best of 2007: apologies
Categories: best of 2007
37 Comments »
The following series deeply, deeply regret on missing on out the top ten, and they would like to apologize. They’ll do better next time.
Moyashimon: “I’m sorry for making people wait eight episodes before getting to the epic lesbian fanservice. I think I would be ranked higher than Umisho if it happened six episodes earlier. But just to stick it to everyone, I got the best viewership numbers in Japan (especially surprising for a late night anime that isn’t from Shounen Jump) than all the series in Best of 2007. Yes, even beating out Gundam 00 occasionally.”
Ookiku Furikabutte: “I don’t think it’s any fault of my own, but I think with Mihashi’s early Shinji Ikari impression, I scared off a lot of fan interest, and, more importantly, fansubbers. I don’t think it’s fair because Mihashi isn’t Shinji, and I get real interesting later on. I definitely have a better plot and a better understanding of baseball than Major, and I think I’m the best pure sports anime of the year. Overdrive? Pfft. Anyway, I apologize for Mihashi. I knew I should have started out with some Maria fanservice instead.”
School Days: “I’m sorry for not going the threesome ending route. A perfectly legitimate reason for a threesome, and I just crapped the bed, much like Fate/Stay Night. Sorry. I thought my core audience of teenage males would go for murder over hawt girl on girl on guy action.”
Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun: “I want to apologize for trying to cram a half-assed plot about succubi into what should have been a pure fanservice feast. I also want to apologize for all the brain cells that I have caused to die. I definitely want to apologize for doing such a slapdash job at imitating Mikuru. I understand that there is only one Mikuru.”
Dennou Coil: “I’m sorry that I knew I was going up against Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann during the summer, and I just forgot to bring my awesome mecha, my delicious melonpan, and my Tsukasa-class DFC. My bad. Do you really think Gundam 00 is better than me in anything other than fanservice and whoring plastic toys?”
Seto no Hanayome: “In terms of harem comedies, I’m not terrible. I do deeply regret that I just didn’t have the same level of fanservice that Umisho had, the same level of humor that Clannad had, or the same level of moe that Lucky Star had. It’s not enough to be just good; I blame my traditional yakuza/mermaid/pop idol upbringing.”
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: “I don’t think 99 floggings would be enough for me. I’m sorry I bombed worse than Negima!?”
Bamboo Blade: “I’m sorry for not providing enough hawt warrior of justice x warrior of justice action. Any combination of colors (yellow x pink, black x pink, red x blue, etc, etc) or even more lesbian stalker, and I wouldn’t be here apologizing. I still think I’m better than Hayate the Combat Butler, though. Dan-kun 4tw!”
Hidamari Sketch: “I’m devoid of plot, just like Lucky Star, but unlike Lucky Star, I don’t have a Taniguchi, don’t have a Tsukasa, and don’t have an animation budget. I’m sorry for being the first series of 2007 that Shaft screwed over for their penny-pinching ways.”
Kimikiss: “Sorry for not blinking. I’m also sorry for inflicting three of the worst harem male leads of the year. I honestly tried to hire Dan-kun, but his asking price was just too damn high. And we didn’t have a side-car that could wheel him around the set.”
Code Geass: “I apologize for being so awesome in 2006 and getting myself disqualified in 2007. Damn. But I am returning in 2008! Here’s to even more table humping, Cheese-kun, crazy princesses, and everything else you love about Area 11.”
Romeo and Juliet: “Much apologies to William Shakespeare. If you’re done rolling in your grave, I think Gonzo wants to remake Much Ado About Nothing but with grape juice-drinking mermaid yakuza from outer space who can turn into flying dragons.”
Sketchbook: “I’m sorry for ripping off Natsumi, Angol Moa, and Tenma-chan. I’m also sorry for introducing the character who likes to drill, the character who wears her swimsuit around constantly, and the character who hands out wooden starfish. I swear, I didn’t copy!”
Monster Princess: “Oh man, I’m actually non-terrible! I have a well-endowed meido too! It’s not my fault I got stuck in a 4:3 world when everyone else is in glorious HD. I’m sorry! Watch me! Please!”
Zero no Tsukaima: “I deeply regret trying to advance the ‘story’ when I should have become a full on hentai series instead. I should get Doumu to remake me into both a PG13 and an NC17 version. Also don’t be surprised if I’m making the same apology a year from now.”
37 Responses to “best of 2007: apologies”
Leave a Reply
Zero no Tsukaima: “I deeply regret trying to advance the ’story’ when I should have become a full on hentai series without Kirche instead.
Fixed it for you Jason…No offense, without the Ardent heat’s fanservice…I kind of gave ZnT a miss.
