On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve More Awesome Anime Memories

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me,
Twelve More Awesome Anime Memories,
Eleven Season 2's,
Ten Long Anime,
Nine Delicious Openings & Endings,
Eight Digiboy Top Anime,
Seven Franchise Continuations,
Six Top Tier Anime,
Five Nyanpire Kitties,
Four Marvel Anime,
Three Teachers,
Two Anime Buddy Challenges,
and an Underrated Anime

What I'm going to do here is just leave a picture. If you don't get it.... Watch the show to find out! Thanks for reading these everyone. It's been super fun. Happy Holidays and all that jazz!

One Piece

Nana

Toriko x One Piece

Toward the Terra

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Spiral Labyrinth

Ikkitousen

Last Exile: Fam

Nyanpire

Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa

Shin Mazinger

Kore wa Zombie desu ka

Hen Zemi

The Special Exclusive Club: Anime That Made Me Bawl Like A Little Girl

No manly tears here unlike glothelegend's list. Or so he claims that they were MANLY tears. I personally think they were "Little Girl" tears like mine. I'm generally not one for crying over anime and all but the following 7 anime out of my to this date 2,442 watched anime list, have made me shed plenty of salty water from my eyes. Some just trickled out one at a time slowly, some streamed out fast but ended quickly, some poured out like they would never stop. Actually only one series seriously made me cry non-stop for a good 30 minutes.

Ordered from first anime to the last anime that have made me bawl:

1. Grave of the Fireflies
2. s-CRY-ed
3. Wolf's Rain
4. Oseam
5. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
6. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Second Season
7. Toward the Terra TV

Read below at your own risk since there be spoilers.

Now looking at my list I see 1 typical sad anime that everyone cries at. Or at least I see it mentioned all the time in "What anime has made you cry" discussions. That of course is Grave of the Fireflies. I was really young when I saw it so I really don't remember if I cried all the way through or at certain points. I don't think I'm willing to re-watch it to find out exactly what made me cry either. War based movies IRL always get to me so it was really no surprise that the first anime I cried at was surrounded by war, sorrow, and hardships. Oseam almost falls into this same category but there was no war in it. Just pure melancholy sadness all the way through. If I had to pick the saddest anime ever for someone and didn't want it to sound cliche, I'd pick Oseam hands down. Brothers and sisters sure have it tough in these 2 movies.

Wolf's Rain certainly made me cry but it wasn't because of the actual show that tears came out. I'd like to consider myself a pretty big animal lover. So at the end of Wolf's Rain when all the wolves were "laying" down. I just cried quietly while I was on the couch. Thoughts of my past pets that have passed away poured into my mind and with what I was viewing it was only natural to cry and remember. There is almost nothing sadder than loosing a loved one especially if that loved one is a pet. They become part of your family and there's just an emptiness left when they leave.

If you haven't stopped reading yet I'm VERY serious that there are HUGE spoilers below.

Character deaths always hit me pretty hard. Especially when I get attached to them. Most of the time I can see it coming like I did in Season 2 of Gundam 00. That's the one anime that made me really angry that I cried at because I knew my favourite character Sergei Smirnov was going to die since S1. I didn't want it to be true I guess but well S2 did everything possible to make me rage cry over his death. I'm just glad I was alone in the room at that moment because it probably would have looked a little silly seeing my reactions to the episode. Scryed for being a super excitable shounen series it certainly pulled the rug out from under my feet when Kimishima passed away as Kazuma carried his injured friend. The crying little girl didn't help make his death any easier. It's always really hard to watch a death happen but it's even harder to keep watching and see the reactions of those that cared about the character. That's when my tears generally start to flow.

