Sakura of DOOM

I watched A LOT of anime this year. I largely blame credit rilina and umadoshi for this, although octopedingenue and rachelmanija also deserve incriminating glares praise for their enthusiasm.

It seems a little lopsided to have 5 out of the 10 series I watched in the "favorite series" section, but I watched a lot of good anime this year. Also, it helped that I was getting the cream of the crop; rilina was doing a lot of the screening for me by watching a whole lot of series and then pimping her favorites to me. I also finally watched some oft-praised series which I've had on the to-watch list for a few years (namely, Princess Tutu and FMA).

This was actually a great way to watch anime, since I got the fun experience of the FMA and Princess Tutu pile up, and I got to squee to other people most of the time.

Unsurprisingly, I watched a whole lot of shoujo. Again, unsurprisingly, most of my favorite series were shoujo.

No spoilers below for any of the series. I'm also including pimping information for my favorite series, since I naturally want people to watch them. If you want more information on the other series, I'd suggest checking out rilina's giant 2006: the Year in Anime post, since she includes helpful links and info for all the series she watched, which overlap all of my series, with the exception of Gunslinger Girl. Or you can check out the series-specific tags below, or my Memories in the sidebar.

Series that I am not really fond of but don't actually dislike

( Bleach )

( Last Exile )

( Yami no Matsuei )

Series I am fond of

( Gunslinger Girl )

( Saiunkoku Monogatari )

Favorite series of the year

( Honey and Clover )

( Ouran High School Host Club )

( Princess Tutu )

( Samurai Champloo )

And my very favorite series of the year was easy to pick this time:

( Fullmetal Alchemist )

Someday, I will actually have content that isn't anime- or manga-centric, I swear.

( Ep. 18 )

( Ep. 19 )

( Ep. 20-21 )

In conclusion, Nekozawa-sempai is never, ever, ever going to stop being funny.

Wow. I keep watching things that are more and more meta! I've been hearing about Ouran on my flist for quite some time, but I actually had no idea what it was. The extent of my knowledge was that it was a rather cracktastic shoujo anime set in high school, and that I tried to read the first vol. of the manga, but got completely lost because of the busy panels and the whiplash humor.

Ouran is a rather cracktastic shoujo anime set in high school, but what everyone failed to tell me was that it is so cracktastic because it lampoons various shoujo tropes and often slips into the realm of meta. It's great! I love it!

Ouran High School is incredibly rich, so much so that none of the host club members have ever tried something like instant coffee (my favorite part of the first episode involves a title reading: "The commoner prepares commoner coffee"). Alas, Haruhi is actually a bright, hard-working student from a "commoner" family (read: not super-duper-incredibly-unbelievably rich). Haruhi stumbles into the host club's domain one day and breaks an 8-million-yen vase, and as such, ends up being a fellow host in the club to repay the debt.

( Character intros )

Every time I watch an episode, I end up laughing hysterically on the sofa and waving my hands around, because it's so meta! It's basically a gaggle of the perfect bishounen, surrounded by a fanclub of squeeing girls who react exactly like fans do when confronted by perfect bishounen! I mean, they even have the twincest! They explain the appeal of the twincest! It is insane!

But! My absolute very favorite part is that the club has a manager who is a fangirl. She goes through everyone's attributes and their weak points, takes points off because they need more angst, and talks about things like "moe" and "the glasses type" (this in particular had me rolling on the floor, given a discussion at Wiscon).

And despite all this, I never get the sense that the creators are trying to make fun of fangirls or what they like; the club is largely presented as an organization that fills a particular gap in the girls' lives, and the hosts often act as yenta or fairy godmothers to gift other people with romance.