Fall 2010: The Awards

Going into the Fall 2010 season was a bit of a renaissance for me. I'll be honest—I haven't really been too excited about animation prospects for a few years. My "collection" likely reflects more of my lack of interest, as I have more VHS copies of anime than I do DVD copies, but the easier access to material and a trip to Japan over the spring has rekindled curiosity.

It's hard to tell just how long that curiosity will continue to burn from the old hickory put on the fire, as this season really tested patience. With the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly putting stricter regulations on anime and manga near the end of the season, it was difficult not to notice the hard sell that animation companies were giving to the older crowd. Heck, the lineup for Fall 2010 would have been crippled if the government had its say on what qualified as "extreme".

That being said, it was hard to pick out what was truly the best and worst of the season—there really wasn't much middle ground to work with.

Best In Show (single-season)
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Honestly, it was hard to put Gainax's parody of the Cartoon Network in this spot for a number of reasons. Yes, the show was gruesome and grotesque with its treatment of bodily fluids and scat as if they were champagne and chocolate. Yes, there were shows that likely told its story better. And yes, the last episode chokes on Gainax's trademark "non-ending ending" cliffhanger that may have angered fans.

But how can you say that you will forget such a season? The styles so varied, the soundtrack so fuzzy from zizz, the characters both off-the-wall bonkers and satisfyingly likeable, the subjects of sin so close to our own without actually invading the fourth wall, Panty & Stocking pretty much hit us with everything from the ACME catalog and then some. It was sexy self-gratification with experimental silliness and tongue-in-cheek humor. If Gainax doesn't do the obvious and produce a second season, fans will be devastated.

Honorable Mention - Kuragehime, Invasion! Squid Girl, Oreimo

Worst In Show (single-season)
Yosuga no Sora
It didn't even merit much of a glance after the first episode, even with the premise of crowding four story arcs over twelve episodes through four different branching universes. The story was so distilled, the syrupy drama separated from the two-minute splash of comedy at the end. The characters were unexciting, and the visual-novel situations were brittle from too much exposure.

Left with no energy remaining to fuel it, the show basically tries to recover by pushing the taboo envelope further and clobbering the audience with the shock of "twincest" between the main characters. It just turns the show into a bizarre tragedy of relationships that don't cement a specific conclusion into place. Vague, unresolved and perhaps unintentionally offensive, Yosuga no Sora is a show that deserves no attention.

Honorable Mention (?) - Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, MM!

Best In Show (multi-season)
Shiki
Considering that it was in competition with the likes of Hetalia, One Piece, Black Butler II and assorted others on the Funimation website during the summer, the noitaminA series silently rode under the radar. A story about vampires just didn't equate to a unique feel, but once the show hit its halfway point and sold itself as a full twenty-two-episode show, it took off like a rocket.

While the show started to pick off the small town's population slowly, the midpoint of the series drove the human population into something beastly. Once thought to have too many characters for a plot, Shiki forced them into two sides of a war for survival and shocked the audience with horrific slayings of characters considered too bold to die in such minor situations. Without giving up too much plot, the main character Toshio perhaps pulls off the best psychological performance of the season, investigating the limits of okiagari vampires by experimenting on his own wife.

Honorable Mention - Tegami Bachi Reverse, Arakawa Under the Bridge*2

Worst In Show (multi-season)
Motto To Love-Ru
With all of the characters pretty much introduced in the first series, there was no need for Motto To Love-Ru to follow any sort of pattern or tell any particular extended story. One moment, our lucky protagonist Rito is feeling up one female classmate due to a misunderstanding. The next part, he's naked in front of the violent lolita and getting the tar beat out of him. The last seven minutes involve some touching moment with the uptight classmate, his school crush or the ditzy alien princess.

Was there a reason to really bring this show back if every episode is the same? Even the ending fails to deviate from the manga's ending, giving us the generic sit-com denouement of Rito surrounded by women reacting to his directionless admission of love. Harem show of all harem shows, Motto To Love-Ru lived up to its expectations of being a total disappointment.

Honorable Mention (?) - Sora no Otoshimono Forte, Amagami SS

Most Potential (continuing series)
Star Driver: Takuto of the Radiance
When it was announced that Bones would be the studio handling animation duties, there was no doubt that the mecha designs in Star Driver were going to be a work of art. Originally founded by Sunrise (Gundam, Escaflowne) members, Bones had designed some of the more vivid machines (RahXephon, Heroman) and constructed some of the more colorful stories (Fullmetal Alchemist, Wolf's Rain) in anime.

