This is a serious post on serious things

The third episode of Outbreak Company finally sees the protagonist of the series, Shinichi, come under real threat in dealing with the culture of the new world he finds himself. In the episode, the school that he had built to spread otaku culture with the backing of the Supreme Ruler Petrarca was taken over by a reactionary faction that opposed the existence of the school and how it affected the balance between the three races of the Holy Eldant Empire. Eventually a bit of modern technology and magic get them out of the crisis, though not without consequence. After three episodes, I’ve felt the desire to chime in on how this series has dealt with cultural assimilation.

When one looks at the basic premise of the series, it quite frankly looks a little absurd to devote a single aspect of a nation’s foreign policy to exporting culture. In reality, most of the time it is an opening of foreign markets to a new product which has little to do with what the “sponsoring” government wants. In this sense, the Japanese government’s participation in Outbreak Company is to handle to transport of cultural goods to the foreign land. It mirrors the way culture spread prior to the 20th-century where a ideas would be spread by representatives of governments living in foreign lands only to take root then on. The particular parallel with this series that strikes me here is the spread of the sport of baseball to Japan in the 1870s beginning with Americans teaching at Japanese universities.

I think from this standpoint, the series handles this part quite well. Previous expeditions to this new land had yielded only one thing that interested the new people, so it makes sense to bring over someone who would be an expert in that field to spread their knowledge. While it is rather contrived in how Shinichi ended up over there, it would make sense for someone with his knowledge to end up in that role of a cultural ambassador.

The next point I wanted to cover is the conflict that is at the heart of this episode. What Shinichi has found himself embroiled in is an internal conflict that his presence is only a symbol political opponents can rally behind. Naturally any potential change to a society is going to have some resistance from those who feel they will be the most negatively impacted. It does not change whether it is new health care policy or giving additional groups the right to vote; there will always be a group that will be opposed to it. The change in this series is an educational one. Shinichi’s school is open to all races to be educated with an otaku-centric curriculum which violates a social order that had placed humans above their elf and dwarf counterparts because they organized society first.

The movement led by Alessio in this episode is a reactionary one with their own interpretation of how the monarchy should rule the Empire. In Petrarca, they have a Supreme Ruler who is willing to open up the country to new ideas without taking their views in mind. They may be terrorists in the sense that they are willing to destroy to maintain the social order, but it is not as though they are without motivation. Any sort of widespread instruction of the other races in their eyes poses a threat to their future position, even if it is just teaching them language.

To take a step back, I think there is one very important question that the series has yet to really answer. What is the motivation for the Japanese government for being there? This is a nation that after all did shut itself off to the outside world at one point in its history. That they seem to be deploying the black ship of otaku culture is a nice bit of commentary, but there’s little as far as an end game in sight.

Additionally, I do like the fact that they are utilizing a fake version of Attack on Titan in Shinichi’s spread of culture to Petrarca and the other residents. I’ve always seen that particular series as a take on the opening of Japan in the 19th century to foreign ideas rather than simple story of survival against nature. Ultimately though, I can’t really say that this is used intentionally other than the fact that it is a popular series because of the idea at the center of it.

The thing the series always seems to place first-and-foremost is to place the events within the context of the culture they are coming from. Shinichi isn’t going to be able to spread democratic ideals through his otaku ideals. Myuseru isn’t going to be free from discrimination because she picked up Japanese quickly. The threats to the Petrarca aren’t going to go away quickly because she’s allowed the Japanese a presence in the Empire. The fact is that Shinichi gained the favor of Petrarca to build his school as a political maneuver. Myuseru wants to go away to Japan because everything Shinichi has shines a positive light on Japan though he views his own world negatively. Petrarca wants an interesting world to live in, but shaking up the social order of a nation has consequences. These are important things to keep in mind when watching this show and it should be commended for it.

Unlike Megatron here, everything else in this post was dropped.

Since there’s little in the way to talk about this week from the currently airing shows, I embarked on an experiment yesterday. By MAL’s reckoning, I’ve dropped 362 series and those would have been for a variety of reasons. So what would happen if I gave some of these shows another shot? In all seriousness, it sounds like a better idea than talking about every show that I have dropped this season. So how would this experiment go?

The basic ground rules for how this experiment worked were these:

1. The decision on which show to watch would be decided by a random number generator (after a few users from Twitter picked numbers to be chosen for the first series)
2. The series had to be available on a streaming site (this experiment used Crunchyroll, Netflix and Youtube if I couldn’t find it on the other two. Future experiments may add other sites)
3. I would be picking up from the next episode after I had dropped the show to avoid the reason I dropped it in the first place.

And now for what got selected

Senkou no Night Raid

Season Aired: Spring 2010

Episodes Watched Prior to Drop: 1 of 13

Reason for Dropping: Boredom

From what I could recall, Night Raid was a show about Japanese operatives with special powers working in mainland China in 1931. So this had the potential to be a sort of pre-war X-Men type deal except that I recall the first episode was just a bunch of talking and moaning about the situation everyone found themselves in. The second episode of this series involves a plot of a Jewish musician working as a spy.

I think the episode summed up well why the Anime no Chikara block this show was a part of never took off. Like Sora no Woto before it, there are grand ideas in this show as well, but those ideas took precedent over making an entertaining series. This second episode pretty much lost me when it came to talking about anti-Semitism in Russia and Germany at the time as though it were a surprise. Then came the concert scene after the musician’s cover had been blown and how he kept playing. Part of me wanted to see that episode of Golgo 13 where he shot the string out from absurd range. So in the end I was still bored with it above any other reason.

Cuticle Detective Inaba

Season Aired: Winter 2013

Episodes Watched Prior to Drop: 1 of 12

Reason for Dropping: Insufficient Laughs for a Comedy

The random number generator threw something more recent at me for the 2nd series. I remember the first episode being one of those gag shows which tries to throw a joke in every 10 seconds. A comedy series needs an excellent strike rate on the humor to make that work, which the first episode clearly didn’t have. The first half of the 2nd episode actually worked pretty well. The plot involved a scroll turning into a sadistic board game through time which got a few laughs out of me. I may have continued on to episode 3 had the 2nd half of the episode in which Kunihiro’s wife and daughter are introduced relied entirely on a single unfunny gag. If anything it shows the pitfalls of gag comedies from my perspective. I can’t be bothered with long stretches where I’m hoping the episode ends quickly when it should be entertaining.

Battle Spirits: Sword Eyes

Season Aired: Fall 2012

Episodes Watched Prior to Drop: 1 of 29

Reason for Dropping: Children’s card game show that isn’t ironically hilarious

So it’s a children’s card game series where the young protagonist is learning the ropes of how to play the game. What this means in watching this episode is that there is plenty of time devoted to explaining the game to small children while it’s also wholly unrepresentative of how it’s played. The battle in this episode lasts 6 turns and there’s no explanation on how the hero is able to summon multiple monsters on his first turn. It’s not even like he’s rich so he can screw the rules. There’s also a funny moment when the hero Tsurugi ends up obtaining a motorcycle from the old couple whose house was destroyed as a result of the card battle. Completely logical there. I think this series would work better in the abridged format.

Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat

Season Aired: Winter 2002

Episodes Watched Prior to Dropping: 2 of 48

Reason for Dropping: Lack of Availability followed by Time Passing

I had to watch the English dub of this one, which made me question why anyone licensed this in the first place. I’d like to imagine the sessions all those years ago when they recorded the dub. The voice actors questioning why all of their lines end with “nyo” or “nyu” or some other silly thing and being told that if they wanted their $50 to do it. Anyway, about this series, this is a prequel to 1999′s Di Gi Charat and is targeted at a younger audience. This is disappointing because Dejiko is no longer as abrasive a character as she was in the original series. It has all the edge rounded off and is pretty much cat princess girls doing cute things which is a real shame. The dub doesn’t make things much better either.

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation

Note: I couldn’t crop this any larger and have it be safe for work.

Season Aired: Spring 2013

Episodes Watched Prior to Dropping: 2 of 13

Reason for Dropping: It’s pants

So I picked this up in the middle of an attempt to break in to the system that is protecting Osaka from being attacked. It’s very much watching CG graphics and a counter of how broken the system is. The actual battle in the middle of the episode is pretty much like watching someone play a JRPG only without it making much sense in why they have to fight that way. That’s followed by the asshole character from the first 2 episodes suddenly deciding to sacrifice his life for the others because it’s not like he was less effective than Io. Basically the big problem is that the wrong people get killed off leaving behind the least interesting characters. While I’m sure the game is fun in the sense that I generally find JRPGs, there’s really no point in this show still.

Polar Bear Cafe

Season Aired: Spring 2012

Episodes Watched Before Dropped: 1 of 50

Reason for Dropping: Not funny enough

Remembering the first episode of this series wasn’t that difficult. Panda was annoying as hell and generally useless. Polar Bear was the only responsible person around and Penguin was just a raging alcoholic. And so it was in the 2nd episode, but less Panda made this a much better watch. Unfortunately, I don’t remember laughing at all. This didn’t feel like one of those iyashikei shows either. I don’t even know what it is trying to be. I know it’s not for me, but it’s just plain unoffensive everyday stories only with animals instead of people.

Final Thoughts: I hate to think that I’m not able to change my opinion on things, but this lot of shows pretty much failed to change my mind. There are probably others in there, and there were others that were randomly selected. However, it seems I ran into a bit of a problem in trying to watch those. The streaming sites are fine with newer stuff. Beyond that, it’s very hit-and-miss. I even ended up drawing Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure with one of the draws, and nothing. Maybe the next time I do this I will have better luck.