Space Opera's have got to be the best genre ever created. Weather it be real life ones like Babylon 5 (totally obsessed with) or anime ones, I become engrossed with the worlds and just gobble it all up like there's no tomorrow. Toward the Terra is the last anime space opera I have sat through and the last anime that has made me shed tears. It wasn't a lot of tears but the way they ended the series with pretty much EVERYONE I loved and cared dearly about in the series dead I just felt soul crushed. All through watching the series I was tangled with tears but none fell until the last episode. While I certainly did love Jomy and Keith a lot, Harley is the death that bothered me the most. He was just a secondary character that was the captain of the Mu's ship and all but I fell in love with his character. He was bold, charismatic, and knew when to take the backseat when it came to leadership. He was always there for Jomy when he needed to bounce ideas off of and always there to be a voice of reason when Jomy spiraled into self doubt. The series certainly wouldn't have been as awesome as it was without the amount of amazing secondary characters surrounding Jomy and Keith's epic battle.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is not only my favourite anime ever but it also holds the title for me crying for at least 30 minutes over it. I had thought of the possibility of Yang Wen-li dying much earlier on in the series but that thought got put onto the back shelf in my mind as I became obsessed with the show upon viewing. When it happened my heart sank. I felt like the world was ending and I had just lost the man of my dreams with it. What made it even worse is how Julian reacted. What doubled that worse feeling is Frederica finding out. Hell even Reinhard getting message of Yang's passing was traumatic. Remember when I said that seeing how people react to a death is worse than actually seeing it? Legend of the Galactic Heroes takes the cake with death reactions for me.

So there you have it. I'm not completely heartless! Which anime has made you cry?

P.S. Anyone who says Clannad After Story shall be subjected to my laughter. ^__^

2000 Watched, So Lets Remember My Anime Firsts

After viewing my 2000th anime being Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Spiral Labyrinth, (a few weeks ago) I happened to come across My anime firsts post over on Mainichi Anime Yume. Very inspired I took the list from there and added some of my own questions. I started thinking right away about what my first were simply because of that post and my chiropractor whom that very night asked me what I did for a living. Not having a job in general I just said "I blog" which of course let to the question "Oh? What about?". I Had to tell him about anime and of course he had no clue what I was really talking about but he then asked "What got you into watching anime?". This question got me thinking all over again about my anime journey in life because I couldn't really come up with anything else other than I had just grown up with it. Remembering these anime is half the fun of these following questions!

Anywho, with that in mind I give you all my anime first that I can remember!

First Anime Watched (English)

This is a toss up since when I was a little kid Fables of the Green Forest & Maya the Bee were shown on TV. So without fully knowing that I was watching anime I had started. The one I was fully aware that it was an anime would have to be Dragon Ball and then of course Sailor Moon.

First Non-Kids Anime

Dominion Tank Police on late night TV. It blew my mind on how awesome it was.

First Anime song Heard (TV size in Japanese)

I would say that Gundam Wing is the winner here.

First Anime song Heard (full version) and First Anime (Japanese with subs)

I first watched Escaflowne on TV so I heard it's "special" English OP only at first. Then my best friend told me that I absolutely had to re-watch the series in Japanese. I wasn't so sure at first why but then he showed me the full version of the actual OP for it and I was sold.

First Anime Obsession

Sailor Moon I'd have to say. I was so tsundere for it at first too which makes it all the more hilarious to me. When Macross Plus came out the obsession moved onto that. Followed quickly by Gundam Wing.

First Anime Franchise-based Movie

Patlabor: The Movie and it ended up hooking me on awesome mecha series ever since.

First Anime Original Movie

Ninja Scroll. <3 Never gets old.

First Character Obsession (Male/Female)

Blue Saphir AKA Sapphire from Sailor Moon for my male obsession hands down. He was part of the Black Moon Clan and I can safely say that I was VERY (link contains spoilers) obsessed with his tragic character. For my female obsession it's honestly harder to remember. I suppose it would be Sailor Mercury simply because of what I stated in her character post. I think being obsessed with Myung and her alter ego Sharron was a much better fit for me when Macross Plus came along. Even the next anime obsession Gundam Wing's Relena was a better choice.

First Anime That Made Me Cry

Grave of the Fireflies hands down. It is one of only 6 titles that have ever made tears flow from my eyes. Anime for some reason has a really hard time making me cry.

First Product Bought (non-video)

I bought Sailor Moon posters from the dollar store. I still have them and one day when I can put them up on the wall again I shall and it'll be awesome!

First Figure

Figures I suppose. All these little Hetalia ones that my boyfriend bought for me for my birthday in 2010.

First Video Collection (VHS/DVD)

VHS is really fuzzy for me since I don't have any of them anymore and they ended up getting stolen at some point during my many moves. I'm pretty sure Dirty Pair was my first VHS find though. DVD wise like I said here it's either a toss up between Macross Plus or Kite. I just for the life of me can't remember the order.

First Manga Read

Battle Angel Alita because I was dating a guy that was very much into anime and helped me get even more into anime at the time. He had every original volume and I read it every time I went over to visit him haha.

First Manga Bought

Chobits but because she had the same name as ME. My nickname when I was an elementary student was chii cause I had a lot of energy like chi! I just rolled with it ever since.

First Convention

Anime North in 2009. I'm very much a convention noob.

First Hentai

Mine would have to be La Blue Girl... I'm sure a lot of other people share this as their first as well.

First Hentai Manga

Bondage Fairies! Might be better not to ask how this came about

First Fansub

This would probably be Ranma 1/2. It was the first anime I watched with my best friend whom had internet at the time and could get anime for us to watch that wasn't on TV.

First AMV Watched

It's actually really hard to remember this but I think it would have to be this one. I've never had the desire to make one but if I did it would so be for Legend of the Galactic Heroes to Muse's Knights Of Cydonia.

First Fan Fic Written

It was a Macross Plus one I'll admit but I'll NEVER let anyone see it no matter how much you ask There's even a Gundam Wing one hanging around somewhere too

First Anime Web Site Made

Hilariously enough I only started my blog at the end of 2009 and it is the only anime thing I have ever done online that wasn't part of something already there.

First Anime Blog Visited

Digitalboy's many blogs I have followed since he appeared before me in 2007. He's one of the only people's opinions on anime that I really give a damn about.

First Anime Site Visited

When I was a kid my mom was dead set against having internet in the house (I don't know...) so I didn't really get into the whole internet thing a lot. Quite hilarious that I didn't really start using the internet till 2000 XD Anyway, in 2002 I discovered a little interesting site called Anime-Planet I didn't join at first cause I didn't understand that you had to join but I lurked around the main site and on the forums for many years. It wasn't till 2005 that I joined and have never looked back. 2005 I would also consider the time where I reintroduced myself to anime after a few years of not watching a lot.

First Anime Dropped

Adventures of Mini-Goddess. I started it with my best friend and thought it sucked a lot. Tried picking it up again later on my own and it still sucked. Tried watching it a few years ago with my boyfriend because we watched all of AMG and he wanted to try it out. Dropped yet again. It was meant to never be watched by me I believe.

First Anime Hated

Green Green wins this title. I disliked it SO much that I couldn't get past episode 3 of the series. Which is ok by me because I know a lot of people that think the same way I do about it.

First Anime Drawing

I only ever drew Sailor Moon pictures because back then I actually loved to draw. My first picture was Luna the cat eating a donut. The second one hilariously is Sailor Mars's Grandpa sticking his tounge out in a YUM kind of way. It seems that strangeness of me still hasn't worn off.

First Cosplay

I dunno if I would count this because I didn't try very hard but last year at Anime Boston I cosplayed (we were on the top floor and it was really hot up there) Yamamoto-sensei and my boyfriend kindly dressed as Tsuchida. They weren't very good but whatever. I really would like to cosplay with a proper costume and all someday but money is a bitch.

Random other fun firsts I remember:

First Long-Running Shonen Series

Of course this would be Dragon Ball. Long before I even knew what a shounen series was. If I went by actually knowing I'd have to say Bleach.

First Mecha Series

Macross Plus. How I love you so.

First Gundam Series

Gundam Wing

First Magical Girl/Shoujo Series

Sailor Moon

First Harem Series

Love Hina. Surprise surprise here lol

First Reverse Harem

Fruits Basket... It was a terrible start into this sub-genre for me.

First Sports Series

Azusa Will Help! I honestly haven't watched a lot of sports anime in general.

First Food Related Series

Yakitate!! Japan. Been hooked on any anime ever since that has anything to do with cooking! Yes that even means the shoujo Yumeiro Pâtissière!

First Series that Messed With My Mind

Lain hands down and then I watched Evangelion now soon after it.

~

So there you have it! Got anymore questions for me? Leave a comment and ask!

