Best Anime of 2010 2: 2011

[goldenspines]

Subtle Doctor, while you were not one of the people I was referring to in my post about explaining why they liked Penguindrum, your post was very appreciated. As was your's Yellow Dress and Manga Rocks. Apologies if I seemed to harsh, but Penguindrum deserves much better if you're going to vote for it. Believe in your choices and stand firm in your opinions, etc.
Don't just like something because it was complicated and symbolic and has penguins (which is what it seemed like before, but I'm glad I was wrong). And as Blkmage mentioned, Penguindrum has plenty of things to talk about in it, so why be quiet?

[MasterDias]

<ＳＯＳ団>

I liked Penguindrum a lot, but more for the characters(It was pretty impressive how Ringo changed from a stalker nutjob into a pretty sympathetic/likable character) rather than the abstract symbolism. It was interesting, but I'm not convinced it all really came entirely together at the endgame or made complete sense. I like complicated stories, but I've never really been a huge fan of abstract/surreal imagery, so it admittedly could be a matter of personal taste.
But, regardless, I do think it went overboard with the symbolism by the end.

Disappearance for me, which was a pretty great movie.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]Here are my top five choices for best anime of 2011!

5. Kimi to Boku - I like the fact that this is a high school show centered around males. It reminds me of a more subdued version of "Lucky Star". I would seriously consider buying it if it ever got released in the US.

4. Sket Dance - Once again, a little too long, but I love the insane characters, the funny storyline, and the overall feeling of the series. It's definitely a must see/purchase.

3. No. 6 - I love the story and the characters, but I just wish it was a little longer! At least a full 26 episodes. There's a lot of story that can be told there.

2. Nichijou - What do you think when you combine "Lucky Star", "Azumanga Daioh" and "Cromartie High School"? You get Nichijou. It's deliciously insane with a soundtrack that blows my mind!

1. Usagi Drop - Seriously, I love this series and will buy it the second it comes out on DVD. The storytelling is awesome, the characters are adorable, the soundtrack is amazing, and the acting is great.[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[Neane]

KhakiBlueSocks, you are awesome in my book for your choices.

[TWWK]

<ＳＯＳ団>

...by a nose.

Underneath all mysteries of Mawaru Penguindrum and beyond the amazing storytelling was a real heart and a very positive message - it was powerful and heartbreaking (in a good way). The show worked "intellectually" but was so much more than an exercise in creating a series full of symbolism and "woh" moments; it was a beautiful show that was emotional moving and gratifying.

After viewing the final episodes, Mawaru Penguindrum became my favorite show released this year...unfortunately, in this round, it's going against my favorite from last year.

The Haruhi movie was so beautifully animated and moved the series in a different direction. It was funny, clever, suspenseful and moving. It was comforting and uncomfortable; complicated and straight forward; warm and cold. Haruhi is one of my favorite series (I even appreciated Endless Eight), but the movie is clearly superior to anything preceding it.

If these two are even to me quality-wise, my heart is slightly more for Haruhi, and there's where my vote goes.

[ClosetOtaku]

<ピンドラ>

Mawaru Penguindrum reminded me (not plot-wise, but philosophically) of Ursula K. Leguin's The Lathe of Heaven. In both stories, there was the fixation on fate and the consequences paid by those who tried to manipulate it. There was also the almost comical abstraction of the rest of humanity (TLoH: overpopulation? Pow! A plague wipes everybody out. Racism? Pow! You're all grey now.). And, in the end, the Reality that survived was nowhere close to the initial conditions (although in TLoH, the protagonist remembered what everybody else had long forgotten; here, only the audience seems to be aware).

I enjoy alternate history, timeline manipulation, and time travel stories (and the unfolding of the unintended consequences in the wake), so naturally I was attracted to MP. It is a series I could go back and rewatch and try to grasp the symbolism and many of the references to other series (both anime and TV).

[blkmage]

Yeah, I don't think I'll be voting this round.

Despite my criticism, I love Penguindrum and I love the kind of anime it is, just like I loved Star Driver. I love the abstractions and the visual style and I think it manages to say a lot of things once you're able to parse it. I like the characters and I do think that there's a coherent thread of thought to all of the symbols and not just slapped together.

And I love Disappearance. I've already mentioned that it's a fantastic story with unbelievably good production. More importantly, I think Disappearance shows that despite all of the bad rap that KyoAni and the Haruhi series have received over the last few years, they're both still amazing. When Season 2 of Haruhi was still airing, and people were abandoning the series, I kept on saying 'you'll see once Disappearance is animated!' and it looks like I was right.

