Year-End Anime Awards for 2007

It’s that time of year again.

The air is cold, the night is swift, and Dick Clark is still alive and no one knows why.

Yes, it is the end of 2007, and that means we get the end of the year “best of” awards ceremony. Criteria: the show must have started its broadcast in 2007. So, everything from winter season to fall season is fair game. So here we go!

Best Drama About Drama: Hitohira

Refreshingly original characters, a slight hint of yuri, and some real emotional power drives this series. I kind of glossed over it, and then heard about it from a friend of mine, and then watched it, expecting it to be some kind of mild schoolhouse comedy. Instead I got an incredible and moving drama. It came from nowhere and socked me with both cute and poignancy. How many of your average moe shows get that done, tell me?

Best Space Opera That Was Based on Seventies Manga: Terra e…

A rather inauspicious start led into a flurry of emotions and an actually epic plot, something its contemporary Heroic Age could have only wished it was. Not only that, the anime actually improves on the original manga, making it much more affecting.

Best Show With Immortal Gangsters: Baccano!

I’ve already said my piece about this show, of course, but to review: incredible characterization and a very tightly scripted plot turned this show into one of the real winners of 2007. The whole series would have flopped, in my opinion, had it been 26 episodes, due to the slow pacing that would have been brought on it.

Best Comedy About Little…Things That No One Knows What They Are: Potemayo

The 4koma nature of the manga this was adapted from led to a totally nonsensical anime. And it was good that way. It’s been a while since an anime comedy made me laugh as consistently as Potemayo did, and doing it all without making references is a plus.

Best Show About Drills: Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

I don’t think I actually have to talk about this one much. I was relatively unimpressed by the first episode for some reason (hype got to me, I think–I kind of expected it to be a hilarious episode, and not an episode of burning passion for some reason) but I quickly warmed up to the series and ended up loving it all the way through. It was, indeed, manly as all get out. And well-paced past a certain point, too.

Best Romantic Drama Wherein There are Numerous Visual Tricks Because Shinbo is Crazy: ef – a tale of memories

I just wrote a post on this since it just ended, so it’s still fresh in my mind, but it’s definitely one of the top-tier series this year. See previous posts on the topic for reminders on why it’s listed here.

Honorable Mentions

“Honorable Mentions”, in this case, usually means “this show is really good but I haven’t actually finished it yet”.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Minami-ke

We got not one, not two, but three rather clever comedies this year, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei being the funniest Shinbo Akiyuki show to date, and Minami-ke being….Minami-ke. All three of them are worthy of note, but I just haven’t finished these two. For shame.

Hidamari Sketch

Notable simply because it marked a point where Shinbo stopped being Pani Poni Dash Shinbo and became the Shinbo I can actually find amusing and interesting to watch. I was apathetic before this show; now I’m as much of a Shinbo whore as the next person. So, uh, yeah.

Lucky Star

I actually did finish this, and it was really fun to watch, and I will be buying the upcoming DVDs, so I can’t really explain why it’s down here. Notable, however, for turning a relatively mediocre manga into a huge otaku phenonmenon. Amazing what Kyoto Animation can do, isn’t it?

CLANNAD

Again, you probably know my stance on this show. The relationship dynamics between Tomoya and Nagisa are great, and the one arc I’ve seen so far has been pretty good. And I hear the Kotomi arc is great.

Moyashimon

Yes, let’s make a show about bacteria! And it will be the greatest thing ever!

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Nothing’s changed since I last watched an episode. It’s still going strong. 30th anniversaries are wonderful things.

Sketchbook ~full color’s~

The other slice of life show about artists. It’s not as viusally clever as Hidamari Sketch is, but it’s a lot more relaxing and funny, thanks to Team Aria.

Dennou Coil

I still can’t figure out why I’m watching this so slowly. I think I’m trying to preserve the awesome as long as possible. Yeah, that’s it.

Darker than BLACK

I’m still only partway through this, but it’s been fairly good thus far. I don’t think it’ll make it into the top-tier up there, but I like the way every arc is focused around character development over action. It could just as easily have been an straightforward action show, but, instead, it’s a pretty nifty study in character.

Ghost Hound

It’s finally shaped itself up to be a good, creepy show. Even if it’s not allegedly as bizarre as Serial Experiments: Lain, I still like it.

I think that’s everything. As you can see, this year has been quite bountiful with the goods.

Potemayo: Holistic Retrospective, or, Honi Honi Honi Honi Honi

Yes, I know. I watch things slowly. Get used to it.

Potemayo was, for me, a real charmer of a show. I always love watching a well-done comedy, and Potemayo, as far as anime is concerned, pretty much has my style of comedy down pat. I mean, it’s about a cute little cat-human…thing. That grows flowers on top of its head. It doesn’t even try to make any kind of literal sense, it just creates its own little world populated with ridiculously rich girls voiced by an extremely high-pitched Kugimiya Rie who enslaves boys who confess to her (even accidentally; poor, poor Mudo) and totally ignores her older brothers who apparently have some kind of massive sister complex. Oh, and Guchuko.

I had a feeling the series would be a laugh riot from the get-go; the best gag in the entire first episode had to be Guchuko taping things. First she busts out of Sunao’s refrigerator, and tapes the door together with three pieces of tape. Then she busts out of Sunao’s front door, and tapes the door back together with three pieces of tape. Then she goes to the park, and Kyou throws her a truffle. Startled by the truffle, Guchuko chops it in half.

At this point, I think to myself “she is so totally going to tape that truffle”. Which was exactly what she did. With three pieces of tape. It was a moment of epic comedy the likes of which haven’t been seen since Shinji’s pantsu SEED burst during the onsen epiosode of Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu. Somehow, for me, guessing what the punchline is going to be a split-second before the punchline is actually given always makes a joke about 100% funnier. It’s some kind of weird combination of expecting the unexpected, and seeing that not only was your guess correct, but that the show did justice to it.

The remaining episodes lived up to the heights of comedy promised in the first episode. It’s the rare anime comedy that holds my interest more than a few episodes (most of them rely too much on I AM GOING TO YELL A LOT AND THIS WILL SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTUAL COMEDY, or on what American fans love to call “it’s so random“), and the ones that do I generally just find more pleasant to watch than actually hilarious. Since it’s such a rare thing, it’s a real pleasure to watch something that is genuinely hilarious. The only comedy from 2007 that meets Potemayo is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and that’s basically cheating since a post-Hidamari Sketch Shinbo Akiyuki is directing.

This kind of turned into an aimless rant, but that’s okay. Conclusion: Watch Potemayo. You’re missing out on quality humor and entertaining characters if you don’t.

Also, I have no idea what bearing the title has on the actual content of the post, but, hey, “Holistic Retrospective” is a cool phrase. And I’m all about cool phrases, even if they have no actual bearing on anything whatsoever.