Otakuism

Best ” OVA ” - ARIA the Arietta

Ok, actually ARIA the Arietta was probably the only OVA from this year I saw, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Like everything about ARIA, it was great; calming, funny, whimsical, and slightly melancholic. Fortunately the OVA did not signal the end of the great ARIA franchise, but as a detour on towards better things. I’m sure almost everyone will be checking out ORIGINATION in the coming weeks.

Best ” OVA that didn’t come out this year but I finally saw ” - Giant Robo

Now tell me that’s not awesome?

Best ” Artsy Show ” - Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei

It was a toss up between Sayonara Zetsubuo-sensei and ef ~ a tale of memories ~ for this category, but ultimately I enjoyed SZS’s stylistic flair more. From the orgasmically surreal OP (BURE BURE BURE BURE) to the several design quirks that characterize Akiyuki Shinbo’s work, it is impossible to say SZS didn’t have style. The style could either enhance a joke to something truly hilarious, make an incromphrensible joke even more cryptic, or stand alone in silent beauty. I’m looking forward to see what the second season will showcase in its artistic melting pot, but as in SZS tradition I have to ask: SUBS?!

Best ” I couldn’t believe it could turn out this bad show ” - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

It’s amazing to see how StrikerS went from the darling anime of the year to being derided by almost everyone, even hardcore fans. I tried to put up with it, but there were just too many flaws and I dropped it shortly after Vivio was introduced. The endless training, introduction of too many characters, poor villians, shoddy animation, bad pacing, Vivio, disappearance of old characters we loved; all a perfect mixture of fail. The only good things to come out of StrikerS were Subaru and Teana; Subaru’s a great character all around who deserves a better show, and Teana just because I think her design is sexy. They do make one hell of a lesbian couple, another thing that couldn’t save StrikerS.

Best ” Show that’s halfway finished ” - Code Geass

Great plot, great action, great characters, great pizza, great ass. I look forward to more in the spring.

Best ” Honi Honi ” - Potemayo

I had to give Potemayo something. There is not a more sugary sweet, diabetes inducing moeblob in all of anime. The show never took itself seriously and had fun with its characters, creating a great comedy show all around. Also desperately in need of a second season.

Best ” Romance Show ” - Genshiken 2

I’m not much of a romance guy. Too much romance in anime seems forced and unnatural to me, and often times it is, but Genshiken 2 got romance right. Genshiken had the benefit of being a slice-of-life/romance show, so it never had to rely on romantic intrigues to carry the story but could also insert gundam references. The natural love between Ohno and Tanaka and Sasahara and Ogiue grew throughout the series, and in the case of the later couple hasn’t even come to fruition yet. Hopefully we’ll get some OVA’s to finish up that story.

Best ” Other show made by SHAFT this year ” - Hidamari Sketch

For that other awesome show made this year by SHAFT. Also can’t wait for the second season airing soon.

Best ” Show of the Year ” - Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

Could there be anything else but Gurren-Lagann for best show of the year? Everything about it is perfect. Stellar animation, manly GAR characters, and an epic plot that encompasses the entire universe. It had a couple problems in pacing halfway through, but nothing could stop this juggernaut from reaching the top. The spirit of this show - its characters, its emotions, and its many great monologues - will definitely stay with me in the coming year.

On a personal note, it’s been a pretty good year overall. The blog reached one year old. Readership increased dramatically, declined dramatically, and finally leveled of. My fanboyism of Type-moon reached new heights with the Fate/stay Night patch, but due to the lack of any new games has settled down to a kind of pessimistic cynicism. My fanboyism in touhou was similar, with much reading of doujinshi and playing of games at the beginning of the year leading to me not even thinking about touhou now. Too much too fast I guess. I discovered a love for mecha and tokusatsu which does continue now and have been watching as much as I can in those areas, which has definitely been reflected in the blog. And I got a cute girlfriend who I love, which was the best part of the year. And she has seen the blog and agrees: otaku make great boyfriends.

Finally, in mimicry of what one of my favorite bloggers does, let’s look at which post each month you readers most commented on and, I assume, liked.

January - Series Review: Black Lagoon Second Barrage - several people seemed to agree with me on how great this anime was. A third season is still sorely missed.

February - Saigar Update: Quarterfinals Match 3 aka. Good Night Sweet Prince - Archer’s lost in Saigar prompts a discussion on what the hell GAR is.

March - Greatest Haruhi Pic Evar - still rings true.

April - I have found it! - video of the first live action attempt at Lucky Star dance. Not to be viewed by the faint of heart.

May - Claymore Manga: Awesome, Claymore Anime: Meh - everyone agrees the girls of Claymore are moe.

June - Game Review: Fate/stay Night - FATE Route - still waiting for UBW patch.

July - Impressions: Sayonara Zetsubuo Sensei - the beginning of the madness.

August - One Year Anniversary Extravaganza - looking back, it wasn’t that big of an extravaganza.

September - Final Thoughts on Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann - the end of a legend.

October - Tomoya’s Dating a Retarded Person - more people really need to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

November - Prelude to the Ultimate Battle of Manliness V.2 - it’s on in a couple of days.

December - I Hate Keyches - I love inventing new words.

Well, that’s it for 2007. Happy new year everyone and I’ll see you in 2008!

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: ten EVERYTHING FOR BIG FIRE’s, nine SKULL MAN’s,eight SYNAPSE ATTACK’s,seven GARO’s, six OH GAWDS YUNO IS MOE!, five ZERO!, four VOLTEKKA!, three PRIMAL SCREAMS OF HOT BLOODED FURY!, two(million) RONs!, and one GIGA DRILL BREAKER!

