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Dated 17 June 2014: The End of Tonari no Seki-kun ~HappinessCharge/My Purest Love Link for Thee~

Hime and Iona
Go on, Iona. Curse the bitch out.

One spring 2014 show ended too early, and another is just getting started. Tonari no Seki-kun was a continuation from the winter 2014 season. It concluded its anime run (only temporarily, right?!) with its 21st episode a few weeks ago. HappinessCharge Precure! is still just getting warmed up and has about another nine months to go on its yearlong season.

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Dated 7 January 2014: 2013 Girl of the Year

Hajime
As always, no wagering.

I started these Girl of the Year awards in 2009 mostly as a goof. Then I kept doing doing it every year and now I can't stop. Can I still pass judgment in a fair and balanced manner even though I watched relatively few shows in 2013? What if I refuse to accept nominations for girls from shows I haven't seen? Not to worry. This contest has always been rigged. Actually, it's not so much a competition as it is an exhibition.

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Dated 15 October 2013: In re Summer 2013 Anime -or- The End of Silver Spoon ~Air/My Purest Love for Bacon~

Nakajima and Yoshino
I couldn't think of a gouda cheese pun to use for this caption.

Summer 2013: Silver Spoon [1-11] > Uchouten Kazoku [1-13] > Symphogear G [1-13] > Love Lab [1-13] > Genshiken Nidaime [1-13] > Prisma☆Illya [1-10] > C3-bu [1-13] > Turning Girls [1-7] > Detective Conan (701-711) > DokiDoki! Precure (23-34) > RailgunS [13-24] > Dog & Scissors [1-12].

Yoshino and Hachiken
These two are pretty upset even though Yoshino's not pregnant.

Dropped: Gatchaman Crowds (1-9) > Servant x Service (1-3) > Kiniro Mosaic (1-4) > Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku (1-2) > Gen'ei o Kakeru Taiyou: Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni (1-3) > Chou Jigen Game Neptume The Animation (1) > High School DxD NEW (1-4) > Futari wa Milky Holmes (1-2). WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS: Shingeki no Kyojin (13.5-14).

This chart started out as a joke, but has grown kinda out of control. Of course, the whole ranking anime thing started out as a joke too, and then suddenly five years went by.

Yoshino and Aki
Yoshino makes me want to eat smoked cheese more than Churuya ever did.

Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon) was easily the best summer 2013 series that I watched. It was consistently entertaining and I was impressed with how Hachiken's character developed over the show's 11 episodes. Even the quandary with "Pork Bowl" ended up much better than I expected. That was the plot point I had the most reservations about, but I'm quite pleased with how Silver Spoon resolved it.

Professor Akadama
Five will get you tengu he's going to trash the joint.

Uchouten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family) stands out among the summer 2013 shows for being intelligent about idiots and being strange while feeling familiar. The focus is on tanuki family dynamics, but it turns out the problems fuzzball shapeshifters have with their families aren't too different than those experienced by humans, except perhaps tanuki aren't as quick to embrace Shakespearean revenge tragedies. To be fair, all I really learned about tanuki is that they are dumbasses and that they are easily panicked, but maybe that's all anyone needs to know about tanuki.

Benten
Tall-collar service.

More importantly, I learned Mamiko can knock 'em dead better than ever. Her work as Benten was transcendent. I've never wanted to be a decrepit old man more. In fact, thanks mostly to Noto Mamiko's superb work, but also because Benten herself is such straight-up trouble, I'm nominating Suzuki Satomi for 2013 Girl of the Year. I'd also like to mention that Nakahara Mai is better than ever, although I encourage her to take more parts like her role in Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and and fewer roles as young boys.

The Shimogamo mom
The Shimogamo matriarch is lucky so many dudes wanted to do her tanuki-style.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear G: In the Distance, That Day, When the Star Became Music... had a great ending. Basically, if you didn't like that final episode then you just don't like anime. That said, the show itself did have a few issues. First of all, Dr. Ver's comically evil persona never seemed particularly threatening, except for maybe when we learned he wanted to make babies with Maria. Second, Maria herself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I certainly was not expecting her to spend most of the show crying. I guess it's a good thing there's not going to be a follow-up cour devoted to her efforts at repopulating the planet, because she'd probably cry the entire time then too.