Also…
Nanatsuiro Drops. I deeply regret for not giving the audience a proper Mahou shoujo transformation. That alone kills mahou shoujo series…
hum… you know Monster Princess has a 16:9 format. Although it isn’t in Hidef.
Derailed by Darry: “I’m sorry for intentionally leaving Baccano! out of the apologies page just to piss a lot of people off, but I am your blogger, and it is funny.
The inexplicable Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei hate? Not so much…”
Don’t get the School Days hate either.
I mean, it was supposed to devolve into nightmarish violence. That was what I expected, and that’s what I got.
Genshiken 2 got left out of the apologies too. >.>
Genshiken’s Apology: “I’m doing my best to stay faithful to my manga source, unlike a few other manga to anime adaptations…For the fans of the manga, I’m sorry for AGAIN short changing you with only 12 episodes. For those who don’t like the manga, well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”
I still love you, SZS. Maybe season 2 will find you a sub group that cares.
Bamboo Blade goes for the “ZOMG THE GIRLS ARE AWESOME/MOE” fanservice but not the panty-shot/lesbian sex fanservice, so I understand your complaints. I’m loving BanBure, though.
And Doumu should have perfected the art of the implicit erotica by now, so I anxiously await for their next work. Asread better get their act together at Okawari’s very first episode.
Wow, I forgot about Monster Princess.
20% furry FTW
Ojo-Sama, loli and DFC FTW
Robot loli FTW
Lez Vamp FTW
Pandas FTW
Lack of subs and 4:3, not cool.
I’m all about those Shakespearean adaptations. Screw it, if its got a grape juice-drinking yakuza mermaid from outer space I’ll still watch it cause it’s got 1% similarity to the Shakespeare’s play it’s adapting, and that’s plenty. Hey at least RxJ ended similar to the play, they both died. Yay?
Code Geass: “I apologize for being so awesome in 2006 and getting myself disqualified in 2007. Damn. But I am returning in 2008! Here’s to even more table humping, Cheese-kun, crazy princesses, and everything else you love about Area 11.â€
Lol. I thought CG is a 2007 show since nearly half aired this year
Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho-Tou Dai ni Maku: “I apologize for disappearing off the face of the earth and being broadcast not once, but twice on the Internet, thus providing lousy raws.”
Monster Princess was terrible. And I liked it, and watched the whole thing. But it was still objectively terrible.
“…black x pink…”
So that means…Miya-Miya x Miya-Miya clonecest??
I…I…approve. If there’s Miya-miya x Dan-kun out there, then surely we should be able to find that as well.
I must of missed Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei bombing, it seemed a great show pretty much all the time to me albeit the first episode was exceptionally good. What with SZS & ef Shaft had a good year!
Code Geass really should of been a 2007 show, its seems to be in everyone elses Best/Worst-of-2007 lists. WTF, still no Baccano!? Seriously ?!
Apart from that, nice apology :)
Okay, now I’m pretty much certain you never got around to watching all of Baccano!. Sure the subs were slow but now that they’re all out, I recommend sitting yourself down and rectifying that problem by watching one of the best anime of the year. If it makes any difference, it’s up on AniDB with 8.71 overall rating putting it in the top 20 of all anime.
Where is the Nanoha training apology?
We’re still missing one big apology… Shakugan no Shana II: “I’m sorry for not following the established plot, but I really thought I could do better striking on my own. I’m also sorry for pressing the reset button on Yuuji & Shana’s relationship progression… I hit it accidentally, honest! Further, I’m sorry for introducing a love square that really did a disservice to the entire show and dragged it down to mud when I should have been all about fightan scenes and kicking ass – I’ve learned, look where I’m heading now!”
>> “Bamboo Blade goes for the “ZOMG THE GIRLS ARE AWESOME/MOE†fanservice but not the panty-shot/lesbian sex fanservice”
I’m not sure if we’ve been watching the same show. Granted, BB’s fanservice is not of a more blatant panty shot type, but the show’s full of fanservice with strategic camera angles, close-ups at girls’ assets and gainax-bounce. Just to pick up one example from the latest episode, the final fanservice shot is when the teacher is obviously uncomfortable at sitting on her knees and we get a close-up of her wiggling her bottom. I don’t think anyone can miss just how much of it this show has…
I must have missed out what happened to SZS, since it seemed to keep going strong all the way through. Also, where’s Murder Princess (or was that a 2006? can’t remember)
>> Code Geass really should of been a 2007 show, its seems to be in everyone elses Best/Worst-of-2007 lists. WTF, still no Baccano!? Seriously ?!
As long as I have been doing Best of (and this is year number six for me), I consider any series that starts airing January to November that year to be considered for that year. I’m like the Academy Awards; there’s a hard cut-off date. Code Geass started September 06, so it’s a 2006 series for this blog.
