It is not, however, a post about individual character designs that I like. Indeed, there are a lot of shows that produce a single object of my adoration, or perhaps even a handful, but who do not extend this visual pleasure to the rest of the cast. One thing about the anime being produced today in the name of selling character goods is that most shows try and appeal to a broad range of people. For instance, while I love the designs of Lynette, Sanya, and Hartmann from Strike Witches, I am not as much a fan of the other designs, as they don’t hit into my ‘strike [witches] zone’. Even in a case like Bakemonogatari where I love most of the designs, I am still turned off by enough characters that I cannot truly say that I ‘love the character designs in Bakemonogatari.’ Therefor, I present this as a list of my favorite shows wherein I loved the designs of the entire cast.

Shana is one of my favorite designs, but I don't care for most of the other characters in the series.

Some Notes About My List:

- I find school uniforms quite boring. I am inclined not to like the designs as much if everyone wears a uniform, though I make exceptions if the characters wear enough alternative outfits.
- This list does not include manga, and also does not include instances wherein the manga art is better than the anime art and would sway my decision (thus, no Yoshitoshi ABe series, Ichigo Mashimaro, or Genshiken)
- In cases where I liked multiple shows by the same character designer, I picked the one that I liked most and made notes about the designer in my write-up.
- All art used in this post is official art. Also, I do not know if the Photobucket slideshows will show up in Google Reader.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Character Designer: Nishigori Atsushi

My favorite trio of designs from Gurren Lagann are those of the original team – Simon, Kamina, and Yoko, because they tie together so spectacularly. Simon and Kamina’s blue hair, Kamina’s big blue tatoo, and the blue of Simon’s jacket connect with the deep blue of Yoko’s bikini top and shorts, while Yoko’s blazing red hair and the flames on her top connect to the red trim on Simon’s jacket and Kamina’s fiery cape. Between the three of them, I feel a sense that ‘this is a team’ because of the way they all match and compliment one-another. I want to say that Kittan and his sisters were designed with similar intent, though they all simply wear black. The series introduces many would-be ‘teams’ of characters (such as the extensive crew who all look similarly ridiculous, and of course the villains who all have beast attributes), and this serves to accentuate the fact that Nia does not resemble anyone else in the cast. Cast out by the beastmen and not quite at home with the Lagann crew, she is an anomaly in the series, as reflected in her strange pink dress, two-tone hair, and sparkling eyes.

Everyone in the series is memorable and diverse in appearance, but there are some who stand out from the pack as truly awesome. The first, of course, is Kamina, whose buffness and tattoos make him look both strong and cool, and his lack of a shirt perfectly expresses his headstrong and unafraid nature. His rival, Viral, has everything that one could want in a rival, cool enough to feel like an even match but different enough to stand totally apart from his enemy. Viral’s pointy teeth and constant scowl perfectly convey the boundless rage of a true rival in pursuit of his ultimate enemy. Of course, my favorite design from the series is Nia, particularly young nia after having her hair cut. In a word: adorable.

Baccano!

Character Designer (and other shows that I liked their designs in): Kishida Takahiro (Arjuna, Durarara!!, Koi Kaze, Noein, Serial Experiments Lain)

Kishida Takahiro is one hell of a character designer, and I could have easily put Noein on this list as well if I hadn’t already decided to cover Baccano. The pervading theme behind every design in Baccano is that all of the characters need to be likable and cool. The series makes a point not to select a single main character nor represent one faction as righteous – anyone is allowed to be your favorite and main character, therefor everyone is cool looking and badass. This extends even to supposedly minor characters (though eventually, every character is going to be a main character in Baccano) and does not exclude older men, whose stern faces and cool demeaners ought to appeal to the Kanako Ohnos of the world.

The men are all handsome and well dressed, which has gained the series a large female following, but none of them are too feminine or gay for men to appreciate their coolness. Every character has a unique costume, which are usually quite simple but utterly cool, and just distinct enough that you couldn’t imagine the character without it (for example, Firo’s green tuxedo or Chane Laforet’s black dress). There is a constant feeling of ‘sharpness’ from the characters, which is certainly indicative of the series’ own sharp wit and brilliantly black and bloody comedy. There are far too many characters for me to get into any on a great level, but my favorite design of the bunch is Nice Holystone. There’s a lot going on with Nice, from the burn marks on her body to the glasses that she wears over an eyepatch, but it works stupendously, and her highly attractive red sleeveless top goes splendidly with those black pants that complete the slick and cool appeal.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Character Designer (and other shows that I liked their designs in): Ito Noiji (Original) (Shakugan no Shana, Nanatsuiro Drops), Ikeda Shoko (Adapted)

I have a theory that a truly attractive character (from a sexual standpoint) ought to be one who looks every bit as good with her clothes off as she does with them on. The cast of Haruhi is surely a prime example of that theory in action. I don’t know what it is about the way these characters are drawn that makes them so gorgeous, because I don’t know the technicalities of art and drawing, but I know the result – the girls are insanely fucking hot. It doesn’t really matter what they wear, be it the school uniforms that we usually see them in or any of their slightly less-than-notable street attire – whatever it is, it looks damn good on those girls.

I am not ordinarily a fan of large breasts, but both Haruhi and Mikuru have forced me to make exceptions. The way that Haruhi’s breasts are depicted in scenes where she dons a playboy bunny outfit are simply perfection, man. When I’m not making exceptions, though, I’m all about Yuki, whose smallness and apparent fragility brilliantly betrays her totalitarian power over time and space – yet, even as one becomes aware of that power, they nonetheless cannot separate the feeling of fragility from the character, which continually fuels a drive to protect her. Leaving the girls aside, Kyon and Koizumi are a pair of handsome young men who spawned no small amount of gay love artwork. I particularly enjoy Koizumi’s design because his smiling eyes and constant expressive hand gestures show a deep love for conversation on his part.

Don’t get me started on Kyonko. How the art community managed to create a pseudo-original character who perfectly embodies the design concepts of the series is beyond me, but I fucking love it.

(Continued on page 2)

]]> http://fuzakenna.com/2010/05/21/14-shows-with-kickass-character-designs/feed/ 43 http://fuzakenna.com/2009/12/25/200-anime-worth-taking-with-us-into-the-next-decade/ http://fuzakenna.com/2009/12/25/200-anime-worth-taking-with-us-into-the-next-decade/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:00:38 +0000 21stcenturydigitalboy http://fuzakenna.com/?p=2405

Image by Hokoro: http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=hokoro

The first decade of the formerly-new millennium is coming to a close, so it’s natural that everyone wants to have a go at recollecting it. The biggest trend so far has been talking about some of your favorite, or otherwise all of the noteworthy shows you saw this decade. I thought about doing that, but I realized there was a bigger fish to fry. I’m not just going to talk about some shows I liked – instead, what I have done is compiled a list of every single worthwhile anime of the past decade. I will now take a few paragraphs to explain to you how this was possible.

The idea here is that there are about 200+ shows worth taking with us into the next decade. What does that mean? New fans, upon looking back on the anime they need to see, will often ask things like ‘what are the best 80s or 90s anime?’ When they look back on this decade, there will be an enormous expanse of shows that are not only worthwhile, but easy to find. Let’s take away the guesswork for those people (and many of ourselves, while we’re at it). Let’s create a definitive list of every show worth watching from the past decade and simply let the other shows all fade into the depth of time.

How did I create such a list? A lot of it comes from my own opinion, but I have also read literally hundreds of ‘favorites lists’ in my years as an otaku, and then I went back and looked back at many more for reference while making the list – the wealth of ‘top 50 of the past decade’ lists linked above helped a lot here, too. As such, I have a good sense of what people do or don’t like and what’s popular. Out of the 200 initial shows on this list there are about 70 that I have not seen personally, or have only seen a few episodes of and don’t really know well.

And I am not saying that this is a complete list. If you have more shows to add, by all means, comment and give us the reasons that show should be taken into the next generation, but please read the coming rules first and post your comments in the same format as I am listing the shows. In addition, if you feel that my write-up for a show I haven’t seen is inadequate or nonexistent, you may write one for me and I will edit the post with it. As for what shows to add, don’t just add any old show you ‘kind-of liked’. Add in shows that you honestly would see yourself rewatching years from now, and especially add in any of your favorites that I may have missed.

The initial list I created consisted of about 270 shows with the possibility of being taken with us. 20 of those shows were eliminated from the list (and you can see that original list here, though a great number of changes have been made as this post was being written). The remaining 50-or-so were added onto the list as ‘if-you-liked-this’ placements – in other words, shows that I might not fully recommend, but are still worth watching if you liked the show they are listed next to (you’ll understand when you see it.) I have done a lot of grouping, mostly of different seasons of the same show, but in some cases I combined shows of the same franchise.

THE ORDER OF THE LIST IS COMPLETELY INCONSEQUENTIAL. IT IS BASED ON HOW MUCH I ENJOYED THE SHOWS. Number 200-131 are all anime that I have not seen yet, and therefor are ordered randomly. You should not consider the order of the first 130 an indication of worth, because my tastes are totally varied from yours (you may also consider it a list of my ‘favorite 130 shows of the decade,’ but I still wouldn’t trust the organization.) Suffice it to say, every item on this list, numbered or otherwise, is worth watching for someone. (Incidentally, if you are reading this post in the name of entertainment and not as a contributor, you’ll probably want to skip straight to number 130.) To make it easier to decide if a show is something you want to watch (because even a decade from now, it’ll only be the sickos like me who actually try to watch all 200 shows) I have provided descriptions, genre approximations, and episode counts.

These are the comments I do not want to read: “Why isn’t X on the list?!” – If you want X on the list, do a comment wherein you talk about the show, and that comment will be considered ‘post canon.’ “Why did you put X ahead of X?!” or “Why is X numbered and not X?!” or even “Why is X listed under X?!” – once again, every show on the list is worth watching for someone, the numbers are just my personal feelings. Any comment with these messages will either be deleted or the text be replaced with something like ‘I am a pussy bitch’ or some other odd insult.

ONE MORE NOTE: For a show to be on this list, it must have begun post-1999 (meaning no One Piece, Infinite Ryvius, Turn A Gundam, or Now and Then, Here and There) – keep this rule in mind when adding to the list. I also am not counting Banner of the Stars, the Hunter X Hunter OVA, or anything else that is a direct sequel to something from the previous century. I will, however, include Rurouni Kenshin Tsuiokuhen, because it is such a huge gap and is enjoyable on it’s own.

Anyway, here is my list of the 200 + shows that I think we can bring with us into the next decade. A ‘canon’ if you will, a ‘recommendation database’ perhaps.

200. 30th Gundam Perfect Mission (2-min. short) + Gundam Evolve (15 shorts) + Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (25 eps.) (+ Second Season (25. eps)) + Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO (6 OVA eps) + Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (50 eps) (+Movies, specials, and Destiny (50 eps.)) + Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Record: Avant-Title (7-min. short) (Mecha, Action, Drama, Military) – Every decade is bound to give birth to a wealth of additions to the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, and this one is no exception. Unfortunately, the only additions to the ‘canon’ Gundam (Universal Century) were shorts, but some would say that side stories Gundam Seed and Gundam 00 are worth your time. The inclusion of every Gundam series in the past decade was important because, well, there’s no such thing as an insignificant Gundam anime.

- Overman King Gainer (26 eps.) (Mecha, Action, Military) - Another show from the creator of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino. Overman King Gainer is confusing at best and messy at worst, but big fans of mech anime and especially fans of Yoshiyuki Tomino may find a lot to enjoy in this show. It’s got great production values, character designs, and an amazing opening video, so by all means, give it a try.

199. Macross Frontier (26 eps.) (+ Movie) + Macross Zero (5 eps.) (Mecha, Action, Romance, Drama) - Like Gundam, Macross is one of the most important franchises in anime, and it, too, has it’s fair share of incarnations (though far fewer.) This decade had the prequel OVA Macross Zero and the throwback new anime Macross Frontier which also has a movie in Japanese theaters at the time of this writing. Both series incarnations sport incredible production values and are worthwhile for newcomers and veterans to the franchise alike.

198. Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen on television (26 eps.) (Mecha, Action, Drama, Old-school) – An immensely epic new series in the long-running and precious Mazinger series started by Go Nagai in the 70s. It is directed by one of the greatest directors of our time, Yasuhiro Imagawa, and from what I’ve seen is an unforgettable experience. Fans of epic mech anime need look no further than this series. Also released this decade was the quite nice 7-episode OVA Mazinkaiser from the same franchise.

- Shin Getter Robo (13 eps.) (Mecha, Action, Old-School) – More epic, manly mecha action from a long-running Go Nagai series.

197. Saki (25 eps.) (School, Sports, Drama, Comedy, Fanservice, Yuri) – A show that is as much a sports-style anime as a fanservice series, it has excellent character designs, production values, and yuri overtones on the backdrop of a story about mahjong players moving up the ranks in the pure spirit of shounen sports stories. A good combination that works surprisingly well. Recommended especially to people who know how to play mahjong. Voted 3rd-best anime of 2009 by 2-channel.

- Kanamemo (13 eps.) (Comedy, Fanservice, Yuri) – Another very well-made fanservice show from the same year which had a bigger emphasis on comedy and a much bigger emphasis on yuri overtones (if you can even call them overtones.) Recommended for those who liked Saki mostly for the fanservice and yuri elements.

196. Interstella 5555 (Movie) (Sci-fi, Drama, Music Video) – One of the most unique projects of the decade, Interstella 5555 is like a music video, except it covers an entire album – specifically, the Discovery album by Daft Punk. The movie is also the brainchild of the magnificent Leiji Matsumoto, one of the most esteemed anime creators in history, known especially for the Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yamato, and Galaxy Express 999 series. (The later of which had an incarnation this decade called The Galaxy Railways (26 eps.) (+ Second Season (24 eps.) + Movie) – your mileage may vary with that one.)

- Space Symphony Maetel (13 eps.), Cosmo Warrior Zero (13 eps.) (+ Gaiden (2 eps.)), and Gun Frontier (13 eps.) – More shows based on manga by Leiji Matsumoto. The first of which Matsumoto-fan Anime Kritik tells me is particularly great, and the third of which is the Wild-West version of the Harlock universe, the manga for which is quite amazing. All three series are included for similar reasons to the Macross and Gundam inclusions.

195. K-On! (13 eps) (+ OVA + 7 Short Specials) (School, Comedy, Slice-of-life, Music) – A hugely popular short series from Kyoto Animation, the dominant animation studio of the second half of the decade. Set a record in Japan for blu-ray DVD sales (which was taken months later by Bakemonogatari) and was rated 4th-best anime of 2009 by 2-channel. Recommended to fans of the ‘moe-style’ anime of the decade, especially for it’s high production values and the fact that it is done by Kyoto Animation.

194. Michiko to Hatchin (22 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Drama) - I don’t have a good summary – I will say that the show has excellent production values and is highly unique for being an action-adventure set in Brazil, but I dropped it, so someone else will have to share the plot.

- El Cazador de la Bruja (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Drama) - More fun south-of-the border. This show about 2 girls traveling Mexico and getting into lots of gunfights set to a nice soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura was the only show from studio Bee-Train that I could stand, even though it was still marred by the studio’s terrible production quality and tendency for painstakingly slow-moving stories. Many would consider the show’s sister-series Noir (26 eps.) and Madlax (26 eps.) to be noteworthy as well, but I personally found them intolerable.

193. Mars Daybreak (26 eps.) (Mecha, Action, Adventure, Romance, Comedy) – I don’t know much about this relatively unpopular mecha anime by Studio Bones, but I’ve been told that most people dropped it due to the first few episodes being rather poor and the rest picking up after that. I know some people who swear by the show – your mileage may vary.

192. Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo (26 eps.) (Sci-fi, Comedy, Adventure) – I’ve seen and greatly enjoyed the first two episodes of ‘Sora Kake Girl’, a super-nice-looking show by studio Sunrise that exists mostly as a parody of their other franchises such as Mobile Suit Gundam and Code Geass. It’s a hilarious and fun show with a lot of energy that backs up it’s parodical comedy with a dose of satisfaction.

191. GunParade March (12 eps.) (Mecha, School, Action, Comedy, Romance, Ensemble) – GunParade March is a very strange show with a confusing beginning and an enormous ensemble cast that, in the two episodes I saw, bounces a lot between frantic mecha action and character-driven school comedy/romance. Omo has had it batting around his favorites list claiming that it ‘perfectly captures the concept of ishin-denshin‘.

190. Time of Eve (6 15-minute eps) (Sci-fi, Drama) - An incredibly clever and well-animated short series that gives a fresh take on the robots-becoming-human story trope with the addition of the robot-discrimination trope. The amazing art and lightning-fast dialog bring a new and fresh feel to the table with lots of plot-twists to keep the viewer on their toes.

- Pale Cocoon (Short film) and Mizu no Kotoba (Short film) (Sci-fi, Drama) - Two more splendidly told and animated short stories by Yoshiura Yasuhiro. Both are better watched than explained, and watching both would take less than thirty minutes. The director has done other shorts worth researching while you’re at it.

189. Wolf’s Rain (26 eps.) (+ OVA (4 eps)) (Adventure, Mystery, Drama, Psychological, Romance) – A somewhat unique early project by studio Bones with a very original story and excellent soundtrack by Yoko Kanno. I haven’t really seen it myself, but I’ve read no shortage of emotional responses to it.

188. Kemonozume (13 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Psychological, Supernatural, Romance, Arthouse) – A highly artistic series by studio Madhouse, Kemonozume is a surefire hit for fans of arthouse anime and likely a hit for yakuza fans as well as it deals heavily with gangs. Hard to really describe less because I’ve only seen one episode and more because it’s such a trip.

- Windy Tales (13 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Drama, Fantasy, Supernatural) – Another less-than-heard-of arthouse show, this time by the amazing Production I.G. and directed by all-star master Junji Nishimura. High on my ‘must-see’ list, personally.

187. School Rumble (26 eps.) (+ Second Season (26 eps.) + OVAs (4 eps.)) (School, Comedy, Romance) – A very popular school comedy series about a love triangle – I know almost nothing about the show.

186. Moyashimon (11 eps.) (Comedy, College, Supernatural) – A very strange and hilarious show about a guy who can literally see microbes – they appear to him as adorable little creatures. The series revolves around this young man and the characters around him who are all very strange generally going about being strange – I unfortunately haven’t seen much of it myself, mostly just heard the good reviews from everyone else.

185. Jyu Oh Sei (11 eps.) (Sci-fi, Action, Adventure, Drama, Thriller) – An excellent and fast-paced thriller with superb production values from studio BONES. It’s a lost-in-space adventure about two identical twins on the run who are hit by constant perils and plot twists that keep the viewer on their toes. I haven’t finished it, but what I saw lead me to believe that just about anyone would love this show.

184. Chrno Crusade (24 eps.) (Action, Romance, Supernatural) – Very popular but very average action series that is famous for it’s incredibly sad ending. I don’t know too much because I dropped it early on, but I know it is widely loved.

183. Kekkaishi (52 eps.) (Adventure, Comedy, Action, Romance, Fantasy) – Another show that I haven’t seen (but want to) that I’ve commonly seen referred to as ‘the only shounen action series that gets better the longer you go.’ The manga has also been praised by master translator Andrew Cunningham, which I see as a sure sign of quality. I’ve also seen the show referred to as one of the most overlooked shounen series of the decade.

182. Bokura ga Ita (26 eps) (Drama, Romance) – I really don’t know anything about this show except that it’s a shoujo romance directed by the great Akitaro Daichi and appears on a GREAT deal of favorites lists.

181. Fantastic Children (26 eps.) (Advenure, Sci-fi, Drama, Old-school) - I’ve read some divided opinions about this show, but many of the people who have seen it consider it amazing and worry that it is brutally overlooked and underrated. I read a review once saying that the characters call each-others’ names a lot and I’ve literally been avoiding it just for that reason, due to a massive personal peeve.

180. Akagi (26 eps.) (Thriller, Game, Old-school) – Akagi is the story of a young mahjong prodigy who descends into the seedy underbelly of crime betting and becomes a sort of dark lord of gambling. The show is extremely intense, keeping the viewer on the edge of your seat, especially if you know how to play mahjong. It also has very interesting and over-the-top visuals courtesy of studio Madhouse.

179. Shikabane Hime: Aka (13 eps.) (+ Kuro (12 eps) + Specials) (Action, Supernatural, Horror) – The last studio Gainax show of the decade, Shikabane Hime has been regarded for it’s sense of tone, visual style, and great action scenes characteristic of Gainax. I’ve liked what I’ve seen, though I haven’t seen much.

178. Shion no Ou (22 eps.) (Mystery, Drama, Game, Thriller) – Mystery-drama involving a mute girl who is a master of shougi and whose parents were murdered when she was five years old – if those things sound disassociated, then welcome to Shion no Ou, an over-the-top mystery drama that’s full of surprises. I never managed to finish it (want to), but my friends who did loved it.

177. Skip Beat! (25 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance) - A very popular shoujo manga-cum-anime about a girl on a quest to take over the entertainment industry. I know little more than that.

176. Lovely Complex (24 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance) - Another popular shoujo series, this one being a very nice-looking and incredibly fast-paced romantic comedy about the developing relationship between a very tall girl and a very short guy. Highly recommended to shoujo romance fans, but I couldn’t handle the fast pace.

175. Jubei-chan the Ninja Girl 2 (13 eps.) (Adventure, Action, Comedy, Samurai, Drama) – I’ve been trying to watch this damn show forever but never gotten around to it. From what I’ve been told, the first series was a rather unoriginal samurai comedy about the female version of Jubei Yagyuu, and the second season is a much better series with amazing fight choreography. I can’t get my damn hands on it, though. Both seasons also directed by the great Akitaro Daichi.

174. Hellsing (13 eps.) (+ Ultimate (6 eps. by the end of the decade)) (Action, Supernatural, Horror) – Hellsing was an amazingly popular dark supernatural show about vampires that was stylish and kicked a good bit of ass. The original anime, while excellent in terms of visual style, dragged the story too much and was made when the manga was fairly new, so it ended up having mostly anime-original content. The Hellsing Ultimate OVA series has better production values, gets to the point faster, and follows the manga’s plot, but due to very sporadic releases it is incomplete as of yet. Possibly the most notable aspect of the series in my opinion is the main character and his rival being voiced by Jouji Nakata and Norio Wakamoto respectively.

- Golgo 13 (50 eps.) (Action, Old-school) - For those who want more dark, pulpy action series, Golgo 13 is where to look. Based on the longest-running manga of all time, the story of a professional sniper who never, ever smiles, fucks a lot of women, and kills a lot of dudes. It’s very silly and very old-school, but it still kicks a lot of ass.

173. Gakuen Alice (26 eps.) (Mahou Shoujo, Comedy, School) – I admittedly know little about this show besides that it is cute and I want to watch it, and some people told me it’s good.

172. Chobits (26 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance, Fanservice) – A wildly popular show based on a manga by CLAMP, who have a tendency to produce wildly popular shows. I’ve only ever seen a little bit and enjoyed it quite a lot, but I know that there is a lot to the plot I do not know. Easily one of the most widely loved shows of the decade.

- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (26 eps.) (+ Second Season (26 eps.) + Movie + OVAs (5 eps.)) and Angelic Layer (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Comedy, Romance) – Two other CLAMP shows from this decade, sharing Chobits’ distinction of being very equally loved by girls and guys alike.

171. Hataraki Man (11 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance, Slice-of-life) – Dude, I had seriously never even heard of this show until all those top 50 lists started and I saw it appear several times in fairly prominent positions. Guess I need to check it out!

170. Chi’s Sweet Home (104 3-minute eps) (+ New Address (104 3-minute eps)) (Comedy, Slice-of-life) – Ultra-short bites of life from a cute little kitten. While there are a lot of little cute shows like this put out like this in Japan, the Chi series was especially popular even in America and can even be watched free on Crunchyroll.

- Neko Ramen (12 5-minute eps.) (Comedy) – Another excellent series of short episodes about a talking cat, only this time the cat owns a ramen shop. Neko Ramen is particularly memorable for being made entirely in Flash and having a different animation style in each episode.

169. Gilgamesh (26 eps.) (Drama, Supernatural, Sci-fi) – Gilgamesh is a strange enigma of a show. It is a darker-than-dark urban fantasy that moves at an odd pace and doesn’t like to show it’s hand much to the viewer. In the few episodes I’ve seen, the only thing that was really clear was that nothing was really clear. It also has some very unique and interesting character designs that may make or break your viewing experience.

168. Mononoke (12 eps.) (Fantasy, Mystery, Horror, Arthouse) - Easily one of the best and most loved arthouse anime of the decade, Mononoke is a thrilling experience like no other with stunning experimental visuals that will knock you off your feet. It can take some getting used to the very odd designs, but when the intense experimental animation kicks in, it’s sure to take away any doubts you have. It’s also one of the only genuinely chilling horror anime I’ve seen.

167. Full Moon wo Sagashite (52 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance, Supernatural, Music) – A popular shoujo tale of a 12-year-old girl dying of a particular throat illness that is crushing her dreams to become a singer and one day meet a boy she made a promise to years ago. She is told by angels of death that she only has a year to live, but they give her the power to transform into a 16-year-old singing diva so that she can follow her dreams before she dies. I’ve been told it’s a very touching story.

166. Eden of the East (11 eps.) (Thriller, Mystery, Comedy, Action, Romance, Sci-fi) - A man wakes up naked beside the white house with a gun in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and no memory. He encounters a young Japanese tourist and on their way back to Tokyo he becomes acquainted with the fact that his cell phone is tapped into a bank account with about 80 million dollars in it, and commands he makes to the phone are issued instantly. This is the crazy would-be-modern world of Eden of the East, a hugely popular show from studio Production I.G. and the director who worked on Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and Seirei no Moribito (meaning, of course, that the production values are ungodly high.)

165. Taishou Yakyuu Musume (12 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Sports, School) – A cute and interesting show set in 1920′s Japan about a group of girls who decide to do away with the old era’s ideas of femininity by learning to play baseball. With an all-star staff and cast, the show perfectly captures the chaotic ideas flying around in the Taishou era (the fusion of Japanese and Western culture looks almost hilarious in places) while providing a fun and cute experience.

164. Argento Soma (25 eps.) (+ OVA) (Mecha, Military, Sci-fi, Drama, Action, Adventure) – One of the early mecha anime of the decade, Argento Soma has largely flown under the radar but has been met with relatively high acclaim by many who have seen it. It is a tale of revenge and mecha with really wacked-out character designs – I haven’t managed to see it myself, though.

163. Cross Game (50 eps?) (Sports, Comedy, Drama, Romance, School, Old-school) – The latest baseball-centered masterpiece adaption of a Mitsuru Adachi manga (every decade seems to get one, starting with Touch, the anime with the highest TV ratings of all time). From the very first dramatic episode, it shows it’s teeth as yet another legendary great.

162. GA ~Geijutsuka Art Design Class~ (12 eps.) (Comedy, School) - Based on a 4-koma manga, GA is a semi-instructional comedy about cute girls in their art class with most of the jokes revolving around the study and practice of art. The anime makes interesting use of color and fun animation techniques as well with excellent comedic timing, no doubt thanks to being from the same director as Cromartie High School.

161. Yakitate!! Japan (72 eps.) (Comedy, Food) – A hilarious shounen manga adaption about a boy with ‘solar hands’ who aspires to create a legendary type of bread called the ‘Ja-pan’ (because ‘pan’ means bread in Japanese). Structured like a shounen tournament anime but with great jokes and some really trippy moments when people experience the euphoric effects of the character’s cooking.

160. Hikaru no Go (75 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Game, Supernatural) – Yet another shounen adaption, this one from the popular manga by Takeshi Obata. It is about a young boy who gains an interest in Go thanks to a supernatural entity housed in a Go board that he finds. Recommended especially to people who know how to play Go.