Maria
Listen, sugar, either go back to whaling on some deadbeats
or help me repopulate the planet, but get to work.

Sorry, Maria really needed to focus more on tearing shit up and coming up with new cape-fu moves instead of all the moping she did. Still, I'll ignore a lot of faults when a show spends most of its time focusing on mahou shoujo whaling on each other while singing. Shirabe and Kirika were endearing even though their fights lost a lot of impact because there was no danger of anyone getting hurt. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS already demonstrated that providing lots of collateral damage is not a substitute for emotional resonance.

Illya
The fan service in Prisma☆Illya gets out of control.

I've already written about the endings to Love Lab, Genshiken Nidaime, and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya.

Yura
Oh, hey, it's Evangelion's Train of Despair.

Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-Bu spent too much time on Yura taking all the fun out of a game, but that was sort of the point. In a way, C3-bu felt as if Gainax wanted to stretch out a Gainax ending as far as they could. Technically, C3-bu did have a Gainax ending, but then they went ahead and made another episode that seemed to contain material I'd usually expect in a standalone OVA. Maybe that's the way it was originally planned, but someone figured at the last minute that it probably wouldn't sell or something.

I finished watching Turning Girls weeks ago.

Ran, Kogoro, and Conan
Ran shows off her crazy metabolism again.

I fell behind on Detective Conan but managed to catch up by the time I finally got this thing written. As for Meitantei Conan itself, it's still a reliable control for comparing shows season-to-season. It does need more Kazuha, though. I was concerned maybe her prolonged absence was related to Miyamura Yuko's longer commuting requirements. (She moved to Australia a few years ago.) I'm not sure if that's a factor, but it appears autumn 2013 starts off with at least four Heiji (with Kazuha in tow) episodes to follow the two that finished up the summer 2013 season. I'm certainly in favor of a six-episode block of Kazuha episodes, but I'm curious if they would have been spaced out instead if Miyamura Yuko still lived in Japan.

Cure Rosetta
Relax, yo. Cure Rosetta has got this.

DokiDoki! Precure did two notable things during the summer 2013 cour. One, it introduced a sass-talking Kugimiya Rie Cure. Two, it raised the stakes in the all-singing, all-dancing 3DCG ED wars. Aside from that, DokiDoki! is turning out to be one of the less interesting Pretty Cure generations, although episode 34 did have some rad Cure Rosetta beatdowns.

Saten and Uiharu
This made no sense, but I'll allow it.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S needed more SATEN, but I'm glad it found excuses to trot her out in different hairstyles and various street clothes. The ending of the series was rather ridiculous with its casualty-free battle between espers and drones. I guess I was pleased to see SATEN behind the controls of a giant robot, though. P.S. Spoilers.

I already covered Dog and Scissors.

I won't revisit the shows I dropped except to say I also dropped Gatchaman Crowds. This one comes as a bit of a surprise because it seemed so promising after a strong start. However, I was unable to take the villain seriously and never cared what he did. I also did not sympathize with Rui at all nor had any interest in his reasons for crossdressing. The turning point was the episode where Rui is mercilessly beaten for what ended up being a hilariously long time and I realized I had absolutely no emotional investment in any of the characters and was only still watching to see how long Hajime could prolong her violently upbeat attitude. I fell behind after that, and once I learned how disappointed other fans were with the series finale, I decided to simply quit watching altogether.

Saten and Uiharu
Hey, sweetie, eyes on the God damn road.

This season summary is a lot more piecemeal than previous ones, but I kinda get the feeling the amount of time required to compile these things does not expand linearly with the number of additional shows watched. Maybe the one I write three months from now for the autumn 2013 shows will be a lot more cohesive and contain greater detail and not be dragged out over several weeks. At least, maybe it will be that way if I continue to watch only three shows. I've got up to 10 I might consider, but I can't see following more than seven for the time being.

Dated 29 September 2013: Love Lab is a triumph for anime hair

Maki and Riko
This is because of anti-dakimakura prejudice.

