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 - Rest of the Rest (Tsundere Ver.)

What else do you want from me? I told you that I don't have enough time to watch everything, but you're still here! I've already said I'm sorry!

Fine! I'll review these shows, but don't misunderstand me, you dummy! I just...I just have time to finally get these done! I mean, they weren't exactly the best of shows out there, and the first episodes really disappointed me, almost to the point of not watching them anymore! But I'll review them already!

It...it's not like I'm doing it for you! Dummy!

Iron Man: The Anime

Synopsis: So this Tony Stark billionaire guy decides to go to Japan to set up a power station in cooperation with the Japanese government. While helping with the research and acting as his own press agent for his lavish events, Stark comes across a rogue pilot who has hijacked a prototype armor meant to be his replacement as Iron Man. At the same time, he has to cope with the attacks from the Zodiac, a band of androids and robots that have targeted Iron Man and the Stark Corporation.

Why wasn't it reviewed?: First of all, there isn't a rush to review the Japanese version of the show, as it will be released soon enough in the United States. This conversion to a dubbed English language may make the show a little easier to process and believable; Stark shows little to no problems with speaking in Japanese in the first episode. A little believability, if you will!

Second of all, there wasn't much appeal for the series when the first episodes were weighed as an entity. Each week, Zodiac poses a colossal threat to the nation, whether it be in a natural or digital form, but once that threat is neutralized, it seems to be forgotten. The only things that tie the episodes together are characters that aren't that interesting, and for some reason Tony keeps bumping into the same nosy female reporter. Aren't there any other people in Japan? And if there are, must they be inexplicably brought into the show? (Wait, what's Wolverine doing here?!)

Bakuman

Synopsis: Moritaka's got the artistic ability that his uncle used to exhibit when he was a mangaka in his own generation, but his uncle's death from overwork has been considered a "suicide" by Moritaka's family. While Moritaka would rather just join the working class, his classmate Akito, a bright guy with a knack for writing, would rather risk it to succeed as one half of a manga tandem with Moritaka. Moritaka's motivation to become a mangaka, however, comes from an urge to see his crush Azuki succeed at her goal of becoming a voice actress and for her voice to be paired with his animated creation.

Why wasn't it reviewed?: Okay, so Bakuman is an anime based on the manga about two guys making a manga in the hopes of making it an anime. It seems logical and ripe for tearing down some of the walls separating the industry from its readers, but the first two episodes just didn't feel like it was worth animating. It was as if the inclusion of time didn't really make a difference—there's no real gripping factor that differentiates the anime from the manga. It's a bit of a disappointment to consider there to be more drama in the manga than the anime.

The other big problem I had was actually with the opening theme, "Blue Bird" from Kobukuro. You have great harmony and play a mean ballad, guys, but way to seriously put the audience to sleep. Maybe things might pick up with the next half of the 25-episode series, but I couldn't get past two episodes. It's a serious shame, because the manga was solid.

Yosuga no Sora

Synopsis: Derived from the visual novel from Sphere in 2008, Yosuga no Sora tells the story about the Kasugano twins, Haruka and Sora, while they return to their grandparents' old house in the countryside. Having lost their parents to a car accident, Haruka is very protective of Sora, especially due to her own frail constitution, but life must go on. They attend the town's high school and befriend some past acquaintances and new faces, only for Sora to exhibit a fierce jealousy each time.

Why wasn't it reviewed?: I understand that the show contains an interesting way of unfolding, as each "arc" involving Haruka and one of the other girls in the show develops as if chosen through the alternatives presented in a visual novel. However, I found myself unable to get past the first episode after understanding that Sora totally has the hots for her twin brother. So far, shows have managed to dance around actual incest, but Yosuga no Sora doesn't sugar-coat. Actual brother-sister lip-lock here, folks.

Too creepy to really continue the story, even with the ridiculous cuteness that comes from the episode:

And that's all! No more reviews for the fall! If these reviews aren't good enough for you, then that'll be the last time I ever do them for you!

Baka.