The Top 10 Anime Of 2012

Here we go, obligatory top 10 anime time!

10. Oda Nobuna No Yabou

A guy thrown into Japan's Sengoku period where all of the warlords are cute girls? Sounds generic right? Sounds like a typical ecchi fest with no interesting story or characters right? Well shockingly enough you'd be wrong, Ont he surface Oda Nobuna seems like a typical throwaway anime with no discernible qualities, but it does a fantastic job of crafting an intricate and engaging story with a colorful cast of characters that had me on the edge of my seat from week to week.

9. Tari Tari

The latest venture from one of my favorite studios PA Works makes it's way onto this list. It's honestly your typical "girl wants to do something and collects people to help her do it" show, but it finds a way to hit that sweet emotional chord that few shows manage to hit these days, the ending was also very good for an anime original, and manages to both conclude the story and leave the door open for more. The only thing holding this back from being higher on the list is the hilariously forgettable cast of characters, you could replace the cast of Tari Tari and nobody would even think about missing them.

8. Fate/Zero

You knew it was coming. Fate/Zero is the latest anime entry in the Fate series. All of the characters are engaging  the dialogue and plot are all very well done, and the animation is among the best in the history of anime. But Fate/Zero suffers from something called too much plot, even for a 2 cour show, there's just too much going on, each episode focuses on roughly 69 different things, and keeping track of all of those things can get somewhat tedious, even for the most hardened anime veteran  still, despite it's story flaws, Fate/Zero manages to weave an engaging tale sure to leave you wanting, it just has too much to do and not nearly enough time.

7. Natsuiro Kiseki

Natsuiro Kiseki snags the 7 spot simply because it does something different, you have 4 girls who want to be idols, even to the point of having an audition around the end, this is normally the point where they pass the audition and become idols, but NatsuIro didn't do that, instead they fail the audition, and don't get another shot, they don't become idols. This isn't a story about achieving your dreams through perseverance  but instead it's a story about maturity, and instead of sending the message that all dreams can come true with enough hard work, it sends the much more realistic message that not all dreams in this world can be obtained.

6. Binbougami Ga

Binbougami Ga grabs the number 6 spot because it does absolutely everything correctly, the drama and character development feel real, the comedy is everywhere and it's hilarious, the animation and voice acting are top notch, even the bitch main character slowly becomes more and more likable (take notes, OreImo) this really is a hidden gem, and it's something that everybody needs to see.

5. AKB0048

An idol show being on this list isn't really a shock for anyone who knows me, but what gets AKB0048 on this list is not just the original story (though that's the main thing) but how well it's executed. They easily could've just given us another Idolm@ster but instead they went with an original concept and it came across very well, obviously there wasn't a ton of action in season 1 because it's a 2 cour show, but it was surprisingly entertaining and one of the better shows of the year.

4. Kokoro Connect

I expected this show to be good, but not nearly this good, this might sound weird but I don't think this should be marathoned at all, maybe it's just me but I think the week to week tension really took this show from great to marvelous, their friendship being twisted and stretched to it's absolute limits was entertaining to watch, everything here meshes into an unforgettable experience, except for Aoki who really should move over to the forgettable cast of Tari Tari, he'd fit in well there.

3. Kill Me Baby

Kill Me Baby truly is the evolution of comedy anime, in all my years of watching anime I have never encountered a show that has had me giggling, choking on whatever I happened to be eating, and pounding my desk as much as Kill Me Baby, but for everyone who adores this show, there are even more that hate it, and that's simply because comedy is very hit or miss, slapstick comedy even more, you either like it or you don't and most people tend to fall on the latter side, however that's not a detriment to the show at all, Kill Me Baby does what it does very well, it's a 4koma adaptation that doesn't try to be anything more, the dynamic between Sonya and Yasuna is ridiculously entertaining, even had a very touching final scene, Kill Me Baby gave me everything I could possibly ask for, and it's proof that you don't need a large budget to be entertaining. Plus it had Rie Kugimiya on helium, can't beat that.

2. Jinrui Wa Sutai Shimashita

Jinrui Wa Sutai Shimashita manages to grab the number 2 spot because...it left me confused, I mean that in the best way possible, it was certainly a fantastic series, but it left me confused as to whether I fully grasped the message it was trying to send, and that's a great thing, the multiple layers of this are truly what makes it unique. Everything has some sort of parallel to real life. Is it admiring the mass consumption attitude of humanity? Or is it condemning it? Are the fairies a parallel of humanity, causing unnecessary problems, worshiping non deities as their god, and ruining everything they touch? Either way Jinrui had a very interesting premise and it came across well in the anime, certainly one of the more entertaining shows of the year if you don't mind a bit more dialogue. 

1. Chihayafuru

Chihayafuru, also known as that show you have to search really hard to find haters of, has the number 1 spot simply because it's perfect. I don't throw that word around a lot, but this show truly deserves that adjective, the atmosphere is beautiful, every single karuta game, even the ones that have no overall importance, is engaging, the characters are colorful and varied, the drama and the emotion feels real. People slapping cards somehow manages to become an experience that sometimes transcends words. Chihaya's slow climb to the top has been a wonderful roller coaster of emotions, hopefully season 2 doesn't disappoint.

Natsuiro Kiseki 4

5 Star Animation!

So after last week's travesty, will this week get better? Well enough speculation and let's find out!

Damn that was cute.