There’s a key transformative moment in the 5th episode of White Album 2 when the 3 characters that are the focus of the love triangle at the center of the story begin to care about each other as a group. Setsuna and Haruki leave their own classes in order to console Touma after she ran out of class with the score she was working on. Up until that point, these were largely characters that were acting as individuals acting on their own teenage hormones or path of least resistance. So what changed?

In the previous episode, there was the important scene where Setsuna proposes they play a 2nd song for the festival that has a difficult guitar solo in it. The end result is that Haruki has to spend another week with Touma learning how to play this song, but it’s really the sum of 3 different decisions. For Setsuna, she really loves the song and wants to perform it for that reason. For Touma, despite it being a song far too complicated for Haruki’s skill level, it provides an excuse to spend more time with him so she pushes him that way. Haruki, on the other hand, accepts the decision of the other two passively despite being against it. That arrangement worked for a while until Setsuna found out at the end of the last episode.

So what would have changed? It really came down to making Haruki care by putting him in a situation where he can’t take the easy way out. The two conversations with Setsuna were important for the development of his character.

The first on the walkway came from the misunderstanding at Touma’s house. She ran away believing that Haruki was with Touma and that she no longer had a reason to get in their way. Then, she realized that the reason she liked him was his biggest character flaw. He treated her like everyone else, which she genuinely liked, but he treated everyone the same. In order to make the performance work and for the friendship she wants with Touman and Haruki, he had to change at least as far as making him see the other two as special.

That’s where the phone call later in the episode comes into play. Without going into too much detail about the cultural importance of it, Setsuna’s insistence that Haruki call her by her given name is critical. With that in place, he could no longer treat everyone the same. She became special to him.

As far as Haruki’s concern for Touma, that comes up later in the episode. During the test, he has to think about her role in appealing to the audience at the festival. It doesn’t mean much at this time, but the seed was planted enough to know where she would go after she stormed out of the classroom.

Finally, there’s the question of where Touma’s feelings lie. She has feelings for Haruki because like Setsuna she was treated just like everyone else. While she refuses to call Setsuna by her given name in this episode and outwardly views her as an annoyance, she cares for her just as much. She takes on the festival concert because she insisted. She hid Haruki’s overnight stays because she was worried about Setsuna misunderstanding the situation. She works on the performance to the point of exhaustion and in the critical moment for the group, she doesn’t want to be seen as holding Haruki and Setsuna back. The fact they begin practicing in the music room meant she accepted them as much as they accepted her.

Tsk, looks like it’s that time of year to do this post again.

So it’s that time of year again where I am legally obligated to point out how long this particular blog has lasted. It’s now reached the point where in many nations I would now be qualified for citizenship for simply being able to hold down a job and not commit any crimes that would see me deported. The caveat to that being that I’m working in the aniblog fast food joint washing dishes while others who emigrated with me are now captains of industry.* That’s enough for the depressing bits in this post (and the many other drafts that are far worse than that you will not see). Instead, I’m going to keep things simple with five things I’ve learned since this blog started.

Writing while Traveling is Fine, but It Will Cut Into Quality and Sleep

On the 27th of July last year, I woke up at 3am with the express purpose of watching the latest episode of Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate as quickly as possible while taking as many screenshots as possible. Ten hours and 3 cities later, I walked into the Holiday Inn Express in Baltimore and the 2nd question I asked was, “How did my post look?” That post by the way was viewed just 209 times by individuals who didn’t happen to be in that hotel lobby that afternoon. I don’t mean that day, that’s total*.

So what was the downside of all of that. It didn’t really come until about 12 hours later when going around to various gatherings of anime fans in the city and I looked absolutely shattered. Was Koichoco worth losing 90 minutes of sleep in the morning and potential fun later in the day? The answer is quite easily a no.

So let’s step ahead to the 3rd of July this year. Having again woken up early for a flight out to Los Angeles and not to watch Koichoco or something similar, I found myself later in the day in the longest queue of my life outside the Los Angeles Convention Center. So the process of what happened next went like this: this looks like it will take a while so I will watch this episode while I’m standing here…that is done, now what do I do next?…I’ll see if I can write a post to take my thoughts away from the person who collapsed in this queue…It’s done and posted…Crap, I’ve only moved 30 feet in the last hour. For the record, that has 113 views in the 4+ months since it went up.*

Overall the lesson from this is two-fold. One, I really should not travel and write on the same day. Second, I also have no business writing episodic posts.*

Urobuchi Will Be Forever Linked to Michael Bay in My Mind

At one point in history, I liked the work that both of these individuals did. It was really fun stuff marketed at teenage boys that also appealed to my sentimentality at the time. I liked Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon just as much as I thought the episodes of Phantom I have seen and the early episodes of Madoka were fun as well. Which gets to an important question of whether my tastes evolved away from that sort of material, I became too critical of it or whether there is a legitimate problem with their works now.

As much as Pearl Harbor was a terrible movie, it wasn’t until Transformers that I truly felt contempt for a single individual responsible for something I was watching. I don’t know how a children’s toy from the 80s gets turned into sexist trash like without an astonishingly terrible person being responsible for it.

With Urobuchi that same thought arose as I was watching Psycho-Pass. It wasn’t just Akane serving as cover for everything else that was happening as she watched her friend get brutally murdered in front of her without lifting a finger, or a woman being burned to death, or the woman being beaten to death in public with no one doing a thing or the high school girl meeting her end in the most slow agonizingly painful way possible. It was just the way that I felt dirty for having watched it. That same feeling carried over as I was watching Gargantia earlier this year. While he didn’t write much of that, he was involved from a production standpoint and his fingerprints were all over it. It’s so bad that I even view Madoka negatively because of it. I can now see it as the story of girls being punished for having the audacity to want to be empowered. Urobuchi simply will not allow that in his vision of humanity.

Then again, maybe that’s why I’m not in his target audience. I’m sure all of his stories work for teenage boys who happen to be up late at night. I also see he’s involved in the new Kamen Rider series as well. Because why shouldn’t he bring his sensibilities to an audience of young, impressionable minds?

Something something Kakeru Shoujo. It’s all the same, right?

My Views on Shows I Do Watch Are Typical, But I Choose The Wrong Shows to Watch

This came up in The Cart Driver’s big attempts at coming up with data on the aniblogosphere’s views on everything they had rated. After that first post, I wanted to see how deviant my views were from the community of which I am on the periphery.* I ended up finding out that I was about in the middle of how I rated everything compared to the group that Scamp put in the comments of that first post.

Then that second post brought in Kadian, who defeated me emphatically in a podcast last year* and doubled the number of bloggers involved in the ratings count. The thing I first picked up on is how many of the highly rated shows I had not finished. Out of the top 200, I’ve completed something like 67 of them. I don’t think this would be a problem but for the fact that as of this writing I’ve completed 722 anime and the list is over 1500. So in essence, the issue with my taste seeming different is not so much that I hate shows people like and vice versa, I just don’t give the shows that my peers like the same chance. Would watching some of those highly rated shows and talking about them here make me a better aniblogger?*

Contrary to the Only Post That is Seen on This Blog, Ladies versus Butlers Was Not The Feel-Good Harem Anime of 2010

My most viewed post on this blog which still gets relatively* tons of views is this one from the time when I tried to be clever and post on 2 different shows at once nearly 4 years ago. If I’m perfectly honest, it’s not a very good post at all and does not deserve to have any attention on it at all, but you know once you put a picture of a girl sitting on token harem lead’s face it will get views. So I present the 2010 Harem Anime in order of Feel-Goodness, a completely arbitrary statistic that I have come up with for this post:

Obligatory “This is not Feel-Good” Mention now

1. The World God Only Knows
2. Mayoi Neko Overrun!
3. Ladies versus Butlers!
4. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou
5. MM!
6. Sekirei: Pure Engagement
7. Motto To Love-Ru
8. Sora no Otoshimono: Forte
9. Kiss x Sis
10. Omamori Himari
11. Shukufuku no Campanella
12. Yosuga no Sora

That should officially end all arguments over what the most feel-good harem anime of 2010 was so all of you just looking up that maid sitting on Hino’s face can just go back to searching for other perverted harem anime pics.*

Your reminder the Santa anime was a thing, and also that Hirano Aya is actually still alive somewhere.

I Might Possibly Be The Worst Person at Recommending Anime to Any Other Person

With the Reverse Thieves Secret Santa once again underway, I have to undergo scrutinization of any picks I make to anyone else. In fact they took away the idea of mulligans after I did this (though I can’t say it was because of me, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t). So now I have a group of people out there who secretly hope that I do not draw them. The only way that happens is if I don’t participate, and out there another blogger has me this year.

So now 2 years later, I have decided to recap what exactly happened on that day.

I had drawn Aiden over at T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews and gave him 2 safe options and one that Processr would kill me for if I ever recommended it to anyone else. That’s Honey and Clover, Gurren Lagann and Macross Frontier for those of you scoring at home. Since there was no reason given for the mulligan, I assumed that my taste was being rejected so I gave him the terribad platter. Does that make me an asshole? Yes.

Understandably, he turned down the choice between Tsukihime, Chaos;Head and Itsudatte My Santa to go back and watch Macross Frontier. The end result was that he watched something outside of his preferred genre and gave it a 4/5. But regardless of that result, the ending did not justify the route to get there.

There’s more to this story than just that particular episode. When it comes to strongly recommending shows that are not very popular, there are only a few that come to mind. Those would be the following:

• Sengoku Collection
• High School DxD
• Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer
• Saikano
• The entire Seikai franchise

To date, I think I’ve convinced 2 people to watch Sencolle and 1 person to watch High School DxD. I mention the others because they consist of one of the best directed anime films of its time, something that left me a blubbering mess and the fact that it is the greatest romantic saga in the history of anime (so much hyperbole).