159. Ga-Rei -Zero- (12 eps.) (Action, Drama) – A dark urban fantasy told in an out-of-order style with excellent animation and some truly badass fights, Ga-Rei is a real shocker with an opening episode that will knock your socks off. Plus has some very nice yuri overtones.

158. Basilik: Kouga Ninpou Chou (24 eps.) (Action, Drama, Samurai, Supernatural) – Based on the classic romeo and juliet-style romance between members of warring ninja clans that also inspired the live-action film ‘Shinobi’, Basilisk is a bloody tale of supernaturally-powered ninja fighters with well-animated and executed fights on the backdrop of a dramatic and sorrowful story of love.

157. Monster (74 eps.) (Thriller, Drama, Psychological, Mystery) – Based on the manga by the immensely popular master of suspense, Naoki Urusawa, Monster is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride of twists, turns, and insanity though murder and intrigue. One of the most universally loved shows of the decade with an ultra-high ratio of ‘watched’ to ‘favorited’.

156. Aoi Bungaku Series (12 eps.) (Thriller, Drama, Psychological, Historical) – An interesting experiment by Madhouse where in they have adapted 6 classic Japanese novels into anime arcs, each with their own director and character designer. As a bonus, the stories tend to have a psychological tinge that lends to intense storytelling.

155. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (11 eps.) (Drama, Disaster) - Studio Bones’s show about the event of a magnitude 8.0 earthquake hitting Tokyo and the journey of a young girl and her brother trying to get home in the post-disaster chaos. Bones’s idea was to create a realistic depiction of the post-disaster Tokyo, and the result was an extremely emotional tale that captured the hearts of many viewers during it’s run.

154. Aoi Hana (11 eps.) (Drama, Yuri, Romance, School) – A calm, quaint romance tale about two high school girls who fall in love. Known especially for it’s style, wherein animation and storytelling work together beautifully as brought about by the same team who created the splendid Honey and Clover.

- Sasameki Koto (13 eps.) (Drama, Comedy, Yuri, Romance, School) – Seen by many as a spiritual successor to Aoi Hana due to it’s airing directly afterward and keeping the excellence and drama represented in the other show. Sasameki Koto is also bolstered up by incredible directing and the unique aspect of some openly lesbian characters. The very first episode nearly brought me to tears.

153. Kemono no Souja Erin (50 eps.) (Drama, Fantasy) – A visually stunning Production I.G. anime about a young girl who can control beasts with a sort of musical instrument and finds herself involved in a war between countries. In spite of being based on a novel from the same author as Seirei no Moribito and being done by the same studio as well as largely being broadcast for free on Crunchyroll, the show always went nearly unnoticed by American audiences.

152. Bokurano (24 eps.) (Psychological, Drama, Mecha) – A horrifically brutal show about a class of kids who find themselves involved in a game to pilot an enormous mecha and save the world at the cost of each of them dying one by one in the process. Notorious for the fact that the anime director hated the original manga, it has some differences from the manga that promote fans to ask that both versions be viewed to decide which you enjoy more.

- Shadow Star Naru Taru (13 eps.) (Psychological, Drama, Sci-fi, Action, Horror) - Another horrifying kid-killing show adapted from a manga by Kitoh Mohiro, this one was even more unfortunate because the original manga was 13 volumes long and the anime only ran for 13 episodes before awkwardly cutting off. Even still, though, the anime has managed to garner a good deal of fans.

151. Terra e… (24 eps.) (Sci-fi, Adventure, Drama, Old-school) - An epic space drama based on a classic mange from the 70s. That is unfortunately all I really know.

150. Asatte no Houkou (12 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Drama, Supernatural) - From what I’ve heard, a very heartwarming show about a little girl and an older girl who change bodies, but I don’t really know much about this one either.

149. Le Chevalier d’Eon (24 eps.) (Mystery, Drama, Historical, Supernatural) - A strange tale from the 1800s of Europe involving demonic cults and political intrigue – however, I once more don’t know that much. It was highly critically acclaimed, having been picked as the ‘anime of the year’ once by Anime Insider back when they existed.

148. FLAG (13 eps.) (Mecha, Military) – FLAG takes the concept of a ‘real robot’ anime and makes it really real. Excellent production values bring the show to life, and the realistic character and mecha designs add to the feeling that this show is very perfectly feasible. It’s also got a pretty good modern-style war story with the interesting technique of being told entirely through camera lenses.

147. Ayakashi -Japanese Classic Horror- (11 eps.) (Horror, Arthouse, Fantasy) - Primo arthouse work that would later spawn the excellent spin-off series Mononoke. Ayakashi is tantalizing and eye-popping horror with intense and unique visual style.

146. Glass Mask (51 eps.) (Drama, Old-school) – Based on a classic 70s shoujo manga – that and the fact that it’s very well-liked are about all I can tell you I’m afraid.

145. Phoenix (13 eps.) (Adventure, Drama, Historical, Supernatural, Old-school) - Based on what is commonly considered Osamu Tezuka’s true masterpiece, the classic Hi no Tori manga, Phoenix is the most modern adaption and the longest. …And that’s all I know.

144. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (26 eps.) (+ Solid State Society (movie) + The Laughing Man (movie) + 2nd Gig (26 eps.) + Individual Eleven (movie) + Tachikomatic Days (about 50 shorts)) (Sci-fi, Action, Mecha, Military) – A series based on the classic GitS franchise, and one of the most critically acclaimed series of the decade by a long-shot. Taking the style of the original movie but removing the pretentiousness of Mamoru Oshii, the show creates a more accessible but equally intriguing sci-fi world of wonders. Is estimated to be one of the highest-budget TV anime ever made, with the amazing Production I.G. behind it’s wheels.

143. Natsume Yuujinchou (13 eps.) (+ Zoku- (13 eps.)) (Supernatural, Drama, Slice-of-life) - A very subdued and low-key show about an awkward and lonely boy who has been able to see spirits for his entire life. He finds out that his grandma was an uber-asshole and trapped the souls of a bunch of ghosts by stealing their names. Now it’s up to the guy to give all the names back to the ghosts and hopefully make some friends in the process. From the excellent director of Baccano! and Koi Kaze.

142. Victorian Romance Emma (12 eps.) (+ Molders Hen (12 eps.) + special) (Drama, Historical, Romance) – Set in the 1800s, it is a tale of a gentry man who falls in love with a lowly maid and has to fight against the shackles of class and wealth to be with her. A cult favorite.

141. Azumanga Daioh! (26 eps.) (+ The Very Short Movie + Web Daioh) (School, Comedy) – Easily one of, if not THE biggest comedy anime of the decade, AzuDai has been insanely popular and still retains much of that popularity to this day, largely for introducing the spastic and fun style of 4-koma manga to American viewers, and delivering the almighty comedy Goddess character, Osaka.

- Hyakko! (13 eps) (+ OVA) (School, Comedy) – Many shows of this decade have been compared to AzuDai and Hyakko! is no more or less similar than any of the others, but it certainly is part of the trend of school comedy shows that rely on their odd characters and wacky sense of humor.

140. Saikano (13 eps.) (+ Another Love Song (2 eps.)) (Sci-fi, Drama, Romance, School) - A guy falls in love with a girl who happens to be a WMD. I don’t know much about this show except that it’s supposed to be massively depressing and is pretty well-liked by those who were emotionally rocked by it.

139. Tentai Senshi Sunred (26 13-minute eps.) (+ Sequel (26 113-minute eps.)) (Comedy, Parody) – A parody of the old-school tokusatsu shows, only where the ‘hero’ is a complete jackass and the ‘villain’ is a totally nice guy. And there’s not really any fighting going on. Hilarity.

- Gyagu Manga Biyori (12 5-minute eps.) (+ Season 2 (12 5-minute eps.) + Season 3 (12 5-minute eps.)) (Comedy) – Very, VERY strange comedy short anime. The title. ‘a good day for gag manga’, really says it all. That and the opening video.

138. Beck (26 eps.) (Music, Comedy, Drama) – Part coming-of-age story and part coming-of-band story, it’s the tale of a high-school kid who doesn’t really know what he wants out of life until he meets a bad-ass band member who takes him under his wing and tries to teach him a thing or two about life. The band life, however, is always full of drama and as many pitfalls as uplifting moments, which this show excellently respects.

137. Fruits Basket (26 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Romance, Supernatural, School) – Probably the most popular shoujo anime of the decade in the US and based off of the highest-selling corresponding shoujo-manga, this reverse-harem anime spawned an insane mass of fangirls and even a considerable number of male fans alike for it’s respectable female protagonist. The plot involves a bunch of boys who can turn into the animals of the zodiac and the drama, comedy, and turbulent romance surrounding their affairs.

- Kyou Kara Maou! (78 eps.) (+ R (5 eps.) + 3rd Series (38 eps.)) (Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure) - Another popular shoujo manga adaption as well as probably the longest of the decade, though it oddly didn’t catch on as well in the US as Fruits Basket did. A story about a (hot of course) guy who gets pulled through a toilet into a fantasy world where he is made king of a country on the brink of war, in spite of his being a pacifist. And apparently there’s lots of homoerotic overtones or something, but I haven’t seen it myself.

136. Kaiba (13 eps.) (Arthouse, Adventure, Drama, Romance, Sci-fi) – Probably the most insane and unique arthouse anime of the decade and certainly the most experimental, Kaiba wowed with it’s unequivocal visual style, shocked with it’s memorable moments and plot twists, and surprised with a story that was far deeper and more emotional than anyone would have expected from an arthouse production. It had very nice budget values by Madhouse, to boot!

- Hakaba Kitarou (11 eps.) (Horror, Supernatural, Arthouse) - Based on the classic manga GeGeGe no Kitarou who’s adaptions usually tend to be aimed more at kids, this far darker take on the story imbued into it many arthouse and devilishly creepy elements to make it all the more an exciting experience. Perhaps the only anime I’d dare call ‘Burton-esque’.

135. Souten Kouro (26 eps.) (Action, Historical, Adventure) - One of the most criminally overlooked shows of the decade to the point that I don’t even think it’s done getting subbed yet. Souten Kouro is the adaption of a long-running and popular manga about the legend of the 3 kingdoms as told from Cao Cao’s perspective. This show is probably one of the most manly ever created, giving stuff like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hokuto no Ken a run for their money. It is also insanely turbo-violent and awesome. BUT IT STILL ISN’T FINISHED BEING SUBBED.

- Sengoku Basara (13 eps.) (Action, Historical) - Based on a popular game franchise, Sengoku Basara is an insanely over-the-top tale of the Sengoku era of Japanese history like you’ve never seen it before. Featuring amazing Production I.G. animation and a cast of awesome voice actors, SenBasa is a fun and crazy ride that thrives on manliness and pure action. Great for people who want something crazy, mindless, and manly.

134. Tokyo Godfathers (Movie) (Drama, Comedy) – A movie by legendary genius director Satoshi Kon about a group of homeless people in Tokyo who find and abandoned baby and try to use the clues left with it to bring it home. That is, sadly, all I know.

133. Paprika (Movie) (Sci-fi, Thriller, Psychological, Mystery) - Another movie from the great Satoshi Kon, this one about a machine that lets you enter the world of dreams, those who would use this for evil, and those trying to stop them. Once again, however, I unfortunately have not seen it.

132. Saiunkoku Monogatari (39 eps.) (+ Second Season (39 eps.) + Soushuuhen (4 eps.) + specials) (Adventure, Fantasy, Historical, Drama Romance) – I’m afraid that all I know about this show is that it is a very well-liked historical romance with reverse-harem qualities.

131. Summer Wars (Movie) (Comedy, Sci-fi) – Coming just at the end of the decade, it is the first true post-breakthrough work from one of the biggest up-and-coming directors, Mamoru Hosada. I’d tell you more, but I haven’t had the pleasure yet~

130. Desert Punk (26 eps.) (Comedy, Fanservice, Action , Adventure, Sci-fi) - Desert Punk may be the only show that I will freely admit is worth watching dubbed in spite of not being worth watching in Japanese. What Funimation basically did was take an incredibly mediocre Gonzo show about action, adventure, and tits, and transform it into a hilarious and raunchy adult comedy that totally scraps the original script in favor of a better one that still works just fine with the show.

129. Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu (26 eps.) (+ Deluxe (6 eps.) + Final (6 eps.)) (Comedy) – A fun, pure spaz comedy set in the Jungle where all kinds of weird shit happens. It’s a gag/parody comedy along the lines of Excel Saga or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, though while the jokes can be a little edgey, the show has a lighter tone and broader appeal (I say because for a good while it was my youngest brother’s favorite show when he was about 10.) It’s very screwball but unique and worth checking out just to see something you probably haven’t quite seen before.

- Kyouran Kazoku Nikki (26 eps.) (Comedy) - Very much like Hare and Guu, it is an oddball comedy that could be enjoyed by everyone. Like Hare and Guu, Kyouran has a lot of strong themes about family, though it can be a little more dramatic with these themes than Hare and Guu tends to be.

128. La Maison en Petit Cubes (12-minute short) (Drama) - Won the 2008 Academy Award for best animated short! A very tight drama about a world that has been covered in water and an old man who, swimming down through the water, remembers fragments of his long past with the filling world. Surprisingly heart-string-pulling for a film so short.

- The Diary of Tortov Roddle (6 3-minute episodes) (Fantasy, Adventure) - A series of shorts from the same team that made Petit Cubes and done in the same unique art style, Tortov Roddle is a highly imaginative fantasy tale done in a very classic children’s-book style.

127. Rozen Maiden (12 eps.) (+Traumend (12 eps.) + Overture (2 eps.)) (Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Supernatural) - Based on a manga by the team-authors Peach Pit who were particularly popular in this decade, Rozen Maiden is an odd tale about a young hikkikomori who loves to order stuff in the mail and then return it for no real reason. When he orders a certain doll, it turns out to be alive, and is supposed to fight a bunch of other dolls in some sort of battle thing. Through the battles and his relationship with the dolls, the boy will slowly come out of his shell of being a really angsty hikkikomori. While the show is a little confused and not always great, it’s good entertainment and was wildly popular when it came out. It is also the directorial debut of one of my favorite directors, Matsuo Kou.

- Shakugan no Shana (24 eps) (+ II (25 eps.) + Movie + 9 special shorts + 5 OVA eps) (Action, Romance, Drama, Comedy) – Shakugan no Shana could hardly be called the pinnacle of quality, being the epitome of a late-night anime with poor pacing and directing on top of a story that seems to progressively get worse until bottoming out in the second season and then supposedly getting better again midway through it (I never got that far), however Shana caries a certain charm in it’s fun character(s) and somewhat interesting plot that are at least enough to trick you into watching the whole show. …Anyway, it was and still is extremely popular and there’s even a third season on the way, so it must have done something very right.

126. .hack//SIGN (26 eps.) (Mystery, Adventure, Drama) – The .hack franchise that began with a series of four games and this original anime has since become an overblown mass of ridiculous proportions with more games, anime, manga, and novels than I can easily believe were made for one series in just one decade. For hardcore fans of the franchise, there’s surely something to love about all of these alternate stories (most of which are pretty much clones of the original with a slight twist anyway), but none can quite match the ingenuity and intrigue that made the original so much more interesting than Bee-Train’s production quality would ordinarily allow. .hack//SIGN can widely be considered the setter of the ‘story inside of a game world’ trend that was left in it’s wake, and those who saw the show back when it was airing can surely tell you how in spite of how slow and meandering the plot was, the truly interesting mystery had then compelled to keep on going.

- Pandora Hearts (25 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Supernatural, Fantasy, Mystery) - Tonally similar to .hack and with another great Yuki Kajiura OST, Pandora Hearts is the strange tale of duke heir Oz Bezarius who, on the day of his coming-of-age ceremony, is abruptly taken into some kind of crazy shadow-world called the ‘abyss’ where he meets the mysterious Alice and begins a dark and trippy journey.

125. Death Note (37 eps.) (Thriller, Psychological, Drama) - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s hugely popular Death Note manga took the world by storm with a truly unbelievable anti-hero and his epic web of plans and lies to hold a sort of war for the world’s soul against the ultimate detective and win. The Death Note anime was guaranteed for success with a huge-budget production and brilliant directing that pushed the insane drama of the series to the next level and, as expected, drew in a worldwide audience that is one of the decade’s largest. My only personal beef with Death Note is that once you’ve seen/read the story once, it looses a lot of it’s heavy dramatic impact, but it still certainly delivered on a number of truly unforgettable scenes.

124. Mind Game (movie) (Arthouse) – Mind Game is the Ultimate arthouse anime movie of the decade, maybe of all time. It’s a completely insane mindfuck of zany animation styles and absurd plots that can’t really be described – it can only be experienced for yourself.

- Ani*Kuri 15 (15 0ne-minute shorts) (arthouse) – Un-Abbreviated as ‘Anime Creators 15′, this is a series of shorts developed by every major anime studio (such as Madhouse, Production I.G., Gonzo, and Studio 4c) with directing from many of the biggest names in the field (such as Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Renji Murata, Makoto Shinkai, and Shouji Kawamori) – mandatory viewing for any creator-fags like myself~

123. The Twelve Kingdoms (45 eps.) (Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Political, Action) – Probably the most critically-acclaimed fantasy show of the decade, 12 Kingdoms is the tale of a very timid and awkward girl who gets taken to a fantasy world and is pretty much dropped in with little for support. We see her take to this world and gradually develop into a highly respectable and manly character who eventually becomes a great ruler in the fantasy land. The series is based on a series of novels that has not yet concluded, and due to budget problems, the anime also ended rather abruptly before it could finish it’s planned run. Still, many consider the show to be a fantasy classic already, and it’s relative lack of popularity has given it huge cult favorite status.

- Guin Saga (26 eps.) (Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Drama) – Another epic fantasy series based on an unfinished novel series, though this one is unfinished because at 127 volumes, it was the longest novel series of all time, and the author actually passed away this year, leaving the saga unconcluded. It’s kind of surprising that there wasn’t an anime adaption already, considering that the story of a lion-headed man who awakes without memories in the presence of a runaway young prince and princess from their defeated kingdom has been hugely influential not only to many other stories (such as Berserk) but to many characters modeled after Guin (like King from Tekken.)

122. Amatsuki (13 eps.) (Fantasy, Historical, Supernatural, Slice-of-life) – Amatsuki is an interesting take on the sent-back-to-alternate-history story in that the main character is neither desperate to get back home nor really over-reactant in any way. He pretty much just sees this as a chance to start over and starts enjoying his new life in the past with few questions asked. The guy is so chill and nice that he’s hard not to love and the story seems to take his philosophies as it’s own as it moves along pretty slowly and just kind of does as it pleases rather than trying to adhere to the usual fantasy tropes. Amatsuki’s only real weakness is that it is so short that it doesn’t give you time to really get into it – a second season was planned for the show, but the first one was so completely overlooked that the second one just kind of never happened and only the tiniest handful of people who remembered the first were left scratching their heads and wondering what happened.

121. Bakemonogatari (15 eps.) (Mystery, Romance, Supernatural, Parody, Arthouse) - The best way I can think to descibe Bakemonogatari is that it is an ‘omni-subversion’. It’s like if you took all of the moe anime, all the moe parody anime, all the self-aware moe anime, and all of the shows that subvert moe on purpose, combine them all, and subvert the whole lot of them into something that simultaneously is and isn’t as well as is beyond moe itself. This, my friends, is the essence of Nisioisin, and made double when combined with Akiyuki Shinbo and Shaft. The show is mostly conversation – long and winding conversations about the strangest things wherein the characters will say exactly what you expect them to say, but still in the context that makes it all feel wrong. Okay, I fail, I can’t explain this shit – it’s artsy and brilliant, so go watch it yourself!

120. Brigadoon (26 eps.) (Mecha, Comedy, Action, Drama) – Brigadoon is definitely one of the most offbeat mecha anime I’ve seen, combining wacky slapstick comedy with a dramatic tale of giant robot action. It’s one of those shows that feels kind of off and makes you raise an eyebrow, but is enjoyable for that very strangeness.

119. Uchuu no Stellvia (26 eps.) (Sci-fi, Romance, Action) – Stellvia is a lot like all of those series that take place in a ‘magic academy’ that eventually ends up with the academy joining into some kind of big war, only this time the academy is in space, hundreds of years in the future. It’s not exactly the most unique series, but it is very well done and is notable for featuring one of those rare teen romances that actually makes progress throughout the series.

118. Elfen Lied (13 eps.) (Action, Fanservice, Drama, Romance) – (In)Famous for it’s unparalleled turbo-violence and frequently-nude female characters, Elfen Lied is a show that plays a lot for shock value and is no doubt an answer to the guro and violent sides to the moe trend. It’s half a show about cute young girls bonding together and some kind of strange romance between a feral girl and her caretaker, and half a tale of insane turbo-violence as the girl is an advanced and highly murderous species whose powers and personality issues lead her to mass murder. No, it’s not the classiest affair, but there is surprisingly a lot to like about Elfen Lied, and for all of it’s near-camp levels of shock value, it still manages to be an interesting and at times emotional story with some genuinely likable characters.

117. Kanon 2006 (26 eps.) (Drama, Romance, Comedy, School) – One of Kyoto Animation’s insanely popular adaptions of Key’s visual novels, Kanon was a massive success with incredible production values and a story that took the basics of ‘moe’ storytelling and simply told them in a much better way than any of the other moe anime of the time. It’s nothing particularly unique at all, but the solid writing, directing, acting, and presentation make it worthwhile, more so than many of it’s kin.

- Kanon 2002 (13 eps.) (Drama, Romance, School) – The first Kanon anime made, regarded by some as up to par with or even better than the remake, though also very criticized fro trying to cram a long story into a short series and having far lower production values than it’s remake. Worth checking out for comparison’s sake if you’re a big Kanon fan.

116. Canaan (13 eps.) (Action, Thriller) – Canaan first wowed with it’s amazing production values and fight direction, and then stumped many by suddenly showing that it didn’t take itself very seriously with over-the-top action scenes and a ridiculous plot – however, many fans (such as myself) loved it for these very reasons, as well as for it’s cast of lovable characters (particularly the lovely Canaan).

115. Loveless (12 eps.) (+ 6 specials) (Boy’s Love, Drama, Action, Mystery, Supernatural) – Based on the hugely critically acclaimed boy’s love manga of the same title, Loveless is a tale of drama and fighting for love in some kind of strange war between a bunch of couples, the main one of which is famously gay. The show features excellent directing, animation, and character designs on top of a grabbing drama that even has people like myself with no interest in BL watching it and getting drawn in.

114. Voices of a Distant Star (movie) (Sci-fi, Romance, Drama, Mecha) – The immensely acclaimed breakthrough work by one-man-team Makoto Shikai that instantly put him on the map as one of anime’s big names to look out for. It is a tale of romance during a sci-fi war wherein a couple is put to the emotional test by time and distance. The pair can only communicate by cell phone, but as the girl travels the space-time continuum in her mech, her time is becoming separate from the guy’s and soon text messages that arrive in just days for her are taking years to get to him. A heartbreaking and imaginative modern tale like no other with utterly stunning visuals.

- The Place Promised in Our Early Days (movie) (Sci-fi, Romance, Drama) – The second major work of Makoto Shinkai and in many ways a spiritual sequel to Hoshi no Koe, ‘Beyond the Clouds’ (as it is also known) is a tale of three childhood friends, two of which try to use their knowledge of rocket science to save the dying third. It is the least acclaimed of Shinkai’s three films due to it’s odd pacing, but there are many fans who swear by it as his best film.

113. Dokkoida?! (12 eps.) (Comedy, Action, Sci-fi, Super Sentai) – A cult hit from genius studio UFO Table, who produced so many cult hits in this decade that they could pretty much be called a ‘cult studio.’ Dokkoida?! is about a guy who really needs a job and ends up working for ‘the biggest toy company in the universe’ who want him to be the spokesman/test subject for their new battle armor toy for kids. Donning his armor, he finds himself against a variety of wacky villains, none of whom realizes that the entire lot of them are living in the same apartment building thanks to their hidden identities! Hilarity and ingenuity ensues.

- 2×2=Shinobuden (12 eps.) (Comedy) - Also known as ‘Ninja Nonsense’, another cult hit from UFO Table, this one that plays up the gag comedy a lot more. Shinobuden is an odd show about a girl who is a ninja in training, the random high school girl she essentially kidnaps as her best friend, the infinite ‘Sasuke’ clones who work in the dojo with her, and the perverted yellow blob Onsokamaru who is the instructor, played by Norio Wakamoto. That’s about all you need to know, the rest is just really strange and perverse comedy that very much relies on it’s crazy voice acting.

112. Koi Kaze (13 eps.) (Drama, Romance) - Before I tell you the plot of Koi Kaze, you must understand that this is a dead serious drama/romance. It is superbly written and directed and completely realistic to the point of brilliance. It is the tale of a man in his 20s who is down on his luck in terms of relationships, despite being a wedding planner. His parents divorced when he was very young, and he went with his father, his baby sister going with their mother, and never keeping in contact with him. One day, the man happens to meet a young high school girl who he finds himself having… dangerous feelings toward. He later finds out that this is actually his sister who has come to live with he and his father and, well… it’s a romance. The show is at times extremely unsettling and even hard to watch but at the same time amazing and plausible – probably the best sibling romance anime ever made.

111. Mouryou no Hako (13 eps.) (+ Special) (Mystery, Drama, Supernatural) – Even though I had the nerve to put this in the ‘seen’ section, I can’t tell you shit about Mouryou no Hako. It was getting subbed at the slowest speed possible when it was airing and I only saw the first four episodes, and throughout the plot made pretty much zero sense whatsoever. It was a complete mindfucking trip through hell and back, but my god was it a great one. Directing and production were utterly brilliant, with the show sporting probably my single favorite opening episode of all time, including one of my favorite anime moments ever. I don’t know where this show went, but I know it was a damn crazy journey.

110. Sketchbook ~Full Color’S~ (13 eps) (+ 6 shorts) (Slice-of-life, Comedy, School) - A very slow, quiet, and cute slice-of-life show about the various strange people in one school’s art club. The main character, Sora, is a quiet girl who is so unused to talking that she’d rather write out her thoughts and show them to people. she loves to sketch the world around her, especially cats. Her classmates include such weirdos as a girl who communicates through sock puppets and a deadpan girl who is obsessed with insects. There are also a few episodes focused on the lives and interactions of the neighborhood cats, which are always a complete blast.

109. Shingetsutan Tsukihime (12 eps.) (Supernatural, Drama, Thriller, Romance) – This adaption of one of the popular games in the Type-Moon universe has been highly controversial due to the fact that it crams an incredibly long game into a very short series and as a result severs most of the game’s plot. Fans of the game often try to deny the existence of the Tsukihime anime, which is kind of sad because it really is a very well-done show. It has a very thick, dark tone, a maturely handled romance, and plenty of interesting scenes that, while not the most unique or brilliant things around, are still a very fulfilling experience.

108. Kuuchuu Buranko (11 eps.) (Psychological, Comedy, Arthouse) – As of this writing there are still some episodes left in ‘Trapeze’, but I am more than willing to let it into this list now because I adore the show – it’s my personal favorite arthouse show of the decade because it is one that has real heart and tells some ingenious psychological tales in it’s episodes. Between the show’s amazing visual style and the awesomeness of it’s lead character, the eccentric Dr. Irabu Ichiroh, it’s a jolly good time that manages to tell some serious stories without ever loosing it’s light-hearted nature.

- Ghost Hound (22 eps.) (Psychological, Supernatural, Mystery) - While a lot more sober and streamlined than Trapeze, Ghost Hound shares the exploratory elements of the psychological and is pretty artsy and experimental without flaunting it as much (being in line with the other shows by the director, Serial Experiments Lain and Kino’s Journey). Ghost Hound is a pretty complex mystery tale about the exploration of sleep paralysis and lucid dreams as well as auditory hallucinations with an excellent animation job by Production I.G. and plenty of big names behind it (original creator: Masamune Shirow.)