Love Lab was a fairly successful comedy despite not having a lot of depth to its jokes. The basic premise is interesting (provided you don't have violent aversions to male characters in your all-girls-all-the-time anime), although the characters did not do as much with it as I had hoped. I think diverting so much attention away from the main effort and focusing instead on Riko's inability to confess about her lies was a mistake. As a consequence, it made the ending somewhat weak, whereas if the resolution had occurred during the mid-season mark there would have been more opportunities for meeting-boys hijinks.

Riko
Mixed success at being more feminine.

Despite its flaws, Love Lab still had enough charm to be enjoyable each week, even with a deadweight character or two. Where it really succeeds, however, is in breaking conventions regarding anime hair. I did not diligently catalog all the changes and variations (but surely some obsessive fan somewhere on the Internet has), but it seems Riko changes her hair style and accessories every episode and sometimes once or twice during each episode as well. Oddly enough, I was able to recognize her even though her hair accessories cum charm points weren't fixed. It's frankly more daring than anime characters who don't wear the same clothes every single day. In fact, I'm nominating Riko for 2013 Girl of the Year just for her hair alone.

Riko
Riko's Doritos duvet is pretty awesome.

Additionally, I wasn't really a fan of Hibiki's speaking voice in The iDOLM@STER but Numakura Manami's delivery as Riko works well in Love Lab, even though it still feels to me that Riko is a character of an in-iM@S-universe television show starring Ganaha Hibiki, if that makes any sense.

Dated 22 July 2013: Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon) and Gatchaman Crowds lead the summer 2013 anime season

Aki
I wonder if the First Girl He Sees Clause is in effect?

I started watching too many shows this season to prepare a single comprehensive summary of how they're all shaking out so far; it would take hours. So I'll just divvy out these introductions individually or in chunks. The best show thus far is Gin no Saji, also known as Silver Spoon. It's a comedy about a boy who enters an agricultural high school and discovers farm life is more difficult than he anticipated. It's based on a manga by the author of Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa Hiromu, who grew up on a farm herself. The consensus regarding Gin no Saji appears to be generally positive, but it seems you have to think farms are funny to enjoy it as much as I do.

Tamako and Shinchirou
I predict Tamako will be the BEST GIRL in Silver Spoon.

Notably, Gin no Saji lacks any of the high school bullshit (at least through the first two episodes) that plagues other anime set in high school. Because of the hands-on nature of the instruction, it seems more like a trade school and quite alien compared to they typical seat-by-the-window, beautiful-mysterious-transfer-student, oops-I-fell-on-your-boobs, let's-prepare-for-the-culture-festival drudgery that you see in every other school comedy. The anime is already past the few chapters of the manga that I read, so perhaps Silver Spoon will, in fact, get a mysterious transfer student who sits by the window and helps out during the culture festival after a normal boy falls on her boobs, but I'm at least reasonably confident that the execution will be creative and different if that actually happens.

Paiman
LARGE BEER.

Gatchaman Crowds is ostensibly based on the Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) anime from the '70s, but thus far bears little resemblance to what I know of the original (which admittedly only comes from its two English adaptations, Battle of the Planets and G-Force: Guardians of Space). The biggest difference is the apparent focus on Hajime. I.e., a female lead instead of the familiar male-dominated team of five members: The leader guy, the angry guy, the fat guy, the token kid, and the aerodynamic girl.

Sugane and Hajime
A man's romance.

Hajime, I should point out, is making a solid run for the 2013's Girl of the Year crown with her unrelenting TOP FUEL GENKI attitude. Maybe it will be revealed in a shocking twist later that Hajime is actually broken inside, but for now her ebullience appears ready to overcome all challenges, even the bane of social media. Also in her favor is her bizarre love of notebooks and planners, an obsession I sheepishly admit to sharing (although, unlike Hajime, I don't fornicate with my notebooks and planners).

Yugo
I'm so glad nobody broadcasts in Smell-O-Vision.

For now, Gin no Saji and Gatchaman Crowds are the top two shows of the season, at least according to my tongue-in-cheek ranking system. Whether a comedy about farms and a superhero show arguably about Facebook games can survive the onslaught of a moon-destroying mahou shoujo opera and the return of a college circle of degenerate perverts remains yet to be seen.