Check out this other post that has a whole list of other people's anime firsts as well. ^__^

Tuesday Tally Week 7-8 February 15-28 Finishing Up and Catching Up

I spent most of these 2 weeks catching up with my long running anime and finishing off a lot of big series I had on the go. Added in a lot of movies here and there that I had been wanting to watch for quite some time now and some not so much. *Glares at Gundam Seed*

February  15-18

Gintama episodes 172-175

Z-mind, Project Blue SOS, and maybe Twin Signal OVA's will all be featured in a Snack of the Week post so look out for those.

Puss in Boots Movies 1-3

Overall: A delightful re-watch of the first followed by the other 2. Puss in Boots are great family movies that anyone can enjoy. It helps if you like cats a lot too I suppose.

Kiddy Grade Movies 1-3

Overall: Only really worth watching if you have seen the whole series before hand. Which is exactly what I thought about the Fate/stay night movie. Although if someone just wants some action with a decent enough plot this'll be fine too unlike the Fate/stay night movie where you pretty much have to have knowledge before watching what it's all about. I think I got more out of these movies having seen the series but it did cut out a lot of blaa blaa I found so I almost enjoyed the movies more than the series.

February  19-22

Naruto shipooden episodes 189-199, Bleach episodes 301-309, One Piece episodes 480-487, and Gintama episodes 176-192. Shounen madness! All caught up finally with the big 3 and almost finished Gintama which is my favourite of the 4 easily. Naruto finally got back to some story. One Piece had some crazy shit go down after building it up for like 50 episodes or something (probably less but I can't be bothered to check at this point) Bleach had some kick ass stuff happen with Gin that was way more interesting than anything that has happened with Aizen.

Touch episodes 49-89

King of Thorn Movie

Overall: Better than I expected it to be honestly. I saw the end coming a mile away but I was interested in this world so that kept me watching. I might pick up the manga someday because I hear that people liked it more than the movie but we'll see. We all know how I am at this point with picking up manga XD I really loved how it looked. I watched it right after Welcome to the Space Show so I wasn't expecting anything just as awesome visually as that movie was but it works out nicely. Kind of made me want to play Resident Evil 2 again.

Welcome to the Space Show Movie

Overall: <3 I expected awesome and I got awesome. Rare but it happens sometimes! The visuals were out of this world gorgeous! You know that tingly feeling you get when you are just so excited about what you are seeing because it is SO gosh darn pretty? I got that. The last time I had that feeling was when I watched Gundam 00 on my big tv in the basement. So people wanting some eye candy will not be disappointed with this movie. It's a little confusing plot wise at times especially towards the end but overall it's a really nice story about kids bonding and going TO SPACE. Oh how I would have killed to be one of these kids and go on such a great adventure!

February  23

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Spiral Labyrinth episodes 1-28

Overall: I wanted to make my 2000th anime special to me much like I did for my 1000th anime. So what better of a choice could I have made than to finally watch one of the extra stories of my favourite anime of all time Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I gotta say I enjoyed the first 14 or so episodes the most since those featured Yang. When the Reinhard episodes came around 2 of his arcs were amazing but one of them was a complete snore fest that involved dueling for the nobles. The last 2 episodes were a link to the main series that made me almost want to re-start it up again and watch it. I will re-watch it eventually but I think my hands are full with the anime I have chosen to watch this year already. So here's to another 2000 anime!

February  24-28

Gintama episodes 193-201

Overall: I'm sad that it is over but so happy that it's coming back in April. I'm rather glad that I marathoned it honestly because waiting for the awesome each week would have sucked. That's the only thing I'm not looking forward to about the next series.

Touch episodes 90-101

Overall: Who would have thought I would enjoy a baseball romance drama! I went in skeptical and came out rewarded and glad I'm not afraid to try new things even though I think they won't be good for me. Solid 8/10.

Touch Movies 1-5

Overall: Movies 1-3 were bad re-caps of the series honestly. I got a lot more out of watching the 101 episodes than those first 3 movies that sum it all up. Movies 4-5 were extra stories that were fun but still left us hanging.

Gundam Seed Movies 1-3

Overall: I kinda wish I just watched these instead of the series...

Astro fighter Sunred episode 50

Zenryoku Usagi episode 42

Here is Greenwood OVA

Overall: I said my piece here.

