Siiiiiiiigh.

Anime fans can be so stupid sometimes.

Well, it's that time again. October means the start of new anime series in Japan, and everybody and their dog is throwing up a "fall preview" post on their blog or livejournal. I was thinking of doing that too, but first, I went back and looked at what shows I predicted I would watch last spring, and laughed a bit at myself. Then I started thinking and writing, looking back on a year of watching free anime in wonderful Japanland, and, well...

I guess it's the normal procedure to wait until December to do an "anime year in review" post, but I think that fall would actually be a better time for me to do so. First, in Japan as in the United States, fall is the nominal start of the Year in Television. Second, I arrived in Japan last fall, so if I wanted to write about a year's worth of anime, of course it cover the span of time from autumn to autumn!

So without further adieu, here is my year in anime. ( Behind the cut. )

And, to conclude this amazingly long post...

Recommendations?

Level One: If you breathe air, you will probably like this series.
Seirei no Moribito/Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Romeo x Juliet
Dennou Coil


Level Two: Recommended, but your mileage may vary.
Gurren Lagann (must love old-fashioned schlock done right)
Code Geass (must love old-fashioned schlock done horribly, horribly wrong)
Claymore (must be able to love a good story despite terrible art)
Hataraki Man (must not be grossed out by onscreen depictions of people eating natto)
Moonlight Mile (must have tolerance for slow pacing)
To Terra (must be able to love that old-school space opera)

So, if I had to sum up all of the above in one sentence, it would be this:
Everybody should watch Seirei no Moribito.
That is all.

OMFG it's Princess Mononoke!!!!

BTW, This was the previous record-holder. And here are others.

And, in other news...

OMFG it's Arjuna!!!! Karna could have done it better, though.

My sister and I were officially the last people on the planet to see Howl's Moving Castle last night, but it very much rocked.

I also went shopping and picked up the deluxe edition of the Steamboy DVD. I was suprised that the extras that it came with - notably a 200+-page book of character and mecha designs, and a short gag manga - were left entirely untranslated. As in, everything was still in Japanese. Well, that's fine for me, since I can read Japanese, but, uh... I thought that the point of a North American DVD release would be to make the movie (and the extra materials) accessible to non-Japanese speakers? Why on *earth* didn't they translate the design book and the manga? Was somebody being lazy, or were they trying to keep the extra materials "authentic"? (It reminds me of that crazy self-identified otaku who was interviewed in an article that fearmirichan posted about a while back, who said "Everyone wants manga untranslated. No self-respecting fan of anime would want to read it translated and flipped. Everyone wants the authentic stuff." I'm fairly certain that the idiot who said this probably couldn't speak or read a word of Japanese to save his or her life.)

Either way, any pretense of "authenticity" that this DVD release had flew out the window when they printed the phrase "one of the most elaborate animes of all time" on the back of the DVD box. Hee!

I'm also very excited that Disney Stores in the United States and Canada officially started stocking W.I.T.C.H. merchandise this week! I dragged my sister to the Disney Store in Northpark and bought a set of figurines, a lovely doll of Irma, and a wallet. The North American dolls were *much* prettier than the Italian and French dolls that I've seen around on ebay. I also squeed very much over the limited-edition Disney Princess dolls that they had on their shelves. (I'm sorry, I'm such a sucker for collectible dolls.) Unfortunately, I just couldn't get over the irony of "Slumber Party Sleeping Beauty." She comes with pink boombox.