Blog Archives
Eric’s 2010 Year in Review: Top 5 Best and Worst Anime
2010 has been one odd year. Despite it being a year that marked the release of a few excellent gems, it has also been a year filled to the brim with an obscene amount of generic titles that should, frankly, be destroyed from existence. For these reasons, I present you with a list of what I perceive to be the best and worst anime of 2010.
Best of 2010
#5: BAKA and TEST- Summon the Beasts (Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu)
Of all the shows to come out this year, Baka to Test was the one that was able to be consistently hilarious for every episode, whether it be the amusing characters, the quick pace of its humor, or the jokes that make fun of many other tropes of the genre. It also helps that the story gets pretty interesting, and even epic, in the final episodes of the series. It doesn’t do anything groundbreaking when it comes to the school life genre, but it at least shows that not all shows of the genre have to be the same generic crap every time. With the help of some clever writing, well executed humor, and interesting characters, even a show that strongly resembles others of its genre can be quite amazing.
Currently available at funimation.com
Otaku in Review Podcast – I Prefer the Other Seitokai
This week Michael Camacho from The OtakuGamer joined us to talk about what he’s watching from the Summer season, including why he loves Seitokai Yakuindomo so much and why I was not at all impressed with it. We also get into a debate over Mitsudomoe (and why it’s amazing), which turned out to be rather civil, much to Scott’s disappointment.
In the news: some kickass new licenses, an amazing composer you probably have never heard of is coming to Otakon, and the unfortunate passing of Speed Racer voice actor Peter Fernandez. All this and more on this week’s Otaku in Review podcast!
Eric’s Summer 2010 Anime Preview
While not as good as the Spring 2010 season, this Summer season has had quite a few impressive shows. Having seen eight shows so far, I plan on watching more later on once I have the time. For now though, here is a list of shows I’ve seen this Summer season.
Amagami SS
Amagami SS is a show that I looked at with great anticipation. Having seen the realistic and good looking character models in the trailer, I thought that it looked promising enough to be a great series this season. What I got was a bit of a disappointment. The story of Amagami SS follows Junichi Tachibana, a high school student who is basically going to hook up with six girls in each four to five episode arc in this series. I can sympathize with this show, as it’s part of a genre that isn’t really known for its wealth of unique ideas; however the problem with Amagami SS isn’t that it’s based on a dating sim game or that it doesn’t really offer anything new. The real problem is that it’s quite a boring series.
The main factor that causes its dullness would have to be the male lead, who is probably the blandest protagonist I have seen this season. While he isn’t an unlikable character, he has the personality of a blank sheet of paper, thus making the viewer not care what happens to him. While the female leads do provide some personality to the show, the male lead does enough damage to make this a snorefest. That doesn’t mean it’s a horrible show though, as the fast paced development of the relationships between the male lead and the female leads does create some drama. Bottom line: If the show does not make become interesting later on, I’m probably going to drop this soon.
