Best New Anime Series of 2009
I had an urge to do a top 5 list for 2009, but in most categories I barely have anything that came out in 2009, and my perspective would be rather pointless. There is however one thing I have seen a pretty fair percentage of for this year, and that would be Anime fansubs. Everything I will list has not made it to DVDs in America yet, to my knowledge, but may in the future. Hopefully I am doing my part here to increase word of mouth for when they do come out. Overall, I watched 20 or so new series, 1 sequel and one prequel with significant enough differences to their originals to be considered separately from them, and an undefined number of continued series, special features to watched series, series that were unappealing enough for me to dump them, and series that got pulled before I could watch enough to form a reasoned opinion. Series such as Hayate no Gotoku 2, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2, and Spice and Wolf 2 are removed from consideration as 2009 series, as they are continuations with the same main cast.
I don't know if it is really a top 5 list if I don't rank them, so I have using some fairly arbitrary numbers and gut feelings. All of these are recommended, but your personal rankings will probably vary from mine.
5. Basquash!
This series is really a combination of two genres: sports series, and giant mech series. It is about a young man on a futuristic world who wants to play basketball, but regular basketball leagues are a thing of the past. Now the only leagues are Bigfoot Basketball leagues, ie basketball with people in giant robots(aka bigfoots), which tend to be rather slow and ponderous in the manner of a junior high basketball game. The young man sabotages these games under the persona of Dunk Mask, a masked basketball player. At a big exhibition match he gets a hold of a bigfoot, attempts to demonstrate real exciting play to the crowd and generally manages to trash the place. He gets captured and sent to jail for a year and when he gets out he finds that his stunt really did change the world and he eventually gets recruited to a newly forming team with bigfoots designed for playing. A new game develops which Dunk Mask dubs Basquash, where the game is played among the buildings and streets of the city with baskets being points on the tallest buildings in town. A quest for glory and riches in this new game eventually becomes a quest to fulfill ancient prophesy and save the world from destruction.
My quick arbitrary scores: Originality 8, Graphics 8, Characters 6, Story 7. I've not seen any series quite like this before, and while the CG being used to make the mechs is quite obvious, it seems to work here, and the cities themselves are nicely differentiated from each other. The main characters are not bad, and some reach some extreme levels of bizarreness (one woman who is obsessed with feet, and a man obsessed with perfect spheres in particular), but somewhat caricatured, and the main character can get kind of obnoxious. The story is a hero's journey kind of thing, and there is the usual multiple women looking for the hero's attention.
4. Kimi no Todoke
Kimi no Todoke is a high school romance story with a twist. (Not entirely sure what Kimi no Todoke means, Animesuki gives “Reaching You” as an alternate title) The main character is named Kuronuma Sawako, but everybody calls her Sadako because she bears an uncanny resemblance to the creepy girl of that name in “The Ring”. Much of the school is scared of her, and rumors of bad luck associated with her abound. The truth is that she is just socially awkward, not having had many friends in the past,and actually likes nothing more than being useful to other people. Shota Kazehaya is the boy in class that everyone likes and wants to hang out with, and he decides to make an effort to actually get to know her. Soon her life begins turning around, and she and Kazehaya become closer. This is complicated by many things including his getting the impression that she isn't interested in him, her own lack of social skills making it hard to realize love when she sees it, and a rival interested in Kazehaya who fights dirty.
Scores: Originality 8, Graphics 7,Characters 8, Story 7. This is pretty much a Shoujo romance, so expect a fair amount of sparkly backgrounds, but some truly sweet moments as well. Once she gets over some of her shyness, Sawako has such a straightforward naïve manner that she pushes her way through obstacles that others would find impossible. Much of this series seems to be about the layers beneath the exteriors that people show to the world. As of the time of this writing, the series is still ongoing.
