Otaku Dan: The Life of an Anime Fan

Top 5 Worst anime of 2010:

5. High School of the Dead
I had such high hopes when this anime first started. When I heard about the plot of Japanese high school students fighting to survive a zombie apocalypse. I was excited, until I met the characters. Almost every single character in this anime was annoying. The only characters I liked was the dog, the little girl, and the zombies. I wanted everyone else dead. As for the fan service, it can distracting in scenes where there was tension.

4. Sleeping with Hinako
this is nothing but watching a girl sleeping for 50 minutes. Okay, I will admit that I have seen all three Hinako OVAs but at least, in the other two stuff was actually happening.

3. Kiss x Sis
The harem of this anime is made up of step twin sisters who want to do their younger brother, a girl masturbates to fantasies of her getting raped in a puddle of her own urine, a teacher that masturbates to fantasies of the main character getting gang raped by samurai warriors, and a shameless little girl. Also, the animation is choppy at times and the voice acting is bad.

2. Chu-Bra!!
It's an anime about three middle school freshmen wanting to start an underwear club. The creep factor of this anime is high, uncle touchy's naked puzzle basement high. You know what? I know why this anime was made, it was made to catch sexual offenders. Whenever someone says anything positive about this anime on the Internet, they are automatically added to the sexual offender registry of their respected country.

1. Boku, Otakyman
Part of me believes that I'm the only person in the world who saw this crap. This anime is about an otaku salaryman and his sad miserable existences. Most otaku culture/slice of life anime have some form of meta humor to make it somewhat watchable. This pile of crap horribly fails at that because the "humor" is just stuff the makes no sense. Like for example his coworkers tell him that his fashion sense sucks and he ends up feeling bad about it. That's not funny, its sad.

Top 5 Best anime of 2010:

5. So-Ra-No-Wo-To
Before this anime came out, everyone was calling it "K-On! goes to war". However, when it aired, that joke quickly disappeared. The music and scenery in this anime is just beautiful. There are scenes that it's just silence and nothing is happening but, its breathtaking. Even the ending has great dramatic tension and it is satisfying.

4. K-On!!
I will admit, the first season of K-On! felt rushed due to only being 13 episodes long and it really did not focus much on the music aspect. However, the second fixed those problems. It was nice seeing the final year of high school of Yui, Mio, Tsumugi, and Ritsu extended to 24 episodes. It was a fun show that I personally found to be very enjoyable.

3. Bakemonogatari
This was a funny and intelligent anime. The animation was just wonderful, honestly Shaft could use dirt and rocks to make an anime and it will still have great animation. I like how it covered all 5 light novels that it's based off of. Every character was likable.

2. Durarara!!
What I like about this anime is that tension builds up episode by episode, until a explosion of awesome happens in the end. The number one thing I like about this anime is that every subplot, drove the story to something of greatest. The characters had some depth to them and at times, they felt like real human beings.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
This anime has amazing. From beginning to end, the animation was crisp and the fight scenes were fluid. It had great dramatic tension and the end of every episode had a cliffhanger making me want more. I will say that this version is far superior than the 2003 version.

So, what are your personal opinions on anime that aired in 2010?

So, did you guess with figures I used in this photo shoot?

Amagami SS
I found this anime to be so-so. Some arcs were good, while others were just plain bad. I personally feel that this anime should have ended at episode 24, but it was extended by one more episode for a mini hateful arc.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume
I was doubting this anime when I first started watching it. I was expecting a creepy romance anime with an anthropomorphic squid girl. However, I got this extremely funny anime with a charming main character and a great support cast. I enjoyed this anime from beginning to end.

Sora no Otoshimono Forte
I have no words for this show. This is not a good thing.

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru
For a Shaft comedy anime, it was ok. It was really wordy and some of the humor felt stale at times. Do not let the maid outfits fool you.

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
This anime was dumb, dumb as hell. Yet it had some funny parts. I kind of feel dirty admitting that I even watched this.

The World God Only Knows
I enjoyed how this anime was making fun of common anime stereotypes and at the same time it was compelling. I did feel that the filler episodes were boring while I was waiting for the next arc to begin.

Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
This was my favorite anime this fall anime season. Some episodes sucked and some were fun. I was really attracted to this anime and I feel kind of sad that it's over.

MM!
I really don't know why I like this anime. It has the perfect formula for me to hate it, yet I liked it and was calming waiting for every new episode to come out. I still find it funny that the first pantie shot in the entire show was is the last few seconds of the last episode.

Iron Man
I had high hopes for this anime at first. However, it got boring in the sense that the story never got my attention.

Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls
This anime pissed me off. It was nothing but fan service and boring fight scenes. If you want to just look at boob, just watch this.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
This was nothing but pure fun for me. I loved that it was original, refreshing, and that every element from the animation to the soundtrack was awesome. If this anime gets licensed in the U.S., I will buy it right away.

So, what are your thoughts on the fall anime season?

As a one night event sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, on December 22, there was a double showing for Perfect Blue and Paprika at the Walter Reade Theater. This theater is just around the corner from the famous sight of Lincoln Center, and next to the Juilliard School. I have come to this theater before previously for a screening of Sky Crawlers, so getting here was relatively simple for living in New York City.

While there definitely wasn’t as big of a crowd as I anticipated, I felt that it was quite word of mouth or what I saw as some advertisements via ANN, Twitter or even Facebook that definitely let fans be aware of this event. I was made aware of this event earlier from Otaku Dan. There was still a comfortable size of people.

This event is a respectful ode to the memory of Satoshi Kon, whose death is a significant one for the Japanese animation industry this year. He leaves behind only a handful of movies, so showing these two exhibits, not just the sheer brilliance in story telling, but the entertainment is quintessential Kon.

Before the movies began, there was a speaker that came and spoke to the audience for a couple of minutes. He mentioned that Satoshi Kon was at New York, several years ago for a similar movie feature marathon. New York still gave Kon fond memories, even as the late director lay on his sickbed. The speaker ended with saying that there were keepsake postcards from Satoshi Kon’s memorial service in Japan last month. He also took a picture of the audience to show to Kyoko Kon who is Satoshi Kon’s widow.

Pefect Blue is the first movie that placed him in international spotlight, and Paprika was the last full length completed project he worked on. What more can anime fans, and movie goers ask for? I certainly enjoyed watching these two psycho-thrillers on the big screen. Though technologically dated in the plot, Perfect Blue is such a suspenseful thriller, which can send chills up neck of viewer, watching the story of singer/actress Mima.

Paprika is a fantastic imaginative movie that displays the cinematic genius of Satoshi Kon. He even has a role in the movie, to which I was pretty happy to realize. Paprika explores the possibilities of dreams. Definitely of both movies, Paprika is a movie that is a sight for eyes on the big screen. It definitely foreshadows Kon’s still unfinished project of The Dream Machine.