, so of course it’s a sleeper hit. I’m going to continue to hype this one though, because it really is hilarious If you’re looking for a hyperactive comedy, you can’t really get more hyperactive than this.

Marie&Gali 1st Season

This one is for the people who don’t mind childish series, because at heart, Marie&Gali remains a kids’ show. It’s basically there to explain science to kids, and the first season does this with so much heart. Every single episode is different, no joke is wasted or recycled and it consistently made me laugh. Now, whatever you do, though: don’t touch the second season. It’s much worse.

Heartcatch Precure

Again this is very childish, but Heartcatch Precure has plenty of charms and character development to make up for it. The Precure franchise had gotten pretty notorious for the way that it just kept releasing the same show over and over again, but Heartcatch Precure is a real breath of fresh air in the way that it takes an overused concept and somehow makes it work.

Ookiku Furikabutte – Natsu no Taikai-hen

This one actually surprised me when I found out how few people actually checked it out. I thought that the first season was really popular, but I guess that this was the reason why Funimation explicitly announced that it wasn’t going to release this series. It’s a great sports series, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a meticulously detailed look at baseball than here. If you like depth to your sports series, then go for this one.

Letter Bee Reverse

Again a really slow first season prevented a lot of people from checking this one out, I guess. Let me just say: it is all worth it in the end. The first season admittedly does have some gruelling parts to go through, but once the character development kicked in I was really hooked to this show.

Senkou no Night Raid

Admittedly, this is one show that’s very hard to like. It is packed with historical references and analyses and yet its first half comprises of random storylines: it can be very easily found boring. It is very rewarding for the ones with patience, though, because it turns into an interesting look at China in the 1930s and a typical series where the total is larger than the sum of its parts.

Yumeiro Patissiere – Professional

This mostly went under the radar because of its really long first season. Don’t worry though: it’s only 13 episodes long and packs a surprising amount of character development. You can follow it if you’ve watched the first two or three episodes of the original series, and if you’re tired of shoujo’s trend of seeing who can rip each other off the most, then this is an interesting recommendation as it’s a unique little shoujo series. Just don’t expect it to make the most amount of sense. ^^;

Tantei Opera Milky Homes

Before the start of the Fall Season, there was one show that based on its promo art and premise was dismissed by a huge amount of people. And indeed, if the creators played this type of show straight it indeed would have sucked. Don’t worry though, because it turned out to be a parody that doesn’t take any iota of itself seriously. It had a lot of fun poking holes in the phantom thief genres and recommended if you like parodies.

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

In 2010, most of the attention to Shaft went to Arakawa under the Bridge and people complaining about Dance in the Vampire Bund, so Soredemo Machi really went under the radar for quite a bit. It’s definitely not for you when you like your comedies to be based on punchlines, but the animation is surprisingly good and the dialogue felt quite realistic here. It’s a nice slice of life that does a bit more than just randomly showing the lives of a bunch of characters.

My 2010 Anime Awards

Worst First Episode

KissXSis

2010 unfortunately did have quite a share of utterly abysmal series, so it took me a while to figure out which first episode really was the worst out of all of them. There are the ridiculously poorly produced flash OVAs Tono to Issho and Haiyoru Nyaru-ani, but they do have this “anyone can make this; even you!”-vibe. There are kids shows like Digimon Xros Wars and Metal Fight Beyblade that were ridiculously poorly produced, but they remain fairly innocent. That SD Romance of the Three Kingdoms Gundam show was also pretty terrible, but that one was so bad that it became hilarious, so I’ll let that one slide as well. What I can’t let slide however is how much worse the bad fanservice shows have become, though. Special Credit goes to Ladies versus Butlers for its beyond awful writing, but the KissXSis TV-series takes the cake. This is everything that’s wrong with anime today: pointless fanservice, incredibly shallow characters, stupid premise, no creativity whatsoever.

Biggest Disappointment

Iron Man

There are sometimes these kinds of series in which everything seems right, and yet something doesn’t work along the way. I’ve had that with Durarara this year: it had a wonderful first half, but something in the second half didn’t sit right with me; it wasted too much time on build-up, it didn’t know whether it wanted to be Baccano’s spiritual successor or not, and too much time was focused on angsty teenagers. That wasn’t my biggest disappointment this year, though. Oh no. There is also this little series called Ookami Kakushi, which promised a great little mystery story from the original stories of Ryukishi07, only to end up completely rushed and stupid. Or how about Nurarihyon no Mago: it had a terrific director, and yet it ended up as nothing but an entire season of build-up. None of these disappointments was as bad as Iron Man, though. Iron Man was a series where so much hype had gone into. It had a great trailer, it was really promising to be another Madhouse epic… only for the actual series to be this ridiculously cheesy superhero flick.

Worst Series

Iron Man

This award only goes for the series that I actually finished… and yeah: again I have to go for Iron Man. The plot is ridiculously corny and the characters are just stupid. Beyond that, the individual stories have no creativity to them whatsoever, there is no depth, the series never really bothers to answer the why and how of its world. Out of all of the possible ways they could have taken this series, the creators ended up choosing one of the worst. Beyond that, Togainu no Chi also was pretty bad at times. For most of its airtime it at lest was a bit decent, but the final two episodes completely trashed any potential it could have had left, leaving it completely pointless.

Best Animation Studio

Bones

This is the award I give to the production studio whose collective works impressed me the most. This goes for the large ones, ie the ones who released three or more major works. In the previous years, there always was a clear cut winner, like there was one studio that really surpassed both itself and all of the others. In 2010, there really wasn’t a studio applicable for that: Madhouse created the great Yojou-han, but their mess on Iron Man was just… bad. A-1 Pictures was very diverse with many different looking and animated series. But they also made the disaster of Togainu no Chi. And Toei in the meantime was too busy ripping itself off with the new Digimon and Marie & Gali 2 in contrast with their great work on Heartcatch Precure and Marie&Gali’s first season. Overall, I still consider Bones’ best year to be 2009 (in which it also walked away with this award), and they did produce the pretty but otherwise completely underwhelming Heroman. Still, Full Metal Alchemist and Star Driver were some of the top visual feasts of the past year, so it’s once again my favourite production company of the year.

Most Promising Studio

Daume

This is the award I give to animation studios who are either completely new and really impressed me, or the small studios who suddenly significantly improved themselves compared to previous years. Daume is one of the latter: before this point they only worked on random moe shows. Then 2010 comes and from out of nowhere they deliver the incredibly unique Shiki without any seeming effort. I really hope that they can continue this trend that goes completely against what most other production studios seem to be doing right now.

Best Old Series I Happened to See This Year

Maison Ikkoku

I watched a lot of really good stuff this year, but my three favourites were without a doubt Nana, Maison Ikkoku and Patlabor’s second OVA. They’re all series that make excellent use of their long length: Patlabor’s OVA had some of the most interesting and imaginative scenes I have ever seen in an episodic anime, Nana was an emotional roller coaster and Maison Ikkoku showed character development over a scope that I had not yet seen before. They all had absolutely lovable characters, but I have to give the nudge to Maison Ikkoku for its incredible life-like portrayal of its characters.

Best Background Art

Sora no Oto

I really loved Sora no Oto’s realistic portrayal of the ruins of a European-esque town, and the background art played a huge part in that. It all just feels so incredibly authentic. Beyond that, Durarara and Uragiri also both had really well detailed background art that made great use of CG and Full Metal Alchemist also had a ton of eye candy for its backgrounds.

Most Pleasant Surprise

Heartcatch Precure

I try to check out every first episode of each new series that airs, but back in February, I actually had no intention of checking out the next Precure series. I really thought that it would be the same thing that we’ve been seeing for seven years now. I’m really glad that I was called out on it and ended up checking it out, because that first episode immediately convinced me that this would be a very special series. Other surprises were Yumeiro Patissiere’s second season which suddenly boasted more character development than I could ever have expected and Tantei Opera Milky Holmes which made great use of its seemingly dull premise to parody the heck out of it.

Best Music

Shiki

Finally: the first year in which a Bee-Train series isn’t walking away with this award. Of course, Yakumo’s soundtrack still is excellent, but it’s not the best this time. Other great soundtracks included the one from Letter Bee, Armed Librarians, Heartcatch Precure and Panty and Stocking, but my favourite was Shiki. They’ve got one particularly stunning track, and the creators knew it. You can listen to it over and over again without it getting boring, and it created a truly magnificent atmosphere.

Best Action

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

I have to give credit here for a bunch of series, for example Sengoku Basara’s first half and especially its sixth episode for delivering one of the best action episodes of the entire year (and it probably would have been the best action scene of the year if it wouldn’t have been for FMA) and Heartcatch Precure that despite being a shoujo series contained better action than a lot of shounen series out there. Star Driver’s action scenes meanwhile are all short but incredibly sweet, but none came close to the epic action of Full Metal Alchemist this year. Especially its finale was just awesome to watch but also just about all of the other climaxes were incredibly addictive.

Best Slice of Life

Cross Game

It may seem a bit boring to hand this award out to Cross Game yet again (it also walked away with this award last year), but it’s just so damn good at it: the way in which it portrays its characters during the slice of life moments are always hilarious and entertaining to watch. Screw the baseball matches, these character are at their best when nothing is happening. If it wasn’t for Cross Game, this award probably would have gone to either Sora no Oto or Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru for their great portrayal of their characters and despite not being 100% slice of life still were very interesting to watch when it just showed the characters randomly doing something.

Best Mystery

Letter Bee

I love mystery, but it’s a tricky genre done right. Good mystery lies both in asking and answering questions. The series that was probably the best in asking them was Sora no Oto with the really intriguing setting it created. In terms of answering, Kuroshitsuji always rocked with a ton of weird and interesting ideas. The show that had the best combination of both however was Letter Bee: its mystery always kept me watching, and when it finally got to the point of answering everything, it did not disappoint in the slightest.