It wasn't expected that a story that wasn't based on a preexisting manga or light novel would work so well. Perhaps there are no expectations for how the story will unwind, but the conversations between the characters are lighthearted yet poignant, stoic yet comfortable like an episode of Utena. Takuto, Sugata, and Wako make perhaps the best trio in anime since Naruto met Sasuke and Sakura.

Honorable Mention - The World God Only Knows

Least Potential (continuing series)
Bakuman
So far, I have yet to hear a critical voice that has been pleasantly surprised by Bakuman, the animated adaption of the award-winning Shônen Jump manga about creating a manga. The first episodes of the show had nothing that really differentiated it from the manga (or the productions of the "manga" on YouTube), and the show is almost too relaxed to grab anyone new to the series.

It almost feels as if the show was to be gift-wrapped and presented to all of the fans that wanted to see it animated from Day 1, a reward for being so devoted to the comic, but I wasn't impressed with the show's first episodes. The fact the show will run more than the allotted 25 episodes tells me that it's popular enough in Japan, but for people overseas that may never experience the joy of being a manga star, it doesn't seem to translate into excitement.

Honorable mention (?) - Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector

Biggest Surprise
Hyakka Ryôran Samurai Girls
Yes, the show pretty much twisted samurai legend in order to put a whole bunch of half-naked women in the hands of an unwilling male, but the end product of Hyakka Ryôran actually managed to do better than expected. It took a little bit of bitter medicine to stand listening to Jûbei's ditzy split-personality, but the action was solid and exciting, and the climax was genuinely dazzling. Most important, the ending actually felt like an ending with some actual sacrifices to be made.

Considering the artwork was also so deeply rooted into the monochromatic ink of Japanese calligraphy, it was tempting to be overwhelmed by the use of stray drops as censors for the nudity, but the show slowly drew color for those spatters. (Besides, they're easier to cope with than BLINDING SUNLIGHT.) Hyakka Ryôran may have been Tenchi Muyô in Edo Japan, but it was still a surprise to see it work.

Honorable Mention - Otome Yôkai Zakuro, Fortune Arterial: Red Promise

Biggest Disappointment
Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru
Akiyuki Shinbo and SHAFT laid a few eggs this season. While Arakawa Under the Bridge*2 got a little too wrapped up in drama, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru depended too much on impressing the audience with camera angles and art. The story was meant to involve a maid cafe, a high-school detective, and/or paranormal activity, but just ended up some sort of soupy mix of the three without ever making headway.

In short, the show left me complaining for more, much in the same nasal manner that Hotori hits the audience with every episode. It could have been so much better if we saw the show's objective by the end of the first episode; instead, we got a slice-of-life show that will never measure up to the likes of Sazae-san or Chibi Maruko-chan.

Honorable Mention (?) - Iron Man, Togainu no Chi

Best Overall Show
Shiki
Yes, this might be a bit unfair to shows that have already finished, but as Chris Beveridge of Mania.com expressed on Twitter regarding his own choice of Shiki as the Best Simulcast of the Year, "The strength of the first 21 (episodes) certainly makes it a given, regardless if it ends badly." We probably judge our shows too much on the ending of the series, so it was great to have a show out there that finally took its time, ignored any sort of high-school setting, and took a sledgehammer to everything we knew about anime.

Shiki was not only better at psychological horror than the likes of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and Highschool of the Dead, it took it one step further. It made each character, location, and occasion matter. It made vampire stories exciting by drawing out the tension over time and through dozens of people. It made the noitaminA block a definite must-see in the future. Shiki succeeded with its story, as old-fashioned as it may seem, by mixing European gothic style with the loneliness of Japanese life in the boonies.

If Shiki is released in North America, I will no doubt pay to see it again.

Honorable Mention - Panty & Stocking, Kuragehime, Star Driver, The World God Only Knows

We'll see you next season!

Fall 2010 - Motto To Love-Ru

Once again, a warning in advance is needed. I'm running the risk of either sounding like an old codger or a huge hypocrite with what I'm going to write in this critique. I shouldn't even be saying it, due to a personal philosophy that we should respect other cultures for their differences. Despite the need for understanding, I would say the following through a bullhorn if I could.

For the sake of anime, someone please stop Saki Hasemi, Kentarô Yabuki and Xebec from making any more To Love-Ru shows.

Run, or else Lala's cooking eats you first, Rito.

Motto To Love-Ru, the follow-up to the original series, could very well be one of the most dangerous anime shows out there for two particular reasons. Reason #1: To Love-Ru was known for being unabashedly unashamed of revealing any sort of nudity. It's been the staple of Yabuki's last two manga efforts (he also drew Mayoi Neko Overrun!) to have females shrieking in embarrassment and laying into a male who sees them naked. Reason #2: despite the nudity, we've reached an unheralded step in anime ennui. The show returns to once again unleash one of the dullest main characters in the history of fandom.

