Before I get to the main content of this post, I just want to apologize for the recent lack of blogging. I’ve been very ill this past week and haven’t been able to do much of anything except lie in bed in a fevered stupor. Currently I’m on the road to recovery but I’m still pretty weak. However, I wanted to keep up my New Year’s tradition of picking my five favorite anime from the passing year…
Before I get to my five favorites, here’s a list of all the 2010 anime I’ve seen. I count an anime as a 2010 title if it completed its airing sometime between January and December of 2010 (in the case of movies, if it was released in theaters in 2010).
–finished airing from 2009
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Hetalia Axis Powers
Inuyasha: The Final Act
Kimi ni Todoke
Kobato.
Shakugan no Shana S
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
–finished airing from the winter ’10 season
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu
Dance in the Vampire Bund
Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha Gaiden
Durarara!!
Hanamaru Kindergarten
K-ON! Special: Live House!
Katanagatari
Sora no Woto
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
–finished airing from the spring ’10 season
Angel Beats!
Heroman
K-ON!!
Kaichou wa Maid-sama!
Rainbow
–finished airing from the summer ’10 season
Black Rock Shooter
Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi
Pokemon Movie 13
Occult Academy
Seitokai Yakuindomo
–finished airing from the fall ’10 season
Angel Beats!: Another Epilogue
Angel Beats!: Stairway to Heaven
The World God Only Knows
OreImou
So out of those, here are my five favorites in no particular order. Since I’ve already written posts about all of them, I’ll make my thoughts here brief and link to the posts rather than repeat myself.
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
I’ll just get this one out of the way first XD I wouldn’t be a Haruhi fan if the movie wasn’t my anime pick of the year. Other than perhaps being dragged on at certain parts, I really can’t fault Disappearance in anything. A thought-provoking, engrossing story, fun characters, and the highest quality 2-D animation I’ve ever seen. The fact that I was able to watch and review it during its U.S. premiere in San Francisco also makes it special to me.
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To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Railgun was a pleasant surprise for me. I hadn’t watched Index yet but I wanted to give Railgun a try after hearing good things about it. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would – a very interesting setting, characters that are easy to sympathize with, and a good balance of action, sci-fi, comedy, and slice-of-life. I’ve since watched Index too but I still like the Railgun characters better.
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Angel Beats!
As I said in my previous “moments of anime” post, I just fell in love with Angel Beats!. Even though I recognize its flaws, it just has certain elements that appeal to me very much. I’ve already written quite a bit about the series here and here.
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OreImou
Besides Angel Beats!, OreImou was the only other series this year where I sincerely looked forward to every single episode each week. Even if it was a bit bizarre and frustrating at times, it was certainly a unique experience and obviously all the otaku elements were easy to relate to. It also gave me a ton of interesting things to reflect on.
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K-ON!!
Surprisingly, K-ON! didn’t make it onto my top 5 for 2009, but K-ON!! did this year. I enjoyed this second season so much more. There were just so many episodes in K-ON!! that truly made me laugh and were prime examples of what constitutes great character-driven humor. It also has a number of emotional episodes, such as the amazing concert in episode 20 and the sentimental final episode. KyoAni was at their finest as far as blending mood and animation in this series.
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Runner-ups:
– Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: I’m so glad I was able to experience the original manga story of FMA without having to actually read the manga. FMA Brotherhood is a fantastic, well-written story, but I just couldn’t count it among my top 5 because I’m not that big a fan of FMA in general, the first batch of episodes before the manga-only material was kind of rushed, and out of the 64 episodes there were a bunch that profoundly touched my emotions, but not that many. But even if I’m not a big fan, I have a ton of respect for FMA.
– Inuyasha: The Final Act Even though I’m not as big of an Inuyasha fan as I used to be, finally seeing the rest of the manga story animated after so many years was great. But the reason The Final Act didn’t rank among my top 5 is because this latter half of the Inuyasha saga, in the anime and manga, just isn’t as good as the first half. Kinda rushed (especially the anime version with only 26 episodes to work with) and the ending left a fair amount of loose ends untied.
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I know most of my favorites this year were pretty generic, but what can I say? That’s how I feel.
If I continue to recover from my illness rather than relapse, I hope to return to my regular blogging schedule soon. But in the meantime, I hope you all have a happy, healthy, and safe New Year~! Here’s to more awesome anime in 2011!
Glad to see you’re feeling better finally.
I’m not surprised with any of your selections for this year. Haruhi was fantastic as was Railgun. K-On!! ranged between comedy and sentimental so many times in 10 episodes it was amazing. I suppose to sum everything up, 2010 was a heavy moe year compared to shounen for you. Here’s to another amazing year!
Yeah, I guess I did lean a bit more on the “moe” side this year as opposed to when I did my picks for 2009 and 2008, which were more mixed. But again, I hate to use the word “moe” to define any of these titles except perhaps K-ON!!. “Lack of action/shonen” is a better way to say it XD
I think 2010 was a pleasurable year for Anime considering the selection… Hopefully 2011 will bring more of the same or even better.
Also, I wish you luck in the new year and get well soon… Come to think of it, I was sick for the first 3 weeks in December because of bronchitis. Since then, I have gotten better after I started to take the medication…
Thanks for the well wishes~ I’ve actually been pretty lucky considering I’ve been working with kids for over a year now and this is the first time I’ve had to take more than a day off of work for an illness.
Any list with K-ON! in it quickly left me disinterested.
Ah, well we can’t all like the exact same anime =P I know you’re with me about the Haruhi movie though!
Well, I wouldn’t say your choices are my favorite shows of the year, but they were all pretty solid, and more importantly fun, shows. Haruhi would be the exception though, with a great execution and awesome character development.