Wounded Man OVA

Overall: Boobs, sex, and violence.

Fairy Tail episodes 20-67

Overall: I had been meaning to catch up with this for a long time now and since I caught up with all the other shounen I decided to include this one as well. It's a lovely combination of Naruto and One Piece for me honestly. It has the character love I have for One Piece mixed with the music love I have for Naruto. Great friends helping each other out as all go on a wonderful journey to accomplish their goals. Simple but oh so good. I love Happy and Plue!

~

Episode Count: 186 +  5 Specials/OVAs +  16 Movies

Manga Count: o

chii Finally Made One!

Favourites are a great thing. What makes these shows mine is that I think about them very often when I'm thinking about anime and wish to watch them more than once. Some of them I've already watched 5+ times. To be a favourite they also must be entertaining as a whole series. So if they have season 2's or more, I should have loved them just as much as their season one. Everything on the list below applies! I've been meaning to make this kind of list for many years now and I've finally sat down and mulled through all my anime titles and picked these 100 to be my absolute favourites.

Like digitalboy I'll be updating this list regularly from now on but not once a month. I will only update when I feel an anime has stood up to my standards to break into this 100 anime list. I will keep a list at the bottom of this page which of which anime has moved in and which it has kicked out. I doubt that it'll happen very often but time will tell. Check out my Does Not Want List for a taste of my dislikes.

1. Legend of the Galactic Heroes

2. Fullmetal Alchemist

3. Full Metal Panic!

4. Hikaru no Go

5. Macross Plus

6. Romance of the Three Kingdoms

7. Jyu Oh Sei

8. Baccano!

9. Ristorante Paradiso

10. Infinite Ryvius

11. Mushishi

12. Princess Mononoke

13. Serial Experiments Lain

14. Ninja Scroll

15. Berserk

16. Super Dimensional Fortress Macross

17. Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

18. Strawberry Marshmallow

19. Hi no Tori

20. Nasu: Summer in Andalusia

21. Gintama

22. Neon Genesis Evangelion

23. Koi Kaze

24. Oseam

25. Rose of Versailles

26. You're Under Arrest!

27. Durarara!!

28. Kare Kano

29. Kita e ~Diamond Dust Drops~

30. Twelve Kingdoms

31. Kemono no Souja Erin

32. Cowboy Bebop

33. Crest of the Stars / Banner of the Stars

34. Mobile Suit Gundam 00

35. Himitsu: The Revelation

36. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni / Umineko no Naku Koro ni

37. 3 x 3 Eyes

38. Whisper of the Heart

39. Honey and Clover

40. Now and Then, Here and There

41. Katanagatari

42. Kurenai

43. s-CRY-ed

44. D.Gray-man

45. Hunter X Hunter

46. Yakitate!! Japan

47. Detroit Metal City

48. Battle Angel Alita

49. Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

50. Last Exile

51. Turn A Gundam

52. Guin Saga

53. Blue Submarine No. 6

54. Haibane Renmei

55. Astro Fighter Sunred AKA Tentai Senshi Sunred

56. One Piece

57. Detective Conan

58. Kara no Kyoukai - The Garden of Sinners

59. Bokurano

60. Claymore

61. House of Five Leaves AKA Sarai-ya Goyou

62. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo

63. Chobits

64. Vandread

65. Hotori: Tada Saiwai o Koinegau

66. Tytania

67. Heroic Age

68. Dirty Pair

69. Millennium Actress

70. Neko Rahmen

71. Kuruneko

72. Kuragehime

73. Puni Puni Poemy

74. Excel Saga

75. Arakawa Under the Bridge

76. Giant Robo

77. Dominion Tank Police

78. Canaan

79. Antique Bakery

80. Tokyo Godfathers

81. Iria: Zeiram The Animation

82. Nodame Cantabile

83. Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

84. Grave of the Fireflies

85. Trigun

86. Alien Nine

87. Gunbuster

88. Texhnolyze

89. Rurouni Kenshin

90. Patlabor: The Mobile Police

91. Junjou Romantica

92. Ryofuko-chan

93. Gravitation

94. Gungrave

95. Sora no Otoshimono

96. Video Girl AI

97. Simoun

98. Shangri-La

99. .hack//SIGN

100. X: The Movie

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