Best Horror

Shiki

2010 only had very few good horror titles, and most of the horror series that were shown were only half horror anyway, like High School of the Dead, which despite its tons of fanservice had a consistent and gripping atmosphere or Rainbow, which also made great use of its huge atmosphere especially in the first half of the series. Kaidan Restaurant, while a very low-budgeted kids’ show turned out to be surprisingly decent at storytelling. But yeah, Shiki completely eclipses all of them. It takes a horribly abused subject material and reduces it back to the basics with a terrific atmosphere that can get really gruesome when it wants to.

Best Comedy

Gag Manga Biyori+

2010 introduced me to the weird world of Gag Manga Biyori. It’s completely bizarre, but it really has a collection of truly priceless episodes. No other series this year made me laugh this hard, this often. Some episodes are dedicated to parodying history, others at a particular genre and others are just one big joke that slowly gets built up. It’s surprisingly obscure at times, but its energy is unlike anything else I’ve seen. Beyond that, 2010 was a good year for comedy in any case. Squid Girl, Milky Holmes and Tentai Senshi Sunred were all absolutely hilarious in their own way as well.

Best Fanservice Anime

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

I usually don’t bother with the fanservice genre, because it’s riddled with bad and mediocre shows. 2010 also had plenty of them ranging from the mediocre Asobi ni Iku Yo to the terrible Ladies Versus Butlers and KissXsis to the downright porn of Yosuga no Sora. This year however, there were two fanservice series that I consider to be genuinely good and entertaining: B Gata H Kei with a witty portrayal of a teenaged girl and her twisted concepts of sex, and Panty and Stocking, which used its mature themes with the subtlety of an elephant in a porcelain shop. The fanservice obviously wasn’t the best part of the show, but the ballsy way in which it was used was a great breath of fresh air over seeing the hordes of bad fanservice shows that just keep popping up.

Best Script

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei

Yojou-han was a series that really tried to make the most of its time. It’s really well planned out, not to mention the incredibly fast dialogue that tries to tell as much as possible about what’s going on and how the protagonist is feeling. Beyond that I also want to give credits for the Armed Librarians and the first half of Durarara, in the way that they weaved many seemingly unrelated storylines together.

Best Animation

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

Perhaps not as incredible as last year’s winner of this award, Bonen no Xamdou, it’s still pretty much no contest here: the animation for especially the action scenes is just epic, and this series keeps up this quality for 64 whopping episodes. Near the end during the non action series there are some weak moments, but they are completely eclipsed by the many, many interestingly animated action scenes. The second and third place go to the Spring Noitamina series of Sarai-ya Goyou and Yojou-han: Masaaki Yuasa ‘s animation was consistently excellent and really brought life to the characters. Sarai-ya Goyou was the same, but in a meticulously detailed way with many subtle movements.

Best Romance

Cross Game

Usually in a romance I prefer an actual relationship between the lead couple to take place, rather than them getting stuck in this endless “will they won’t they” loop. Cross Game however does it with such grace and wit that it becomes consistently enjoyable to watch. The way in which it teases the audience could have backfired horribly in the wrong hands (in the way in which for example Hanamaru Youchien refused to develop anything between the lead character and his love interest), but they do it here in such a way that subtly develops the couple without becoming annoying.

Best-Looking Graphics

Heartcatch Precure

This is the award I hand out to the series with not perhaps the best animation, but the one with the visuals that really impressed me. In 2010, there were four series whose graphics I really liked: Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood, Yojou-han, Sarai-ya Goyou and Hearcatch Precure. I’m still not sure why, but at the time of writing this, the fan of cute things inside of me has really won me over the most. For a mahou shoujo, Heartcatch Precure really looks amazing; it has the most awesome character designs, the transformation sequences are the best transformation scenes that I have seen since Utena. It’s incredibly cute, fluffy and sugary, but with every episode I could count on this series leaving a visual impression on me.

Most Imaginative Setting

Angel Beats

This award is for the series that puts the most interesting and original ideas into its setting. Think of fantasy series as the Armed Librarians and Full Metal Alchemist and the way in which their world works, or the way in which Senkou no Night Raid came with such an incredibly risky subject material of the Japanese actions in China in the 1930s. Index also was quite interesting with its relation between magic and technology. Angel Beats however edges this one for me. I know that the series had its problems and all, but in 13 episodes it really tried to stuff as many interesting ideas as possible. Every few episodes or so, the way that the characters looked at the setting completely changed. It’s a typical series that doesn’t really care about solid storytelling but is more interested in delivering an interesting world and having fun in the process, ad that’s what I liked about this series the most.

Best Story

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

The two behemoths in terms of story this year were for me easy to think of: The Armed Librarians and Full Metal Alchemist. Both had epic stories that just kept taking twists and turns that just continued to change,. I have to give the edge over to the Armed Librarians here though: in every single arc, it managed to interweave its different plot threads and make them come together in a completely unexpected way. It was amazingly planned out and written together and pretty much made every single episode a blast to watch.

Top 20 Anime 2010

#20: Senkou no Night Raid

The moment where Senkou no Night Raid really impressed me was the moment where it really dared to delve into some of the most controversial topics out there, without becoming drenched in nationalism unlike you see with many different anime who try to have these international plots. It’s easy to find this one boring, but I loved how it both treated itself seriously and yet made it clear that it’s a fantasy story at the same time. Its main problem was its characterization and how people were changing sides a little too often,but it still was a fascinating look at morals and values that really took some HUGE risks here.

#19: Star Driver

Now, Star Driver at this point is only half finished, and it has a long way to go before it can even get close to how good Utena was. So far though, it’s really on a good direction with its characterization: it really tries to stuff as much into one episode as possible and at the halfway point this is really starting to pay off. With battles that are short but incredibly sweet, I’m really looking forward to see whether it can actually pay off.

#18: Otome Youkai Zakuro

Otome Youkai Zakuro was another one of those series that looks like nothing special, yet turned out to be quite a refined shoujo romance. The story was simple but because of that it really was able to give the characters the attention they deserved. There are some unnecessary clichés here and there, but overall it’s surprisingly well written and directed.

#17: Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

The interesting thing about Yakumo was that it was one of the shows that was looked forward to the most, and yet when it actually aired you hardly heard anyone about it. The first episodes of Yakumo were quite rushed indeed, but it eventually came together quite nicely, even without the inclusion of Koichi Mashimo. It’s got a great cast of characters and a bunch of excellent main villains and I also really liked how well it was able to use its own build-up. It’s far from Bee-Train’s best, but still a very solid series.

#16: Gag Manga Biyori

Gag Manga Biyori+ simply was amazing. Its episodes only were five minutes long, yet I was looking forward to it every single week. It consistently had me in stitches unlike any other comedy this year. The direction was absolutely brilliant, and I don’t think that I have ever seen an anime with this much concentrated energy as this thing. And yeah sure, the graphics are really basic and there is no coherent storyline whatsoever. Who cares? It was absolutely hilarious.

#15: Ookiku Furikabutte

The big flaw of Ookiku Furikabutte this year was that it was way too short: it’s incredibly slow paced: that’s not going to fit in just 13 episodes. Beyond that though, it really was better than ever as a series: the animation received an upgrade, the characters were more interesting, the dialogue was better,. with the right time this really would have been even better. It really was one of the most detailed and realistic portrayals of baseball out there.

#14: Kuroshitsuji

Kuroshitsuji II was just… amazing. It completely let go of the manga material, trolled just about everyone multiple times and created an incredibly entertaining story that made excellent use of the unique gimmick of this show of incredibly over the top butlers, without all of the annoyances of the first Kuroshitsuji series. The beginning fillers were… annoying, but everything paid off wonderfully in the end with a bunch of excellent villains. It was silly, but also very creative and I really hope to see more of these kinds of sequels in the upcoming years.

#13: Rainbow

Rainbow always had a problem with its acting: there really was a ton of ham and cheese in this series. What managed to save it was its story, which really was excellent. The two halves of the series form a stark contrast with each other, and pack a huge amount of character development. It really was great to see everyone grow up, but even the time that the characters spend in prison was incredibly atmospheric.

#12: Kuragehime

It’s perhaps not Josei at its finest; it had too many one-dimensional characters and an unresolved plot for that, but Kuragehime consistently enjoyable throughout its entire airtime. Its characters were ridiculously addictive and its energy and acting made every episode a lot of fun to watch. It’s a great romantic comedy that was really well directed.

#11: Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin

A-1 may not have been my favourite production company of the year, they really have been dominating the lower half of my top 20 of the year (they occupy four of the spots between 10 and 20), and with good reason: they came with a lot of different, unique and ambitious series that apart from perhaps Togainu no Chi were very interesting to watch in their own way. The one I consider to be the best though was Occult Academy, a roller coaster ride that takes detours through Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. It’s impossible not to be disappointed by it at the end in some way or the other due to pacing issues, but the highs of this series really were absolutely stunning. It had three episodes that were just absolutely amazing, and looking back, they were worth the bore of some of the strange build-up arcs that focused way too much on Maya’s character.

#10: Cross Game

Cross Game is slice of life at its finest. It was great to just watch the characters randomly interact with each other. The character development was really good, slowly showing them age through adolescence. It’s just a shame that it’s also a baseball series. The baseball arcs were just too simple and one sided. Every time they took place, I just kept wishing them to end fast so that this show could go back to what it was really good at.

#9: Letter Bee

Letter Bee is a very hard series to get into: the first season was filled with uninteresting arcs and fillers. It really took a long while to get going. Still, the cliff-hanger at the end of season one was one of the best cliff-hangers for a next season I have ever seen, and the second season is continuing to develop both its plot and characters. The characters have become absolutely lovable, and even the individual episodes that have nothing to do with the main plot are really worth the watch. it’s a unique little shounen series.

#8: Kobato

Kobato has since it aired become one of my favourite examples of a show that starts of slow, but ends wonderfully. Most of the first half was random build-up with stories that were marginally interesting. The second half however saw a complete change of pace. Kobato grew up, the characters got more and more detailed and likeable, and the series only just got better and better as it went on with a heart-wrenching conclusion.

