12 Days of Anime for 2014 and Merry Christmas

Ever since I started this blog, I shared my 12 Anime moments that happen during the year as a tradition. Since I don’t feel like writing twelve individual posts before Christmas, I decided to do it in one shot.

12 – The Pokébank Release Fiasco

Last year, I anticipated the release of Pokébank (which is a Pokémon storage service that allows you to store Pokémon and transfer old ones from previous generations) since I would finally get the chance to transfer a good number of old Pokémon to X and Y. Sadly, the Nintendo Network crashed on Christmas with overwhelming traffic. After the network was restored, it was removed from the e-shop with the release in the west pushed back for the foreseeable future. I still remember that many Pokémon fans got angry at Gamefreak since they would not give a definite date and feared that Pokébank will have the same fate as Flipnote Studio 3D. I eventually wrote a rant about how they handled the release of it. Eventually, it got released in early February and everyone seemed to forget about the whole thing, but the memes associated with the delay will live on.

11 – Chuunibyou – Satone Arrives and more Sanae and Shinka shipping

While the second season was somewhat disappointing, there are still a lot of moments I enjoyed, especially Satone. Even though she doesn’t win at the end, I still like her personality since she pretends to be a magical girl of some sort and even enjoy teasing Rikka.

But really, the highlight of the second season was Sanae and Shinka and their rivalry. I just find it cute that Sanae wants to help Shinka become a student council president while secretly reviving Mori Summer. Moreover, Shinka manages to save Sanae from being snatched away by a girl who is pretending to be Mori Summer. Besides the fact that they accidently kissed each other in an original video animation special from the first season, they can’t hold back or deny the feeling forever. One day, Shinka will accept her other self as Mori Summer and of course, make up with Sanae.

10 – Nisekoi – Marika, too perfect for Raku?

To me, Nisekoi was an interesting concept for a harem for the fact that the main character has to pretend to be a girlfriend with Chitoge, a girl he does not get along with. While it’s funny to see them pretend and then fight when nobody notices, I find it amazing that Chitoge has feelings for her pretend boyfriend.

While I enjoy most of the characters in the show, I felt that Marika’s debut was the most enjoyable since she is basically the perfect girl for him. Besides her pretty and cute looks, I really enjoyed her personality not because of her classiness, but for the fact that she is obsessed with him. Basically, she is the only girl who openly remembers the promise Raku made and has the key to show for it. In short, if he openly admits it and she decides to go forward with it, they can basically finish the show. I guess one can only dream since it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

9 – The Video Gaming Fandom Turmoil

It seems that gaming fandom has received a lot of drama in 2014, which shows the really ugly side of gaming with death threats, leaking of personal information, name-calling, etc. There are two instances with this: Smogon vs. Verlisify and the whole leaderless movement that I will not mention the name for. A first instance of this has to do with a Youtuber that makes videos about Pokémon named Verlisify. He apparently shared harsh criticism over decisions made by a competitive Pokémon battling community called Smogon regarding a ban on a certain Pokémon, namely Mega Lucario. Some of the people at Smogon were so offended by his opinions that they decided to harass and even send him death threats.

While you don’t have to agree with his opinions, sending death threats or doing any harassing behavior just because you don’t agree with someone’s opinion is not called for. In the end, bad behavior from a small minority of a fandom will only make the whole community/fandom look bad as a whole. The same can be said about the current feud over political correctness with video games. I think people have the right to share their thoughts about a game, good or bad. By doing so, people have to realize that not everyone might disagree with your opinion since it’s subjective. Unfortunately, people bully or harass people because they do not necessarily agree or can’t take criticism as seen with the example with Smogon vs. Verlisify. Still, I have to say that both sides of the issues are guilty of this behavior from my observation.

Although there are issues with video games that make them controversial due to the interactive nature of the medium, I do not believe that video games should be censored or banned just because someone is offended by it. Not to mention, there are various studies showing that there is no evidence that video games affect behavior. I believe that Video Game development companies should have the freedom to make whatever games they want as long it doesn’t have content that breaks the laws and follows the rating system. If you don’t like it or it offends you, just don’t buy it and support ones that match your views.

8 – Atelier Escha and Logy – Escha’s Tail

It seems that everyone is fascinated by Escha’s tail since it can move on it’s own. While the video game has a small cut scene with Logy asking her about the tail, the Anime adaptation has a whole episode dedicated to it with Katia coming up with an idea to mass produce them, which in turn gives Escha an idea to try to make one. Sadly, it doesn’t move. After Wilbell made it move with magic, hilarity ensures as the tail attached to any person it sees in sight and makes them act like an animal for a few seconds before going to the next. It seems that we will never know how Escha’s mother made it move, but we know one thing… Escha has a longer tail in Shallie.

