The 2011 Anime Encyclopedia: A to G

Wikipedia has pretty much destroyed the encyclopedia. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger killed it in the library with a letter opener and a plug.

That's not necessarily a form of praise of the web-based compilation, but I wouldn't say Wiki's completely useless. Look, Wikipedia's great for getting trivia and overall factoids about shows, events, and public figures, but such a conglomeration of dozens upon dozens of edits and reviews will be bound to get things wrong. The days of going to a library and leafing through volumes of time-weathered information are over, and the costs of printing outweigh the benefits of digitizing everything.

But if I were to create an encyclopedia for my favorite things—namely anime, natch—I'd have to build from each letter organically. I'd likely grow my entries for each year, assigning one essential title for each letter, then building around them with other terms. While it would be easier to do it using Japanese kana, using the English alphabet is always a fun challenge. Good luck with the entries for L, Q, X or V!

So I challenge fans to construct their own listings for 2011, focusing on one entry for each letter of the alphabet. I present my own 2011 Anime Encyclopedia, complete with my favorite shows, actors, groups, songs, and random terminology from the past year. It's pretty easy to do, really. Just get a listing of the past year's shows from Wik...

Dammit.

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Year in Review: The 12 Returns of Christmas

Happy New Year, folks! I just came back from the first line of Christmas present returns—that "P90X Workout" package was a horrible idea—but unfortunately I will never ever have the receipts required to get back the precious time I wasted on a bunch of anime shows the past year. I suppose it's blood payment for attempting to brave the elements and watch shows that were as bad as Yosuga no Sora, Asobi ni Ikuyo!, and KissxSis. Hopefully you all won't make the same mistakes I made with these 12 Shows A-Sucking.

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Best Ending Themes of Fall 2011

Eh, I probably could have gotten away with a much shorter list of ending themes for Autumn 2011's anime season, even though there were a ton of new songs submitted for approval. While some shows could probably use the creative juices to draw more attention to themselves, it felt that a lot were content to shrug their shoulders and scrimp on the ED budget. Have a character walk across the screen, slap down a bunch of photos, get the latest debut artist's first single, and go out for a smoke.

The good news about lesser displays of talent in the EDs is that it makes picking the best (and worst) that much easier. Here are my entries into the rankings for Autumn 2011's ending themes (pictures as always courtesy of CD Japan).

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