[blkmage]

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya: 7
Mawaru Penguindrum: 6

[Neane]

Well, no more point voting I guess.

[blkmage]

[font="Times New Roman"]YEAR OF THE TIME TIME TRAVEL STORY
[SIZE="7"]FINAL ROUND[/SIZE][/font]



[font="Times New Roman"][SIZE="4"]"Magical girls with Faustian themes"[/SIZE]
[SIZE="7"]PUELLA MAGI MADOKA☆MAGICA[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]魔法少女まどか☆マギカ[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]PRODUCED BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]SHAFT[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]DIRECTED BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]Shinbo Akiyuki[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]STARRING[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"] Aoi Yuuki
Chiwa Saitou
&
Katou Emiri[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]Urobuchi Gen[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]DEFEATED[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"] Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing
Tamayura ~Hitotose~
Kimi ni Todoke 2nd Season
Tiger & Bunny
Mobile Suit Gundam UC
&
Chihayafuru[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]To vote, include [color="Lime"]<まどまぎ>[/color] in your post.[/SIZE]

[SIZE="7"]VS.[/SIZE]



[SIZE="4"]"YUKI.N> Ready?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE="7"]THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]涼宮ハルヒの消失[/SIZE]


[SIZE="6"]PRODUCED BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]Kyoto Animation[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]DIRECTED BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]Takemoto Yasuhiro[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]STARRING[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"] Hirano Aya
Chihara Minori
&
Sugita Tomokazu[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]BASED ON THE LIGHT NOVEL BY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]Tanigawa Nagaru[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]DEFEATED[/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"] Fate/zero
Guilty Crown
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE
Persona 4
Bunny Drop
&
Mawaru Penguindrum[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]To vote, include [color="lime"]<ＳＯＳ団>[/color] in your post.[/SIZE][/font]

[color="Yellow"][SIZE="4"]Remember to include something about why you're voting for what you're voting for.
Voting ends at the end of the year, when 2012 comes to Eastern Standard Time.[/SIZE][/color]

[A_Yellow_Dress]

<まどまぎ>

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ Contract?

Spoiler-rific AMV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ8JRfsurt4 and another http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZdxVBgv2KI

I got into Puella Magi Madoka Magica around the time of that they were releasing the last episode. I really didn’t know what to expect from the series, just that there was some ‘game changer’ in the third episode. I heard it was good and checked it out.

And I really, really enjoyed it.

Madoka Magica took a world built on tropes that built up the magical girl genre and tore them into tiny, minuscule pieces before proceeding to build that world back up. The deconstruction of genres has happened countless times before, of course. But Madoka Magica was different for me. I don’t exactly know why it’s so much more near and dear, maybe I have this secret subconscious wish to be a magical girl (oh, who am I kidding…. I totally want to be a magical girl ). But I do know this. I love this series. I love how it helped to show me the magical girl genre in a new light, I love its animation style (And, honestly, the witch scenes are such pretty pieces of animation I can forgive all the times the characters go off model when you zoom in on them.), I love how it wasn’t full of stock transformation scenes, I loved how it made me cry (Sayaka = The Little Mermaid… *cries* Homura…. Backstory *sobs*…..episode 12….. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!) and I loved the characters (Kyoko is epic).

I can forgive its flaws because of all the other wonderful things it has going for it.

I just really, really enjoyed this series. And it’s not to say I didn’t love Disappearance. I did. I really enjoy the Haruhi series overall too. But, Madoka Magica is… Madoka Magica. Not only do I consider it to be one of the best magical girl shows out there, I consider it to be (don’t injure me, it’s just my opinion) one of the best shows I have seen and I hope it becomes a classic.

Let me know if more explanation is needed.... I feel like I'm rambling and repeating myself.... But I can talk more!!!!!!!

[SIZE="1"]

But it’s still not better than Princess Tutu *shot*[/SIZE]

[Neane]

[SIZE="1"]
But it’]

I agree 100% with this statement. Princess Tutu is the best mahō shōjo anime ever made. (It even made me like ballet xD) Anyway, I am going to cast my vote this round:



<まどまぎ>

Why I'm voting for this: Unlike Disappearance, this anime had a heart and a soul. Disappearance was nothing but atmosphere to me.

[Falx]

I thought for some time that this would be the result.

Surprisingly, given how much I've had to mull over both series these last few days, the choice is actually surprisingly easy. Disappearance was fantastic, it is hands down one of the best anime films ever made...

