More mock awards on the anime blogosphere (as if there haven’t been enough), this one being a sequel of the one I did last year. Just like the last effort, this set of awards will be structured to (somewhat) resemble the real Academy Awards, cheekily timed to coincide with yesterday’s ceremony. Again, these awards are completely biased by what I’ve seen (as well as the small detail of my own taste), and I’m pretty much going to conveniently ignore ongoing series except where it’s utterly clear that there’s no worthwhile competition within cooie. The other anomaly is Bakemonogatari, which is near enough to completion that I may as well treat it as such. I’m also going to snub worthwhile series like Aoi Bungaku and Kemono no Souja Erin because I still haven’t finished either (which is unfortunate, because what I’ve seen of both series has been outstanding, but they’re not what I’d call “easy” shows to watch, which is why I’ve been pacing myself with them). Oh yeah, and seeing as I’ve had to try to recall an entire year’s worth of anime, songs and seiyuu, there’s almost certainly something or someone I’ve unintentionally left out, so feel free to point out if you think I’ve tripped up.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Aoi Hana, Bakemonogatari, Canaan, Clannad, Eden of the East, Kara no Kyoukai, Natsume Yuujinchou, RIDE BACK, Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

…And the extremely effective.

Recently I’ve taken to watching video reviews from The Angry Video Game Nerd. I find his work hilarious… he has that college internet style of humour that online satirists like Maddox from The Best Page In The Universe have, except the “satire” itself has been replaced with extreme crassness delivered with highly colourful (and often creative) language. As a reviewer, he’s kinda going for easy targets by searching for the absolute worst in video game history (though I don’t think any of the titles he’s examined have received any less than they deserve), but as an entertainer, I think he’s great. He’s got legions of fans and he’s been imitated many times, but no one’s come close to reproducing the same responses or executed the over-the-top deconstructions of really bad video games as well. So there’s gotta be something that he does better than most. And I think a big part of that is due to his wide range of facial expressions.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Girls Bravo, Kara no Kyoukai, Nijuu-Mensou no Musume, The Angry Video Game Nerd

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

This is happening a lot quicker than it did last year. This time last year there was a massive gap between the end of nominations and voting, which didn’t start until the 25th of Jan. This year, voting is going to be over before the 20th. Personally, I think it was better the way Kyomi did it last year (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was a consequence of him being lackadaisical)… well, not the massive gap between nominations and voting, but the fact that voting didn’t start until late in the month. It gives more people time to catch up and to stew over the anime they’ve seen in the last year. Some of the nominees haven’t even been completely subbed (to my knowledge and conveniently ignoring Crunchyroll), while, in my book, Bakemonogatari (which is going to absolutely clean up these awards) is still technically ongoing.

This year’s nominees are reasonable enough again. I can’t think of too many blatant exclusions (except for one which I’ll get to later). In all honesty, I’m actually less concerned with what wins than I am what gets nominated. Winning is, a lot of the time, about splitting hairs. Being nominated means that an anime has actually been recognized by a reasonably sized audience for excelling at something. 5 cm/s missing a nomination for the animation category two years ago still sticks in my mind. I’m not sure what was going through everyone’s mind during the nomination process (myself included, since I also forgot to nominate it). Since then, forum goers have been much more careful during nomination. I like to think AnimeSuki has learned its lesson.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: AnimeSuki Choice Awards, Bakemonogatari, Clannad, Eden of the East, Eve no Jikan, Gundam (all), Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, K-ON!, Kampfer, Kara no Kyoukai, Kemono no Souja Erin, Natsume Yuujinchou, Saki, Spicy Wolf, Taishou Yakyuu Musume, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Like I mentioned earlier, I (sadly) have more than a passing interest in these types of awards. The 2008 Tokyo Anime Fair Awards were just announced to, as far as I can see, reasonable disinterest. I can see the logic behind the choices behind these awards, even if I don’t particularly agree with all of them (in all honesty, I surprisingly haven’t seen most of the winners, so it’s hard for me to have an opinion either way). But as Kaioshin Sama from When Anime Past Meets Present puts it, if you don’t like the results of a given set of awards, why not make your own. But it’s not like I’m taking his advice (I’m starting to sound like a tsundere now), I’ve been playing with this idea for months.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Aria The Animation, Code Geass Hangyaku no Lelouch, Detroit Metal City, ef -a tale of memories, Kaiba, Kaiji, Kannagi, Kara no Kyoukai, KimiKiss pure rouge, Kurenai, Mouryou no Hako, Natsume Yuujinchou, Nodame Cantabile, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Shigofumi, Spicy Wolf, true tears, Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo - Ryoko’s Case File

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Everyone seems to be making goddamn Valentine's Day posts. Believe me, this post has nothing to do with Valentine's Day. In fact, I didn't even intend to post this on Valentine's Day, I wanted to post this three for four days ago, but couldn't finish it in time.

I was just blown away by this film. It’s incredibly tempting to wax lyrical about this incredible piece of film-making, but I’ll save that for later. This, instead, is a tentative attempt to get to the bottom of the some of the meaning woven into the film, to understand the numerous symbols, metaphors and philosophic quandaries that the film explores. I’ll just say this, though, this film is transcendent; it not only managed to tie the previous films together, but also raised the scope of the entire narrative as a whole. I’m not the most qualified person to talk about a Type Moon adaptation, my experiences of the Nasuverse are limited to the questionable anime adaptations we’ve received so far. Type Moon fans rant and rave about just how meticulous the Nasuverse is, but anime fans have had to wait until this series to see it at its most impressive. This post has moderate spoilers (as well as a splash of the pretentious philosophical discourse that Akira was railing against). As far as I can see, the only person who’s really attempted to analyze this film in depth has been ETERNAL from Memories of Eternity. This is written in part to complement his analysis, and also to expand on some of my ideas and interpretations of the film.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Kara no Kyoukai

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’ll admit it, I do have more than just a passing interest in these types of awards. Obviously one affords as much credibility to a set of awards like these as one agrees with the results, and it always surprises me just how much people RAGE when they don’t, c.f. SaiMoe and its multiple incarnations. Then again, there’s more emotions involved in SaiMoe than there are in these.

This year’s list of nominations is a little more “credible” than last year’s, where, for whatever reason, titles like 5cm/s and Baccano! were snubbed in categories that they could have possibly won had they made it past the nomination round. There are a few titles here and there that I would have liked to have seen given nods, but for the most part they’ve captured the likely winners, which isn’t an all-too-easy thing to do in something that’s determined by an open popular vote. Anyway, this post is an attempt to predict the winners, which is much more challenging than just telling you who I think should win (but I’ll tell you that too ). Particularly with the AnimeSuki Forums, which is a real mix of varying tastes. I haven’t done any counting of the current votes, but I have flipped through the thread, so I have a (highly) vague idea of what people have been voting for at this stage.

(...)
Read More »

Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Allison to Lillia, AnimeSuki Choice Awards, Aria The Animation, BAMBOO BLADE, Clannad, Code Geass Hangyaku no Lelouch, Detroit Metal City, ef -a tale of memories, Gundam (all), Itazura na Kiss, Kaiba, Kaiji, Kannagi, Kanokon, Kara no Kyoukai, Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de, KimiKiss pure rouge, Kurenai, Macross Frontier, Mnemosyune Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi, Mouryou no Hako, Natsume Yuujinchou, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rosario + Vampire, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Shigofumi, Shion no Oh, Spicy Wolf, Strike Witches, To Love-Ru, true tears, Tsubasa Chronicle, Zero no Tsukaima

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh