This is one of those articles where I can’t think up an interesting topic and I’m writing purely to keep up with my self-imposed schedule, so excuse me if it seems uninspired.

I recently watched Amaenaidayo, a rather generic fanservice anime with a mind-numbing plot and cliched characters and, shoot me, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t special, it wasn’t brilliant or intellectually stimulating and most other critics would happily can it, but I found it incredibly fun and entertaining. I laughed at the jokes, I found myself caring about and liking the characters and, hell, I even dug the tsundere romance. And, yet, this is the type of anime that, just a few years ago, I’d have rather killed myself than watch. I think I’m starting to get more tolerant of harem anime as I see more of them, and come to understand the formulae they follow, their tendencies, their strengths and weaknesses. I mean, harem anime get canned by many a critic for various reasons, usually for not being intellectually inspiring or breaking long-set molds and while such criticisms are probably fair, they’re not really intending to be that way in any case. It’s mindless entertainment and as long as it can deliver on that, and actually be entertaining, then I can’t complain about it at all.

That’s not to say I’ve suddenly become a defender of harem anime. Shuffle! remains one of the most mediocre, inane stories I’ve come across, even now with my increased tolerance (a second viewing and the horrible recap series showed me this). Da Capo (both series) is a total waste of time and the new fanservice romp, Nagasarete Airantou… well, as I’ve said before, I’d drop that if I dropped series. But, fanservice series like Amaenaidayo and Girls Bravo and even Tsuyokiss at times are enjoyable and manage to succeed in their lowly intentions: ie, to make their audience (me) laugh. Hell, there are even some serious harem series that are appreciable. Canvas 2 would have been an enthralling drama had it not completely stalled in the middle. People may even point to prominent visual novels like Air, Higurashi and one of my personal favourites, Kanon and call those examples of good harem drama series (though I wouldn’t call any of those harem series myself). Type Moon adaptations Lunar Legend Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night also have a few harem elements, but the focus of both are anything but the standard harem-isms. And while we’re on the topic of -isms, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has (unfairly) been labelled a harem by some, and most people reading this are probably well aware of my opinion of that series.

But this discussion isn’t about harem-ish anime, it’s about genuine harem: the type with a gaggle of girls surrounding a single male lead who has less personality than a plank of wood, with inane fanservice, an up-in-the-air romance that’s generally unconvincing, dreary attempts at comedy and a plot that makes your head hurt (excuse the pans, but that’s more often than not the case). But, I don’t lie when I say I have been genuinely enjoying a few genuine anime of late, far more so when I was completely intolerant of them in my younger days. Such increasing tolerance of what is, in all honestly, low-brow entertainment is rather odd (or at least that was the impression I was under), since I always thought that people got harder to please the longer they had been watching anime for.

So, since I’m too lazy to write stuff myself, I’ll treat this post as a discussion starter and throw the question to the readers: have you found yourself becoming more tolerant of anime’s basement dwelling genre (or any other genre or anime cliche for that matter) as you’ve become more and more versed with the medium, or are you one of those who could watch harem all day as a noob, but would rather gouge out your eyes than watch another one these days?

I haven’t done an NHRV related article for a while, so I figured now was the time.

I think we have a great staff with mature opinions and appreciable anime knowledge, but, as is the case with any review database stitched together by multiple people, there are going to be disagreements. I’m the strange one in the group in that, whenever a review is posted where I don’t agree with the contention, I don’t bother expressing my own opinion in a second review of the same title. I just don’t see the point for various reasons. But, needless to say there are a number of reviews in our database that I don’t agree with. That’s just the nature of things… people aren’t always going to see eye-to-eye on every occasion, even though I do find most of my colleagues to be generally reliable. But, here’s a few of those reviews that I don’t agree with and a few words on where our opinions split.

Ouran High School Host Club - DarkKanti

The split in opinions here isn’t too great, but I’d have given this series a (slightly) higher rating. It’s not often that a comedy series is able to remain consistently funny for 26 episodes, but Ouran managed to achieve this, which is a highly commendable feat. Most of the points he made, though, I agree with: some of the character development was surprisingly good, but the fact that they were able to handle most but not all of the characters well was frustrating, as was the lack of a resolution at the end. I think we both agreed in the end that the plot wasn’t great, but the comedy was, but I think we had different ideas on which components this show should have placed its emphasis on: I was happy with it being mostly comedy for its entire run since it was executed so well, but DK seemed to want it to spend more time developing a proper story with a real conclusion. In the end, though, we both did like it… I guess I just liked it more.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion - Shadowmage

Here’s a movie that everyone has an opinion on. My problem with this movie was that it was pretentious and too confusing-for-the-sake-of-it. It was undoubtedly a hell of a ride, but the storytelling wasn’t great as it went down some bizarre paths and didn’t exactly do a sound job of explaining itself. The result is that it’s meaning is still being debated (though not as hotly as a few years ago) almost ten years after it was made. Almost everybody has a different interpretation of events, including one prominent theory that it all meant nothing. And, truthfully, this one seems the most sound to me. I’m not going to argue that EoE is a visual experience unlike any other in anime, but as a story, it falls short, IMO.