7 – No Game No Life – Stephanie herself

While the games and the unbeatable sibling duo is the main draw of this anime, there is another character that seems to get the bad end of the stick. Yep, it’s Stephanie herself, who can’t win a game to save her life without relying on luck. Although it’s very easy to feel sympathetic towards her since she is basically used for comedic relief and fanservice, it’s easy to relate with her at the same time since not everyone is good at gaming at first. Perhaps, a person will lose at game many times before he/she finally gets the hang of it. As seen with the final episode, Stephanie was able to take down Izuna and won. Hopefully in the next season, she will finally get her game on.

6 – Idols Everywhere

To me, 2014 is basically the year of idol singers. Idols were basically everywhere with the second season of Love Live airing along with Wake Up Girls. In addition, Namco finally released a new Idolmaster game titled Idolmaster One for All. As for me, besides getting the new Idolmaster game, I managed to finish the first season of Love Live along with the second season and I enjoyed them all. From the looks of next year, it looks like there will be more idol-themed shows and movies to look forward to.

5 – Twitch Plays Pokémon

In mid-February, someone decided to come up with a social experiment called “Twitch Plays Pokémon.” The idea of this experiment is to have everyone play a single copy of Pokémon by inputting commands into the chat box in order to move the character and input commands. Since everyone is inputting commands at the same, it makes simple things like cutting a tree down, getting a drink from the vending machine, navigating through a maze or depositing Pokémon into the computer become extremely difficult. This unfortunately led to Pokémon being released by accident, tossing items and other shenanigans. Of course, this stream spawned many memes such as Bird Jesus and “Hail the Helix Fossil.”

In this year alone, they played all the games from every generation (yep, even Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire). The stream is still alive with them playing arena mode with Pokémon Battle Revolution. Next year, they are planning on having another run of Pokémon Red for the 2^nd anniversary for February.

4 – Prisma Illya 2wei – Chloe/Kuro finally appears!

It took a year to make it happen, but Chloe/Kuro finally appeared. I admit that I find her character rather enjoyable. Her personality can be described as being Illya from Fate/stay night since Illya suppressed these memories in the alternate continuity. In short, she basically causes a lot of trouble for Illya (besides initially wanting to kill her) by kissing all the female students in the school and trying to steal Shirou’s heart.

While the cake-baking contest with Illya vs. Chloe was funny, Illya trying to act like an older sister by taking all the stereotypes was the cherry on top of the strawberry sundae. She basically embarrassed herself when she didn’t have to.

3 – Hanayamata – Energetic American Girl

It’s uncommon to see a foreigner in an Anime, let alone in the main cast. It’s mostly because they are used for comic relief, especially Americans. However, Hana is different since she manages to easily make friends with Naru, Tami, Yaya and Machi while being able to do Yosakoi with them. Still, considering that most foreigners tend to have trouble adjusting to life overseas, it was nice to see how she interacted with others. Of course, Yaya teasing Hana and dressing her in boy’s clothing was amusing.

2 – Ore Twintail – Tail Red is too cute

Despite the questionable animation quality, Ore Twintail is one of the most enjoyable ridiculous shows I have seen in a while. The show is basically about magical warriors beating up invaders from outer space in order to protect the Twin Tail hairstyle and other attributes. Apparently, the male hero, Souji, who loves girls with twin tails, transforms into an actual female twin-tailed magical warrior named Tail Red and she is undeniably cute. Not only that, he actually transforms into her in order to touch her own twin tails. Later on, he turns into a girl permanently named Sora and she is attractive.

While Tail Red is cute, the rest of the cast is just as enjoyable. To me, I like Aika quite a lot since she doesn’t beat up on the main character, but on Twirl instead.

1 – Amagi Brilliant Park – Kyoto Animation’s comeback and a Lovable Female Cast.

Everyone can admit that 2013 was a pretty bad year for Kyoto Animation for the fact that none of the shows were outstanding. When Chuunibyou Ren disappointed, it seems that all hope was lost until they brought in the Kadokawa light novel adaptations. Yep, Amagi Brilliant Park in my eyes was their comeback and I particularly enjoy the female cast in this show. The elemental fairies are lovable, Isuzu is really attractive and Latifa is adorable, especially after she was saved from the effects of the curse from the last episode. While there are more things I can say about this show, I will leave it for the final review.

With that, this concludes the 12 Days of Anime and I hope everyone will have an enjoyable Christmas. While I will be online, I will resume blogging on Friday when I wrap up the fall Anime and share my top 10 Anime for the year.

What are your memorable Anime moments in 2014? Feel free to share. ¶