#7: Heartcatch Precure

Heartcatch Precure just came and delivered a perfect portrayal of how a classic mahou shoujo series should be. The action is consistently excellent throughout the entire series, the different stories it tells are al incredibly charming, the lead characters are all excellent and well development. Everything about this series is just incredibly cute with a lot of frills and sparkles, not to mention that it really likes to show of its admittedly gorgeous transformation scenes but the charms and energy of this series made all of it worth watching. it really is top-notch entertainment that can both be childish and serious. It’s definitely the best mahou shoujo to have aired in years.

#6: Shiki

In this year’s top 10, I really had difficulty choosing my numbers 4, 5 and 6. In the end I admit that I liked the numbers 4 and 5 slightly better than Shiki, but this still remains an amazing horror series with a fantastic conclusion. I’ve said this many times before but the exact reason why it rocks is filled with spoilers, so just check it out for yourself.

#5: Giant Killing

Now this is a terrific example of how to do a series on a very low budget: the animation of Giant Killing is nothing special, yet it looks unique, with even the most minor side characters having unique character designs. Throughout its airtime, Giant Killing proved to be a ridiculously addictive series, and if board games aren’t counted as sports then it’s turned into my favourite sports series ever. Especially the finale just keeps the cliff-hangers coming and changes constantly. The entire cast is chock-full of lovable characters, ranging from the soccer players themselves to the coaches, supporters, journalists and managers: everyone on this series is important. On top of that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a series that handled its foreign languages as well as this series: English, French, Portuguese, Dutch. It was an incredibly international series.

#4: Sarai-ya Goyou

Sarai-ya Goyou turned out to be a ridiculously solid character study: it’s incredibly detailed from start to finish with very subtle characterizations. It’s very realistic and an excellent portrayal of how life was like in the past. It’s got some very complex characters for a show that’s only 12 episodes long, and they all face their own issues. Masanosuke was a great character to watch and see change, and Yaichi’s conclusion also really was excellent. I’m a big fan of Tomomi Mochizuki as a director, and her really managed to breathe life into Fujimi Ono’s manga.

#3: Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei

In 2010, it finally was time for Masaaki Yuasa to show his magic again. And granted, Yojou-han is not as good as Kaiba was. It comes pretty darn close though, with its ground-hog day-esque approach to storytelling that comes together in a really excellent ending that ties the entire series together perfectly. I also love the incredibly fast dialogue and the relentlessly fast pacing of this show that at the same time never rushed. It’s a great example of a mature series that had its own visual identity and really needs to appear more in anime.

#2: Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

In a way my number 1 and 2 are quite similar: they both tried to be the epics of the year in their own way and it took me a long while to figure out which was the one I liked best. The Brotherhood Series was a huge improvement over the first season, it was consistently entertaining, the action was amazing, the few moments of comedy were just hilarious and the entire story just kept going on and continued to develop its story for 64 episodes long. The combination between the story and characters reached some amazing heights and even though it’s not my favourite of the year, I still love this one to bits.

#1: Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

In the end, what sold me completely to the Armed Librarians was the way in which it was told: I mean, this show never took any breaks: it was always developing its story, pushing forth new and outrageous plot twists and trying everything together in ways that just continued to surprise me. It used its characters wonderfully and its storytelling just kept making me come back for more. It has also been by far the series that I had the most fun with blogging. I know that it’s a rushed series and that some f the characters could be more solid and all, but the good things about this series far outweigh the problems I had with this series. It entertained me like no other series this year and that’s why I chose this as my favourite show of 2010.

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.

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?

Well, as promised here is the second part of my decade summary. It again took me a while to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with it. I didn’t want to write a simple Top X-list; that would just be pointless, since people can just look at my Top 20 and remove all of the series that aren’t from the past decade.

Instead, I eventually decided to create 9 Top 9s, based around various categories that I find important (or eight categories that I find important and one category for the people who want to know where I’ve tortured myself throughout the past decade). Little did I know at the time that this would be an incredibly ambitious project, and in the end this turned into probably the biggest article I’ve ever written for this blog, totalling at a whopping 6000+ words. Ah well, I hope you’re happy with it, and have a fun end of the year and decade.

Worst Series that I Somehow Managed to Finish

There were times (especially in my early years), in which I for some reason continued to watch even though they hardly had any redeeming quality, or were a huge pain to sit through. Since I can’t speak for series that I didn’t finish, this list just included the ones that I watched from beginning to end. Movies and OVAs don’t count, since it’s too easy to sit through a bad one when compared to a much longer TV-series. Oh, and do note that this is only my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

#9: Star Ocean Ex – Let me explain why this series made this list. For the most part, it’s just a very generic fantasy-show, but nothing too bad. There was at least nice enough characterization. However, it all goes down the drain during the final arc. I’m not sure exactly what happened here, but every moment where they could, the creators pulled the EXACT SAME Deus ex Machina: a person is attacked by an evil monster, he or she is about to die, and right from nowhere (and I really mean, nowhere; none of it was ever explained) some sort of saviour appears. And they do this, with every. single. battle. THIS was the series that made me hate Deus ex Machinas and overly emphasized coincidences.
#8: Mai Otome – I kept watching this series as a fan of Mai Hime: despite its terrible ending, it really was a well written series. So how did this show, its spiritual successor, screw up so badly? It never seemed to really know where it was going, it was full of pointless angst, it had an incredibly annoying lead character and none of the excellent characterization that was so prevalent in Mai Hime returned. Really, what happened?
#7: Romeo x Juliet – I like Gonzo, I really do. But they also have made some shows that I just never got into. Romeo had a lot of potential as a remake of the classic story by Shakespeare, but the creators never really had a vision of what they really wanted to do with it. The characters are clichéd and angsty, the story never really gets anywhere, and the creators ended up doing a massive injustice to the original literary source.
#6: The Melody of Oblivion – I’ve seen this described as a “shounen Utena with all the subtlety removed”, but that would be giving it just too much credit. For me, the Melody of Oblivion was an attempt to be different and experimental that just didn’t work, with a stupid cast of main characters, an uninspired set of storylines to work with, and most importantly an incredibly slow and annoying pacing that broke down tension, instead of building it up.
#5: School Days – I first have to say that I have no problems with the premise for School Days: all the harem leads out there are wimpy boys with a kind heart, so seeing an actual asshole in the lead was very refreshing. However, that doesn’t excuse the terrible scriptwriting and cast of characters. The creators wanted so badly to go to that wildly publicized ending of theirs that they completely derailed previously built up characters, just for that sake.
#4: Shakugan no Shana – While with the previous entries on the list, I still can somewhat understand why I kept watching them, this isn’t the case with Shakugan no Shana. To this day, I’m still not sure why I didn’t immediately drop this show. While the start may have been interesting enough, as soon as Shana derailed from a tough warrior to a whining tsundere there was nothing left in this series that was worth watching. Shana truly has to be the single most annoying characters I’ve ever seen, and to this day I still haven’t forgiven her voice actress for her mind-numbing performance back then.
#3: Girls Bravo – Again, I have no idea why I managed to finish this. This really is another one of those harem comedies at its worst: the premise is stupid, the characters are stupid, and the story is just an excuse to put a bunch of boobs on one screen. It had no depth, no entertainment value. Nothing.
#2: Chocolate Underground – Okay, I’m cheating a bit with this one because its episodes are only five minutes of length, but I just had to include this series since it tried to stuff waaaaay too much in them. It seriously has one of the worst plots I’ve ever seen in an anime, and while it starts off pretty decently in the beginning, with people resisting a corrupt government and all, it completely derails in the second half to become nothing but a “kids rule adults suck!”-fest.
#1: Shining Tears X Wind – You might think that my number 1 on this list would be the one that I hate the most, but Shining Tears X Wind is a show that’s SO bad that it becomes hilarious. And don’t get me wrong, I still rate it among the worst shows I’ve ever seen, but the big climax for this show is so unbelievably stupid, so unbelievably moronic, cheesy, disturbing and yet so unpredictable (it’s a true Deus ex Machina: it really comes from absolutely freaking nowhere) that I still laugh about it today.

Best Soundtrack

I’m a big fan of a good use of music in anime, so I just had to make a top 9 with my favourite soundtracks of the past decade. There have been tons of great soundtracks throughout the past ten years, but here are my favourites, the one who made the most impact on me:

#9: El Cazador de la Bruja – So yeah, obviously Bee-Train is going to be dominating this list. It’s for the simple reason that they don’t just see music as background tunes, but they see it as a way of storytelling as well. Yuki Kajiura composed an excellent soundtrack, and especially the main theme is something that you can just listen to over and over again.
#8: Ergo Proxy – This may be just a soundtrack that mostly stays in the background, but seriously, Ergo Proxy for me had one of the best ambient soundtrack I’ve listened to. The subtlety with which Yoshihiro Ike composed the tracks is really impressive. It’s gloomy, dark and fits the mood of this show perfectly.
#7: Ooedo Rocket – One of the reasons that made this series so fun to watch was its incredibly catchy and addictive jazz soundtrack. And this isn’t just one track, it’s got an entirely fresh collection of cheerful tunes to listen to.
#6: Kaiba – What I like about Kaiba’s soundtrack is that it’s so incredibly subtle. Ranging from its main theme with its haunting choirs, it also has a great insert song. It’s really a dreamy soundtrack at its finest.
#5: Noein – I have two favourite composers: Yuki Kajiura and Hikaru Nanase. The latter has composed her share of less impressive soundtrack, but when she hits the mark she really hits it like no other. Noein’s soundtrack is powerful, bombastic and varied. The heavy choirs perfectly fit the chaotic nature of the series itself.
#4: Phantom – Again Hikaru Nanase, and she truly surpassed herself with this work. There are so many different and awesome tunes inside this soundtrack. It’s bold, creative and one of the most varied soundtracks I’ve listened to, and yet it makes nearly every single piece count.
#3: Night Head Genesis – The thing I hate about this soundtrack is that it’s never been released on DVD. It does such a wonderful soundtrack a huge injustice. It’s a very quiet, mysterious and depressing soundtrack, but the atmosphere it managed to create really impressed me when I watched it. There was something really unique about it, the way that it only used these very simple sounds to create a very subtle an engaging soundtrack. It’s probably the most underrated soundtrack on this list, but damn did it impress me.
#2: .Hack//Sign – I still consider this as Yuki Kajiura’s best work. As part of the duo See-Saw, she really composed some of her best tracks here, like The World and Fake Wings to just name a few of them. It’s just such an addictive and catchy. .Hack//Sign was one of the first series I watched after discovering the wonders of the internet, and I still listen to its soundtrack in awe.
#1: .Hack//Roots – Say what you want about ALI-Project. I’ll agree with most of it. Most of their songs indeed do sound the same, and they have done way too many OPs and EDs already. However, there is one major exception to this: .Hack//Roots. Here, they really put effort into producing what’s probably my favourite soundtrack ever. I still consider Dwindled Bible to be the single best track I’ve ever heard in anime with its truly unique arrangement.