Air - royal crown

Which ironically leads me to Air. Isn’t it funny how one anime with unconventional story-telling draws one reaction from me, while another draws a completely different reaction? But, unlike royal crown, I thought Air utilized its bizarre chronology and alternative point-of-views for the same events to great effect, as it really allowed for some great character and plot development. Although, I do agree that the show desperately needed more episodes, since it was always slightly more rushed than it should have been. Aside: I edited royal crown’s review and chose two of the three screenshots. Try to guess which ones. How about that, two different characters wearing very similar hats, and I (unconsciously) chose those particular scenes for screenshots… It is a really cool hat, though.

Outlaw Star - DarkKanti

I’m not sure what DK was thinking here. Outlaw Star, Fantastic? Hardly, IMO. Sure, it’s a fun series, but not really anything outstanding or memorable. All of the characters are ’90s archetypes and most of them get very little character development. The series drowns is filler right up until the final few eps and when the plot finally does progress, it never becomes anything special. Is it an entertaining series? Yes. Does it deserve the same rating as Monster, Gankutsuou and Mushishi? I don’t think so.

Full Metal Panic!(1,2) - DarkKanti, Kuma

FMP! falls into the same category as Outlaw Star, it’s a fun series, but it doesn’t deserve such high ratings. Personally, I think Gonzo’s handling of the FMP! franchise is shamed in comparison with Kyoto Animation’s handling of its sequel, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid. TSR developed its characters properly by putting them through some grueling trials, had some truly intense examples of drama and had a more gripping atmosphere. FMP! was lackluster in comparison: some nice action and an interesting plot, but nothing as profound as its sequel. I wouldn’t rate it significantly lower than my colleagues, but I would rate it lower nonetheless.

I’d give credit for the OP image, but I don’t know who made it.

Friendly shout-out to all Bokura ga Ita fans (I like to think I’ve converted a few around these parts): check this out.

It’s a vocal album with (I think) all of the OP and ED pieces from the anime, and some of the songs (particularly Sasaki Nozomi’s works) are outstanding. I think all Bokura ga Ita fans would get a kick out of it, hence why I’ve made this post. So, I highly recommend fans to have a listen.

Spring is traditionally the strongest season of the year, and I can’t see any indication so far why that won’t be the case again this year. There’s a real plethora of entertaining titles out there, and while we haven’t had an entry of the calibre of Suzumiya Haruhi (which really took the anime watching world by storm this time one year ago), what we have seen are a mixed bag of varying amounts of promise, with very few titles that are obviously going to fail. My default optimism in relation to anime makes me think that signs point to a good season. It’ll be interesting to see, no matter how it goes.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

I have to chuckle at this one. What began as an innocent, yet deceiving marriage of mahou shoujo and shounen sci-fi has turned into one of the most popular franchises in modern otakuism. I remember an anonymous quote on the appeal of Lyrical Nanoha: it’s a bunch of really cute little girls… blowing the shit out of everything and each other. I’m probably the odd one out on Nanoha… I actually think it has some good examples of drama (good, not great), but it’s very uninventive as far as action is concerned. Not that it’s trying to be inventive, I’d imagine… it’s aiming to tide over action fanboys and they’re not a group that tends en masse towards inventiveness or ingenuity in action sequences. People shouldn’t have to think while watching action anyway.[/sarcasm]

Fanboys aside, people seem to be approaching this series with a certain amount of caution. The focus seems to be on a new cast of rather generic archetypes, reminiscent to Mai-Otome (a series which I actually thought was quite good for popcorn theatre), and while I didn’t mind that show, I can see the reasons for cautious pessimism. On the flip side of the coin, the franchise does have a history of making good out of its generic archetypes. If I’d have a guess, I’d say the series probably wouldn’t be doing bad by playing to the strengths of its predecessors, and at the end of the day, that’s probably the path it’ll go down. Not a huge point in being innovative when the same formula will inevitably win the fans at the end of the day.

Heroic Age

I can see this being a real stinker. Generic sci-fi premise with inane characters and a mecha with godlike powers (DEM, anyone?). Granted, the animation is outstanding, but the action sequences are (so far) boring. The characters are worse though. Pretty much all of them with the exception of the male lead are cut from oft-used molds. Having the antagonists being zerg-like space creatures means they’ll be fighting against a faceless opponent, killing any chance of creating an interesting, complex antagonist. Sure, it’s still early days, but this series has much to do to make itself interesting, and given the premise and characters, I’d be very surprised if it could do it.

Touka Gettan

Apparently a sequel to one of the hottest hentai I’ve ever seen, Moonlight Lady, Touka Gettan is director Yamiguchi Yuji’s (Fate/Stay Night, Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito) latest project, and boy was its first episode a doozy. Pretty much no one walked away with it with much of an idea what had happened. But it left me really intrigued. The thing sells itself as a mystery, and I think the key to this will be whether or not it can explain itself properly and answer all unanswered questions by its end. If it can, Yamiguchi will earn my respect (something he doesn’t have right now, since I’ve been continually disappointed by his work). If not, this will end up being utter fail. But, this seriously intrigues me. The mind-fuck, the beautiful animation, the bizarre, screwed up characters; it seems like the potentials there for something epic… if they can pull it off. And that’s not a small “if” by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll be watching this closely.