107. Birdy the Mighty Decode (13 eps.) (+ 02 (12 eps.) + OVA) (Action, Adventure, Romance, Comedy) - Beginning as a classically-styled sci-fi pulp series, then gradually evolving into some kind of 90s romantic comedy, and then into some kind of Hollywood-style big action series, Birdy can be a little tonally confused, but it still manages to be a consistently fun and cool ride through a universe that I think was just a little bigger than a show this short could handle (which is I guess why there are 2 seasons, the second of which I’ve yet to see myself.) What really sells the series is excellent animation and brilliant fight direction that lead to some really memorable encounters throughout and the utterly strange story which involves a woman who fights crime throughout the universe accidentally merging bodies with an unsuspecting high-school boy who she has to try not to completely ruin the life of.

106. Starship Operators (13 eps.) (Sci-fi, Drama, Military, Action) - Starship Operators is an interesting tale of a shipfull of space cadets who are on their way to graduation when their planet is suddenly taken over without putting up a fight. The cadets, on the most state-of-the-art battleship, decide to launch a war against the enemy by themselves and they get funding from a TV network by agreeing to let them film their entire war as a reality TV show. It’s a very interesting and dramatic show with a refreshing cast of sensible adults and a penchant for killing characters when you least expect it. I, for one, enjoyed it the most for it’s intense and ingenious tactical battles between space cruisers. I think it says something for the show’s ingenuity that it won me over in spite of my general distaste for sci-fi and military-driven shows.

105. Shugo Chara! (51 eps.) (+ Doki! (51 eps.) + Party (51 eps)) (Magical Girl, Comedy, Romance, Action) - One of the biggest and best magical girl shows of the decade, Shugo Chara is a charming tale of a very cool girl who is trying to learn how to express her true feelings and understand herself on a deeper level. It’s certainly one of the few magical girl shows with a pretty good amount of accessibility for fans outside of it’s demographic, although the third and currently airing season is aimed a lot younger and as such has alienated a lot of the older fans. Still, I’d say the show is more than worth watching at least the first season of.

- Pretty Cure (49 eps.) (+ Max Heart (47 eps.) + Fresh Precure (51 eps.) + Splash Star (49 eps.) + Yes! (49 eps.) + 4 Movies)) (Magical Girl, Adventure, Comedy) - THE biggest magical girl show of the decade, recommended to mahou shoujo fans and probably no one else, seeing as braving it’s full length is nearly suicidal. I personally have never really tried.

104. Yomigaeru Sora (12 eps.) (+ Special) (Drama, Slice-of-life) – Yomigaeru sora (or Rescue Wings) is a rare breed in that it is a very mature, adult drama, and is also very sober. It’s really quite slice-of-life in that there is no overblown or out-of-the-ordinary drama – it is a simple and very real tale of a young man who comes into the job of being on a rescue helicopter and learns more about himself and the world than he may have thought – subtly, but ever-so-emotionally. A must-see for older fans, but it’ll put the yung’un’s right to sleep.

103. To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (24 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Action, Comedy, School) – Set to air through the end of the decade, Railgun is based on a manga side-story to a light novel series to be mentioned below, but the anime ended up taking it’s own life and by many accounts, being a lot better than it’s predecessor. Railgun perfectly captures the sort of moe, girls-only comedy show that is popular towards the end of the decade with the additional element of great action scenes and a somewhat interesting but never intrusive plot. Directed by one of my favorite new directors, Tatsuyaki Nagai (Toradora, Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel.)

- To Aru Majutsu no Index (24 eps.) (Action, Comedy, Drama, School) – Index had the makings of a great show – excellent animation, character designs, and some surprisingly outstanding directing made the show almost worthwhile, but it was marred by an incredibly awkward pace, long scenes of boring exposition, and an at times confusing plot. Still, though, many fans do swear by it.

102. End of the World (Short film) (Arthouse) – It’s only 10 minutes long. Why not watch it yourself!

- First Squad (Short film + music video) (Arthouse, Action, Music video) – More short-film greatness from studio 4c!

101. Touka Gettan (26 eps.) (Drama, Comedy, Action, Fanservice, Everything) - Touka Gettan is a VERY strange show, owing this a lot to the fact that director Yuuji Yamaguchi is a fucking nutcase. The show is actually aired in backward episode order, meaning that nothing really makes sense the first time you watch it, and then there’s the fact that it’s impossible to tell at any given time if the show is a serious drama (as it will be one episode), a supernatural fighting show (as it will be the next), or a random-ass spastic comedy full of extremely overt sexual references (as it will be the remainder of the time.) What the show has going for it is great production values, awesome character designs, some of the funniest episodes of anime I’ve ever seen, and the overall cumulative experience that hits you in such an odd way you can’t help but think you must have enjoyed it.

100. Kodomo no Jikan (12 eps.) (+ 2 OVA eps. + Ni Gakki (3 eps.) + Ni Gakki OVA) (Comedy, Drama, Fanservice, School) - Kodomo no Jikan was easily one of the most controversial series of the decade, from the manga to the anime and beyond. It’s easy to see why – the series blatantly sexually objectifies characters who it admits are no older than 3rd graders, but also because the story actually does tell a deep and dramatic tale that quite frankly takes a lot of balls to be willing to tell. There has been nothing but controversy surrounding and the anime adaption even had huge, hideous censors that covered up most of the scenes, in spite of no real action ever happening (which in turn caused a lot of prospective watchers such as myself to quit watching and wait for DVD subs that took a year to come). Still, to those in the so-called would-be ‘lolicon community’, Kodomo no Jikan will always be held as a classic, and so even if the manga is stronger, the anime stays listed.

99. Nodame Cantabile (23 eps.) (+ Paris Chapter (11 eps.) + OVA + Special) (Drama, Romance, Comedy, Music) – An excellent romantic comedy about an arrogant college guy who is obsessed with his musicianship that meets a very silly girl who is unreasonably talented in piano. These two slowly find themselves falling in love amidst much other chaos and other eclectic cast members. Very notable for it’s high respect for the classical music performed by most of the characters, even going so far as to lend 7 minutes of one episode to a concert performance of part of Rachmaninoff.

98. Hitohira (12 eps.) (Drama, Comedy, School) - A highly overlooked show about a girl who is a freshman in high school and is so shy that except for in front of her best friend, she can’t even use her voice. However, when she does use her voice, it turn out to be exceptionally loud and beautiful, which catches the attention of a drama club. As it turns out, the three-member drama club is trying to recruit members to perform a play that will decide whether or not they will continue to exist in light of the existence of a theater club in the same school. So begins an incredibly dramatic tale of the main character’s fight to open up and use her voice to save the struggling group. Particularly notable for it’s powerful closing episodes and generally having some of the most melodrama I think I’ve ever seen in a show, lol.

97. Scrapped Princess (24 eps.) (Adventure, Fantasy, Action, Drama, Sci-fi) - An interesting mix of sci-fi and high fantasy adventure that tells the tale of a young princess who was told from birth that her 17th birthday would bring about the end of the world. She was supposedly killed as a baby, but has been living with her substitute family – now down to an older brother and sister whose aim is to get her out of the country as fast as possible. The show excellently tells of the strong bonds of family while providing a plot full of twists and turns as well as creating an interesting world in a short time.

96. Bartender (11 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Drama) – One of the most overlooked shows of the decade, Bartender is a peaceful, slow-moving anime that tells a number of touching stories through each episode’s customers at a famous yet mysterious bar. The bartender is a master of all drinks who can conjure up any kind of drink to soothe the souls of his patrons through almost magical ways. It has often been referred to as ‘the slice-of-life show for men’, though I think Bartender has a universal appeal for it’s great storytelling and enriching plot.

95. Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel (2 eps.) (Action, Drama, Magical Girl) - An excellent but little-known OVA from the director of Toradora and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Twin Angel is an interesting take on the magical girl story in that it is darker without loosing any of the defining characteristics of the magical girl genre and is excellently produced and acted. In many ways, I would say that it is to magical girl anime what Batman is to superhero comics.

94. Cromartie High School (26 12-minute eps.) (Comedy) - The manliest show ever created! Cromartie is a hilarious gag comedy about a school for delinquent boys to which a non-delinquent is accidentally sent and subsequently becomes somewhat the leader of. The show is full of hilarious characters, brilliant jokes, and superb voice acting (especially from the legendary Norio Wakamoto who gives one of his greatest performances ever in the form of Mechazawa.)

93. Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (25 eps.) (Mystery, Action, Comedy) - Another of the most criminally overlooked series of the decade, Nougami Neuro is also one of the most bizarre shounen anime I’ve ever seen and probably the biggest mindfuck. It’s about a young girl who’s father is murdered in the most horrific and mysterious way imaginable, and when she decides she wants to find the murderer, a demon from hell comes up and tells her that she WILL become a detective so that she can find the mysteries he feeds on. What we get after that is one of the most violent and insane kids shows around with a protagonist voiced very creepily by Takehito Koyasu that takes no pity on the young girl hosting him and will not hesitate to physically abuse her. And the show is definitely a comedy. I don’t even know what else to say. It’s high octane nightmare fuel.

92. Minami-ke (13 eps.) (+ Okawari (13 eps.) + Okaeri (13 eps.) + OVA) (Comedy) – an excellent character-driven comedy known for playfully tossing up all kinds of strange and hilarious characters and plot points all taken as lightly as possible and written splendidly. The first season had amazing production values, but they, along with the overall quality, began to fluctuate when the studio was changed for the second and third season. Some of the characters, such as the legendary Hosaka and the epic trap Mako-chan, will live on in the annals of history forever.

91. Clannad (23 eps.) (+ After Story (24 eps.) + 2 OVAs + Movie) (Drama, Comedy, School, Romance) - One of the three intensely famous shows from the combo team of Kyoto Animation and the game developers Key. Clannad is a surprisingly wholesome, family-worthy bit of moe entertainment that made many fans from the sheer emotion it evokes from viewers due to it’s manic-depressive plot. The show made me cry the hardest I’ve ever cried while watching anime within the span of just 9 episodes. It is also my 12 year-old little brother’s favorite anime of all time.

90. True Tears (13 eps.) (Drama, Romance, School, Love Triangle) - An intelligent and well-made romantic drama from legendary director Junji Nishimura, True Tears was a massively divisive love triangle because of the sheer difference in it’s female leads and the entirely different audiences each one attracted. Many, many fans found themselves pissed off by one character or the other, or otherwise any of the events in the show, but in spite of their being pissed, none could deny that the show was a great experience and no doubt notable for being able to stir up such emotions in it’s viewers.

89. Planetes (26 eps.) (Sci-fi, Slice-of-life, Drama, Comedy) - Planetes is the tale of a team of trash collectors in space (debris collectors more accurately) and their mis/adventures. The show has a decidedly more grown-up feel than most anime (likely from the adult cast) and tells a lot of stories that I think people of any age could appreciate. The story deals with all kinds of themes from loss to discrimination (people pick on trash collectors even in space) and can be quite powerful in it’s delivery. Helps too that the director is the amazing Taniguchi Goro. As omo always says when describing his love for the show, “No man is an island, and no man should go without seeing Planetes.”

88. Kaleido Star (51 eps.) (+3 OVAs) (Magical Girl, Comedy, Drama) - From the master of magical girl directors, Junichi Sato, Kaleido star actually isn’t quite a magical girl show but is written like one: the main character, Sora, is a girl who’s wanted to join the circus every since she was a kid – more specifically, the Kaleido Stage, a legendary circus that is sort of like cirque du soleil but in LA. Sora is faced with constant hardships as she tries to join the Kaleido Stage and gradually rise up to be it’s greatest star, and along the way she’ll meet many friends and help them with their problems through her natural good nature. It’s a very fun and cute show, but perhaps most notable of it’s features is that the circus performances are breathtaking and splendidly animated to the point that many rival the excitement of anime’s greatest fight scenes.

87. Ghost Hunt (25 eps.) (Supernatural, Horror, Comedy) – Ghost Hunt is an interesting take on the ‘ghost hunter’ genre in that the show is about the real kind of ghost hunters – a team who comes in with machines, mediums, and other such characters to try and detect and exorcise ghosts that they can’t actually see. Besides the plot being different from most anime, though, what sells the show is excellent control of tone and great directing as well as a cast of not-so-average characters who interact splendidly.

86. Futakoi Alternative (13 eps.) (Comedy, Action, Drama) - FutaAlt is often considered ‘THE’ cult hit of the decade. Spin-off of an embarassingly bad harem anime called Futakoi, Alternative is UFOTable’s utterly wacked-out re-interpretation of the plot about a town wherein an abnormal amount of twin girls are born that is at times any genre you can think of. The first episode is a high-octane thrill ride filled with wacky comedy and zany action that leads to massive collateral damage and big explosions. The show then evolves into a moe comedy, a depressing drama, and finally, an epic fantasy tale that never gets boring. It tops every ‘shows that should get licensed’ list, but with the history of UFOTable shows in the US, it will probably never happen.

- Coyote Ragtime Show (12 eps.) (Sci-fi, Action, Comedy) - The least-highly regarded of UFOTable’s original shows – I haven’t finished Ragtime myself, and therefor can’t tell you why it gets less recognition, but I will say that it is worth watching just for the first few episodes that I have seen if nothing else. It’s a hyper-fun UFOTable take on the sci-fi pulp genre with crazy violence and twisted characters such as a team of 12 robot gothloli assassins and the main characters who are all members of a rowdy space-pirate crew. Yeah, it’s like that.

85. Mai-HiME (26 eps.) (Drama, Action, Comedy, Parody, Fanservice, School) – Mai-HiME is an interesting show in that it is essentially Studio Sunrise’s way of subverting the kind of anime being made at the time while simultaneously defining it. What begins as a generic but well-made action-comedy romp then starts to become more of a parody that, had it ended with it’s first climax at episode 15, would probably have been considered nothing more than average, but it’s after that when things suddenly turn highly dramatic and intense that the show really came into it’s own and became unforgettable. The ending was highly controversial, but the show was still incredibly popular and some of it’s characters have had great lasting fanbases. Thee were a number of alternate-universe sequels made as well, and while they are popular and liked by some, none quite matches with the impact of the first. (For reference, though, the alt-universe sequel and it’s subsequent OVAs go by the name ‘Mai-Otome‘).

84. Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (6 eps.) (Drama, Romance, Sci-fi) – Iriya is a lesser-known OVA with a classic boy-meets-moe-girl type of situation, only the girl is a living UMD and part of some kind of massive government conspiracy. The cute and funny elements of a new couple are quickly thrown out the window when things get horribly depressing and crazy leading up to a tragic climax. I admittedly don’t remember much of the details of Iriya largely because watching it made me so emo that I remember more of my own reaction than the actual show except that I really enjoyed it.

83. Pani Poni Dash! (26 eps.) (Comedy, School) - From the Usual Suspects, studio SHAFT and Akiyuki shinbo, PPD! is a slapstick school comedy like no other. The basic idea of the show is to be the most all-encompassing referential comedy ever, with so many references to so many things that at times what you are seeing on screen is one reference, what is happening in the background is another reference, and what the characters are saying is yet a third reference. The show is full of bizarre, eclectic, and hilarious characters and situations that are always sure to bring a smile to the viewer’s face – doubly so if you actually get the references.

82. Nana (47 eps.) (Drama, Romance, Comedy) – Based on an extremely popular shoujo manga and animated by Madhouse, Nana is a roller coaster ride through the years in the life of two girls named Nana, one who is a very normal (and by that I mean realistic) recent high school graduate who’s interested in love and boys above all else, and the other who is a punk-rock chick from the scene who’s trying to hit it big with her band. Nana is, I must say, brutally depressing. The first 22 episodes or so are fairly normal and well-done romance-drama-comedy with a high point at which things seem very empowering and emotionally uplifting. Then, around episode 23 or so, it enters a period of non-stop depressing episodes that relentlessly pound on the characters. It only picks up lightly before the abrupt end of the series due to the fact that the manga is still running, leaving you utterly destroyed in the process.

- Paradise Kiss (12 eps) (Drama, Romance, Comedy) - From the same creators as Nana, ParaKiss is in many ways a sort of ‘Nana-lite.’ It has similar themes of a girl trying to reach some kind of goal in life and her drama along the way, as well as a similar cast of punk type stylish kids. It also has a Franz Ferdinand song for it’s ending theme, which is just awesome.

81. Potemayo (12 eps.) (+ 6 Specials) (Comedy, School) - Potemayo is the story of a guy who opens his fridge and finds a little tiny girl… thing that he names ‘Potemayo’ after the ‘Potato Mayonnaise’ container that she was inside of. Potemayo is quickly the talk of his class, though he is too bored and unflinching to really care or pay mind. There’s another one of these little creatures, too, but it’s a tsundere with a scythe and little worm hair ornaments that shoot enormous laser blasts. Most of the cast is in love with other cast members, often homosexually. It’s… just one of those shows.

- Macademi WAsshoi! (12 eps.) (Comedy, Fanservice) - At first glance (i.e. the first episode) Macademi WAsshoi seems like total trash – the same moe fanservice show that you can get a dime a dozen of, but if you keep watching you get a highly subversive and often hilarious romp full of laughs and cute girls as well as… huge burly and disturbing gay men. The biggest reason to watch, though, is for Nobuyuki Hiyama effectively reprising his roles as Hironobu Madarame and Guy Shishio AT THE SAME TIME.

80. Seirei no Moribito (26 eps.) (Historical, Drama, Action) - While Moribito can be very slow at times, the show is a very interesting tale of an older woman (at 30 she most be one of the oldest main characters in anime ever) who is an extremely efficient spear-wielder on a mission to save the lives of eight people in repentance for eight that she killed in the past. She is tasked with taking in a young prince and keeping him on the run from his father whom is trying to have him killed. In spite of the slow pace of the series, it has some of the most well-choreographed and animated fights in the history of TV anime, courtesy of the amazing Production I.G., and the background art is consistently gorgeous.

79. Diesbuster (6 eps.) (Action, Mecha, Sci-fi, Drama, Comedy) - As much a sequel as it is a throwback to the classic 80s OVA Gunbuster, Diebuster is an epic and powerful story from the geniuses at GAINAX with amazing and spastic animation and a plot that is… well, kind of all over the place. The series has a bit of a flaw in that it is very awkwardly paced, as if it should have been a full 13-episode series, however it makes up for this flaw by being large-scale beyond the ordinary boundaries of reason and full of PASSION, HARD WORK, AND GUTS!

- Shinkon Gattai Godannar (13 eps.) (+ Season Two (13 eps.)) (Mecha, Action, Fanservice, Romance) - Godannar is a high-energy thrill ride that throws back to the old-school super robot anime with a special emphasis on ‘GATTAI!’ (or combination). The main characters are a newlywed couple who pilot mechs to fight evil aliens – they quickly realize, too, that their mechs can combine, unleashing a greater force than ever before! Simultaneously cute, hot (lots of huge tits bouncing everywhere), and HOT-BLOODED, Godannar is a true man’s feast of an anime.

78. Hatenkou Yuugi (10 eps.) (Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Comedy) - Hatenkou Yuugi begins with the young lady main character being abruptly kicked out of her home by her father who tells her to ‘go explore the world.’ And so Rahzel sets out with her infinitely-sharp wit and strange magical powers to enjoy the world. She quickly becomes travel partners with a gun-toting albino hitman and a buff guy who can summon a sword from his hand. These three adventure about not so much in the name of justice or combat, but more out of boredom and flighty fancies as they joke around and test their wits against each-other. Has probably some of the best dialog of any anime I’ve seen and some unforgettable characters that the meager 10 episodes don’t do justice (the original manga is ten volumes long!)

77. Hayate the Combat Butler! (52 eps.) (+ !! (25 eps.) + OVA) (Comedy) – Hayate is a very, very poor young man who is left alone by his parents that try to sell his organs to the yakuza to pay off their debt. Honest and hardworking Hayate finds his poor self trying to kidnap a young rich-looking girl on Christmas in hopes of holding her for ransom. However, when he tries to kidnap her, she mistakes it as a confession of love from a cute guy, and one thing leads to another wherein Hayate ends up becoming her butler and she pays off his debt so that he can work it off for her. Hayate is a hilarious slapstick and frequently referential comedy wherein the characters are constantly caught up in an infinite web of misunderstandings and confusion by way of most of them being totally dense. That said, most of the cast is quite lovable and Hayate’s mock harem is made of nothing but win. Prepare to become a factionist.

76. Kino no Tabi (13 eps.) (+ 2 Movies + OVA) (Adventure) - Kino’s Journey is the tale of a young girl named Kino who travels the many countries of the world on her talking motorcycle, Hermes. Her rule is to stay in one country for three days – no more, no less. Kino’s explorations bring her into all kinds of interesting and odd situations, often that play tricks with morals and ethics to create situations of unthinkable horror or even mystifying beauty depending on the event. The general idea is that ‘the world is not beautiful, and therefor it is’, and Kino is just a silent observer along for the ride that is the world. Kino’s Journey will satiate the tastes of all adventure-lovers and tells many outright brilliant tales that may have you questioning your own morals.

75. Sword of the Stranger (Movie) (Action, Adventure, Historical, Samurai) – Sword of the Stranger is a classic lone-wolf-and-cub style story about a nameless samurai who finds himself protecting a young parent-less boy from a bunch of evil Chinese dudes who are after him. While the story is fine, what really matters is that this movie from the amazing Studio Bones has the outright most superbly animated and choreographed sword fights in anime history – PERIOD. It’s something you really have to see to believe.

- Karas (6 eps.) (Action, Supernatural) - While we’re on the subject of fight scenes, Karas has to come up. This gorgeously-animated OVA (CG skeptics eat your heart out) features many long and amazing combat scenes on the backdrop of a story that… well, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but you don’t come for that anyway!

74. FullMetal Alchemist (51 eps.) (+ Brotherhood (51 eps.) + 4 OVAs + Movie) (Aventure, Drama, Action, Comedy) - FullMetal Alchemist is a massively popular anime, the original of which is rather loosely based on the original manga while Brotherhood is a retelling of the story that follows the manga to the letter. I, and many other fans, prefer the original which is the story of two young boys who had everything taken from them when they tried to resurrect their dead mother using the forbidden art of human alchemy. The older brother lost an arm and a leg, while the younger lost his entire body, causing the brother to merge his soul into a walking suit of armor. The series is a very dramatic adventure through these boys’ life in search of the philosopher’s stone and the power to return their bodies to normal. With unforgettable characters and a splendid production from Studio Bones, the series is an interesting and often powerful emotional ride.

73. Dennou Coil (26 eps.) (Sci-fi, Adventure, Comedy, Drama) - In the not-so-distant future, the internet has become essentially a virtual overlay of the real world, visible through the use of cyber-glasses. This is the concept upon which Dennou Coil is built, a tale of children who get caught up in a virtual mystery and have to try and piece together what it all means through cyber detective work. Dennou Coil is a brilliant, interesting, and very feasible-feeling vision of the future’s technology as well as a fun and adventurous children’s tale that will appeal to anyone’s sense of awe. In addition, it’s one of the outright best-looking TV anime of the decade with Madhouse putting almost movie-level detail into every episode.

72. Aria the Animation (13 eps.) (+ Natural (26 eps.) + Origination (13 eps.) + OVA + Special) (Slice-of-life, Adventure) – On the planet Aqua lies the watery city of Neo Venezia, a tourist hub in which people travel around in gondolas. Professional gondoliers known as Undines are well-revered as they act as tour guides for the people. Akari Mizunashi is a gondolier in training and also an employee of Aria Company. She gets to meet all sorts of people as she takes them on the gondola rides, from friendly mentors to special individuals, all this amidst the beautiful scenic backdrop of the entire city. – The reason I stole this plot description from MAL is that this is pretty much the entire story of Aria – what you watch for in Aria is not so much the ‘plot’ but simply the adventure of the characters as they discover the beauty of Neo Venzsia and generally just enjoy life as gondoliers – it’s a thoroughly peaceful show that one can relax, enjoy, and smile about, and you will no doubt fall in love with it’s entire cast of sweet and charming girls as they guide you through their wonderful world.

- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (2 eps.) (+ Quiet Country Cafe (2 eps.)) (Slice-of-life) - Although the YKK OVAs only cover the tiniest potion of the 14-volume manga they are based on, they are still well worth watching for their stunning visuals and well-defined tone of utter peace. YKK takes place long after the ‘end of the world’ and humanity has decided that instead of building massive civilizations like the ones that ended the world, they’d rather live peaceful country lives. Alpha is a robot girl who lives alone in a cafe in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and the OVAs tell her quiet tales of life out in nowhereland.

71. REC (9 9-minute eps.) (Romance, Comedy) – REC is a criminally unknown short romantic comedy about a salaryman and a cute young woman with an aspiration to be a voice actress (specifically, she wants to be the dub voice of Audrey Hepburn) who find themselves accidentally thrown together after a series of events leave the girl somehow homeless and the two to sleep together on the first night of their meeting. However, the two are not quite lovers, having only just met, and this leads into an awkward and often hilarious romance story that very much takes it’s cues from western romantic-comedy movies the likes of which Audrey Hepburn might have stared in. It also has a theme song so addictive that just thinking ‘REC’ gets it in my noggin.

- Candy Boy (a total of 10 confusingly-named 7-minute eps.) (Romance, Comedy) - Admittedly only alike in tone and shortness to REC, Candy Boy is a cute tale about a pair of sisters who have a particularly close relationship (if you know what I mean.) The show excells in visuals, writing, and directing and manages to create some really endearing characters in it’s short run.

70. Xam’d: Lost Memories (26 eps.) (Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Thriller) - Xam’d is a very odd show in that is is set in a fantasy world and looks like a fantasy series, but is written like a suspense thriller. Instead of spending time on developing the world and revealing the lives and ambitions of the characters, the series purposefully hides things from the viewer to create a more alien and strange story. There are tons of shocking moments and plot twists that keep you on your toes and at times may blow your mind. What’s more, the show is INSANELY well-animated, looking easily as great as most movies thanks to an amazing effort by Studio Bones. This is one fantasy show to walk into with no expectations and just be blown the hell away.

69. Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji (26 eps.) (Thriller, Psychological, Game, Old-school) - Kaiji is the most edge-of-your-seat thriller of an anime that I’ve ever seen – it is the tale of Kaiji, a man who finds himself in massive debt by no fault of his own and walks his way into the underground world of yakuza gambling that he never could have known would be so brutal. Through several long arcs the viewer is introduced to several new games that Kaiji and the other gamblers will be playing to try and get out of the hole, with loosing often leading to slavery and death. The battles are intense, insane, and brutal with the minds of the characters always full of all sorts of crazy plans and over-the-top revelations. This one’s a real nail-biter right down to the thrilling finish.

68. Figure 17 (13 45-minute eps.) (Slice-of-life, Drama, Action) - Figure 17 is very strange in that it is almost like two entirely different shows. Set in the northernmost part of Japan, the show follows the quiet life of an 8-year-old girl who is very quiet and easily walked over. In this countryside, a space vessel happens to crash and an alien being comes out and transforms the girl into a battle mode with which to fight an alien monster that appears. As a result of her being alien transformed, the little girl is spawned a clone who is like her but a lot more outgoing. The show’s strange 45-minute episodes tend to vary between a long part of the quiet life of these new twins and then an action-packed battle of them transformed against alien villains. I really wish I could tell you more – getting my hands on Figure 17 has been the biggest pain in the ass ever and I’ve only ever managed to watch three episodes – one day I swear to god I’ll finish this goddamn cult classic.

