I would like to let a few more famous and/or eloquent folks speak for me for a minute, on a variety of relevant topics that I have encountered and dealt with over the past two years.

DISAGREEMENTS

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
-Mark Twain

COMMON DEBATES

Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
-John F. Kennedy

MOE

I’m cute — and God I hate that. Because that’s not cool. I’m like your niece, and nobody wants to date their niece.
-Kelly Clarkson

THE SPHERE

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

NEW ANIME SEASONS

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.
-Ernest Dimnet, The Art of Thinking

GRSI

I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.
-Groucho Marx

4CHAN

Youth doesn’t need friends – it only needs crowds.
-Zelda Fitzgerald

FANDOM

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.
-H.L. Mencken

YOU GUYS

Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.
-Irving Layton, poet

IN CONCLUSION

If you haven’t figured it out yet… I’m taking my ball and going home. It’s been real.

I will be back either sometime or never. Sayonara!

There are a few things to which you can attribute my fandom. Chalk it up most notably to Evangelion, the “show that made a million fanboys.” Before that, my interest was spurred on by ultraviolent Kawajiri’s OVAs like Ninja Scroll and Wicked City. Before that, the dark atmosphere of Vampire Hunter D fascinated me.

But before all of that, before I was even old enough to have the slightest idea what “anime” was, I watched cartoons on TV. Now, in the days before “japanimation” became something that companies could sell, the name of the game was adaptation, usually of 10-20 year old shows. And the adapters got everything wrong. They renamed the shows to some stupid nonsense (involving the word “Star” and a verb, usually). They threw Macross in a pot with some Mospeada and Southern Cross and stirred until it curdled into Robotech. And they replaced any lines that they didn’t feel like translating with random yelling and screaming. After all, who cares what them Japs wrote in the first place — it’s just some dumb kid’s show from the country where they make our radios (Contrast this with the aforementioned 90s, when “AUTHENTIC ANIME FROM JAPAN” is here and it’s NOT FOR KIDSSSSSS).

But occasionally, they were right. Yes, “Tranzor Z” is a dumb name. As is Deviline. And Dr. Demon is far less threatening than Dr. Hell. But what’s really important? The giant fucking robot that comes out of a waterfall and tears the shit out of bad guys, occasionally getting upgrades along the way. That’s what’s important. And on Saturday mornings, I sat transfixed as Tranzor Z did just that. I didn’t know or care how old the series was by that point, or what the names of the characters should have been. I was glued to the TV regardless.

So Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z-Hen’s first rocket punch, circa episode 3, wasn’t just an amazing moment. It was a moment of time travel. Time travel that Imagawa himself was obviously partaking in (and milking). Shin Mazinger is full of these moments. After all, it’s specifically built using all the parts you remember and love (some of them upgraded), without all the parts you didn’t like, and then constructed at 20 times the size of the original just so the impact isn’t lost on your cynical adult mind. It’s the Gurren Lagann principle: Its Gainax creators wanted to transport viewers to their childhood by increasing the scale to match your own widened picture of the world. And they did a great job, but they lacked the specificity of Imagawa’s angle. This is childhood, and this is hands down the greatest moment in anime 2009.

Yesterday I mentioned one of the going theories about Bakemonogatari: that either in Nisoisin’s original story or in the mind of Wackiyuki Shinbo, protagonist Ararararararagi became a parody and an indictment of the spineless nice-guy semi-lolicon tendencies of the viewer. It’s potent stuff; after all, we love to be talked to directly, don’t we? And most movies, books, and anime would just as soon preach at you or humor your worst qualities, so it’s almost refreshing to be sneakily made fun of.

But Bakemonogatari isn’t the first time people have thought about this. IKnight, despite claiming to reach no definite conclusion, ruined pretty much anyone’s ability to write about Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket with his breakdown of the typical “war sucks” standard that most Gundam (supposedly) carries. But despite the excellent case he makes that it’s not always as simple as that, what little Gundam I’ve seen and enjoyed is at its best when it’s making that point. War does suck, especially in a world where even the basic movement of the military devices creates huge collateral damage. And while 0080’s Al might have managed to float through a lot of serious events without grasping the full weight of that, one moment stopped him cold, and probably did the same for you.

I’m talking of course about the harrowing scene after Bernie and Chris’s battle, in which Al finally realizes who’s inside that mean old Feddie mobile suit — and what she’s done to his friend. Al’s temporary catatonia paired nicely with my own shock at the brutality of execution of that scene. It was coming since the moment Chris first entered the Gundam, but I just didn’t expect it to be so intense when it happened.