Best Visuals

This category is meant for the anime with amazing animation, art, graphics, or anything else that makes them look awesome. Because movies have an unfair budget advantage, I decided to put 4 movies and 5 TV-series inside this top, in order to be able to highlight the best of both. The past decade in terms of visuals was all about the introduction of CG, and the ever-challenging task of creators to integrate them well with the regular 2D animation. With the good examples, it really looked absolutely gorgeous.

#9: Shigurui – Ah, Shigurui. It’s the only series whose artwork has managed to actually freak me out. That’s how good, disgusting and outright brutal the art in this series was. It spares nobody, and the gore that was shown within this series was without a doubt the best I’ve ever watched. This isn’t just simply slashing someone with a sword to make blood come out, this describes every single cut with the cruellest amount of detail.
#8: Noein – Kazuki Akane is really a master in creating visual action scenes, and this really was his best work. The animation for Noein was Messy, but damn was it beautiful and imaginative. Ranging from the simple character-designs to the near-surreal climaxes, this series always had something good to look at.
#7: 5 Centimeters Per Second – Makoto Shinkai truly is an amazing artist, and the way he rendered the backgrounds in this movie was absolutely stunning.
#6: Casshern Sins – Casshern Sins for me is THE series with the best character-designs I’ve ever seen. The style they’re drawn in is really unique and original, even though it just started as a modern version of ancient character-designs.
#5: Seirei no Moribito – This series probably has the best animated hand-to-hand combat fight scene I have seen, even when taking movies into account. The amount of detail in the animation, especially considering that it’s a long TV-series, is astonishing. The creators even paid attention to the finest details in order to make the characters as life-like as possible.
#4: Bonen no Xamdou – For me, Bonen no Xamdou really has the single best animation out of all the TV-series I’ve seen. The action-scenes are just beautifully animated, and the backgrounds are always a joy to watch with the imagination that has been put into them. This isn’t just the case of a big budget, it’s a big budget used well. Bonen no Xamdou put in time to both make the action scenes visually stunning, but also put a lot of detail in the quiet scenes.
#3: Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea – I believe that Ponyo broke some sort of record in total amount of hand-drawn frames used. The animation really is a visual masterpiece, and become especially imaginative during the busy scenes. It’s amazing how much detail Hayao Miyazaki put into this one single movie.
#2: Metropolis – I loved the incredibly fluid animation throughout this movie. Not just from the main characters, but every single character in the background also got this treatment. The creators really brought Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga to life with this adaptation, and the way that the animators depicted the city it takes place in and the characters was just gorgeous in every single way.
#1: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence – For the first place on this list, I had no doubts whatsoever. Even though the movie is quite old already (nearly six years now) it really is the best animated movie I have ever seen. Even Hayao Miyazaki couldn’t dream of creating graphics that are THIS good. Nearly the entire movie is just a visual orgasm, from start to finish, and it’s amazing what Mamoru Oshii managed to accomplish here. It’s without a doubt my top on this list.

Best Comedies

This category is straightforward: these are the shows that made me laugh the hardest. Yes, my taste is weird!

#9: Magikano – The past ten years saw the debut of a great comedic talent: Seiji Kishi. He worked on quite a number of series, and his comedies were often hilarious, and I think that Magikano was the best example of this. Sure, the plot itself sucked beyond belief, and it had one of the worst endings imaginable, but when it wanted to be funny it really was gut-achingly hilarious.
#8: Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge – I’m a big fan of parodies, so expect to see a lot of them on this list. Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge was a great parody on the usual shoujo-genre and its tropes. Just about everything was exaggerated, from the bishies with sparkles to the gothic horror lead character of Sunako. I really loved the huge amounts of energy with which this show delivered its jokes. I mean, there’s hyperactivity and there’s this.
#7: Marie&Gali – This is the series that proves that science is fun! Each episode is only five minutes long, but it always manages to be creative, unexpected and downright crazy as it shows the viewers the principles of science, including some hilarious interpretations of once great scientists.
#6: Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – While the subsequent series were quite a lot duller, the first season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei was brilliant in the way that it undermined all sorts of high school series tropes. With its fast pacing and great jokes, it really was a hilarious collection of 13 episodes.
#5: Master of Epic – So this is only a series for those who have played anime-styled MMORPGs, because otherwise most of the references will fly past your head. Master of Epic created a great setting that poked fun at tons of different MMORPG tropes, from fighting monsters to collecting items, to everyone looking the same and selling items. The different sketches all were incredibly silly, but really fun to watch.
#4: Demashitaa! Power Puff Z – I really wasn’t sure what to think of the announcement that the Power Puff Girls would transfer over to anime. I watched quite a bit of it as a teenager, but it took itself way too seriously at times. However, these worries turned out to be ungrounded. The series went completely into its own direction and turned into a mahou shoujo parody, that took a jab at tons of different series, including itself. It’s incredibly childish, I know. But I tend to like that stuff and this show probably did it the best. It was so unashamed at times but that’s what made it hilarious.
#3: Gintama – Well, what is there to say about Gintama? It’s not just funny; it’s funny for 100 consecutive episodes. As a shounen series it had episodes with hilarious premises with priceless developments. Gintoki is a hilarious main character, and the dialogue is really well written for a comedy. And I guess that that’s the thing that really set it apart from other comedies.
#2: The Law of Ueki – For me, this really one of the best comedies I’ve seen. Sure, it had its lesser moments, but every time it wanted to be funny, it was utterly hilarious. Why? The creativity. The plot twists were told with so much imagination that they belong to some of the funniest episodes I’ve ever seen.
#1: Excel Saga – Okay, so while it originally aired in the 90s, the Excel Saga still aired in 2000 so it counts. This really was along with .Hack//Sign the series that turned me from a casual watcher into an anime-fan. This is probably the craziest series I’ve ever seen, and I have no clue n what mindset the creators were when they thought up the lead character of Excel. I mean, she goes beyond insanity here. This is a show that doesn’t just parody one genre, but just about every genre under the radar.

Best Settings

A setting in my book can refer to the locations and environments that a series takes place in, but what also counts is series that have great knowledge over their subject matter. The series on this list have imaginative, deep, detailed and well developed settings

#9: Mahou Shoujotai – This really is a setting that spoke to my imagination the first time I laid my eyes upon it. It uses both clichés and original ideas to create a unique world of witches, wizards and its magic system. It’s simple yet very captivating, to see the world of the witches as gets continuously more stuck in its own traditions, but the biggest reason why I decided to include it in this top 9 is its imagination. This is just one of those shows that sparkle with it.
#8: Ergo Proxy – I personally loved the tons of interesting ideas that Ergo Proxy put in its setting. Out of all the futuristic dystopia’s, I’ve been impressed the most by what this series managed to come up with: It’s deep, imaginative and despite the seemingly dark setting, it’s pretty varied as well.
#7: Darker than Black – Amidst all of the shows in which people with special powers fight each other, Darker than Black stood out with its maturity and well developed setting. Seriously, you can make tons of storylines within the framework that this series created, which was well shown by the second season.
#6: .Hack//Sign – The setting of .Hack//Sign is one where I’d want to walk through myself one day. I really love the creative vision of this series, in which MMORPGs would evolve one day to worlds in which we can fully immerse ourselves, rather than just control a sprite or 3D model. I’ve played quite a few MMORPGs before I started this blog, so when I checked out this series it really appealed to me. It took this a bit too far in .Hack//Roots, though. MMORPGs are about freedom. Not letting it become a second job to you or something.
#5: Dennou Coil – Again, a premise that really speaks to the imagination: glasses that when you put them on reveal a complete world full of strange creatures and applications that are only limited by your imagination. How awesome would that be?
#4: Michiko e Hatchin – Anime nowadays is mostly just set in regular Japan, or if you’re lucky America or France. Then this series came along, and offered a wonderfully accurate depiction of Brazil of a few decades ago. The setting was never sacrificed for the storyline, but everything just felt so authentic to me (as in, someone who’s never actually been there, but ah well, I liked it).
#3: Glass Mask (2005) – This is a series that really knows its subject material. Even though the original manga is already decades old at this point, the creators did a great job in adapting this story that has an amazing amount of detail about stage acting. It really was amazing how much in-depth this series went into acting.
#2: Kaiba – Kaiba had a setting that was based on an idea that you just had to think of: being able to store memories easily outside of your body, so that as long as you have enough bodies you’ll never die. And it really created a wonderful story around this concept that really allowed it to show the various sides about the world in which such a technology has become common usage. On top of that there also were tons more of interesting ideas stuffed into this series, that really makes this one of the best settings I’ve ever seen.
#1: RD Sennou Chousashitsu – Well, I think it’s pretty clear now what my interests are when you look at this list. I’m a computer science student, and I really like all those weird theories about the future of computer, and all of the things that you might be able to do with it. The best attempt for me was Real Drive. It goes even a step beyond .Hack//Sign and Dennou Coil in its attempt to create a whole new world that, which is even more unlimited than you could imagine. It’s the perfect example of how a vision of the future doesn’t need to be bad and full of wars, but instead it provides an optimistic outlook. In a way, it’s a celebration of technology and that’s really what appealed to me in this series.