So the lesson from all of this is that I have a deserved reputation for being an asshole when recommending things. I’m expecting to get the hammer this year since I’m already seeing that they are bored with the one they chose. Maybe there will come a day I can make someone happy. Maybe not?

_{*-I guess I couldn’t avoid all the depressing points, so I’m highlighting them to show just how easily I end up slipping them in subconsciously.}

The source of this rant. Maybe I should have called this “Thank You for Not Writing”

Infinite Stratos at its best is a whimsical harem series with a bland protagonist who comes good in spots and the real focus is on the girls who have affection for him. This formula worked well enough in the first season for the fact that it kept the story and character development as simple as possible. With enough demand for more IS, a second season was ordered up and ready to go into one of the most packed seasons in recent memory. I wouldn’t be the first person to say that it has been a disappointment even by the first season’s low standards, but why did it have to be this way?

I think it’s best to start off from the beginning in the first season. The formula as I said before was simple. Ichika, as the only male capable of piloting one of the IS suits, is entered into a training academy filled with girls and their raging hormones and curiosities about their new classmate. Then there is the main circle of romantic interests which are also quite simple characters. There’s the tsundere childhood friend (Houki), the ojousama (Cecilia), the flat-chested childhood friend with a complex about it (Lin), a girl with a complete misunderstanding of Japanese culture (Laura) and the girl who had to hide as a boy until Ichika convinced her to live on her own terms (Charlotte). Through the common harem trope of his being able to make any girl fall in love with him, there were many close romantic encounters that were close enough to draw the girls closer to him without having an end result. The points of conflict in the series were either between the group above which would be resolved by becoming Ichika’s romantic interest, or a faceless organization that attacked periodically.

Now in the second season, there has been this need to make the series more complex. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that there are actually three different stories happening that feel like they are being held together with duct tape since they do not naturally go together.

There’s still that harem series that worked in the first season showing up in patches. The best example of that being the party episode celebrating Ichika’s birthday. Then there are the 2 new elements. The most noticeable of those is the enemies now being humanized. Phantom Task doesn’t really seem to serve a purpose on a collective level other than the fact they all seem to have a gripe with Chifuyu. Whenever any of them appear, it turns into an entirely different and pointlessly darker show as well. These are the people who kidnapped Ichika when he was younger and for the most part they seem to be popping pills and angry for some reason. One of them even claims to be the younger sister of Ichika and Chifuyu, but that just seems to get glossed over or brought up at random times after that came out.

The other new portion is really two new girls to add to Ichika’s harem. The student council president Tatenashi, didn’t appear until now and suddenly becomes a contender as the older sister type girl. She’s also overpowered to absurd levels in everything she does and manages to become the latest to be Ichika’s roommate. Because plot. Anyway, she’s got a younger sister who hates Ichika for reasons completely out of his control and you probably know where this is going. They already did this with Laura, and one cannot go back and repeat the exact same conversion from hating harem lead to falling in love with him. If there’s anything more to show that this series is out of ideas, it is the character of Kanzashi, and she’s only been in one episode.

So in summary, Infinite Stratos falls victim to one of the easiest things that comes with success. The fact is that the end of the first season was a perfectly good way to wrap things up, but the chance to get more money from making the same thing is really human nature. I think the Phantom Task angle was something they had to address from the first season, but not much thought went into it beyond making them angry at something. The two sisters is just an attempt to replicate what happened in the first season, but the cast exceedingly looks too large to support what made that work.

It may be easy to say that I should drop this, but despite the numerous flaws this second season still provides me with enough entertainment to keep me watching. Yes, even someone like me who blogs about anime can still get caught up in continuously thinking about who the best girl is even as the rest of the show collapses in on itself in failure.

The better onsen episode this week was White Album 2, but that would be too easy to write about

By most reasonable subjective measures, the eroge adaptation Walkure Romanze is not a very good series. It’s so derivative that it could also be considered Infinite Stratos with horses and armor in place of personalized mecha suits. The harem lead in this piece, Takahiro, is just as overpowered as Ichika is in that series and just as oblivious to the emotions of others, but still has all the girls after him for pulling off moments of brilliance. That’s not what I’m here to talk about in this post, though. Instead, there is an incredible (by the standards of harem anime) attention to detail in the show’s universe that is undermined by the quality of everything else.

The series itself is set in a village called Helen’s Hill. It’s a place where German is the primary language, though the name would indicate it should be English, but that’s never really explained. The German influence goes further in the sport of jousting which is central to the plot in the series. Takahiro is needed by the girls in the series to serve as their begleiter, which is the German term for an attendant or second in dueling terms. The main jousting venue is simply called Stadion. That one is originally a Greek term that’s used for the name of many stadia in Germany as well.

Now I’m sure these details are boring you to death, so let me get to this week’s eighth episode which inspired this post. It’s an onsen episode in that all of the girls competing in the jousting tournament bar student council president Celia are at a training camp at Bertille’s hot springs residence. That includes everything from all of the girls washing each others backs in a line to wearing yukata to having pillow fights because that’s apparently what you do in Japan. There’s even a completely out of place Singaporean lion fountain that is acknowledged by the characters in a curious manner. It’s like a little wink to the audience that this is not Japan and that foreigners confuse other cultures easily. And yes, there’s also the classic onsen trope of having the harem lead get caught in the bath when all of the women begin appearing and he has to make an escape.

The omake portions of the episode are also well worth considering because they are trying so very hard to make sense of the universe the show is portraying. The early episodes go into the rules of jousting within the context of the show. Things like scoring and the equipment are covered there despite the fact that the match between Mio and Bertille is the only formal joust to have taken place in the series. The most recent one was devoted to the question of why there are so many Japanese characters in a show set not in Japan. It tries so very hard by explaining there is some sort of friendship between the two nations by having so many cherry blossoms planted around the city. That’s why you have Akane, Mio and Takahiro as main characters plus Ayako, Reina and Shinonome as minor characters.

Ultimately, they are just trying so hard to justify something that doesn’t really need to be justified. Normally, it would just be one of those things where they are marketing to a Japanese audience, so of course there would be more Japanese characters by default. By raising it as an issue, there’s an acknowledgement of the fact that there is that kind of bias in foreign settings. Unfortunately, Walkure Romanze is entirely the wrong kind of show to do anything beyond raising it as a point of conversation.

A picture from the real Season of Discontent. That pile of trash does not represent the anime this season.

 

“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter Of Our Discontent

 

I suppose I should preface this season preview post as coming on the basis of a rough couple of weeks personally and an evening of impromptu off-road driving. Anyway, winter usually is a dead period for my anime viewing and because of the quote I used above I can only suppose it is the same for you my lone reader. I’ve been in the anime viewing business for a long time, so I’m going to spend the time reflecting on all the great anime that I watched in the winter season of 2004. That’s because everyone gets jaded and remembers how good things were, right?

Let’s see, there was Paranoia Agent, Kon’s TV masterpiece which was surreal and filled with important social commentary at the same time. That really wouldn’t come to air now would it? Then I also watched, what was it…

The winter of 2004 was shit.

I’m going to assume that you have already read one of the many, much more popular and incredibly detailed season previews that have already been written about the coming mess of a season. With that said, I am going to keep this one relatively simple for a change. Returning shows to watch, shows that I will not watch, probable drops potential surprises and the shows I will inexplicably watch will be the categories I’m going with this time.

Returning Shows to Watch

Wooser – More on this at the weekend

Seitokai Yakuindomo – The inspiration for the best opening line in Outbreak Company. I know it’s essentially just dirty jokes with a witty retort only, but that’s why I watch it.

Shows I’m Not Watching

Ambush Marketing Subdivision

Double Circle

Buddy Fight

Robot Girls Z

Z/X Ignition

Basically all of this group exists just to sell product. Making 70s mecha into girls strikes me as incredibly cynical. There are also 2 card game shows in this and maybe in one of them a responsible adult figure will win at a children’s card game.

The Sequels I Won’t Pick Up Subdivision

Saki

Silver Spoon

PreCure

Maken-Ki!

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!

Maken-Ki had an OVA this year that was easily the worst anime I watched this year. I can’t believe they put so much effort into capturing the sound of breasts slapping into each other. The rest I just never got into or really ended after 1 season.

The ‘Say No to Crack’ Bad Ideas Subdivision

Nobunagun

Wake Up, Girls!

Nobunaga the Fool

The are all takes on Sengoku era insane plots. Wake Up, Girls limits it just to idols. The other two crank things up by throwing in historical figures plucked from the random article feature on Wikipedia.

The ‘Dropping it Before it Airs Because I Will Get Heat for It Anyway’ Subdivision

Space Dandy

The Probable Drops

After 1 Episode

If Only Wizard Barristers was this interesting

Pupipou!

Tonari no Seki-kun

Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta

Youkai Watch

Mahou Sensou

Houzuki no Reitetsu

Witch Craft Works

Sekai Seifuku ~Bouryaku no Zvezda~

Wizard Barristers ~Benmashi Cecil

Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha

Hamatora

Noragami

Go! Go! 575

I’m still going to write on this group anyway. Don’t be surprised if that’s all you hear about them in 2014.

After More Than 1 Episode

Pupa

Sakura Trick

I really should like Sakura Trick which is why I will put it here to lower my expectations.

Potential Surprise

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei

I had to put something here and if you switched the genders of the characters it would be in the category below.

Shows I Will Be Watching Because Our Collective Taste is Terrible

Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okaishiin Da Ga

SoniAni -Super Sonico the Animation-

No-Rin

Nisekoi

Onee-chan ga Kita

That would be 4 harems and a character that exists solely to sell product to otaku. What will the reaction be when Sonico takes off her headphones. The truth is they are surgically attached.

