Nanana looks okay for a dead girl.

Despite being consistently good and reigning as my top-rated show all season long before being nipped at the very end by Hitsugi no Chaika (indeed, it would get a No Bad Episodes ribbon except I've decided not to award that anymore for shows with less than 20 episodes), there's something unsatisfying about Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin (Nanana's Buried Treasure). Don't get me wrong, I certainly liked Nanana a lot as a whole. I was particularly impressed with its master detective character character, Tensai, and relieved that the male lead, Juugo, wasn't a passive, craven, potato. However, I was disappointed in its titular character, Nanana herself.

The Best Girl in Nanana has a silly name.

There's nothing actually wrong with Nanana, and perhaps that's the real problem. She's the ghost of a murdered genius now stuck haunting a tiny apartment on the island she helped create, but nothing about her seems particularly genius or spectral. She spends all of her time playing video games. (Being a ghost, she doesn't need to sleep.) Aside from that, she doesn't do much else except eat pudding and occasionally dole out hints about her "buried treasure."

Nanana actually isn't very aggressive for someone with
lingering regrets keeping her from the afterlife.

About that first part: Why does she eat if she's a ghost? How can she eat? Since she can eat, why does she eat only pudding? I guess she eats pudding because she likes how it tastes, but she has no interest at all in any other food? Did she enjoy nothing else when she was still alive? In a way, I guess Nanana's pudding diet is allegorical of Nanana herself. No matter how much you love pudding, anyone alive would get sick of the lack of variety. Likewise, no matter how much you might like Nanana, you'd want to see her display some other facet of herself. She might as well be an an A.I. or a Dutch wife.

Nanana and Juugo should have fought more often.

Tragically, this is one of the rare examples of "girl roomie" anime, and it completely goes to waste. I'm grateful the show did not devolve into stupid mishaps testing Otaku Virtues or degenerate into something hopelessly contrived like Nozoki Ana (which was technically also about challenges to the Otaku Virtues). I didn't watch enough Bleach to see how it handled the situation, but I heard Rukia eventually moved out of Strawberry's closet. Aside from Rizelmine, I can't think of any other "girl roomie" shows off the top of my head, but surely there some example that occupies a zone between constantly freaking out about the girl in the room, and spending every waking moment ignoring her. (Oh, wait, IS <Infinite Stratos>.)

I'm going to start planting screenshots from totally unrelated shows in my blog posts.

Anyway, Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is really a lot better in basically all the areas I expected it to stumble, but I'm still left somewhat disappointed because it turned out to basically avoid everything I thought the show would actually be about. I suppose it's better this way. I'm not quite optimistic enough to believe it would have been a better show by focusing on either the "girl roomie" or "ghost girlfriend" dynamics. I certainly can't complain about getting a Grade A detective out of the affair. If only there were fewer jumping puzzles....

Hajime:Miyuki::Seki::Yokoi.

I'm watching three shows about detectives this season: Detective Conan, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns, and Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin. All three are pretty good, but I'm most pleased with how Nanana is progressing.

I hope one of Nanana's treasures is a Buster Machine.

Of these three, Nanana is my clear favorite this season, largely thanks to its master detective. This is fortunate, because my original reason for watching the show appears determined to spend all of her eternal damnation playing video games. I guess ghost hands can't cramp up. Between Detective Conan and Kindaichi Returns, I definitely enjoy Conan more. However, I'm not sure if that's due to the strength of the show itself, because of my pre-established familiarity with the characters, or because I just happened to discover Meitantei Conan before I learned Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo even existed.

It helps that Juugo is sort of a punk.

I've basically been on board with Nanana as a matter of principle since I heard about its premise. There's no Ghost Girlfriend Clause, but perhaps there ought to be. It's also not a exactly a detective show, although there's a detective in it. Through four episodes, she's stealing the show. I'd be pretty okay with her as the lead instead of Juugo.1

She probably swiped through all of your pictures, too.

I am exceptionally pleased with the character Ikkyuu Tensai, a self-described master detective with a ridiculous name. Specifically, I'm astonished she actually is a master detective, and apparently stays that way the entire time, not just when the plot requires it. It's too early in the year to know who's going to win, but I think it's pretty likely Tensai will at least get a nomination for the title of 2014 Girl of the Year.

Ran has better hair than Miyuki.

