we're finally notdotq anymore

Let us shed now one silent tear for the passing of 2010, the greatest year in anime history. This year marked some truly watershed moments for the medium, the fandom, the aniblogosphere… Things were glorious. Let’s give some well-deserved awards.

BEST NEW SERIES

Nozomi no Densetsu, without a doubt. I don’t think anyone quite saw this one coming, and in a way I’m glad we didn’t. GAINAX’s masterpiece was one of the best-kept secrets in years–which is made even more impressive by the fact that they chose to simultaneously broadcast it on American TV as well. Every aspect of this show so far has been a masterpiece. The manic enthusiasm of Gurren Lagann crossed with the emotional depth of Evangelion’s twisted psychology… This is very much an adult show, and embraces that. There’s a reason it’s skyrocketed to the top of the charts both in Japan and America. It’s the first anime since Cowboy Bebop to be really socially acceptable to watch in America, and is practically the talk of the nation these days.

And you know what the best part is? We’ve got the whole second season to look forward to next year. (But dear gods, what a cliffhanger! GAINAX are horrible people!)

BEST CONTINUING SERIES

There were some really fantastic series continuing this year, with FMA’s stellar finale and some of Naruto’s best arcs, but the real standout was Eden of the East. The announcement of a full second season at the end of the second movie was thoroughly exciting, and lived up to its promise. The world it painted was rich and fascinating, and extremely poignant. Everyone who saw it came away with a hell of a lot to think about, and deeper for it.

BEST MOVIE

Oh wow, Fuyu no Tobira, no question. Mamoru Hosoda has knocked another one out of the park. We all thought Summer Wars was brilliant, but it was nothing compared to this–especially given the turnout! And now the American premiere of it has opened to stellar box office results, not to mention the pundits saying it’s a shoo-in for Best Animated Picture. Not since Spirited Away has an anime movie been this widely-accepted. I personally think that Hosoda could well be the next Miyazaki.

BEST BLOG

This is gonna be cheesy of me, but… the entire goddamn blogosphere. You guys really stepped up to the plate, and made some amazing posts. The whole community seemed to really cohere this year, and swelled immensely in size. There were occasional bouts of drama, but nothing out of the ordinary. On the whole, you guys just fucking rocked this year. Mad props.

MOST INTERESTING BLOG

The OEG. We never figured out who exactly they were, but they sure stirred things up a lot. And, in the end, they were successful, on a much broader scale than even they intended, I think. We all underestimated how powerful our own viral marketing schemes could be, and… Well, frankly, we have the unofficial OEG panels at Fanime, AX, and Otakon to thank for a lot of the publicity. Sure, it resulted in a fuckton of trolling, but… go to any anime convention these days, and you’ll find a mind-boggling decrease in the quantity of idiotic narutard-style otaku. The fandom as a whole seems to be finally growing up, and the OEG may well have been the catalyst.

SADDEST MOMENT

The return of Jason fucking Miao. Goddammit. The one blemish on an otherwise glorious year. I won’t spend any more time on this cumdumpster than I need to.

HAPPIEST MOMENT

Do I even need to list this? I think everyone knows what’s going to be said.

Everyone was horrified when ghostlightning announced BusterBeamSlice’s illness. We all anxiously followed the hospital mess on Twitter, and were right there with him as he waited in anguish for the diagnosis. And when we heard the news…

Well, that’s when the magic happened. There wasn’t any one real leader to it. We all just kind of spontaneously rallied. And what resulted was a truly beautiful effort. I’ve seen fundraisers. I’ve seen charities. But this… this was something special. There’s a reason that baby is alive and healthy today, and the reason is every single one of you. You’re all beautiful people.

Fuck, listen to me! I got into this business to troll all of you, and here I am singing your praises! Shit man! This must have been one hell of a year, to get me talking like that.

And you know what? I have this weird kind of feeling, like 2011… 2011 might just be even better. We’ve got so much forward momentum. So much to look forward to. So much potential. All we have to do is… not fuck this up.

.lolikappa

According to ghostlightning, his wife, sybilant, hates tragedy. Apparently she enjoyed Honey & Clover all the way through, up until the ending—and apparently the ending was too much for her. When ghostlightning related this to me, I thought to myself, “was the ending… tragic?” I recalled lots of tragedy throughout the course of the show, be it in flashbacks (Morita’s family’s past) or in the present (Hagu’s accident), and compared to these instances of tragedy, the ending just didn’t measure up for me.