I’ll Believe It When I See It

Sailor Moon

Conclusion: I’m guessing that will wrap up any relevancy my blog has for at least another 6 months. Who would trust someone with such bad taste to guide them through what will be a rough season?The usual required preview chart. Enjoy my crudely bad taste.

The usual required preview chart. Enjoy my crudely bad taste.

Another edition of the game that destroys marriages and students.

In May of this year, Gibraltar became the 54th member of UEFA after over a decade of Spanish protest. I don’t intend to get into the politics of Gibraltarian sovereignty, treaties signed over 300 years ago, European law regarding its border with Spain or the domestic politics involved in the current standoff. No, instead this is about Football Manager and the costs of cheating at a game that is a series of spreadsheets.

Recent editions of the game have allowed players to add leagues to the game, so it was only a matter of when the Gibraltarian leagues were added by a user. To keep it in context, the top division of the league had to expand to 8 teams in order to qualify for UEFA competitions. All of the matches in both divisions of the league are played in the same stadium. It’s a completely amateur competition in a nation with a smaller population than even San Marino. So how could I break this game in a quest to get this small nation 4 Champions League slots in the shortest time possible?

That’s Leo Messi, playing for a team in the Gibraltar 2nd Division

Thanks to a real time editor that could be attached to Football Manager 2014, I could now transfer whatever players I wanted to whichever club I wanted. So what I decided to do was to bring in a team of world superstars to build the greatest side ever assembled to win the trophies in Gibraltar.

Take that video above of a routine 18-1 victory in the 2nd division. Utterly ruthless because all I wanted to do was score as many goals as possible. So much attacking that it was little wonder that I finished the 22 match season with a goal difference of +245.

Domination, shame about the 2nd place team on +5 goal difference though

The good news for that first season was the fact that the game was smart enough to give my superstars amateur contracts to play in an amateur league. I would soon find out that once my chairman decided to go part-time, it would utterly ruin the experience.

Look at this balance sheet, wow.

Many of you will realize that it is quite expensive to run a professional football club. With attendance in the mid-3 figures, professionalism isn’t really possible. However, my players needed to get paid their hundreds of thousands of pounds every week. While my team continued to win games in the top division and progressed in the Europa League, my club was spending regular time in court with the administrators. That £142 million loss was in the space of 5 months. The annual loss would have been in the region of £250 million. That’s about 25% of the annual GDP of Gibraltar. While not anywhere near as big as the Icelandic banks in 2007, had I actually managed to make a semi-professional football club too big to fail. Needless to say, I was not surprised by the next bit of news.

That would be the end of this game, and remember kids, cheating is bad.

When Wooser aired last year, I pretty much dropped it immediately and dismissed it as poorly executed perverted comedy on the basis of just a single episode. It wasn’t until recently that I went back and marathoned the series in a single hour. Honestly, though I can’t say that I revisited solely on the basis of curiosity or because some random number generator told me I should. Actually it was more moments like this:

That’s right, the first episode of Senyuu featured Wooser playing with a hula-hoop as one of the prospective heroes. Alright, so the perverted mascot character makes a special appearance in another short anime that was hinted at in the final episode of his own show. That alone wouldn’t be enough for me to be interested. No, he would have to make a guest appearance in a post-apocalyptic show to really do so.

And here’s Wooser making his grand appearance in Miss Monochrome. So in this scene he was locked out of the mascot character festival as the Nendroid version of Miss Monochrome took center stage. While that’s awful luck for everyone involved; Wooser losing popularity as Miss Monochrome only became popular as a Nendroid rather than an idol, that wouldn’t be enough for me would it.

Well what do you know, Miss Monochrome is a post-apocalyptic anime. At least it’s more realistic than Coppelion. So I went ahead and gave Wooser another chance. It was pretty good for the short format if woefully inconsistent. The 2nd season begins airing in January.

This is generally how I look when I drop things

During the course of a normal year watching anime, I drop a lot of shows. It ends up being about 9 out of every 20 from my reckoning. That said, I make many, many mistakes in the eyes of my readers, followers on twitter, or people who even think of the name Emperor J. That includes those who have lived in mountain monasteries their entire lives and have no concept of blogging in their minds. So to further their confirmation bias of my taste, I present to you the list of my worst drops as rated by MAL and other comments throughout the year.

Shingeki no Kyojin

Obviously I have to start here with the show that was rated #9 on MAL as of the writing of this post. Many people out there obviously like this show, but I do know a few people out there who mock the shouting, endless recaps, animation made by indentured servants and the fact that the worst of the series happens when Eren is on screen. I just found the first couple episodes boring, but this will be a hit in the future.

Gin no Saji

Good old Silver Spoon, just isn’t my cup of tea. Even the prospect of blogging about beer matching with the food in each episode wasn’t enough to draw me back to this rural setting. I was really expecting something like Moyashimon since that was set at an agricultural university, but alas, the kids of Silver Spoon are in high school, so they aren’t as much fun. Agonizing over a baby pig just doesn’t compare to gender identity questions I’m afraid.

Uchouten Kazoku

I dropped this after the penultimate episode. Why? Because it simply wasn’t getting any better and I hated it more with each passing week. I didn’t think it was worth going through the effort of watching just one more episode just to say I hated it even more. I know some people out there love this show, but I just do not see it as the characters are as rough as the hypothetical frictionless surface that exists in physics class.

Kill la Kill

Moving on.

Log Horizon

I know it’s not like Sword Art Online, but it’s too much like that show for me to take the risk that it ends up something like that again. It’s not rational, but I think I’m doing it to prevent further atrocities in the future by not watching.

Servant x Service

I actually went back and did finish this show in the end. As proof that I can change my ways, I did like it in the end for the portrayal of workplace relationships. In general, they are bad ideas and they require tons of effort to succeed with plenty of risk. Miyoshi also had outstanding development as a character to almost make her my favorite.

Valvrave

As hilariously constructed as the plot seems to be, I simply cannot support the most evil anime of the year. Surely, that many people can’t be watching this show ironically. I feel sorry for those people who genuinely do like this series.

Yuushibu

Considering I’m a connoisseur of shows like this, it’s probably a bit surprising that I did drop this. Actually, more news on that later in this post series.

In retrospect, I don’t think I did so badly actually. So I’m going to continue in this way in 2014.

In the last couple of spring and fall seasons, Fantasy Anime League has taken place on MAL. While some people out there take this deadly seriously or devote entire pages of coverage to how they are doing in that particular edition, I haven’t much talked about my own entries into the competition. That’s because I enter each time without any sort of clue what the hell I’m doing.

Back in the spring of last year, I decided to enter with the goal of finish last by as much as possible. Mission accomplished. Actually it was probably less an accomplishment as much as no one would ever think of picking shows watched by less than 10 MAL users and targeted at small children. Now, no one can do that.

The rules changes between seasons make it quite a competition. Shows that are deemed too hyped are excluded from selection. That led to Oreimo‘s 2nd season being excluded from this past spring season. It turned out that ultimately that would not have been one of the top shows. As far as what I did that season, I put in a bunch of research to pick a team only to find that I’m quite crap at researching on the topic, so I gave up after 1 week. No need to try when the results have already been decided.

Then there is this season. I knew I was going to be tactically outclassed by…well anyone I know who would enter, I decided to take it completely out of my own hands. My entire team was selected by random number generator. My swaps and use of tactical maneuvers would be decided by random number generators. And the result is I’m set for my best finish yet.

I think from playing FAL these three times I’ve come to realize that I’m quite bad at anything competitive and I’m not very resilient to failure. You should all realize by now that’s absolutely true. Those are the ingredients that are essential to not succeeding. Anyway, I’ll try to be back tomorrow with a post that isn’t quite as depressing as that. Though no doubt it will be much more controversial than failing at a contrived game.

This isn’t a post intended to raise debate. The answers have already been settled. These are the best, acceptable and worst girls from harem anime this year, objectively.

The World God Only Knows

Best: Tenri
Acceptable: Haqua, Keima in drag, Yui, Shiori
No Taste: Tsukiyo

High School DxD

Best: Akeno
Acceptable: Xenovia, Rias
No Taste: Koneko

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

Best: Rika
Acceptable: Yozora, Sena
No Taste: Maria or Kobato

Date A Live

Best: Origami
Acceptable: Tohka, Kurumi, Kotori
No Taste: Yoshino

Oreshura

Best: Masuzu
Acceptable: Ai, Himeka, Chiwa
No Taste: No one

Infinite Stratos

Best: Charlotte
Acceptable: Tatenashi, Laura, Houki
No Taste: Lin, Cecilia and Kanzashi

Hayate no Gotoku!

Best: Maria
Acceptable: Hinagiku, Athena, Ruka
No Taste: No one

Walkure Romanze
Best: Noel
Acceptable: Mio, Celia, Akane
No Taste: Lisa

GJ-bu

Best: Shion
Acceptable: Megumi, Kirara, Mori
No Taste: Seira

Photokano

Best: Nonoka
Acceptable: Haruka, Rina, Aki, Yuuko
No Taste: Kanon

Muromi-san

Best: Muromi-san
Acceptable: Levia-san, Sumida-san, Otohime
No Taste: Fuji-san

Oreimo

Best: Ayase
Acceptable: Manami
No Taste: Every other character who loves Kyousuke

Genshiken (Just the Madarame Group)

Best: Sue
Acceptable: Angela, Kenjirou
No Taste: Keiko

Outbreak Company

Best: Myucel
Acceptable: Minori
No Taste: Petrarca

Yuushibu

Best: Fino
Acceptable: Lore, Elsa, Lam, Sarah, Nova
No Taste: Airi

Noucome

Best: Furano
Acceptable: Ouka, Seira
No Taste: Ayame

I had this idea before when I went through all of the dropped anime I had to find whether I would watch the next episode and actually like it. This post shall imbibe some of the holiday spirits and expand on that even further by including even those shows that I dropped. Streaming anime makes ideas like this possible, whether that is a good thing for one’s health and sanity will be found out below. The following is my day of randomized anime sampling.