I'm putatively watching Detective Conan this season, but actually following it will depend on whether or not the current episodes get fansubbed. The usual suspects are falling quite behind again, or they've taken their work to the Dark Web. Yes, that insidious DARK WEB which you have surely heard about from a television news special report. The DARK WEB which teems with pornography and hacktivism and unofficially imported family-friendly cartoons STRAIGHT FROM JAPAN. Actually, there's probably still that one dude on YouTube who's subbing Detective Conan as a goof. I haven't fully embraced streaming video yet when it comes to anime distribution, though. No, really.

Ran bends over again.

Luckily, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns has, well, returned from an extended absence with this season's aptly named show. I was wholly ignorant about this franchise, but its description reveals a lot of similarities with Detective Conan. Based on what the Wikipedia tells me, the Kindaichi manga actually predates the Detective Conan manga. I don't know if Meitantei Conan copied the Kindaichi formula, but there are a lot of similarities, at least based on the few Kindaichi episodes I've watched so far. Detective Conan isn't a total ripoff, though. At a minimum, it made the Kindachi elements more accessible by (eventually) toning down the crimes (even though someone still dies in some horrific manner basically every week) and by making it less realistic via reverse-aging formulas, implausible techno gadgets, Ran's youthful lack of lower-back problems, and Professor Agasa's amazing ability to periodically cram five neighborhood children into his wheezing Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle and drive them into the wilderness without attracting any attention.

Ah, now I see.

Even though Kindaichi may have come first, Detective Conan is clearly the better established leader in the high school detective genre and probably better known to all but the most ardent Kindaichi fans. The similarities are undeniable: Teenage master detectives solve crimes the police cannot. Loyal aerodynamic childhood friends serve as putative love interests. Perhaps as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Detective Conan, the first episode of Kindaichi Returns features a man trying to flag down Miyuki by calling her "Ran" during a moment of mistaken identity.

Note 1: I've seen others accuse the male lead of being too generic, but that's patently unfair. In my view, "too generic" should refer to cretins with zero distinguishing positive characteristics such as Junichi from Amagami SS and all the various harem comedy leads who spend every waking hour trying to become the leading chickenshit stupid asshole champion ever since the last dude scorched off his balls by clumsily handling the Chickenship Stupid Asshole Torch. Tragically, there's at least one important objective distinction that immediately separates Juugo from Potato-kun: He's not afraid of touching girls—not even dead ones. It's tragic that this simple quality is now sufficient to segregate worthless members of the Otaku Virtues congregation from the increasingly less common non-craven punks, but that's a separate blog post altogether. I was going to write about detectives.

The original plan was six monitors. Now it seems excessive.

There's a space because that's where I mounted the center speaker.

There's a Chihaya because I didn't have another suitable image of Yuuko handy, at least not in 1920x1200.

[Update 2: I hid the previous three-monitor setup so well I forgot about it.]

[Update 3: All four monitors are 24" 1920x1200 IPS panels. One Dell U2410 (good monitor, but I hate the control buttons so much), one HP ZR24w (which won't do 1:1 1080, by the way), and two Dell U2412.]

[Update 4: Minor adjustment.]

An unoccupied classroom, eh?

I can't think of a way to address the end of Tasogare Otome x Amnesia without revealing fairly important spoilers, but I'll try to minimize the damage. Anyone paying attention likely already knows the ending suffers from a serious flaw, though.

I sure hope you figured this part out by yourself.

As you might expect, the anime's ending stumbled because the original manga is still ongoing. This gave the Tasogare Otome x Amnesia anime basically three choices: (1) A non-ending ending, which seems to be the most common cop-out, (2) an original ending after diverging from the manga (Full Moon wo Sagashite did this with amazing success), or (3) a real ending that the original (but still ongoing) manga later attempts to follow or improve upon, as in the case of the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga.

Yuuko is not subtle.

Well, the Tasogare Otome x Amnesia anime took the first choice...sort of, but did it in a way that is both better and worse than the typical non-ending ending: It has an original, option-two-type ending which is actually pretty good, but then at the last minute it turns into a non-ending ending, betraying any emotional investment or payoff it might have achieved had it just wrapped things up there. I'm not sure if Silver Link simply chickened out, or if they have hopes for a second season.

Yuuko is not subtle.

