best of 2008: #7, #6, #5 (april fool’s edition)
Categories: best of 2008
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A Slut. A Mastermind. And an Angel.
#7: Gundam 00 S2
“I love you~ I trust you~!”
Also wins for 2008:
- Best Love Story
- Best Villain
- The Kamina Memorial Most Gar Cast Award
- Best Toy Commercial
There’s not a lot to dislike about Gundam 00 S2… the animation is fantastic, the mecha battles are believable, there’s no wasted characters, and it was a fantastic decision to ditch the stupid energy plot and just focus on A-LAWS vs. Celestial Being a la Shinn vs. Kira.
But what really pushes Gundam 00 S2 over the edge and into seventh isn’t even the mecha battles and political intrigue– it’s the well-crafted stories of romance between the various characters. Can I remember the last time an anime had such timeless couples like Louise and Saji, Veda and Tieria, Kati and Patrick (whom by themselves already surpass Hosaka and Haruka), Setsuna and Marina, Marie and Soma, and Klaus and Shirin. The thing was that these relationships weren’t extraneous– they really were well-integrated into the storytelling and made the plot go.
I mean, how just did Sunrise cram so much fun and goodness into 25 half-hour episodes?
#6: Code Geass R2
“Everything is heart~'”
Also wins for 2008:
- Best Writing
- Most Sensible Plot
- Best Antihero
- The Tachibana Memorial Combat Meido Award
After so many posts praising Code Geass R2 for its fast-paced action and political intrigue, I’m running out of ways to praise it. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as Gurren Lagann in terms of incorporating a theme, so it settles in at #6. There’s just something magical about the struggle between a boy and his dad, about a boy and his country, about a boy and his raging, unquenchable libido.
The series redeems itself with R2 which is just the Street Fighter II to the original’s Street Fighter. Just an unfathomable upgrade. I enjoyed the extensive character development of Rolo, the extensive romance angle between Rivalz and Millay, and the extensive final battle between Suzaku and Lulu that showed their pure hatred and disgust for each other, much like Yankees and Red Sox. I know I ragged on Sunrise in the past for things like bringing random characters back from the dead, but Orange-kun’s revival… I was wrong… it worked out well for the story, and I gotta take back my old criticism. *eats own tongue*
(Probably the greatest episode was the tomato festival, which is easily on par with Live Alive. Just a fantastic, fun romp that combines the intricacies of the Code Geass universe with fanservice.)
#5: Toradora
“Pu-re pu-re purado!”
Also wins for 2008:
- Best School Days Bromance
- Best Softball Player
- Most Nayuki All-Stars
- Best Tsundere
You know how some people watch shows like The Office or Mad Men that are just well-written and engaging because they are well-written? Toradora‘s not in that group. And you know shows like Hogan Knows Best and Dr 90210 that just thrives on being the opposite of enlightened entertainment? Well, that’s Toradora— just a hilariously unintentionally funny train wreck harem comedy. For example, the main haremette, Taigi, is short! How can she be taken seriously? Did JC Staff screw up the model drawings or something? And what’s with the tsundere act? So old… sickly girls like Makoto and traps like Makoto are all the rage now… tsunderes like Naru and Taiga are just so… 2001. It’s like watching non-high definition anime.
Just a complete train wreck… and… you know me. I love me some train wreck. Don’t look so surprised, the ultimate giant mecha train wreck, Gurren Lagann, won #1 in Best of 2007, and Toradora is no slouch at #5.
(April Fools! Oh wait… *checks notes*… nevermind…. Code Geass R2 does make the top ten… I’ll now stab myself with a kitchen knife.)
23 Responses to “best of 2008: #7, #6, #5 (april fool’s edition)”
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to the picture of Tiera,
I don’t care anymore. Just shoot me. No way there’s a penis on this. None. I won’t accept it
Kyonko facepalm needed.
So. Many. Uses.
So first is a trap post with a trap that wasn’t and then comes a post with a trap but no mention of the trap…
*head asplodes*
Goddamnit. You got me.
I actually thought you had gone insane.
Don’t you mean Setsuna and Gundam?
Setsuna and Marina’s chance of becoming couple are even less than the possibility of Arthrun reconciling with Cagalli. And that says a lot considering the script writter hates Cagalli
The Code Geass description is just too much XD
Won’t acknowledge this Best of 2008 if it doesn’t involve Toaru Majutsu no Index.
This actually made me laugh, which has to count for something I assume, but then again, even taking into account the irony and mockery of it all jason continues to be way too harsh, to say the very least, if not rather sloppy….as usual.
