Jeff Lawson (who hates me now) is posting his 2007 ten-best list, in reverse order. His intro says, "It was a pretty good year", but his descriptions of his tenth and ninth choices (all that are up so far) amount to: "Well, they could have sucked, but they didn't really."

Intro: Anyway, it’s been a good year for anime. There weren’t as many blockbusters this year compared to the last, but enjoyable shows were plentiful.

number 10: It was a show that was far from perfect in many ways and suffered no shortage of abuse for those imperfections, real and imagined. And, yet, when the final credits of the final episode rolled, I looked back on everything that had come before and thought, “all things considered, that was some good anime.”

number 9: To be honest, I feel a bit silly for recognizing this show. I can hear the head scratching from here. However, it really was one of the more pleasant surprises of the past year. It turned out to be far more enjoyable than I ever expected going in.

2007 really must have sucked if Jeff couldn't find ten series he was genuinely enthusiastic about, and doesn't have to apologize for recommending.

Hmm, lessee... Potemayo, and Tengen Toppa Gurren-lagann, and... hmm... well, something, anyway.

[Yes, Jim, I know you can come up with something. Please don't.]

UPDATE: Author responds.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:18 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 223 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Moyashimon.  Yeah, the show about bacteria.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 14, 2007 03:37 PM (PiXy!)

2 Which is a hell of a note. That's one like "Hikaru no Go" which has an ulterior motive, right? Wasn't it intended to be educational? Well, at least it was educational and entertaining, instead of being educational and stupid like "Moetan".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 14, 2007 03:41 PM (+rSRq)

3

Denno Coil was one that looked as if it was going to be awesome, but it seems to have fallen off the radar. None of the "watch fansubs" blogs I read regularly have mentioned it in weeks.

Meanwhile, I just read a report on the penultimate episode of Goshushosama Ninomiya-kun, (which, apparently, is a twelve ep series) and it sounds like that one's going to end in a trainwreck. Not, mind, that this is much of a surprise.

I don't watch a lot of fansubs. Hardly any, in fact. And the only fansub I've seen, downloaded, watched to conclusion, and really been enthusiastic about this entire calendar year was Dai Mahou Touge, which was fresh and clever. And that one, from 2006, wasn't even broadcast. It was an OVA.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 14, 2007 03:51 PM (+rSRq)

4 Yeah, I believe that Moyashimon is done with the assistance of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, or whatever it's called.  It's still very cool.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 14, 2007 04:50 PM (PiXy!)

5 JAXA sponsored Rocket Girls, even though SSA done right in real life would bury JAXA's launch business.

Dennou Coil is followed in a few places, at Martin's Concrete Badger for one thing. It's a story for older otaku, so of course the ADD suffering students forget it. I am not posting about it because it's my policy not to make episodic posts unless something interesting crops up. It's more powerful than ef, take it from me.

Posted by: Author at December 14, 2007 04:57 PM (cFJHG)

6 Neither of the two shows I've listed so far were all that popular.  I'm not apologzing for liking them; rather, I'm just recognizing the fact neither show is going to show up on too many people's "Year in Review" lists.  I mean, that's just reality.

The sentences you quoted are only a small part of my posts.  I think I spent more than enough time praising each show.  And, as Author points out, I only have so much enthusiasm to spare.  Like I wrote in my introduction, it was a good year for anime, but there weren't many blockbusters.  There wasn't a single show this year that grabbed me like, say, Simoun.  But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy a lot of what I watched.  I did.  It was a good year, but it wasn't necessarily an "OMG YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW NOW!!!" kind of year.  I'm fine with that, though.

Plus, I've been pretty busy this year.  I did a good job keeping up with everything I was watching, but I didn't have much energy left over for fanboying.  Anyway, enthusiasm will come... I still have eight more shows to write about, after all.

Posted by: Jeff Lawson at December 14, 2007 06:40 PM (VgF1Y)

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