<まどまぎ>

...but the only thing it clearly beats PMMM in is in quality of animation. PMMM is superior in everything else. Not by all that much mind you, but still enough to be the clear winner. It's like watching a race, where the runner who came second also beat the world record for the event... but he's still second.

[Maokun]

What a wonderful time to finally have placed my grubby hands around a copy of Disappearance. In a few hours I'll be able to publish my vote.

[goldenspines]

I'm tempted to respond to that comment about Princess Tutu, but I'll refrain from wall of texting it (since I have enough to talk about already). Princess Tutu is one of the best magical girl anime made, I'll agree (followed closely by a few Pretty Cure series), but Madoka did something special in the magical girl genre, so a good comparison can't be made, especially if you consider Madoka to be "only a magical girl show". Therefore, Princess Tutu cannot be better than Madoka because there's no comparison.

Anyways, prepare for other wall of text and most likely spoilers.

This vote is actually rather hard for me. Both shows did the absolute best and beyond at what they set out to do.

Madoka is, in a nutshell, a deconstruction and reconstruction of a magical girl universe. It takes the things you took for granted and upsets them, prodes at them, and gives them a whole new meaning without seeming entirely insane.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya on the other hand, covered a different topic entirely. To compress it down to a simple sentence is hard, but its basic concept is "you never know what you have until it's gone."
Now, that's a very vague sort of theme (most good stories can be reduced to a simple theme, though). But think of the most clever way one can tell a story with that theme. Okay, are you thinking about it? Now multiply that idea by 97 and you have something pretty close to the level The Disappearance gets to.

Comparing the two in terms of relatablity, I find myself surprisingly leaning towards Disappearance. Kyon as a narrator is of course a key part in this (rarely any other anime have such a narrator where you see their inner thoughts, sarcastic and beyond).
Madoka was not so relatable, but still sucked you into the story and made you care about the characters. That is the defining difference, though, I think. Madoka made you care and Disappearance let you care.

As Blkmage mentions in the final round, these anime both involve time travel (yay!). And both use it rather well.
In comparison, Disappearance does a lot more fun and clever things with time travel than Madoka does. In Madoka, you get a rather simple and common concept of time travel (the repeating time loop). This should not be downgraded for being simple, though. Had it been more complex, it would have stolen the rest of the show completely, so by making it simple, but still tie in quite well with the story and characters was a good move on the creator's part.
For those who have seen the series of Haruhi, we are no strangers to time travel or paradoxes. Though Disappearance takes this to a whole new level. If you thought you saw it all in the series, you have barely touched the iceberg of things you can do with the concept of time. In fact, every choice that Disappearance makes is absolutely flawless in execution; from having Kyon as the character that everything affects and that affects everything, to how he finds Haruhi, to even when they find out the culprit behind it all. And even every little detail, whether it involves time travel or anything supernatural or not (e.g. When Haruhi is writing on the white board, it moves with her excitement, or when Kyon grabs the class roster and almost flips the desk over in the process - just beautiful little details like that) were not ignored.

Then there's the art/animation. Here's where both series trump all others in their path, but in two different ways.

Madoka took a chance and succeeded. It took on a bit of a looser sketchy style (especially for the outlines of the characters) that went against the clean, smooth lines of most magical girl anime. This worked to their benefit, though. From the beginning, you could tell something was off about everything. You could tell, "This is not going to be our normal magical girl anime."
Then the witches' sequences, which is probably where Madoka shined the most, were some of the best sequences I've seen in anime. The sketched, almost child-drawn quality of the art style accomplished exactly what it wanted. As a deeper sort of meaning, when a magical girl becomes a witch, they become selfish and very much child-like in their wants and desires. Plus, the stylized animation gives a good unsettling feeling to the witches, and as the "villains" of the show, this was essential.

Disappearance is not as diverse in its animation, but gives a more than excellent performance. Instead of emphasizing certain scenes (which, unlike Madoka, it rarely needs to), it works with the story, much like good music works with a movie. For example, if the music in a movie is good enough, you won't notice it consciously at first, you'll feel it with the movie. The same goes for animation. If the animation is working, you won't notice it (i.e. "that's really good animation" or "that's really bad animation"), but rather the story first, then maybe noticing how beautiful some scene looks or something. Animation comes second to story in Disappearance. But if it wasn't so good, the movie would be a flop, which it clearly is not.

