End of Year Special: The Best pt3 (Anime Series of the Year)

It’s getting well into January and I realized that I couldn’t drag things out bit by bit until February roared around and decided to streamline my end of year awards.  Let me just say that if your show didn’t make it more than likely I just didn’t get around to seeing it… or I hated it.  And that being said, this can’t be called definitive in any way.  Like all my blog entries I’m really just archiving my thoughts and experiences to look back on at a later time.  Regardless, here’s what I most enjoyed about 2010 in delicious All-American list form.

Nominees for Anime movie of the Year

• Macross Frontier: the False Songstress
• Summer Wars
• One Piece: Strong World
• Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance
• Bungaku Shoujo

I’m notoriously slow to pick up movies, so if some of this appears to be 2009 material I apologize.  This is what I watched this year, and I must say I was very impressed with everything I watched in some form or another.  Bungaku Shoujo picked up the rear as the most random of my pickups, but it did end rather nicely.  Strong World was an enticing adventure into the world of One Piece where I thought, like the show, the creature design and overall imagination of the world was just amazing.  The False Songstress was one of my bigger surprises of the year.  It gave me one of the most GAR moments I think I’ve seen in any anime, and it involved a credit card.  WHAAAAAT?!

My choice really came down to Summer Wars and Eva 2.0.  Summer Wars became one of the best family movies I’ve ever seen.  At it had two incredible climaxes!  But at the last possible chance I got to see Eva 2.0 and it blew me away.  I had no idea they could do what they did with the Eva story.  They’re not rebuilding Eva in my opinion, they’re evolving it for another generation.  Summer Wars is a great family anime.  Eva 2.0 was anime at its peak.  Honestly though, I’d pay to see either of these movies in a real theater.

Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 is my Anime Movie of the Year – I avoided watching this movie because I did not want to relive Eva.  It was already as legendary, and perfectly conceived as I could imagine it.  Updated animations in HD won’t alleviate my boredom from watching the same story progression I’ve already relived twenty times.  How wrong I was.  I wasn’t prepared for the crushing defeat of my expectations by this movie.  Of course you have to watch Eva 1.0, but after that everyone whether they be a old fan or a potential new needs to see this movie.  Behold the resurrection of Eva as the king of Gainax and anime once again!

Nominees for Episode of the Year

• Angel Beats ep9
• Baka to Test to Shokanjuu ep9
• K-ON!! ep20
• Katanagatari ep4
• Durarara!! ep11
• Highschool of the Dead ep6
• Fullmetal Alchemist ep54
• One Piece ep473
• Ika Musume ep5 pt3
• Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt ep6
• Fairy Tail ep58

There are too many nominees to cover each and every one.  This year it really came down to three episodes for me.  K-ON!! episode 20; Katanagatari episode 4; and Ika Musume episode 5.  What Ika Musume episode 5 did for me was give me that sense of magic and joy without dialogue (well she did say geso a few times, but I don’t think that counts) that I only lately could enjoy from Pixar films Wall-E and UP.  It was still classic Japanese cute, but it still felt universal.  And couldn’t have been more easy to enjoy and heartwarming.  And then at the end someone DIES.

Katanagatari episode 4 was my wake up call for the show.  I hated the first episode; got real hopeful for the second; fell in love with a character in the third; and had a boner for what was supposed to be a war in the fourth where we were gonna see a shark get cut in HALF!  What actually happened, well I’ll just say I don’t think GAINAX could’ve trolled me harder (sorry Panty and Stocking, gotta try harder than that).  Think of this episode as if you were expecting to see an action flick and got a horror movie instead.  With Berserk and Eva holding the record for having a “QUADRUPLE BALLS” moment each, Katanagatari episode 4 achieved “Triple BALLS”.  An impressive feat.  Believe me, like the people in this episode, you won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late.

I’ve already said all I can say about episode 20 of K-ON!! and so have many others.  It’s probably going to go down as one of the more famous anime episodes out there.  Any fan of K-ON!! will enjoy this episode and the crowning achievement it represents.  So what did I think was the best episode of 2010?

Katanagatari episode 4 is my Anime Episode of the Year – just the most impressive, shocking single episode I saw last year.  It felt like watching someone’s nightmare and I couldn’t recommend it more highly than this.  Nearly fifty minutes of an absolute masterpiece.

Nominees for Anime Series of the Year

• Durarara!!
• Baka to Test to Shokanjuu
• Katanagatari
• K-ON!!
• Otome Youkai Zakuro
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
• Ika Musume
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Now this was really hard to pair down.  All these series are excellent examples of anime done right in its own way.  But it essentially came down to four series.

Katanagatari, which won me over with its unpredictable and brutal storytelling.  Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, which won me over just for being insane, unique, doing parodies better than anyone else and being classic GAINAX (I’m a bit of a fanboy) at its core.  K-ON!!, for being the lovable, hilarious and endearing show that it has been since it only had one exclamation point.  And Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, for winning me over with some truly intense and dramatic scenes with excellent memorable characters.  So what was your favorite series of 2010?

K-ON!! is my Anime Series of the Year – I was more emotionally attached to this show than any other this year.  And even though I found the pacing to be slow even for a slice of life moe series at times, I still immensely enjoyed it.  It had more memorable episodes than any other show I watched this year.  And it will probably be the show I watch the most and hold on most deeply to 10 or even 15 years from now.  “Lycopene~!”

And now for the other awards.

The Waifu Award (for newest member of my harem): Yano (Kimi ni Todoke)

I could’ve made this announcement months ago, but not only was this a foregone conclusion, but also it felt more appropriate to make the announcement in my end of year blogs.

The Second Opinion Award (for the anime most loved by the wife: Kuragehime

The Daughter Award (for my daughter’s fave anime): Angel Beats (don’t ask)

The Son Award (for my son’s favorite anime): Fairy Tail

The Flaming Piece of Sh*t Award (worst anime of the year):  Seikon no Qwaser (Chu-Bra!! really had a shot at winning this.)

The Die in a Fire Award (worst character of the year): Kirino (Ore no Imouto…)  (Was there any doubt who this award would go to?)

The “Oh NO!  It’s a Trap” Award (for character most likely to make me go gay): Hideyoshi Kinoshita (again, was there any doubt?)

The “Boo” Award (for anime whose quality most surprised me): Ika Musume (Sorry, Otome Youkai Zakuro.  You were so close.)