50 Questions for Avvesione

Now that I’ve arrived back home from Japan, I can resume blogging about random tangential posts on the various anime I watch.  But before we dive into the finales for Nisemonogatari, Guilty Crown, and Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam is a post I intended to have published while I was on vacation but it wasn’t completed in time and left for when I returned.  Starting the trend of answering 50 questions was AceRailgun (I recommend you check out his blog) and quite a number of other anime bloggers have already done similar posts since.  I meant to have this up weeks ago but it kept getting delayed and was never completed until now.  So here are my answers to the 50 questions!

Year of 2011 – Final Review

Before embarking on another year of anime and adventures, we need to give a proper close to 2011 and give the year of anime an appropriate review.  While the four seasonal reviews provide all my detailed thoughts in a timely fashion, the structure of this post is to give a ranking for the anime of this year, the characters of this year, and a few extra tidbits to recognize this wonderful year and show appreciation it for all it has done.

12 Days of Anime – Day 11 – March 10th to April 21st

When you’re watching an anime you love, you experience a range of emotions depending on the delay between episodes.  A standard week between episodes is manageable but sometimes it feels too long.  When an anime takes a week off, it’s normal to replace the length of the episode with sufficient raging and ranting but then you go back into ‘standard week’ mode again and return to normal quickly.  Waiting a month between episodes lies somewhere in the fuzzy area between punishment and torture, but it just feels that much more satisfying when you finally get the episode.  So what of the 43 days that separated the exceptional, spellbinding tenth episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the indescribably anticipated two episode finale that would air together?  That topic will be the focus of Day 11 in my 12 Days of Anime series.

12 Days of Anime – Day 7 – 1 Year Anniversary and Mistakes in Anime Blogging

Today, December 20^th, marks the 1 year anniversary of my anime blog.  And since it’s in the middle of the 12 Days of Anime, let’s double up this anniversary with an appropriately themed 12 Days post.  The topic for today is about something central to the beginning of my anime blog and something I learned over the course of this year.  My whole system of classifying anime through the tags of Brain On/Brain Off never really made sense, caught on, or was used by others.  You could even say: it was never a good idea.

12 Days of Anime – Day 4 – Overanalyzing Anime

If you’ve been following my blog for this past year, then you know I love to analyze anime.  Doesn’t matter how fundamental or trivial the concepts or details are, I try to flesh out whatever interests me, and what I hope interests my audience, as best I can.  But sometimes I can take it a little too far.  When only ten words can be used to convey a point, I’ll use ten thousand.  When a gag was just meant to be only included for mere laughs, I’ll hypothesize the metaphysics so the joke and use it to explain obscure themes or perceptive character development.  It’s something I just started doing this year and my new love for going overkill on my analyses earns a spot on my 12 Days of Anime.

12 Days of Anime – Day 2 – Kyubey and Masakaki

If there’s one thing anime taught me this year, it’s that you should be weary of random strangers who are overly excited about making deals with you.  If there’s a small, white animal-friend who wants to make a contract with you to become a magical girl because it’s awesome, you stay away.  If there’s some white, Willy Wonka-esque character wanting to mortgage your future because you’re not using it today, you stay away.  Those are two invaluable lessons that I can thanks anime for teaching me.  But what I should really be thanking anime for are two iconic and unforgettable characters that defined their respective shows.  The characters Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Masakaki from C The Money of Soul and Possibility Control are two of the most memorable anime characters this year and deserving of the second of my 12 Days of Anime.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica – 12 (Finale)

What makes Puella Magi Madoka Magica a 10/10 for me?