It’s pretty early in the morning when I’m starting this. Having already narrowed down the list of shows to 269 from a certain big streaming site that I have philosophical problems with. Maybe I’ll get on to that point as I’m watching. The first draw is number 21 that happens to be Bleach. The problem with this show is that I completely forgot where I last left off. I was definitely done with the Soul Society arc so I’m going to put that down as having left off at episode 63.

Anyway, this is an episode of all sorts of explanation on why everyone had vanished during the summer break. Like how Ichigo had put on 20 pounds of muscle in a month. Now all the people in his previous life are showing up in his normal life. Oh, the comedy. I had also forgotten the dumb stuff about the bodies they have to leave behind. Anyway, I can definitely see why I dropped this show because Orihime is as dumb as a box of rocks and suffering from PTSD as well. Why did this show have to contrive to drag out like this. Also, this is already such a dated show that they use pagers for stuff. This hasn’t aged well at all. This first episode of the day is heading for a dramatic conclusion because Orihime has put herself in such a spot of trouble. Come on, choosing to get sucked into a hellish portal? Really? That’s how this next arc starts? Ugh.

The 2nd episode of this long day brings me some harem action. Shinsengumi harem action in the form of Hakuoki. It’s easy to see why I dropped this. Mainly the setting is ridiculously boring and the characters were exceptionally one dimensional. These guys are celebrating the fact they can eat with a woman. How nice of them. My goodness, this guy leading them is a dick. Hijikata is just so face-punchable, but everyone defends his being a dick. The drama of that little story concludes by having one-armed guy decide to eat because the harem lead brought food to him. Ah, and she just got wrecked, and yet that was good enough for her to get approved. And now she’s happy to be told if she screws up they will kill her. I really don’t know what to make of the politics of this show or if it is simply the fact that perceived attractiveness lets one get away with being a dick in a harem show. Probably that. And that episode ends with our protagonist Chizuru going down THAT road. Leaving behind her escort without having to actually fight anyone. I wonder if that changes.

On to episode 3 and if happens to feature…a woman surrounded by unexpectedly attractive male characters in traditional clothing. I get the feeling I’m being trolled already. Anyway, just like Hakuoki this was a one episode drop due to my becoming bored of it. This is an episode titled “Ominous Dark Clouds,” but in the middle of this inclement weather I’m experiencing outside, it’s really the never ending grey clouds one has to worry about. As far as the episode itself, I don’t know if this verbal contract is binding to this kid who is seen as a traitor. It’s clearly under duress and he’s too young to be able to commit to it. Don’t they also have cooling periods or whatever they call it for any contracts like that? As for the rest of the episode, I’m pretty sure the square root of feck all happened. Maybe I will get something better next draw…

And so it happens I draw Romance of the Three Kingdoms as played by girls in costumes that would never work in real life. Yes, it’s Koihime Musou. And immediately I spot a problem in this 2nd episode. With Kanu’s breasts hanging out she’s not seen as attractive by the men guarding this settlement. It’s time for some forced comedy negotiations and introducing the other girls via montage and hearsay. So the challenge ends with Kanu just standing there. I guess they didn’t want to animate that. Then came the sexual assault scene as hinted at in the picture above. Choun making fun of Kanu’s body now. Because she can’t help it if she was designed for an eroge. Oh boy, a diversion that I haven’t seen since watching post-war cartoons. The episode then concludes with Kanu and Choun coming closer together and defeating the hundreds of bandits in this cave. So the latter has also decided to join the party.

On to the next show and it’s something I dropped from this season. I even accurately predicted the ending:

Samurai Flamenco to end with Batman and Superman doing battle in the city as a blatent movie promo. Not sanctioned by DC.—
Emperor J (@emperorj) December 13, 2013

Samurai Flamenco has taken a bunch of knocks for utterly taking the guillotine gorilla piss out of itself. In this case, I think out hero is just being a dick. Some more thoughts as this story isn’t really going anywhere.

Something about watching Samurai Flamenco, even the early episodes fills me with dread—
Emperor J (@emperorj) December 14, 2013

So this guy’s work is interfering with his night job, and that other model knows his secret clearly. I just hate this main character so much. Is he intentionally bad so that every other character looks good by comparison. Regardless, this episode eventually came down to the morality of stealing umbrellas. Not really worth all the drama and while the drama was building up, I can’t pick that back up because I find it morally troubling. It would also help if the main character had redeemable qualities.

Next up is a short anime. Poyopoyo is about a really round cat that is more a pillow than a cat. I’m watching the first episode of this and it is basically Poyo doing cute stuff and abusing this other guy who wasn’t the one who brought it home. The episode is already over in the space it took to write those two sentences.

The next show I would have drawn on Big Anime Streaming Site was Toriko. Unfortunately, they only put the most recent 4 episodes up. I would have still done it if one of those was a final episode, but I don’t think starting at episode 133 of X would have been entertaining enough for you.

Next up is a 2002 OVA called Cosplay Complex. This is going to be unbelievably shit, isn’t it? I don’t understand how this character that is 5 cm tall fits into this, but I guess she has magic costume powers. You can tell the budget on this is high because they reused scenes from the episode in the OP. Wait, they put the one male member of the club in a sealed off area within the room? That seems pretty dumb and he also managed to destroy the room with his powers. There’s also this slow moving owl that flying around. The flow of this series is pretty obvious. The point appears to throw in as many references to other shows as possible. Then you get moments like this:

This show is rubbish. What will I get next?

It begins with a magical girl in a fish costume and I have no idea how many episodes this show really is, but the name is Mahou Yuugi or Magical Play in the terms of what Big Anime Streaming Website calls it. Anyway, it’s a magical battle gag anime. Expecially when you have the main character pulling part of the fish costume she’s wearing out to feed someone else. And now we also have a girl whose clothes are made up of cats and that leads to a victory against a boy who is too easily aroused for his own good. There’s also something else that bothers me about this. They throw in scenes from a 3D animated version of this series. The character designs still look much better than something like Arpeggio of Blue Steel. That was 12 years ago and they had no thousand yard death stares. As far as watching the episodes tick over, the quality just dies quickly. Only the segment in the “first” episode that features the police officers Ketchup and Mustard has any quality. That’s the malaise era of anime I guess.

Up next is Majestic Prince. This was a spring show I grew tired of after 2 episodes, but has quite the following. Again I struggle to understand why. As I tweet in the middle of the episode, it has all to do with the mecha battles. This third episode is anything but a mecha battle episode. Nope, they are going on vacation. I guess they can’t do beach episodes in space though. The flow of these episodes just seemed odd in the first couple episodes. Like they bolt on dramatic scenes involving the main group with action scenes and dark scenes involving the people throwing them into battle. Oh wait, there actually is a beach scene in this. Then, it switches back to a mission briefing where the commander is a dick and everyone is depressed before finally they are thrown into a suicide mission because the dick commander doesn’t want to look bad. Thanks internal military politics. It might be a show I would consider picking up again now that I’ve had another look.

For the tenth episode of the day, we go back to a 2006 series I didn’t watch for obvious reasons. Ramen Fighter Miki just has a plain dumb name, but seems to be from the same school of thought as something like Sparrow’s Hotel although the art is much better. Anyway, the title character of this is a complete hothead. A lovable terribly violent hothead. I can also go for a vomit joke in the first episode. I can also tell you from experience that the fight going on is typical of work in the service economy. During the brief break in action between Miki being in a fight and almost getting fired for the 4th time in this episode, I did have enough time to find out the voice actress for Miki also voices Touma from White Album 2. That makes this series worth existing alone. Then again, the rival character voices the main character from that undeservedly popular show from this season, so maybe not.

Now into the next set of episodes is the 3rd episode of Mushi-Uta. I don’t remember much about watching this one to be honest. It’s been over 6 years, but I do know that Kanazawa Hana voiced the main girl. I’m surprised early at just how light-hearted this series seems to be. I’m also surprised at how well Hanakana seems to be restrained in this role. And that girl with the balloons is kind of an ass just releasing the balloons instead of giving them to kids. And there’s instantly a point where this episode turns silly. I guess golden insects appearing always equals comedy gold. There’s also something striking about a guy in a mask sending out his bug to do battle like it’s a Pokemon. I really have no idea what I’m writing at this point. I don’t know how anyone could have made this and not been under the influence of some especially powerful hallucinogenics. And that episode ended up on a bit of a downer with goggles guy literally shooting a young girl’s dreams to death.

And so we move on to Kamisama Dolls. An action series from 2011 which a few people like. It’s apparently an indication of poor taste to like this, so I’m going to end up liking this aren’t I? The show opens with a little preview of the action that will happen in this series. I don’t know what will happen in the scenes where there is no action happening. The real opening is this Kyohei trying to drunkenly ask out Hibino at a goukon only to get cockblocked by her friend. Then the fun comes to an end when you see a brutal murder scene in an elevator. But why not use this chance to go on the pull young man then losing his testicles when it really matters. Come on man. The first episode went on to try to make the village where they came from into some insane dictatorship where even the brutal serial killer Aki can seem like a logical actor. That also led to the big contrivance that Kyohei now lives at Hibino’s place since his younger sister sort of blew up his old apartment. In conclusion for this episode, I’d say that the bad taste bias is confirmed. I’d watch more of this.

