What Caught My Eye This Winter Season

Fuck this Season.

Top 20 Anime of 2012

Without further ado. . .

12 Days of Anime – Mysterious Girlfriend X

Mysterious Girlfriend X, for me, contains the best scene (and arguably the best episode) of the year. Anime Romances almost never tend to focus on the relationship part and this is why MGX is so different and fresh. It focuses on the actual relationship itself. It also doesn’t focus on “Romance Plots” that stuff like Sukitte Ii Na yo falls trap to (the whole I’ll steal your boyfriend and all that crap) but rather it focuses on a select few characters which is really really rare for an anime. The only other anime that I’ve seen that managed to do this type of romance well is Bokura Ga Ita.

So anyway focusing on this certain scene. For ten to eleven episodes, the series has shown Urabe and Tsubaki’s relationship and how much it has blossomed into. Still though, it still hasn’t quite gotten intimate as I hope it would be (well of course if you exclude all of the kinky and drool parts (which you shouldn’t)) and the two characters haven’t even hugged each other. This episode changed that.

That hug. That sweet little scene. Somehow, everything from the first episode until then started gushing back to me. It reminded me how far these two characters have gone in their relationship. It reminded me how amazing this series is.

Have a Merry Christmas!

12 Days of Anime – Taichi-furu

Mashima Taichi is probably Chihayafuru’s most complex character. He’s good at everything but isn’t particularly great at anything. He gave his best at Karuta but he still isn’t in Chihaya’s level. He likes Chihaya but he can’t really get himself to tell her that.

For such a bishounen character, Taichi is fairly human. I’ve said this before already but Taichi has all the characteristics of a bishounen but he isn’t exactly quite like it.There are tons of defining moments that show Taichi as a character that’s frustrated with himself yet at the same time he isn’t. There’s also his inherent selfishness. Taichi has a lot of moments where he asks himself if his goals truly are his goals. Overall, Taichi is a character that thinks too much and the way Chihayafuru presented this is just glorious.

12 Days of Anime – Kininarimasu

Chitanda Eru is Kyoto Animation’s newest embodiment of the perfect moe character. Moe is something that Kyoto Animation lives, breathes, inhales and exhales. The moe formula Kyoto Animation uses is the most polished and Chitanda Eru proudly shows it off in their 2012 Masterpiece, Hyouka.

Slightly googly eyes: Check

Wobbly animated walking: Check

Weird trait that can be turned cute: Check

Cute catchphrase: Check

I’ve learned towards the years that my favorite studio really is Kyoto Animation. While it’s always infuriating that they never veer off far from their expertise (moe), the things they do always catch my attention and more often than not, become masterpieces in my eyes. Hyouka is no exception.

12 Days of Anime – Kurapika’s Revenge

Kurapika turned HxH from good to amazing. (Spoilers Ahead)

12 Days of Christmas – Sword Art Online Sucks.

I- I just had to get this off my chest this year. I tried so hard liking it but it just kept tumbling and tumbling down.

I’m honestly one of those people that ride the hype train. I was honestly excited for Sword Art Online. Everybody said it was a magnificent Light Novel. Why oh why did I listen? I already knew first hand to never ride those damn hype trains unless I knew exactly what I was riding. Goddamit why SAO why?

There’s honestly a number of things to like about SAO (pretty graphics, a grand world setting, a bit of character development here and there) and I always try to forgive it every time it sort of drops stink bombs of stupid girls or terrible plot development. I’m not someone who likes to hate on things and I always try to appreciate anime that I watch.

All this changed though in episode 12. Kirito and Asuna, now all pretty and married, managed to stumble into a forest. They found a little girl called Yui who was braindamaged and all she could say was “Auna Auna”. They took her in their home sweet home and treated her as their kid. Honestly, even I thought Yui was cute.

The next day (it seemed like the next day or fuck whatever I don’t care) they tried to find Yui’s parents. They went to the first floor and some underground passage opened. They went inside and saw some big death seeker or fuck whatever that was. Asuna and Kirito couldn’t kill it. They were about to die. Then, out of nowhere, Yui transforms into Shakugan no Shana and destroys the big ol’ monster. Then at the very same moment, she remembers everything and apparently she was a damn robot. She then hugs Auna Auna and Kiito and disappears because I don’t fucking know. Suddenly though, Kirito becomes a mad genius hacker and somehow saved Yui’s life. He got an emblem that looks like a tear and apparently we, the audience, were supposed to cry because boohoohoo that was so sad.

Just no. Fuck this.

* I actually wanted to talk about awesome soundtracks for this one but I still haven’t finished downloading Rinne no Lagrange’s soundtrack so I just went with bashing SAO.

12 Days of Christmas – The Hero of the Teru Onslaught

Saki: Achiga-hen was probably one of the most infuriating series that aired this whole 2012. It spent 8 episodes or about more than a half of its air time in buildup that went nowhere. Fortunately for the series, the last 4 (well there’s 3 more which is bound to be amazing) was pretty darn good.

