Monthly Archives: December 2008

2008 in anime

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I’d always considered myself a fan of anime for a long time. But it wasn’t until July that I realized that I hadn’t really watched that much. You see, following Naruto and Bleach for years gives one the illusion that they’ve watched a lot of anime. As it turns out, you’ve just watched a lot of Naruto and Bleach. Once I realized this and that there were tons of titles that people were talking about that I had no idea existed, I sought to remedy the situation.

I took advantage of the fact that I’d stopped raiding in WoW and didn’t need to block off four hours per night anymore and, later, that I’d be on a work term at home when all of my friends would be busy with school or outside the city and I went through almost everything of interest from the past few years. Anyhow, here are 2008′s (that is, aired during 2008) most influential anime for myself.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

I’ve always liked Gundam, even though I’ve still not familiarized myself with UC. But, you can count on me watching a Gundam show. As a result, even though it wasn’t entirely captivating to me like SEED was, I still made sure to catch 00. As the aforementioned WoW raiding picked up, 00 soon became the only show I was following. And while the first season of 00 didn’t win me over, the second season is quickly redeeming its predecessor.

Soul Eater

This is probably the anime that brought me into watching anime as it aired. I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon this. I do remember that it was the stunning OP and the amazing animation in the first episode that won me over. I’ve said constantly that while the premise is a bit typical, it’s the quality of the production that makes this series shine. It’s been about three-quarters of the way through and it still holds true.

Clannad

There are two reasons I picked this up. The first was that I’d just finished 5 Centimeters per Second and was in the mood for another sadface anime. The second was Clannad After Story’s OP. It was my introduction to the visual novel adaptation and harem anime. It wasn’t what I was expecting. It turns out Kanon, which I watched afterwards, was what I was expecting. Anyhow, Clannad and Clannad After Story remain as some of my favourites and it’s influential for opening me to the genre. This lead me to watch things like ef – a tale of memories, which I consider a good result.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

I’d mentioned this anime a week or two ago and why it was important. For me, it introduced the anime community on the Internet: a vast collection of various anime blogs and 4chan’s /a/. And it’s through this machinery that I gather information about other anime, empowering me to trudge through and find out what I’ve missed over the past few years.

Xam’d: Lost Memories

Xam’d is a very good reminder of why I hate Sony. It’s a shame that one of the best shows of the year ends up with pretty much the worst distribution model. Other than that, the show began with some definite Eureka Seven vibes, which I forgave, since it had a main character that wasn’t Renton Thurston at the beginning of E7. As it went on though, it really turned into its own thing (other than those wings) and it’s influential because it’s just damned good. If it’d already ended, I’d probably crown it the best anime of the year.

End of season: Kannagi

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Kannagi looked stupid. Really, a guy carves a statue out of a sacred tree which turns into a goddess. That is the premise. And the premise is still probably stupid, but that’s okay, because it turned out to be hilarious. I managed to pick it up midseason while everyone couldn’t shut up about it and I’m glad I did. It also helps that it has a fantastic cast of characters. Looking forward to the inevitable next season.

Game of the Year, 2008 Edition

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I’m going to get a start at these year-end retrospective posts. This one is pretty easy for me because I’m limited by the hardware that I own. If I had one of a Wii, 360, PS3, or computer with a video card, this will likely have been very different. After all, 2008 saw the arrival of Spore, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, GTA4, MGS4, SSB: Brawl, Left 4 Dead, Fable 2, Rock Band 2, and a long list of other solid games.

But the game that I chose is one that I’ve been playing since I got it at the end of April, after finishing up my last WoW raid. The 2D, handheld action-JRPG, released Stateside as The World Ends With You (?????????? in nihongonese, Subarashiki Kono Sekai in weeaboo) has dominated my time like no other game has except WoW. That’s right, I’ve spent more time in Square Enix’s funny little handheld project than in a Final Fantasy.

This game came out of nowhere for me. I found out about it looking at Wikipedia’s list of DS games shortly after getting a DS. I noticed it among Square Enix’s army of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest remakes. The concept sounded fresh and the battle system looked interesting, so I decided to give it a chance. The very first intro cinematic was kind of lol. It featured the young protagonist being an annoying antisocial whiner, but once the second intro cinematic rolls along, the style of the game will grab you.

The style is amazing. The game is set in Tokyo’s centre of pop culture and fashion, Shibuya district. The style needs to fit and it does so perfectly. This game proves just how good 2D can look. The attention to detail in the game is ridiculous. The game features 304 different pins, each of which have really neat designs, many of which form sets and share thematic elements and motifs. The backgrounds are stylized and match locations in real-world Shibuya. The sprites and animation are fantastic.