Best Character-Development

I’ve been thinking of also putting up a list of my favourite characters, but in the end I figured that it would be boring. My favourite would just be Honoka from the Third and apart from that I’ve always found it hard to chose one character above the other when they’re so incredibly different. So instead, I’ve decided to list the series that I consider to be the best in terms of character-development. It could be of one character, it could be of an entire cast.

#9: Ashita no Nadja – I really love the characters in this series, and the biggest reason for that is the way they decided to develop the main characters. At first you might think that this is just another regular shoujo series with shallow villains, but damn. Those “villains” are so well developed into such strong characters that they give a completely new and original dimension to the story that would have been completely impossible without it. On top of that, Nadja herself is also an incredibly likable character who really grows and matures throughout the series, and is even forced to do so in order for the plot to advance.
#8: Welcome to the NHK – I may not have given this series the full recognition it deserves, but that’s mostly because when I watched it, I hated everything about moe. And yeah, this wasn’t the best series for that. But that really is the point of this series: at first, Satou is meant to be looked down upon as a worthless character. From there on, his development is really striking, and this series really succeeded as an in-depth look at the Hikkikomoris.
#7: Strange Dawn – Out of all of the coming of age stories that we’ve seen this decade, I consider this one to be among the best in terms of character-development. The development of the two lead characters made a huge impact on me, although in order to explain this I’d have to dive too much into spoilers, so I won’t.
#6: Birdy the Mighty Decode 2 – I really loved how this second season takes the far inferior first season, and improved on it in every way, and it even slightly developed nearly all of the single characters that appeared in it. It’s subtle but very powerful and the development of the new character Natoru is the highlight of the entire series.
#5: Figure 17 – Here is a series that really takes its time to slowly and subtly develop its characters, with wonderful results. Tsubasa and Hikaru are two amazingly developed characters, and so much care has been put into fleshing the two of them out. The bond that these two developed what I especially liked about them.
#4: Kaze no Shoujo Emily – From the works of Lucy Maud Montgomery. This series puts in care to develop not just its titular Emily, but also the ones around her. Her childhood friends all had their own dreams for the future and the highlight of this series is without a doubt the final quarter, in which we get to see them grow up and show exactly what happened to those dreams of them. It really was a gripping drama.
#3: Haibane Renmei – This is another one of those rare series that gets some amazing character-development only in one season of 13 episodes. I’m still not exactly sure how the creators did it, but the interplay between the lead characters reached an absolutely brilliant conclusion.
#2: Les Miserables – So yeah, this behemoth of a series was obviously going to appear somewhere on this list. Every single character here develops, even the smaller ones. The cast of this series is huge, but the creators really make sure to make everyone count in his or her own way, from the young and naive Cosette to the composed and righteous Javert (that’s how they start out anyway). The development is never shallow and always gripping, and a very solid second place on this top.
#1: Simoun – I’ve said it before in my top 20: for me Simoun is the single best character-study I have ever seen. The character-development is what made it possible, as it’s creative, powerful and unbiased. Everyone in the Chor Tempest goes through some sort of memorable development, and together I really can’t find any series to call its equal in this field.

Best Storytelling

This list basically consists out of the series that I consider told their story best. This can be with very solid direction, or a completely original way to tell a story. The key is creativity again.

#9: Nodame Cantabile – A fresh and overall very enjoyable series that for me stood out in its direction, and how fun it made these seemingly boring things as classical music and composing. The first season of Nodame Cantabile was a series in which its characters shined, but I believe that what allowed them to shine so much was the always-clever direction from Kenichi Kasai.
#8: Jubei-Chan the Ninja Girl 2 – Okay, so the story was rather childish. This is for me THE series that excelled in the entertainment factor. The fight scenes were just incredibly well directed, the standard giant robot stories look like cardboard frames compared to the excitement of these fights.
#7: Himitsu ~ The Revelation – A bit of an inconsistent series, but that’s what made it so much fun. This is a series that excelled as a suspense murder mystery. It reveals just as much to keep you interested and guessing, Looking into the memories of a dead person to solve crimes. This show actually pulls it off.
#6: Shion no Ou – This for me was a series that always had something interesting going on. The shougi matches were a bit hard to follow and pretty much directed, but the way this series built them up was always fun and exciting to watch. It always had something that would get the best out of the characters.
#5: Paranoia Agent – Perhaps a bit too much of a rushed finale, but I love how Satoshi Kon toys around with your expectations in this series. This is a series about mindscrews and insanity, but he does this in such an unpredictable way that I never saw most of the plot twists coming.
#4: Ghost Hound – This overall was a very strange series. It very often only uses sound effects to tell its story and draw its viewer in, but it worked surprisingly well here. The result is a unique and tense atmosphere.
#3: FLAG – FLAG really set itself apart with its truly unique direction: everything in the series is viewed through a camera. This is probably one of the most realistically told Mecha stories I have ever seen, and the way that the creators manage to use these cameras to tell their story is truly inspiring and unique.
#2: Aoi Bungaku – Aoi Bungaku isn’t just told well. It’s told well in six completely different styles that all have their own strengths and focuses. Throughout the series, six literary works are adapted, and this is done with so much conviction and talent that I really had to include this on this list.
#1: Noein – I’m a really big fan of Kazuki Akane, and this is what I consider to be his best work. The sheer force of his direction really brings the best out of the characters and the action-scenes, making it an incredibly fun, tense and touching series to watch.

Best Stories

I’ve always had trouble figuring out what exactly a “story” amounts to. In this list, I’ve decided that with “Best Stories”, I’m going to stick with the definition of series with the most epic plot progressions. Which series had a complex, varied and imaginative scenario that impressed me the most?

#9: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (+ Kai and Rei) – The story behind Higurashi is fascinating, and all of the three stories stood out in different ways. The first season stood out because of all of the creative, weird and mysterious twists and turns that the storyline kept taking, making excellent use of how the timeline kept repeating itself. The second season instead was incredibly solid, and stood out with its themes and ideals. The OVA then finished it with one brilliant idea that it built its storyline around.
#8: Mahou Shoujotai – Call me childish, but I loved all of the different twists and turns that the storyline for this series kept taking throughout its airtime. Nearly every episode had at least something that I loved about it. Mahou Shoujotai admittedly does have a few clichés in its storyline, but what I loved about this series was its total package and how everything comes together.
#7: Le Chevalier d’Eon – Not really that special in its first half, but amazing during its second half. The way in which this series used its setting and characters came together wonderfully there with a lot of very interesting plot twists that I never saw coming. It’s true that anime has a bit of a bad habit that it over-romanticizes western countries (especially France), but the story that resulted in this series was strong and very imaginative.
#6: Toward the Terra – Science fiction at its finest. Here we have a series that fully explores its main characters. At first it might seem nothing special because the characters involved are mere teenagers, but the huge amount of flashbacks make the storyline increasingly more impressive. A space opera at its finest.
#5: Eureka 7 – To be honest, this is one series that could have been better balanced over its episodes, but nevertheless the storyline that resulted from it took a bunch of teenagers and put them into a grown up and mature setting that allowed the best of them to come out. The 50 episodes in this series are varied and very interesting, and for me this definitely was one of Bones’ best works.
#4: Bokura no – The idea behind Bokura no was just utterly brilliant, and the creators did a wonderful job in bringing it to life and giving it its own conclusion (which wasn’t available yet in the manga at the time that it aired). It’s a powerful and varied story about life and death that never ceased to amaze me.
#3: Hi no Tori – In this series, Ryousuke Takahashi did an amazing job of making Osamu Tezuka’s stories come to life. The Hi no Tori series consists out of five stories from the “God of Manga”, and all of them are just brilliant stories full of Osamu Tezuka’s trademark creativity. Imaginative, varied and multidimensional. All of the five stories have something memorable.
#2: Now and Then, Here and There – It’s hard to really talk about this series without spoiling too much, but let me just say that this is a powerful, engaging and very disturbing story about child soldiers. What starts out as a happy “boy meet girl”-story quickly turns into one of the darkest anime about kids I’ve seen.
#1: Fantastic Children – It’s sort-of how I keep preaching about how anime needs more mature series, and yet most of the shows in this list focus on kids. But that’s the thing: when the stories about children work, they also work really well for me. For me it’s been done the best in Fantastic Children, which for its biggest part remains one huge question-mark, but a very well coordinated question-mark. The way that it manages to combine all of the various storylines into one is what made me put it on the number one place.

Most Intelligent Series

To close off, here’s a quick little list that I really wanted to include, if only to celebrate how anime is one of the very few animation mediums that also has a significant amount of series aimed at a mature audience. These anime are what I consider the most intelligent, knowledgeable and thought-provoking.