67. NieA_7 (13 eps.) (Comedy, Drama, Slice-of-life) - Most notable for being one of the few and always amazing anime based on the art and stories of Yoshitoshi ABe, NieA_7 is a very strange tale set in the backwater countryside of Japan where for years now the existence of aliens has been very evident seeing as they crash landedhere in a giant space ship and are now regulated to their own little community. NieA is an alien who is pretty much a worthless asshole of a young girl who rooms with a high school girl on her way to college that simply cannot afford neither to put up with her nor to generally deal with her own life. NieA_7 starts as a comedy and gradually mellows out, sobers up, and tells a very down-to-earth tale about a girl who is trying to find her direction in life and mostly having a tough time of it. Though NieA_7 isn’t emotional in an overt sense, it is very reflective, which can be even more emotional for the viewer.

66. Air TV (13 eps.) (Drama, Comedy, Romance, Supernatural) - The first of the Key adaptions by Kyoto Animation, some would say that Air is flawed simply in it’s being way too short for the size of the story it wants to tell, but many others would also call it the best of the Key adaptions because of it’s ability to tell an incredibly emotional tale in a short time and to actually focus less on the romance of the characters and more on some seriously intense family drama that moves many to tears. In addition to the emotional story, the show is also unbelievably well-animated, a property that would prove prevalent in Kyoto Animation’s work.

65. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (movie) (Comedy, Drama, Sci-fi) - The breakthrough hit from the latest big-name director, Mamoru Hosada, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an instant classic with it’s almost-too-fun plot about a high school girl who stumbles upon the power to teleport back through time in short distances. She immediately starts abusing this power Groundhog’s Day style, but thing start to get strange as a bigger plot evolves around her. Tokikake is a gorgeous film with excellent character designs by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and a marvelous production by Studio Madhouse. It should definitely be considered one of the must-see films of the decade for all anime fans.

64. Mahou Shuojo Tai Arusu (40 5-minute eps.) (Adventure, Action, Comedy, Drama, Suspense, Mahou Shoujo, Arthouse) - In a rare case of arthouse Studio 4c making a full series, Mahu Shuojo Tai Arusu is a breathtaking adventure story about a young girl named Alice who finds herself in a strange world of witches and magic like she has dreamed of her whole life. Alice takes the orderly witch world by storm with her ideals of freedom and merriment as she speeds through an intense and super-fast-paced series of infinite wonder. I promise that not since The Nightmare Before Christmas have you watched such an imaginative and breathtaking children’s series.

63. Princess Tutu (13 regular-length eps and 25 15-minute eps.) (Mahou Shoujo, Drama, Comedy, Music) - Often considered the spiritual successor to the shoujo classic Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu is a captivating story of interwoven fairy tales and a girl who is also a duck and then is also a magical girl. In spite of being definitively aimed at young girls, Princess Tutu is an often dramatic and even tragic tale of immense artistic beauty – the music is all classical and rather than fighting her enemies, the magical girl protagonist will dance with them to solve their problems in some truly stunning sequences. The show is unfortunately very divisive when it comes to it’s second half, which is notably darker and all-around different-feeling from the first half. Many will swear by either half individually.

62. Full Metal Panic! (24 eps.) (+ The Second Raid (13 eps.) + OVA + Special) (Action, Military, Comedy, Drama, School) - Full Metal Panic is a story about the young Seargent Sousuke Sagara who is appointed to watch a beautiful girl named Kaname Chidori who is the target of a terrorist force. Sousuke is clueless about the life of an average teenager, leading to many hilarious situations between him and Chidori, but when things get serious, Sousuke shows his insane Solid Snake-level badass skills and saves the day. The series toggles flawlessly between hilarious comedy and brutal, effective drama, all with production values that start off great with Gonzo’s first season, and then jump up a rung to AMAZING a couple of years later with Kyoto Animation’s season. The world of FMP is quite engrossing, and it’s worth mentioning as well that the voice acting is superb across the board.

- Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (12 eps.) (Comedy, Military, School) – Before they produced the Second Raid, Kyoto Animation produced the hilarious FMP offshoot series, Fumoffu, which takes the school comedy elements from the series and plays with them as if they were the real point of the show. What results is one of the most hilarious and widely-loved anime comedies ever made with some truly unforgettable episodes that will go into some kind of hall of fame at the end of time.

61. Strike Witches (12 eps.) (+ OVA) (Action, Fanservice, Historical, Sci-fi, Comedy) - Strike Witches was a fairly controversial series mostly because it was done by studio Gonzo in a period where they had put out some really bad shows all really close together, as well as for the fact that none of the mostly-female cast wears pants. Mecha musume fans could have told them that mech girls never wear pants, but regardless it was a hard sell for those who couldn’t watch a show where a lot of suspiciously young girls run around pantsless. However, in truth, Strike Witches was a surprisingly well-written, well-acted, and entertaining action-comedy with memorable characters and really high production values. It’s pretty much impossible to convince people that they are going to like the show if they give up on it right from the pantslessness (and the admittedly fanservice-heavy first episode) but if those things don’t turn you off, you’ll find a true gem here.

- Rocket Girls (12 eps.) and Sky Girls (26 eps.) (+ OVA + 9 specials) (Action, Mecha, Sci-fi, Comedy) - The two spiritual successors to Strike Witches, both decent in their own rights but less memorable and certainly less outrageous than their offspring. If you still want the moe-girls-in-mechs with at least a decent amount more pants, then these shows may be worth looking at, or just if you want more girls in mechs in general.

60. Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime (51 eps.) (+ Gyu! (52 eps.)) (Magical Girl, Comedy) - Futago Hime is outright the cutest anime I’ve ever seen, bar none. I warn that unless you have a very high tolerance for things that are meant for absolutely no one besides little girls, then you probably won’t make it through this show – it’s unabashedly cute and mindless to a degree where most people who aren’t little girls (or don’t have the minds of one) probably won’t even know what the hell is going on. That all said, I consider this to be yet another masterpiece from the genius god of mahou shoujo, Junichi Sato, complete with excellent visuals and superb voice work. Mahou Shoujo fans, this is a must-watch!

59. Soul Eater (51 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Psychological, Comedy) - Based on one of my alltime favorite manga and animated by the amazing Studio Bones, Soul Eater is a stylistic masterpiece of a shounen action series. The style is like a fusion of hip-hop and Tim Burton to create a trippy urban feel where the ‘black’ of afro-America is the same as the ‘black’ of goth-punk. The actual story involves a school for Meisters and Weapons – that is kids who turn into weapons and the other kids who wield them in the name of fighting evil. What really makes Soul Eater great, though, is it’s huge cast of unique and brilliant characters, it’s intense visual style, epic combat scenes, and trippy psychological accents on an otherwise classic shounen plot. The only major disappointment of the anime is that it ends just before the best arc of the manga (which would have pushed the show WAY up this list) and makes up it’s own horribly rushed ending for the anime, I guess because they didn’t think they’d get a second season. Sad.

58. Code Geass – Lelouche of the Rebellion (25 eps.) (+ R2 (25 eps.) + tons of recap OVAs and specials) (Action, Mecha, Thriller, Drama, Comedy, School, Fanservice) - One of the biggest, baddest, most talked about, most controversial, most memetic, and most legendary shows of the decade. Code Geass was the show that everyone either loved or loved to hate as it spiraled out of control through insane plot twists that happened constantly, characters who you could love with all your heart one minute and hate with all of it the next, a production that was at times stellar and at others just flat-out weird, every great voice actor you can shake a stick at, a humongous, epic plot, directing by the amazing Taniguchi Goro, and most of all, a badass anti-hero of a main character that rode through the center of the whirlwind like Sleepy Fucking Hollow and took the world by storm. It was the talk of 4chan for it’s entire air and was so explosively popular that you couldn’t even avoid spoilers without just ignoring any anime-related site for days. I didn’t even have to watch most of R2 – I experienced it vicariously through 4chan. Code Geass is quite the experience even without the carnival of it’s original airing, so it’s a must-see in my book.

57. Blood the Last Vampire (movie) (+ Blood+ (50 eps.)) (Action, Horror, Drama) - The Blood franchise is very strange because none of the works in it are anything alike. The original movie was a 40-minute test of Production I.G.’s insane animation quality (you’ll shit yourself when you realize it came out in 2000) that was pretty much just a dark and gritty excuse to have a vampire chick spray lots of blood by cutting people up. After that came some trippy manga with lesbian sex in it and then a novel written by Mamoru Fucking Oshii that is mostly consumed by random philosophical conversation. Then we have Blood+, a 50-episode series about Saya having lost her memories and being raised by a family as their daughter – it’s a much more average anime, though well done and entertaining until around episode 39 where a shitty time skip occurs and the rest is only saved by a very satisfying ending to make up for the quality dip. The only real similarity in all of the Blood stories is that while none of them are totally stellar works, all are interesting and worth your time to whatever extent.

56. s-CRY-ed (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Supernatural) – My personal favorite work from the great Taniguchi Goro, s-CRY-ed is the most hot-blooded anime I think ever created, and it is in fact the one that inspired my blog’s title (as well as TheBigN‘s). s-CRY-ed is a story in which a huge section of Japan suddenly rose a mile from the surface of the water about 7 years ago and many of the island’s natives have gained crazy powers. There’s an interesting plot about caste systems and social commentary in there somewhere, but the real draw of the series is an epic rivalry between main character Kazuma and his rival Ryuho that really drives all of the action. Their epic standoffs make the show and there’s always a shitton of yelling involved. Usually yelling of the word ‘FUZAKENNA!!!’

- Gun X Sword (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Drama, Comedy) – Gun X Sword is my least favorite Taniguchi Goro show, mostly because it kind of falls appart as it gets towards the end. The series has often been referred to as ‘the lovechild of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun’ which is really quite accurate with the series’ blend of sci-fi and old western worlds to create a really wacky countryside full of action and thrills. While the show was never anything too spectacular, it’s at least a very fun ride with some undeniably cool characters up until the end where stuff got weird and I found myself feeling like the bad guys deserved to win more than the good guys.

55. Paranoia Agent (13 eps.) (Psychological, Thriller) - CUE YUME NO SHIMA SHINEN KOUEN! Paranoia Agent was the first TV series from legendary director Satoshi Kon. It’s a mindfuck roller coaster that was pretty much created by Kon saying ‘I’m gunna do a lot of weird shit, I don’t particularly care if it makes a whole lot of sense.’ Paranoia Agent is a spectacular psychological exploration that delves right into the minds of it’s ensemble cast of characters and while it’s there, proceeds to fuck around. Madhouse provides one of their amazing-looking production jobs and some trippy music is included – BAM! instant classic!

54. RahXephon (26 eps.) (+ Movie + OVA + 2 Specials) (Mecha, Psychological, Drama, Action, Adventure) - RahXephon was the first full series production from studio Bones and the series can be best described as ‘an enigma’. It’s sort of this patchwork tapestry of different ideas and directions that is really hard to wrap your brain around as a complete series but rocks hard ass when looked at as individual episodes. There are a lot of episode directors, and it’s really kind of like Bones told them to do whatever they wanted with their own episodes with no regards to the rest of the series. As a result, no, the plot does not make any fucking sense, and the ending had me scratching the hell out of my head, but nonetheless, it was a damn good time. I strongly believe that RahXephon has some of the strongest stand-alone episodes of anime that there are. Mecha fans, especially those who like their mecha with some trippy psychological bonus, are highly recommended to watch this series.

53. 5 Centimeters Per Second (technically three short films, though everyone views them as one hour-long movie) (Drama, Romance) - 5cmps is largely considered the masterpiece of rising big-name director Makoto Shinkai. The third of his movies about relationships fatalized by distance (though the first not to include some sci-fi element), 5cmps is not only the best looking (especially from a cinematography standpoint) but the most resonant with it’s audience. Most accounts of the film involve some mention of crying hysterically by it’s legendary and emotional ending. An instant classic.

52. Last Exile (26 eps.) (Adventure, Action, Steampunk, Drama) - Last Exile is a highly visual adventure series about a pair of airship pilots in the midst of a massive steampunk war. While the characters and plot are not particularly memorable for the most part, the excellent art and designs courtesy of the great Range Murata and the excellent visual style merged with great directing and a fast pace make this an experience worth going through again and again.

51. Samurai Champloo (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Samurai, Historical) – The second brainchild of Shinichiro Watanabe (famous for Cowboy Bebop), Samurai Champloo is a funkadelic fusion of eastern styles and classic Japanese samurai storytelling. Taking place in the Edo period, it stars a very serious former samurai named Jin, a very off-the-chain brawler named Mugen, and a young sly girl named Fu who saves the other two’s lives in exchange for their assisting her to find ‘the man who smells like sunflowers.’ The largely episodic journey can be dramatic at times and utterly hilarious at others, brilliantly blending classic samurai stories with wacked-out western hip-hop cultural influences. The rap intro and hip-hop soundtrack are genius and lay down the last layer of style to solidify this as a stylistic masterpiece.

50. Gankutsuou ~Le Compte de Monte Cristo~ (26 eps.) (Thriller, Drama, Sci-fi, Action) - Gankutsuou is studio Gonzo’s genious re-telling of the classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo, only set about 5000 years in the future in a bizarro sci-fi world. The show is a visual feast, utilizing all sorts of experimental techniques such as patterns, CG, and extremely flashy colors. Behind all the flair lies the grounds of the story as set up by the original told oh-so-well that it hurts. The show was so suspenseful that in spite of my love for both the opening and ending songs, I found myself burning through them, anxious to see what happens next. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most genius characters I’ve had the pleasure of watching and Jouji Nakata is the man with the voice for the role. Couple all that with a stellar soundtrack and you’ve got yourself one tight package.

- Romeo X Juliet (26 eps.) and Samurai 7 (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Drama, Romance) – For a while, Gonzo seemed to be really into the whole idea of sci-fi adaptions of old works, since they did it for Romeo and Juliet and Seven Samurai as well. While neither series has quite the strength and brilliance nor the artistic fortitude of Gankutsuou, they are no doubt worthwhile anime that will either entice open-minded fans of the original or just piss them right the hell off.

49. Read or Die (3 eps.) (+ R.O.D. the TV (26 eps.)) (Action, Adventure, Thriller, Comedy, Drama) – The original Read or Die OVA was a brilliant James Bond-style action story about a woman with the power to control paper and the crazy-ass villains she has to take down before they destroy the world. It was a pulpy good time with amazing animation and direction alongside a superb jazz soundtrack. The TV series is a bit more on the normal side, being as it is a full-length series, but it also brings in the element of very endearing characters and a more developed plot that make it more than worth watching. I love them both, but I really never get tired of that original OVA.

48. Comedy (Short Film) (Fairy Tale, Gothic) - This beautiful little 10-minute gothic fairy tale really deserves to speak for itself.

47. Kanokon (12 eps.) (+ 2 OVAs + 12 2-minute specials) (Fanservice, Comedy, Action) – Kanokon was one of the most overt and risque fanservice shows to go on TV without ever going full nipple, which combined with it’s excellent character designs could get some attention, but the series really sells on it’s stellar production values and surprisingly fun story with some decent action scenes and some really hilarious episodes. All of that might have gotten it on this list, but what really makes Kanokon so incredibly memorable for me is it’s ending that has been one of my alltime favorites and most unforgettable anime moments since I saw it for the first time.

46. Spirited Away (Movie) (Fantasy, Adventure) - The magical film from anime legend Hayao Miyazaki that was the first anime to ever win the Best Animated Film at the Academy Awards. I’m sure you’ve already seen this movie, so I’ll spare you the plot synopsis and just say that this was a magical and thoroughly enthralling film whose ungodly amazing animation really pops your brain right open.

- Howl’s Moving Castle (Movie) and Ponyo (Movie) (Fantasy, Adventure) - The other two Hayao Miyazaki films of the decade. I personally was not a big fan of Howl’s – I thought it was a bit messy, which probably has something to do with the fact that Mamoru Hosada was supposed to direct it and then suddenly left studio Ghibli, forcing it into the hands of Master Commander Miyazaki. However, there are a number of Howl’s fans who swear by the movie on the grave of Spirited Away. Ponyo, on the other hand, I haven’t actually seen myself yet, but have heard great things about.

45. Metropolis (Movie) (Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Drama, Old-school) - A godly masterwork of titan creators (original manga by Osamu Tezuka, based on a legendary 1930s silent film, script by Katsuhiro Otomo and directing by Rintaro. Oh. My. GOD.) Metropolis is an epic tale of boy-meets-robot-girl rife with social commentary, breathtaking art and animation, and sumptuous sci-fi action. The movie gives me a massive hard-on for it’s metropolitan artwork and for the fact that it has Norio Fuckwin Wakamoto playing a badass android detective. And the ending is magnifique.

44. Detroit Metal City (12 12-minute episodes) (Comedy) - The hilarious tale of Negishi, a fashionable boy who wants to play folk music and sweet talk the girl he likes, but is constantly thwarted by his alter-ego JOHANNES KRASUSER II, THE DARK GOD OF METAL! Krauser is a stage persona singing and playing guitar for the biggest underground metal band in Japan, Detroit Metal City. His legions of fans treat him like a god for his infamous streak of rape and murder (that, of course, doesn’t actually exist.) The hilarious situations that Negishi/Krauser finds himself in never cease to amaze and provide some truly brilliant black comedy. I personally consider DMC to be the most laugh-out-loud-hilarious comedy of the decade.

43. Kara no Kyoukai (7 50-minute-to-1-hour movies with one 2 hour movie) (Supernatural, Thriller, Action) – I will admit that I have only seen the first Kara no Kyoukai film, having decided to wait for the rest to come out before watching them all (7 should be out on DVD soon…?) but the first was enough to solidify it as one of my favorite anime movies of the decade. The super-thick dark urban tone, amazing UFOTable production, awesome Yuki Kajiura soundtrack, and the sheer badassery of Shiki Ryougi, one of my favorite characters ever from that film alone, solidify this as a classic to me. It’d be worth watching anyway for being such a uniquely produced film and for being an adaption of Type-Moon’s legendary first novel, but besides that it’s a must see for stunning presentation and style.

42. Ichigo Mashimaro (12 eps.) (+ 5 OVAs + Special) (Comedy, Slice-of-life) - The penultimate ‘cute girls doing cute things’ show, IchiMaro is about the local escapades of four elementary-school girls and their never-ending cuteness. It is also about the older sister of one of the girls, Nobue Ito, who is surrogate big sister to the rest of the girls by proxy. Nobue Ito is one of my favorite anime characters ever and the one I most would solidify into real life and marry chill and hang out with. None of that is really here nor there – it’s funny and cute show about cute girls, take it or leave it.

41. Ouran High School Host Club (26 eps.) (Comedy, Parody, School) - The penultimate ‘cute guys doing cute things’ show? (lol) Ouran is a show about young Haruhi, who stumbles into the club room of the eponymous club full of pretty boys who cure the incredible boredom of being absurdly rich by playing host to the young ladies in the school for the hell of it. Haruhi, who is the only poor person in the school, having gotten in on amazing grades, accidentally breaks an expensive vase in this room and so is forced to become a host to pay for it. Haruhi goes along with it, though it’s not until she’s already been introduced to most of the school as a host that the other members realize that Haruhi is, in fact, a girl. Ouran is a hilarious reverse-harem comedy that flips all of the usual tropes of shoujo stories on their heads all while carrying a unique style and flair bolstered further by the excellent directing and production jobs from studio Bones.

40. Mushi-shi (26 eps.) (Supernatural, Fantasy, Adventure) – Mushi-shi is a tale of a silver-haired man named Ginko who travels the world as a sort of medicine man called a ‘mushi-shi’ – he deals with microorganisms called ‘mushi’ that create all kinds of strange situations which Ginko tries to remedy. Some mushi are parasites, some are simple animals, and some are in harms way by humans – Ginko’s job is simply to keep the equilibrium of humans and mushi in check. Mushishi is a very haunting and sober episodic adventure that travels through utterly beautiful locales (I daresay this show has the best art I’ve seen in any anime) and tells intriguing little stories that will wow the viewer as well as make them think.

- xXxHolic (24 eps.) (+ Kei (13 eps.) + OVA (2 eps.) + Movie) (Supernatural, Mystery, Comedy) - If Mushishi is a sober episodic show about people dealing with the paranormal, then xxxholic lives up to it’s title as the drunken mistress of the genre. Based on a highly popular manga by CLAMP, xXxholic is about the usual guy who can see ghosts who finds himself in the employ of a very powerful magic-using woman. Together they help people with their paranormal problems – for a price. xXxholic is far from the most original anime around, but it has some fun characters and the slick CLAMP style makes it worth giving a look-see (though the animation is hideously inconsistent.)

39. Boogiepop Phantom (12 eps.) (Psychological, Thriller, Supernatural) – Darkness. A big city soaked in blood. Supernatural threads that operate in the background of everyday life. A light splits the sky, and the people with powers are on the prowl. Based on the Boogiepop franchise of novels, which began with my favorite story of all time, Boogiepop and Others, the Boogiepop anime is a dark and claustrophobic tale of psychotic horrors and brutal misfortune. Psychological mischief with great visuals, a legendary soundtrack, and a thick tonal experience that will take your breath away – quite literally.

- Shigofumi (12 eps.) (+ OVA) (Supernatural, Thriller) - Cut from a similar cloth as Boogiepop but with decidedly less psychological and stylistic edge, Shigofumi is a series of short stories involving a girl who is a letter carrier of the dead – she takes letters written by people post-mortem and delivers them to the living who may need the information. Most of the episodes have some kind of surprising dark twist and there is an interesting plot that comes along to tie the package up nicely. Not quite as good nor memorable as many of it’s ilk, but a fine enough watch nonetheless.

38. One Piece: Omatsuri Danshaku to Himitsu no Shima (Movie) (Adventure, Action, Drama, Comedy) – One Piece is long and by far the biggest series in Japan right now, and for good reason – a huge, epic adventure rife with unforgettable heroes and an infinity of fun villains. The series itself didn’t qualify for this list, being as it started in 1997, but the stand-alone sixth movie is one I could not ignore. You can enjoy this movie with only a base knowledge of the series, and there’s a very good reason for you to do so – it’s directed by the biggest up-and-coming director of the decade’s later-half, Mamoru Hosada, and is a huge showcase of his style. It’s also a fun, brilliantly written, and godly well-animated adventure (with a large amount of Key Animation from Hiroyuki Imaishi, the genius who does all the zany scenes in GAINAX shows) Even if you don’t like One Piece, watch this.

- Konjiki no Gash Bell!! (150 eps.) (+ OVA + 2 Movies) (Action, Adventure, Comedy Drama) – Let’s say you are a One Piece fan and you have a really high tolerance for shounen action anime – Gash Bell may be up your alley. Admittedly, it’s a hard sell, because Gash Bell shoots REALLY young. My little brother was into this show when he was about 7 and it was airing as Zatch Bell on Cartoon Network. It’s a cute show about a genius high school boy who’s beginning to regress into hikkikomori-dom thanks to his bad attitude and the bullying of his classmates. That is, until his father in Europe sends him a young boy that he saved on his journeys and wants the guy to take care of. The kid is Gash and he’s a sunny, hyper little guy who happens to unwittingly be able to shoot massive lightning bolts from his mouth. You probably won’t be able to enjoy Gash Bell unless you can totally tolerate kids shows, but if you can, you’ll find a very fun adventure full of lots of heart.

37. Genshiken (12 eps.) (+ OVA (3 eps.) + 2 (12 eps.)) (Comedy, Slice-of-Life) - Genshiken is the show best described as ‘by otaku for otaku.’ It is about a college club that is not the anime club nor the manga club, but the ‘society for the study of modern visual culture.’ In other words, a club full of hardcore otaku. The show chronicles the lives of these otaku in their often hilarious anti-adventures and fully explores the culture of otaku. I consider this to be a great show to introduce new otaku to the culture, especially Americans. I, too, learned a lot about what it means to be otaku from the show. What really makes Genshiken spectacular, though, is the characters, all of whom are totally developed and real and whose interactions are brilliant. It helps, too, that all of them have classic voice actors that probably understand the culture themselves. A must-watch for otaku.

36. Spice and Wolf (13 eps.) (+ Season 2 (12 eps.) + OVA) (Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Economics) - Spicy Wolf is a tale of a traveling merchant in medieval Europe who happens to come into contact with a sexy Wolf Goddess. Horo is her name, and she’s been living in a small village for many years, helping them with their harvest, but they don’t really need her any more, so she asks the merchant, Lawrence, to allow her to accompany his travels. Spicy Wolf is mostly a pretty calm and heady adventure full of economic hijinks and the occasional excitement, but the real meat of the series is Horo. Horo is a brilliant and extremely multi-faceted character who always has more to show the viewer. Unlike so many anime characters that act on just a limited number of personality traits, Horo has very real emotions and a personality that can’t help but attract. Her interactions with Lawrence never get old.

35. Darker Than BLACK – Kuro no Keiyakusha (25 eps.) (+ OVA + Ryuusei no Gemini (12 eps.)) (Action, Thriller, Mystery) - Darker Than Black is the tale of a future wherein a pseudo-race of people have come into being called ‘contractors’ – people who have given up emotion in favor of murderous powers that, when used, require some form of renumeration (basically random OCD tasks they must perform afterword.) The story is a dark urban thriller that takes it’s cues from all sorts of pulp stories and mixes them with it’s own highly-realized world. The show is the brainchild masterwork of director Tensai Okamura, who has taken care to create as complete a work as imaginable. The second season, Ryuusei no Gemini, is still airing, but was already voted the number 2 anime of 2009 by 2channel.

34. Honey and Clover (24 eps.) (+ II (12 eps.) + 2 Specials) (Romance, Drama, Comedy) - One of the most well-loved shows of the decade and probably the widest-appealing adaption of a josei manga ever, Honey and Clover follow the lives of a group of college students through the good and incredibly hard times, through love and loss, and through the adventures of adolescence. Honey and Clover touched the hearts of many with it’s cast of highly relatable and fun characters, all who earn your respect even as you learn their flaws. The series has a thick and wonderful visual style as well as lots of licensed music used perfectly to create scenes of intense emotions, often which are unforgettable. Everyone who watches Honey and Clover has a story to tell about how they identified with it and, in many cases, how it even touched their lives.

33. Millennium Actress (Movie) (Drama, Psychological, Adventure) - Often considered Satoshi Kon’s masterpiece, Millennium Actress is a beautiful and wondrous journey through the life of an aging actress who tells her story by relating her own experiences through the filter of being experienced as the movies she’s made themselves, which also happen to have started with tales of ancient Japan and moved their way up through history. It’s one of the most masterfully-woven stories I’ve yet seen, and one that makes your jaw drop just in awe of it’s genius before you even drop it harder for the stellar plot and gorgeous animation. Truly a must-see masterwork.

32. Hajime no Ippo (76 eps.) (+ New Challenger (26 eps.) + OVA + Movie) (Action, Comedy, Drama) - Hajime no Ippo went largely overlooked for one simple reason – it’s a show about boxing, and anime fans don’t tend to care about boxing. However, if one looks past the boxing, you will find a show that is powerful, wildly entertaining, hilarious, and brilliant. It’s the tale of young Makunouchi Ippo who is immensely strong from always helping out on his mother’s fishing boat since the death of his father, but who is unaware of his own strength and lets himself get picked on a lot. When he is rescued from a group of bullies on the whim of a professional boxer, he is taken to a boxing gym and, after discovering the liberation of using his fists, becomes obsessed with the sport. The series follows Ippo’s journey to become the best boxer he can be and eventually start moving up the professional ranks. It’s a show full of passion and heart that should resonate with the souls of any man. There’s also a great Tsueno Imahori soundtrack and awesome openings.

31. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (12 eps.) (+ Zoku (13 eps.) + Zan (13 eps.) + Goku (3 eps.) + OVA + Special) (Comedy, Parody, School, Arthouse) - Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is the king of the ShaftXShinbo reference comedy works and one of the best dark comedies of the decade. Combining a MASSIVE cast of hilarious characters, all with amazing voice actors, crazy and often intense artistic visuals, more references than you could ever count, some of the most offbeat black comedy you’ll find in anime, and a truckload of incredible music (the OST is great, but the real money is in the heavy metal album collaborating the artist Kenji Ootsuki with most of the voice actresses to create the most unique anime songs around), Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a true tour-de-force-to-be-reckoned-with. It’s a very ‘love it or hate it’ show, but everyone should at least give it a first chance.

- Maria+Holic (12 eps.) (Comedy, Gender Bender) - Another black comedy from SHAFTxShinbo, Maria Holic is the story of a hardcore lesbian who goes to a girl’s school in hope of meeting cute girls there, but the first and hottest girl she meets turns out to be a guy! And he’s an abusive asshole! Maria Holic is a strange and largely pointless show that I personally couldn’t get that into, but it had some pretty big fans and may be worth a shot if you enjoy shows like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. It also had one of the coolest opening videos ever, much like SZS always had.

30. Maria-sama ga Miteru (13 eps.) (+ ~Haru~ (13 eps.) + 3rd (5 40-minute eps.) + 4th (13 eps.) + Tons of Short Specials) (Drama, Romance) - Widely regarded as the greatest yuri anime of all time, Marimite is the tale of a Catholic girls school with a very odd student council setup and a general system wherein all of the girls in the school should have a ‘pair’ that refers to each-other as sisters and guides each-other along. Marimite is the turbo-dramatic tale of the relationships and daily lives of the girls at this school as they learn about each-other and about life. The series is most known for it’s brilliantly directed interactions full of subtlety and subtext that would set a trend for yuri shows in years to come and inspire many anime to take more careful storytelling efforts. In addition, it features a large cast of amazingly deep and interesting characters, all acted to perfection.

- Blue Drop ~Tenshi-Tachi no Gikyoku~ (13 eps.) (Drama, Sci-fi) - Blue Drop very much follows in Marimite’s footsteps with a subtlety and subtext-laden yuri story about a girls school; however, in this case, one of the girls at school turns out to be an alien and member of an all-female race who might be about to start some shit on earth. Visually pleasing and splendidly directed, it’s worth a look for any yuri fan.

29. Le Portait de Petit Cossette (3 eps.) (Supernatural, Horror, Drama, Psychological, Gothic, Arthouse) - This OVA is Akiyuki Shinbo’s gothic-lolita masterpiece – it is a trippy tale of a man who works in his uncle’s antiques shop and finds himself obsessed with a strange cup through which he can see an image of a young girl. When he finds a portrait of this girl, things start to get weird as she appears before him and asks him to consume the sins of her former possessions that wish to destroy him. It’s really not something I can easily describe – the OVA is a visual feast and the plot is an utter mindfuck, so it’s best to see for yourself. Sporting an amazing Yuki Kajiura soundtrack, stunning art and character designs, and probably the thickest application of Shinbo’s style (and perhaps his highest budget), Petit Cossette is truly a visionary masterpiece.

- Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~ (25 eps.) (+ Special) (Gothic, Comedy, Drama, Supernatural, Romance) – Yet another stylish gothic lolita anime from Akiyuki Shinbo, this time being his first work with Studio Shaft. Tsukuyomi is a story about a photographer who has a tendency to always accidentally capture ghosts on film who happens to meet a young vampire girl in an old mansion that he explores. She sucks his blood in hopes of making him her slave, only to find that he is a man who is impervious to vampirization and won’t do anything she says! The young vampire Hazuki finds herself in his care and romantic comedy ensues with occasional bouts of dramatic plot.

28. Texhnolyze (22 eps.) (Mystery, Drama, Action, Arthouse) - Texhnolyze is a truly unique experience – it is a claustrophobic, dark, gritty, and grinding show that guides you through an incredible world as imagined by master artist Yoshitoshi ABe and visionary director Hamazaki Hirotsugu. The show takes place in a huge, dark city located miles underground where the gangs run the streets and the rich use mechanical body parts to prolong their lives. The show’s strange mind-bender of a plot develops ever-so-slowly through the hell of silence and darkness that is the experience. Texhnolyze can actually be physically painful to watch sometimes as it eats on your mind and has you questioning what kind of insanity has you coming back for more, but once it captures you, it hold you in place until the amazing conclusion.

- Shigurui (11 eps.) (Action, Psychological, Drama, Samurai) - From the same director as Texhnolyze, Shigurui is a similarly dark, grinding, and repulsive anime. This one is about samurai and tells the truth about samurai life (which is that all samurai were murderous assholes) – it’s ultra-violent and unsettling with no real respectable characters, leading to many of the same conclusions about your own sanity for enjoying it as Texhnolyze does.

27. The Sky Crawlers (Movie) (Psychological, Fatasy, Drama) – The latest and, in my opinion, greatest from visionary legend Mamoru Oshii. The Sky Crawlers is a bit of a difficult film in that it is very slow and subtle, not showing you much that you will see the significance of on your first viewing. However, it tides you over with stunning visuals and intense aerial dogfights courtesy of the team behind the Ace Combat games. What unfolds is an offbeat psychological fantasy drama about kids who have grown up too fast and thrown away their cares as well as the world that allows them to keep doing it. There’s a lot to love in this movie if you give it the time to show you, and it’s even got one of my favorite characters to have sprung from a stand-alone film.

26. Red Garden (22 eps.) (+ Dead Girls OVA) (Drama, Thriller, Action, Mystery, Horror) - Set inexplicably in New York and being far closer to an American drama than any kind of Japanese cartoon, Red Garden is the brainchild of Matsuo Kou, a man who loves to fuse western and eastern influence into something unforgettable and, well, bloody strange. Red Garden is about 4 girls who find out that they are dead, now have super-strength, and have to fight zombie-like enemies for a company who is currently holding their real bodies. Meanwhile, we explore each of the girls’ lives and how they all are totally different but must emotionally come together. It’s a weird show full of people randomly bursting into song, midnight fights with the undead, scenes of a woman’s adolescence alongside scenes of intense violence – it’s all over the place, and yet a tight collective that never ceases to amaze and surprise. The only thing that makes it hard to get started with are the unusual character designs, but the visual feast of Gonzo’s production make them work.

25. Bamboo Blade (26 eps.) (Slice-of-life, Comedy, Action) – I have a theory that Bamboo Blade is the modern reincarnation of the classic anime Martian Successor Nadesico. The story is about a team of girls who are recruited by a kendo instructor to help him beat a friend of his in a five-on-five match with the promise of a year’s supply of free sushi on the line (the teacher being broke, of course.) What unfolds is a funny and heartwarming tale of five genuinely interesting girls who learn about life, themselves, and the world through kendo. For the main character, Tama-chan (one of my alltime favorites), it is very much a coming-of-age story as she learns what it means to have friends and to have passion in life.

24. Black Lagoon (12 eps.) (+ The Second Barrage (12 eps.)) (Action, Adventure) – Black Lagoon is a no-holds-barred balls-to-the-wall pulp action thrill ride through the criminal life in the south-Asian seas. Based on a manga that was heavily influenced by John Woo films, Black Lagoon features constant shoot-em-up action and thrills with it’s main characters being a ‘delivery service’ on a PT-boat taking odd jobs from the Russian mob and other contractors. The main character, Rock, was just an ordinary Japanese salaryman named Rokuro Okajima until he got caught up in the Black Lagoon’s business thanks to an illegal package his company execs had sent with him. When the execs abandon his life, he decides that he can’t go back to his old job and joins the Lagoon under the name Rock. Here he meets the female lead Revy who is a badass guns-blazing sadist with unparalleled fighting power who might have a thing for him somewhere deep down. The two are definitely changing one another, and their interactions and emotional development provide the extra meat to back up the exciting action and create a truly fulfilling experience.

- Gungrave (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-fi, Supernatural) – Taken from ANN: “After a tragic scene with the murder of his friends, Brandon Heat follows his only friend Harry McDowel into Millennion, the largest mafia syndicate. While Harry McDowel is striving for power, Brandon is only staying in Millennion to see the girl he loves whose custody was gained by the leader of Millennion, Big Daddy. But as the years pass and Brandon proves loyal to Millennion, Brandon learns the true purpose and passion of Millennion, and that’s when true conflict arises.” – I haven’t really seen Gungrave, but I’ve read tons of fans speak of it’s greatness as a dark, character-driven tragedy.

23. The SoulTaker (13 eps.) (+ Omake) (Arthouse, Action, Drama, Gothic) - Akiyuki Shinbo’s gothic ultra-arthouse classic. The SoulTaker is a series about Kyousuke Date who was stabbed in the heart by his mother on her deathbed. Days after his burial, he is dug up by a cute young girl who seems to be in love with him. As it would turn out, she is a ‘flicker’, or a clone of his lost sister whom he has never met. None of that really matters, though – what matters is that Kyousuke can transform into a badass supehero called The Soultaker that looks like Devilman and fight all kinds of insane bad guys. The plot is all the hell over the place, which is because the creators were probably making it up as they went, and the real purpose of the series is to look as visually insane as possible. It works.

- Nurse Witch Komugi-chan (5 eps.) (+ Magikarte Z) (Magical Girl, Parody, Comedy) – Komugi-chan is a strange little OVA that spawned from The SoulTaker – the random loli girl whose place in the series was always quite strange gets her own magical girl parody anime that totally subverts the darkness of The SoulTaker with it’s bright and sunny palette. I suspect that this is the OVA for those who understand Shinbo’s ‘true intentions’, hehehe.

22. Kamichu! (12 eps.) (+ 4 DVD Specials) (Comedy, Slice-of-Life, Supernatural, Drama) - Kamichu! is a show about a middle-school girl named Yurie Hitotsubashi who wakes up morning to realize that she has become a god. Fun ensues. The best way to describe Kamichu! is that it’s pretty much Spirited Away: The Series. (I might also call it Miyazaki meets Ichigo Mashimaro.) It’s a very creative fantasy series with lots of interesting creatures and gods and stuff, but all contained within a very realistic world in a quiet little Japanese town. Kamichu! is a really cute show, with most of it’s episodes being sort of calm, low-tempo, feel-good stuff. And then there are a couple of really strange, whacked-out fantasy episodes as well. This is definitely a show that you should watch with family. I showed it to my little bothers and they loved it, and it can appeal to both boys and girls of really any age, so definitely get your parents and siblings to watch it with you. It also must be mentioned that everything about this production is great, from music to designs to acting, but the animation is fucking nuts. It’s probably one of the best-looking TV anime ever made.

21. Earth Maiden Arjuna (13 eps.) (Supernatural, Action, Drama) – Arjuna is pretty much directing legend Shoji Kawamori’s personal message to the world about how they are abusing it. Taking cues from spiritualist messages of Indian culture, Arjuna is the story of the world on the brink of death and humanity on a similar brink of demise. Juna is given special powers but isn’t really sure who’s side she’s on – humanity’s, or the planet’s. Her coming to grips with humanity’s many flaws creates friction in her personal relationships, especially with her boyfriend, and all sorts of drama ensues. It’s really difficult to try and classify Arjuna into a genre since it is really all about it’s message, and if you can’t appreciate the message, you probably won’t enjoy the show. However, if you can, you’ll find an enthralling spiritualist story with superb animation, one of Yoko Kanno’s best soundtracks, and lots of imaginative scenarios.

- Noein (24 eps.) (Sci-fi, Action, Drama) - A spectacularly designed and animated series about time travel, quantum mechanics, trippy action, and character drama. I haven’t had the pleasure of finishing it myself, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen, and that it is a work which Akane Kazuki crated, directed, wrote, and story-boarded all himself.

20. Gunslinger Girl (13 eps.) (Drama, Action, Psychological) - Based on my alltime favorite manga, Gunslinger Girl is an incredibly dark and threatening tale that will tear your heart right out and give it a hard squeeze. As MAL describes it: “In the heart of Italy, the Social Welfare Agency rescues young girls from hospital beds and gives them a second chance at life using the latest in cybernetic advancements. With their artificially enhanced bodies, the girls are brainwashed and trained as assassins to carry out the dirty work of the Italian Government. Despite all the modifications, they are still just children at heart, struggling for recognition from those they love, even knowing the love they feel is manufactured. This tragic tale unfolds as these girls grapple with their emotions in an agency that treats them as nothing but ruthless killers.” And that’s how it is – five girls that you can’t help but love and fear for their very survival are put through utter hell in this tonal directing masterpiece. Unfortunately, when they decided to adapt more of the manga in a second season, they had a whole different studio with none of the same staff or cast working on it, resulting in Gunslinger Girl ~Il Treano~, the botched abortion of the franchise. Some people claim that it’s worth watching if you get over the disappointment. I can’t fucking get over the disappointment.

19. Kure-nai (12 eps.) (Drama, Comedy, Action) – From the mind of Kou Matsuo, Kurenai is a strange show about a boy named Kurenai Shinkurou who is in high school and living alone, working his nights as a ‘dispute mediator’ for the yakuza. One day his boss, with whom he is very close, tasks him with protecting a 7-year-old girl named Kuhouin Murasaki who has been taken from her closed-off home inside of a massive mansion with no knowledge of the outside world. The show chronicles Shinkurou’s essentially rearing Murasaki and turning her into a respectable, intelligent young lady. Along the way is all kinds of drama, comedy, and action with some memorable characters and truly incredible dialog all coupled with the series’ ultra-high production values. What really gives Kure-nai a huge place in my heart, though, is the sixth episode, which is long and by far my favorite anime episode ever.

18. Welcome to the NHK (24 eps.) (Psychological, Comedy, Drama) - I could write giant papers about what NHK is about, but the bottom line is that it’s a story about hikkikomori. It’s not nearly as poignant as the novel it is based on, but it is definitely a show about what it is to be a hikkikomori, the bad, the worse, and the ugly. NHK is at times hilarious, at times depressing, and if it’s reflective in any way for you, it can be life-affirming or even life-changing. Satou Tatsuhiro is the ultimate figurehead for hikkikomori in that the series will relentlessly pound you with his pitiful nature, and he is fully aware of it. Similarly, Yamazaki is a figurehead for the worst kind of otaku, and as much as otaku love the show, they know they fear it – so does the show. You can enjoy Welcome to the NHK as simple, well written, and unique entertainment, but the social commentary is where the series hits hard as hell.

17. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 eps.) (+ 2009 (14 eps.) + Haruhi-chan (25 5-minute eps.) + Nyoro~n churuya-san (13 2-minute eps.)) (Comedy, Supernatural, Slice-of-life, Action, Sci-fi, Everything) – Here it is, folks – THE anime of the decade. For otaku, it was no doubt the biggest and most talked about show and the one that ensured the boundless success of every Kyoto Animation show thereafter. There is no explanation needed for Haruhi – you’ve either seen it already, or you need to, period – just to see what the hell the buzz is all about. It was a genius and huge-budget production that spawned endless merchandise and marketing and later, much controversy when the second season was delayed again and again and then when aired, contained the infamous Endless Eight arc which retold the same episode 8 times with only different visuals and ever-so-slight script changes. Haruhi is a beast, but what matters is that it’s a great beast and essential for understanding the trends in anime for the later half of the decade.

- Kannagi (13 eps.) (+ Special) (Comedy, Supernatural) – Directed by Yutaka Yamamoto, one of the big names who worked on Haruhi and directed the first four episodes of Lucky Star before defecting from Kyoto Animation with a portion of it’s staff to start his own A-1 Studios, Kannagi is cut very much from the same cloth as the Kyoto Animation shows in that it is a high-budget moe comedy with cute girls doing funny and fun things.

16. Hidamari Sketch (12 eps.) (+ x365 (13 eps.) + 4 Specials + OVA) (Comedy, Slice-of-life, School) – Hidamari Sketch is ‘yet another’ 4-koma-based school comedy about four girls and their daily lives, with the setting being an art boarding school. While the original story is good with very fun characters and good comedy, the anime adaption’s true strength lies in that of it’s production from the all-star SHAFTxShinbo team. The show has a very distinct visual edge that permeates every moment and seamlessly blends with the comedy and characters to push them all to a higher level of genius. This combined with perfect voice talent and great writing created a slice-of-life tale not quite like any other and so fun that, if you’re like me, you’ll never want it to end.

15. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (27 eps.) (+ 2 Movies + 3 OVA Shorts + 9 Music Videos) (Mecha, Fantasy, Action, Adventure) - Gurren Lagann is an over-the-top mecha adventure like no other that is made of pure manhood and fuckwin. The epic journey follows the young Simon who is a driller working in an underground village that has never seen the surface. His manly older friend Kamina decides that he and Simon are going to break free from the village, and they do, only to find that the surface world is under the rule of evil beastmen – and so they seek to break free from the beast men as well. Gurren Lagann is a powerful and inspiring show full of unforgettable characters, insanely epic and spastic visuals courtesy of studio GAINAX and series director Hiroyuki Imaishi, and one of the coolest soundtracks in anime history, which combine to create an adventure like no other that will have all passionate souls brimming with inspiration and vigor.

- Re: Cutie Honey (3 eps.) (Action, Old-school) – Much like Gurren Lagann is GAINAX’s throwback to the great old mecha shows, Re: Cutie Honey is actually a story in the classic Go Nagai franchise Cutie Honey that is credited with giving birth to the magical girl genre in spite of being totally violent and nudity-heavy. Re: Cutie Honey is just that and a bundle of fun with GAINAX going as full-throttle as they can every minute of the way.

14. Haibane Renmei (13 eps.) (Drama, Slice-of-life, Fantasy) – One of the shows that always makes it’s way onto the high ranks of it’s viewers’ favorites lists, Haibane Renmei is the most personal creation of master artist Yoshitoshi ABe and weaves a story as whimsical as it is mysterious, full of timeless characters who capture the viewer’s heart and at times can really put the pressure on it. I don’t know if it’s in spite of or because of the series’ short length, but the world and mysteries and characters have piqued the interest and interpretations of many, many fans since the show’s airing.

13. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s (13 eps.) (Magical Girl, Action, Drama) - Okay, so this is actually the second season of a longer-running series. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha (13 eps.) was a hugely popular magical girl show aimed at an otaku audience that I personally could not stand. Then Seven Arcs studio decided to create a second season, and with a new director and a far more realized story, they produced what I would call a masterpiece. Nanoha A’s chronicles the lives of two different sects in conflict – one group surrounding a powerful and evil book, and one group surrounding the magical girl Nanoha and the space-time police. These two sides are in conflict, but as we see their personal lives, we realize that every character in the show is a respectable and great person who is only fighting out of their desire to protect their friends. It’s as brilliant as any war story that humanizes both sides of the conflict and pulls on the heartstrings as well as providing some truly amazing characters. After Nanoha A’s there was another sequel called Nanoha StrikerS (26 eps.) that I haven’t seen yet but know was considerably less well-received by fans.

12. Casshern Sins (24 eps.) (Action, Adventure, Psychological, Drama, Old-school) – Based on the classic transforming super-hero story, Casshern Sins is a dark and wholly beautiful tale of a post-apocalyptic future wherein robots, who were formerly immortal beings, are now rusting and dying, and humans are falling from the simple lack of resources. Casshern is a human-like android who has no memories, but is told that he was the one who destroyed the world and is being hunted by robots who were promised that they could have immortality again if they consume Casshern. Casshern travels the world through episodic adventures and sees it for all it’s beauty as well as it’s ugliness with some of the best art I’ve ever seen in anime and stellar animation by studio Madhouse. That alongside one of my favorite anime soundtracks creates a very thick tone of hopeless despair for Casshern’s dying world, his lonely journey, and the corruption of man and machine that surrounds him.

- Claymore (26 eps.) (Action, Adventure) – Claymore is admittedly similar to Casshern mostly in tone, general visual style (having come from the same studio), and in it’s intense action scenes, though these are also the best parts of the series. It is the tale of Clare, a Claymore, meaning a half-demon who works to slay full-demons for her company in exchange for profit from the various townspeople who need help from the demons. The basic plot of Claymore is almost laughably generic, but it is presented very nicely and features a cool enough leading lady with a great backstory to warrant watching.

11. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (26 eps.) (+ Kai (24 eps.) + Rei (5 eps.) + Specials) (Horror, Supernatural, Thriller, Drama, Comedy) – Higurashi is a dark, violent, and frightening show at times, and a cute and funny show at others – it is a show about pure madness and the murderous intent brought about by pure love. It is an incredible mystery and nail-biting thriller that takes it’s time in showing it’s hand, and when it does, it consistently pulls out game-changers that will shock and awe the audience and make rewatches that much more awesome when you realize how everything fits together. What really holds the show together is it’s amazing characters, every one of which will show you their darkest sides even as they win you over with their heart and great personalities. It also has Keiichi, the single greatest harem lead of all time. I would say more, but you can’t be spoiled for Higurashi – just give it a watch and be amazed.

10. Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen (4 eps.) (Action, Drama, Romance, Samurai) – Also known as Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal, this OVA prequel to the popular shounen series Rurouni Kenshin takes a decidedly darker and more mature tone and creates an unforgettable masterpiece of work. Viewed as a movie, it is comparable to any of history’s greatest films – it chronicles the tale of young Kenshin who knows nothing but violence and bloodshed as he works as a manslayer for the rebel army that brought in Japan’s imperial era. Kenshin finds himself thrown accidentally into a relationship with a woman who witnesses him murdering someone and who he doesn’t know is the widow of a man he recently killed. The OVA is rife with subtlety and brilliant artistic nuance even as it is striking and violent and is astoundingly directed to weave animation, music, and art together perfectly. The definition of a ‘masterpiece’ and probably the greatest samurai anime ever made.

9. Baccano! (13 eps.) (+ OVA (3 eps.)) (Action, Supernatural, Thriller, Historical) - Set in 1930s New York and written as an ensemble film, Baccano! is the literal definition of the phrase ‘non-stop thrill ride.’ It’s a pulp action romp the likes of which would make Quentin Tarantino and Guy Richie proud as it bounces back and forth through it’s own timeline, managing a ton of fun characters and their encounters involving much turbo-violence and many strange situations. It’d be way too much of a pain to summarize the plot – suffice it to say there are immortals, murderers, cannibals, terrorists, hitmen, and many, many mobsters involved to create an always fun, always energetic good time that will knock your socks clean off.

- Mnemosyne (6 45-minute eps.) (Action, Supernatural) – Being another turbo-violent story involving immortals, Mnemosyne is like Baccano but turned up to eleven – it’s full of sex, violence, intense gore, and heavy fucking metal courtesy of an amazing opening song by Galneryus. Mnemosyne unfortunately never lives up to it’s amazing first episode through the rest of it’s run, but would be worth seeing for that episode alone. Gore? Lesbians? Zombies? A shotgun glove? It’s got it all.

8. Simoun (26 eps.) (Steampunk, Drama, Action, Adventure) - Simoun is a brilliant, beautifully imagined, and huge series in spite of it’s relatively low episode count. It’s a show that the creators really put all of their heart and soul into, especially director and creator Junji Nishimura. Dominating on all fronts such as art, music, and writing, Simoun is a forced to be reckoned with, but most importantly it delves into it’s large cast and gets deep into all of their thoughts and actions to create a very personal experience. I can’t even really talk about the plot – Simoun is the must-watch cult hit of the decade, so you’ll just have to check it out yourself. Bonus points for being decidedly yuri.

7. Lucky Star (24 eps.) (+ OVA) (Comedy, Parody, Slice-of-life, School) - This show is good, clean otaku fun, and I appreciate it. I can pick it up any time and watch it with friends and family who are fellow otaku. I can bring it up any time – it’s presence is never unwelcome. And it’s everywhere. It’s got memorable characters who worm their way into my conscience and never go away. It’s a show that may not fill me with emotion or inspiration, but it will always work for me, always be a good time, and it reminds me why I’m an otaku. Besides, it’s a damn gorgeous production by Kyoto Animation, who are almost always a must-watch studio anyway. I can’t say Lucky Star is a must-watch, and it certainly shouldn’t have been seen by as many people as it was because it had no place for many of them, but it is nonetheless a genuinely great show.

6. ef ~a tale of memories~ (12 eps.) (Drama, Romance) - The first thing that ef does to grab the viewer is provide a uniquely intense visual experience courtesy of studio SHAFT. Then it pours on a heart-wrenching romance drama full of great characters who are all trying as hard as they can to get their lives on track and experiencing all sorts of drama on the way. The series is brilliantly directed with some of the most memorable scenes you’ll likely ever see in a series and themes that resonate greatly with anyone whose ever wondered about their place in life. The best way I can describe my love for this show – the emotion I get when the story, characters, music, directing, and dialog combine is with the lyrics from the opening theme. “Be alive – take it – promise to find, yes I will – shining wings filled with wishes – Fly high – make it – get to the new world that I seek – someday, so I believe” – Euphoric Field. There was a second season of ef called ef ~a tale of melodies~ (12 eps.) that some people liked a lot but I found very disappointing.

5. FLCL (6 eps.) (Comedy, Action, Parody, Sci-fi, Romance, Psychological) – “FLCL is an all-time classic if there ever was one. Eternally memorable music, visual style, and themes. A plot that’s so messy and convoluted one wouldn’t think it was possible to make heads or tails of it, but the narrative challenges its viewers to cut though all the WTFery of space pirates and conspiracies and wild animated cues to find at its core a simpler, relatable, down-to-earth story. It’s an anime that can be enjoyed on so many different levels, its no wonder so many love it to this day.” – a great description by Kadian1364 on this crazy classic from the brilliant minds at studio GAINAX and the hard work and guts of director Kazuya Tsurumaki.

- Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (13 eps.) (Comedy, Parody) – Visually and tonally very similar to FLCL, Abenobashi is a story about a young boy and girl from the Abenobashi shopping district in Osaka wherein the fabric of reality is shattered one day, causing the entire area to transform into one bizzaro-world after the other, each hilariously parodying a different genre of anime.

4. Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight (12 eps.) (+ OVA) (Comedy, Drama, School) - The story of a near future wherein schools have pretty much fallen apart with no one really interested in attending anymore and an unenthused student body. Amamiya Manami sets out to change all of that by becoming the student council president with her passionate motto, ‘MASSUGU GO!’ Manabi revolutionizes the lives of her friends one by one even as she revolutionizes school life altogether. Manabi is hilarious and heartwarming and full of superb characters, and it has a heart bigger than the sun itself. But more importantly, it is empowering. It is unilaterally positive, while not naive. It is a show that says ‘we aren’t saying you can do it blindly. We really mean that you can do anything, even if it looks all wrong.’ Has my single favorite ending of all time.

3. Toradora (25 eps.) (+ 4 Special Shorts) (Romance, Comedy, Drama, School) - Ryuuji is a man who was born with a constant scowl on his face, so in spite of his unilaterally good nature, everyone is afraid of him. Taiga is a girl with a kind heart who is misunderstood as having a bad attitude which only makes her attitude worse. No one understands them, so there’s no one better than them to understand each-other. Meanwhile there’s no shortage of comedy and drama as they and their friends experience fun times, hard falls, and a whirlwind of love and emotion. Toradora in the context of it’s appearance and the time that it was made looks like what you would call ‘just another moe romance’, but as you can see, in reality, it is so much more. It is a deep and thoughtful tale of love between two of – no, THE two greatest characters that I have ever had the pleasure of watching and filled me with boundless emotions as I watched it’s warm and heartfelt story play out. <- And you have no idea how long I’ve been trying to properly define my love for this show. I finally did it!!!