Now onto Natsu no Arashi, a Shaft-directed mess of a series that got 2 seasons about 4 years ago. At least that’s what I remember of it. I’m trying to remember what happened in the first episode all those years ago, but I’m probably best not even trying. Now I remember, Arashi is some kind of ghost and MC-kun falls in love with her. And she lost her job because he’s terrible at guessing odds or even. This episode actually got pretty boring quick, even Shinbo must have as well since there are so man Shaft shots in there. No neck cranking back though. I don’t think I’d willingly continue this one to be honest. Maybe with better direction this could have had some potential.

And inevitably, I end up back where I started with another episode of Bleach. I hate you random number generator. Really, I do. Anyway, the group runs around town trying to answer phones to save Orihime, but it ultimately means jack at the end since she just reappears anyway with no damage or memory. What exactly was the point? Anyway, it all ends with someone else getting sucked in and an interminably long arc beginning or something. Next.

Gonzo went with English episode titles because the font was cheaper.

It’s now Blue Drop, a yuri sci-fi drama from 6 years ago produced by Gonzo. This would be the broke, out of money Gonzo obviously. Hell, they probably couldn’t afford to produce an OP for this first episode. The designs look pretty much Gonzo as well as the CG being as poor as possible for a TV anime. Amidst all the yuri flags is a sense of how run down the world is. Because it is in the eyes of Gonzo. Those flags disappear pretty quickly when Hagino suddenly turns on the death flags when she first shakes hands with Mari. That later escalates to essentially a bar fight in the cafeteria later where Hagino shippers decided to fight Mari. Real shipping wars should work like that. Otherwise, it was a really tame first episode that I would have dropped if I had seen it at the time.

Next up is the 2005 reboot of Glass no Kamen. The narrator seemed about as interested as I was in describing the protagonist Maya’s situation. Working at a Chinese restaurant at 13 is just soooo hard. She’s also apparently able to sneak into movies. At the very least, Maya is an aspirational character, but I’m just waiting for the first moment someone displays the trademark face. I actually stopped caring about writing in this post for a while while the action was going on. Maya’s job situation got to a point where she was so determined to get a ticket to watch a theatre performance that she did 99 deliveries on a single night then swam in the frozen Yokohama Bay to get the ticket. Unfortunately, the exposition at the end of the episode delivered by a bored narrator kind of ruined it. Oh well, it was probably the best episode I’ve seen so far.

And that is quickly followed up by another episode of Gender Equality’s Hakuoki. Time for Chizuru to take more verbal assault from the Shinsengumi and like it. You know, because she’s a woman. To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention to this episode other than Chizuru managing to win over the rest of the group. I was more concerned with the most hilarious triple-doubles in NBA history. Jason Kidd’s November 17th, 2000 effort where he turned the ball over a league record 14 times is clearly the winner there. But I digress.

So we move on to Natsume Yuujinchou. Surprisingly I’ve never watched this. Maybe the whole “Book of Friends” thing threw me off, or the fact that it seems like non-threatening crap from people I’ve read. Anyway, time to see what the hype is all about. As I was watching this episode, I had this little thought I tweeted:

So basically Natsume is just him talking to the cat, solving some problem, rinse and repeat?—
Emperor J (@emperorj) December 14, 2013

I pretty much came out of it thinking it was just like that. I guess it would be nice as a show to have on in the background while I was doing other things, but I can’t see it as something I would give tons of attention to while watching. I can however understand why there are people out there who do love shows like this. It’s calm, relaxing and with little insights into a part of Japanese mythology without going too much in depth.

And so we move on to Space Bros. If I’ve been following the chatter correctly, since I dropped it Hibito has developed a drug problem and Mutta is close to getting a mission to go into space. The latter got sick here in the middle of the Texan wilderness, so that would be a bit of a problem. Just blame Reiji’s hikkikomori brother for all of this. That’s the easy thing to do. So they ultimately ended up getting out of the desert only to be further screwed by the fact that they didn’t have a choice of engineer for the next part of the test. Plus, that engineer ended up being the drunk lazy bastard that is Vince’s brother. I swear Vince’s last name would be McMahon with this level of screwjob.

And so the 20th episode of the day is a return to Mushi-Uta. I don’t know what the odds are of generating a three numbers the same from 20 out of 268, but it seems pretty low. Anyway, this show is still clearly directed by a person on drugs. Like it just turned into one giant insect battle where I struggled to understand what the hell was going on. I understood the previous episode much better even with years between having seen the last episode.

After a bit of a break, the random number generator gave me this short from the Toyama Tourism Anime Project. Needless to say, it’s safe to assume that the amount of money spent on this was not very large. This episode was about 2 rubbish musicians taking a trip to the mountains with one of them waiting for a girl at the top of a mountain. When the moment happens, it is one of the least romantic encounters I have ever seen.

Next up was this 10 minute short about a stuffed toy left behind at an airport and the journey it takes to get home. Traveling Daru is a pretty remarkable bit of animation. While its owner settled into life in New York City and grows up, Daru travels around the world looking for her. It’s incredibly sentimental in nature, but it has an incredible amount of charm. I’d go as far as to say it’s a little too sentimental, but I’m way too much of a sap for that kind of thing when it earns the right to do so. This definitely did. The conclusion is really nice and I’d recommend this to anyone who wants a nice short story.

And this is the convenient time where I have a break for the terribad watch. So time for an intermission:

And I’m back. It’s time for the harem eroge adaptation Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo. This is also in omnibus format since each episode is named after a girl. It’s about time I get a trashy harem show to fulfill my quota. Our MC-kun opens by looking at a girl sleeping in her bra and panties because classy. After punching him in the face, this girl jumps out a 2nd floor window with her clothes in hand. This is set in some island where a defense contractor moved in and there’s rapid population growth. Anyway, this plot centers on the main character trying to have sex with the girls who live in the same dorm before they have to leave the island. Of course they have to start with the new girl who all but declared that she’s not there to make friends. This is definitely a harem show I would have dropped since there’s no sign of it going the full School Days.

This guy is watching a girl sleep.

Now onto what is actually my 29th episode of the day. For those wondering what was in the Terribad call this week it was the following episodes:

• Diabolik Lovers Episode 3
• Walkure Romanze Episode 2
• Infinite Stratos 2 Episode 3
• Coppelion Episode 4
• Galilei Donna Episode 6

On that disastrous note, I should mention I’m watching the 2004 reboot of Black Jack. Our title character was disfigured in a bomb that also injured his mother. So now he enters the brave world of illegal underground medicine, because he apparently couldn’t go to real medical school with his oddly colored hair and scar on his face. Anyway, I have to make this my last episode since people are worrying about my health now

@emperorj Dude, back away from the Crunchyroll app. Have a drink (preferably non-alcoholic) and recollect yourself.—
Geoff the Halls (@GeoffTebbetts) December 15, 2013

Anyway, our illegal doctor got in a situation where he had to treat a baby, an Iriomote cat and a rich guy willing to pay him in cash. The fact that he treated the rich guy last meant that he was pulled up on charges of practicing without a license among other things. And being the brilliant doctor he is that means he gets off scot-free.

And that is that. I’m pretty much burned out by now and all I completed was a single new anime while dropping more than I can remember. So hopefully this is a lesson to all of you that watching in a random pattern is a really bad idea.

These are gigantic viewer counts from my perspective.

With the advent of the next generation consoles complete, it is now possible to more easily stream gameplay and commentary to audiences on sites like Twitch or Ustream. I bring this up because it’s very much relevant to the history of this blog and my social presence on the internet in general. Mainly, it’s impossible popularity to be attained when the potential pool grows beyond a certain size.

Earlier this year, I had tried briefly to stream some gameplay of a game I owned on Steam on the Twitch channel that I had set up. No viewers at the time and that didn’t really matter because who really wants to see me fail at Surgeon Simulator 2013? Fast forward to last month and with it now being easy to use to both view and stream on a new console. The end result. No viewers and my being left wondering what the hell the point of the new technology is.

The way I see it is that it will be much more common. I’m not alone in thinking that.

@emperorj I think the easier it is to stream games the more the will be the rule. Don't feel bad.—
BrainwasherDetective (@hisuiRT) November 28, 2013

There is an inherent advantage that those who have built up an audience have. They have the networks to publicize their work playing games and even to get paid money to do that. I don’t see anime blogging ever getting to that point since the audience simply isn’t there to enable that, but the fact of the matter is that those who are able to first leverage technology get the full benefits from it. It’s completely just that it is that way. So best of luck to those trying to pull in an audience streaming on your PS4 or XBox One in the near future. Try to keep it small and social. It’s better that way.

Minamoto-kun Monogatari, still as great as ever.

I probably don’t talk about the manga I read as much as I should on this blog. I do read much more than the average person on MyAnimeList.That would be 63 different manga at the time of this post being written. Almost all of them seem to fall into the realm of unlicensable, borderline eromanga . That said, I do believe there is some quality in that list that I’m going to use this post to highlight.

I’m going to start off with Abnormal-kei Joshi, which is the story of a boy named Shinya who doesn’t understand women. That wouldn’t be interesting enough on its own, so to make it perfectly understandable why he doesn’t they all are abnormal beyond what one would expect of normal people. Among the girls after his attention are those with personality traits that range from simple chuunibyou to a childhood friend that’s a serial killer to a younger sister who destroys any signs of his interaction with other girls to a vampire, a masochist and a stalker. The latter is pictured above after giving Shinya an invoice for stalking someone other than him.

The manga actually works on a level beyond Shinya’s interactions with the women in his life. The story at the moment is building on how he can use the relationships he has forged with them to help protect his little sister from another killer. It’s a bit of a slow starter in the early chapters though as the characters eccentricities take center stage, but well worth it once the story kicks in.

