12 Days of Christmas – Day 9 – “Life After Death” by Notorious B.I.G

2012 was the year of Jojo, in more ways than one. Even before the show got announced, I started putting in the effort to catch up to the ongoing manga. That’s a lot of ground that needs to be covered, and I’m still nowhere near finished the series. I’m up to the beginning of Part 6 at the moment, so I felt I should spend one post talking about a noteworthy moment I read. I would discuss the anime, but I’ll be talking about it in the Anime Awards I’ll be putting up later and this would just be a copy/paste of that. So I chose this moment primarily because it relates to the anime, but at the same time doesn’t.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 8 – Chained by Fashion

The characters in Hunter x Hunter make killing a form of art. We got our first glimpses of this back when Hisoka started pulling out his magic tricks, but in the most recently animated arc we got introduced to the rest of the Phantom Troupe. This is a group that could only be held together because the members are different enough to complement each other and get through just about anything. These differences even show up in their methods of killing, from the guy who massacres whole rooms with bullets that are fired from his hands to Chrollo, who likes to put as much effort into tearing apart one person as he can. But even after seeing each member show off their skills (…except Mummy Boxer…) the character who impressed me the most in this arc was still Kurapika. Through him we get to see that even if someone doesn’t want to kill, they can still make it into art.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 6 – Honor Thyself and Thy Food

As you’re watching anime or reading manga, you will eventually come to a point that defies any attempt at explanation. Between your experience with and knowledge of the series, the intensity of the events and how everything can come together, there is no easy way to summarize what the series has made you feel.

So I’ve decided to present the following to you without any further explanation or context. There’s really nothing more I can say.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 4 – Where the Hell is Arika?!

I still haven’t gotten used to the feeling of a manga I’ve been reading suddenly coming to an end. I know lots of popular series that have ended this year, like Bakuman, REBORN, Zetsubou Sensei or Air Gear, among many others. Of those I’m reading, only three came to an end in 2012, and I don’t think any of them felt like the traditional ending of a manga. I knew Bokura ga Ita would be ending long before I got caught up, and BARRAGE didn’t last long enough to have the proper impact. Of course the big finale that happened this year, and the one I wanted to briefly touch on one last time, is the ending of Mahou Sensei Negima.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 3 – Praise from Caesar

People like to knock shonen and call it much simpler than other genres, but the truly great ones can create interesting drama and characterization as good as anyone else. Just this year I got to see Yoshikage Kira, the Phantom Troupe, and possibly the board chairman from Assassination Classroom. The character I wanted to discuss for this post, though, is the most recent One Piece villain, Caesar Clown. Through a combination of deception and a special brand of insanity, he manages to set himself apart from his predecessors and show how entertaining a mad scientist can be.