You can say what you want about war-machine fanatics making the Gundam “war sucks” experience a big ourobouros of irony, and you’d be right. But in moments like this, it’s still the king of hammering home its grim message.

Whether you look at the online response or the crushing domestic sales of the DVDs, Bakemonogatari is not only one of the biggest shows of the year, it’s a huge win for SHAFT and Akiyuki Shinbo, the love-him-or-hate-him iconoclast director. Personally I think it’s one of his best works, and when you think about it, an adaptation seemingly custom made for him. And a big part of that success at large comes from the popularity of its lead haremette, Hitagi Senjougahara.

Now, whether you believe in her authenticity is up to you (thanks ghostlightning). And whether you believe in Shinbo’s version of protagonist Ararararararararagi as a vicious indictment of the viewer, well that’s up to you too. Personally, you can’t discount thinking about either angle. They make this scene that much more delicious. What is she getting at? Is it a giant joke? Why English? To emphasize the joke? Or is Senjougahara, underneath her scary stapler-wielding exterior, so uncomfortable expressing such a sentiment that she has to switch off to another language just to get it out?

Much of this was never quite answered, although Senjougahara finally showed more than just a hint of very real sincerity that gives us plenty of hints. In the end, she really was a girl, and a lovely one at that. And though that final episode was the crowning achievement in the whole surreal ball of wax, this bizarro world confession remains a standout moment that will probably stick in my head longer than most of this list.

Solanin covers the same post-college years as Honey & Clover II that I sometimes get nostalgic for (I call them the “adulthood isn’t really gonna be so bad after all” years). It’s the time when you’re unburdened of the responsibility of school, and the current burdens of work-life don’t seem so bad yet. Doesn’t take long for that to change. But I digress.

Solanin is an empowering, uplifting story that makes following your dreams seem like a realistic and manageable proposition. A small chunk of your dream is still your dream, after all. It’s a feel-good story with lovably flawed characters, and a live performance scene that really makes you feel like you’re in a club watching a band give it their all (which, let’s face it, many bands don’t always do).

But there is a moment. it’s the moment when drummer Billy decides that playing a show is the right thing to do. It’s a mixed bag because he’s also come to the realization that he’s done. The “dream” is over, he’s become that guy who gave up on it. And his only choice left is to reclaim that tiny slice.

This moment haunts me. Dead serious. As a musician, I’ve never planned for huge success — in fact, the types of music I’ve played have never enjoyed widespread notoriety at all — but I always hoped I could get some albums out on real labels, travel around in a van playing music, and hopefully meet some people in other places who’d heard me and were into the same kinds of things. I still don’t know if I’ve given up on that. But that one page of Solanin made me realize that I was Billy too.

I suppose if I lived in a manga it’d be easy to claim that slice of a dream, but my band (who play the most accessible, potentially-successful music I’ve ever done) lives the reality of the situation weekly. We’re no longer the bums that Solanin’s characters are, and jobs, spouses, children, and other commitments threaten at every turn to strike even that small chump-change dream down. But in those moments, I suppose I can always think of Meiko, Katou, and Billy living their moment.

In terms of quality — animation, writing, characters — as well as that pure glued-to-the-screen factor, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 stands out in a (mostly) unimpressive field of competitors this year.

But I think what will stand out in most people’s minds is the moment when they realized… it.

When exactly it happened is something that some viewers had to go back and establish. But for many, this handy infographic sums it up.

Legend:

A: Oh my. This is bad. I wonder if…
B: Oh, it’s really true. And the denial… it’s so heart-wrenching.
C: How, uh… how long are they gonna keep this up?
D: argaaargrgrgashflakjsdasdfklhja

Now the question is, did that slight overemphasis lessen the impact? I suppose it did, but the feeling of disappointment passed. That’s partially due to the strong final episode, which I know left my household all dewey-eyed, and partially due to the simple fact that the series as a whole was great. I haven’t seen that level of emotional intensity, whether it be the very real sense of fear and danger early on or the tragedy of later episodes, in a long time. So regardless of how you feel about “the thing” and its corresponding moment, at least there’s a strong series to go with it.

That’s the name of the 14th episode of Planetes and it means what it says in more than one way, some of which will spoil you if you haven’t seen this marvelous show, so don’t read on if that’s the case.

