Yerocha’s 2012 Anime Awards – Part 1

Well, it’s that time of year again. The time where I finally sit down and get to discuss all the different anime that came out this year. Strange as it sounds coming from an aniblogger, I don’t get to talk about anime as much as I would like to. I’ve found that you don’t really know how strong your opinions are until you try to get them in writing and see what comes out.

This will go similarly to the awards I gave out last year, except I decided to divide this into three posts instead of two. The awards themselves are mostly for fun, but I also go over what I thought about the series as a whole. Like last year, these were a few shows that slipped under the radar and thus aren’t included. The main ones I missed out on being Hyouka, which I never started for stupid reasons I’ve genuinely forgotten (I’ll watch it one of these days) and Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and PSYCHO-PASS, which didn’t look like my thing. I’m not far enough into Magi or Shinsekai Yori to really discuss them, either. Also these awards are for shows that started in 2012 rather than ended, so Chihayafuru, Persona 4, Shana Final and Guilty Crown were covered in my previous awards. So with that awkward introduction out of the way, here are my awards for anime in 2012.

Most Gratuitous Use of Imouto

Zetsuen no Tempest

SAO may have had one as a major character, but the fate of the world never revolved around sibling love in that show.

It took a little while for me to fully understand what the themes of this show are supposed to be. The Shakespearian quotes and everything like that I could get, but it was difficult to grasp how to feel regarding the story. Then a few episodes ago, it occurred to me that this series shares a good deal of similarities with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. The world is rapidly going to hell and various groups are working towards remaking everything based on their own ideals. There may not be the hordes of demons to team up with, but it’s still a familiar feeling that I get. There’s even a major focus on the nature of order in the world, which goes nicely with the Law vs Chaos theme a lot of the SMT games revolve around. It all makes for an interesting series to watch each week, and it might also help lay the groundwork for Devil Survivor 2 come April.

The World God Only Knows – Time and Relative Dimensions in Space

Out of the 4000 versions of time travel Keima has seen, this is his 244th least favourite.

Most people are familiar with so many different styles of time travel that the use of the term itself can inspire groans. With all the questions that need to be answered before you send your characters through time, you can easily come up with a well developed system just by answering the most basic of them. Just in the last two chapters of The World God Only Knows, we’ve gotten enough information so that we can figure out how things are supposed to work, and we can also get a good idea of what the series will need to establish in the chapters to come.

The World God Only Knows – What if God Was One of Us?

…

The Goddess arc has been going on for so long now that it’s hard to imagine The World God Only Knows doing anything else at this point. I think it had been going on for over a year at the point when I got caught up with the manga, so I can only imagine how this ending must feel for those who have been with it since the beginning. There was quite a bit of talk about whether the series would even keep going after this storyline was finished, and while I believed it would, I had that same doubt in my mind too.

Catching Up on Things – Seven Posts in One

So my exams for this year have finally ended, and now I’m free from all that stuff for another few months. Now all I have to worry about is my GPA and work and my website and countless other things. I suppose this is what being an adult means. Well at least I can be an adult and still enjoy manga the way I do. Since I’ve had difficulty talking about the most recent manga chapters lately, I thought I would make a post briefly discussing the things I might have blogged about had I not been busy. These won’t be as long as my normal posts, but I thought I should do a little catching up regardless.

One Piece – Caesar Clown’s Playhouse

His favourite song is Jumpin' Jack Flash, in case you were wondering.

Enemies in One Piece tend to fall all over the morality scale, from honorable soldiers like Smoker to professional killers like Rob Lucci to complete sadists like Moria. What I found interesting about Caesar Clown (aside from the name, of course) is that he’s managed to convince people he’s much more honorable and less insane than he really is. Listening to Brownbeard talk about him, you would almost think he was a decent guy with a passionate love for science. Of course one look at him shows that he’s every bit as insane and sadistic as the term “passionate love for science” would imply. This series used to tiptoe around the use of drugs and WMDs, which makes Clown’s behaviour feel all the more extreme and cruel. I honestly think all of Luffy’s training will have been worth it just so we can see him punch this guy in the face properly.

The World God Only Knows – The Endgame Approaches! Can Keima Take Ayumi Home?

Hello,

Today we take a look at the manga series The World God Only Knows, in which the end of the last Goddess hunt has quickly been approaching.

This has been one of the more difficult captures of the series, since most of Keima’s rules seem to have rapidly broken down around him. Yet he still maintains that sticking to a plan is the best way to complete the capture, which I had a lot of trouble believing until now.