I'm not necessarily referring to overall boredom in anime, as there are still plenty of exciting frontiers to explore and stories to tell from those travails. The line between fantasy and reality is distinctly drawn, as all of the titillating sexual situations have been and likely always will be a characteristic of anime. What I'm referring to is the unfortunate progression of the dullard in "harem" anime, specifically the lack of concrete personality development when it comes to the central character keeping an anime together.

We know it's an accident, but why hasn't this kid been arrested?

Before we get too far into the topic, here is a quick Cliff's Notes version of the To Love-Ru concept. Rito Yûki is your typical high-school student, smitten over his classmate Haruna, but unable to confess to her. However, somewhere along the line, the bubbly Lala, an alien princess from the planet Deviluke and part of the universe's ruling family, ends up landing on Earth (specifically, Rito's bathtub) and falls in love with him. From that point on, characters continue to stumble into the scene and make Rito's love dodecahedron more complex; a shape-shifting golden-haired bounty hunter, the school's arrogant rich girl, the rule-abiding class representative, and an alien suitor of Lala's that changes into a girl when he sneezes are just some of the crazies that get shoved into Rito's daily rituals.

Motto To Love-Ru requires prior knowledge of the series, but the stories are episodic in nature with little continuity so far. What does happen is fairly commonplace:

1. Rito finds an invention of Lala's and ends up hurt or embarrassed by its side-effects.
2. Rito encounters an alien presence and ends up hurt or embarrassed by the ordeal.
3. Rito encounters a cast member in a typical daily event or common scene, only to get hurt or embarrassed when someone gets stripped partially or fully through an accident.

You're guaranteed to go through a point in each seven-minute arc where a girl gets flustered from some form of sexual deviancy and ends up laying the hurt on Rito.

Case in point: Yami and Rito, the human football.

This brings us back to the topic at hand: Rito himself. Historically, there have been some pretty bland and unexciting main characters in harem anime shows. Some have argued that the genesis in this evolution is Kyôsuke Kasuga from Kimagure Orange Road, an esper from the Eighties who tended to be quite wishy-washy in his decision to love one of two female protagonists. Some have argued that Tenchi Masaki from Tenchi Muyô! is the driest of them all after being constantly dragged into space operas by the attractive aliens that seek his hand in marriage. Others have labeled Keitarô Urashima (Love Hina) and Kyon (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) as the template, and I've even heard some arguments for and against Rumiko Takahashi's characters (Godai, Maison Ikkoku; Ataru, Urusei Yatsura).

Granted, all of these characters are dull in their own way, but I would argue that all of them have at least a little merit to them. Kyôsuke was a unique character in a dull setting from twenty-five years ago, back when even dry anime was fun to watch. Tenchi ended up having talent and a spine, even if he couldn't make personal decisions regarding love. Keitarô and Kyon both ended up at least trying to fit in with the oddballs around them, making them appear brave in the end.

Rito, however, brings a new definition to boredom—he doesn't change with the environment. He's thrust into perverted situations by Lala, never to put his foot down in protest. He's still too ashamed to tell Haruna how he feels, even with all of these already-embarrassing situations. He's not smart in class. He has no hidden talent. He is merely a combination of a punching dummy and a mannequin.

Seriously, give this kid a break (or at least a towel).

To put it simply, Kyôsuke and Tenchi had no spine, and Keitarô and Kyon had no talents, but Rito has none of these things, making him the most uninteresting anti-hero in the world, even with the most interesting things happening around him. Sadly, since the story is built around him, there will be absolutely nothing constructive that he will bring to the plot. Each episode ends the same way it begins—with sunlight censoring the naughty bits that belong in hentai, girls screaming in panic, and nothing established during the unorchestrated sexual chaos that will change the lives of anyone in the story.

To put it simply, I argue that Motto To Love-Ru is an example of the "I-novel" (watakushi-shôsetsu) being corrupted by the use of non-realistic situations. By creating exciting fantasy that surrounds dull central characters, Hasemi and Yabuki have attempted to create an "everyman" that can be the reader's stunt-double. What happens to Rito is something that will not happen to the average viewer, yet his plainness provides an identity similar to the viewer where there is a possibility of sexual hijinks ensuing.

Dream on, young viewer. These things will never happen in your dull life. All the more reason to avoid the vapid nature of Motto To Love-Ru.