#9: Spice and Wolf (I & II) – Spice and Wolf was show that really surprised me. From the outside it just looks like yet another moe show, but in fact it turned out to be a mature series about medieval merchants. This series really earned itself a place on this list with its complex and daring plans that only one who has fully immersed into such a setting could have thought of. The way these characters try to manipulate everyone around them to make as much money as possible is one of the many things that made this series worth watching.
#8: Armored Trooper Votoms – Ryousuke Takahashi always manages to think of complex and intelligent plots that take both itself and its viewer seriously. Here we have a series that really impressed me with how well both the science, politics and tactics come together. Especially the court trial in the first episode stands out as hugely complex, but the rest of the series is also filled with these moments that put the emphasis on thinking, rather than action.
#7: Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi – I’m still not exactly sure why this series had to be aired at the most primetime slot that exists within anime: it’s indeed a samurai show with at first sight just silly characters, but it set itself apart with its intelligent subplots and arcs. Most of the times, what mattered in this series was not the action, but rather the dialogues and the meanings behind the plot. Such a shame that it got cancelled mid-way.
#6: Hunter X Hunter OVA – I consider Hunter x Hunter to be among the best of the Shounen genre. Why? This OVA. It’s here where this series comes with an intelligent plot that for once is focused purely on brainpower, and utilizing every single detail to your advantage. The plans and tactics here are imaginative and complex, and yet realistic and not as ludicrously complicated as we see in shows as Death Note and the like.
#5: Bartender – You can really see that this series was written by someone with an absolute passion for liquor. It’s a really enjoyable Iyashi-kei healing-type series, but what I loved about it was how it used all sorts of anecdotes behind various liquors and cocktails in order to tell its story, and explore the various characters that decide to drop the bar of our titular Bartender.
#4: Starship Operators – Don’t let the teenagers at the foreground fool you: nearly all of the characters here were forced to grow up into adults because of the story in this series. This really turned space-battles into a science. The amount of effort and tactical planning that this series spends, just on trying to sink one enemy ship is huge and requires a lot of creative thinking from the main characters. It really culminated into an excellent ending. In fact, all of the shows on this list, save for Ayakashi Ayashi, have excellent conclusions.
#3: Seirei no Moribito – Again a series that has a complex storyline that requires a lot of research from the characters to truly figure out. But it’s especially the dialogue in this series that stands out as complex and intelligent and a huge attention to detail.
#2: Mushishi – Mushishi is just a simple story: but that’s where its strengths lie. All of its stories try to blur the bounds between good and evil, and really made me think about the morals behind them. The stories behind them are in no way lazy at all, and were always deep and thoughtful.
#1: Mouryou no Hako – Ryousuke Nakamura, that’s a name to remember. He turned Mouryou no Hako into an amazing series with amazing dialogue. It talks about all kinds of backgrounds that could have something to do with the main storyline, and he loves to show all sorts of anecdotes that might or might not have something to do with it, just to flesh it out. The stories that this series comes with are incredibly interesting to read and make this into so much more than just another “whodunnit” murder mystery.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with these “Decade Summaries”. I first thought of listing the most memorable moments for me during the past 10 years, and actually tried writing such a post, but eventually I got stuck with it: I just can’t to justice to those moments. In the end, I figured that I’m so often trying to pick out my Top 3 for each season, so why not show a compilation of my three favourite series for every season of the decade?

So yeah, this is obviously going to be a quick-fire post with a lot of one-liners. This post contains 40 Top 3s, so it’s mostly used to give readers a glimpse of the good shows that aired during the past decade (the ones I’ve watched, anyway). In the second half of this decade summary, I’ll go more into detail. You can expect it around the end of December.

Basically, every anime is only eligible during the season that it originally started airing. Spring is from March to May, Summer from June to August, Autumn from September to November, et cetera.

Winter 2000

#3: Mushrambo – Yeah, this season sucked. Dragged on for way too long in the end, but had its moment of creativity as a shounen series.
#2: Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran – Simple yet fun samurai comedy.
#1: Boogiepop Phantom – Unique mystery-series that really requires a user to think in order to actually understand it.

Spring 2000

#3: Love Hina – The first harem I ever watched, and pretty nicely done compared to the other shows of this genre.
#2: NieA Under 7 – Very charming slice of life series with awesome character-designs. I should have rated this one higher when I reviewed it.
#1: FLCL – Crazy, but well written and engaging little OVA.

Summer 2000

#3: Brigadoon – Marin to Melan – Sunrise Mecha with its own unique style. Very well developed characters.
#2: Jin Roh – The Wolf Brigade – Very intelligent movie (Mamoru Oshii was involved, so how could it not be?). Very well written with a great ending.
#1: Strange Dawn – Everything fantasy should be. Incredibly detailed storytelling with an incredibly strong cast of characters.

Autumn 2000

#3: Legendary Gambler Tetsuya – Very interesting look at Mah-jong and cheating. Never drags on.
#2: Sci-Fi Harry – Imaginative and deep mystery-series that may have bitten off a bit more than it could chew.
#1: Argento Soma – Seemingly average mecha at first, but becomes really good near the end with simple but well developed main characters and storylines.

Winter 2001

#3: Earth Girl Arjuna – Great graphics, nice characters, but way too damn preachy.
#2: Tales of Eternia – Interesting choice to go with a side-story instead of a full fledged epic rpg-storyline. Nothing special, but fun enough.
#1: Spirit of Wonder – Scientific Boys Club – Strange little OVA, but very imaginative slice of life.

Spring 2001

#3: Soultaker – Back when Shinbo’s style was still new and fresh. Very nicely written and layered mystery-series with plenty of nice action.
#2: Zone of the Enders – Dolores – Awesome mecha epic with a great emphasis on family values and probably one of the oldest protagonists I’ve ever seen in a TV-anime.
#1: Figure 17: Tsubasa & Hikaru – A truly excellent character-study that combines gentle slice of life with tense and intelligent battles.

Summer 2001

#3: Fruits Basket – Shoujo series done well. Great characters, but especially the dialogue stands out.
#2: Arete Hime – Very quiet but engaging medieval movie that really takes its time to show the lead character.
#1: Spirited Away – In my top 3 of favourite Miyazaki-movies. Lots of details and imagination in just about everything.

Autumn 2001

#3: X – Well executed character-study from Clamp.
#2: Kaze no Youjinbou – Wonderfully animated and detailed look at local Yakuza, combined with an engaging mystery-plot
#1: Millennium Actress – Satoshi Kon’s excellent homage to various movie genres. Absolutely lovable cast.

Winter 2002

#3: Full Metal Panic! – Successfully combines moe with a war drama.
#2: Voices of a Distant Star – A very impressive short by Makoto Shinkai. Awesome graphics and a sense of distance that only he can pull off.
#1: Hunter X Hunter OVA – Everything a shounen series should be. This story is imaginative, intelligent focused and very well built up.

Spring 2002

#3: Comedy – Don’t get fooled by the name: this 10-minute short is a beautifully animated short story about feudal Ireland.
#2: Full Moon wo Sagashite – Long build-up is long, but this idol mahou shoujo becomes truly heart-wrenching eventually.
#1: .Hack//Sign – A unique concept, focusing on character interactions inside MMORPGs. Awesome philosophical themes and characters, but not for those expecting action.

Summer 2002

#3: Sentou Yousei Yukikaze – Beautiful graphics. A bit confusing of an OVA, but the action and characters make up for it.
#2: Saishuu Heiki Kanojo – Perhaps not the saddest series out there, but the quiet scenes among the death and destruction are truly worth it.
#1: The Cat Returns – Fun, whimsical and charming story with great characterization for the various cats around.

Autumn 2002

#3: Overman King Gainer – Seemingly average mecha show at first, but it stands out due to its beyond awesome OP and incredibly creative ideas thrown into the setting and scenario.
#2: Hanada Shounen-Shi – The lead character is very, very hard to like. An annoying brat in every single way. And yet this series is really heart-warming.
#1: Haibane Renmei – I have hardly ever been so emotionally moved as with this series. A fantastic character-study and with incredibly well explored themes.

Winter 2003

#3: Wolf’s Rain – I’ve only seen three shows of this season. I didn’t quite like this one. The concept had potential, but the main plot and characters didn’t.
#2: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou – Quiet Country Cafe – I’m still wondering why they didn’t make a TV-series out of this, but ah well. Relaxing slice of life OVA.
#1: Ashita no Nadja – This is how good shoujo adventures can be. Really fun characters, and a surprisingly deep and well developed plot during the second half.

Spring 2003

#3: Kino no Tabi – The Beautiful world – Thought-provoking travelling series with a very likable lead character of Kino.
#2: Oseam – One heck of a tear-jerker of a movie. Korean animation at its finest.
#1: Kaleido Star – An anime about circus performers, and it’s a really well developed one. It makes optimal use of its long length to really show a memorable development for the lead character.

Summer 2003

#3: Narutaru – Shows what kids are really going to do when you give them a bunch of violent monster. Very disturbing, to say the least.
#2: Rumiko Takahasi’s Rumic Theater – 13 stories written by Rumiko Takahashi, all about random, ordinary adults who run into extraordinary problems. Very down-to-earth and the creators make every story count.
#1: Tokyo Godfathers – Satoshi Kon at his best. This movie is crazy, fun, adorable and deep, so that even a few deus ex machinas won’t prevent it from truly shining.

Autumn 2003

#3: Gilgamesh – Very interesting horror-series with an imaginative plot that breaks quite a few traditions. It’s got interesting themes, the fights are very tense, though it might be a bit slow for some.
#2: Gungrave – Ah, the character-development! An in-depth look into large mafia-organizations and some really good animation by Madhouse.
#1: Mermaid’s Forest – Rumiko Takahashi Again, this time her Mermaid Forest stories are adapted. Disturbing, and the individual short stories make optimal use of their time to make an as big of an impact as possible.

Winter 2004

#3: Maria-Sama ga Miteru – Takes a while to get going – even for a 13-episode series – but proves to be a very nice character-study with yuri elements in the end.
#2: Jubei-Chan 2: The Counterattack of Siberia Yagyu – Has some of the best fight choreography out there. The plot itself is a bit predictable, but the characters and action totally make up for this.
#1: Paranoia Agent – Satoshi Kon yet again takes a number one-spot with this witty, paranoid, mysterious, diverse, intense, screwed up series of his.

Spring 2004

#3: Samurai Champloo – Manglobe’s debut, and what a well-directed debut it is. Even though this show is about nothing, it’s fun enough to see the three lead characters interact.
#2: Hi no Tori – Incredible adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s classic stories. Every arc stands out, among which are a number of true gems in terms of storytelling.
#1: Mahou Shoujotai – I still consider this to be my favourite anime ever. Experimental in every way, truly excellent characterizations, a great world for the story to play with and a very original set of graphics and animation.

Summer 2004

#3: Mind Game – This top 3 was rather hard, because I hardly saw anything in this season. Still, even though the movie underwhelmed me when I watched it, I do have to admit that that final scene in this movie is something truly unique and entertaining.
#2: Elfen Lied – The problem with Elfen Lied is that it tried to combine harem stupidity with very serious and depressing themes about mass murderers. They don’t mesh! Nevertheless, I really liked the good parts and the ending.
#1: Otogizoshi – Folklore, divided into two distinctly different arcs. The second one is quieter, but superior.