Dated 24 May 2013: She ain't heavy, she's my [SPOILERS]

Shingeki no Kyojin characters
Full-size version
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This post is about something that might be a simple typographical error. Or it might be about spoilers. Or it might be about nothing at all. It is about Shingeki no Kyojin, and although I have read all the manga chapters currently available and seen all the anime episodes that have aired, I will attempt to avoid discussing anything that would be an actual spoiler. Well, unless the above image is itself a spoiler, in which case...oops. I will also discuss all characters in the present tense, but do not assume that has any bearing on whether or not a character lives or dies. Knowing who doesn't die is as much of a spoiler as knowing who does die. Right? [Spoilers: Chiyo lives.] According to this image, Mikasa is 170 cm tall and weighs 68 kg. That seems unusually heavy for an anime character, particularly one of her apparent build. It's not inappropriate for a sufficiently muscular real life girl of her proportions to weigh that much, but from an anime standpoint she's a beast.1 This would not be noteworthy at all if the rest of the characters depicted in that picture had similar builds, but if you accept all those numbers as accurate, Mikasa's fellow soldiers are kinda shrimpy compared to her. Every depicted character who weighs more than Mikasa is both male and at least 5 cm taller.

Cure Rosetta
There is a third explanation....

So, why is that? Well, the simple answer is that Mikasa is a badass. She's the BEST GIRL in Attack on Titan (even though Sasha can tear into a hot potato like none other) and she's probably my current front runner for 2013 Girl of the Year. Being hard core enough to do the things she does, it's sensible that she would be much more muscular than the other characters, even if they're all drawn pretty much the same way in the anime and the manga. The other answer is purely speculation based on something that has already been depicted in the anime but has not been explicitly explained in the first 45 chapters of the manga. For that reason, maybe it counts as spoilers, and maybe it's pure bullshit. I guess it's minor spoilers for people either not watching or a few episodes behind on the anime, and spoilers about what probably won't get explained anytime soon in the anime: In the flashback where young Eren convinces Mikasa to fight, the anime and manga both show a brief "power up" sequence of liquid kickass coursing through her muscles before she attacks, gripping the knife so hard she crushes its hilt and launching herself at her target with such ferocity she shatters a floorboard. Did these things literally happen? Are they unusual events within the in-universe laws of physics? (Which, remember, allow people to Spider-Man their way around town with cans of compressed gas and spring-coiled cables.) We know that childhood bullies were terrified of her and that she's freakishly strong, but does she actually have the ability to Hulk out with superhuman strength that nobody seems willing to question? We know Eren's possibly-up-to-no-good dad visited Mikasa for undefined purposes and has some Important Thing in the basement that everyone's forgotten about after the first episode, but is Mikasa different because she's Just That Good or is she different because of some sort of genetic/magic enhancement? (One that makes her weigh more than her fellow soldiers who seem to have tears and anxiety in the places where Mikasa stores extra beatdowns.)


Note 1: The Body Mass Index calculator for 15-year-old girls at CDC.gov reports Mikasa has a healthy weight.

Dated 1 January 2013: Announcing the 2012 Girl of the Year

Ami and Mami
Don't try and tell Ami and Mami there can be only one.

Choosing a 2012 Girl of the Year was more difficult than in previous years for two reasons. First, I watched fewer shows this year, so the pool of candidates is relatively small. For example, I encountered regular high praise for characters in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, but being otherwise wholly ignorant of the show, none of them even got an initial glance. Second, there are numerous eligibility considerations that I had to reconcile.

Medaka
This is not a very deep pool.

Revisiting nominations from earlier this year, I identified Yuuko from Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Fujiko from Lupin III, Saki from Natsuiro Kiseki, and the unnamed female protagonist from Humanity Has Declined. With the benefit of having the autumn 2012 season in the bag, I am adding Cure Beauty from Smile Precure!, Medaka from Medaka Box and Medaka Box Abnormal, and the entire 765Pro roster from The iDOLM@STER TV.

Chihaya
It was the style at the time.

