アニメの１２日 – 一部
Christmas is almost here and to celebrate it, I’m taking a look back at the first 6 notable events that grabbed my attention or surprised me. This includes Fractale, Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai, Hanasaku Iroha, Working Second Season, A Channel and Gosick.
If you don’t know what this project is all about, I highly suggest checking out the prelude. (Image Source)
12. Fractale – Yutaka Yamamoto Downfall
Believe it or not, the premise behind Fractale was fascinating considering the human’s reliance of technology and a whole organization behind it all along with the rebel’s fight to restore the status quo. The only problem is that Fractale never gets explored in depth. Instead, we got a mostly slice of life show that have half-baked characters. To name a few, a tsundere who constantly calls Clain a pervert and Nessa causing havoc to an airship.
However, this is not the reason why Fractale made it to the list. It’s on because of Yutaka Yamamoto himself. He simply got too overconfident and thought the show would become the next best thing that he gambled his credibility. Unfortunately, it flopped for the flaws I shared in my review of Fractale and receiving some the lowest Noitamina ratings ever. Therefore, he had to retire from Anime directing all together after receiving a lot of backlash. This was sad, isn’t it?
11. Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa – The Longest Attempt of Watching a Show Before Dropping It
Oddly, Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai was one of those shows I couldn’t take my eyes off until the 8th Episode. It was simply one of the biggest fanservice mind screws I have ever seen and it wasn’t even that good. Granted, the girls looked very cute and the jokes are all right. On the other hand, it didn’t do too much on focusing on the original source material’s story line from the lack of time. As a result, it turned it into a confusing mess. Not to mention, Takashi was the lamest character out of the three male leads. He is always daydreaming about this fantasy kingdom, which he becomes Hawk Cyan Blue. To make it worse, his personality is uninteresting.
Eventually, the thing that sealed the fate of this show is his intercourse scene with Yamashina. After seeing that, I decided that enough is enough and just dropped it. So in short, never squeeze a whole visual novel adaptation in 12 episodes without another season or at least 24 episodes (with some notable exceptions).
10. Hanasaku Iroha – “I want to sparkle!”
Mari Okada may have gone overboard with her crossdressing obsession with Kou and Beanman, but Hanasaku Iroha still had many great and memorable moments. Out of these, the most notable scene that happens is in Episode 3 when Ohana tells Jiromaru that she wanted to “sparkle.” After that episode, this gets repeated when Tomoe, Yuina and Nako gets the spotlight and shows what they are capable of and taking different views of life afterwards. Oddly, Miki in The iDOLM@STER Anime also uses this line, although it’s probably a coincidence. Still, it fits as she changes herself after she couldn’t get into Ryuuguu Komachi.
9. Working’!! – Inami’s Endearing Moments and Further Development
The second season of Working is a vast improvement not because of the comedy, but Inami’s development. I have to admit that she was my least favorite character because she kept punching men at an alarming rate in the first season. Thankfully, this gets toned down in the second and instead, replaced with some of the most adorable moments between her and Souta. With her recording of his compliments on a cellphone and Souta petting her head like a cat, it’s a good sign that her androphobia had improved. This means that they are step closer to having an actual date without Souta needing to cross-dress as Kotori (although I prefer the latter).
8. A Channel – The Fascination of Teasing Yuuko
Although I enjoy all the characters in this show, Yuuko has always been the most enjoyable because of her personality. Her character is essentially a combination of Mio’s appearance and Mugi’s voice (Kotobuki Minako, 寿美奈子). Aside from these, I liked how she easily gets flustered. In this one instance from Episode 9, she was walking around Run-chan’s house just in a towel after taking a bath. Out of nowhere, Tooru starts reading an adult manga that has female lead that resembles Yuuko’s appearance. Her reactions were priceless!
7. Gosick – Victorique’s Cuteness
To wrap things up for the first half, Victorique’s cuteness also caught my attention this year. Despite Gosick being a mixed bag, it got substantially better in the second half when she and Kazuya uncovers secrets that related to her father’s schemes to ruin Sauville for the sake of power. However, this is not why it made it on this list, but rather Victorique herself. Her appearance, the dresses she wears and expressions she makes when she gets mad or bosses Kazuya around simply looked adorable. Not only that, her mother, Cordelia looks lovely too with her badass battle in Episode 23.
#12 – Yamamoto will be back…nobody retires from being a director, he just suffers from foot in mouth disease.
#11 – You made it farther into this show than I did. Achievement unlocked.
#10 – Forget the sparkle…Ohana training Jiromaru on bondage was the real hoot!
#9 – I’m quite pleased with the second season. Where I was mildly amused and interested by the first, this has been an excellent gel of the quirky cast.
#8 – Couldn’t get past the first episode, was too retarded to continue.
#7 – Didn’t watch.
I just hope that Yamamoto will return when the second season of Kannagi gets adapted and perhaps he should stick what he is good at, directing adaptations rather than original productions… That and the manga just resumed.
As for 11, well see in 2012 if another show ever breaks that record, but it’s very unlikely that I will revive it from the drop pile. Perhaps if I have enough guts, I’ll try Yosuga no Sora again, but we’ll see.
Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa- Yes! I share in this I wanted to drop that series so badly but I decided to give it a shot for a while, boy was it terrible! How did you like that final episode? Lots of uncensored shots xD
Hanasaku Iroha – “I want to sparkle!”- Ahahahah that is great! One of the best lines in that series, even thou that episode really scared everyone off…thanks to the random bondage…people dropped it so fast after that.
I cannot recall that moment because it was so bad that I completely wiped it from my mind… still I’m pretty sure it was censored, so it kind of defeated the purpose…. If you are going to have a scene like that, just go all out… oh wait! Non-existant Youth Bill won’t allow that, never mind!
But yeah, the bondage stuff was pretty bizarre and somewhat out of place, I thought it would be something that would be shown in MM! or something. However, that scene was kind of silly through and it didn’t bother me.
Thank you for the review. I noticed that your common reason for including an anime in your list is the characters. I get hooked on an anime depending on how interesting its characters are as well. I will check each one out. I have so much time especially that it is already my vacation.