Honestly, I watched the first three episodes of Baccano, thought it was so-so (even ranked it thusly in my original thin slicing), and then it was over a month before I watched another episode. One thing every series 1 through 10 did was that I watched them almost religiously. Baccano never got up to that tier. But you guys seem to like it a lot more than me.
>> Okay, now I’m pretty much certain you never got around to watching all of Baccano!. Sure the subs were slow but now that they’re all out, I recommend sitting yourself down and rectifying that problem by watching one of the best anime of the year. If it makes any difference, it’s up on AniDB with 8.71 overall rating putting it in the top 20 of all anime.
I don’t trust anidb’s “ranking” anymore since I saw that Code Geass was ranked higher than Gurren Lagann and Haruhi Suzumiya.
>> Derailed by Darry: “I’m sorry for intentionally leaving Baccano! out of the apologies page just to piss a lot of people off, but I am your blogger, and it is funny.
The inexplicable Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei hate? Not so much…â€
I wrote all of the Best of posts like three weeks ago, and the 00 post a week ago. As I mentioned previously, Baccano just never entertained me. The only “new” post you guys got the past week was ef, and that was only because I got a record 3 e-mails begging for it. Tonight’s post is also a pre-written post. But, honestly, looking at the comments, all the comments complaining about lack of Baccano come from the same IP address block.
Oh man, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei had a chance to be one of the greats, but Shaft just sunk it. The games they played to try to “improve” it… well… I’ve already seen most of those gags from Negima!?. I keep thinking if another studio did it and did a more normal animation style, it would have been awesome. If I’m here thinking, “Mmm, someone else could do a better job,” it stunk. It’s like watching the Chicago Bulls right now.
>> And Doumu should have perfected the art of the implicit erotica by now, so I anxiously await for their next work.
The other series Doumu is currently working on is Koharu Biyori, and that’s getting more eps in 2008. The funny thing is that Doumu is the studio responsible for the quality cabbage in Crescent Love. Going from Crescent Love to Minami-ke… I can’t think of a sports equivalent. It’ll have to be like going 4-12 to 12-4 the next year without getting new players.
You know what the bigger surprise about Monster Princess than being good was?
That it was even ON! I had no idea.
I agree with the Japanese viewers on Moyashimon. It is excellent, and I hate that I didn’t start watching until halfway through the season. I also hate that subs have stalled.
And Ookiku? I suppose I should apologize on behalf of Entropy for dropping it, but I’m not sorry. It sucked. No one else at Entropy agrees with me, but they clearly suffer from the illness known as “sports fandom”.
In regards to Baccano…
I watched the trailer and thought it was going to be awesome, but episode after episode I kept thinking: “Is something going to happen now? I know something is going to happen now… NOW! Oh, nope, nothing happened. Hmm… Who are these people again?” The show was just bad at storytelling and pacing.
Posting a comment to be a non-sockpuppet speaking out in favor of Baccano!
Also Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai: The Second Raid Futatsuki no Kishi, which you still haven’t properly explained the problems you had with it.
Seto no Hanayome might not have more fanservice that Umisho had, the same level of humor that Clannad had, or the same level of moe that Lucky Star but then again what those shows had?
Umisho anime have NOTHING on the Umisho manga in terms of fanservice and Umisho was only fanservice, Clannad I do not watch so I cannot say but I do not think its a comedy series as Lucky Star was moe and that was it, nothing else.
Seto no Hanayome might be less that those but it overall have more, it have “The Terminator”, likable characters that are not moe blobs and did far better that its direct competition, Nagasarete Airantou.
I feel bad for Zero no Tsukaima, if it didn’t completely crap on the original plot it would have been alot better, I also firmly believe the only actual interesting character in the anime is Siesta’s uncle, Sakaran Onee-san Medemoiselle.
Posting a comment to be a sock-puppet speaking in favor of Baccano!
Honestly, anything involving mafias, alchemy, immortals, psychopath rivalries, awesome jazz music, a badass crybaby, the best comedic duo I’ve seen since Excel Saga or Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu, all set in Prohibition Era NYC and mashed together with a Pulp Fiction story-telling style gets an instant win from me. I watched the first couple eps one night and then proceeded to marathon the whole thing until 4 in the morning.
Easily my #2 of 2007.
@Northernshadows
Maybe I’m desensitized by other fanservice shows since Bamboo Blade is, IMO, very light on the fanservice and it’s hardly full of it. Do Tama-chan’s starry eyes and the Saya/Kirino antics count as fanservice?