Here is one of the eligibility concerns I mentioned. Should iM@S characters qualify for the 2012 Girl of the Year contest? The television series concluded in 2011. However, the episode 26 OVA came out in 2012, and there were three additional episodes included with the Shiny Festa PSP games also released in 2012. I never explicitly disqualified OVAs and movies from consideration. (And if I did and simply forgot, I'm retconning that now.) If the Girl of the Year title can be awarded to a group, then shouldn't the BEST GIRL in that ensemble subsequently get a solo award? Not necessarily. Chihaya is the iDOLM@STER BEST GIRL, but I wouldn't call her 2012's Girl of the Year even though I am prepared to nominate Chihaya, Miki, Takane, Ritsuko, Haruka, Mami, Makoto, Iori, Hibiki, Ami, Azusa, Yayoi, Kotori, and Yukiho in a group nomination as I did in 2011.

Yuuko
It's not easy being dead.

Perhaps this is anti-climatic, but the 2012 winner wasn't really in doubt. Yuuko is amazing, but a lot of her appeal comes from the Tasogare Otome x Amnesia manga. She's hurt by the single-cour run of the anime and its disappointing cop-out non-ending to an otherwise good show.

Fujiko and Lupin
Better hope she doesn't punch you in the monkey.

Fujiko seemed like a shoo-in early in the year, but in retrospect I'm disappointed with the unevenness of her show itself. For Fujiko to win in 2012 I'd have to consider her (admittedly outstanding) previously established credentials. This worked for Mouri Ran, last year's winner, but 2011 Ran was exceptional while I can't claim the same of 2012 Fujiko.

Yuka, Saki, Natsumi, and Rin
Saki can't help being better.

Saki from Natsuiro Kiseki? Sigh. Tough call. She doesn't win, but definitely deserves special mention. Natsuiro Kiseki is chock full of wonderful Saki moments, probably appropriately since it really is her show despite being a putative Sphere vehicle for the quartet. We all know who's best. [Spoilers: It's Takagaki Ayahi, even though I love Haruka DeTomaso Pantera.]

Female Protagonist
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
P.S. Fairies are assholes.

She who shall not be named in Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita? Possibly seiyuu of the year, but not Girl of the Year. She's pretty good, and a worthy nomination, but just doesn't quite have enough to get by her competitors this year. Nakahara Mai really was superb in this role, though.

Cure Beauty
Guess what happens to people who don't get
out of Cure Beauty's way. Go on. Guess.

Cure Beauty? An almost automatic nomination and the only Smile Cure worth a damn, but she kinda makes herself look good by surrounding herself with less capable people. I'm pleased Toei was consistent with her characterization throughout the course of the year-long season. If they ever adopt the Pretty Cure Team-Up idea as a way to manage the huge numbers of mahou shoujo now in play (without marginalizing the older ones as New Stage 1 did), I could easily see her busting heads side-by-side with the early-generation Cures. Cure Peace? Not so much.

Medaka, Naze, and Koga
Medaka is not subtle.

Medaka? Just good enough for a nomination, but that's all. I sure hope Neo Gainax continues churning out her anime so Anshin'in can boat race the competition next year or the year after.

765Pro
Idolm@ster is so good I think I need to buy more Ace Combat planes.

So how about all the iM@S girls? I really wanted to give them the group win, but I can't quite do it for 2012. All right, so who does win? Think about it. Do you really have to ask?

Asuka
P.S. Soryu is still > Shikinami.

Asuka Shikinami Langley. Wait, why? Because Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo came out in 2012, because OVAs and movies do qualify, because a previous body of work may be taken into consideration as a factor, and because this entire contest is rigged. OMEDETOU, sweetheart.

Dated 16 October 2012: Summer 2012 season summary

Asuna triple-monitor desktop
This was a proof of concept that I will never use
again (because I bought a fourth monitor).

I get the sense I wasn't exposed to a large portion of the shows that aired this season—an obvious consequence of not watching all that much compared to past seasons. Nevertheless, I'm not convinced I actually missed anything, although I do admit a curious fascination with Sword Art Online (despite the profoundly negative reactions to its cour-ending climax). I haven't yet watched a single minute of it, but I have read the first four volumes of the light novels (which I'm expecting the first two cours to cover). Learning that Kajiura Yuki is providing the music has put the show over the top, and I'll probably marathon the summer 2012 segment to catch up with the autumn 2012 episodes. Naturally, this will change my summer 2012 anime summary rankings, but it is late enough already and I can always reflect the addition with an update, so here goes:

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