AniBlogger Choice Anime Awards: My Top 12 Favourites of 2011

Unrelated pic... needs to be longer.

Getting my top 12 out is easy. It's true that the more anime you watch, the more picky you are when choosing the anime you rather watch then... you know, doing constructive stuff. I've only completed 30 series this year (including series I intend to complete, but have not finished airing), not counting the 19 series that I've dropped. After striking off the bad ones and voila! 15 series. I only need to remove 3. Here we go.

Blue Exorcist Manga... is surprisingly good

I never thought of giving Ao no Exorcist a try, because you know, it's just another shounen anime. And shounen anime tend to suck, because I'm no longer it's target audience.

Out of sheer boredom, I gave the manga a quick look, and I was surprised. The manga was good. Really good.

Not that it has reinvented the genre or anything, but I never did saw a shounen cliche anywhere. The story never talk endlessly about some childhood trauma. It didn't keep whining out helplessness or lack of power or something like that. It doesn't give a full-page coolest line of the chapter delivered by the main character or someone important at the moment. And it doesn't make everyone stare in silence at that guy delivering a really cool line or making a really cool pose.

So you take out everything a shounen story's suppose to have, what do you get? An uncool but likable protagonist that is for once, an optimist.A rival that actually uses his head, even though he looks like a complete asshole. A female character that isn't a moeblob or deredere, but just plain silly-cute. It might not sound like it would sell, but originality in this stagnant genre is the highlight of the manga.

Its downside? The drawings are pretty crappy, if you ask me. That's why I want to see if the anime can combine the story with all its goodness with befitting production values. If A-1 pictures doesn't disappoint me, I think we're looking at a winner here.

Lucy and her formidable bust

Just a quick blurb while I wait for the Madoka finale to finish download and yeah... I'm gonna spent a post talking about breasts.
(I love you gg, but how come the torrents are slower than Hidan no Aira?)

Anyway, I just can't help but ogle at Lucy's incredible bust in the above pic for a moment.
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For those who haven't realised, I'm talking about Fairy Tail. Damn, I think I've raised my otaku power level. (I think it's over nine thou-)

It's a good chance for me to say that I really love the way Hiro Mashima illustrate the ladies of his manga. Another artist whose character designs I really love are Kozue Amano, the mangaka of Aria and Amanchu, but in a totally different way. Kozue Amano's characters are exceptionally beautiful, charming and gorgeous, while Hiro Mashima's characters are extremely sexy, moe and cute. I guess one of the reasons he's more popular is because his character's selling points are more mainstream.

And by cute I meant characters like Wendy and Levi. Proof that Hiro can draw incredibly lovable characters even without the use of huge tits.

Although I find the character designs style a bit too similar to that of One Piece (sources say both mangaka were influenced by the same guy, but who knows) but I'm really glad Hiro developed his own taste in the girl's design unlike OP's hideous characters. I really don't know how did OP gets so many figurines.

Don't know what I mean? PICSPAM!

It's really sad that the charm doesn't translate into the anime. Mainly due to:

1. The studio animate FT exactly like how OP is animated: too much recycled frames, too much exaggerated attacks, too much talk, too much talk while "charging" attack or "powering up".
2. Aya Hirano.

A quick review of the FREEZING manga

The announcement of the anime and Ray's review of the manga prompted me to take a quick look. Like Ray, I've ended up reading more chapters than I've intended because of how... Gripping it was. Basically, it was like Claymore all over again. With a lot more titties.

Well, I didn't read through all the available chapters in one sitting, but I did take time over a few days to finish them all. But no, it's by no means something amazing. It's a battle manga, and it's what is going on most of the time, with little story taken into account. Although I'll say there some resemblance to a plot, 80% of the manga is all about fights. The fights itself are pretty good, which is what makes the manga 'gripping', because you'll always want to see what happens next. That's the formula that runs on Claymore, Medaka Box, Gantz, and if I may, Bleach and Dragon Ball and so many others. I won't say these series are bad (seeing how well they sell) but I won't say I like them very much either. This is what you'll expect on FREEZING.

Sadly, I find that their attempt to inject a bit of romance failed badly. The male character has so little relevance to the story AND the other characters, and that one chapter of their date in the amusement park is epic fail. Their attempt to dramatize the death of a character wasn't as good as I thought it could be too.

On the plus side, the concept of the battle are much more interesting compared to that of Claymore's. The drawings are superb, and although I find the female lead's usual battle clothes a big turn off, most of the other's are much cuter and sexier. Sadly, I don't think the animation quality of the anime justifies the quality of the manga's drawings (more about that in later posts).

Due to the difference in quality of the drawings... I'm more likely to drop Claymore instead of this but I think that the story of FREEZING might have jumped the shark (look at her going all super saiyan in that pic up there) with the most recent arc. I might not continue this if the story can't bring in anything new.