What better way to finish off a series of posts like this than to reminisce on my most awing anime experience of the year? On May 7th I woke up to see that Aria the Origination episodes 12 and 13 had been delivered to mplayer. I was nervous about my AP Calculus exam, so I figured I would watch some calming Aria and let it soothe me.

I always liked Aria, from the day I watched the first episode of the Animation more than a year earlier. I’d never for one moment, though, considered that it would break into my Top 10 list. My Top 10 list being riddled with such hits as… Interlude, Kannazuki no Miko, AIR, Loveless, and Saishuuheiki Kanojo.

I cried once during episode 12 of the Origination and I cried four times during episode 13. I cried when Akari cried, I cried when Akari cried again, I cried when Akari woke up the next morning, and I cried when she uttered the last line of the whole show:

“Chotto ureshii dake da yo.”

The moment I heard those words, I understood that Aria was my favorite show of all time. My Top 10 list crumbled like Teppelin, replaced with a single show upon a single pedestal. I cried like a mother at her daughter’s wedding when I heard those words, and then I went to school and kicked the shit out of that Calculus exam’s ass.

P.S. “Only two posts about Aria, lolikit?” Yeah, I could have made every one of these twelve posts be about this show. I tried hard not to. It was a grueling task, but I won in the end. V!

“But never mind any of that,” says Sekai earnestly, “let’s practice!”

Watching School Days was possibly the most pleasing anime experience of my life. It was a Saturday night, Memorial Day weekend; I was with a friend in a dark viewing room at Fanime. I, being a proficient aniblogger, knew the spoilers. He didn’t. The rest of the room didn’t.

I’d been prepping my friend all day, throwing “Nice [Noun]” references all over the place. Quoting the final scenes of School Days such that he wouldn’t be able to guess what I was hinting at, all the while piquing his curiosity.

I was sleep-deprived, I was cold, I was hungry.

And I marathoned that mother-fucker with my friend and the rest of the viewing room. It was one hell of a painful show, but every additional moment of Makoto dipfaggery brought me one step closer to hilaritygasm. I knew what was in store for him. No one else in the room did. People were getting up and leaving in disgust. By the time shit really started hitting the fan, the room was half-empty.

My friend was on the edge of his seat.

I had figuratively creamed myself at least ten times.

“This isn’t practice anymore.” – Sekai

“I feel like if I stay with you, the same thing will happen to me as happened to Sekai.” – Hikari

“I was reckless and impatient back then! I’m different now.” – Makoto

What’s not to love about a show in which your typical weak male lead actually makes decisions, and those decisions involve bedding every single girl in his school? Oh, and let’s not forget to mention impregnating them. Heh, the Bible Belt would love Makoto, and so did I! The answer to my question is “not a whole lot, if you’re sleep-deprived and meme-prone.”

Makoto’s head got its ride on a pleasant ship, and those remaining in the viewing room stood up and gave that mofo a standing ovation.

School Days got a 10/10 from me, just for that one night stand.

Thanks to two extremely grim opening episodes both set chronologically after the bulk of the show, Episode 3 of Ga-rei Zero was the most painful episode of the year for me. Watching Yomi and Kagura grow close while knowing that Kagura’s demise at Yomi’s rage-filled hands is the only ending in store is nothing short of rattling.

Classy stuff.

I wrote a long-ass post on Dreams of the Quill about Episode 4 of Aria the Origination, and, in keeping with the spirit of these posts, I will not link to it now. But. This is definitely one of my favorite episodes of anime, period. Remember the one? Akari wants to help Alicia because Alicia’s so busy, so Alicia tells her to go work a traghetto?

Akari meets three other singles, including two dispirited prima-wannabes, and, with her suteki power, inspires them all to try harder at life.

“Masshiro na START desu”—Akari introduces the idea of a tabula rasa to her peers, teaching them that every time they try something their records are wiped. No matter how many times they’ve failed, they just need to start over and try harder. The pure, unbridled hope in Akari’s cheerful lecture is something I’ve held inside me the last two years as I tried to get over the shortcomings of my past and become a better human being: no matter how shitty I am, I can wipe that clean and start over.