Railgun I’ll remember for Biribiri, Angel beats was just messy but fun, and Oreimo…Well, it had Kuroneko :D
Anyways, Happy New Years to ya :)
Happy New Year to you too!
Yeah, like I said, my choices this year were pretty generic, but good nonetheless (“solid” is a good word for them). I think all five became very memorable titles that fans will continue to talk about. There are a bunch of exceptions of course, but usually my tastes just tend to go with the popular titles (only with anime though, not so much in other aspects of life XD)
Can’t say that I personally agree with this list, but hey, everyone’s got different tastes. :) Out of all those, I only like Haruhi (but who doesn’t? LOL.)
As I said before, 2010 didn’t leave me particularly amazed in terms of anime this year, although there were some that I did like a lot.
For me, my top 5 of 2010 are (in no particular order):
FMA:Brotherhood – I am a FMA junkie. I can safely say that I rank this as one of my favorites of all time.
Durarara! – love everything about it.
Sora no Woto – it was short and sweet. The characters weren’t necessarily the most original, but I was fine with it.
Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – it was humorous and I liked the style ^^
that’s kind of it. haha I didn’t even reach five. If I actually watched more than three episodes of Kimi ni Todoke, it would probably be on this list too.
I’ve seen (and reviewed!) all those series you mentioned and they’re all good. Sora no Woto was indeed short and sweet, and both Kimi ni Todoke and Kaichou wa Maid-sama! were excellent renditions of typical shojo stories (the former going for the dramatic elements, the latter going for the comedic elements). Durarara!! was very unique and thought-provoking, but I just couldn’t get as into the characters as other fans did.
I’m glad to see K-On!! and Railgun on that list. K-On!! is my pick for the best of 2010.
Yes, K-ON!! was great~ Don’t really know what we need a movie for after that but oh well =P
I’m with you on K-ON!/!!, Angel Beats!, and the Haruhi movie. Hey, you even got me to marathon the entire Haruhi TV series (minus Endless Eight), so that at least is worth a “double” favorite. I would also add Sora no Woto and Bamboo Blade for my memorable anime for this past year. Even though they didn’t officially come out in 2010, I think of them as “2010” anime in terms of my own watching schedule. I *still* need to check out Railgun and Index…
Having the chronological Haruhi series fresh in your memory upon watching the movie is definitely the best way to experience it! I’m so glad you decided to make that commitment of rewatching it beforehand =D
Sora no Woto is actually a 2010 series (it’s on my list under “winder ’10” series).
I think you’d like Rail-dex. I watched Railgun first and enjoyed it more than Index (you probably will too). Index has its good points even though the story arcs and central characters aren’t as appealing to me as Railgun.
Happy new Year!
Mhmm well i can definetly agree with you that Shoushitsu is the anime of the year.. but i think the most popular would be K-ON!! okay angel beats deserves credit but i thought it could have been better..mind you we can debate about it with others series, but i just thought AB! could have been beyond great. id place it in my top 5.
Durarara doesnt get much mentioned i saw in other blogs as well. Shame since it was another masterclass from brain base. another series from them in which i thought was great was kuragehime <3
I agree that AB! had a lot more potential…it really needed 20 some episodes. But obviously that didn’t stop me from loving it :3 We can always hope for a (KyoAni!) remake.
I thought DRRR!! was very good, but like I said, the characters just didn’t click with me. I liked them well enough but something about them was distant.
The fact that K-On was rated higher than FMA:B makes me question the future of all humanity. In a bad way.
I think both K-ON!! and FMA do a fantastic job at achieving their goals, it’s just that those goals are vastly different. But don’t worry, my little old opinion doesn’t count for much compared to all of humanity =P
Neat list. I agree that K-ON! was great but it’s a shame that you haven’t mentioned Jellyfish Princess. It’s a slice of life anime/comedy kind of like Genshiken but with female otaku. It’s great you should check it out, would love to hear your opinion on it! It’s on hulu…I think the last episode came out recently, I hope there is a second season
A lot of people I know watched Kuragehime and I’ve heard good things about it, so maybe I’ll check it out one day.
Hey, we have the same taste in anime :) The Haruhi movie was simply amazing. I had already read the short novel, but just watching that great adaptation was worth every single second.
I actually watched Index before railgun, and thought it wasn’t that good, that I did not want to watch railgun. But the characters are so much more likeable in railgun, and funny that once you pick it up, it’s hard to put down. Great show.
K-On!! is an amazing show as well. I imagine not everyone would like it, it does not fit the general anime genres I guess. It’s not an action series, it’s not a romantic anime, it’s not exactly comedy (although it’s incredibly funny), no sci-fi, no fantasy, no mental powers, not a psycho thriller… It’s hard to categorize I guess. But the characters are so likeable and relate so well to each that any simple situation can come out so well. It’s a pretty eccentric and shiny jewel in the halls of anime treasures out there.
Angel beats was also quite different from other anime, and the story was quite interesting. Some characters were a bit weak, but overall, it told the story quite well. I like those kind of complex and weird anime anyway, so it was a great show.
Oreimo… Now, this was a mixed bag. I watched the first episode, and thought it was far too weird, and not to my taste (I’m not much into incest stories or the like). But after watching a few more episodes it kind of grew on me, and I had to watch all the episodes to the end. The stories are pretty varied, but that keeps it interesting. I totally hated Kirino by the middle of the anime, but the other characters are so likeable, that the contrast made it somewhat appealing. I have to say it was the anime that surprised me the most last year.
I’ll follow your blog from now on, see how this upcoming season shapes up. Hope you get better before the new anime season start :)