2. Eureka Seven (50 eps.) (+ Movie) (Mecha, Action, Romance, Drama, Fantasy, Comedy, Psychological) - The tale of young Renton Thurston, whose father died saving the world, leaving him with a boring life in a no name town. It just so happens one day that he meets his greatest hero and the girl of his dreams all at once, and so he leaves home to go on an epic coming-of-age journey. Of all the anime I’ve seen, this is the most well-constructed in every way, and no other show has made me care about everything in it so much. Every character is memorable, and Renton and Eureka are spectacular. Possibly the only show that I can’t say anything negative about. I never wanted it to end, though the ending was beautiful. Studio Bones really pulled through on everything from art and animation to music, writing, and organizing a massive staff of directors, actors, and animators to create a consistent and fully realized masterpiece.

1. Gintama (187 eps. and Counting!) (+ OVA) (Comedy, Action, Drama, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical, Sci-fi, Samurai, Parody, And Anything Else You Can Think Of) - What would have happened if aliens had invaded Japan during the Edo period? Gintama is the story of a silver-haired man named Gintoki who runs an odd-jobs shop in the middle of alien-invaded Edo and the ever-growing massive cast of characters that surround him. What has happened with Gintama is that by making a story set in a cross-section of history and sci-fi with a character whose place in life is totally undefined, literally ANYTHING can happen in the series – and it damn well will. Gintama is a fucking hilarious parody comedy series whose success is precisely in it’s incredible length. It’s not just that every kind of story ever made has been parodied and referenced in Gintama – Gintama has literally BEEN every kind of series. It can be a pure comedy in one episode, a drama in the next, a shounen action series for one, a gag comedy, a sit-com, a character-driven adventure – it can be anything and it WILL. And it handles each and every story to perfection. What’s more, it is without flaw – the production quality is a non-issue as a high or low budget can become the actual plot of the episode. Just about every great voice actor that I can name has a place in the series. Every member of the massive cast of characters is memorable and great and there are more of them than you can count. The soundtrack is superb, the opening and endings are great, the writing is gold, and in spite of being a kids show, it can literally get away with ANYTHING from good portions of the show taking place in the red light district to themes of drug addiction and turbo-violence. What makes Gintama my favorite anime of the decade? It. Is. Everything.

And there you have it.

If you read the ENTIRE list and there was a show that I DID NOT MENTION that you think should be on the list PLEASE ADD IT IN A COMMENT USING THE FORMAT I USED ABOVE: Title (episode count) (other seasons, episodes, or movies) (genre approximations) – description. DO NOT JUST ADD ANY ANIME THAT YOU KIND OF LIKED. ONLY ADD SHOWS THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE YOURSELF REWATCHING YEARS INTO THE FUTURE, AND ESPECIALLY YOUR FAVORITES. I know there are some shows that I left off that someone will probably want to add.

I WILL ACCEPT RE-WRITES OF THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING ANIME: Numbers 131-200 with the exception of Gundam(s), Macross(es), Hellsing, Neko Ramen, Shadow Star NaruTaru – and the following: Bakemonogatari, Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, Kanon 2006, Loveless, Beyond the Clouds, Pretty Cure, Ponyo, Noein, Gungrave, and Kannagi

Please note that I will edit your descriptions slightly to include certain information that helps to match the consistency of the post.

LET’S CREATE THE ULTIMATE CANON FOR THE DECADE!

It’s part seven of “100 Character For 100 Otaku!” Have any of your favorite characters appeared yet? If so, did you like their pictures? If you did, make sure you click them to see the full sized versions! Today I look at number 70 through 66 of my favorite characters as I determine why I like them, how they reflect the true nature of otaku, how the parallel my own otakudom, and how they are like the first episode of Crest of the Stars. Let’s rock n’ roll!

70. Kuhouin Murasaki (from Kure-nai)

Why I Like Her: Murasaki is a very smart little girl. At the beginning of Kure-nai, she doesn’t really understand anything about the outside world, having been raised in the strange world of the Kuhoin’s; but she learns very well and has a great sense of what she should do. When Shinkurou teaches her things, she takes them in and applies them. She is really a great kid at heart.

A Mirror For Otaku: Although otaku are often very book smart and chock full of trivial knowledge, many of them have no street smarts whatsoever. Otaku, however, are quick learners, much like Murasaki, and highly receptive to new ideas. I know this because I’ve had to introduce my good buddy No Name to new ideas about the world (such as the fact that it is possible to sneeze more than twice in direct succession ROFL).

Reflecting My Otakudom: When I was new to anime, I naturally had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was literally years before I even found out that there were people out there subtitling anime, and other people downloading it. It took a lot of learning and adapting to get where I am.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: It’s understandable that humanity wouldn’t have a grasp of what the invading aliens would be capable of, seeing as the Abh are at least a hundred years or so more advanced than they are. The humans have the silly idea that their defense systems might be able to hold off the invasion because of their ignorance of the aliens’ true power.

69.”Rock” (from Black Lagoon)

Why I Like Him: Rock is a cool motherfucker, and one of the most real male leads I’ve probably ever seen in anime. He’s in an insane situation surrounded by insane people, but he acts exactly how we would expect ourselves to act – and that isn’t to curl into a ball like a pussy, nor to suddenly become action jackson. It’s to act like a real fucking person and reason with the situations that come at him like a goddamn adult. He’s also the right man to tame Revy, because he may be normal, but he doesn’t put up with bullshit.

A Mirror For Otaku: Before he was whisked away to be used as a hostage, Rock was a regular Japanese businessman. When he faces his new life situation, he can’t help but get a little existential about his place in life, seeing as nothing he did before really seems to matter anymore. Otaku face this same thing when they watch anime itself, because they wonder what meaning their current life has when they can’t live the kind of life seen in anime. This is all brutally lampshaded in the last arc of The Second Barrage.

Reflecting My Otakudom: Otakudom is to me what the crime business is to Rock. Both of us were dragged in, shown something new, changed, and turned into characters. Rock became what I would call the culmination of his own beliefs on top of the world of crime, much as I am a culmination of my beliefs over the world of anime blogging. This is what I believe is known as ‘personality’, as it takes form in regards to a way of life.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Needless to say, the Abh invasion is something that will radically alter the lives of all humanity. Just as Rock was suddenly ripped into a new situation, and forced to apply what parts of life are contained directly in his own mind to his new situation, so will humans have to do the same.

68. Takemoto Yuuta (from Honey and Clover)

Why I Like Him: Takemoto is The Idol of Adolescence (sorry Utena). His Epic Journey across Japan is one that touched me right at the heart, because it’s exactly what I would do in my youth (i.e. now, because I am still a kid.) When things get heavy, there needs to be an epic sojourn. Takemoto brings a huge smile to my face, because he does everything I want him to do and expect him to do as the kind of person who I am as well.

A Mirror For Otaku: God, it’s really hard to pick out something about Takemoto that wouldn’t reflect the nature of otaku. I think I’ll take the route of Takemoto’s hilarious instructors and chalk the whole deal up to “youth.”

Reflecting My Otakudom: I am a big ball of uneasiness, headaches, indecisiveness, unsureness, and desire. What’s hilarious is when I get this way about anime blogging. I sometimes find myself thinking so deeply about my blog that I almost feel silly. This blog is like my little world, and I am way too dramatic about it, as we kids tend to be.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: At the very beginning of the first episode of CotS, we learn about the first major space expeditions by the starship “Lief Erikson” (icwutudidthar). This sort of epic journey of discovery can be compared to Takemoto’s epic journey of self-discovery.

67. Holland Novak (from Eureka Seven)

Why I Like Him: Holland is a character in a mech show about a kid who has to grow up, but Holland has even more growing up to do than Renton. He’s too hotheated, petty, bitchy, and jealous, always flaunting his manhood and elite skills like an asshole. It takes the awakening of a young boy’s potential to show Holland what a child he is himself, and from then forward he becomes the most respectable kind of man and father figure.

A Mirror For Otaku: A lot of otaku need to grow up. I’m not saying they need to grow out of being an otaku, but just that they need to grow as people. I shake my head when I see anime fans who fight and patronize others like schoolkids and take their petty shit seriously. It’s possible to be a man and be an otaku, and that’s where we get our popular adult otaku and trend-setters (take the likes of Danny Choo, or on a smaller scale, Ghostlightning.)

Reflecting My Otakudom: I’ve had to do a LOT of maturing myself, especially in terms of my otakudom, and I probably still have a good ways to go. But don’t take my word for it, I have a two-year backlog of posts to show you that development firsthand LOL.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Holland lives and spends most of his time inside of his skyship, the Gekko-go, as it encircles the planet and it’s atmosphere. Likewise, many of the Abh seem to live in massive space stations, which interact with the humans by threatening them in the first episode.

66. Hiiragi Tsukasa (from Lucky Star)

Why I Like Her: I could spend hours upon hours rattling on to you about the deep secrets of ‘moe’, but if you asked me for a quick example, one of the first places I’d point would be Tsukasa. What makes Tsukasa lovable is her very passive nature – you don’t ever see Tsukasa angry. She is also dumb as a brick and totally clumsy, which is why you feel the need to help her (how could she live alone?! she couldn’t!!) and she’s got a very open receptacle of thought, which is why she’s a slut (I imagine she’d be the easiest skirt to get under there is.) As such, Tsukasa is the easiest cute girlfriend I can imagine nabbing, but more importantly, she’d be a fun friend – especially to tease.

A Mirror For Otaku: Tsukasa can be very airheaded and make dumb mistakes (like leaving a million cell phones in the washer!!!) – and let’s just say, otaku are hilarious when they are too bored to pay attention to what the hell they are doing. I’ve both read a lot of stories of otaku breaking random things out of flighty carelessness, and actually seen this in action! No Name is a very careful person normally, but when he get’s bored, that fucker can manage to break anything!!!

Reflecting My Otakudom: Tsukasa’s sunny nature and total lack of aggression is how I feel when I’m actually watching anime. It’s all fun and games until I hit the blog LOL.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: One time Tsukasa was on the beach, and she picked up a large shell. She placed it to her ear and peacefully listened to the sounds of the ocean. All of a sudden, a large bug emerged into her ear, and scared the fuck out of her. Her ear was invaded.

There’s 70-66, tune in tomorrow for the next five! We’ve got an otaku girl, a badass chef, and who knows – maybe your favorite character!

Have you been following “100 Characters For 100 Otaku?” It’s the post series where I go through my top 100 characters and tell you what I like about them, how they mirror the nature of otaku, how they reflect my own otakudom, and how they parallel the first episode of Crest of the Stars! Make sure you keep up, so that you may see how YOUR favorite characters could fall into all this mess! Today’s piece is 75 through 71, so let’s see what we’ve got!

75. Isurugi Noe (from True Tears)

Why I Like Her: I almost didn’t let this formerly high-ranking characters onto this list because I couldn’t decide if I liked her more as a character or as a concept (more on that in a bit). You could consider Noe to somewhat be an example of “The Trickster;*” she puts on a sort of facade of happiness over the pain she feels inside. However, Noe doesn’t come across as hiding her insecurities, nor as acting against her nature. There’s a certain reality to her beyond the moe-moe of a desperate girl. This reality is what makes her all the more horribly painful to watch for me.

A Mirror For Otaku: One of the biggest theories from outsiders about otaku is that they use anime, games, etc. as ‘escapism.’ This couldn’t be more wrong in my opinion. Otaku have nowhere to run – the things they find joy in are the very things that make their reality painful. Anime is less escapism as it is confinement, and otaku are aware of this. Otakudom isn’t an escape, it’s a method of coping. And… Jesus, Noe makes everything hard to talk about! The point is, otaku are depressed, and anime is their facade of happiness, much like Noe puts on an act of happiness, however, in neither case is this happiness outside of the person’s true nature and desire for themselves. (this might need to become it’s own post later.)

Reflecting My Otakudom: The reason I say that I may like Noe more as a concept than as a character is that I feel as though one of two things may be the case: 1. Noe is who I wish I could be – a cute young woman who doesn’t crumble under the impending sorrow and loneliness of her life, but rises up to it with a free spirit and happiness; Or, 2. Noe represents who I already am; A person who uses things like anime, which I do truly love, to lull myself out of the impending depression that would occur the instant I lost track of my passion (as it always does.) My second theory feels all the more pressing when Noe attempts suicide and I can feel her reasons.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Uhh. Well, Noe has a very complex home situation, which eventually leads to her brother leaving her all alone. This could be compared to Jinto’s complex home situation and his father’s leaving to take a place in Abh society.

*The Trickster, as explained in Boogiepop and Others by Kouhei Kadono, translated by Andrew Cunningham: “Not a multiple personalities case, but a manic-depressive girl. At school, she never spoke a word to anyone, but she was always bright and happy at home. Her parents and grandparents were apathetic and cold, and she desperately tried to brighten up the gloomy atmosphere. Unfortunately, the stress was too much for her, and it’s effects started to manifest externally. Her behavior grew stranger and stranger, until finally she was taken to a doctor and the truth came out. She was treated, her family repented, and the house became a much more peaceful place. This sort of “peace making psychological disorder is apparently referred to as “The Trickster”"

74. Ladd Russo (from Baccano!)

Why I Like Him: Ladd Russo is a sick motherfucker through and through. He’s a sadomasochistic psychopath who pulp’s a man’s head with his bare hands early in the series, and spends the rest tangoing with another of the baddest of bad motherfuckers (name withheld). I can’t say much else, I love him for his violence and awesome lines. “THANK YOU, FUCK YOU, A HERO IS BORN!”

A Mirror For Otaku: Otaku love to have a ‘waifu’. What they would actually do to this ‘waifu’ is probably something we don’t want to know. Otaku have all sorts of fetishes, and I’ve no doubt that many would get off on the same thing Ladd does, which is ultimately murdering his wife (who’s own desire is actually to get murdered by him.)

Reflecting My Otakudom: I can be pretty brutal on a show I don’t like, and have a lot of fun being brutal on it. Other people will probably get pissed off, as the enemies of Ladd tend to, but it doesn’t stop my fun.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: We learn in the beginning of Baccano that by the end of the series, Ladd will somehow loose his left arm. Ladd’s arm is taken when he is overpowered by an opponent later in the show, similar to how the Abh overpower the humans when they take over their planet. You could say that the Abh ‘disarmed’ the humans with their overwhelming strength.

73. Samejima Mamimi (from FLCL)

Why I Like Her: Samejima Mamimi Never Knows Best. Being a hot smoker chick almost invariably means a spot on my list, but that’s not for discussion here. Mamimi is very lonely and hurt, but also very selfish and willing to openly use people for her own fulfillment. Without spoiling anything, she gradually comes to terms with the independence she needs to have. [but you can read all about that in my FLCL post series, because Mamimi is far too complex to describe in a paragraph, unless you settle for that first sentence.]

A Mirror For Otaku: Mamimi needs to rely on others to keep herself afloat (or she’ll ‘overflow,’ as she puts it.) She is lonely, scared, and unable to function; bullied and abused and uncared for. Otaku often feel the same way, even if they really ought not to, and have anime as the thing they rely on to get them through.

Reflecting My Otakudom: I can’t say that I haven’t used anime as a crutch to avoid depression, and I can’t say that I totally don’t do it now, but I can say that I think I am more like Mamimi at the end of FLCL. I have largely come to be more independent and capable of existing with myself, only using others as a crutch in my weaker moments.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: When Naota starts hanging out with Haruko and blowing off Mamimi more and more, Mamimi begins to feel betrayed. The same could be said for Jinto’s caretaker after his father sells out to the Abh – in both cases, there is some misunderstanding involved in the situation.

72. Casshern (from Casshern Sins)

Why I Like Him: Casshern has lost his memories and travels a broken world, which he is accused of having broken himself at every turn. He searches this world for the truth and witnesses the nature of humans and robots alike at every turn. He is also an immensely powerful fighter, which can be both painful and helpful to him at times. Casshern is at many times a silent observer, but it is ultimately his decisions in the light of what he has witnessed that will shape the fate of the world.

A Mirror For Otaku: I have known otaku to be consumers of vast amounts of information. Whether it be anime-related or not, otaku tend to accumulate a lot of knowledge in whatever fields may interest them, and as such may see fit to take their vision of such things as objective reasoning. Casshern similarly experiences many things in the world and has to ultimately decide what he considers to be right and wrong.

Reflecting My Otakudom: I’ve seen a metric fuckton of anime, and I’d be lying if I said that I don’t have some viewpoints that I consider to be somewhat objective, especially on technical aspects of anime (i.e. I know the difference between ‘good animaiton’ and ‘bad animation.’)

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: The Abh are said to be a race consisting entirely of beautiful people (no doubt thanks in part to gene manipulation), and we see some examples of this in the first episode. Casshern, too, is said to be the most beautiful of living things, and is called such many times throughout the series.

71. Chigasaki Mayuko (from Niea_7)

Why I Like Her: Mayuko lives in the very melancholy gray area of life. She is a poor, sort of desperate college student who bears up under a lot of hardship, but finds herself wondering why she bothers with it all. Ultimately, she can’t decide whether the cyclical nature of life bothers her with it’s mundanity, or if being flung from it would be even more frightful. Her silly friends and shitty roommate continually test her perceptions.

A Mirror For Otaku: Many otaku have no idea what they want out of life or what they intend to do with it. Mayuko can’t decide if the future is something she should be ready for, or something she should let slide by, and whether or not any of it has a purpose. These are the thoughts ever-present in the minds of every hikkikomori as he finds himself unable to deal with his own pessimism when put against his desire to live.

Reflecting My Otakudom: I can’t claim to have ever known where I was going with my life. I sometimes want to believe that what I am doing now has meaning, and when I can’t be convinced of such, I want to believe that I can accomplish something with meaning. However, I have never truly made myself believe any of that. I have largely come to terms with contentment (otakudom) as the answer to depression, and I want to think that Mayuko ultimately did as well.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Mayuko lives with an alien named NieA who is the worst roommate ever. She eats Mayuko’s food, even though she’s poor, is annoying, unappreciative, and rude. None of the same can be said about the Abh, but the idea of being inconvenienced by aliens is consistent.

There’s 75-71, tune in tomorrow for the next five! We’ve got a Japanese businessman, a cell phone mass-murderer, and who knows – maybe your favorite character!

I’ve been asked to create one of the most difficult but epic posts imaginable – I have to take the list of my top 100 favorite anime characters (completely revamped for this post) and get into the bones of how each of them is a mirror of the nature of otaku, then draw a parallel between them and my own otakudom as well as… the first episode of Crest of the Stars?! Because there is so much detail on so many characters, I’ve split the post into twenty parts which I will be posting over the next nineteen days. I certainly hope you enjoy reading this most insane of posts!

100. Lelouch Lamperouge (from Code Geass)

Why I Like Him: Lelouch is a beautiful bastard. He knows what he wants out of the world, and he’ll do anything in his power to get it. However, he isn’t totally arrogant. He knows the weight of his actions, and he knows that there’s a chance he may fail, but he pushes forward without letting fear get the best of him.

A Mirror For Otaku: The case has been made for Lelouch before (A post I couldn’t find after 20 minutes of searching), but I will re-demonstrate how he is a perfect mirror for otaku. Lelouch is a bit anti-social, only really approaching the people who seem to attach themselves to him. He only talks to larger amounts of people through his more badass persona, Zero (an internet handle if I’ve ever heard one.) He’s cynical and highly intelligent, but it’s not like he detests humanity entirely – he just hates what they do with themselves.

All of his friends are more physically fit than him by a long shot, but he’s a chess master and knows brilliant tactics as well as the basics of mech piloting. He also has a ‘moe imouto‘ who he tries to protect with everything he has.

Reflecting My Otakudom: As Lelouch mirrors most otaku, he also mirrors myself. I am a self-confident, tactical intellectual who, like Lelouche, is excellent at gathering people to lead. You could compare Lelouch’s building an army to my own efforts in building a network of friends and systematically turning them all into otaku.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: In the first episode of CotS, Jinto’s father makes a treaty with the alien race, the Abh, by choosing himself as the leader of his planet’s people as per the Abh’s request. Lelouch similarly seeks to unite the world through methods which would put himself at the throne.

99. Haruhara Haruko (from FLCL)

Why I Like Her: Haruko is a crazy bitch who’s selfish, pushy, and manipulative, but always to hilarious effect. She is a master of gags and puns and wields a badass bass guitar with which to beat the manhood out of all the boys. Great fun.

A Mirror For Otaku: Every otaku can be a bit (or very) selfish at times. Many NEETs continue to live with their parents who continue to take care of all of their living expenses, which the otaku abuse with their constant use of electronics and internet service. Not to mention the barrels of expensive snack foods it takes to feed otaku. Even worse are ones who let their parents pay for them to live in an apartment!

Reflecting My Otakudom: I happen to be one of those jobless, selfish bums living with my parents and using all their electricity. Worse still, I am a horribly manipulative bastard. I am known for the fact that I can get my brothers and friends to get just about anything for me unless they are in a bad mood. I’m also sort of a cunt. As for my otakudom, like Haruko’s pushy self, I force anime on countless people.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Haruko is an enigma, much as the Abh were to the humans in CotS. In both cases, the defense force of the invaded planet thinks that there’s a chance for them to fight the aliens, be they the Abh or Haruko, but they aren’t really sure what could be hidden up the enemy’s sleeve.

98. Fuura Kafuka (from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei)

Why I Like Her: Kafuka is hiding some dark secrets and may actually be the craziest character in SZS. Her life has been so horrid that she has learned to see everything in a positive light to combat the darkness. As such, she is sunny, fun, and cute, but with great purpose.

A Mirror for Otaku: Underneath the cynical, misanthropic shell of an otaku is a positive side. It’s the part of them that allows them to love a message like “believe in you who believes in me!” and love shows like Hidamari Sketch and Manabi Straight. Kafuka may seem silly sometimes, but I think we all really wish we could have such simple, silly thoughts.

Reflecting My Otakudom: I have seen a lot of anime, and a lot of it has been really terrible. After some of the worst, you’d think I’d become a cynical jerk who doesn’t like most anime, but instead, I still take a positive attitude towards anime itself and try to give everything a chance.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: There isn’t all that much to be positive about when an unknown alien race threatens to annihilate your planet, but Jinto’s dad used a more optimistic approach when he took the moral fall to save humanity. Good sport, even if all of his friends hate him for it.

97. Rahzel Anadis (from Hatenkou Yuugi)

Why I Like Her: Rahzel is like the anime version of Juno – a smart, strong, short, and thoroughly strange young woman with a tongue sharper than King Arthur’s blade. Rahzel is a ton of fun and a barrel of laughs if you can keep up with her. Even though she’s a bit harsh, though, she can be polite around normal people, and a force to be reckoned with to enemies.

A Mirror For Otaku: Hatenkou Yuugi is a very shoujo anime that would probably be more receptive to a female audience. What I think girl otaku will find in Rahzel is a refreshing, respectable, and relatable leading lady. Like an otaku, she’s very misunderstood and somewhat incomprehensible, but she rises above all of the haters and spins people around her fingers like a champ, which any strong girl could admire.

Reflecting My Otakudom: Rahzel travels with two older, very pretty men who match her blow for blow in intelligence and wit, but with totally different personalities from the filter of age and experience. Much like Rahzel, I am a snappy young anime blogger who finds myself talking to older, snappier bloggers, and it takes the full extent o my wit and tact to match blows with them (while on the side I bowl over regular people like nobody’s business).

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Rahzel spends most of her time in conversations, and that talkative tendency runs rampant in the first episode of CotS. The episode is almost entirely consumed by dialog, either expository in nature or relative to plot happenings; In that regard, it is really the opposite of Rahzel, but the never-closing mouths remain a similarity.

96. Sousuke Sagara (from Full Metal Panic)

Why I Like Him: Sousuke is hilarious with his raised-by-wolves (or rather dogs?) personality and social ignorance, but being funny alone wouldn’t get him spot #96. What makes Sousuke great is his sense of situations and understanding of personalities. Even if he doesn’t understand why his actions cause problems and make Chidori rage, he does understand when he’s done something wrong and has a sense of people’s thoughts – a powerful tool when you are socially ignorant and have a tsun-tsun love interest.

A Mirror For Otaku: As I said before, Sousuke has no social skills whatsoever, which is true for most otaku. He’s also really big on military stuff, not just because he was raised with it, but because he really likes it – Plus he has his own hobbies like fishing that he can loose himself in. Sousuke’s simple-minded and straightforward interests along with his tactically brilliant thought process make him a great match for otaku

Reflecting My Otakudom: Sousuke has a tendency to involve his passion for military and security in the wrong parts of civilian life, just as I tend to do with my anime fandom. I tend to expect a certain understanding and open-mindedness from people that I can’t always get for my hobby, and it can lead to hilarious situations of my social ineptitude.

The First Episode of Crest of the Stars: Sousuke takes a very professional approach to everything he deals with. He doesn’t fuck around and adheres quite strictly to protocol. The Abh have similar tendencies as they don’t fuck around with the people of the planets they invade – ‘surrender or die,’ period.

There’s 100-96, tune in tomorrow for the next five! We’ve got a boy with a metal arm, a revolutionary girl, and who knows – maybe your favorite character!

A post in the Epic Journey. Contains FLCL spoilers. Continued from here.

Rewatching and posting on FLCL has been a really crazy experience. Aside from it now being the anime I’ve watched the most times total, it’s also the first that I’ve watched so many times in such close proximity. When I think of the long road I’ve trekked from hating rewatching to obsessing over it (see: Epic Journey) I really feel I’ve come a long way. Ever since the journey started, each show I watched made me want to watch it again, but I could never bring myself to until FLCL simply forced my hand and drove me to watch it 3 times over. It’s greatly opened my mind on rewatches and introduced me to just how powerful they can be, as now I can safely say that with this post, I have achieved a full understanding and love for this show after half a decade of watching it. So let’s get this show on the road! IT’S THE CLIMAX!!!

Episode 6 of FLCL is, in my opinion, the perfect ending in every possible way. For one, it is a culmination of all the things in FLCL – the quiet, contemplative bits, the hyperactive, energetic bits, psychological development of all the major characters, crazy fights, spectacular directing, and an epic ending like any show deserves to have. The ending is conclusive and gives a firm look at where each character’s development in the story went, clenching down on the series in a way that no moment had ever been wasted the whole time. This is the episode telling you ‘it all had a point and message, and here’s that.’

Our episode opens up with Naota’s classroom who is being taught to learn to use chopsticks and failing miserably under the tutelage of an idiot teacher. Naota’s friends joke about sporks while Naota looks emo. He tells them he’s going to get some sporks and leaves. The friends can tell that he’s lying about the sporks and just wants to go be emo somewhere. His more mature friends, Ninamori and the big lip guy, comment that he’s being an idiot – and yes I said ‘mature’ for a reason because we will come to find that their maturity is a sort of litmus test for Naota’s. Will explain later.

Naota narrates about how the city has been covered in smoke, making it as though there is no way to leave the town, and it is an isolated place from the world outside. He says that the giant hand seems to scream ‘stay there’. He also notes that Haruka and Canti have left town to this outside world. There’s an incredibly important thing to remember here – Haruka is supposed to be the replacement for Naota’s brother, who also left him behind when he went to America. Naota’s state of mind is greatly resembling how it was at the beginning of the show, with him feeling useless and emo as the one he looks up to has left him behind.

Quick Note: We then get some exposition from Amarao and his bridge bunny. There’s a little gag here that confuses a lot of people – Amarao is working out and has a water bottle. The girl takes the bottle and accidentally drinks from it, and when she realizes where it’s been she immediately turns blue and screams. Lots of people have been lost about that, lol.

We now see Mamimi back at the riverbed again. She is looking for Takkun – obviously not Naota since he and her are probably not going to be on the best terms after the last episode. She’s looking for the little cat Takkun who she’s supposed to protect. She can’t find him, and a guy on a motorbike splashes her, equating to one shitty day. Naota and his friends pass by and see Mamimi who is soaked, but Naota decides to ignore her and keep walking ahead.

