2008 Year-End Anime Retrospective

[blkmage]

There's less than two weeks left until the end of 2008, so I figured it'd be a pretty good time to have a look back at anime in 2008. What stood out this year for you? What great shows has 2008 brought us? What great moments were there in 2008?

Personally, I got into following shows as they aired in Japan this year and began following new shows season to season. Before, I'd watch what I knew, the typical shounen fighting or whatever other people recommended. It was pretty interesting to try out new shows and it was pretty interesting following discussions as episodes aired each week.

How about some highlights in anime in 2008? For me:

Minami-ke Okawari was a surprisingly disappointing followup to the first season of Minami-ke, which had aired right before the new season. The difference in the art style was really jarring and noticeable and it didn't help that the writing was worse.

The Tower of Druaga: Aegis of Uruk wasn't really that interesting of an anime. What was more interesting was the distribution method. GONZO needed to do something drastic in its dire financial situation, so it decided to partner with Crunchyroll and offer Druaga, among other titles, free, streaming, and subtitled within 24 hours of the Japanese broadcast. The actual content of the anime was met with mixed reviews.

Kure-nai was a really excellent character-driven story about a high school student who's hired to protect the daughter of a powerful family. It's one of my favourites, and I wish it would have lasted longer. It wraps heartwarming slice-of-life escapades with some violence and a dark subplot. The musical episode was a plus.

Code Geass R2 is probably among the most influential anime this year, spawning countless memes across the Internet every Sunday and for careening from one plot point to another with reckless abandon while being endlessly entertaining.

Soul Eater is a shounen anime by BONES with a fairly typical story packaged with superb animation and consistent quality throughout. It's a very solid production that doesn't miss a beat, even now, 37 episodes in (out of 51).

Nijuu Mensou no Musume starts off with a pretty interesting premise: a famous thief whisks the oppressed daughter of a rich family away and trains her in the art of high thievery and we see her adventures with his band of misfits. Or, at least, we think, until somehow, we end up embroiled in some ridiculous 1920's mad scientist plot, from which the show goes down the drain.

Xam'd Lost Memories is a BONES original production. It's noteworthy because it's their 20th anniversary project and it's really, really good. But, no one can watch it, because it's exclusively available on the Playstation Network, so you'll need a PS3 to watch it. It's unfortunate, because the style oozes Eureka Seven and the quality of the animation, story, characters, and setting are all on par with and could possibly exceed E7.

Casshern Sins is a reboot of the old 80's series Casshern. Somewhat ironically, it has some of the best animation and visuals of the year, with a beautiful, unique style. The story and atmosphere are incredibly dark, and at the moment, it's episodic, following Casshern as he explores the shattered world, running into random people and robots. Biggest surprise of the fall season for me.

CLANNAD After Story has been off to a slow start, but once the story tied up the School Life arcs and went into the After Story proper, I can begin to see hints of the tragedy that will befall Tomoya and Nagisa. I'm really pleased with the first few episodes of the actual After Story arc (episode 10 and onward) and can't wait for more of what's considered to be Key's best work.

Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter was something that I was really looking forward to. Having read the manga, I was disappointed with the pacing of the first half of the series, but the last arc was very well done and I'd wished that the rest of the season had been done that way. Here's to looking forward to the third season next year.

So, what sorts of things were noteworthy in your anime watchings this past year?

[ilikegir33]

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. 'Nuff said. It needs to come out NOW!

Oh, and Rosario + Vampire too. Surprisingly close to the manga.

Zoku: Goodbye Zetsubou Sensei and Goku: Goodbye Zetsubou Sensei proved a very worthy conclusion to one of my favorite series, which is also on the top of my "Anime that need to be licensed NOW" list.

Also, Hakaba Kitaro, which is an adaptation of Gegege no Kitaro that is closer to the manga, was one of the best horror anime I've seen since the Mononoke arc of Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales.

And Ghost in the Shell 2.0 was a definite improvement on GitS.

A disappointment for me was Vexille. I wanted it to be good, because I absolutely LOVED the movie Appleseed and SORI's other films. However, Vexille was just too slow, too weird and overall not that good. But it did have a lot of eye candy.

[MasterDias]

Alright, I'll bite. I've only really been following shows for a few seasons as well.

Nijuu Mensou no Musume starts off with a pretty interesting premise: a famous thief whisks the oppressed daughter of a rich family away and trains her in the art of high thievery and we see her adventures with his band of misfits. Or, at least, we think, until somehow, we end up embroiled in some ridiculous 1920's mad scientist plot, from which the show goes down the drain.

I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would, despite the occasional campy vibe. But I never could figure out what year this was supposed to be set in. I can swear that everything looks like 1930s Europe/America, even though it's supposed to be located in Japan, presumably in the 1950s.

Xam'd Lost Memories, etc.

Yeah, it's going to be a waste if Sony doesn't release this on DVD.

Casshern Sins, etc.

I want to like this more than it's letting me. It has great atmosphere and pretty awesome style. But I've gotten a bit tired of the "Casshern meets random one-shot characters" at this point and wish it would get on with the main story.

Also...

Macross Frontier was the first Macross series I had seen(Not counting Robotech, which doesn't really count anyway...). The characters were fun and the space battles were pretty spectacular and overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Too bad that it's rather questionable as to whether this will ever be licensed.

Birdy the Mighty: Decode aired during the summer with a sequel announced for this winter. It was a solid action/sci fi series that got pretty favorable reviews. Also seems an obvious shoe in for licensing.

Tales of the Abyss is currently running. I'm going to avoid promoting this too much, as I'm a fan of the game. But, it's been a solid adaptation so far.

Tytania is space opera from the Legend of Galactic Heroes guy. I suspect must people probably got turned off by the overload of bishounen and the slow pace on the first episode. I am somewhat concerned that for a 26 episode series, at ten episodes in it still feels like it's only just starting, but otherwise, it's been an interesting watch thus far.

[minakichan]

Gotta say, most of the stuff I started this year wasn't that great.

Finished off Shion no Ou from the last year. That was a good series, great plot twists.
Amatsuki was unexpectedly not bad-- cliché, but quite gripping, with great characters. Special A and Itazura na Kiss were entertaining shoujo but VERY vapid.
Nodame 2 was expectedly good. Toradora! was entertaining and fun and cute, but not groundbreaking at all. Kuroshitsuji is really annoying but I'll stick to it, I suppose.

Overall, I feel like there was an abnormally large number of better-than-average series, but nothing that was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. A good year.

[EricTheFred]

S-A, Kure-Nai, Birdy the Mighty, Soul Eater, all greatness.

I kind-of enjoyed "Mission-E", although it didn't live up to "Code-E" (the original).

I've just stumbled across "Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka" and I'm absolutely hooked. Finally a really good Winter Season item.

(If you haven't seen this yet, it started out just a series of stock anime scenes... but after a while, you go 'Waiiiit a minute! They're doing this on purpose!' Once I understood it was intentional, I couldn't stop laughing. When I got to a scene where the Male Protagonist is being attacked by the Female Protagonist, and his imoto suddenly started delivering the obligatory fight scene intensely-serious play-by-play, I thought I was going to pass out.)

Finished off Shion no Ou from the last year. That was a good series, great plot twists.

Shion was wonderful stuff. I'm hoping it gets marketed here.