Which leads me to another secondary thing that people rarely make a noticable response about: the music.
Both Madoka and Disappearance have music that suits them well. Not to mention the composers of both were brilliant.

For Madoka it was Yuki Kajiura, who also worked on other anime scores such as Fate/Zero, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and some work on Baccano! (mainly the ED). Can you see a pattern of epic-type music coming from this composer? That's just what Madoka needed.

Then, for Disappearance, we had Satoru Kousaki. He's obviously on board since he also did the music for the Haruhi series, but his work doesn't stop there. He has also composed for Lucky Star, Bakemonogatari, and Star Driver, as well as many others.
Besides the fact that Satoru composed for the Haruhi series, he took it to higher levels in the movie, with good reason. The movie is a step beyond the series, why shouldn't the music be as well?

Also, I'm skipping the dubs category becuase it's unfair for Madoka, which had a dreadful preview for its dubbed version. That and you just can't beat Crispin Freeman as Kyon. You just can't.
Both subs were brilliant, though.

So, where does this leave us? With two magnificent shows. Hence why the vote is difficult for someone like myself who loved both and could see the strengths in both as well.

So ultimately, for all of us, it comes down to which you enjoyed the best. Which one made your heart race? Which one made you laugh, made you cry, made you think? Which one changed your mind about something?
Or simply, which one would you watch again and again if you could?


For me personally, I love Madoka, but I went three months between episodes 11 and 12 (because I was busy with school and the like) and didn't suffer from it. I loved the ending, but I just wasn't as invested in it.

Then, there's Disappearance, where I spent 6 hours (back when I had slow internet and it took 2 hours to load a 22 minute episode) loading the video only to find out that my internet died halfway through and I spent to rest of the day and long into the night trying to find another way to watch it. I gave this movie my time and was not disappointed in any way at all.

So, all that being said, the choice is pretty clear for me. While I have little hope of it winning, I have no regrets.

*puts on her arm band*

<ＳＯＳ団>

[Atria35]

<まどまぎ>

No matter how good the writing is for Haruhi, I hate her as a character, and have only ever been lukewarm towards anything in that series.

[goldenspines]

[quote="Atria35 (post: 1524065)"]<ま]
All the more reason to watch The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. The name does mean something. XD; You rarely see Haruhi in the movie. [/spoiler, but not really]

[ClosetOtaku]

<まどまぎ>

Again, I enjoy time-bending plot lines, which Madoka clearly is. And it kept me coming back episode after episode (even Penguindrum had me wondering around the middle episodes whether I should continue on -- glad I did, but never had that problem with Madoka).

[blkmage]

<まどまぎ>

Disappearance is a beast when it comes to production and execution. There's an absurd amount of polish to the animation and the music direction is brilliant (notice the complete shift once December 18 hits).

It's interesting that these two come from pretty much complete opposites in terms of production philosophy. We have KyoAni, who's known for extremely polished animation even for TV series, with a ridiculously large movie budget to work with. We have Shaft, who's directorial style is honed by years of budget-saving tricks and is known for complete production meltdowns. And both are fuelled financially by their recent successes in otaku pandering to bring two productions that pander to otaku even harder.

But for me, Madoka is the perfect storm of genre, characters, story, staff, visuals, music, intertextuality, staff, and actually being good. That it managed to reach out beyond its target audience is a plus.

As a side note, I don't really consider Madoka (or Princess Tutu, for that matter) a magical girl anime. I think it strays far enough away from the structural elements of magical girl anime that I consider it more of an anime about magical girls. This means that Heartcatch Precure is the best magical girl anime of the year.

[MangaRocks!]

Aha, the big finale!

To be perfectly honest, I was actually expecting it to come down to Madoka and Penguindrum (...and here I was all ready to write about all the things I kept trying to compare the two on, and finding that, on average, they were equally as good as one another, and thus finally just giving up and not voting at all because I literally couldn't choose! ). But if Penguindrum had to be taken out by anything before that, I'm okay with it having been Haruhi, as-- by all appearances-- it, along with Madoka and Penguindrum (and I'd personally add Steins;Gate, as well, but that got knocked out unexpectedly early :(, so whatever), really were all at the very top of the top. (And I'm glad that the vote was so close, too. :thumb: Also, quick footnote: Yes, I had said a bit earlier in this thread that Penguindrum was placed just slightly under Madoka and Steins;Gate for me at that point, but that was only because the show hadn't ended yet, for one; and for another, Penguindrum had some occasional content issues which meant that I wouldn't personally be able to recommend it quite as widely as the other two. To me, though, they're all equal 10's.)