“There’s not a lot to dislike about Gundam 00 S2… the animation is fantastic, the mecha battles are believable, there’s no wasted characters, and it was a fantastic decision to ditch the stupid energy plot and just focus on A-LAWS vs. Celestial Being a la Shinn vs. Kira.”
I almost fell out of my chair. For a moment of most minuscule duration, I thought you were serious.
For me, R2 was most entertaining show of ’08, hands down. How could it get beat out of the top 5? I mean, what’s left? #1 Clannad, #2 Maid Guy, and 3 and 4 are… Clannad again? Did you even watch something like Kannagi?
Heh? No Kannagi? Color me surprised Jason. Though, I’m guessing it’s because it’s only a 1-cour show when compared to all the others.
What really reduced Gundam 00 S2 for me was the stupid plot ‘twists’. There were so many points that things happened that were so obvious that you predicted them episodes back. And other times if you had actually stopped to think about what was going on the only excuse for the events even having happened was that the entire cast was clearly clinically retarded.
For example, Memento Mori. It’s hard enough to believe that no one noticed that they were building a giant space death ray mounted onto the orbital ring. That shit had to have taken months if not years to build, with resources being taken up through the lifts and whatnot… but you want me to believe that having finally destroyed one, no one noticed that they were building a second one?
Or Anew Returner. Come on, no one in the cast stopped and thought about the fact that the girl with a retarded-sounding Sunrise Name and purple hair, who is insanely talented at everything she does might not be kind of suspicious? She seemed so obvious that I was half expecting her to turn out to be a complete red herring.
Yet I will not be surprised if you keep the order the same.
Sarcasm… overflow… (CG R2 for “Best Writing”, lol. I guess it depends on if the jokes that we think are unintentional are actually intentional genius by Sunrise).
Or Anew Returner. Come on, no one in the cast stopped and thought about the fact that the girl with a retarded-sounding Sunrise Name and purple hair, who is insanely talented at everything she does might not be kind of suspicious? She seemed so obvious that I was half expecting her to turn out to be a complete red herring.
CB didn’t know what an innovator looked like. Tieria only saw two types of Innovators (Himself and Ribbons) plus clones, so for all he knew, the Innovators could have been a bunch of Ribbons and Tierias. Purple Hair? Tieria has purple hair, and hell, Feldt has pink hair. Don’t know what insanely talentedness has to do with being an innovator, and the name? Maybe they thought it was her codename. I don’t find “Anew Returner” that much more awkward than “Allelujah Haptism” tbh.
I think year 2008 was an incredible year for anime seeing how I can probably think of no less than 20 series which were very watchable.
One thing I love about gaming magazines/anime bloggers is anticipating their year in review rankings, and seeing how my views align themselves with the bloggers. Seeing how Code Geass, Gundam, Toradora and Macross Frontier were basically no-brainers, we have a huge cache of amazing anime that can take the top 4.
Michiko no Hatchin, Xam’d, Kannagi, Eve no Jikan, Tytania, (clannad if eve doesnt count since its halfway finished?)
Whatever, that’s six @_@
I’m somewhat apprehensive of this list because of the lack of clannad, lack of traps (unless hatchin counts), and lack of meido, but I feel as if I’m on the money. If you had to name a list of top 4 anime of 2008 that weren’t the ones that Jason listed, what would you list? IMO someone should set up a spread with a mail-in loli-trap meido as a reward for the one who gets it.
But Minami-ke already had an loli-trap meido who several people were going to hold as ransom for more blog posts.
At least there was ONE show up there which had real melonpan… thank you, Ya-chan telling the kids to take a hike.
It’s a mix-and-match!
I knew something was fishy about the way you praised almost everything that are criticized about the shows. But at the same time now I’m confused, does this mean there’s a real 7-5 post coming up soon or did you just reversed what you really meant to say :P
Jason, no penetration mention for 00?
No penetration mention for Geass?
No mention of exhibitionist Kitamura for Toradora?
(Because there is no penetration in Toradora, I came up with the next best thing.)
we have a huge cache of amazing anime that can take the top 4.
Michiko no Hatchin, Xam’d, Kannagi, Eve no Jikan, Tytania, (clannad if eve doesnt count since its halfway finished?)
Why isn’t the #1 sis-con anime of all time on that list?! Index!
I’m ashamed that it took me until “The Kamina Memorial Most Gar Cast Award” to confirm that this was an April Fool’s joke, although I had my suspicions from the start.
April’s Fools indeed.. I was in MIA for 18 hours… 18 fucking hours without internet (because I wasn’t going to pay 9.99 for a day at MIA). Well, at least toradora, Gundam 00 S2 and Code Geass r2 made it.