I just said the almost ending is "actually pretty good," but it has a few problems too. Yuuko and Teiichi obviously won't get a happy ending together; Yuuko is dead, after all. But no matter how successful Tasogare Otome x Amnesia may have portrayed the romance, it's still difficult to forget that Teiichi is only a first-year middle school kid. He's just not old enough to be making such bold pronouncements about love and still be taken seriously. This is one place where a timeskip would have been appropriate before the bittersweet ending it tried to achieve. Either way, the anime should have left it alone instead of forcing an opening for a possible sequel. It's a stunning lack of commitment to a conclusion that invoked commitment as a major theme.

Torrid fan service!

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia made a good first impression because Yuuko, this season's resident ghost girlfriend, is remarkably charming. It also helps that the male lead is not another potato. Ironically, I can't remember my first exposure to Amnesia. At some point, maybe a year ago, I added the RSS feed for its manga releases to my aggregator and downloaded many of the early chapters. However, I read none of them and cannot remember how I came to hear about Dusk Maiden of Amnesia in the first place. After a couple amusing episodes, curiosity got the better of me and I did something I never do: I read the source material past the available anime. (The manga benefits from numerous sight gags and extras currently absent from the anime, possibly biasing my overall opinion of the show more favorably than other viewers.)

Awesome reception!

I'm caught up with the current manga releases of Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, and while its male lead does suffer later from some of the unassertive, indecisive behavior compelled by the Otaku Virtues, his relationship with his ghost girlfriend remains acceptably free from tiresome problems that plague most school comedies. I say comedy, but Amnesia is a drama as well, and arguably a drama first. The mystery surrounding Yuuko's death (and life) drives the serious portions of Amnesia while Yuuko's flirting and mischievous irreverence keep the comedic aspects engaging. Through 33 chapters, the character count for Tasogare Otome x Amnesia remains small, assuring large doses of the extremely fetching Yuuko in each installment. Is "fetching" too old fashioned to say anymore? Hopefully it's okay to use the term to describe a Girl of the Year candidate who has been dead for over half a century. (Let's be honest, though, nobody is defeating Mine Fujiko for Girl of the Year honors barring a huge upset.)

Kusada finally breaks. Better hang on, kid.

With a few exceptions, most of the shows I watched last season bear one thing in common: very few anime fans from my corner of the Internet (the best and worst of whom can be found at #raspberryheaven) would give them a chance. Even Hatsukoi Limited, which I previously mentioned is the best show from the spring 2009 season, attracted relatively few followers. (Most were too busy watching K-On! and searching for Mio fan art.) Those that actually watched Hatsukoi Limited instead of merely asking, "What's so great about another school romance show?" found a combination of light comedy and whimsical tales of first love so deftly executed I have no reservations naming it the top show of the season ahead of the initial (and already controversial) episodes of the second season of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu.

Yuki looks bored, even for Yuki.

Haruhi II still secures second, and will presumably do well during the summer 2009 season, even if (or in my view, especially if) there really are eight episodes of "Endless Eight." That would be awesome, particularly if it drives conventional-thinking fans into sending Kyoto Animation furious letters with death threats which they can include in a The End of Haruhi movie that makes little sense but includes a bitchin' fight scene. (I secretly hope there are 15,514 episodes of "Endless Eight," and that the entire ordeal is somehow Yuki's fault and not Haruhi's at all.) I bet all the people who can't stand "Endless Eight" are the same people who skip OPs and EDs.

Natalie Portman from Leon joins the Phantom cast.

Nobody ever believes me, but Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom is actually really good—good enough to finish third for spring 2009 (and currently lead summer 2009). Bee Train influences are obvious, but this is not El Cazador de la Bruja or Madlax. For one thing, there's a male lead. Moreover, none of the female leads have displayed any signs of lesbianism. In fact, Ein apparently really likes getting oil massages from creepy old guys. Bio Concerto is worth its weight in gold, people. I'm telling you.

Aoba, you're not even trying.

A lot of people won't watch sports anime in general or baseball anime in particular. Cross Game is at its best when it's not about baseball, to tell you the truth. I enjoy it a great deal more than Touch and what I've read of H2, but the actual baseball games in Cross Game are not as compelling as the slice-of-life stories about Kou and Aoba.

You're not exactly facing the Taisho Yakyuu Musume team now, Goro.

Major season five takes the fifth spot. I'm still watching it as there are still unsubbed episodes, but I won't be including it with the summer 2009 lineup. [Update: Advanced to fifth place after episode 120.] Assuming the fifth season is the final season of Major, I have to say this was an excellent series and I really appreciate the epic nature of the show, following Goro from childhood to adulthood. Were I to include all five seasons of Major as one work, it would easily take the top spot. Incidentally, Shimizu Kaoru still leads in the Girl of the Year rankings for 2009. This one is going to be a boat race.