Autumn 2004

#3: Zipang – Very interesting concept about cause and reaction. Asks deep questions but unfortunately is a bit too short.
#2: Rozen Maiden – This is what I’d like to call a series in which everything went right. No second is wasted, and both the plot and characters went where they should have.
#1: Fantastic Children – An amazingly told series with a great cast of characters. It´s perhaps a bit confusing at the beginning, but the plot twists near the ending are more than worth it.

Winter 2005

#3: Kimagure Robot – Short but quirky comedy about robots (yeah, there wasn’t much else this season).
#2: Starship Operators – Space Opera done right. A huge focus on complex tactics rather than brainless action, with a powerful ending.
#1: Air – Starts as another one of those harems. Ends as a gripping and heart-wrenching story with some very neat ideas in its style of storytelling.

Spring 2005

#3: The Law of Ueki – I consider this both as one of the best comedies and shounens out there. It’s pretty silly, but you have to love all of the weird powers that these people have. Not to mention the huge amount of creativity that has been put in the different battles.
#2: Glass Mask – An incredibly in-depth look at acting. This series surely took that extra step towards developing its cast, and what a wonderful drama it turned into.
#1: Eureka7 – A bit of an unbalanced series, but where this series hits, it hits really hard. Renton and Eureka start out as a bunch of random mecha-piloting teenagers, but their development throughout the series is truly memorable.

Summer 2005

#3: Kamichu – Very charming slice of life series. Period.
#2: xxxHolic: A Midummer Night’s Dream – A Very interesting mystery-movie, despite being just a side-story in the xxxHolic franchise.
#1: Pani Poni Dash – Remains funny throughout the majority of its airtime, quirky style. A successful comedy.

Autumn 2005

#3: Jigoku Shoujo – Talk about atmosphere. The first season of Jigoku Shoujo was gripping, had some twisted episodes and a great conclusion.
#2: Mushishi – Episodic series can hardly get any better than this. Wonderfully subtle storytelling about deep and thought-provoking characters
#1: Noein – Fantastic action, incredible characters, awesome soundtrack, wonderful storytelling, I’m running out of adjectives here.

Winter 2006

#3: Yomigaeru Sora – Rescue Wings – An anime about the rescue forces. A really good portrayal of what these people can be up against.
#2: Ayakashi – Japanese Classic Horror – Especially Bake Neko was a triumph in storytelling, but Yotsuya Kaidan was also a very good and especially disturbing horror story.
#1: Ergo Proxy – Weird but very imaginative and complex story. There always was something interesting going on with this series.

Spring 2006

#3: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – When this series first aired, it blew my mind with its gripping mystery-story, characters and disturbing footage. All behind such a seemingly cute exterior.
#2: The Third – The Third has struck me as a very balanced show, with a bit of action, slice of life, science fiction and intrigue, but first and foremost it stands out to me because it features one of the best characters I’ve seen: Honoka.
#1: Simoun – This series is what I consider the best character-study ever. The creators took a very imaginative concept, a group of fascinating characters, and turned into one of my favourite series.

Summer 2006

#3: Otogi Juushi Akazukin – THE series for modern fairytales. It has lots of cameos, and a very cute style of storytelling that makes it a lot of fun to watch.
#2: Flag – A unique series. The entire story is told through the perspective of cameras and photos. The story itself is really slow, but very detailed, realistic and imaginative.
#1: Le Chevalier d’Eon – Despite a slow start, this series eventually turns into a well developed and very strongly directed epic in 17th Century France.

Autumn 2006

#3: Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto – On top of the action, this show was also a very nice history-lesson for me. Especially the first half had a very strong direction.
#2: Red Garden – Another show with a great cast of characters. What made this series stand out was the amount of detail that was put in their characterization, and especially the dialogue was phenomenal at times.
#1: Asatte no Houkou – Body-swapping: it’s often done for comedic purposes. This series showed how high a serious execution of this trope can reach.

Winter 2007

#3: Master of Epic – For this MMORPG adaptation, the creators decided that instead of creating a serious story like what would happen with most other shows of this kind, they would parody the heck out of it. The result is a very fun and successful collection of sketches that make fun of tons of MMORPG tropes.
#2: Nodame Cantabile – This series succeeded, both as a comedy and as a look at performing classical music and especially directing. Very strong cast of characters.
#1: Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – The revival of the World Masterpiece Theatre delivered an incredible series with memorable character-development for just about any member of the cast.

Spring 2007

#3: Toward the Terra – Space operas at their finest. Toward the Terra’s story is bold, imaginative and gets the best out of its cast of characters.
#2: Kaze no Shoujo Emily – An adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic. A really charming slice of life-character study, about living towards your dreams.
#1: Bokura no – I really have to praise Mohiro Kitoh for his truly thought-provoking ideas, but also the staff of the anime, who took an unfinished story, and managed to turn it into something memorable and gripping that perfectly fitted the 24-episode timeframe.

Summer 2007

#3: Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – A really good comedy, full of nice references, subtle jabs and witty humour that didn’t turn stale within its 13-episode timeframe.
#2: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai – This sequel to the Higurashi series provided all of the answers we needed. The pacing was much slower, but that really allowed us to get a good view of the characters.
#1: Baccano! – You have to praise Baccano for the way it managed to weave so many different stories about so many different characters into just one series of 13 episodes. There’s always something interesting going on because of it.

Autumn 2007

#3: Mokke – Charming and heart-warming slice of life series about two sisters as they meet various people and supernatural spirits.
#2: Ghost Hound – A horror-series with an incredibly thick atmosphere and a huge focus on psychology.
#1: Shion no Ou – An awesome combination between murder mystery and shougi, thanks to a very snappy sense of storytelling and an awesome cast of characters.

Winter 2008

#3: Hakaba Kitarou – A very interesting combination between horror and comedy. It’s always a guess what this one will go for.
#2: Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – Ah, who cares. I liked this. Completely different style when compared to the first season, but nevertheless it had a haunting atmosphere, and it did manage to catch the essence of this concept.
#1: Porfy no Nagai Tabi – An exceptionally well written and realistic travelling series, combining charming and relaxing slice of life with the dark and lonely parts of Porfy’s life.

Spring 2008

#3: Amatsuki – This show stood out with its really heavy emphasis on dialogue and very strong direction. Now where is that second season!?
#2: Himitsu – The Revelation – I personally loved how this series’ mystery knew exactly how much it should reveal. Suspense at its utter best: you’d never know what would happen next, or where an episode would focus on.
#1: Kaiba – An incredibly imaginative concept with a fantastic story to work with. Very haunting and thought-provoking.

Summer 2008

#3: Ultraviolet: Code 044 – A bold direction along with a very nice storyline to work with. What I loved about this show was its atmosphere and strong cast of characters.
#2: Natsume Yuujinchou – Natsume’s stories in which he’d meet various spirits is nothing new, but yet again it’s well executed, and Nyanko-sensei is a gem to watch.
#1: Bonen no Xamdou – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full fledged TV-series that was better animated than this gem. The action was fantastic, and yet this show also spent plenty of time in quiet scenes to flesh out its characters properly.

Autumn 2008

#3: Clannad – After Story – The first Clannad was very interesting, but still a bit formulaic. Then the second season came, and blew all stereotypes away with a heart-wrenching second half.
#2: Michiko e Hatchin – You can trust Manglobe to deliver an incredibly accurate portrayal of Brazil of a few decades back. With incredibly strong characters and an always fun scenario, Michiko e Hatchin really stands out among its season’s best.
#1: Mouryou no Hako – What an intense focus at dialogue. I don’t think that any other series has this much and complex dialogue as Mourou no Hako here, but everything is just so interesting and well detailed, not to mention that the plot is incredibly well detailed.

Winter 2009

#3: Shikabane Hime Kuro – Despite some initial hiccups, Hikabane Hime Kuro continued to raise the bar set by its predecessor, developing its characters and delivering ver exciting action-sequences into a great series.
#2: Kemono no Souja Erin – This really shows the power of long-running series. Throughout the 50 episodes of airtime, the creators are able to provide a very detailed portrayal of its lead character, Erin the beastiarian.
#1: Birdy the Mighty Decode 2 – The first season wasn’t really anything special, but the second season came and improved on it in every single way. The animation is incredible, the characters are really well developed, the story saves enough time to show a bit about the setting and how it dynamically interacts with the main storyline. A real gem.

Spring 2009

#3: Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – For me, this one beats the original series by far. It has a terrific concept and a very well developed setting. (This was another top 3 that was hard too choose: so many series with place 2 and 3 potential).
#2: Guin Saga – Now this is what epic fantasy should be. A large focus on politics and slow character-development. The intrigue was what made this series really memorable.
#1: Phantom – An incredible soundtrack, combined with some really strong development for the lead characters. Phantom stood out with its bold execution

Summer 2009

#3: Spice and Wolf II – This series continued where it predecessor left off, and delivers two well written and intelligent arcs full of witty dialogues and character-development.
#2: Aoi Hana – A very interesting and especially very subtle character-study about a lesbian romance. And for once it isn’t filled with anime stereotypes of this genre.
#1: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – A depiction of what would happen if Tokyo were to be hit by an earthquake of the 8.0 on the Richter scale. Shocking, sad, and very emotional.

Autumn 2009

#3: Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – This sequel went into a completely different direction as its predecessor, but still retains is incredibly strong direction and its message that people die when they fight to the death.
#2: Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra. – A breath of fresh air in the intrigue-genre in the way that it continues to defy expectations and twist around seemingly unconnected stories into a whole
#1: Aoi Bungaku – Not only is this series an example of really good storytelling, it also completely changes style for every of the six stories it’s animating. Each of the stories has this unique feel about it, all in their own way.

I originally wanted to wait with posting this until Porfy no Nagai’s final episode got released, but its time is nearly running out here. The Share-uploaders have a very cruel sense of humour: out of all the episodes they could have picked to delay, it became that one. In any case, here’s the second half to my review of 2008.

Most Pleasant Surprise

Kaiba

Well, here’s a no-brainer. When I wrote my preview (apologies for the lack of images there), I originally ignored this series, mistaking it for a simple kiddie show. Then when it was finally time for the show to air, it totally blew me away. Other nice surprises this year were Chi’s Sweet Home (never knew that cats can be so awesome) and Blassreiter (which for a Gonzo action series turned out to be actually really good).