The next moment has Mamimi under the bridge lighting up a cigarette and looking pretty damn pissed. However, right then a little component thing comes out of the water that is adorable. There is a really fun shot here where Mamimi, who’s pissed, is trying to feign disinterest, but curiosity gets the better of her and she goes to check it out.

Meanwhile, Naota is walking along and drinking one of the bitter drinks that he’s supposed to hate. Amarao shows up then and criticizes him for it, asking if it makes him feel more adult, and telling him the sweet stuff is better (ironic coming from the biggest wannabe-mature guy in the show.) As Amarao starts talking to Naota, we actually see Takkun the cat on the side who has found a female cat that he is together with. This symbol of a man and woman together is something that will pervade this episode as an important image, especially in the fact that the cat presumably left Mamimi upon finding love.

Amarao explains the plot to Naota in regards to Haruka’s presence and Atomisk, however, he is actually incorrect about certain details. First of all, he thinks that Haruka is in love with Atomisk – it’s natural that he thinks that the only reason she wouldn’t like him is because she’s in lvoe with someone else. In addition, when he shows his mental image of Atomisk, it’s a huge, manly man with flaming hair that looks monstrously badass. Once again, this is Amarao assuming that Haruka could only like someone else more if he was stunningly manly, which we will learn is untrue when we see Atomisk, who in no way resembles anything human.He finishes up the talk giving Naota some of his own eyebrows, which apparently protect you from having robots come out of your head.

Over on the Mamimi front, the little doglike creature she found takes her cell phone and tries to eat it. At first, Mamimi cries ‘wait! no! Sempai’s phone number!’ but after a moment she sulks, sighs, and allows the thing to eat it. It is at this moment that Mamimi has finally lost all hope and essentially snapped, or at least stopped lying to herself about being happy. With the last trace and hope of her sempai gone, she no longer has a hero to protect her, and therefor no longer has any real reason to live. At this point, she pretty much stops caring about consequence and life or death – but that’s all to come into the frame slowly. She tells the critter ‘you have to take responsibility. You have to be takkun.’ Once again, since she is heroless, she needs a Takkun to rely on her to at least give her some sense of worth. But this Takkun she’s going to use to act out her world-end deeds.

Back at Naota’s house, he is lazing about for a little bit then heads downstairs to find that Haruka and Canti are back in a hyperactive manga page deal again. It’s worth noting that the manga slowly degrades into pencil drawings, which are meant to look like the artist was about to miss the deadline and had no time for touch-ups.

Afterward in Naota’s room, Naota thinks Haruka is asleep and asks ‘who are you? why did you leave?’ but Haruka isn’t asleep and comes down to his bunk. She is nice to him, which wins his favor easily, and when he is looking at her longingly she tells him ‘you’re really a kid, you know?’ This is like triggering a switch. Right then, Naota springs forward and hugs her, crying, asking why she left him behind. Naota finally feels like he doesn’t have to play adult now. Because his hero has returned and is there to be the adult for him, he doesn’t have to put on the fron tof maturity anymore. Haruka offers him to run away with her, and he obliges.

While they are on the road, Naota narrates about how in a town like this, you forget there is a world outside, and it feels like you are living for nothing on a slope towards death. Haruka’s presence reminds him there is an outside world. What Naota may not realize is that he’s recognizing the world now through a child’s eyes like he should have been all along. In his front of adulthood and maturity, the world appeared like it was all about duty and maturity (as Amarao would also lead him to believe) but Haruka crushes that maturity with her free spirit and ability to do just anything which Naota admires.

At Naota’s school, his friends are discussing his apparent running away. The kid with the huge lips calls Naota an idiot for this, and then Ninamori supplements with the argument I mentioned in earlier posts. She says ‘he should just be honest with himself. I told the truth, and then I cried a lot and stuff.’ this was how her situation was resolved – she ultimately broke down and escaped her false maturity to embrace her childhood, and she knows Naota needs to do the same. He needs to stop lying to himself about what he is or isn’t, and accept himself and live the life he should on his own terms, without having to act like anyone else.

Quick Note: Somewhere in here, not sure where, we see Naota’s dad talking to the teacher. You can see that his arm is in a sling – this is from the terminal core falling on him at the end of episode 5.

Mamimi starts using her new Takkun to exact revenge on this world that she hates which has left hr behind. She starts with kids’ cellphones that she stole from school, and as Takkun grows she moves on to thing like the moped that splashed her. All the while, she wears a look that is a mix between glee and simply not giving a fuck about anything anymore that gets more and more dark as she progresses.

Naota and Haruka find themselves outside a convenient store where Haruka has bought a huge bowl of shitty ramen and Naota has bought a small bowl of name brand. Haruka takes a bite and says it sucks and switches bowls. This leads to one of my favorite exchanges in the series, if only because I’ve been able to quote both sides many times in different situations. Naota says ‘you can’t buy the cheap brands just because it comes with more, you have to go for the big name brands.’ (very true.) However, Haruka rebukes that ‘eating shitty ramen can be fun too.’ (also true) This is really the perfect example of Naota’s rationalism against her free-spirited that tells you why she is something so mystical and special to him.

We now see Mamimi pulling along Takkun who she’s been feeding for days now (seemingly without sleep) and he has gotten to be about the size of a single-story building. They happen to come across Naota’s male friends beside their truck who call out ‘oh! it’s the wife Naota dumped!’ Mamimi looks a bit mad, but Takkun outright comes around the corner with a loud roar. He charges forward at their car with Mamimi calling out ‘wait! They aren’t on my revenge list!’ As it eats their car, she then calls ‘I don’t want Takkun to do these bad things!’ This, like Naota’s part in episode 5 and the cat Takkun finding love, is another important symbol.

The new Takkun is doing just like Takkun did and taking it’s relationship with Mamimi farther than she wanted it to go. Mamimi wanted a docile thing that she could use, but now the beast has grown protective of her to the point that at an insult towards her, it goes ballistic and attacks the ones who dared to insult her. It could be said to be a statement on men’s desire to protect women who as a sense of duty and maturity, thereby making this Takkun another parable of Naota. Which is exemplified by the next moments.

Amarao and the officer girl are in the car, and Amarao starts perversely hitting on her, showing off once again his childish thinking that girls will be attracted to him. Second later, they have a run in with the terminal core, which proceeds to assimilate it’s missing component – Canti (remember, he came from the same place as all the others, he was just Atomisk-possessed before.) When the beast is coming towards them, Amarao actually pushes the officer woman out of the way to take on the beast, which gets him scooped up by it. This is another statement of a man’s so-called duty in maturity.

All of the powers that be manage to converge atop the giant hand – the beast, Mamimi in tow, Haruka and Naota, and Amarao, who manages to get in an awesome Gendo Ikari reference. The terminal core won’t enter the giant hand without one last component, and everyone knows it directly involves Naota’s noggin. Amarao tells Naota that he should not help Haruka and to stay away from her. He says how she is selfish and childish and only wants things for herself. He tells Naota to do the mature, adult thing, and protect everyone such as Mamimi and the rest of the town. Man’s duty and all, after all. However, Naota, finally at ends with his fake maturity, turns to Haruka instead and lets her malice him with her bass, launching him into the core, which merges with the giant hand.

As the hand reaches for the iron, Amarao cries how they’ve played right into Medical Mechanica’s hands, and now MM will destroy this planet. However, Haruka devilishly retorts that she doesn’t care about all that, and all she wants is Atomisk’s power – not his love like Amarao had thought. As the hand is coming down, it is stopped at the last moment by Canti, who is glowing with power, and Haruka now knows that Atomisk is coming. However, Naota then crawls out of Canti’s face burning with the power of Atmosik and wielding both his and Atomisk’s guitars. Naota has finally achieved the true manliness.

What does this mean? It will be shown in coming scenes, but I really want to spell it out here. A true man is simply one who can be honest with himself and strong of heart. His duties are just what he makes them, and he doesn’t have to aspire to any particular image to be a man – he just is one. His priorities now straight, Naota blasts the giant and from the iron. Haruka is pissed because she wants Atomisk’s power and Naota has it, so an epic final battle erupts between them. It ends with Naota stopping in front of Haruka and the power dispersing and circling around him, letting him float in the air before Haruka.

He simply says, with the most childish and honest of expressions, ‘I love you’, and kisses her on the lips. As soon as he does, Atomisk comes out in his true form – a fucking insanely enormous bird. It sucks the giant hand into it’s body, grabs onto the Medical Mechanica iron and tips it on it’s side, then blasts off into outer space never to be seen again.

Naota and Haruka stand on a pile of rubble. Haruka tells him that she is going to go hunt for Atomisk. At first she offers him to come along, but then changes her mind and tells him ‘you are still a kid.’ She doesn’t mean this as an insult – more like she’s proud of him for finally realizing it himself – and blasts off. Naota picks up the guitar and stands at the top of the rubble, staring off into the distance. It is not a look of longing or confusion or anything – he just stares after her, taking up her guitar as the symbol of his own progress towards the future where he might be able to live honestly.

It is when she sees this image of Naota standing with the bass that Mamimi too realizes her future. In this moment, Mamimi realizes that it’s time for her to move on. She needs to put the past and all the bullshit behind her and move on. As such, she leaves school and town to pursue a career in photography and presumably finally got her life moving in a real direction. In the end, Naota is with his friends once again, without presumption or dishonesty, living like a kid, as he should. And the only possible ship is NaotaxNinamori :p.

After finally finishing my epic journey of FLCL, I can safely say that it remains one of my alltime favorites. I don’t know if it’s in my top 5, since there are some pretty big shows I still haven’t done epic journey posts for, but it’s definitely a show I will never forget, especially after writing some 25,000 words about it XD. Will be doing business with it long into the future, and I hope that my posts have furthered your enjoyment of this spectacular anime, as they definitely have enhanced my own.

A post in the Epic Journey. Contains FLCL spoilers. Continued from here.

Episode 5 of FLCL has pretty much always been my favorite. It’s where all the plot setup finally starts moving (late as that sounds) and the whole episode is zany and awesome. What’s especially great is that it’s the most hyper-active, action-packed episode of the show but still has as much depth and subtlety as the rest of the show. And since it’s where things come to a head, it’s also probably the easiest episode to misinterpret. See, up to this point, most of the important stuff that no one gets pretty much goes right over their heads and it’s less that they misunderstand as it is that they just don’t realize something else is going on. In this episode, all of that stuff going on in the background comes rushing to the forefront, so when you see it, it’s some new thing that you try to make sense out of but really can’t without the information you missed. So this is the part where all of our earlier impressions were wrong and it becomes really important that you’ve been reading along! (not to sound pretentious, lol.)

(God damn it, I just know this post is going to be long as hell T_T. Also, I’ll be leaving out the annotations since they keep breaking things, so just assume everything I say is based on the foundation of the director’s word.)

Episode 5 comes in to a pellet gun fight between the teams of Naota x Haruka and Naota’s Dad x Canti. We then receive an explanation of why the battle’s happening. This whole scene is zany as hell and chock full of references, so I might as well explain it all. The movie the guys are watching sounds like a yakuza film, and it’s full of gun-fighting and random pigeons. The pigeons are a reference to films by John Woo, who always has them randomly flying around. We then get a scene between Haruka and Naota’s dad which is a massive Lupin III parody where he even gets into the age old debate of which is better – Lupin’s classic red coat or the green version from Castle of Cagliostro.

When Naota heads up to confront Haruka, she is reporting through the cat again, and the people on the other side seem to be accusing her of having feelings for Naota, which she is saying isn’t really the case so much and that the N.O. field is still open – I.E. she’s just having fun by prolonging this mission (which she did in episode 4 by helping Naota launch the satellite bomb back into orbit.) When Naota is going to confront her, he gets distracted by her being nearly without clothes. Now there are a couple things to keep in mind through the whole episode when it comes to Naota’s dialog. In this episode, he is completely full of himself and is also thinking mostly with his penis. However, no matter what, keep in mind that while he has feelings for Haruka, Mamimi is the one who he really likes. So don’t think too much about the things he does with Haruka, because he isn’t fully accepting his feelings for her yet.

He asks Haruka if there’s someone who she likes, which she naturally dodges as hyper actively as possible. Sure, Naota is partially asking out of his own concern, but not totally. Haruka gets him on the bed and is in a very sexual pose with him. At this point, she starts complimenting him about how he swung the bat to knock that satellite away. She tells hm it was ‘very adult’ of him, which makes him blush. That’s when things are set into motion – the gun in his head cocks (lol) and a huge trigger springs from the back of his head pushing his lips into Haruka’s. More than ever, this horn is really representing his, well, ‘horn’. Hearing about his manliness makes him feel all, well, ‘manly’, and he gets a bit sexually tense thinking this way.

As such, there is a gunfight, supposedly a war between Naota and his father for Haruka’s affection. I say ‘as such’ because the guns are meant to be very phallic here, once again reminding you that this IS Utena’s writer. This is made blatant by Naota’s dad stroking his revolver pretty sexually. You could almost think of this whole thing like a size-off. Which makes it pretty hilarious that the biggest gun goes to the young female commander. Meanwhile we see Amarao getting a haircut which is done with a hilarious South Park parody. He shows off his addiction to manliness in spite of his childishness by asking for a ‘cool’ and ‘sexy’ look but then asking to get one of the candies from a bucket hilariously held by a little kid. This is a pretty good parallel for what’s happening on Naota’s side.

Remember, Naota is thinking he’s all manly and is also in a size-off, but when you look at it from the outside, he is acting zany and playing a childish game – he’s becoming more like his father, and less like the cool exterior he’s always tried to maintain – way less. The bridge bunny girl even says ‘they’re just playing – they look really dumb’ which accentuates just how childish Naota looks doing what he thinks makes him more adult.

After a totally awesome scene of Naota and Canti getting barreled by a truck driven by Naota’s friends, he starts yelling at Canti that he gets a ‘time out’ and such things. We can really see how into it he is, how hyper he’s gotten, and how childish he looks. This is a whole new Naota we’re seeing under the influence of Haruka. Meanwhile his friends, who are all calm in their car, are actually in the middle of doing paid work. It’s a pretty interesting parallel when you think about it, how Naota is acting like a little kid, and meanwhile the other kids his age are doing something ultimately mature in that they are already working.

However, in the eyes of Naota’s friends, and he himself, Naota has matured a lot since he did the awesome task of deflecting the satellite bomb, which everyone is now aware of. You’ll notice that the only one who’s not all excited about this is Ninamori – her thoughts right here are pretty tough to work out, since she just sort of calmly observes everything around. She looks at Naota, observing how he’s acting, sees Mamimi, and sees Haruka. She will draw her conclusions about all this in the next episode. When the friends compliment Naota about the whole incident, he smiles and blushes, and we see the gun cocking again. Naota’s pride keeps getting bigger and bigger, and he’s thinking he’s more and more manly because of it.

We next get a scene of Naota and Mamimi sitting at the riverbed again. Now, it’s important to really, really, REALLY understand what each of them is thinking for this whole dialog exchange to make any sense, because through the whole thing Mamimi and Naota are on completely different pages.

Mamimi: Remember all that I’ve told you about Mamimi’s need for stability and her usage of Takkuns to keep herself grounded. Meanwhile, Naota’s brother Tasaku, as also represented by Canti, is her guardian angel that she can look up to and count on. From Takkun, all she wants is something that needs her and wont abandon her, and will just be her support. Meanwhile, she lives fleetingly, wanting to be saved, but also not afraid to die. At the end of episode 4, Naota swung the bat and deflected the satellite bomb which saved the city. Mamimi’s last words having been ‘Takkun swung the bat.’ Remember also that while Mamimi said that Naota was cool piloting Canti in episode 3, I said how Naota hadn’t done it consciously and still wasn’t able to really swing. In episode 4, this had been he himself swinging.

For Mamimi, this has changed Naota’s role in her life, which is NOT something she wanted. Naota was just supposed to be her Takkun – the temporary support while she waited for his brother to return (which we know won’t happen, but she still hasn’t really let down, just letting Canti be his temporary replacement). Naota is now trying to take that place as guardian angel and protector by swinging the bat for her sake. However, Mamimi really loves Tasaku-sempai and can’t replace him. Naota was never meant to be anything more to her than Takkun, and now he’s overstepping his boundary and loosing his usefulness to her because, frankly, she doesn’t love him.

Naota: Naota fully thinks that Mamimi has a thing for him. He thinks that she has forgotten about his brother, since he left her, and he also has started to think that she is into him ever since she said he was cool piloting Canti. Now, him having saved the day, he is pretty confident in his masculinity, and thinks that he has become as awesome as his brother now. Because of that, he thinks he’s supposed to be Mamimi’s new boyfriend. He totally doesn’t understand her true feelings at all. This is what leads to the following situation and conversation.

Now, Mamimi starts talking about how Naota has started getting bigger and cooler, and how he’s been doing all these adult things. Naota takes all of this as compliments, even though Mamimi looks very disappointed and is mostly being a bit ironic. She also starts asking Naota about his feelings about Haruka. Naota tries as hard as he can to assure her that he doesn’t care about Haruka at all, and that he really has feelings only for Mamimi. But this isn’t what she wants to hear nor why she asked, which I’ll get to momentarily. After one of her apparent compliments, Naota is getting really full of himself, and Mamimi shoots him in the head as if hoping to shoot some sense into him.

This pretty little scene is cut into by the most awesome fight ever, done by Hiroyuki Imaishi who is pretty much the almighty god of awesome animation sequences (see: everything GAINAX). Naota’s scene continues, and when Mamimi calls him ‘all grown up’, Naota takes this almost like a confession and is convinced that Mamimi loves him. He then proceeds to grab her by the hand and start dragging her along down the road, grinning wildly the whole time. He doesn’t even notice Mamimi saying ‘it hurts… stop it!’ (yes, it’s supposed to sound that way.) He stops her in front of a cafe – if you can’t catch it, he’s trying to take her on a date. He thinks that he’s become her boyfriend, so he wants to take her out like this. For those who have seen a lot of anime or know a lot about Japan, you’ll notice that the cafe is actually stylized to look exactly like a love hotel, a very different place to take your relationship to the next level!

Mamimi is far from happy about being taken here. You’ll notice how she is forcibly looking in the opposite direction from him. There’s a very confusing emotion going on here. Naota is so full of himself it’s almost disgusting, and Mamimi is almost desperate to get away. All that with the insanity going on with Haruka and you’ve got an almost painfully tense emotional atmosphere here. Mamimi is still asking Naota ‘don’t you like Haruka?’ Naota still thinks that she means that she’s worried about his place in the relationship, but the reality is that she really wants him to say YES, he likes Haruka. She doesn’t want him to like her, she wants him to like someone else so they can just be friends. Naota, still misinterpreting, now thinks he has to prove himself to Mamimi, and tries to forcefully kiss her. She says ‘I’m not supposed to do these things with Takkun’ and he says ‘but don’t you like me?!’ Yes, folks, this looks a lot like a rape scene!

And then it gets to a glorious moment of representative imagery. Naota’s next horn explodes out and shoots right between Mamimi’s legs, directly symbolic as though he had raped her! While Naota’s horn is growing rapidly, we cut to a scene between Haruka and Amarao. Amarao has lost his manly eyebrows and as such is acting like his true self – a complete pussy. During he and Haruka’s conversation, a number of the words they use hint that the two of them have actually known each other for a long time and that this is not the first situation like this they’ve had. That will be covered more in the show’s finale.

Haruko doesn’t even smack Amarao in the head, but does a magical girl transformation, which seems to sexually entice Amarao wnough to bring out his guitar – which is positively minuscule, further emasculating him. The tiny guitar is only even useful enough to be used as a slingshot. She comments how Naota’s was ‘much more manly’ and how Amarao has always been disappointingly small. Amarao says ‘why do you like that kid?! Why don’t you like me?!’ It’s evident that she is probably the one who crushed his young heart some time ago, leading him to his pursuit of coolness.

Quick Note: Haruka’s costume at this part is a bunny costume as worn by the magical girl in the animated shorts Daicons III and IV (Haruka even shouts ‘DAICON V!’) For those who don’t know, the Daicon videos were the very first works by GAINAX. I’d highly recommend watching them, since Daicon 4 is legendary, and also it may or may not have been a major influence on End of Evangelion.

Naota’s horn has become a giant trench-coat-covered hand that has a hand on each finger so that it can hold 5 massive guns. This fight is fucking awesome and insane, with Haruka at her very best and is chock full of awesome moments. I also have to point out the perfect choice of background music in Blues Drive Monster. The lyrics to this song are someone calling out to the monster of the radio to wash away the world and all their troubles. This kind of reminds me of Mamimi and the song’s cool tone fits well with the chaotic scene as stuff goes on everywhere.

Atop the giant hand are Naota and Mamimi. Mamimi is shaking and scared and starts holding her head chanting ‘Tasaku-sempai, Tasaku-sempai’ over and over. This pisses Naota right off. He’s confused as to why she’s still calling for his brother when he left her behind and he’s right here to protect him. There’s a mix of the unfairness of her preference and the effort he’s trying to put forth for her mixing around in his head. He gets pissed as hell and yells at her that HE is the one who’s protecting her. And then he outright CALLS Canti to him. None of that bullshit about being eaten or stumbling into the solution, he is taking the situation into his own hands. As he steps into the ride, he says ‘My name is Naota! Don’t ever call me Takkun again!’ It’s like his way of saying ‘I’m not just going to be your tool, you will accept me as the one who protects you, or not at all.’ He’s no longer content with being her plaything and wants to be in a real relationship.

The battle continues, but Canti and Haruka both fail in their fighting. There is one important moment that is impossible to catch without rewatch or reflection. One of Canti’s bullets gets deflected into a billboard. At the episode’s end, we will find out that Naota was this bullet. The significance of this is that Naota is no longer in control of Canti. That’s why, after Haruka runs out of ammo and is caught in Canti’s arms, he is suddenly able to go badass – he isn’t inhibited by Naota who wasn’t really ready for this big step up in manliness. Canti is now fully under Atomisk’s control, which is why he summons Atomisk’s ultimate weapon – the Gibson EB-0 1961 model (I assure you, when this show came out stateside, demand for this guitar had to rise. I know Funeral and I wanted one really bad. Unfortunately, it’s apparently very rare.)

Upon taking up his mighty axe, Atomisk proceeds to beat the piss out of the giant hand. He knocks out it’s core part (which lands right on Naota’s dad) which leaves the hand inoperable. It falls into place just next to the Medical Mechanica iron and freezes there (it’s frozen form being actually an image of director Kazuya Tsurumaki’s hand.) Here at the end, Naota comes out of his ball shape only to be immediately stood on by Haruka while she googly eyes Atomisk, practically riding his dick. There is a very direct message here – Haruka loves Atomisk and does not give half of a fuck about Naota in light of his presence. Now we can really get a sense of where Haruka’s priorities lie. The episode ends here, so we can only wait for the finale!

Episode 5 remains my favorite episode, because there’s no other anime episode that can be so thoroughly zany, uproarious, and full of absurdly well-animated and choreographed fight scenes while still having enough depth and subtlety that I can write a 3000 word post on it. It’s kind of like all my favorite things about anime in one place!

Incidentally, this post came out just a couple hundred words less than the episode 3 one, but  mostly because of bonus comments and annotations on that one.

EDIT: Jesus fuck, even after editing there were a ton of spelling errors I had to fix. I actually wrote ‘anime’ in place of ‘ammo.’

Like episode 3, episode 4 is fairly straightforward, and this one in particular is very plot-focused so I won’t be saying quite as much about it, seeing as the plot questions raised in the episode are answered in the proceeding ones. This episode’s individual director was Masahiko Ohtsuka, who brings his own style to the table for the episode. The character designs look very different throughout, and the visual style is more dark, mysterious, and mindfuck than is usual for this show. According to Tsurumaki, Ohtsuka takes his style a lot from trippy 60s movies that have lots of strange imagery.

The emotional point of this episode is mostly brought to focus in the episode’s beginning when the baseball team coached by Naota’s grandfather of which he is a part, having taken his brother’s place, is getting royally owned by Haruka. The players all talk about how if his brother were there, they’d be dominating, but with Naota they are hopeless as he never, ever swings the bat. Naota’s never swinging the bat is (very obviously) an analogy for the fact that he never takes control of life and just lets himself get pushed along by the current. This is the exact element of his personality that Haruka has been slowly and subtly changing through the last few episodes, though Naota still hasn’t gotten into it (hence my care in pointing out that he didn’t remember having piloted Canti in ep 2, because he couldn’t actually make those decisions yet.) At this part, it isn’t stated outright, but it’s evident that one of Haruka’s balls that ‘looks like it’s going into outer space’ knocked the missile satellite out of orbit.

Naota tries to claim that he doesn’t care about sucking at baseball since he doesn’t play it, but Haruka accuses him of being dishonest with himself, seeing as he’s always carrying that bat around. It’s obvious that Naota really wishes he could swing the bat, like his brother who he looks up to can, but he is so sure that he lacks his brother’s power that he can’t really do it. (My own brother is exactly like this. If I left him behind, I think he’d turn out just like Naota.) Haruka tells him the key words, “nothing can happen until you swing the bat.”

When Naota comes home to Haruka getting a very erotic shin massage from his father, he’s pretty pissed. You can see from his father’s erratic movements, dead eyes, and the plug coming from his ass that he’s been replaced by a robot (as will be confirmed later.) I’d like to put forth that Naota doesn’t notice this because he’s not really concerned with his dad’s part in this relationship as much as he is with Haruka’s.

Quick Note: When they erotically bite into the omelet together, the omelet is shaped like a pair of panties.

Naota’s reaction to them is not only disgusted an jealous, but also a bit crushed and disappointed. To him, Haruka is supposed to be like his brother. She’s cool and she has that master swing, so she should be the kind of person he can look up to. However, instead she does degrading things with his father, which weakens his image of her. (1) Of course, while he looks up to her, he also loves her, so he’s jealous in a sexual way as well.

When Amarao shows up at the bakery, he’s generally being a complete tool and Naota can see it. He wears his trenchcoat and sunglasses look and his huge-ass fake eyebrows like he’s trying to be cool, and he despenses shitty advice while thinking it makes him sound cool (reminds me of my idiot uncle…). When he leaves, Naota is left with the sound of Haruka and his dad screwing around, and he yells ‘adults are all idiots!’ wrapped up again in his maturity.

Later on there’s a trippy scene before Haruka and Naota hang out together in the backyard. At first, Naota is still mad with her, but then Haruka starts helping him practice his swing. She gets very close and talks calmly and affectionately in a way that begs Naota’s admiration as she tells him to aim for the stars. Naota feels like he’s re-connecting with her, and that maybe he was wrong about her being a bad person.

Back at the Space Beaureau, we find out a comet is falling to earth, and we meet Amarao’s team and bridge bunnies. Most of this is plot stuff, but we also learn that Amarao hates spicy things. Really, he is just like Naota in a number of ways, namely in that he acts like a kid who’s trying to act grown-up with his whole cool-guy routine and masculine eyebrows. However, he still hates spicy things (and later talks about how sweet things really are the best.) In this respect, he is Naota completely.

That night, Naota seems to witness Haruka shagging his dad, though the viewer will learn it’s nothing of the sort later. She’s actually fixing the robot. The next day Naota is hanging out with Mamimi who is rambling something about how the Great Emperor of Fear may be coming. This is a prelude to her actions later in the episode, which I will discuss then. When Haruka shows up and wheels away with Mamimi, Naota yells that he’ll never ask her to coach him again. He has become once again scompletely disappointed in Haruka and is refusing to think of her as his brother or figure of admiration anymore.

Then a lot of really trippy shit happens, plot progresses, etc.