3. Bakemonogatari
This series name is a compound of theword for monster (bakemono) and monogatari, which is a kind of epic story, a romance in the old sense. It is by the same studio as Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and has some similarities in its storytelling methods. The main character is a male high school student who used to be a vampire. He got cured, but as a benefit has regenerative abilities. His character is one that always wants to help people, and he winds up getting involved in the stories of various girls in the area, usually having to do with animal spirits of some kind.
Scores: Originality 7, Graphics 8, Characters 9, Story 7. While this is a good series in many ways the things that most stick out for me is the art direction and the characters. The camera angles are always changing and are a big part of establishing the scenes. It can be somewhat surreal, but has a sparseness that help emphasize the items that do get included. The characters are where I think this series shines the most. The main character gets a girlfriend fairly early on, and their interactions are simultaneously bizarre, witty and subtly sweet. The other characters have their own distinct methods of interaction, but the snappy wittiness comes through on more than one. There is also a lot of subtlety to the series as a whole and I find myself going back to already viewed episodes of this more often than most. The story got docked a bit because the storylines tend to be a bit disjointed, but still the series left me wanting more after the 12 episodes that came out.
2. Kemono no Souja Erin
This is a story about a girl named Erin. Erin wants to grow up to be a beastinarian, a caretaker and vet to large fantastic beasts. The cliché of most women in fantasy series is that they are physically strong but emotionally vulnerable when the right man comes around. Erin can't really fight, even when she becomes a teenager she cares a lot less about guys than she does about beasts. But, she has more intelligence, strength of conviction, and bravery than anyone. Perhaps she will be the right person in the right place to save the empire. Perhaps her convictions will lead her wrong and she will cause a repeat of the great calamity, I'm not entirely convinced that this drama won't become a tragedy. 46 episodes already this year taking Erin from small child to young adult, but the climax looms.
Scores: Originality 9, Graphics 6, Characters 7, Story 9. So the graphics are both what probably made it possible to produce so many animation episodes in one year, and also one of the most original aspects about it. Much of the backgrounds and establishing shots are of scenery that is basically watercolors with broad brush strokes. The characters have a fair bit of detail, though they are not highly realistic models either for the most part. It is like something out of an animation short, but brought to a full studio production The story seems to be modeled a good bit on the period of Japanese history when there was an Emperor and a Shogun. Here there are two separate people, the people of the Empress and those of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke's people think those of the Empress are sheltered and unappreciative, the Empress's people think that those of the Grand Duke are unclean and uncouth. Trouble has been brewing for years. Erin has lived among both, and finds herself in a unique position in the politics and scheming that are occuring at the highest levels of power. She is also the daughter of a woman of the Mist People, a shadowy people to whom are ascribed many magical powers, and who have their own evaluation regarding her activities. The characters are good in general, but except for Erin, few defy stereotype that much. It is worth noting that this is a series of much tranquility punctuated with periods of fairly heavy violence. While this sometimes seems like a series for younger girls, some degree of sophistication is required to understand the politics, and the violence is all the stronger for the calm that often surrounds it.
1. Eden of the East
Score the graphics differently between this series and Erin and the order would have been reversed. Still Eden of the East is a very impressive series (and much shorter than Erin). It is an adventure series, but there are some social parables involved. There is basically a contest to see who can best fix society, each contestant is given a large sum of money in an account, an operator connection to a liason who can make just about anything happen and set a cost on it, and given generally free rein except for some minimum spending requirements. Run out of money and you get eliminated. The female protagonist in this series is a young Japanese girl on a trip to Washington, DC, presumably just after finishing college and before trying to enter the workforce, she gets in trouble after throwing something on to the White House lawn. The male protagonist finds himself near the White House, naked, with no memory, but carrying a strange phone. He aids her in getting away and they both run from the police. They both get tied up in trying to find out who he is, and what this contest is, while trying to avoid the machinations of other contestants, all the while worrying that signs may be pointing to him having launched an attack that destroyed large sections of Tokyo.
