Gyanko, Gundam Build Fighters Try

 

I definitely have a crush on her, given she’s practically a female Toudou. Proud, boastful, and a little bit selfish, Gyanko is a classic ojou-sama character. Gyanko is confident in her abilities and her desires and wholeheartedly goes after what she wants. Even if her methods are a bit underhanded, she’s so upfront that it’s hard not to cheer for her.

Mashiro, Engaged to the Unidentified

What makes Mashiro so cute is that she’s a little kid thrust into sister-in-lawhood pretty early and attempting to seem far more grownup than she is. She wears a high school uniform even though its sleeves are comically long on her. She insists she can handle spicy and sticky foods when she can’t, and she gets overly excited over cryptids while trying to conceal it. She has a catchy ending theme. In a show that’s dull overall, Mashiro was my reason to keep watching.

Sensei, Denki-gai no Honya-san

Sensei is an adorable and goal-oriented person who constantly believes she is failing at life. She is obsessed with feminine gender performance, not considering for a moment that there could be more than one way to be a girl. She has dreams of becoming a famous manga artist, but when she’s sleep-deprived and caught in the moment she becomes a huge crybaby. She’s far from perfect, and that makes her relatable.

Sakura Chiyo, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun

It’s rare that I really adore the female protagonist in a romance, since she’s usually designed to be a stand-in for every female viewer. But as Sakura is repeatedly thrown for a loop from the rest of the cast’s unpredictability, it feels like she has more agency than your average shoujo heroine to react in a more human way. Shy but stubborn, she’s a likeable narrator who offers the reasonably perplexed responses to Nozaki’s straight-man routine.

Akane Tsunemori, Psycho Pass 2

This show has really fallen from grace, but it certainly didn’t bring Akane with it. In season two, Akane has graduated from shy rookie to Boss Lady, maker of tough decisions and ass kicker of criminals. The events of the previous finale might have broken a lesser woman, but Akane has only come back stronger. Unfortunately, it will take more than even her awesome managerial skills to put this mess of a show back together.

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This post is the ninth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

I’m 28 today! I’ve been an anime fan for sixteen years and blogging for five.

I’ve celebrated five birthdays on Otaku Journalist now. Here are the entries for my 23rd birthday, my 24th birthday, my 25th birthday, my 26th birthday, and my 27th birthday. Whew!

I used to talk about my yearly accomplishments and goals on my birthday, but participating in the Twelve Days lets me postpone that pressure until the new year. Instead, let’s talk some more about anime! Even though I watched 29 shows in 2014, it was pretty easy for me to narrow it down to my five favorites. Here they are in no particular order:

 

Free! Eternal Summer

Every moment of this show was fanservice from start to finish. I don’t even mean the sexy type, though there was at least a full ten minutes of shirtless muscular man each episode. Fans wanted characters’ relationships and personalities explored, and we got this is incredible detail. I could say a lot more about the High School Boy Emotional Theater that made Eternal Summer so much fun, and I have—here’s 3,000 words of it for starters.

Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun

This series took me by complete surprise. I didn’t even start watching it until episode ten when the buzz about it on my Twitter feed became too loud to ignore. After years of being an anime fan, I love meta shows that take familiar anime tropes and turn them on their heads. Everything from characters’ personalities to their relationships to Nozaki’s shoujo manga was an unpredictable and welcome departure from the norm.

Yowamushi Pedal

Well, obviously this is here. I love the way each character looks like he’s been drawn by a different artist. I love how one shared passion unites so many interesting and diverse personalities. I even love learning the ins and outs of road racing for the first time. This show’s heart lies in its ability to take protagonists and antagonists alike and make them equally sympathetic to viewers and to one another—after all, everyone is striving for the same goal.

Parasyte

At first I thought this body horror thriller would be too much for me. I couldn’t even get past episode one of Tokyo Ghoul! But beyond the gore, Parasyte is the best kind of science fiction that forces us to examine and question the human condition. Each increasingly risky battle only escalates the tension between Migi’s survival instincts and Izumi’s waning humanity—and how far Izumi will go to preserve it.

Shirobako

This is the sliciest slice-of-life show I have ever watched. The action truly comes from real day-to-day issues in the workplace like crunched deadlines and career self-doubt. And yet for all its relatability in the mundane, it remains a truly compelling character drama. On a meta level, Shirobako is essential viewing for every otaku who has ever complained about an anime coming out late, unaware of the immense pressure on the animators.

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This post is the eighth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

Gundam is a 35-year-old anime franchise now, but it continues to become more, not less, relevant in my life as time goes on.

For example, one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2014 was to start a Gunpla blog with my husband as a place for all of our building efforts to live. In May, we launched Gunpla 101 with an awesome logo designed by Ben Huber. As a direct result, I’ve doubled my passive income and started building Master Grades with confidence. We’ve also got big plans for the site for 2015, including more advanced tutorials, merchandise, and an ebook!

None of that would be possible however, without a constant stream of Gundam shows to make me fall in love with these mechs over and over again. Here are some of the Gundam shows I watched and adored in 2014:

Gundam Build Fighters

After the spectacular failure that was 2011’s Gundam AGE, this show injected some much needed life into the Gundam franchise. Unlike so many earlier heroes, Sei can’t contain his love for all things Gundam. The show adds drama not only to fighting with Gundams, but building Gunpla models. And most powerfully, the cast of diverse but passionate characters made it a must watch, whether you’re a Gundam fan or not.