Once the satellite bomb is on it’s way to earth, we get the rest of Mamimi’s important lines. She is calling out to the “Lord of Terror” in excitement as she watches for the bomb from a radio tower. Tsurumaki explains that this ‘lord of terror’ was one of the crazes that was going around in the pre-2000 time where everyone thought the world was going to end. Mamimi says “it was worth it to pray to him every day even after the boom.” Mamimi quite clearly wants the world to end. She even says to Canti “if that thing falls down here, do you think we’ll have school tomorrow?” She wants this thing to kill everyone and take away all of her pain and struggle. While Mamimi lives as carefree and happy as she can manage with the things around her, her life is painful no matter what, and while she doesn’t hate life strongly enough to kill herself, she welcomes the idea of wiping the world clean and leaving this troubled life behind. I can’t say I disagree with her mindset, lol.

Haruka drives Naota to the top of medical mechanica and (with another shampoo hat) pulls a Gibson Flying V out of his head – just like she has her bass, this is Naota’s ‘bat’ (the ultimate comparison of the weapons to masculity comes when the bridge bunnies see the flying V and all get massive nosebleeds). She tells Naota that now it’s finally time for him to swing the bat and leaves him there. Right here is another scene like Hybrid Rainbow where you can tell the director wrote it to the song, since the sky all changes color along with the lyrics ‘CRAZY SUNSHINE!’ Naota decides to swing.

A few things happen. He calls out his brother’s name as he is about to swing. Remember, his brother, to him, is the epitome of what a man should be. This is also what Atomisk is, and when Naota calls out the brother’s name, the Atomisk symbol appears on his head. However, unlike in episode 2, this time Naota is making the conscious decision to swing the bat, so even though he’s getting an extra push from Atomisk, he really is doing it himself this time, and really is living out a manly moment. This will set the stage for the dramatic tension of the next episode.

Looking on at the sight, Mamimi calmly says ‘Takkun swung the bat.’ She is a bit disappointed, but for more reasons than the world remaining, but those things come out really in the next episode. We also get a scene at the end where Amarao is looking on with shock and awe as Naota has batted away the bomb. At the very end, we see one of his manly eyebrows fall off. This is a symbol that he actually feels imasculated by Naota’s manliness in saving the day.

While still great, this really isn’t my favorite episode of FLCL. The stylistic choices are very nice, but for the most part it’s kind of a downer compared to the last 2 and proceeding 2 episodes, and mostly serves as a plot progression ep with less depth to speak of. I do look forward to covering episode 5, possibly the deepest episode of the show and maybe even my number one favorite.

And now, I wanted to point something out once again. Look at the main bridge bunny’s uniform, then look at Nono’s clothes in Gunbuster, then look at the new Evangelion character for 2.0. MIND = BLOWN.

1. This is actually all said by Tsurumaki, which is where I started thinking about the fact that Naota connects Haruka directly to his brother and how this drives his feelings towards her.

FLCL 3 is Ninamori’s ep, and I think it’s where this show really comes into it’s own with a clear idea of what FLCL is exactly. Ninamori is the loli-bait of this series, being as she is one smoking hot 12 year-old. In fact, Ninamori gets the most design attention – while most of the cast is only seen in one outfit, Ninamori gets a new one every time she shows up as well as new hairstyles and accesories. This is because she was apparently the art director’s favorite so he gave her special treatment (1). There are a number of things that should be understood about Ninamori before going into this ep if you want to fully understand this.

Ninamori is a foil of Naota, and she also has a crush on him (2). Like Naota, Ninamori is obsessed with her own maturity and always tries to act adult. However, she handles it a little differently then Naota does, and in fact her story is in some ways meant to be a precursor to what Naota will experience (3). Her crush on Naota never goes anywhere, and doesn’t have any real impact on the series, even in this episode, so it isn’t necessary to overthink it. The story of this episode is also told in a very ‘Darker Than Black’ way that rewards attentiveness and rewatchers. There was actually one thing I’d missed every time I watched this until I went to do this post. But all that will come up shortly.

At the episode’s start, Ninamori is in a car with her father’s secretary who is loading on perfume and makeup. We are confronted with some facts: Ninamori’s mom is divorcing her dad because her dad’s been cheating on her with the secretary. Ninamori’s family is ‘noveu-riche’ and the story about the divorce has gotten out, but no one knows about the secretary yet, which, as Ninamori comments, is why she’s skillfully pouring on makeup and perfume and wearing fresh clothes so that no one can tell she came out from having banged the dad. When the secretary talks about the incident and the divorce, Ninamori responds without concern. She continually says that it doesn’t matter to her and that her parents’ business isn’t hers. The secretary notes her maturity, which is the theme here – Ninamori acts especially mature. And the keyword there is ‘acts.’ We also learn about Ninamori having the lead role in a school play.

Over at Naota’s place, Haruka is fixing her bike and we get to see Naota’s new horn – pretty pink cat ears! (4) In this scene, we can see that Naota is speaking a bit more openly to Haruka now and seems to have kind of gotten used to her as a member of the household. She tries to force him to take curry as his lunch, but Naota retorts that he hates spicy things, bringing up the things I mentioned about spicyness in the commentary post. Haruka calls Naota’s ears ‘soft and warm like alpha waves’ which I found kind of funny and made me wonder if such waves may have some connection to his brain(less) portal.

There is also the first of a few key moments here on the part of the plot that, as I mentioned, rewards attentiveness. We learn that Naota’s dad publishes a neighboorhood magazine that he tries to sell and usually fails at. This magazine is important.

When Naota gets to school, Ninamori starts bugging him about how he needs to show up for the play rehearsals, as he is the secondary lead role. She also says how his hat doesn’t look good on him (which she says about all of his hats. There is meant to be a little hint of her liking him here, though it’s nothing serious. Ninamori’s kind of liking is more like a real life one and less like an anime one where it’s omg infatuation for no reason.) In class, we meet Naota and Ninamori’s teacher, who is very apparently childish. She’s just like Naota’s dad and likely another of the adults that he thinks acts too much like a kid. The manga (oh shit, I mentioned it finally – and before anyone asks, the manga is based on the show, not vice-versa) actually does a lot more to accentuate the teacher’s childishness.

It’s in this class that attentive hint number 2 comes in. Naota’s friends are reading a ‘naughty’ magazine which is actually the one Naota’s dad published (Naota did refer to it as a ‘doujin’ before…) the teacher confiscates it and gets furious about how it would be offensive to Ninamori. We see that the article she’s turned to has a report on the whole sex scandal of Ninamori’s family, and it’s got the secretary part pegged, too.

Down by the river, Naota is skipping practice again to hang out with Mamimi. In this scene, Mamimi seems even closer to Naota than she was before, probably due in part to the events at the end of episode 2. She tells Naota how she had been in a school play before. She says ‘it was kind of embarassing, but kind of fun – my parents were both there, so it was a good memory.’ This gives us one more look into Mamimi’s harsh life – her parents either aren’t around anymore or split up and are probably very bitter people now. Sad.

Meanwhile, attentive part 3 is going on. Naota’s dad is trying to sell a large stack of his magazines to some old shop owner (and talks about his great investigative journalism). That’s when Ninamori walks in to talk with him. We only see her say ‘ano…’ before it cuts back to Naota and Mamimi, but somehow I had always overlooked this scene and that’s why I never understood what happens with the scandal later. It was only on this like 10th watching that I put all of the pieces together.

Back at the river, Mamimi tells Naota how he looked really cool when he was ‘piloting’ Canti. Naota narrates that he didn’t really remember much post-being eaten, but he takes the compliment and blushes. We can see that he’s very proud of himself for seemingly having protected her. However, because he doesn’t really remember it, it’s important to know that his will wasn’t the factor that made him able to win that match – Canti was. Knowing that Naota isn’t now more brave or powerful is relatively important to the next episode.

Quick Note: At Naota’s house, there is a scene where Haruka is looking for something, and spots Canti glueing together the pieces of his head that he lost. Canti covers it up and blushes. Tsurumaki points out in the commentary that to Canti, the way his head looks makes him feel kind of like he’s balding, and the cardboard box he wears is like a tupee.

Quick Note: Canti’s box flaps sticking out and the apron he wears are supposed to make him look like the famous character Sanae-san.

Now, in the next scene, we see Ninamori arrive at her house which is completely swamped with reporters and TV vans. She seems to have expected this, though. The secretary is seen trying to flee the scene in disguise and stops quickly to tease Ninamori before running off. Now, what happened here is, Naota’s dad’s ‘investigative journalism’ has gotten the word out and now everyone knows about the sex scandal. The real reason for this is that Ninamori wanted him to blow up the story to drive away the secretary. As we will soon learn, Ninamori is very manipulative like this.

Ninamori and Naota meet in an old subway entry by chance, and Ninamori fumes about him skipping practice, though Naota retorts that he could tell everyone about a class rep being in a place like this. Naota tries to reassure Ninamori about the whole scandal, but she, playing mature again, tells him it’s no big deal anyway. However, being as she has time, she asks Naota if he wants to go somewhere (she’s hitting on him?). Naota refuses, though, because he’s waiting for Haruka – who shows up in the nic of time to ram him with her vespa. He flies through the air and in another dramatic 3D scene flies at Ninamori – their lips almost touch, but instead their foreheads do (5) and they both fall down a hole.

It’s important to note that when their foreheads colided, the robot that was next supposed to come out of Naota’s head has been transferred into Ninamori’s (6). Ninamori discovers Naota’s ears and also suddenly has to take a shit (effect of the transfer), so Haruka takes them both back to Naota’s place.

Back at the house, Naota’s family, Haruka, and Ninamori all sit down to eat some curry. Haruka has of course gotten the most brutally hot curry imaginable, which Naota won’t touch and his father and grandfather slowly die while eating. Somewhere in the fray of comedy and plot dialog mixing, Ninamori, who is eating very calmly, tells Naota ‘you’re such a kid. It’s an adult taste.’ Now we can definitely see that she completely perceives herself as an adult. Naota then points out that her curry is actually mild, as Haruka used a different box. She also says in the conversation once again how her parents’ business isn’t hers. Suddenly, she finds herself having to take a shit again, and runs off to the bathroom. If you pay REAL close attention, you’ll notice that there’s a shot of Canti watching her run off curiously – he seems to have noticed her N.O. field (a phrase we will learn in later eps) and realized that the robot is in her.

While Ninamori is taking a bath, the window opens and we hear Naota’s dad talking to her (CREEEEPY). She thanks him for getting rid of the secretary, which is where all those attentive hints payed off since I had otherwise never fucking understood this scene beyond Naota’s dad being creepy. He hands her a shampoo hat – this has no significance whatsoever, but it comes back in another episode just for the hell of it, so i thought I’d mention.

When Naota goes to his room, Ninamori is there already wearing his pajamas. I wanted to point this out – this look is FUCKING HOT. This scene was like pure sex to me back in the day, I think I fapped to this like a hundred times. I also think this is where I got my pajama fetish (yes, pajama fetish exists.) In the room, Ninamori is wearing glasses. She says how she usually wears contacts. This has significance later, but I couldn’t decide at this part what combination of ‘glasses vs. contacts’ and ‘immaturity vs. maturity’ was going on, so I gave up. Sorry.

Quick Note: They are drinking some weird drinks here. There is a story behind them. Evidently, these are health drinks that are supposed to have a whole day’s supply of everything you need. What actually happened was the company had offered to sponsor Gainax through this OVA. So they went ahead and put those drinks in there and went through the trouble of copying the labels to an exactness and stuff. As it turned out, though, the company didn’t sponser them, so the effort was for naught. At least it looks cool.

Ninamori starts getting all up on Naota (how he kept it down is beyond me…) and tells him about how she rigged the votes so that she would have the lead role and Naota would play the cat. She explains this very excitedly, as though she were proud of it, and says how no one would expect it from the class rep. As I mentioned before, she’s very manipulative. She then makes a very, very important analogy. She tells Naota how great the play is – it’s Puss in Boots – because it’s about a peasant who lies for so long about being royalty that eventually he becomes it. ‘Isn’t that great?!’ she says.

This is a direct reflection of her personality. Ninamori is constantly putting up a front of maturity. She convinces herself that nothing matters to her and that she is too grown up and intelligent for everything. She does things in a very dishonest way, controlling people behind their backs and never letting her real thoughts shine through. She thinks that by acitng in this way that she thinks is mature, it means she really is mature. But Haruka then interrupts from the top bunk with a direct opposition – ‘is it really?’ She doesn’t continue from there, but from Haruka’s personality we can tell that she isn’t a person who agrees with Ninamori’s supposed maturity, and sees through the analogy – especially since she is the one who’s been slowly getting Naota out of his maturity-based mindset as well.

The next day, at the end of school, Haruka and Canti show up to give Naota a bento for his staying after to practice. However, Naota has no intent to play the cat, and tries to storm off, but Ninamori won’t have it and grabs him by the arm. They start arguing back and forth, which quickly escalates to anger. Ninamori says she ‘wants them to see it’ and then that both of her parents will be there. Now we can see the big picture. Ninamori wanted the lead to force both of her parents to come watch her do the play. Now we understand her real emotions underneath. She desperately wants her parents to stick together, and all of the mature talk about it being none of her business is just a front for a lonely little girl who doesn’t want her family to fall apart. She’s manipulated everything from the start with the intent of hopefully bringing her parents together again.

Quick Note: Naota’s retarded friend keeps yelling ‘chuu~!’ which is both the sound effect of the kiss and that that a mouse makes. As in ‘Pikachu’. And he’s in a mouse costume. Yay for double-meanings.

The argument continues to escalate, and after Ninamori snatches off Naota’s hat, revealing the cat ears, Naota yells out about Ninamori rigging the vote. And that’s when we get our emotional reaction – remember, Naota’s robot entered Ninamori’s head when they collided. Now that Ninamori’s had a peak of emotion, the ears suddenly switch from Naota’s head to hers, and the huge robot shoots out of her head. Battle time!

Quick Note: The director points out that after Ninamori’s robot comes out, he wanted to make her really jarringly off from her character. Ordinarilly, she is very cute, intelligent, and reserved, not moving around much. After the robot emerges, she is frightening looking and her body jerks and spasms in crazy ways. The effect is absolutely superb and leads to one chilling but still insanely hot scene.

Quick Note: During the fight, there is a comical appearance of a classical song. This was apparently the suggestion of one of the staff who really begged for the song there. It happens to be the song that is played at athletic events in Japanese elementary schools, so the impression you would get is that this was one of those.

After the fight, there is a sort of summation of events that happen later. Naota narrates that Ninamori’s parents didn’t get divorced, and the whole thing blew over. Now, I’d hate to pull from a later episode, but I feel I really need to. Later on, Ninamori tells her and Naota’s friends that ‘Naota should just open up, like I did. I told my parents and then cried and stuff and it all worked out.’ In other words, Ninamori finally gave up on pretending to be mature all the time and broke down like a child before her parents, which was enough to keep them together. In the later episode, she is saying that Naota, too, should stop trying to be so mature and just accept his childhood.

At the end of the episode, the stage performance goes on, and Naota sees that Ninamori is wearing glasses. She looks over at him and says ‘they’re fake’ as the episode ends. This is one of the hardest lines in the show to decifer, and as much as he says about it, Tsurumaki only manages to make it more confusing when he poorly attempts to explain it (the interviewer gets confused to.) Basically, he says that she has gone from being someone who tries to fool herself into thinking she is mature to someone who fools everyon else (this makes enough sense) and then he starts going on about how a good woman is one who can be a little sneaky and fool those around them. He honestly seems to be just throwing stuff out there and is actually laughing as he tries to explain this – somehow, I think the meaning was meant to be pretty simple, but he somehow lost track of it and the line jsut became one of those things that’s just there. In other words, they’re fucking with you, lol.

Anyway, this was a really great episode about a really cute girl whose story is a foil to try and make you understand Naota’s better and get some more perspective on the show’s themes. It’s a pretty straightforward episode, even though I typed so much about it >_<. I think that this episode is really where the show got a handle on where it was going exactly and how it wanted itself to be. The first episode seemed like it was warming up, and the second episode was a lot of having fun with experimentation, so with this episode they seemed to have a better sense of the show’s feel and could produce something more definitive of ‘what’ FLCL ‘is’.

And since I wanted to do this: Naota = Shinji, Haruka = Misato, Ninamori = Asuka, and Mamimi = Rei. When you look at it this way, you can actually see that FLCL’s characters are much more complex :p I’ll have another thing like this next episode~

1. Pointed out in commentary, semi-spitefully lol. Tsurumaki also points out how he made Haruka cosplay at least once per episode. Nurse in first 2, maid in this one, and more to come.

2. Yes, it’s canon, says director.

3. Also confirmed by Tsurumaki.

4. Tsurumaki says ‘everyone knows cat ears are cute on girls, so I wanted to try them on a boy’

5. Tsurumaki says he wanted to use the CG for something maningless. He says ‘if they’d kissed, it would have been important, but they didn’t, so it’s really useless!’

6. Also confirmed in commentary

Episode 2 is all about Mamimi (1), who may be my favorite of the FLCL girls and I find is by far the most overlooked by series fans. And I don’t blame them – she’s a tough nut to crack. Growing up in my teen years with this show, I never got nor cared for Mamimi much at all. I never understood what she was on about and mostly ignored her (I didn’t care much for girl characters back then anyway.) In my reading of FLCL theories, her ‘overflows’ and attitude had been connected to the grand scheme of the story by people who I now know also didn’t understand her. The trouble that so many people have is that they’re missing the point. As I said in ep 1, this is a normal show with exactly 1 insane character, Haruka. The key to Mamimi is that she is a real girl.

Please note: After watching the ep, some stuff came up and it was 2-3 hours before I could write this, so some stuff is out of chronological order. It works anyway, though.

The first seconds of this episode depict a burning building which we are going to soon learn was Mamimi’s doing. It jumps right into images of her playing a game and walking around the bridge area while talking about how she has seen a god. It is Cantido, god of the black flame, who came to earth just for her. Director Tsurumaki is careful to point out in the commentary that we must think of this in the Japanese sense, as in Japan pretty much anything can be considered a god, and it’s not anywhere near like the western concept. What Mamimi has found here is an instant replacement for Naota’s brother who has just indirectly rejected her. As I explained in the last episode, Mamimi has a small threshhold of sanity and she surrounds herself by influences to keep her somewhat stable.

Canti is her new guardian angel, whereas it used to be Naota’s brother. Mamimi also saves a little kitten from the river that she names ‘Takkun’ – the same name she calls Naota by. She says how she is almost like a god in saving the little thing’s life. While this can’t be fully understood until taking later episodes into account, what Mamimi seeks in her Takkuns is something that she can attach herself to that won’t try to be anything back to her. The kitten needs her and relies on her, so it will always come back to her, is what she’s thinking. She hangs out with Naota because even though he doesn’t do anything for her, he is there for her, and so she can cling to him with her own need and without his. There is a noteworthy distinction between the guardian and the Takkun, both of which she wants.

In this episode, Naota is informed that his brain is gone and his head is completely empty. The hole in his head is actually a portal to another world from which the machines that Canti fights come through (2). This time, he also has 2 horns growing from his head – a small one in front and a huge one in back. It’s here that he uses the quote the first time: “where do the lies end and the truth begin?”. He says this alongside shots of his horns, which leads me to theorize that the horns are representative of the two women in his life – Mamimi is the small lie in front of him, and Haruko is the huge lie sitting in the back of his head. This may be overthinking it, though, lol.

Quick Note: There’s a really awesome scene where we are seeing everything in the fisheye reflection of Canti’s head. VERY well done.

Quick Note: When Canti is helping move things for Naota’s dad, there is one of my favorite references: Naota says that his dad wrote a book on ‘the deep secrets of Eva’.

Haruka crashes her bike into Medical Mechanica for no apparent reason, and while she’s waiting for Naota to show up with spare parts (hilariously a Gundam model) one of the security guards is trying to look up Haruka’s skirt. Naota smacks him and says ‘What do you think you’re doing? You’re an adult.’ Once again, he is assuming adults should act one way. Haruka tells the guards that Takkun is her guardian, which seems to be her playing on his supposed maturity, which actually makes him feel pretty good – especially when she compliments him and smiles in a way that grabs him by the balls.

Meanwhile, back at the riverbed, Mamimi (Takkun 2 in tow) finds Canti digging around in the grass. He is wearing a halo and black angel wings (Haibane?! iie, too old) that Naota’s dad put on him, but to her makes him look more godly. He actually is out here looking for pieces of his skull that Haruka broke (3) which we will see him doing in the background all episode. When she finds him, Hybrid Rainbow starts playing – my favorite song from the show, leading up to one of my favroite scenes in the whole show and one of those where it is obvious that Tsurumaki directed it specifically to fit with the music. Canti stands atop the charred remains of one of the arsoned buildings and spreads his arms out. He does an incredibly awesome flight takeoff (filmed off-center and oh my god HUGEST DIRECTOR BONER EVER) and then floats up to the clousd while the emotional music reaches a peak and Mamimi is completely awed by the glorious sight.

The song continues as Haruka and Naota are riding along the coastline. Naota raises some complaints about how he isn’t wearing a helmet and that she drives like a maniac, but you can tell he’s really enjoying himself. Haruka starts to strip down his sensibilities. Naota narratively reflects on the scene with pleasure, wondering if it was because he really had no brain. What’s important here is that Haruka is becoming something exciting to Naota that can make him loosen up and enjoy things a little, though he doesn’t grasp it. She is also starting to strip his inhibitions a little.

Back at Naota’s house, there is a comedic scene about how they’ve been making Canti run errands for them and Mamimi complains that a god shouldn’t have to do those things. Naota blows it off as her talking about some game again. It’s worth noting that Tsurumaki likens Mamimi’s state of mind here to that of the old Dungeons and Dragons cases in America where people got too into the game and started to confuse it with reality and ended up sacrificing someone. However, he also points out that it is less that Mamimi is confusing reality with a game world as it is that she is allowing the game world to enter her world because it is the world she wishes for.

Naota and his friends visit the building that was arsoned recently and they discuss who could have done it. One line I found funny was when one of them suggests terrorists, Ninamori says that they would attack something more high profile, and one of the friends replies ‘like a school!’ It really goes to show you how small of a world the people of Mabase live in when they think of a school as a high-profile location that terrorists would attack.

Here, Naota remembers the event from his early childhood where an elementary school in the area had burned to the ground. It was the school that Mamimi and his brother had gone to, and his brother had saved her from the fire, which is how they met and how she came to adore and look up to him.

As the group passes over a bridge, they spot Mamimi out in a creak where her shoes are floating away and she is desperately searching for them. Naota is completely and utterly shocked to see her there. The other kids go on about how they saw her being bullied before and how that was what seemed to have happened here. Naota has a look of total shock and worry on his face as Mamimi looks up at him with almost dead-looking eyes. The two of them start walking back home.

As they pass over the bridge, Naota brings up the old fire and asks if it was his brother who had saved her. Mamimi replies that it was ‘Canti, the god of the black flame,’ as she lights up a Never Knows Best. Naota’s eyes widen. He has a realization – done as an Evangelion-style mindfuck scene where flashing images and voices fly everywhere – one voice is explaining the rules of Mamimi’s game, Fire Starter. You are in a city of evil called Endsville. You work for the God of the Black Flame, Cantido. You must trick the police and firefighters, never get caught, and burn the whole city to the ground.

Everything he knows about Mamimi collides in his head – the bullying, her past, her loneliness, her rage. To Mamimi, who has been bullied and tormented, left homeless and abandoned, this city really must have seemed like a city of evil. A city full of people who wronged her that she must burn to the ground. The simultaneous disappearance of her lover and appearance of a god-like figure had driven her to finally start unleashing her wrath. One of the voices in Naota’s head cries out – ‘it’s my fault! I should have known!’

Quick Note – Inside his head, one voice keeps accusing him of things and he says ‘why is it Miyu Miyu?!’ I can only assume Hideaki Anno is doing this awesome scene. After all, the scene is incredibly Anno, and he is listed as one of the show’s Key Animators.

When Naota finds Mamimi she is surrounded by an emblem in the dirt and a ring of lit Never Knows Best. She is having some kind of ritual in front of the charred carcass of the old school building. She tells Naota how she had wanted the place to go away back then, but that it was useless since the remains were still there. From here, we can start to see a little more of Mamimi’s overall negative worldview, which I’ll really get into in episode 4. Mamimi has pretty much accepted that there is no real escape from the harshness of the world. She can keep herself from overflowing by clinging to things, and she can get her little Smirking Revenge by burning down some buildings, but in the end, nothing will really change for her. She then goes to try and receive a blessing kiss from Canti. Some kind of emotional reaction to this comes into Naota’s mind and BOOM! It’s mecha time.

The robot that comes out of his head this time is pretty large, but only has one arm – many didn’t notice that the giant hand which Canti fought in episode 1 was cut off from the rest, and this is that rest. The robot quickly owns Canti and Haruka shows up but doesn’t have much better luck. It’s a little hard to tell with all the crazy fighting going on, but close observers will notice that Mamimi is protecting the Takkun cat the whole time as it continually nearly gets crushed. She really doesn’t want to loose her beloved Takkun – which is proven again moments later. When Mamimi almost gets hit by an attack, Naota leaps to try and protect her in his first show of real manliness, and that’s about when Canti lands beside them both and proceeds to devour Naota.

Mamimi, once again protective of her Takkuns, yells ‘you’re not a god at all! You ate Takkun!’ But then Naota presumably gets control of Canti, who turns into red badass mode. Now, the director points out something very interesting here in the commentary. He explains that the normal blue Canti is somewhat of a bumbling idiot. He has to do chores, and makes mistakes, and generally isn’t very bright. However, when he goes red, he is a badass among badasses. He stated that red Canti represents ‘manliness’ and how a really cool guy would be. This will be further exemplified when we learn about Atomisk, who’s symbol that appears when Canti goes red is actually the upside-down kanji for ‘man.’ It also makes me think that maybe Canti ate Naota at that moment because he had just displayed manliness in trying to save Mamimi.

Canti proceeds to completely own the enemy in one of the most badass-looking scenes ever. But more importantly than just his manly fighting, he is also taking care of Mamimi and keeping her out of the fray with very caring, protective gestures. After the robot explodes, we see Mamimi crying, but Canti pets her head and looks down at her, making her feel at ease. The robot then shits out Naota (literally) and turns blue again. Naota mentions how the ashes of the school have all been blown to dust in the explosion. Haruka and Canti are on the ready to get the fuck out of there when they hear the cop sirens, but Naota and Mamimi are locked in a gaze. Both of them are in a mixture of surprise and new feelings. For Mamimi, not only did Naota (in the form of Canti) protect her from harm, but he blew away the ashes of the school that she hated. However, she isn’t really sure what ot think about it all, so she doesn’t show much expression. Meanwhile Naota is full of resolve. His last line is that he will ‘stay by her side’.

It’d be pretty pointless to say this is one of my favroite episodes, because everything past episode 1 is my favorite episode <3 I really love Mamimi because she falls into all of my heaviest attractions (broken girls, smokers, free spirits – THE TRIFECTA!) and because she’s a character I can relate to. I could say that in many ways, anime is my ‘Takkun’. It’s something that can never leave me and never change and offers me support. When I get lost in anime, I can forget about how I am teetering on the edge of sanity most of the time. Like Mamimi, I sometimes overflow and lash out, and I cling to whatever can hold me. I really understand her character, so it fascinates me. And I would so be her Takkun~~

The best part of the whole thing was just the Hybrid Rainbow part, though, my god. One of the best scenes ever. Especially with how he threw in actual rainbows in the background. And man, I watched it 3 times in 24 hours and got chills every time!

1. Tsurumaki says ‘episode 1 is about Haruka, episode 2 is about Mamimi, and episode 3 is about Ninamori.’

2. Tsurumaki describes it this way, and also talks about the original plans, which you can read about in the commentary post.

3. I had never noticed this until the commentary track. Throughout the episode he picks up fragments of the skull and in the next ep we see him trying to glue them together.