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… and I thought to myself, “LOVELESS OVA?! DO WANT!”

But then it was some new anime that was shitty through and through. It felt a bit like Jojo, what with all the extremely buff and disproportionate dudes being buff and disproportionate. There were some nice jiggle physics, I guess, but they didn’t make up for anything.

I made it all the way through the first episode of Needless, surviving off my masochism, and then…

… I was rewarded.

The ending animation entails three lolis kissing each other, rubbing each other, licking each other, rubbing against each other, and so on and so forth and doing all the things that three lolis normally do whilst removing each other’s clothing, and I went to heaven, dying a million times and coming back to life a million times.

Then the preview for episode two replaced the loliyuri and I cried a million times and died and didn’t come back to life.

Verdict: shit.

The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

More seriously, though, it’s true that I have not blogged anime in a really long time. My last post on here, in fact, was to the effect that I was totally swamped by that oftentimes elusive, oftentimes painfully-in-your-face thing called “real life.”

But enough of that.

It’s time for a casual and relaxed account of my 2009 anime experience thus far.

Maria+Holic 1-2
I have another five episodes to watch, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. This has nothing to do with the death of subtext; this show is the most blatant thing ever. I think it has more to do with the Shaft style. Bitches need to know when to cut back. I don’t want to watch ef a third time.

Maria-sama ga Miteru Season 4 1-4
Episodes 1 and 2 were awesome; 3 and 4 were terrible. I have 5 and 6 with me but haven’t watched them simply because I don’t have the time. I do want to, and quite badly at that. This show is part of the definition of lolikitsune; it won’t remain unwatched for long.

Aria the Animation 1-3
As one of my New Year’s Resolutions, I restarted Aria. It’s so good.

Toradora 15-18
Slowly, slowly plodding through this. It reached a point where I said “indeed! This IS H&Cesque!” because all the characters seemed to have their own depth and they were all good in very human ways. The only problem is that these characters are like, the pre-H&C good humans, and as such their trials and tribulations all seem painfully immature. I’ll be honest: I’m tired of the mediocrity.

Cowboy Bebop 23
I want to finish this show someday. That’s all I can say.

Aria the Animation 1-3
One of my older brothers (who had seen no Aria previously) decided to try the show out. It’s so fucking good.

Xamd 20-26
The show really petered out in the end. It did the Darker Than Black thing, where there’s lots of unexplained nonsense—and, instead of leaving it unexplained, the creators try to put it all together and come to a conclusion. Like in DTB, this resulted in a lot of stuff not making sense. Shows need to know when to just leave well enough alone.

That said, emotional captain was emotional, cool animation was cool, fun show was fun. I just have no idea why Nazuna got on that bus in the first episode.

Munto TV 1-4
It’s just the OVAs all over again so far, right? Not too big a waste of time, and I’m looking forward to the new material.

Suzumiya-chan 1
I vomited, and couldn’t finish the episode.

Churuya-san 3
I vomited, and couldn’t finish the episode.

Clannad After Story 14-18
Good stuff. Unfortunately, no, this does not redeem 36 episodes of garbage. A couple good moments do not a good show make. No matter what anyone says. I’m not going to argue this at any length right now because I have better things to be doing with my time than engaging in internet debates, but let it be known that that is my opinion. I think the movie did a better job overall. Of course, AS 18 made me want to become a dad, but that’s just because I’m a moron.

Aria the Animation 1-3
Saki, the one-time anime-lover, decided she wanted to give my favorite show a try. I accompanied her. She liked it enough to watch more than one episode. Woot? Incredibly fucking good show.

Aaaaand that’s pretty much what my animescape has been since getting into the UC Berkeley dorms. What, you want more from me? A convention report on AODSF2009? It sucked! Anything else? Satire? Humor? What are those?! I hear the ABAs weren’t happening a second time! I don’t need no fucking awards.

I just want love.

Oh, I watched Coraline, and it scared me shitless more than once. I’m so easily creeped out :(

So a couple entities renowned for their manga punditry conducted an experiment recently. These two entities are Scott of The Anime Almanac and the Reverse Thieves team. The experiment was this: can bigoted humans who value principles over entertainment enjoy entertainment that violates their principles? Wait. Before I go any further, chew on that for a moment. Scott calls it a “fun challenge,” but really, what is it?

It’s an opportunity to reinforce ignorance.

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