Scores: Originality 8, Graphics 9, Characters 7, Story 8. While the graphics aren't as original as those of Erin or Bakemonogatari, with the possible exception of ending graphics which involve figures and missiles made in paper, the general art quality is high, and reminiscent of some high end animated movies. The concept is unusual, it is suspenseful and the combination of conspiracy and wish fulfillment concepts work ininteresting ways. The characters are not bad, but not really standout either, and there is little time in this series to work on characterization with everything else that is going on.
I don't know if it is really a top 5 list if I don't rank them, so I have using some fairly arbitrary numbers and gut feelings. All of these are recommended, but your personal rankings will probably vary from mine.
5. Basquash!
This series is really a combination of two genres: sports series, and giant mech series. It is about a young man on a futuristic world who wants to play basketball, but regular basketball leagues are a thing of the past. Now the only leagues are Bigfoot Basketball leagues, ie basketball with people in giant robots(aka bigfoots), which tend to be rather slow and ponderous in the manner of a junior high basketball game. The young man sabotages these games under the persona of Dunk Mask, a masked basketball player. At a big exhibition match he gets a hold of a bigfoot, attempts to demonstrate real exciting play to the crowd and generally manages to trash the place. He gets captured and sent to jail for a year and when he gets out he finds that his stunt really did change the world and he eventually gets recruited to a newly forming team with bigfoots designed for playing. A new game develops which Dunk Mask dubs Basquash, where the game is played among the buildings and streets of the city with baskets being points on the tallest buildings in town. A quest for glory and riches in this new game eventually becomes a quest to fulfill ancient prophesy and save the world from destruction.
My quick arbitrary scores: Originality 8, Graphics 8, Characters 6, Story 7. I've not seen any series quite like this before, and while the CG being used to make the mechs is quite obvious, it seems to work here, and the cities themselves are nicely differentiated from each other. The main characters are not bad, and some reach some extreme levels of bizarreness (one woman who is obsessed with feet, and a man obsessed with perfect spheres in particular), but somewhat caricatured, and the main character can get kind of obnoxious. The story is a hero's journey kind of thing, and there is the usual multiple women looking for the hero's attention.
4. Kimi no Todoke
Kimi no Todoke is a high school romance story with a twist. (Not entirely sure what Kimi no Todoke means, Animesuki gives “Reaching You” as an alternate title) The main character is named Kuronuma Sawako, but everybody calls her Sadako because she bears an uncanny resemblance to the creepy girl of that name in “The Ring”. Much of the school is scared of her, and rumors of bad luck associated with her abound. The truth is that she is just socially awkward, not having had many friends in the past,and actually likes nothing more than being useful to other people. Shota Kazehaya is the boy in class that everyone likes and wants to hang out with, and he decides to make an effort to actually get to know her. Soon her life begins turning around, and she and Kazehaya become closer. This is complicated by many things including his getting the impression that she isn't interested in him, her own lack of social skills making it hard to realize love when she sees it, and a rival interested in Kazehaya who fights dirty.
Scores: Originality 8, Graphics 7,Characters 8, Story 7. This is pretty much a Shoujo romance, so expect a fair amount of sparkly backgrounds, but some truly sweet moments as well. Once she gets over some of her shyness, Sawako has such a straightforward naïve manner that she pushes her way through obstacles that others would find impossible. Much of this series seems to be about the layers beneath the exteriors that people show to the world. As of the time of this writing, the series is still ongoing.
3. Bakemonogatari
This series name is a compound of theword for monster (bakemono) and monogatari, which is a kind of epic story, a romance in the old sense. It is by the same studio as Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and has some similarities in its storytelling methods. The main character is a male high school student who used to be a vampire. He got cured, but as a benefit has regenerative abilities. His character is one that always wants to help people, and he winds up getting involved in the stories of various girls in the area, usually having to do with animal spirits of some kind.
