It’s official: three out of five blogs approve of Fuuko’s reappearance in episode 12. The other two were just grumpy old men who couldn’t stomach a little of KyoAni’s signature humour (it being an anime-original scene and all). Just kidding, and I’m not talking about the grumpy part either. I’ve already written about why Fuuko’s arc worked for me so we won’t go into the details about why Fuuko supposedly sucks since this works under the premise that, as shocking as it may seem, Fuuko as a character actually did some good throughout the seven episodes or so in which she appeared.

I have it from a very reliable source that Fuuko remains in character, even for the anime-original parts of Clannad like the crane-catching sequence and the classroom/wedding ones, where Nagisa isn’t present. She’s a source of humour throughout her entire arc right up till the end, and KyoAni’s decision to animate her first, essentially removing her from the cast early on, seems like a good decision on retrospect. Why so?

It’s going to be difficult to attempt and write about Gurren Lagann without inevitably degenerating into one of those awestruck rants about its sense of monumental scale, as everything screams BIG, from a given character’s aspirations (”All the stars in the sky are enemies”), to the galaxy-flinging antics of the final episode, to the music (”Do the impossible”), but I’m going to try anyway.

Since my moments are inevitably memorable because they made me shed tears in varying degrees, you’d think it wouldn’t be hard to guess what I’m going to write about here. No, it wasn’t Kamina’s death, although its impact was felt several episodes later and ranks among the best, if not most defining death of 2007. It wasn’t Kittan’s death, which was sad but not tragic. It wasn’t even Nia’s fading away, despite that being a grand send-off for a character I initially had the impression of as being exposition tool/Simon pick-me-up.

It was a sunset. Not just any sunset, mind you, but the sunset first seen in episode 01 as Kamina, Simon, and Yoko break through the surface of Jeeha Village. That sunset was reproduced to amazing effect later in episode 21, and it’s this very scene that made me weep as much as, say, Kanata’s backstory in Lucky Star, or Jun’s farewell to Kana in Bokurano. I’m still wondering what hit me then.

Even if it was in poor taste, you can’t deny that School Days had many great moments in its final episode. While we were all sure of Makoto getting his just deserts, the way in which it was done with a triple combo ensures that whatever you thought about the value of it, their respective ends were tinted with a macabre irony that even Jigsaw of Saw fame would approve of.

This is achieved through the copious amounts of schadenfreude amassed during the course of the story. We go from rooting for the generic male protagonist to get together with the girl he has a crush on to wanting to put the whole bloody lot out of their misery, and SD complies with this deliberately-induced death wish. It seems to me like SD came about as the result of the rise of reality TV in the 90s, and why not?

In an age where we’ve been accustomed to laughing at real people doing stupid and embarrassing things in front of the camera for our amusement and their tentative financial compensation, the idea of fictional people doing depraved and criminal acts for the sake of a few laughs (and compensation on behalf of the production house) seem tame in comparison. The way in which SD escalates into a downward spiral of misery will always be remembered — a slippery slope made flesh. The absolute worst-case scenario in which everything that could go wrong did.

Whenever I write an ef post I usually loop 5cm’s OST over and over again in the background in lieu of a proper ef soundtrack. Like a heroin addict taking methadone, it’s a poor substitute for the wonder of the real thing, but that just goes to show how highly I regard Tenmon for the magic he did in 5cm. The tracks do strike a common chord in terms of the aesthetic he employs, an enchanting and magical lyric that contrasts with the marked realism of ef and 5cm.

Byousoku changed me. I wouldn’t say it was a dramatic change like one would after a profound or disturbing revelation of sorts, but it changed how I looked at relationships, especially those of the type you take for granted in their “could-be” Schrodinger state. I say this due to there being a girl in my life right now that’s taken on an Akari-sque bent lately. I don’t know her all that well, yet I want to; the prospect of my going overseas to a college in the States next year made me think of this — as I wondered today if I should make the effort to draw myself just that little bit closer, I thought of Akari, and Kanae. Of never letting go. A distant person with his sights always fixed somewhere higher. The long-distance heartbreak, of which I’ve known once and would rather do without.

Genshiken’s relevance to the fandom has been well-noted for some time. Given the truth of its piercing observations and all, you could practically call it a sociological study (participant and non-participant observation as means of methodology, obviously) in otaku, all entertainment purposes aside. No stone’s left unturned: everyone, from gamer to erogamer, cosplayer to fujoshi, manga-ka to doujinshi group — they’re all there. In this we see glimpses of the people behind the passion and fanaticism, and we see reflections of ourselves waving back at us.

The difference between the otaku of the motherland and those of the wide internet expanse don’t go amiss, though. I’d like to think that we’re better off for lacking the very physical presence we’re wont to judge others by; what matters here isn’t how you look or dress or talk, but merely how much anime you’ve watched or manga you’ve read. In other words, it’s easier to reach out and connect with others, and forge a sense of community as a result.

This leads me to my tangential digression, of which I hope you’ll excuse this once. Having the privilege of obtaining not one but two detractors in the short span of 24 hours, I thought I’d deign a little time breaking their arguments into little pieces with the power of logic before heading into the meat of the post, so feel free to skip about two paragraphs down if you’re reading this from the comfort of your feedreader or an incoming link. For the rest of you, gory details after the cut.

The beauty’s in the little things — this is the basis for the “12 moments of the year” series. For those who watch or read for “resolution” rather than “moment”, bad endings ruin their enjoyment of a series. Those who watch them for “moment”, however, don’t bat an eyelid at an ending less than satisfactory. This is why there are those who balk at the prospect of starting on an incomplete series, and also why those who go with the flow and survive on a month-to-month or week-to-week basis come out richer as a result.

Kodomo no Jikan is one of those. I’m not sure that an ending, assuming that KnJ ends eventually, will be one of KnJ’s strengths, even though I’m convinced that Kaoru Watashiya will have it all figured out like she has her main characters. What I’ve discovered this year while reading the manga is the clarity and strength of the messages that she delivers through her art, astute observations of pathos and empathy that are inevitably overshadowed by the pervasive fanservice she employs. For those who care to look beneath the surface, however, there’s gold to be found. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

also, the anime sucks by virtue of it being censored to hell and back, so it’s recommended that you actually pick up the manga or wait for the DVD raws unless you enjoy censorbars and random animal sounds

I’m sure you’ve heard about how my very first post was inspired by lolikitsune, so we won’t talk ill of the dead. What you probably don’t know about my blog was what or who exactly inspired it. Since the original blog has since been deleted, I’ll use a placeholder in lieu of the real thing, also because the author doesn’t really write the same stuff anymore, so linking to his current one would be rather pointless.

I started reading anime blogs somewhere around the time where the Anime Nano podcast was still alive, and jp’s was the first I started following consistently for its resemblance to what Oscar Wilde would write, if Wilde was an otaku instead of a pederast and dug films instead of poetry. I forgot which post(s) of his struck me as particularly awesome, but I remember telling myself that I would make a blog like his if I ever got around to it. Then Kanon finished airing, and I watched it over three days. Spring 2007 came, along with some of the most utterly retarded opinions about an anime that was to be judged by its OP. My anime blogging began.

I recently discovered while reading Les Miserables that Marius, Book Four, is entitled “The Friends of The ABC”, which this doesn’t happen to reference, unfortunately, but the better you know…