Best Action

Bonen no Xamdou

This was a tough one to decide, as there wasn’t exactly one series that really stood out in the action-department. Blassreiter featured some amazing fast-paced camera work because of the CG, the very few fight scenes of Real Drive were detailed and exciting, and Shikabane Hime featured some great typical Gainax-action scenes. But I guess that none of them really is able to beat Bonen no Xamdou: amazingly detailed animation, an amazing soundtrack and characters made for the best action scenes I watched this year.

Best Comedy

Gintama

Obviously, Gintama takes this award for the second year in a row. It’s not just funny, it’s been funny for nearly 100 episodes, and it still simply getting better and better. Runner-ups as Hyakko, Skip Beat and Chi’s Sweet Home may have been hilarious, but they still just didn’t match up to some of the most hilarious episodes of Gintama this year.

Best Old Series I Happened to See This Year

Mysterious Cities of Gold

Yeah, so what if the series is already 26 years old. It’s still everything an adventure series should be: a fast non-linear pacing, original setting, there’s always something going on. The cast of characters was awesome, especially Mendoza was brilliant, and it’s got to have the best soundtrack of any anime of the seventies and eighties. Runner up is Air (more than simply a bittersweet series).

Best Character-Development

Porfy no Nagai Tabi

Yeah, it’s probably no big surprise that a WMT-series is running off with this award again. This series has 52 episodes of nearly pure development in not just Porfy, but every other important character of the series, making them feel not only incredibly real, but also extremely dynamic, with lots of different sides. Especially Porfy is an excellently rounded character, and it’s an award well-earned. Runners up include Saiunkoku Monogatari (obviously) and in terms of shorter series: Blade of the Immortal (the growth of Rin, and the bond between her and Manji is definitely memorable).

Best Animation

Bonen no Xamdou

I can’t really give this one to Macross Frontier. Sure, it had a huge budget, but nevertheless the characters art kept looking inconsistent. A good use of messy animation would be something like Kurenai: things didn’t always flow well, but it was nevertheless full of life and detail. The only series that managed to beat Kurenai in that aspect this year was Bonen no Xamdou: the animation shined in everything through the series, and the creators really managed to pay attention to some small details. While not as good as the series that got this award last year (Seirei no Moribito), the work that the animators did on Bonen no Xamdou remains very impressive.

Best Script

Casshern Sins

From the outside, Casshern’s individual episodes seem like mere fillers, and yet the creators manage to use the time of each episode to the full potential through imaginative dialogues that get the best out of each characters. The scripts of the runners-up as Amatsuki and Mouryou no Hako was also very impressive.

Most Imaginative Setting

Kaiba

This is an award that I didn’t hand out last year, but I decided to include it this time for the series that have spent a significant amount of time to flesh out the world they’re set in, with the key word being imagination. Real Drive is an excellent example of this, with the vision of the world in sixty years it tried to create. Bonen no Xamdou also has some excellent ideas that are hidden in its setting, from the Xam’d designs to the imaginative locations that the series visits. But yeah, none of them can match up to Kaiba: there was hardly anything about the series that didn’t feel imaginative.

Best Slice of Life

Mokke

The definition of Slice of Life is of course a bit ambiguous, as it can mean different things depending on how you look at it. Still, I consider the daily lives of Shizuru and Mizuki to be part of the genre, and the combination of the two of them made for a compelling slice of life drama, with both parts equally interesting.

Best Thought-Provoking Anime

Mouryou no Hako

Runner-ups as Kaiba (questions what it means to have a body) and Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae (never afraid to be completely politically incorrect and yet it’s very critical of this) were already very interesting, but none of them really match up to the dialogues of Mouryou no Hako. There’s always something going on, and even when the characters aren’t discussing the plot, they’re delving into some sort of topic that vaguely has something to do with it, in order to flesh it out.

Best Supporting Character

Vanilla – Kaiba

The guy remains a total bastard for some of the things he did, but you can’t help but love the guy as the story unfolds. His quirks were a lot of fun, and also the serious scenes around him were downright awesome. The runners-up for this category probably are the side-casts of Amatsuki and Shion no Ou: thanks to them, there always was something interesting going on in their respective series.

Best Male Character

Akihiko Chuzenji – Mouryou no Hako

A bit of a strange choice, but let me try to explain. In 2008, there wasn’t really a male character that stood out for me in a way like: “Yes! He’s going to be the best male character of the year!”, so I had to turn to the runner-ups: characters that didn’t stand out per se, but nonetheless were excellent to watch. Those were Gintoki (Gintama, whenever he appears you know you’re going to crack up), Watanuki (xxxHOlic, I really liked how his character grew through the second season) and Akihiko. While we hardly know anything about him, compared to other characters in other series, the guy has an air of presence, similar to Ginko of Mushishi.

Best Female Character

Shion – Shion no Ou

When I watched the series, Shion struck me as a very headstrong character, despite all of the things that she had to cope with. She grew into an absolutely adorable one by the end of the series, and it was always fun to watch her rise in the tournament. Runner-ups are Minamo (RD Sennou Chousashitsu, a downright lovable character) and Hatchin (Michiko e Hatchin, sarcastic, independent and awesome to watch).

Best Mystery

Mouryou no Hako

Since mystery is one of my favourite genres, I was a bit let-down by 2007 due to the very small amount of good mystery-series in that year, but thankfully 2008 came back with some excellent series of the genre. Kurozuka was simple, yet effective, and Kaiba made optimal use of the unknown in creating its downright awesome storyline. Still, Mouryou no Hako gets this award for me, due to the sheer complexity and creativity of all the weird things that happen throughout the series. The questions are satisfying, but the eventual answers even more.

Best Drama

Shion no Ou

It’s always a bit vague what really belongs in this category, since nearly all anime has some sort of drama. The best drama I watched this year came from Shion no Ou, though. It was powerful, and yet never really melodramatic.

Best Story

Kaiba

Even though it only had 12 episodes, in those episodes Kaiba accomplished what most other series can’t even do in 26 of them. Kaiba’s story is complex, multi-layered and continuously interesting. Runners-up: Mouryou no Hako, Shion no Ou, Bonen no Xamdou.

Top 20 Anime of 2008: #10 – #1

#10: xxxHOlic: Kei

A very worthy successor to the original xxxHolic series. While the series was a bit short and the Kohane-arc disappointed a bit, the beginning and ending were downright excellent, and definitely the best stories that the series has shown us thus far. Even with the many crossovers to Tsubasa Chronicle in the manga, this series still kept its identity as an anime about modern folklore, and I really enjoyed it.

#9: Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino

Perhaps a controversial entry on this list, since according to many people it ruined the first season. I, however, don’t care, since the story was downright excellent. Artland’s adaptation was definitely different, yet at the same time a very enjoyable series, with an especially haunting cast of characters.

#8: Amatsuki

Amatsuki is one of the two big “lots of talking”-series this year. Still, it worked really well, not only because of the depth of the dialogue, but also the strength of the storytelling and characters. At times it may have been a bit difficult as a raw-watcher to understand what went on, but nevertheless it was one of the highlights of the past spring season.

#7: Ghost Hound

2008 may have been a relatively bad year for Production IG, but none of this reflected in Ghost Hound. It’s a unique series with its extreme emphasis on sound effects and psychology, but nevertheless it was a very interesting series to watch, and it did the seemingly impossible by making a bunch of teenaged brats into excellent characters.

#6: Porfy no Nagai Tabi

Ah, the latest World Masterpiece Theatre series. Unlike Les Miserables, it didn’t have an enormous story to work with, and instead it was a simple travelling series, but it put such an amazing amount of detail into just about everything. Porfy and Mina are some of the most rounded characters of the year due to their non-stop development, and I haven’t even mentioned the amazing background art yet.

#5: Bonen no Xamdou

Really, if there was some sort of book called “the ultimate guide to writing a good story”, then Bonen no Xamdou would be mentioned everywhere in it. It never takes anything for granted and slowly builds up just about everything that might be important to the storyline later on. There are no forced climaxes, and yet the attention to detail is amazing.

#4: Himitsu ~ The Revelation

If Madhouse’s domination in this year’s anime wasn’t already obvious enough: 3 of my top 4 series come from them. Himitsu had a concept with so much potential handed to it, and it used this to deliver one awesome series during the past spring-season. It was delightfully unpredictable: you never knew what the next story would be focusing on, or whether an episode would be simply entertaining or downright awesome. I also really grew to like the cast of characters more and more, and especially the series’ final quarter was one hit after the other.

#3: Mouryou no Hako

Mouryou no Hako really took me by surprised. Before it aired, I was almost certain that nothing would be able to beat Amatsuki this year in terms of complex dialogues, and then this series came and either equalled or even surpassed it in just about every aspect. Even though the series is filled with dialogues, the creators also succeeded in a very subtle chemistry between the characters, and wasted no moment to further flesh out its cast through either this dialogue or through their expressions. Clamp’s character-designs and the very solid production values made it continuously pleasing to look at, and the plot itself also was really well written.

#2: Kaiba

This year I again had a lot of difficulty choosing my number one. Both Kaiba and my number one pick for 2008 were downright incredible and just as good -if not better- than my top picks of 2007, though in the end I put this one on number 2 because of its rushed ending. Apart from that, though, this series felt like one that was its time far ahead. Masaaki Yuasa succeeded in delivering by far his best work. It’s series like this one that show the beauty of experimental series to its fullest.

#1: Shion no Ou

In the end, I really have to give my top pick of the year to Shion no Ou, the only series of 2008 to make it in my top 10. I hardly knew anything about Shougi, and yet it turned into an awesome series that managed to exploit the tournament setting to its fullest. The awesome cast of characters also made nearly every episode a success and the addictive pacing never let any episode get anywhere near boring. The animation was also daring, but ultimately it gave the series a unique and excellent look. I’m hoping to run into more series like this one in 2009.

Okay, that was it from me for 2008. A happy new year everyone, and the best wishes for 2009!