Claymore

For obvious reasons, I’m reminded of Berserk. There are hints here of something decent, provided they stay away from the episodic yoma-of-the-week formula, but I am hoping it’ll be a winner, since the fantasy genre has lacked a strong title for a long time. The atmosphere is fitting for something set in a fantasy world that mirrors medieval Europe, but I don’t think the animation is great, which is disappointed considering this is a Madhouse Studios series. Not much else to say about this series. There’s potential, that’s for sure, but we’ll have to wait and see on whether or not it’ll reach it.

Hitohira

I dug the first ep of this series. It’s shoujo, so that automatically demands that the focus will be on the characters, and they seem quite interesting at this stage. The premise surrounds a girl that gets massive stage fright, but is forced into the drama (research) club, so the series will inevitably be about how she overcomes her character flaw, but provided the characters are likable, there’s no reason this won’t be enjoyable. That’s it, though, for these types of series: how likable the characters are pretty much makes and breaks them. This (among other things) is why I’m somewhat reminded of Nodame Cantabile, a series that is almost completely carried by it’s incredibly likable cast, and while I don’t think this will be as good that, it probably has that to look for as the basic model to follow. Although, I could be proven wrong: I knew Nodame Cantabile would be a good series pretty much from the beginning, but I never could have predicted how good it ended up turning out.

Hayate no Gotoku! (aka Hayate the Combat Butler)
Oh God, I lol’d! Here’s one of those self-aware comedies that has an incredible amount of wit and timing. The plot is silly, but the way it relishes in its ridiculousness works brilliantly. In that respect, it reminds me of Yakitate! Japan before that became repetitive and stale. The seiyuu cast is just outstanding. Kugimiya Rie just cannot be more fitting for these types of roles (even if she is being typecast… but the way she owns these types of roles leads me to not care all that much). And I just love hearing the godlike Wakamoto Norio in a comedy again… although I do feel he’s wasted as a narrator. This should be good. It’s comedy, so as long as it makes me laugh, I consider it a winner, and provided the rest of the series is as funny as the first ep, it shouldn’t have much trouble doing that.

Idolm@ster Xenoglossia

Sunrise’s latest hapless-girls-with-super-powers-and-mechs anime. Reminds me of My-HiME, for obvious reasons. I’m not sure what I think of this series so far, but the generic start and monster-sized mostly female cast makes me think that it’ll remind me of My-HiME even further on in the series. If this series manages to pull off what Sunrise did with My-HiME (what was that, over two years ago now) without going down the exact same path (since they’ll start getting predictable if they keep going down the same path), I’ll be very impressed. Else… well, the girls are cute, and the seiyuu are all-star, so it’ll make for a redeemable generic moé anime.

Nagasarete Airantou

Speaking of fanservice, here’s another series with seiyuu goddess Horie Yui (she reprises her role as Siesta in Idolm@ster, btw). This is a fairly generic harem, with a huge cast of inane characters. With a premise of a lone man stuck on a deserted island full of women, one can only have limited expectations for the plot. But, comedy and fanservice is where an anime like this should deliver, and I really can’t see it happening on either front. I can see the mainstay joke in the first ep (ie, insane-women-chase-hapless-man) getting very old and stale very quickly, and the animation is subpar, so the fanservice will probably not be very good. There really isn’t all too much to look forward to in this series. If I dropped series, I’d probably drop this one.

—

So, these are the eight series I’m following so far, and with Gonzo’s Romeo & Juliet and Bones‘ latest offering, Darker than Black to come, I’ll have quite a bit on my plate, anime-wise. But, that’s good, since there’s quite a bit of potential in a lot of these titles. I’m optimistic about this season, and with reason, I’d suggest.

Here’s an interesting phenomenon that has, for various reasons, been brought to my attention: people commenting on anime series and episodes they haven’t seen. It’s something that really makes no sense to me, for reasons that are (I would have thought) obvious. People claim they are able to get enough of an understanding of a given anime that they are able to form opinions of it purely from screenshots, blog reviews, episode summaries, Youtube clips and comments in episodes, but claiming this really dismisses the fact that almost all of the impact of anime is emotional, and I consider it disrespectful to anime as a story-telling medium that people think that the act of watching it can be substituted by reviews, interpretations and analyses.

A good anime really should be more than the sum of its parts, and the process of going over it with a checklist inevitably undersells it, as well as ignores pretty much the only reason I can see to watch anime in the first place. It’s one thing to read a synopsis to find a series with a good plot and characters and then check a clip on Youtube to see it has good animation, music and seiyuu work. It’s another thing altogether to actually watch the thing in its entirety, connect with the characters, be absorbed by the plot and atmosphere, laugh at the jokes and cry at the drama. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how the former could be a substitute for the latter, and if I ever got to the stage where that was no longer the case for me, whether it be due to anime losing its way as a storytelling medium, or just me no longer getting drawn into it and connecting with it (the good series anyway) the way I can now, I think I’d just stop watching it altogether. As far as I can see, there’d no longer be a point to watching it, since all I’d be seeing is moving pictures on a screen. At the moment anime is so much more than that (with the exception of the really bad series, but even they can be at times, still more than any external substitute).

