What I watched in December: Digest Version

o Neo Angelique Abyss Season 1: More on this later . . .  After the trauma fades more.

b Azumanga Daioh: You know, this one is still just dumb and hilarious after all these years.  Creepy teacher is still super creepy.  Yukari is still obnoxious.  And then at the end, it's still kind of tear-jerking. 

b Big Windup: There are some people that just invite being picked on.  It's not like there's one type or anything, but, I dunno.  This show made me think about that.  I used to be friends with a lot of these people.  There's one right now in the anime club I go to. and it's painful, but at least in the anime club, where many of the members are used to being outsiders and nerds and bullied, no one actually bullies him.  It's rather surprising.  Anyway, one character in this show had a great line when he and other boys were talking about this topic.  He said he was glad he hadn't met the kid until high school because if they'd met when he was less mature, he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from picking on the kid.  It's just hard to watch this poor little pitcher bundle of nerves and psychoses, but it's wonderful to watch the other kids on the team and how they grow and change over the course of this season.  There are others, but this one bombed so bad for Funimation, I will never see them.  Sports manga never does well here, either, so unless Digital Manga randomly takes a stab at it, I doubt I'll ever get to read and find out what happens in the next game and the rest of the tournament.  Which makes me sad.

b Durarara: This was a weird, wild, wonky ride full of ridiculousness, hilarity, and really awful tragedy.  Yeah, it somehow mostly worked.  Novels, please?

b Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit:  You know, this series is amazing every time I watch it.  It's so different from anything out there, but it's just breathtaking.  I wish more of the novels could be published here, too.

b Shura no Toki 5: "I'm a man of my word.  I always keep my promises.  Except one."  -Izumi Mutsu (Ohhhh!  So sad!) I know I already wrote about this one, but I finally finished it up, and last arc was pretty sad at times.  Don't worry, in the end, well, manly things happen, so don't worry.

b Spice and Wolf: This was a pretty fun series.  It's true that occasionally it would lapse into a brief bit of economics 101, but it's pretty good fun, and you can find yourself wrapped up in the success and failure of the business ventures.  And the ongoing mystery plot and road trip don't hurt.  I hope they publish the novels all the way through, too.

b Yukikaze: Just beautiful on the big screen in my parents' basement.  Super sad and a bit confusing since it did funny things with the plots from the novels and played fast and loose with lots of specific details from the books that maybe should have been left alone.  I was right that a series of stories that mostly take place in people's heads would be difficult to translate to screen, but the animation was lovely, and the voice acting was great in Japanese.