My comments on a top 10 best of the decade list

In honor of Anime Nation's Ask John's picks for best TV anime of the decade, here are some of my thoughts on his picks.

• 2001's Chikyu Shoujo Arjuna (Earth Girl Arjuna): Yeah, I really liked this one.  John didn't mention its absolutely stunning music or the excellent English dub, but those are really the things he's most looking for.  ST got a bit hung up by the ecological  bludgeoning here, but she did like the music and the VA work, too.
• 2001′s Noir: I got a big kick out of this one too.  I didn't mind the slow burn plotting, and I enjoyed all the things he mentioned.  ST liked this one a lot, too.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: while it sometimes skirted the edge of what I could tolerate in terms of violence, this show was really excellent.  And ST agrees!
• 2004′s Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent):  was it the ending theme song of this one that was just utterly ridiculous, or was it the opening theme song? I think this may be the only CD soundtrack I ever bought just to get a hold of a single song. I found the show creepy as all get out, and it was confusing and messed with my head and made watching and appreciating Millennium Actress and Paprika possible.
• 2005′s Mushishi: Just gorgeous.  I remember being hesitant when I heard it was an anime because the manga was just so stunning, but the anime was equally incredible.
• 2005′s Honey & Clover: Oh, so this is a romantic comedy. I was having the hardest time trying to figure out what genre it was.  If you ever wanted a good sampler of melodic, wistful, not annoying Japanese pop, the soundtrack would fit the bill perfectly.
• 2007′s Denno Coil: Not available in our region.  This means I should not have seen it, but my anime club watched it, and I totally adored it. I would buy it in a heartbeat if someone would license it, but somehow I don't think the combination of Miyazaki meets Ghost in the Shell is ever really going to fly in the US.  That's a huge pity because, oh my goodness, this show was awesome.
• 2007′s Seirei no Moribito: I am planning to watch this at some point over the next week while my students are experiencing fall break. However, realistically, I think I'm going to be grading most of the time. Now I'll have to decide if I want to do a Moribito marathon or a huge book binge.  I'm in agony here, folks. 
• 2007′s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: I am getting a huge kick out of this show.  (I'm actually watching it now at a rate of one episode a week via Netflix.) It is so fun, just as fun as Melody of Oblivion without the added, repugnant perversity.  (I still can't believe John said that was one of his favorite underloved series in an earlier post.  It had its moments of brilliance, in my opinion, but then it would go and do something pointlessly fanboy, and the girls being milked like cows almost made me stop watching a couple episodes from the end. Yuck.)  Anyway, Gurren Lagann: way too fun.
• 2008′s Kaiba: Not available in our region.  Also, our anime club isn't that experimental, so even though people have suggested it, no one has taken them up on it and voted the show in.  Yet.

 I have to say that I am very impressed by how many of these have actually been released in the United States.I would've expected fewer of them to actually be legally available.Way to go, anime licensing companies!  (Whoever picks up the license for Denno Coil, I'll be your best friend forever!)

Having fun with best of 2009 lists

I love best of/top X lists.  I cannot make them very well because I am not a critic, and I am terrible at ranking things.  I enjoy the end of the year because of all the great lists that people make up and the debates they provoke. 

When else do people come up with recommendation categories like "Best Use of Wagner in a Manga"?

What weird category of best/top manga would you like to see more people address?  What weird category would you like to nominate something for (and what would you nominate)?

Five reasons I like Hunter x Hunter as an author

If you kind of like HxH but you hate the way anime always drags stuff out (30 episodes = about 38 chapters+ some original material), and you love to read, I'd recommend that you give the manga a chance.  Here are five reasons why I like it.

Short-term plotting (grabbing my interest)

From the beginning, we have a main character who has a short-term goal: be allowed to take the Hunter exam, pass the Hunter exam, and get a Hunter license.  He meets other people with the same short-term goal.  Action, mayhem, and brutality ensue.  I am invested in this short-term goal and am willing to stick with the manga long enough to see it through.

Long-term plotting (character development in trickles, getting me more invested in what might happen after the short-term goal is accomplished)

We meet each character and slowly get to know more about what makes them tick (in Hisoka's case, I'm guessing blood made of evil).  Our first impressions are changed as we spend time with people under pressure, and the relationships get a little deeper as people get more invested in each other's success.  So Leorio likes money and wants to be a doctor; why?  Kurapika wants impossible revenge.  How?  Killua was raised by assassins, but he kind of wants to try hanging out like a normal kid and having fun and making a friend and stuff and maybe kind of redeeming his soul even if he doesn't think about it like that because he's twelve.  Gon's dad?  Keep reading.  Killua's family?  Yeah, keep going.  Finding out what it means to really be a Hunter?  Yep, the exam isn't over yet.

Close adherence to source material

Countless times, there is a great manga, and then they make it into an anime, and you watch it and don't like it because things you liked from the manga seem to be missing for no discernable reason, replaced by repetitive romantic comedy or pointless quests or five minute fights that last five hours.  Not so in HxH.  It's actually kind of scary how closely they adhere to the source material.  I don't understand why people don't do it more often.  I mean, the dialogue is already written, the fight is already choreographed.  People liked it a lot.  Use the stuff!  What a great way to cut corners without ticking off viewers or the creator.

Decent original material

Wow.  It was a shocker to me, but, in the second collection Viz put out, there was another round added to the Hunter exam, and it was pretty good.  Not only were several characters given a bit more time to develop, but the group dynamic really grew (which made the part where they resumed the original story line and killed off a bunch of the people even more harsh).  And two very unexpected people saved the day in a really natural way.  If I hadn't known it was an anime-original arc, I wouldn't have known; it was that organic.  See, it can happen.

No crappy moral of the story inserted for the edification of younger viewers

We do learn about how friendship can be a good thing, but it's in the context of a lot of fighting to the death.  Yep, brutality, sometimes ambiguous motives and morals, murder, violence, more violence, and some stuff about friendship and trust and self-discovery and stuff.  I mean, even if your friend up and kills someone for no really good reason, that doesn't mean you should give up on the poor, little sociopath.  He really was manipulated/provoked, and you shouldn't hold it against him.  That's kind of the moral of the story where it left off with collection II.  There's so much violence, but what upsets Gon the most is that the sociopath in question's brother took him apart psychologically and reduced him to the killer he was trying so hard not to be and then didn't even feel bad about it.  Definitely not After-School Special territory.

Of course, I'm invested in this show from my manga reading, and I really hope it sells well enough that we at least get to see through the Auction and Greed Island (and maybe even, you know, until Gon and his dad meet up), so I may not be completely objective (hahaha), but I really get a kick out of this creation in both forms and hope that more people check it out and enjoy it like I do.

Don't fear the old school; love the old school.  Some day, the stuff you love will also seem horribly outdated and aesthetically awful and will need love, too.  Appreciating older stuff now is kind of like paying the love forward.  Or something.



Is there an older anime/manga you really wish people appreciated as much as you do?  Give it a little hug by sharing it with us, please.