Reviews, forum commentaries, blog posts and the rest work fine as recommendations, or as complements, information-wise, to the anime, as well as places for fans to congregate and discuss anime (which is also an interesting activity in its own right), but they’ll never be a substitute for actually watching the episodes and series. Another thing I don’t really understand is how people can form judgements on entire series from just the first few episodes. Admittedly, there are a few cases where it’s fairly obvious that the show will be a bomb from the first few eps, but I always shake my head when someone chimes in on a discussion about a completed or near-completed series with “I watched the first episode of this and it was total crap… how can anyone like this?” (Ignore momentarily that most of these types of comments generally come from trolls). It boggles the mind, since anime has a huge track record of series that have very noticeable shifts in mood and atmosphere between their first and last episodes (the anime in the OP pic being one of the most notorious examples). I think it’s fair enough to drop series after a few episodes, even though it’s something I don’t do myself (for this very reason, mind you), but recognize that when you go into a conversation about Narutaru and say “man this show sucked; how did anyone get past the first episode of this Pokemon crap,” all you’re doing is making yourself look like a fool. There’s a big difference between “this show sucked” and “the first episode sucked”, but people seem to conveniently ignore this fact whenever the argument suits them.

Which is why I’ll never understand why anime review sites publish reviews of incomplete anime. How can you form a complete, total judgement of something if you haven’t seen the whole thing? Partial judgements just don’t give the show a fair shake, if you ask me.

Surely with a contentious post title like this I’ve grabbed everyone’s attention.

I had a chance recently to revisit Air. It’s an incredibly bizarre series, purely because of the way it divides audiences. Anime has always had its fair share of love-it-or-hate-it anime, the most famous is probably Evangelion, but there’s no question that Air is one such title, and the fact that almost all of its impact and appeal is emotional makes it difficult to talk about with any great amount of objectivity. But, I make no secret of it, I loved it. I am a self-confessed Key fanboy after all (although having no knowledge of the Japanese language puts me in an awkward position in that respect, since my inability to understand the games that have become, over the last few months, shunned by fan-translators, means my only exposure to their stories is through the anime adaptations), but there’s something about their stories and characters that really strike a chord with me. Add the fact that my current favourite animation studio, Kyoto Animation, have had their hands in two Key anime adaptations, and, well, it’s very easy to see why I’d be enthusiastic about the series that this marriage produces. But, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s the animation quality alone that attracts me to these series, even though I certainly do appreciate the polish that careful animation, elegant cinematography and meticulous directing can add to a story. And I do like to think I can talk about Key/Kyoto Animation series with some amount of objectivity… like I did in my most recent review.
But Saturday will see two years since Air finished it’s initial airing. I still remember being completely blown away by the animation… it was on a level I’d never before seen in a non-action anime and the only TV series I could think of at the time that had a quality of animation that competed with it were Bones‘ Scrapped Princess and Production I.G.’s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Much water has gone under the bridge since then and in that time Kyoto Animation has established a reputation among the best in the business, and while it’s almost impossible to disagree that their most popular work, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, is the Kyoto Animation series with the best cinematography, I’m not sure I’d agree with those that argue it’s the one with the best animation. Obviously, it’s difficult to be objective while discussing animation. It’s easy enough to say “this series has good animation” or “this series is butt-ugly”, but making comparisons is very difficult since one can’t really give such comparisons a fair shake unless they watch series side-by-side, which is a rather awkward way to watch anime. Even then I wouldn’t say that’s a great way to compare animation, since animation will always fluctuate over the course of a given anime and there will be scenes that don’t demand much motion, while other scenes will demand grand, sweeping movements of the camera while a million things happen at once… such scenes obviously requiring animation to match. This is pretty much me making an “I may be wrong” disclaimer.

But, there’s no question that all of Kyoto Animation’s series are easy on the eyes, and their record to date is very impressive. As you’ve guessed, in my eyes, the title of best animated KyoAni series is between Suzumiya Haruhi and Air. Kanon falls slightly short on consistency… there are a few episodes that fall slightly short of their usually lofty standards, particularly during the Mai arc, and the cinematography isn’t as daring as it is in Suzumiya Haruhi or FMP:TSR (yes, yes, I know, I’m judging animation, not cinematography). FMP:TSR has great animation, cinematography and action choreography, but its visuals aren’t quite as eye-catching as the others, and it was occasionally (though rarely) sloppy, such as a few moments during the fight scene between Mao and Xia Yu Fan (or was it Xia Yu Lan…?) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya very rarely slipped, and the most impressive thing about its visuals (other than the cinematography which, as I alluded to earlier, I thought were absolutely terrific), was the way characters would move with energy that perfectly communicated their mood. It’s one thing to communicate this with facial expressions… it’s another to do it with the bouncy movements of the head as a character talks, the way a character turns around, or the way a character flicks their hair. They’re the little things which epitomize the attention to detail KyoAni takes with their work (which adds to the long list of reasons why I have so much admiration for them). But, yet, I still thought Air’s animation was better.