This is the tenth post in a series as I look at the twelve best anime moments of the year from shows I watched. Key there being watched, as a few of these moments are going to be from some pretty old stuff, but I think they’re damn good enough to talk about at any time. This is a joint ABC blogging project with other contributions from Roxas, CCYoshi, Orion, Owen S, Xerox, Nekoron, Martin, Michael Huang, usagijen, and Moogy. Yeah, there’s a lot of us. And if you haven’t seen Giant Robo then go watch it now, as this post contains some ending spoilers.

You have to watch both clips to really get the full impact of the moment. Sadly I can’t find any with subtitles, though.

I’ve said before how I consider Giant Robo to be an anime classic that needs to be seen by every person who calls themselves a true fan, whether they like mecha or not. Its themes of growing up, noble sacrifice, responsibility, and the power of legacy are universal and well worth seeing in action. There are literally a dozen great moments in Giant Robo, but my favorite comes in the final episode. Genya is about to strike the crushing blow to the battered fighters of the IPO, and Daisaku is paralyzed in his inability to rescue Ginrei. However, Daisaku does not wallow for long. He still does not have the answer to whether happiness can be obtained without sacrifice, but he will fight to protect the world right now.

It’s a great emotional moment as everyone rallies around Daisaku to protect him so he can get to Giant Robo and fight as one with him. The moment where Daisaku stands up as one with Giant Robo and everyone shouting behind him to fight Genya is really the climax of the series. It’s also the climax of Masamichi Amano’s music, with the score here perfectly intensifying the raw emotions. I can’t describe enough how perfect Amano’s music is; his work on Giant Robo is probably the best anime soundtrack ever made. the moment may be a bit melodramatic and slightly cheesy, but is awesome to the end, everything that I love about Giant Robo.

Story:

In the future the third energy revolution is caused by the invention of the Shizuma drive — an unlimited source of clean energy — and an ideal utopia is created. However, there is still forces of evil in this new world. That evil is Big Fire, a terrorist group bent on world domination. Possessing advanced robots and lead by The Magnificent Ten, a group of extremely powerful super humans, there is nothing that can stand in their way. Except, that is, for The Experts of Justice who protect the world, lead by The Celestial Nine, super heroes just as powerful as the Magnificent Ten. The newest member of the Celestial Nine is Daisaku Kusamu and the robot his dead father left him, Giant Robo, the strongest robot in the world.

Now a new danger threatens the world. A mysterious giant eye has appeared in the sky and is draining the energy from all the Shizuma drives. At the same time Dr. Shizuma, the creator of the drives, is being hunted by Big Fire for assassination. And if that wasn’t enough, Franken von Vogler, one of the creators of the Shizuma drive, reappears after being dead for ten years and declares revenge against the world for the Tragedy of Bashtarle. What was the Tragedy of Bashtarle and it’s relation to Volger? Why is the eye draining the energy of the world? What is Big Fire’s role in all this? Daisaku Kusama and the Experts of Justice are going to have to figure everything out fast if they want to survive the Seven Days of Darkness.

Impressions:

Let me say this first: Giant Robo is one of the greatest anime ever created hands down. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like mecha or not, or if you only like loli’s in your anime. It’s a classic that trancends genres and mere words. It’s taken me three tries just to write this review, because each time I can’t find the words to describe how great this series is. First there’s the characters, who are all incredibly awesome. From the nobly malicious villians of the Magnificent Ten, like the gar Albert the Impact, to even the minor warriors of the IPO who are all based on Chinese heroes, they’re all great and heroic. Daisaku starts out as a slightly naive robot pilot, gets emo a little bit, before deciding to kick reason to the curb and become gar on his own. While I don’t like to use gar too much, I feel like I need completely new adjectives to describe these characters. They’re larger than life, like epic heroes from myth. Hell, a lot of them are based on epic heroes from chinese mythology. The story itself is epic; it has everything. Family betrayal, honor, friendship, noble sacrifice, rivalries, etc. It’s like 50-episodes of action crammed into eight, but you don’t feel like your missing anything at all.

On the animation front Giant Robo is perfect. There’s a reason the OVA took almost six years to complete. They made sure they had the best budget possible when animating an episode. Everything’s top notch quality here. One of the first things you notice with the animation is that it’s a very retro style. The future imagined in GR is the kind of outlandish utopian future that was imagined in the sixties, with all the crazy machines to go with it. The mecha also have those old school looks where they all look a bit crazier. The music in GR is a complete orchestral soundtrack composed by Masamichi Amano, and it’s one of the greatest soundtracks I’ve ever heard. There’s distinct themes that run through every episode, and then there’s stand out tracks like in episode seven when Giant Robo revives. The very reason I still remember some scenes in GR so vividly is because of the excellent music.

Obviously, I think very highly of Giant Robo. In my mind it’s a classic of anime as a whole that really shows the story telling potential of the medium. You don’t even have to like mecha to enjoy GR, because there’s really not that much mecha fighting in it. A lot of the fighting is by the super human members of the cast who have amazing powers, but in japanese tradition they don’t explain why. They just have them and it’s awesome. So if I haven’t made it clear yet, watch Giant Robo. Dare I say one of the greatest shows ever created. Also one of the shows most in need of a sequal. There’s not exactly any plotholes, but it promises another story when there is none. Only bad thing about GR is that there isnt’ more of it. And that says a lot about how good it is.