Iinazuke Kyoutei fits more in with the type of classy manga and anime I tend to cover here. This manga by the eromanga veteran Fukudahda is pretty much clean of pornographic content. This is central to this harem story because the plot centers around the girls after the protagonist Wataru and the chastity pact that forms the rules of pursuit. That’s not to say that it isn’t perverted in anyway. The individual dates the girls go on with the student/part-time programmer do turn risque. Plus, there is a scene between the girls in the pact and Wataru’s childhood friend Tomo trying to draw her into the pact that is really problematic. However, for harem fans this is one well worth a read.
Shinigami-sama to 4-nin no Kanojo is yet another harem manga featured in this post. Kaoru is the “forever alone” protagonist of this piece who has to become a normal person to save him from death at the hands of the shinigami named Airi. As a desperation measure, he sends love letters to 4 girls the next day and they all accept. He has to maintain these relationships for a period of 3 months or he dies.

What makes this one worth reading from my perspective is the characters. Airi is constantly trying to screw with the shoujo manga loving main character. Then the girls themselves are much deeper than the stereotypes that they first appear in a dark way. This is a recent starter, but for harem romantic comedies it’s one I look forward to regularly.

To keep things more equal opportunity, the shoujo harem Watashi ga Motete Dousunda is about a fujoshi who contrives to lose a bunch of weight after one of her favorite characters dies and then becomes popular with her new look. The thing that I like about this one is that Kae does not compromise her character even as she becomes more popular. In the early chapters she has 4 boys after her, but she gives them otaku gifts and actually ships them together. The setup is a bit troubling though, but her character shines through.

Minamoto-kun Monogatari, as I highlighted last year, continues to be as good as ever. The chapters are so short it’s easy to get caught up in this man’s story of re-enacting The Tale of Genji as part of her aunt’s academic project.

At the beginning of the fall, players everywhere prepare for the epic contest that is Fantasy Football. In the quest to choose the best players to build a title contender, there are many hours spent researching who will succeed and who will fail with late round draft picks. That’s generally what happens with fantasy football leagues. But, what would happen if you made things different and rewarded failure?

You basically get a draft like you do on the right here. Brandon Weeden first overall didn’t quite pan out as planned, with him suffering injuries and being replaced by Jason Campbell.

The actual fun part of participating in this league had to do with the scoring. 25 points for interceptions run back for touchdowns will do that. Cheering for interceptions to be run back against your own team does have a downside though. It’s much easier when your own team sucks than if they are competitive.

Also, it goes without saying that it actually turned into a mutual love fest on the weekly calls admiring the bad quarterbacking throughout the league. When Matt Schaub was on his historic run of interceptions returned for touchdowns, it was like the Chicago Bulls run of NBA titles.

Blaine Gabbert started only 3 games this season and averaged over 50 points a start. This would make him the Wilt Chamberlain of the Bad Football League. However, no one would be able to stop the rookie bad quarterbacking sensation Geno Smith. The Jets quarterback leads the league in interceptions and is the joint leader in interceptions run back for a touchdown.

Those weekly calls are really the big reason I participate in ventures like this. They provide a seemingly endless source of fun on my Sundays. It doesn’t matter if we discuss the state of our respective fantasy football teams or the latest anime that we have watched (This is a group of anime fans after all) or how Linda from Golden Time is the worst human ever if she really existed.

While basking in the glorious failure of well compensated athletes paid to throws an oblong leather object can be fun. I can safely say that it’s really about the community involved in doing so. Mainly, I need to do more stuff like this in the future.

This was a strange year for the fact that there were three series with a very strange common element. Yes, judging by the title of this post, they all have to do with demon kings venturing over to a different world and having to deal with the economic consequences of their actions. Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, Hataraku Maou-sama and Yuushibu deal with this concept in different ways even as they are filled with light-hearted moments throughout. For the purpose of this post, I’ve decided to evaluate them on how deeply they get into the realm of economics.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha began way back in January coming off the back of a completed light novel series. The setting for the series is very much feudal, but in a very much politically unstable world. The feeling I got while watching this in an economic sense is that it did do a good job of illustrating what the individual actors were motivated by; money. In that sense you had a powerful elite who were making money on the existing system while those who wanted to find additional sources of revenue had to pursue unusual tactics to get it.

I did like how much of the political change in the series was economically motivated. The demon world was indeed a new market that could be exploited by human traders. It only took Young Merchant as the first to exploit it to see the great potential gains. On the downside though, as these changes are taking place in the Maoyuu world, it does feel rather distant from the day-to-day life of the ordinary citizen. The maid sisters were supposed to portray this angle, but the very fact they were whisked away into this new world under Demon King meant that they had become part of the elite. Ultimately, I have to see it as a lost opportunity.

The second of these stories was Hataraku Maou-sama! which aired in the spring. The setting for this series was modern day Japan and it is a story that makes the lives of the heroes and demons who were forced into normal jobs in their new land a central part of the story. From an economic perspective there are a couple of things I did like. The protagonists of the series are forced into taking jobs in this new land with no job histories. The hero Emi has to lie about her age just to obtain her call center job while Maou can only get a fast-food job.

I think the series did a good job in portraying the lives of the working poor here. Maou is conscientiously aware of the need to save money where possible, but he doesn’t exactly make the best economic choices. He lives with 2 roommates that do not have jobs, but he keeps them around out of loyalty. This leads to a lack of money available for Ashiya to seek treatment for his various stomach ailments. On the downside is a lack of examination of the choices that Maou makes. Also like Maoyuu it is focused too much on a specific subset of people to get a larger picture on Japanese society. Even with that caveat I think the series is worth watching as a partial examination of the life of low-wage workers in Japan even if it is too idealistic.

Finally, there is Yuushibu which just finished airing in the current season. It is set in a world of swords and magic only after a war in which the Demon King has died. Despite this being a series that is heaviest on fanservice out of the three, I think it does the best job economically. The primary emphasis is on low-wage labor just as it was on Maou-sama, but there are characters at different levels of the economic hierarchy that come into play with corporate managers and the unemployed heroes of the old economy having their motivations come into play at the end.

That is where I think this series does its best work. It’s very much a transitional economy as far as the labor market and in production. The cast of characters are all victims in a sense of that transition. They were all trained to be soldiers and the skills picked up in that experience are not as useful in a consumption-based economy that replaced the war economy of old. The intention to bring war back is itself profit motivated by Amada trying to be the first to capitalize on an economy they changed. The downside is the fact that the viewer has to endure lots of frankly ridiculous fanservice to get to the good stuff.

For ideal reading experience please play the embedded Soundcloud clip:

Rob Ford.

Think about that for a minute. There are just so many things that can be said about the mayor of Toronto in title only. I will just let this list of stories do the narrative work for me.

Rob Ford: While we were watching the circus

Is Rob Ford just too honest?

Mayor Rob Ford says he knows what Toronto wants: a casino

The Best of Toronto’s Insane, Terrible Mayor Rob Ford: an Introduction for Americans

Weary Toronto likely to shrug off latest Rob Ford escapade

Snow emergency? Mayor Rob Ford says call him – at home!

Mayor Rob Ford: Working hard or hardly working?

Rob Ford won’t be prosecuted for alleged election violations

Mayor Rob Ford still asking lobbyists to donate to his football foundation

Sarah Thomson: I thought Mayor Rob Ford was on cocaine

Support for Mayor Rob Ford steady despite Ass-gate

Rob Ford: ‘Intoxicated’ Toronto mayor asked to leave military ball

Three councillors now claim Rob Ford has a drinking problem as Toronto mayor is encouraged to seek treatment

Rob Ford hires his high school football coach

Here’s Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Walking Face-First Into a TV News Camera

Mayor Rob Ford offers to ‘explain how politics works’ to Toronto women over coffee

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says he coached latests shooting victim: He was ‘one heck of a football player’

Toronto artist-turned-councillor plans his next masterpiece – a portrait of Rob Ford

Rob Ford In A Maple Leafs Jersey Posing With The Hamburglar?

For Sale: A Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Smoking Crack Cocaine

Rob Ford crack scandal: Fears Ford’s aide sought video spark police probe

Rob Ford. Unstoppable?

Etobicoke family find themselves at heart of Rob Ford photo mystery

Police learned of alleged Rob Ford crack video during year-long gang probe

Why Mayor Rob Ford’s gravy train has hit a dead end

Meet Neil, better known as Slurpy, the Rob Ford lookalike at centre of scrapped plot to film fake crack video

Torontonians celebrate all things Rob Ford at massive barbecue

City of Toronto deeper in debt under Mayor Rob Ford

Gawker Rob Ford ‘Crackstarter’ cash going to four Ontario groups

Rob Ford Shares Parenting Advice For Royal Couple

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford remains shadowed by crack video scandal

Rob Ford urged to seek help after videos capture Toronto mayor partying after ‘a couple of beers’

Why Rob Ford shouldn’t clean up his act

Mayor Rob Ford bests Hulk Hogan in arm-wrestling bout (or so it appears)

‘I smoked a lot’ of pot, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says, but he won’t say when

Rob Ford offered 14 chances to comment on crack story, Toronto Star tells press council

Possible Rob Ford connection sought in sealed police warrants

Rob Ford portrait unveiling thrills mom – and the mayor

Mayor Rob Ford’s popularity climbs to nearly half in latest poll

Rob Ford’s friend offered pot for missing phone, report says

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford defends robocalls, says more to come

As Rob Ford calls for firing of ‘sleeping’ worker, web unearths photo of mayor allegedly asleep at City Hall

Rob Ford’s billion-dollar boast not worth a dime

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admits to smoking crack

Rob Ford caught on video in violent rant

Rob Ford Denies “Eating Pussy” During Live, Televised Press Conference

Rob Ford police investigation: ‘Domestic assault’ call at Ford home sidetracked police sting

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford takes in NFL game – and steals singer’s seat?