Air obviously had all the consistency of its eventual successors, but I have a significantly harder time spotting flaws in Air’s animation than I do in any of KyoAni’s other series (and they’re easy to remember in any of their series, since by the time you’ve finished watching, you can count them on your hand [/hyperbole].) I think, if Suzumiya Haruhi’s animation highlight is the way the characters move, Air’s animation highlight is the way nature moves the characters. The way the wind blows through the characters’ hair is easily the best example of that, but little things the way the mirage plays with the visuals, and the rendering of the sky are also very impressive (Air and Ouran High School Host Club arguably have the two bluest skies in anime). Overall, the whole thing really is a visual delight of a rare calibre.

I suppose there’ll be inevitably disagreement over what is a very subjective contention, but the fact that, even after all this time, Air still ranks among the most fluently animated series to grace the small screen is incredibly impressive, particularly given the progress made in animation in that time. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the Kyoto Animation’s upcoming Clannad anime. Here’s hoping it can overtake Air’s position in my eyes as KyoAni’s prettiest, most fluently animated series. I always love progress in anime, so I like to think that a title like this won’t be permanent.

Since I don’t really take a great interest in the Anime-Reactor.net community, I can’t say I know a great deal about the process by which these awards are decided, so there’s no real point in me commenting on that. These awards are just as weighty as any other community decided “awards”, but they have a little more permanence in the fact that winners of the award receive a little sticker in their AniDB entries, and that’s something that they can never lose with time. As is the case with most such awards, it’s more for the fans than anything else (or anyone else, like the creators), who can momentarily boast that they’re favourite was slightly more popular than the second best vote-getter and savour in any momentary glory of such a victory. But, sarcasm aside, I always do find it worthwhile to discuss which anime made an impact in a given year. I wouldn’t push our site to publish its annual reviews if that wasn’t the case…

Full results here: AnimeReactor Community Awards - 2006

Best Anime Overall: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Jury’s Pick: Mushishi

Other nominations: Black Lagoon, Fate/stay night, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Kamichu!, NHK ni Youkoso!, Ouran Koukou Host Club, Rec

No surprise about the community’s choice. It’ll inevitably be a contentious choice, since it’s a contentious anime and a contentious award to begin with, but on the sheer impact the series has made on the anime community, it’s deserved. But, I do think the jury’s pick is a better anime overall. My own personal choice is split somewhere between Mushishi and Honey & Clover II, perhaps leaning ever slightly to the latter. Either way, I have no complaints about the two winners, they both deserve their own kudos, though for different reasons. On an aside, the rest of the nominees are crap (in comparison). Ouran is the only other nominee I’d even consider close to the two winners, while F/SN and REC aren’t even in the same park. Honey & Clover II and Bokura ga Ita are far and away better than all the other nominees… why they weren’t nominated is beyond me.

Best Story: Mushishi

Jury’s Pick: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Other nominations: Fate/stay night, Hachimitsu to Clover II, Noein - Mou Hitori no Kimi e, Pale Cocoon

Good choice, though a more just naming of the award for Mushishi should be “Best stories“. This is one of the few cases where I liked the community’s choice better than the jury’s choice. Higurashi also had a very competent plot, though, and even though I don’t feel comfortable saying it since it was left incomplete at the series’ ending, it probably did beat H&CII and Noein out of sheer complexity, mostly thanks to it’s non-linear timeline. F/SN deserves the award for “best story with worst story-telling”.

Best Character Development: Eureka Seven

Jury’s Pick: Welcome to the NHK!

Other nominations: Asatte no Houkou, Hachimitsu to Clover II, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Kamichu!, Rec

Can’t really comment on Eureka Seven, since I haven’t seen it, but how does Welcome to the NHK! win jury’s pick for best character development when Asatte no Houkou and H&CII were also nominated. Hell, I’d even say Higurashi almost has more profound character development than NHK!. NHK! was a real mess with how it handled many of its characters, particularly Misaki, by waiting until it was far too late before even thinking of giving the audience a reason to care about them. Anyway, this is another category where Bokura ga Ita’s non-nomination is a sin. I’ve always thought that series was criminally underrated and here’s another example of that.

Best Visuals: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Jury’s Pick: Pale Cocoon

Other nominations: Eureka Seven, Kamichu!, Kemonozume, Mushishi, Top wo Nerae! 2

Again, can’t really comment on Pale Cocoon since I haven’t seen it, but Suzumiya Haruhi is, in my eyes, certainly a deserved winner. Not just for animation, though, even though KyoAni’s work was outstanding, but also for the visual directing and cinematography, since the series did, at times, really barrage the audience with a lot of unconventional effects, which certainly aided the atmosphere and level of creativity in the series. Kemonozume is an interesting nomination since it really had a bizarre art style and also it’s fair share of unconventional effects. However, I’d almost argue that Noein’s visual efforts were in a similar vein to Kemonozume’s, but better. Out of the non-winners, Mushishi would get my nod, but not ahead of Suzumiya Haruhi.

