Review of 2011 Anime Part 1 ~Winter~

This winter we got 20 shows. Quite a bit more from last years 12 or so. All shows that aired were watched. There are a few ova's that I didn't pick up but that's not an issue since they are related to series I haven't seen yet. Everyone should know by now that I make it a yearly goal to watch all anime that airs in the year. I've been doing that for the last 3 years. I find it pretty fun and it makes these posts awesome. Anyway onward with winter aired anime!

Winter is either really fun or kind of meh. Unlike the last 2 years this year I didn't get a 10/10 anime that aired which I found a little weird because pretty much every season I get one of those... "Everyone's"  top anime of the year/decade came out. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica was fun but I just couldn't get into it as much as everyone else. I do however love Kyubey very very much. I'd make a contract!  ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

Suite Pretty Cure has jumped to the top of the pretty cure franchise for me. It's quite awesome and exceeded my high expectations that Heartcatch created. I only hope that the upcoming Smile can match the awesomeness that has become Pretty Cure! <3 Siren!

Best Show of winter is Level E. It did wonderful things in a hilarious way. I laughed a lot. I only wish that it could have been longer. It needed just a little extra bit of something to be amazing. All the characters were really great. The show almost seemed like it was a parody of sorts for Men in Black since it was about aliens on earth but no one else knows about them.

Worst Show of winter is without a doubt is the oh so terrible Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne... So bad that most people watched this show with sccsav while drinking because that was the only possible way to get through this show. Unless you are me of course! Everything about this show is offensive...

Here's my big list of Best to Worst shows of winter 2011:

1. Level E 8/10
2. Suite Pretty Cure 8/10
3. Wolverine 8/10
4. Fractale 8/10
5. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 7/10
6. Beelzebub (still airing) 7/10
7. Gosick 7/10
8. Kore wa Zombie desu ka? 7/10
9. Supernatural The Animation 7/10
10. Kimi ni Todoke 7/10
11. Dream Eater Merry 6/10
12. Freezing 6/10
13. Mitsudomoe 5/10
14. Cardfight!! Vanguard (still airing) 5/10
15. Infinite Stratos 5/10
16. Rio: Rainbow Gate 5/10
17. Wandering Son 4/10
18. Dragon Crisis 3/10
19. Starry Sky 2/10
20. Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne 1/10

Surprise enjoyment: Supernatural The Animation was quite enjoyable. It probably helps a lot that I haven't seen the American show it originally is. I really like that ED. Beelzebub started off pretty weak but after a while I sank in and started to really like the characters.

Surprise fail: Gosick I honestly expected much more from. Sure it has a pass rating from me but I really just wanted to be wow'd by it and that never happened.

Honorable mentions: Rio: Rainbow Gate! Sharks, Gambling, and boobs! Fractale is a show everyone hated on but I still got a lot of enjoyment out of it regardless. Wolverine was super fun and Landon agrees! Wandering Son is my most hated noitaminA show. The only one I hate actually. Which is hilarious because everyone loves it.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me: Nine Delicious Openings & Endings

On the Ninth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me,
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

This year we didn't only get a whole lot of awesome anime, we got a lot of great music to go along with them. In my eyes anyway. Here's just some of the many OP and ED's I really enjoyed throughout the year. They aren't really in any order.

OP's

Steins;Gate - I can confidently say this is my absolute favourite OP of this year. It send shivers through my entire body every time I listen to it.

 

Level E

 

Ao no Exorcist op 2

 

Persona 4

 

Kimi to Boku

 

Toriko

 

Dantalian no Shoka

 

One Piece OP 14

 

Hyouge Mono

Shout outs to a few others: No. 6, Yuru Yuri, Mawaru Penguin Drum OP 1, Gundam Age, Tiger & Bunny, and everyones favourite Guilty Crown.

ED's

Ao no Exorcist ED 2

 

Persona 4

 

Nyanpire

 

Honto ni Atta! Reibai-Sensei ED 1

 

Un-Go

 

Suite Pretty Cure

 

No. 6

 

Tiger & Bunny ED 2

 

Kaiji Season 2

Shout outs to a few others: Ao no Exorcist ED 1, Gundam Age, and the oh so awesome Hyouge Mono.

Macross Idols Love

Because ghostlightning made me do it!

Favorite Idol: Sheryl Nome - Song: Diamond Crevasse

Most awesome idol: Lynn Minmay - Song: My Boyfriend is a Pilot

Most winsome idol: Ranka Lee - Song: Aimo Tori no Hito

Cutest idol: Mylene Fallnya Jenius-Kizaki - Song: Sweet Fantasy 

Scariest idol: Sharon Apple - Song: A sai En 

Best failed idol: Myung Fang-Lone - Song: Voices

Most awesome failed idol (because I love to hate him so): Basara Nekki - Song: Power to the Dream

Best thing ever: Sharon Apple - Song: Information High

BONUS! Best duet: Ranka Lee & Sheryl Nome - Song: Sayonara no Tsubasa ~ The End of Triangle

DELICIOUS~

~A Look at Anime to Come~ Fall 2011

 Using the chart from here. I give you the below edited for my preferences:

8 anime made it to the super looking forward to and will watch. Hilariously only 2 of those titles aren't season 2's and of course they both happen to be the noitaminA titles Un-Go and Guilty Crown. The only 2 season 2's I don't give a crap about are Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi (lol yaoi) and Shana III (lol tsundere). I'm currently trying to watch Shana Season 1 and it's not going so well enjoyment wise so who knows if I'll even get it watched by the time III starts. I find it rather amazing that Shana is the only show I have to watch to catch up with what's airing. Generally I got 2-3 titles to do that for when Spring and Fall roll around but only 1 is just a little shocking for me.

The one anime I'm most pumped up about is Hunter X Hunter. I love the original series and always hoped that they would make more.  I really can't wait for it! I dunno what I'll do if it disappoints me.

Gundam Age has been getting a lot of flack but I still think it'll be enjoyable. I gotta watch it anyway cause then I wouldn't be able to say I've watched ALL gundam titles! (Somehow I made it through all of SEED) Still waiting on more awesome Gundam Unicorn. An episode of that should be out pretty soon.

Ben-To has me interested for the silly factor. I don't really know what to expect but I do expect to laugh! It's probably the silliest anime I'm looking forward to this fall. I do hope that Kimi to Boku proves to be entertaining and not some kind of Ouran knock off without a reverse harem. Hori­zon on the Middle of Nowhere I hope it wow's me. I just want something that I think might be trash to actually be good.

I really hope that Last Exile and the new Fate/Zero do not disappoint me. I probably could live with Fate making me sad but if Last Exile is crap... I dunno...

I'll be interested in how Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai AKA "I got me no Friends "will do. There's a fair bit of hype about it but I'm still not so comfortable with it personally. Something about it just screams run away to me. Kinda like how Tamayura does along with those other few red highlighted titles...

I won't be blogging any of these but I might start that strange Busou Shinki Moon Angel soon because it's got 5 minutes episodes but I haven't decided on that yet. I've been doing pretty good with the Nyanpire posts so if that keeps going I plan on keeping up! I'm totally going to re-start blogging TORIKO as it's a shame I had to stop. It'll be fun catching up with it because GUTS GUTS GUTS is awesome!

 Fall anime is going to be exciting! YAY for season 2's of shows I actually like! Bakuman, Ika, and Working woooot!

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. ^__^

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