Gundam Seed

Every year John and I like to watch at least one older show together. We picked this one since it’s one of the most modern Gundam shows that is still good. Seed falls into the tropes that characterize a lot of old-school Gundam—a mysterious genius protagonist who doesn’t want to pilot the Gundam, women who die to further the plot—but redeems itself with incredible mecha designs and a gripping space opera of a plot.

Gundam-san

This show is not available in my country, but since each episode is only three minutes they’re all up on YouTube and there haven’t been any objections yet. In this absurd and silly take on the Gundam universe, no character is above a degrading, potty-humored caricature. It transforms handsome anti-hero Char into a whiny nudist and brave Amuro into a hormone crazed teen. It’s great that an institution like Gundam can still poke fun at itself.

Gundam Build Fighters Try

Not only am I watching this one; I’m reviewing it for Anime News Network as it continues well into 2015. Gundam Build Fighters is a tough act to follow, but Try has exceeded my expectations with a slew of amazing new female characters and suspenseful battles. It isn’t resting on its laurels, but continuing to develop a new world and characters at the same time that it calls back upon the last three decades of Gundam.

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This post is the seventh installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

Yesterday I talked about shows that suck. Fortunately, there’s a lot of amazing anime to make up for it. I watched a bunch of shows a second time this year. Instead of food, shopping, or what have you, I went on anime binges whenever I was in need of comfort. I’m not saying it’s any healthier, but it’s certainly my drug of choice!

Here are a few shows I experienced the second time around in 2014.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The first time I watched this show was in middle school, so I was pretty hazy on the plot. And judging by the subtle metaphors only an adult would get, I am pretty sure I missed a lot the first time. For example, I thought “Nanami’s Egg” was a pretty Dada episode when I was thirteen, but it’s pretty clearly a metaphor for puberty. Weirdly, I remember being kind of happy for Utena when she and Akio got together. Now, I see their uncomfortable relationship for what it is. It’s amazing how astute you get after 15 years of anime watching.

Welcome to the NHK

I watched this for the first time in 2010 when I was at the lowest ever point in my career—essentially, before it had even begun. I was a gym cashier with a Master’s degree, living at home with my parents, wondering why I couldn’t get a real job being that the recession was supposed to be over. This time, all the things I found comforting before seemed a little too convenient: Misaki’s need, Sato’s many second chances to successfully complete an eroge. There’s a little bit of luck when it comes to life, but most of it is hard work.

Natsume’s Book of Friends

I couldn’t shut up about this show in 2013, and I couldn’t even wait 12 months to watch it again. Natsume was even warmer and more consoling when contrasted with the similar but moodier Mushi-shi, which I watched for the first time this year. For me, it’s emotional catnip, a calming story against a muted background where even the spiritual elements are very human. I crave it whenever I feel lonely because it does such a good job of personifying that particularly universal human condition.

The Eccentric Family

Another 2013 favorite. As I wrote back then, it’s pure escapism to a world that never existed. Now that I know the plot by heart, I spent my second watch-through focused on the gorgeous scenery and music that embody this magical world the characters move through, seemingly ignorant to how good they have it. Backdropped against the turning of the seasons, the rich and varied settings are exquisite and cozy and make me want to live there. As Benten, preferably.

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This post is the sixth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

I have a friend who loves video games and is also an excellent writer. When a video game blog we both read was looking for reviewers, I suggested he apply.

His refusal was instant. “If I did that, video games wouldn’t be my hobby anymore. They’d be my job and that wouldn’t be fun.”

Clearly, this is a point where we disagree. Everything I do for a living right now—blogging, writing books and articles, and web design—is also something I do for fun. So when Anime News Network put out a call for weekly streaming reviewers this summer, I didn’t need to think twice before I put my name in for consideration.

I’m coming on four months of reviewing three anime episodes a week, every week. Most of the time, it’s amazing! I get to pick the shows I want to review, so I can feel good about a show coming into it. However, I don’t always make good picks. For example, I chose to review an anime, Nobunaga Concerto, that I didn’t like from the start! I don’t know what was worse, having to watch it every week, or letting down a slew of readers every week who were disappointed that I had so many critiques toward a show they loved.

This year I learned that it’s not reviewing anime that makes watching TV feel like a job. It’s sticking with anime I simply don’t like that feels like the worst kind of work.

Some of the shows I watched this year were not my cup of tea, like Nobunaga Concerto. Others were non-negotiably terrible, like Dramatical Murder—a show with animation so poorly rendered that they had to redo episode three. As a BL fan, I am Dramatical Murder’s target audience, and even so I would have given it an even lower grade than its reviewer did. Hands down, this was my worst show of the year. Of course, Psycho-Pass 2 could be the dark horse in that race—it’s getting dumber the more I watch!

I also watched a few fan service anime this year that had little else to offer. I loved the mini, moe Mashiro in Engaged to the Unidentified, but the other characters were barely more than sketches. I wouldn’t recommend the so-so Bakumatsu Rock, a silly manservice musical anime that had trouble keeping up a semblance of a plot. And then, I actually liked Love Stage!, even though it hastily ended on episode 10, a clear sign that it had issues.

You see, I didn’t drop a single show this year. I wanted to document a comprehensive record of everything I watched this year so I could calculate the hours on day 12 of my Twelve Days. As a result, I watched some pretty awful anime to their conclusions in 2014. I wouldn’t recommend this. I’m kind of ashamed that I carved out time in my life to do it. I am not sure who came up with the Three Episode Rule, but it’s a good one. In 2015, if I don’t like something by episode three, that’s the end of it. I’d rather have a job I love—reviewing anime—than to assign myself work I hate based on some misguided principle of finality.

Screencap from the infamous Dramatical Murder episode 3. 

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This post is the fifth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.