The first half of Planetes is basically a slice of life of orbital garbage collectors, set in a marvelously intricate sci-fi near future. There’s workplace drama, issues of ambition and social status, and even some office romance. It’s actually the culmination of that workplace fraternizing that provides the turning point. Hachimaki’s forced to reexamine his priorities in light of his relationship with Tanabe and his opportunity to make it to Jupiter. Not only that, the tone of the show starts changing dramatically from that point.

Really, the sad truth is that it never got any better for Tanabe and Hachimaki than their first kiss. It was all downhill from there.

Ghostlightning became briefly obsessed with the concept of what happens after the climactic hookup, and who can blame him — anime so often gives us a “chase is better than the catch” feeling by focusing 13-50 (or more) episodes on getting to the culmination of a schoolkid’s crush and showing us nothing of what happens after. Of course, that implies that everything is idyllic and wonderful, and that there’s no possible drama in two people who admit that they’re in love with one another. How incredibly unlike real life that is.

In the end, Hachimaki righted his wrongs and realized that his dreams could coexist with the more mundane aspects of his life (as long as they were willing to wait seven years…), and he tied it up in a really romantic and cute kinda way. But in the context of both the series and anime as a whole, episode 14’s “turning point” was a hard moment to top.

This is a short one, because honestly I don’t feel much like writing about Honey & Clover right now. I already did it, (warning: same pancake) and though I feel like there’s more to say, I’m not sure how to say it because H&C kind of flew by in my brain.

Why?

Because it’s the first thing I “marathoned” in a really long time. The marathon is the catnip of the anime fan, and the bane of the ones with real lives and jobs. It’s what happens when you are so sucked into a series that you’re preoccupied by its characters during work or school. You’re distant in conversation with real human beings because you don’t care what happens to them, you care what happens to HAGU DAMMIT. And you have to bear witness to the constant fight between your unstoppable desire to keep going and your sad knowledge that you’re bringing the end on sooner.

In this case, bring it on because it was worth getting to the end again (as evidenced by how many re-watches a mere mention could trigger). So the moment in this case…? It’s realizing that I was in the thick of a marathon and I wasn’t going to stop until it was over.

What was it Def Leppard said? It’s better to burn out than to fade away, right? I suppose the going theory would be that going down in flames makes for a much better story. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, then, is defying conventional heavy metal wisdom. Because although it takes place at the end of the world, this is not the end from some nuclear disaster or a zombie apocalypse movie. In fact, who knows exactly what happened? I suppose you could guess that global warming finally got the best of us, the seas rose, and the bulk of the earth drowned, leaving a few survivors in a simple life on high ground.

It’s that simplicity that makes YKK what it is. The easy-breezy pace of life, the high technology of humanlike robots mingling with old scooters and street markets, the weird plants and creatures that resemble man-made items of yore… it’s fundamentally weird, but only when you step back and look at it as such.

What’s pervasive in your mind throughout YKK is an almost-overwhelming sense of melancholy, of sad nostalgia. The earth itself seems to long for the glory days of humanity, even as it’s in the last phase of reclaiming itself from them. As 2DT mentions, it seems very Japanese to quietly accept the end of the world like this; after all, we don’t see what anyone’s doing elsewhere on earth, but something in YKK does give the impression that this is… just how it is. After all, what can you do? Nothing. It’s over. This is the twilight of humanity, and I only hope that we go with such grace and poise.

2009 was a big year for anime for one solid reason: Haruhi returned. Long baited, teased, and ridiculed, fans of the 2000s’ biggest series were finally rewarded for their patience. Turns out, they weren’t rewarded all that well, but at least we got the wonderfully entertaining Haruhi-chan and Nyoron Churuya-san.

Of the things that made the return noteworthy — drops in animation quality, the near-punching of the titular (anti-)heroine, or the introduction of the book series’ central time-travel themes — one stands above: Endless Eight. Is it another troll on the fans? They certainly have reason to think that way after their treatment by Vengeful God Kadokawa. Is it a failed attempt to be clever? Who knows. It’s almost avant-garde when you think about it. No one’s ever done anything like it. But in the end, I think it was brilliant. Not just the fact that it was done, but in its execution.

See, by the close of Endless Eight (which did, in fact have an end, and that’s what makes it a ripoff), viewers were micro-focused on changes in outfits, slight variations on the dialog, and Kyon’s minute advances. So when the brain-snapping end finally came, the force of your fist in the air was enough to raise you out of your seat.

Was it, in combination with the “Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya” story, enough to gain back the goodwill lost during the most experimental anime arc of the century? Doesn’t seem that way. Maybe the movie version of Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of the most well-liked stories, will fix that. Hard to say. But love Endless Eight or hate it, at least it gave us this moment.