Best Soundtrack: Eureka Seven

Jury’s Pick: Mushishi

Other nominations Ergo Proxy, Kamichu!, Mai-Otome, NHK ni Youkoso!

Jury gets it right again. Mushishi’s soundtrack was absolutely out of this world. Haven’t heard E7’s soundtrack, but Kurier’s reviewed it and gave it a pretty good rating. NHK!’s soundtrack was also quite good as well, but it doesn’t compare with Mushishi’s. Otome’s was a solid Kajiura Yuki effort, but I wouldn’t say it’s as memorable as Mushishi’s or NHK!’s.

Best Opening / Ending: Shakugan no Shana

Jury’s Pick: Black Lagoon

Other nominations: Ergo Proxy, Eureka Seven, Fate/stay night, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Mushishi

Hmm… what were the good OP/EDs of the year? There was Shakugan no Shana’s “Hishoku no Sora” and pretty much all of the Mushishi ED’s, but I can’t really think of much else. Ah, wait, the ARIA the Natural OP and ED pieces were really good, though it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t have the popularity to get nominated. Welcome to the NHK!’s Round Table feat. Nino OP was another classy J-pop tune. Either way, I suppose the winner is deserved, but that’s only because I can’t really think of anything that it’s criminally usurped off the top of my head.

Best Action / Martial Arts Anime and Jury’s Pick: Black Lagoon

Other nominations:Blood+, Eureka Seven, Fate/stay night, Kemonozume, Mai-Otome, Top wo Nerae!

Yeah, probably deserved. Wouldn’t know, since I didn’t see the winner or half the nominations. Out of the ones I see Kemonozume wins for the WTF factor, and Mai-Otome wins for the popcorn factor.

Best Adventure / Fantasy Anime and Jury’s Pick: Mushishi

Other nominations: Fate/stay night, Juuousei, Kamichu!, Utawarerumono, xxxHOLiC, Zero no Tsukaima

Absolutely deserved winner. None of the other nominations even come close to touching it. I did enjoy Zero no Tsukaima, though, but when that’s the second best nomination in a category with Mushishi… well, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the competition and Mushishi not winning is a crime against good taste.

Best Drama Anime and Jury’s Pick: Honey & Clover II

Other nominations: Bokura ga Ita, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Mushishi, NHK ni Youkoso!

Now here’s a winner I certainly agree with. And a worthy nomination in Bokura ga Ita. That the terrible Hanbun no Tsuki is nominated alongside some of these titles is a sin.

Best Romance / Love Story Anime: Honey & Clover II

Jury’s Pick: REC

Other nominations: Bokura ga Ita, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, I”s Pure, Kemonozume, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu

Not sure what the jury were thinking. As far as pure romance is concerned, I’m not sure if I’d pick H&CII over Bokura ga Ita. It’d be close either way, but I think I’d just pick the latter since its relationships were a little more grounded and a little more compelling.

Best Comedy: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Jury’s Pick: Ouran High School Host Club

Other nominations: Inukami!, Kamichu!, Magikano, Muteki Kanban Musume, NHK ni Youkoso!, Rec

Well, it is pretty much out of those two, isn’t it, since the rest of the nominations are a good tier lower than them. My own personal choice is certainly Suzumiya Haruhi since I thought the wit and consistency was better, but it’s always a contentious choice, particular out of these two titles. Deserved non-nominee: School Rumble 2nd Term. Had it been as funny as it’s predecessor, I’d have been concerned about its absence… but it wasn’t, so I’m not.

Best Fanservice / Ecchi Anime: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Jury’s Pick: Inukami!

Other nominations: Amaenaide yo!, Joshikousei, Magikano, Top wo Nerae! 2

Now this is certainly a contentious award for Suzumiya Haruhi to win, since it’s less a fanservice anime and more an anime that just happened to have fanservice in it (and only sporadically). High School Girls is a good nominee that was destined to lose. I think it’s actually one of the few series where fanservice aided the comedy, and it was partly due to the fact that it was so bad. I dig series like that, and I wish more fanservice anime with (attempted) comedy followed it’s example, since they wouldn’t be so grating if they were actually funny.

Best Sci-Fi / Mecha Anime: Eureka Seven

Jury’s Pick: Noein - Mou Hitori no Kimi e

Other nominations: Ergo Proxy, Juuousei, Pale Cocoon, Top wo Nerae! 2, Zegapain

I’m with the jury, Noein was madness. Where’s ARIA the Natural? Isn’t that sci-fi…?

Best Thriller / Mystery / Horror Anime and Jury’s Pick: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Other nominations: Blood+, Ergo Proxy, Jigoku Shoujo, Kemonozume

Don’t disagree. Higurashi is one of the few examples of an anime that actually manages to pull of horror, and the mystery component added in just makes it all the better. Kemonozume deserves kudos as well, but the horror wasn’t so much the point in that series.