Unfortunately, however, this matchup means that I'm still not going to vote , unless the novel somehow manages to show up either from the library or the bookstore (yeah, I finally just went ahead and ordered it ) in time for me to both read it and then watch the movie before the voting deadline (which, despite the fact that I naturally speed-read, is unlikely simply because it would have to arrive sometime between now and early Saturday for that to occur)-- since, in this instance, I won't vote without having seen both (#1, because it's the final match; #2, because I love the one and am sure I will love the other, but I don't yet know how much; and #3, because of many of the comparisons that goldenspines and blkmage have laid out-- it appears to be a very tough choice).

So, if the novel arrives in time, I will either edit this or repost with my new thoughts (and possible vote ). But if it doesn't, I will leave the decision to all of you, and be satisfied knowing that a good choice was made either way.

[Vii]

Warning:
[SIZE="3"]Be prepared for rambling. I have no experience writing reviews. [/SIZE]

Madoka and Disappearance were both excellent, and each for their own reasons.

Story - Madoka had a really interesting story. It was told very concisely, no episode was wasted to filler, and plot twists abounded in every episode. Disappearance really only had a few twists and was bit more slow moving than Madoka, however, that's just how the movie is, and it does not take away from the enjoyment factor at all.
Both were well written, no plot holes as far as I can tell, and both really grasped your attention while watching (Disappearance more so for me.)

Art - Madoka had a very deceiving art style. If one were to look at a poster for it, it looks like a typical magical girl show: cute, shojo girls in magical outfits and magical powers given to them by some sort of figure in order for them to protect the world...or something. That couldn't be further from the truth. It's really a dark series with very little warm and fuzzy moments, if any at all. That's the intention though, and it works for me, even if the style can look a bit...odd at points.

But then there's Disappearance. Oh goodness, Disappearance...
The art is amazing. I've said it before, but it is highly reminiscent of Makoto Shinkai’s movies (Which I adore for their artwork), even if it wasn’t the intention. The animation is great, the backgrounds are detailed, the lighting is awesome. I just love it. It’s extremely well done.

Sound – Madoka had a really nice soundtrack, and I personally loved it. I’m not sure how to explain or review music though, so I’ll leave it at that. The sub was great, but the trailer for the dub that’s supposed to be coming out…not so great. To put it lightly, this fandub sounds more official than the actual official dub. It’s not too big a deal, though, I’m perfectly content with subs.

Disappearance had a lovely soundtrack. I didn’t notice it too much. It’s good background music. The piece that got me to notice it, though, was Gymnopedie No. 1 by Eric Satie, as it plays during some of the more emotional moments. That’s it though.
I’ve watched this movie both subbed and dubbed, and, unlike Madoka, it has a good dub. The subbed sounds great, but the dub is better…and worse…in some respects. I absolutely love Crispin Freeman as Kyon, but it’s Haruhi’s voice that I don’t like all that much. There’s also a small scene near the end where a necessary change for the dub was present, but I wasn’t too keen on. To me, both languages are equal, with the dub having Kyon’s great voice to balance out Haruhi’s not so good one.

Characters – Madoka’s characters, while good, were a little flat. None of them change much over the course of the series, we just find out more behind them. I didn't feel a connection with them as I have with some other characters.

Disappearance has the bonus of the characters being well developed beforehand, which can be good and bad. Good in that the audience already has an idea of they have been through and what they’re like, bad in that now they have to have something new come into play to keep them from being boring. Disappearance has very good character development, mainly in Kyon and Yuki, but we find out a few new things about the rest of the cast as well, even Koizumi, the one character who, to me, is almost always in the background or providing bits of information.

Miscellaneous –
I’ve always wondered why the term “Mahou Shoujoâ€

[Maokun]

So I finally managed to watch Disappearance and I'm now able to vote.

I was a bit worried that Disappearance would get an unfair edge being much more recent in my mind. However, only watching it until now also had a slight negative effect: overhype. After a year or so of hearing people saying how great the movie was, I think I was waiting for something totally game-changing. Disappearance was not that, though.

Disappearance is an extremely well produced episode of one of my favourite series ever. The fact that it tells one of the best tales the franchise has to offer is just the cherry on top. But calling it an "episode" actually does it little justice. Writing and producing for TV is a totally different beast from writing and producing for cinema, and Disappearance is a very competent long feature. Filled with lots of atmospheric pause and a great dramatic pace (you hardly notice the movie is as long as it is!) the movie stands very well on its own as a piece of cinematography even if previous familiarity with the franchise is almost required.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, this is one of the best stories in the whole saga, providing much-needed character growth to the main character of the story while delivering a thrilling, deeply emotional ride of a time-travel adventure.