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to join D.C. sports radio show

Sadly, Rob Ford epitomizes what Canada has become

Rob Ford vs. Justin Bieber: Who is Canada’s greater embarrassment?

I literally took one headline per week in constructing all of that above. There was no shortage of headlines to pick from most weeks. I even had to leave all the stuff about his being stripped of powers by the city council because of the other stuff he was doing at that time. Anyway, I have to give a special thanks to this post to Tim whose Twitter bio was the inspiration for the title of this post. He also does great work in making the politics of North America’s 5th-largest city as funny as they are.

This Secret Santa thing has been going on for some time thanks to the Reverse Thieves. For some reason, they continue to let me recommend stuff to other people even as I decide to torch relationships with other anibloggers by giving them utter crap. I try, honestly. Anyway, let’s get on to the review.From the opening bars of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” playing over the opening credits, this movie definitely had my attention. I wasn’t very familiar with the Ghibli back catalog that weren’t directed by Miyazaki, and there’s a tragic story behind this one that I will get to later, so this was new territory for me. At the same time, it was also very familiar in tone and characterization.

The story begins with a young girl named Shizuku who comes across the name of a boy named Seiji in all of the books that she had checked out. In typical Ghibli fashion, she only meets him as the result of chasing after a cat. The two end up bonding over their own obsessive goal and embark on grueling training away from their normal environment. Seiji with his violin making and Shizuku with her desire to craft a story. When they come back together they are changed individuals with clear goals in life. All of it because of the way they pushed themselves on for the sake of the other. It’s an impressive love story like that.

On an emotional level, the use of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” marked this as a sentimental piece and the song is also used as a plot device. Throughout the film there are sentimental moments such as learning the story behind the cat figurine at the shop. The song itself is translated by Shizuku from a story about nostalgia for old places to one about needing to find the right way to change. There’s also a nice take on the original song early on in the movie about destroying the landscape toward urbanization which also plays a small role in the story. Also, the performance in the basement of the shop right at the beginning of the 2nd half is really the best moment of the film.

In addition, this is also still very much a story of love in adolescence. Shizuku’s friend Yuko is the one who commissioned the song translation for their middle school graduation ceremony. She is on her own quest for love with Sugimura, who has his own feelings toward another girl. That all comes to an abrupt head in the second half of the movie.

Finally, to wrap this all up, Whisper of the Heart was intended to kick off the directorial career of its debutant director Kondo Yoshifumi as a potential successor to Miyazaki. Unfortunately, he was dead of an aneurysm less than 3 years later having thought to have been overworked to death. He would direct no other films. In a sense this film did mark a turning point for Ghibli since their next film Princess Mononoke was their first to use a combination of CG and hand-drawn animation.

Actually, I refuse to end it on that depressing note. I think it will be better to say that Kondo took the one opportunity he ever had to make the film that he had always wanted to make and it turned out to be a masterpiece. It should serve as a reminder to anyone hoping for a chance to do something they want to do with their lives to take the opportunity when it comes.

1. Space Brothers moon accident (Episodes 40-43)

In January when I was still watching Space Brothers, there was an event I knew was going to happen from watching the live action movie last year. Hibito did end up crashing the lunar rover into a massive crevasse. What happened with the next few episodes was the series at its very best. The dumb light moments were gone for that span and it was replaced with a drama where the threat felt real. Hibito did get out of that situation, barely, but the scars would last. The conclusion of that arc later took a hit in my mind when I found out the inspiration for the astronaut figure left on the moon. After that, the old Space Brothers returned and I could no longer enjoy it in the same way.

2. Sena and Kodaka talk over coffee (Episode 7 – Haganai Next)

Sometimes the best insight into characters can come at the most surprising times. When the Neighbors Club took a shopping trip there were the usual antics that come with a harem comedy. In the middle of this was a conversation at a coffee shop between Sena and Kodaka where we learn more about the latter than all previous episodes prior. It’s brief, but we learn that he has a massive inferiority complex. He doesn’t feel that he deserves to be loved by anyone and at that point it’s obvious that he is willfully ignoring the feelings of the girls around him. This conversation really marked the transition of the series from one about girls falling in love with Kodaka to a show about helping him find his confidence.

3. Older Maid Sister’s Speech (Episode 9 Maoyuu Maou Yuusha)

While this show disappointingly ended with Hero subjected to Female Knight and Demon King shoving their chests into his face, there were moments of genuine quality in Maoyuu. Having taken Crimson Scholar’s place in being subjected to public execution, Older Maid Sister gave a speech that wasn’t so much a call for her own safety as much as a call to destroy the existing order that was drawn from her own experience of being taken in by Demon King. Even as she is being beaten her will shines through and she will not have her spirit crushed.

4. A Demon Lord and His Minion Land in a Rough New World (Episode 1 – Hataraku Maou-sama!)

The spring season opened with a 2nd show involving a demon king only this time they ended up in modern Japan. There wasn’t much glossing over what happened on Maou and Ashiya’s arrival though. Here were two foreigners who did not speak the language trying to figure out a way to make some money and find a place to live. Their social support network consists of just the two of them and their mysterious landlord Miki. A long struggle to survive in low-wage hell looked set to begin.

5. Pikachurin (Yuyushiki Episode 7)

Yuyushiki is at it’s heart a show about 3 cute girls doing cute things as friends. Their club activities fittingly involve looking things up on the internet revolving around a theme of the day they come up with on their own. The moment I think that best summed this up took place in the 7th episode. When talking about Yuzuko’s unusual eye color she ended up coming across a Wikipedia article for the protein that sends information from the eyes to the brain. Yes, Pikachurin. In this show of many tangents, a discussion that begins with cat’s eyes concludes with speculation on the gender of the children a scientist has. That’s Yuyushiki research in a nutshell right there.

6. The Quest for Happiness in the New Economy (Namiuchigiwa Muromi-san Episode 11)

It’s not much of a stretch to say that Muromi-san isn’t exactly heavy in social commentary. What little there is is run through the character of Otohime the former business owner under the sea who has to work in a fishing shop. The episode is about much more than that though. There’s the convenience store worker who had dreams of his own, but with his girlfriend now pregnant those dreams may be permanently on hold. Otohime herself is looking to stand on her own terms after she lost her business, but it doesn’t look like that is happening. Her frequent fights with Muromi always seemed to be about how Otohime had fallen, but this episode revealed that they were really a frustration with how things change. Life can’t simply go back to how it was before the economy tanked. The episode ends fittingly with an all-night drinking session outside of the convenience store talking about business in an unstable economy.

7. Yura’s Imagination Comes to Life (Stella Jogakuin Koutou-ka C³-bu Episode 4)

C³-bu ended up turning into a sort of gunsoft version of Rambo when the protagonist Yura was questioning why gunsoft didn’t love her as much as she loved it. Early on in a quest to improve her skills the club goes to a temple and sets Yura a goal of being able to shoot a single 5-yen coin from across an archery range. After failing for the day and having left her gun at the temple, Yura returns and enters one of her vivid delusions. The next day she returns and imagines herself in the middle of an ancient battle and fires a shot through an incoming arrow. Did it really happen? Was Rento also sucked into Yura’s imagination? Or did she simply shoot into the hole of the 5-yen coin?

8. Akeno Makes Her Move (High School DxD New Episode 7)

Having saved his friends from Kokabiel in the last episode through force of will, Issei and the rest of the Occult Research Club embarked on a more pedestrian mission; cleaning the school’s pool. The feelings of those around him had swung fully in his direction. When even Yuuto is confessing his feelings for him, you knew Issei was in the form of his life. So when he had to have more of his dragon energy sucked out of him by Akeno, the audience was in for a show.

9. The Kinmoza Musical (Episode 12)

Having wrapped up the series proper, Kiniro Mosaic started a take on chuunibyou and ended up turning it into a short musical number. Going completely off-script in the adaptation happened to yield the best of this series. The musical number relied on being interested in these characters and their idiosyncrasies, but the case could be made that the musical number could stand on its own. I’d be interested to see if anyone who did not watch any of Kinmoza would understand the musical bit.

10. Noucome‘s History of the World Through Choices (Episode 1)

For a high-concept harem comedy about a character who is forced into making ridiculous choices, the opening scene is one of the most ambitious narratives of the year. They try to tell history as a series of choices made by people who would go on to be famous for those decisions. Unfortunately, it’s hardly a successful story as it drags on for far too long and it is followed up by Furano, Ouka and Kanade being involved in dirty jokes. Failed ambition is better than not even trying.

11. A School Festival Concert (White Album 2 Episode 7)

There were hints of this in the opening episode that the relationship between Setsuna, Kazusa and Haruki would hit its peak. The concert’s three songs sum up the series perfectly. The first was the song that brought them together, the second was a dialogue between Kazusa and Setsuna about romantic conflict and the third was about love lost. The performance captures everything that made this series the surprise of 2013.

12. Outbreak Company takes on ‘Cool Japan’ (Episodes 11 and 12)

Outbreak Company was one of the better shows this year with its attempts to portray a divided society and in the final episodes the attention turned to the Japanese government and the place of otaku in society. Imports of anime and manga were restricted early on in the 11th episode. It became clear that this was the dark side of trying to spread culture. Matoba revealed that it was all a plot to have the people learn Japanese and to become more interested in anime and manga than developing their own culture. When Shinichi learns of this he and Minori become expendable because they do live on their own. Ultimately, he uses the ties that he has forged in his new land to get protection after he tells Petrarca they should make their own anime, manga and light novels. That was a potentially dangerous thing to do.