Best Quick Watch Anime and Jury’s Pick: REC

Other nominations: Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, I”s Pure, Pale Cocoon, Shinigami no Ballad, Top wo Nerae! 2

None of these are very good…. If I had to pick a best out of these, it’d be a choice of Shinigami no Ballad and REC, though slightly leaning towards the latter. None of them deserve an award, though. Almost like REC is given one out of default.

Best Male Character and Jury’s Pick: Kyon (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)

Other nominations: Archer (Fate/stay night), Dutch (Black Lagoon), Ginko (Mushishi), Hiraga Saitou (Zero no Tsukaima), Matsumaru Fumihiko (Rec), Mizuno Kanta (Sunabouzu), Ootori Kyouya (Ouran Koukou Host Club), Satou Tatsuhiro (NHK ni Youkoso!)

And here’s where any chance for objectivity flies out the window. Ok, out of the choice, Kyon probably wins, but I do think Hiraga Saito deserves mention for pure GAR level. I like a male character that has a pair, and his generic character design unfortunately hides how much of a man he actually is.

Best Female Character: Suzumiya Haruhi (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)

Jury’s Pick: Revy (Black Lagoon)

Other nominations: Aka Onda (Rec), Fujioka Haruhi (Ouran Koukou Host Club), Hitotsubashi Yurie-sama (Kamichu!), Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière (Zero no Tsukaima), Real Mayar (Ergo Proxy), Tousaka Rin (Fate/stay night)

Best, or more accurately, most popular. My heart will always belong to School Rumble’s Tsukamoto Yakumo, but out of the characters on that list, I suppose Haruhi wins. Tohsaka Rin deserves special mention for being an awesome character in a mediocre show. Hey, aren’t half these chicks tsundere…?

Best Villian and Jury’s Pick: Sonozaki Shion (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni)

Other nominations: Anemone (Eureka Seven), Balalaika (Black Lagoon), Creed Diskence (Black Cat), Dewey Novak (Eureka Seven), Mizuno Kanta (Sunabouzu), Ouba (Kemonozume)

From tsundere to yandere. A fair choice, but she couldn’t exactly help it when you think about it. I actually think Ouba would have been a far better choice. Now there was a villian who knew what he was doing (and even more fucked up than Shion in my eyes). Shion almost deserves the award because of how incredibly well she was portrayed by her seiyuu, Yukino Satsuki.

Best Newcomer: Death Note

Jury’s Pick: Kanon

Other nominations: Code Geass Hangyaku no Lelouch, Le Chevalier D’Eon, Nana, Negima!?

Award for currently airing series, I’m deducing. I’d have agreed with the community’s choice four or five weeks ago, but with Death Note’s spiral downwards and Kanon’s surge, I see that the jury’s got it absolutely spot on. Arguably Nana is better, but it probably didn’t have the popular vote (even in the jury) to see it over the line. I don’t see Code Geass garnering the same amount of critical acclaim that Kanon’s received once it’s all done… althought most of that critical acclaim has come from me and other KyoAni fanboys.

And, since this took me about an hour longer than I expected to put together, I’m not going to bother hotlinking any of the titles as I originally planned…

Warning: This post contains Death Note anime spoilers (up to ep 20)

Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t write a half-way-through “review” (and this isn’t a review, since I’m purposely keeping it too informal for it to be labeled such) about a currently-airing anime such as this. But I know I can get away with it on this occasion since there’s almost certainly going to be no shortage of staff members wanting to review this series once it’s over. Generally I’ll post thoughts about a given series I’m following after each episodes on forums and I browse through these comments after the series is over to collect and organize them into something that resembles a review, but I haven’t really been doing that with Death Note for various reasons. But, since I have almost no intention of reviewing it, I figured this was as good a place as any for me to voice my opinion of it.

Death Note’s strong point for the first 15 or so episodes were the logical intricacies of the plot, from Light’s evasion of the law, his manipulation of his victims, and the way he used his Death Note to achieve both, to L’s carefully laid traps, and analysis and deduction of the situation. The mental cat-and-mouse game these two found themselves in was what made the series so interesting to follow, and even though there were the occasional convenient plot point that allowed Light to stay one step ahead of L (usually in the form of a rule that Ryuk either didn’t know about, or “forgot” to tell Light), the chase still had all the elements of a good thriller (which includes the atmosphere, but this is a Madhouse Studios anime we’re talking about, so that almost goes without saying). It also helped that the two rival lead characters shared a lot of chemistry. And I suppose it also helped that we knew the identity of all involved, which allowed the anime to give us lots of introspective analyses of both characters in different situations.

Misa’s introduction was one of the first places where this anime started going downhill (though I didn’t realize it at the time). I realize now that she was probably an unnecessary complication for Light’s plans and, when you think about it, she was the only reason why he was eventually caught. The reason why she was eventually caught was trite enough, since it was a case more of Kira stuffing up than L outsmarting Kira, but the whole sudden introduction of the new “give up the DN and you lose all your memories of it” rule was really weak writing, IMO. That’s a convenient cop out if I’ve ever seen one.