The combat system is one of the most innovative, making full use of both screens. Because of this, it has a slight learning curve to overcome, but once you understand it, it makes battles incredibly fun. The immense amount of pins and accompanying gestures takes the monotony out of battles and gives you incentive to try different attacks. There are certain monsters that require taking advantage of both screens to beat.

The other game mechanics are really interesting too. Being able to adjust the difficulty on the fly is great for everyone. The leveling and stats system is interesting and well thought out: levels only increase your maximum HP pool, while stats are gained through eating food, which requires time to digest and is measured in the number of battles you fight in. The equipment system is just as interesting: equipment comes in the form of clothing, which comes in different brands. Different brands are more popular in different sections of the city and the more popular a brand is, the more bonuses you get.

The wireless features are also interesting. You can use wireless to level your pins. You can also visit other players’ shops so you can pick up pins or items you’re missing. But the most interesting features is multiplayer Tin Pin Slammer, a minigame that puts your pins to use in an entirely different context. Tin Pin Slammer might seem retarded when you encounter it in the single player game, but it is hilariously fun with three other people.

Finally, the story is excellent. TWEWY’s story takes up about 12 hours. Compared to a Final Fantasy, it’s really short. But, it’s also really tight and it’s not long before you’re learning about what’s going on. The twists come and don’t really let up throughout the entire game. Even after you finish the game, going to collect secret reports gives you more detail into the world that the writers have created and delivers a few more twists.

If you don’t have a DS but enjoy JRPGs, you should consider picking this up along with a DS. Besides TWEWY, there are some really good JRPGs on the system. If you do have a DS and you don’t abhor JRPGs, there should be no reason at all for you not to pick this up. Basically, if you don’t like TWEWY, you are a bad person and why in the hell am I still talking to you?

End of season: Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter

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Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter was one of the shows that I was looking forward to most this season. Of course, after finishing the first season over the summer, I found and read the manga in my newfound rabid fanaticism for the series. I thought that the story concluded at a pretty good point in the first season, even though it was clear that it wasn’t finished. However, in reading the manga, I’d set up some expectations for the next season.

First of all, it’s very good. If it’s your first time finding out about Nodame and Chiaki’s adventures in Europe, it’s excellent. The problems come only if you’ve read the manga and notice the enormous chunks that are cut out of the anime in order to fit it into 11 episodes. If they had two seasons to work with, I think it would have been much better.

The things that are missing from Paris Chapter are the depth of the side characters and the music. Yes, the story is about Chiaki and Nodame, but the first season had a lot of really well developed side characters like Mine, Masumi, and various members of A Orchestra and RS Orchestra. By the end of Paris Chapter, the only side characters that matter are Kuroki and Tanya. Characters like Rui and Jean Donnadieu that had lengthy arcs were really diminished and shunted aside.

The music also took a hit because of the shorter run. The first season had a few minutes of music performance almost every episode. This is important, because it’s a series that’s about classical music and it’s the one part of the story that you can’t experience in manga form. Listening to the pieces and learning about them was really interesting and this was almost nonexistent in Paris Chapter until the last few episodes.

The problem is most evident in Chiaki’s competition. His last piece was completely cut and Jean Donnadieu is just there to be a guy that Chiaki beats. The last few episodes of Paris Chapter remedies these problems and I wish that the entire thing was as well done as the Nodame’s recital arc. With another twelve or thirteen episodes, even with various arcs cut, we would have time for music and exploring other characters.

None of this ruins Paris Chapter. It’s still more Nodame Cantabile, which is awesome, and it didn’t make me convulse with rage or anything. It’s just unfortunate that it seemed to be hamstrung by a short run.

End of season: ef – a tale of melodies.

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ef – a tale of melodies. is the second half to ef – a tale of memories. It goes through the remaining stories from ef – a fairy tale of the two that weren’t covered in memories. It was essentially what was expected: more ef. That means more tragic plot, more pseudo-intellectual wankery, and more Shinbo photoshop shots. Normally, this would be enough for me.

Except that ef melodies focuses on characters that I don’t really care about. They were fine as side characters in ef memories, but as main characters, they were harder for me to identify with. Most of them seem to be emotionally dead. I mean, we’ve got a guy who lost his sister in a fire and hates himself, a girl who gets abused by her stepbrother and dies halfway through, a guy who has a fatal disease, and a girl who started out normal, but had to have something wrong with her, so they made her parents try to kill her. The weirdest one from ef memories was Chihiro, but she was actually interesting and had a bunch of normal people around her.

Beyond that, ef melodies did a fairly good job of tying everything together. Like Higurashi and Higurashi Kai, ef memories and ef melodies should be considered one unit. They’re two halves to one story and not one story after the other. So even though I didn’t enjoy ef melodies as much, it’s not enough to make me drive people away from watching it. In fact, I’d say you need to watch it if you watched ef memories, and you should watch ef memories.