Takako contemplates the future of Kannagi.

The Kannagi episode 14 OVA is every bit as good as the series. That it only places sixth should tell you just how good the competition is this time around. I hope Kannagi gets a second season.

There's a storm brewing, Peach-han.

Fresh Pretty Cure ranks seventh, but has moved up quite a bit in the summer 2009 rankings due to the fully awesome Cure Passion arc, currently underway. This is another show nobody but Precure fans seem willing to watch, but the Setsuna/Love friendship really is compelling. Every episode recently has had the kind of OH SHIT moments typically attributed to shounen jive or cheesy Gundam switcheroos. Speaking of shounen jive, Fresh Pretty Cure is very light on the "standing around talking instead of fighting" bits, and when Love cuts loose, she starts out in a normal voice but gets exponentially louder and faster (it's awesome, trust me) until you think she's about to ace someone square in the face. There is too much beam spamming, though, but episode 23 is expected to include brutal fisticuffs, so we're back to the basics. Kickass.

Needs more Ana Coppola, Black Custom.

Eighth goes to the second OVA episode of Ichigo Mashimaro Encore. This series also really could use another season. It remains entertaining and funny, and definitely does not deserve the extra baggage that keeps many people from watching it.

If Alice isn't happy, no one's happy.

Pandora Hearts is good, but weird, so anyone that might watch it probably is watching it already, and no amount of cajoling will convince anyone else to give it a try, alas. I can understand why it doesn't have broader appeal.

Ed doesn't seem to obsess about his height as much this time.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood would have fared better if it hadn't felt like watching a really long clip show. It should also do better in the rankings this summer as it diverges more from the first anime. Curiously, I'll watch countless episodes of "Endless Eight" but the deja vu sensation of the early Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episodes really turned me off. Or maybe it's because Brotherhood halved Winry's cup size. Could be.

Asahina's daily life.

The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan got a lot better as the season went on, but it's still not as good as Petit Eva or the various Marimite specials, for example.

No! Keep your damn dirty hands off Kotori's hat!

The second episode of Da Capo: If came out during spring 2009. Pity it wasn't as good as the first installment. Then again, no Kotori arc is ever going to seem satisfying as long as Junichi remains such a putz.

I'm still amazed Mamiko Noto voiced Tomoe as a straight-up serious character.

Queen's Blade is what it is. I think it would have been infinitely better if Tomoe (the miko character) had—for no discernible reason—gone the entire series without getting naked.

Say "cheese."

Asura Cryin' faded a bit, or at least my interest did. I like all the colors, though. [Update: The end of Asura Cryin' got really shounen and kinda stopped being fun at all. Why can't it just be about humping your ghost girlfriend and every once in a while robot fights? I guess I won't be watching the second season, alas.]

Say "cheese."

Nyoron Churuya-san started out funny, but got a little tiresome towards the end, whereas its Haruhi-chan counterpart managed to improve and keep me looking forward to Haruhi II.

"Chi's!"

Good Lord, there were a lot of shows spring season. And I'm not just saying that because I watched a hundred-some episodes of Chi's Sweet Home so I could start Chi's New Address. Even with three-minute episodes, that is a lot of Chi. I could be burned out on all the kittenness, but Chi's New Address doesn't seem as good as Chi's Sweet Home. Needs more bear cat, for one thing. I also keep waiting for Chi to finally age, but for the time being she remains Yotsuba in kitten form.

Needs more Tamaki.

The first episode of To Heart 2 ad plus wasn't very good. It's pretty forgettable, alas.

I would have kept watching K-On! had it replaced Mio with Yomi.

I didn't drop any shows aside from the following series I previously mentioned: Eden of the East (8) > Shin Mazinger Z (3) > Saki (2) > Valkyria Chronicles (3) > K-On! (4) > Higepiyo (3) > Shangri-La (1).

Needs more Perrine-H. Clostermann.

I should probably exclude OVAs from future such lists. I already leave off movies. Besides, it's not possible to "drop" a movie or a one-episode OVA. Well, I guess unless one abandons it midway. I probably should have done that with The Sky Crawlers. That movie should have had a Strike Witches crossover wherein the 501st Joint Fighter Wing wipes them all out in five minutes and the movie ends. Sheesh. The damn thing felt like it was 15,513 fortnights long. (Yes, I know. Yes, I know that too.)