And yet... I hesitate to call it the best anime of the year, especially in opposition to Madoka. I'd gladly choose The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as the best anime of 2006, of which Disappearance is its highest peak and a new bar for movie "episodes" of established franchises.

But Madoka... Madoka is a completely different thing. Madoka is an event; one that must be cherished. Madoka is as defining as Neon Genesis Evangelion was 15 years before and that's a praise I had saved for no other anime until now. I fall short in my attempts of praise, especially since others have said several times and more eloquently whatever I could muster. I'll only add that I firmly believe Episode 10 to be one of the best anime episodes ever created. And the final episode, oh the final episode! It had me crying "Madoka, Madoka!" along with Homura. Even nowadays just saying that name bring a sad smile to my lips.

So without further ado:

<まどまぎ>

[Neane]

Think I will leave this here.
http://plaza.bunka.go.jp/festival/2011/pdf/111215_press_EN.pdf

[AnimeGirl]

<ＳＯＳ団>

This is the best out of anything Haruhi. Not only was the animation beautiful, but the story is well written and more in-depth than the series. Instead of focusing on all the random antics the S.O.S. Brigade typically go through, Kyon gets to see a world where Haruhi never made the S.O.S. Brigade and did not come to his school! Despite how annoying he said she was, wishing all this crazy stuff didn't happen to him, he's out on a quest to find Haruhi and why no one remembers her. What happened to her? Where is she? Did Haruhi change the world?

Now for meh spoiler comments...

[spoiler]And now, we get to see a bit in action how Kyon is "the key" to Haruhi when he finds her in this dimension and tells her his name. Also, it's shocking to find out that the world was changed by our alien android, Yuki Nagato. So now Kyon and the adult Mikuru have to go back to that point in time where she changes the world, and shoot her with this gun Nagato gave them herself. Of course, the most intense part of the movie happens here, when Asakura stabs Kyon out of nowhere!

My favorite part about this movie was to see how much Haruhi actually cares. When Kyon returns to the "real world", he's in a hospital bed and Koizumi tells him he had fallen down the stairs when they were getting stuff for the Christmas party. I thought it was so sweet to find that Haruhi was with him the whole 3 days! I also loved the part when Kyon finally admitted that all the crazy stuff that happened, all that Haruhi made happen, was indeed fun! He enjoyed every minute of it![/spoiler]

I am excited for a hopefully third season and to see how this series progresses! This movie showed that the Haruhi series can be intense and more serious than just Haruhi being crazy. There's a bigger picture, and I can't wait to see how everything is resolved!

[TWWK]

Although I think I was more emotionally invested in Madoka than Goldy, I pretty much agree with everything else she so passionately wrote. And thus, I have a similar conclusion:

<ＳＯＳ団>

[blkmage]

I think that one of the things that Haruhi and Madoka both share is a backlash in the wake of its popularity. Sure, there are people who've criticized both since the beginning, but there's a lot of people who are put off by good shows that are extremely popular. It's probably worth remembering that Haruhi was 2006's Madoka.

[Maokun]

Hmm, now you mention it, I think I'd like to see what the CAA thinks was the best anime of past years. Perhaps I'll run a competition once this one is done.

[blkmage]

You should, and then you'll know how to run one and then you can run next year's, because I am 95% sure I won't be able to do it next year (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

And personally,
2006: Haruhi
2007: Gurren Lagann
2008: Clannad After Story
2009: Bakemonogatari

[Maokun]

oh? How come? Are you abandoning us? *sob*

Alright. I think I got a plan for it. I'll start the contests next year

[ClosetOtaku]

[quote="blkmage (post: 1524475)"]You should, and then you'll know how to run one and then you can run next year's, because I am 95% sure I won't be able to do it next year (☞]

Then before this thread gets retired, let me express my thanks for you taking the time and effort to do this, and to do it correctly. These sorts of threads help introduce me to new anime, help me try to winnow down the many series into a few so that I can optimize scant watching time, and help me think about why I like the anime I like.

blkmage, you did a terrific job. I'm sorry you won't be able to continue (if you can't), but I thoroughly understand. Thank you for your work here and on other parts of the CAA board. Hopefully you'll be able to stick around for insight and commentary even if you can't run the voting.

Happy New Year!