Anime Apocalypse Anticlimax: 2012 - A year in review - Sword Art Online Saved Anime!
PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:46 pm
So, tomorrow marks the end of the year 2012. Anime did not end even though it was supposed to! Yay! Sword Art Online was so amazing everyone decided that we should keep watching it after all.
In reality, several interesting things happened this year, and a lot of good anime came out this year (same as every year). Some notable events for me this year include:
1) The return of Shinichiro Watanabe with Kids on the Slope! I know I am not the only one who was really excited to see him back in action and surprisingly, in spite of eh disc sales for Slope Kids he'll be back next year with Space Dandy, a sci-fi comedy from Bones. Interestingly enough, in spite of anyone who knows anything being able to tell you Cowboy Bebop wasn't popular in Japan, the BD set that was just released did 14k copies, a huge number and higher than many successful shows that came out this year.
2) Hosoda saves anime for real with Wolf Children of Rain and Snow, which did extraordinarily well at the box office and since everyone seemed to love it, will do extraordinarily well on DVD/BD sales.
3) We begin to see the fruits of Aniplex throwing everything they have into Urobuchi with the currently-airing Psycho-Pass, which appears to not be doing so well on the sales side and is probably a pretty big disappointment for them. He has another show coming up in Spring that looks to be about the polar opposite of Psycho-Pass in addition to a movie from the 2003 FMA's Mizushima where we'll see if Madoka and F/Z will be his only hits.
4) Interestingly enough, as mentioned here we're now seeing some interesting results from the Anime no Chikara project that happened way back in 2010. I think it's really interesting that even though all the AnC projects flopped they paved the way for a lot of the original titles that are now coming out, though admittedly we'll see now if the financial failures of a couple of the Aniplex original titles this year (tsuritama and Psycho-Pass come to mind) will mean an end to the brief springtime from Madoka, Ano Hana, and Guilty Crown.
5) Kick-Heart got funded, so this is cool if you're a Yuasa fan or really like Kickstarter.
Well, my memory is apparently bad and I can only think of these four as big deals, so post whichever news events you think are important too!
So, for good/notable shows this season I think we did alright. Hyouka was fantastic and wonderful and lovely in all the right ways and will remain a favorite from now-on. tsuritama was very close to my heart and I am pretty excited to have it in my hot sweaty hands when Sentai puts it out. Kids on the Slope and Chihayafuru were touching and great dramas, and we got the Itano-circus half of Fate/Zero. Magi has been really fun and I've been enjoying Tempest even if some people are down on it. I think I can speak for everyone about how surprisingly good Bodacious Space Pirates ended up, and Ano Natsu de Matteru had good yelling drama. Humanity Has Declined and Shin Sekai Yori are both there if you like things that are weird, albeit in opposite ways, and I liked both of them quite a bit. SAO was pretty dumb but it had SWORDS to the background of Yuki Kajiura music so who am I to complain?
So, how was 2012 for the rest of you all? What are you predicting/anticipating in the next year?
In reality, several interesting things happened this year, and a lot of good anime came out this year (same as every year). Some notable events for me this year include:
1) The return of Shinichiro Watanabe with Kids on the Slope! I know I am not the only one who was really excited to see him back in action and surprisingly, in spite of eh disc sales for Slope Kids he'll be back next year with Space Dandy, a sci-fi comedy from Bones. Interestingly enough, in spite of anyone who knows anything being able to tell you Cowboy Bebop wasn't popular in Japan, the BD set that was just released did 14k copies, a huge number and higher than many successful shows that came out this year.
2) Hosoda saves anime for real with Wolf Children of Rain and Snow, which did extraordinarily well at the box office and since everyone seemed to love it, will do extraordinarily well on DVD/BD sales.
3) We begin to see the fruits of Aniplex throwing everything they have into Urobuchi with the currently-airing Psycho-Pass, which appears to not be doing so well on the sales side and is probably a pretty big disappointment for them. He has another show coming up in Spring that looks to be about the polar opposite of Psycho-Pass in addition to a movie from the 2003 FMA's Mizushima where we'll see if Madoka and F/Z will be his only hits.
4) Interestingly enough, as mentioned here we're now seeing some interesting results from the Anime no Chikara project that happened way back in 2010. I think it's really interesting that even though all the AnC projects flopped they paved the way for a lot of the original titles that are now coming out, though admittedly we'll see now if the financial failures of a couple of the Aniplex original titles this year (tsuritama and Psycho-Pass come to mind) will mean an end to the brief springtime from Madoka, Ano Hana, and Guilty Crown.
5) Kick-Heart got funded, so this is cool if you're a Yuasa fan or really like Kickstarter.
Well, my memory is apparently bad and I can only think of these four as big deals, so post whichever news events you think are important too!
So, for good/notable shows this season I think we did alright. Hyouka was fantastic and wonderful and lovely in all the right ways and will remain a favorite from now-on. tsuritama was very close to my heart and I am pretty excited to have it in my hot sweaty hands when Sentai puts it out. Kids on the Slope and Chihayafuru were touching and great dramas, and we got the Itano-circus half of Fate/Zero. Magi has been really fun and I've been enjoying Tempest even if some people are down on it. I think I can speak for everyone about how surprisingly good Bodacious Space Pirates ended up, and Ano Natsu de Matteru had good yelling drama. Humanity Has Declined and Shin Sekai Yori are both there if you like things that are weird, albeit in opposite ways, and I liked both of them quite a bit. SAO was pretty dumb but it had SWORDS to the background of Yuki Kajiura music so who am I to complain?
So, how was 2012 for the rest of you all? What are you predicting/anticipating in the next year?