The Saki franchise has been heavily building up Miyanaga’s Saki’s sister, Teru. Considered to be the current best player in high-school Mahjong, Teru has been described as cold-hearted and a downright demon with the likes of Amae Koromo and such. It’s only in Achiga-hen, however, when we actually saw her true strength.

Okay, I play Japanes Mahjong myself (I’m just a beginner) so I definitely know how unfair a lot of the powers in this series but still, my blood gets pumpin’ every time this series showcases these powers. Teru is one of them. Her power is like “Rollout” if we compare it to Pokemon attacks. Her point totals start low but it steadily increases turn by turn and god knows what can stop it. Teru also has the cheating ability to know everyone’s specialty.

So how was Miyanaga Teru stopped?

We can say that the one who truly stopped Teru was Kuro Matsumi who managed to exceed her expectations in the end by discarding a dora (Her power is to hoard certain tiles but discarding those tiles would be futile). What made this possible though is Toki Onjouji. The true hero of the Teru Onslaught and the real main character of this spinoff.

Toki Onjouji’s power is probably the most unfair of all. She can see a turn ahead. Like fuck, that’s totally cheating. Her physical body weakens though when she does try this. In this match with Teru however, the only way that she could really beat Teru is to see even farther ahead, to a point where Toki’s discards will affect Teru’s hands (well that’s how I understood it). This paved way to Kuro’s ending blast.

By doing this though, she endangered her life. She had to be brought to the hospital afterwards.

Toki Onjouji, we salute you. ;____; (she’s not dead though).

*She won this year’s Saimoe btw. 

12 Days of Anime – Just Another Couple

There are a lot of good couples this year. There’s Chitanda and Houtarou’s slow but moving romance, there’s the Mysterious Couple X, and there’s Shizuku and her little monster. There’s one series though that really takes the cake and for me in terms of having the cutest couple and that’s. . .

But seriously though, this couple really grew on me. Horror is never really my thing and one of the reasons why I liked Another so much is because I didn’t partly laugh watching the entirety of it (okay maybe except part of the last episode) and I actually got scared at times. The biggest reason though is that it actually bothered having main characters that aren’t just catalysts for horror.

While Mei’s story started off as something to scare Kouichi (and the viewers), once we got to really know her, she ends up being a sympathetic character. Also all that buildup eventually turned into a romantic buildup which made me appreciate Another even more.

12 Days of Anime – Gigantic Trailer

While Huge Hype = Hypefail at most times, I’d like to believe this won’t be the case after seeing this fucking awesome trailerasdfghjkl:

See that trailer. Yeah, that’s what trailers are supposed to be. Jesus Beezuz, I’m fucking pumped for the Shingeki no Kyojin anime.

It all started a few days back where I’ve been hearing rumours about the manga getting an anime. I did a bit of research and found a lot of interesting things about the manga.

1)      It’s insanely popular for something that does not have an anime.

By golly wow, this manga averages on slightly above 1 million copies per volume. Even recent popular shit like Kuroko’s Balls, Ao no Exorcist, and Magi needed anime back up to be on the same level as stuff like Shingeki no Kyojin. The manga levels with stuff like Bleach. Let me repeat, it doesn’t have an anime yet.

2)      It’s been winning awards

It won the Kodansha Award and it’s been nominated for the Manga Taisho Awards. What struck me is the Manga Taisho one since that association comprises of library bookworms and the pieces they choose usually are really good.

3)      The author is like, in his twenties. This is his debut.

You’d be surprised how rare it is for young people to get popular in the manga business. Bakuman really fooled you eh?

So yeah, adding these three positive things up, I decided to read the manga. And oh my fucking god was I fucking blown by how amazing this manga is. It’s raw, emotional and really brutal at the same time. The story revolves around giants that eat people. It’s stupid if I say it like this but what if you turned that premise into something dramatic and painful? If you turned a premise like that into something like The Walking Dead? What you get is Shingeki no Kyojin.

It’s also a very brutal yet poetic piece. In particular, the series uses soldiers and their problems and turns it to the maximum. These soldiers go through hell to train and fight the giants and most of them immediately turn into hotdogs or swatted flies once in combat. It hurts seeing it happen over and over the course of the manga and it’s the very root of what the manga is trying to portray in the world it manged to create. There is no hope for humans. Things still turn for the worse til the current chapter and things are not looking up at all.

Another interesting thing about Shingeki no Kyojin is its intrigue. The titans and the higher ups are hiding a very important secret. The situation isn’t even as what it seems (when the manga started) and things are probably worse than how it already is. It creeps me out that the entire plot could be similar of Claymore’s (actually a lot of things in Shingeki no Kyojin remind me of Claymore) wherein – well if I say it then I might just spoil you of both manga.

So yeah, Shingeki no Kyojin. It’s probably the best thing I’ve read in a while. Fingers crossed that the anime will be just as good.