Scores: Originality 7, Graphics 8, Characters 9, Story 7. While this is a good series in many ways the things that most stick out for me is the art direction and the characters. The camera angles are always changing and are a big part of establishing the scenes. It can be somewhat surreal, but has a sparseness that help emphasize the items that do get included. The characters are where I think this series shines the most. The main character gets a girlfriend fairly early on, and their interactions are simultaneously bizarre, witty and subtly sweet. The other characters have their own distinct methods of interaction, but the snappy wittiness comes through on more than one. There is also a lot of subtlety to the series as a whole and I find myself going back to already viewed episodes of this more often than most. The story got docked a bit because the storylines tend to be a bit disjointed, but still the series left me wanting more after the 12 episodes that came out.
2. Kemono no Souja Erin
This is a story about a girl named Erin. Erin wants to grow up to be a beastinarian, a caretaker and vet to large fantastic beasts. The cliché of most women in fantasy series is that they are physically strong but emotionally vulnerable when the right man comes around. Erin can't really fight, even when she becomes a teenager she cares a lot less about guys than she does about beasts. But, she has more intelligence, strength of conviction, and bravery than anyone. Perhaps she will be the right person in the right place to save the empire. Perhaps her convictions will lead her wrong and she will cause a repeat of the great calamity, I'm not entirely convinced that this drama won't become a tragedy. 46 episodes already this year taking Erin from small child to young adult, but the climax looms.
Scores: Originality 9, Graphics 6, Characters 7, Story 9. So the graphics are both what probably made it possible to produce so many animation episodes in one year, and also one of the most original aspects about it. Much of the backgrounds and establishing shots are of scenery that is basically watercolors with broad brush strokes. The characters have a fair bit of detail, though they are not highly realistic models either for the most part. It is like something out of an animation short, but brought to a full studio production The story seems to be modeled a good bit on the period of Japanese history when there was an Emperor and a Shogun. Here there are two separate people, the people of the Empress and those of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke's people think those of the Empress are sheltered and unappreciative, the Empress's people think that those of the Grand Duke are unclean and uncouth. Trouble has been brewing for years. Erin has lived among both, and finds herself in a unique position in the politics and scheming that are occuring at the highest levels of power. She is also the daughter of a woman of the Mist People, a shadowy people to whom are ascribed many magical powers, and who have their own evaluation regarding her activities. The characters are good in general, but except for Erin, few defy stereotype that much. It is worth noting that this is a series of much tranquility punctuated with periods of fairly heavy violence. While this sometimes seems like a series for younger girls, some degree of sophistication is required to understand the politics, and the violence is all the stronger for the calm that often surrounds it.
1. Eden of the East
Score the graphics differently between this series and Erin and the order would have been reversed. Still Eden of the East is a very impressive series (and much shorter than Erin). It is an adventure series, but there are some social parables involved. There is basically a contest to see who can best fix society, each contestant is given a large sum of money in an account, an operator connection to a liason who can make just about anything happen and set a cost on it, and given generally free rein except for some minimum spending requirements. Run out of money and you get eliminated. The female protagonist in this series is a young Japanese girl on a trip to Washington, DC, presumably just after finishing college and before trying to enter the workforce, she gets in trouble after throwing something on to the White House lawn. The male protagonist finds himself near the White House, naked, with no memory, but carrying a strange phone. He aids her in getting away and they both run from the police. They both get tied up in trying to find out who he is, and what this contest is, while trying to avoid the machinations of other contestants, all the while worrying that signs may be pointing to him having launched an attack that destroyed large sections of Tokyo.
Scores: Originality 8, Graphics 9, Characters 7, Story 8. While the graphics aren't as original as those of Erin or Bakemonogatari, with the possible exception of ending graphics which involve figures and missiles made in paper, the general art quality is high, and reminiscent of some high end animated movies. The concept is unusual, it is suspenseful and the combination of conspiracy and wish fulfillment concepts work ininteresting ways. The characters are not bad, but not really standout either, and there is little time in this series to work on characterization with everything else that is going on.