Akari didn’t teach me this lesson, but it was still refreshing to hear it from her lips. Combine that with top-notch execution, and you have one damn good episode of anime.

The Shigofumi OVA was easily one of the best OVAs I’ve ever seen, in stark contrast to the last OVA I mentioned in this series. It did so much in terms of expanding the story of its show without, you know, reincarnating its characters or changing their personalities. Anyway.

Fumika rocks.

I can tolerate her brand of tsundere—not too pronounced, neither end of its spectrum dazzlingly extreme. It’s the brand of tsundere that’s kind of realistic and believable, stemming from conflicted feelings (as opposed to, say, the tsundere of Louise of Zero no Tsukaima, which is just there as a contrived moe device). It’s reasonable, and, as we all know, lolikitean means reasonable.

The Darker than BLACK OVA was one of the largest let-downs of the year. It tried to be funny but was just way too creepy-Japanese. Oh, and *facepalms* @ the phlag. The epic fail of this episode of anime was so great that when I brought it up a couple weeks later, my brother, who had the misfortune of experiencing it with me, cringed.

“You weren’t supposed to remind me!” he protested.

I felt so bad, I apologized. And I meant it.

ef ~a tale of melodies~ Episode 6 was hands-down the best episode of anime in the fourth quarter of 2008. But that’s not what made it catch an invitation to this dinner. The day I wasted at work making the below, on the other hand, is.

I watched the first three episodes of Lamune more than a year ago and was bored to tears. This year, my older brother asked me if I’d seen it, he thought it would be my thing. I told him it had bored me, and he asked me “what about Aria?” I stood there dumbfounded for a bit, and then I marathoned Lamune.

The series benefited from the nostalgia of having seen the first three episodes previously. Oh, and it was just good.

I loved close to every moment of the show. The summer imagery resonated strongly with me (being a lover of AIR for purely atmospheric reasons), and the relationship between Ken and Nanami was extremely sweet. I’ve ranted about Lamune twice (once here, and once in CCY-senpai’s comments), so I won’t go too into it now, but yeah. Love that show to pieces.

The other day I read some post on IcyStorm’s blog that mentioned Clannad’s “themes” being better than those of Key or AIR, Kyoto Animation’s two other Key adaptations. My response to that seemingly reckless statement was to take a moment to really think about what Clannad’s themes were.

IcyStorm later pointed out to me that he was referring to the value of family and friends, but I think that’s secondary to what I found for myself, which was that hope never dies. “Hope is like a dandelion—it grows back from the same stalk in the spring when it dies.”

And I don’t think that this theme is unique to Clannad; I think we see it in AIR and in Kanon as well. In AIR, after a thousand years, the curse was finally lifted. In Kanon, a new branch grows from the tree whence Ayu fell, and we see a fox—presumably Makoto/related to Makoto—walking around. So on one level, I disagreed with IcyStorm.

But execution still matters, right?

And the Clannad movie portrays this theme better than any of Kyoto Animation’s adaptations, I believe: when Tomoya is finally dragged from his apartment, and made to face the future (“this is why people make lies,” etc.), the future being, in this case, his young daughter. He realizes he doesn’t need to be the man his father was, that he can be a new man of his own and that there’s hope for his family. The moment on the train platform literally moved me to tears. Tears, needless to say, of joy.

You did your best, Tomoya.

Defying all odds, Code Geass R2 stopped sucking long enough during its final episode to pretend that it had been decent the whole time. It had a strong finale, and managed to do a lot of ass-covering. The moment in anime here isn’t so much in the contents of the episode, though, as it is in cherishing the memories of 50 episodes of black swans, memes, and angry pseudo-intellectual bloggers who kept reassuring us that everything was bright (believe it or not, dumb plot twists are dumb no matter where you get with them!).

Code Geass R2 Episode 25 to me signified the end of an era and was extremely nostalgic. No matter whether you love the show or hate the show, as someone pointed out a while back, it provokes a strong reaction in you, and it has sculpted a significant portion of the aniblogosphere.

Dumb though the show arguably was, it was incredibly influential for us more moronic anibloggers, and therefore its ending has impact.

Love and peace and rock my song,
-Dr. lolikitsune.

P.S. Code Geass embodies lolikitean romance.