… and so, 2010 grinds to a close. A final sort of “meh” to what was a very “meh” year. There were a lot of disappointments this year. I don’t think anyone can argue with that. And certainly as far as anime and aniblogging goes, I can’t imagine many people will miss 2010. Sure, there were a few highlights, but they were few and far between. Let’s look back and see if we can’t pinpoint some of what went wrong…

BEST NEW SERIES

Well, the best new series this year was only barely from Japan. It was a pretty stellar new series, but… It was definitely one of the more awesome surprises of the year, we can all agree on that. The Anime Expo announcement that the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender were partnering with Production I.G. to make a new series set in a modernization of the setting… well, it was pretty awesome. The series so far has been pretty good, but seems to be missing some of the charm of the original. Hopefully the coming months will see it improve, just as the original improved drastically after a fairly shaky start.

BEST CONTINUING SERIES

Slim pickings here. Fullmetal Alchemist’s asspull of a conclusion was an incredible letdown to all but the craziest fans. No one really likes where Evangelion 3.0 is taking the series. Naruto and Bleach have both taken turns for the worse with both going on simultaneous filler seasons again. So this award is going to have to go to Bakuman. It hasn’t improved too drastically, but it has been consistently funny and engaging, with interesting characters and an original look into the manga and anime industries. It will never be anywhere nearly as popular as Death Note, but it’s continuing to be fun.

BEST MOVIE

Now this one I’m excited about. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. Wow. What a fucking masterpiece. Kyoto Animation has truly set a new standard for epic trolling. Sure, the stunt got them shut down for good, but… I would’ve killed to see the looks on the faces of the thousands of fans crammed into the theaters on opening day when an apologetic manager came out and informed them that the film itself had disappeared! Sure, it’s terrible that some of the managers were beaten to bloody pulps. Sure, it’s sad that we lost one of the most gorgeous animation studios of all time. But damn was it funny.

BEST BLOG

This one. It may have been a shitty year, but that meant plenty of shit to mock. With LKs 1 and 2 working side-by-side for most of the year, we managed to… okay, so we barely got out a post a week, at best. Between the two of us. But all of the rest of you sucked even harder, so… yeah. Fuck you.

MOST INTERESTING BLOG

The OEG. The spectacular clusterfuck of drama that surrounded the last few rounds of it were an absolutely fascinating debacle–kind of like watching a train wreck, where the train is made of everything that is wrong with otaku. I think everyone can agree that the game turned out to be a massive failure, with “otaku” everywhere claiming to be so even more, in a retaliatory backlash… I think the real failing came when digiboy and Funeral, after being revealed as the bloggers behind the mask, let themselves get pulled down to the level of the people trolling them.

SADDEST MOMENT

Ghostlightning announcing the end of WRL in light of how much time he has to spend taking care of BusterBeamSlice. It was completely understandable, but still rather sad. We miss you, GL. Especially after otou-san retired earlier in the year… we lost two powerhouses this year. : [

HAPPIEST MOMENT

There wasn’t a ton to celebrate this year, but CJ did get into her top choice college. That was cool. And from her reports, the anime club she’s started there is doing dang well. She still won’t have sex with me, though. Slut. : [

SO ON THE WHOLE, we’re not doing that much worse than last year, but nor are we doing any better. Con attendance was down. Two more major studios closed their doors. We didn’t have any particularly memorable series.

Frankly I’m not left particularly optimistic for next year. Let’s hope things improve… otherwise, well, I’m seeing less and less reason to keep watching anime, or keep blogging.

.lolikappa