The more recent episodes, in which Kira has now become a member of the Yotsoba group have lacked the tension and atmosphere of the earlier episodes where the focus was L and Light’s battle-of-wits. As we’ve seen, the Kira in the Yotsoba group doesn’t have Light’s ability to evade and outsmart L and L has already come this close, quite easily (with Light’s help, of course) to catching Yotsoba’s Kira. It also hurts that, since this Kira’s identity is unknown, we aren’t given the opportunity to see into his psyche the way we could when Light was Kira. I’d also argue that Misa’s presence hurts the atmosphere in this series, since her personality is rather out of place in an anime like this where a serious atmosphere should dominate almost every scene. I’d almost say the same thing about Matsuda as well, who’s almost been reduced to a comic relief character (which, I’d strongly argue isn’t appropriate in a series like this). And, to be excessively nitpicky, the animation seems to have taken a small dive in the most recent episodes as well.

That’s not to say that Death Note isn’t a good anime anymore, but I argue strongly that it’s not anywhere near as gripping or clever as it was earlier on in the season. Here’s hoping that it will pick up, but something tells me that I shouldn’t put money on it that it will.

Warning: this post has Kanon 2006 spoilers.

I think I’d probably surprise a few people after a certain post I made on the ASuki forums, but I actually think the “horse race” mentality in harem/dating-sim anime has its place… sometimes. For those who don’t know what it is (which isn’t a surprise, since I’m almost of the suspicion that it was coined as a response to a post I made), the “horse race” mentality refers to a type of commentary by fans who are following a given anime (usually harem and/or dating-sim types) where multiple potential love interests still exists going into the final few episodes of the series and the majority of interest and discussion surrounding the plot revolves around which potential love interest will eventually be chosen. The “horse race” mentality is the mentality that permeates through such discussions. The problem with the “horse race” mentality is that such anime will tend to divide fans depending on who their favourite girl is, so these discussions usually very quickly devolve into mindless squabbling about trite matters such as which girl is better and why the other girls are back-stabbing bitches, etc, etc. Some people have fun with these discussions. As an outside observer, I can’t help but see them as fanboy-ism on a very low intellectual scale… which is bad since fanboy-ism is unintellectual by its very nature. But, such discussions have their place when talking about series like Shuffle! and Da Capo where that’s the main interest in the plot… usually out of default because the other elements in the plot aren’t very interesting, or in the case of Shuffle!, it’s purposefully orchestrated to be that way on the part of the creators to get people talking. They don’t have their place in discussions on Kanon, where there’s far more to the story than the standard “who-will-he-choose” cliche… well, not to the extent where it’s the determining factor in the audience’s judgement of the series.

My prediction is that there’ll inevitably be a fallout at the end Kanon when the main character, Yuuichi, makes a decision (if he makes one at all… and it wouldn’t be totally out of place if he didn’t) about which girl he will end up with. Which is sad, since the series explores themes far deeper than that and a lot of its strength lies in the fact that its story contains a number of elements more interesting than the question of a romantic pairing. If people are going to get upset about Yuuichi’s choice in the end, which I’d argue is totally beside the point, I think rather than asking questions such as “which girl do I like better” or “in how many ways did the eventual ‘winner’ of the horse race act like a back-stabbing bitch”, people need to ask “was the eventual ‘winner’ the best girl for Yuuichi, and did the series show this enough so the choice was at worst, believable, or at best, inevitable?” I’ll admit the possibility of personal bias here, but if the eventual ‘winner’ is Ayu, then I’d say the answer to both parts of that question is “yes”. Throughout the series, their interactions permeate an obvious chemistry between them and the scene in which (and I hope I’m not spoiling anyone who hasn’t been watching the series, but may in the future) they kiss had them both in a state of emotional vulnerability, such that I found it quite believable that they’d reach to each other romantically, and also to comfort each other. On the other hand, Yuuichi seemed to be emotionally distant from Nayuki for much of the series, seeing her only as a cousin and a housemate and, sometimes a friend, but not all that much more. In recent episodes, they did become somewhat closer, but after Akiko’s accident Nayuki has pushed him away. Sure, Nayuki’s current crisis indicates that she does need him… moreso than Ayu arguably, but from what I’ve seen to date, I’d say Yuuichi wants Ayu more than he wants Nayuki. And, at the end of the day, shouldn’t that be where the decision be made… on the strength of one character rather than the weakness of another. I mean, that’s where Kashimashi went wrong… it’s (first) ending was indicative of a cast of characters that were still weak and hadn’t overcome their various flaws and dependencies.

Sure, I’ll admit some bias, but I’d still accept a Nayuki ending and would hardly dismiss the series if it happened, the way some people are threatening to, and some people did with the first Kanon series. What I won’t accept is an ending that doesn’t tackle the more important issues still posed by the series, or an ending where the characters fail to overcome their various flaws and things are left inconclusively hanging. In other words, I won’t accept a weak ending (like Kashimashi’s, which wasn’t weak because of the choice made itself, but because of the state it left its characters in). I think that probably makes the best analogy for me to draw some sort of conclusion: it’s not the choice that’s important, as far as the quality of the ending is concerned, but the state the series leaves its characters and plot in. A good ending should highlight their development and leave no loose ends. Let’s hope that’s how Kanon’s ending will be.