Well, I have nothing to do with the other commenter/s but I think you should keep in mind that most people found it difficult to watch after the first two or three episodes (the reason it’s not more popular), including me for about 2 months because of how little sense it made in combination with very slow subs. But, by the second half of the series it was amazing and as it starts to come together you realise how well written it is. Which should be a given considering it is a light novel adaption. Other than that, Isaac and Miria have to be among the best (most amusing, easy to like, interesting, etc) pair of characters in any anime, ever.
I don’t get your point about AniDB considering you don’t get a fair comparison on two anime in regards to ratings until they’ve been finished for a couple of months (and now TTGL is #6 against Code Geass at #20) and I’ve found that I can enjoy most anime right at the top of the rankings easily when usually I can be picky about shows and get bored with them quickly.
Also, Baccano is #20 on MyAnimeList – http://myanimelist.net/topanime.php – with TTGL being #1 so it can’t be written off as bad (by people who have only seen a couple of episodes) so easily.
Whether you attempt to watch just a couple more episodes or not is obviously up to you but I’ve found that I share very similar tastes in anime as you (in fact, I probably haven’t missed more than a few posts since I found this blog back when Haruhi started) and Baccano really does become one of the few memorable anime this year.
>> Also Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai: The Second Raid Futatsuki no Kishi, which you still haven’t properly explained the problems you had with it.
I think I went over this already. I liked the original series; I like train wreck. The second season was just below average drama; it just went away from everything that I enjoyed from the original.
>> Also, Baccano is #20 on MyAnimeList
Look, if I cared about anidb’s list or ANN’s list or whatnot, I would be doing a Best of 2007 According to ANN. It’s not. This is probably why I never ranked shows the past five years I’ve ran this, because people are too uptight with this kind of stuff. If I enjoyed something you didn’t or vice-versa, uh, get over it. If finding out that your wife has been cheating on you with Hulk Hogan is a 10, I think this is a 0.5. Or lower.
I have no complaints on this list. Continue on.
As for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Maybe they’ll “train wreck” it for you next year. I loved reading about it here first and watching later, and missed that you weren’t attacting humor to the answer series.
Thanks for explaining why you didnt mention Baccano! We all have our likes and dislikes, and somewhat have a right to let it known. I watched the first few EF episodes and dropped it even though many like it, you have the same right with Baccano! However, I think it was quite a few people that were complaining about Baccano! even though I admit I was at the forefront.
As for Moyashimon, its good, though im not sure if fanservice should vault something from outside of a top ten to top 4. Are you really that horny? Umisho was entertaining and had good fanservice but I could never rank it that high because of it.
SZS, I just cant understand how you think. At first, when you were raving, I though it was overated, but now its the opposite. The last few episodes didnt use any gags from Negima that I recall (though im not that familiar with Negima) and used smart humor picking at real psychological and social noyances. It also kept the Mature woman + DFC Hikikomori fanservice going, which was great. If you want to know what fell off a cliff the fastest, you cant look past Doujin Work.
Three more short bits: Did you just use Clannad as a standard for comedy? Denno Coil is very much better than Gundam. Bamboo Blade is very much better than Hayate.
As for Geass vs Lagann comparison, I enjoyed Gurenn Lagann more than Geass.
In my eyes, Geass tried too hard to be Gundam meet Death Note meet V meet Santa Barbara, too much convenient coincidences and twists for the sake of the twist, it is not what I call masterful storytelling. OTOH, Lagann takes a very simple theme and a motif (the drill and spiral) and pushes it to epic levels while still being entertaining and over-the-top cool and without taking itself seriously.
Most of the gags in SZS are picked directly from the manga…. I don’t get the Negima connection in this regard. The writings on the chalkboard maybe? They can be easily ignored… (as i do since PPD)
I really find hard to not place SZS as one of the best of 2007.
Screw Anonymii! Average joe anime hobbyist NEVER forgive.
So Long, Mr. Despair: Come back when you’re not suicidal and unfunny.
Zero’s Familiar and Mermaid Yakuza: Come back when you’re actual h-anime.
Code Geass: Come back when 1) you’re not drawn by pretentious noodle-people makers and 2) you set up Nina with Genshiken’s Sasahara. Keep your masturbation out of my anime!
Zero no Tsukaima: “I deeply regret trying to advance the ’story’ when I should have become a full on hentai series without more Siesta and Jessica fanservice instead.
Fixed for you, Derek. They needed more of those two cousins who put the ‘fan’ back into ‘fanservice’, and fulfill the need for meido, melonpan, and harem.
lmao i hope for the best of ’08
and happy new years to everyone :)
Nah, Baccano is excellent – I can’t fathom why more people haven’t been watching it. Give it another go! (Then again, if the OP doesn’t leave you begging for more, maybe it’s just not for you)
Common, dont tell me after watching the 1st 11 episodes of School days that u didnt want Makoto dead, very horribly and painfully…..