So the episode starts off with Yuka tiredly wandering into the kitchen for juice, however juice-chan does not await her, what does await her is our green headed girl's apparent love interest who goes by the name of Sano Takashi, after seeing him and freezing up like a typical lovestruck girl would do, she probably does one of the cutest things ever and quickly tries to hide behind the the counter as depicted in the picture above, I gotta say that was amazingly adorable. The two then share a semi sweet moment with him offering her a bottle of water and her shyly accepting. Flash forward to the two outside, and after a bit of chatting, Sano brings up Saki, and very seriously asks when she's moving, Yuka's eyes get big and she asks why, as she understands why he's so adamant about it, we don't get to know right now however, as we go to the next scene, but it's pretty obvious what's going on here.

Basked on what Rinko says during this scene, he apparently asked for Saki's phone number, however Yuka did not give it to him as she felt it wasn't her place to do so.Yuka casually leans back on the big rock, which will now be referred to as Geodude, and wishes that she was just like Saki, Geodude is more than happy to comply and now we have a body switch episode, oh god.

A little later on, after some misuse to Saki's body which involves her getting Sano's number, we get the girls who are gathered around Geodude again trying to wish away Yuka's accidental wish despite them coming to the conclusion before that you can't wish away another wish. This leads to disaster when Geodude goes into full troll mode and switches Aizawa and Rinko for....no reason at all. After the 4 manage to fend off Rinko's...mother I assume, Yuka who is still in Saki's body, gets a text from Sano that causes her eyes to light up. Request for sex? Luckily no, this isn't a JC Staff show. It's a date request, which Yuki gladly accepts.

Actually kinda sweet.

 So fast forward to the date, which goes just like any other anime date usually does, laughter, fun, a boring song playing over the events, this leads to them almost kissing under the sunset until Rinko, still in Aizawa's body, breaks it up, Yuka comes to the realization that she's living a fantasy, he loves Saki, and they can never be together, she then "breaks up" with him, runs back to the other 3, and promptly faints. The 4 girls are then restored to their original body by Trolldude, and we get another feelgood moment with the 4 running off happily to buy drinks together.

Overall Thoughts: Big improvement over last week, but besides Sano getting his heart broken, I don't know what...really happened. The second body switch served literally no purpose and was just useless filler, it was an improvement, but this show really seems to have a problem with having no direction, and not really knowing what it's doing, I'd like to pass it off as just Sunrise being Sunrise but these are the same people who did Code Geass so we know they can produce great shows when they try. Get it together guys.

Natsuiro Kiseki 3

Dat product placement.

What a terrible episode.

One key point is this scene, our 4 heroines gathered at the big rock after Aizawa has, I assume, called some sort of emergency meeting. Main point of this scene is them talking about how their lives would change if the secret of the rock was ever exposed. The eventual consensus is that the rock's powers might vanish if word ever got out, and they all decide to do whatever they can to maintain their secret. Personally I'm getting very annoyed at how we're supposed to take the girls' random speculation of the rules of this thing as fact, but I'll try to overlook that I suppose.

Dumbest shit ever.

But wait, we're not done here yet, Saki and Aizawa decide, for whatever reason, that they want to get revenge on their friends for the honest mistake we saw in episode 2. So the two of them wish for Yuka and Rinko to get stuck together, which happens. ...Okay...I'll try to remain calm throughout this. First of all, why the hell would Aizawa and Saki want revenge? Let's ignore the fact that the entire misunderstanding was cleared up, and that they both know Yuka and Rinko had purely honest intentions, but wasn't that wish the whole damn reason they made up in the first place? What the hell was the point of getting revenge for something like that? Also why the hell is the rock suddenly granting selfish wishes? Not only did they completely ruin and invalidate that feel good scene at the end of episode 2, but they made Aizawa and Saki look like ridiculous bitches in the process. Aizawa says "Have a nice day together" and walks off to tennis practice with Saki. Good fucking lord Sunrise, nice work.

My Rattata is in the top percentile!

So after that shit, we get Daiki once again questioning Saki's brother, whose name I have still not bothered to learn, about his sister once again. Saki's brother and his friend who i swear I've never seen before, don't believe him and think his eyes are playing tricks on him. Then we get a screenshot that I'm too lazy to post, it's Daiki sitting in a random shed around the area the big rock is in, this shed has a very convient hole in the roof and guess where the girls were flying at? Yup, right in view of that hole, so that's what we're expected to believe, he was just there and conviently saw them through this hole in the roof...wow. Anyway Daiki keeps going on and on and eventually calls the girls witches because he read some stupid book about them, this obviously pisses off our generic brother who shoves Daiki to the ground and walks off along with his even more generic friend.

This current storyline with Daiki is pretty much resolved with all of them trying to actually convince them that they're witches, failing, and Saki just spilling her guts and crying about wanting Daiki and Saki's brother to make up (they had a falling out after the fight.) But wait, I thought the point of all of this was to keep him quiet about the rock? Well it looks like the crack staff at Sunrise completely forgot this point and it is never brought up again. Daiki walks away sad and Saki's brother runs after him to try and cheer him up, and the two run off into the sunset together.

What's that? Wondering how Yuka and Rinko got unstuck? Well...

The rock split them up after this line, that's right, they were separated FOR STATING THE OBVIOUS. Good fucking work Sunrise.


Overall thoughts: This episode was amazingly bad, completely invalidating the events of last episode, making 2 of your main girls look like vengeful bitches, and setting up potential plot points only to completely forget about them or make them totally useless, this episode was amazingly lazy, nothing happened, and that's pretty much the problem people have with the Slice Of Life genre as a whole, way to make those problems even more glaringly obvious.

Natsuiro Kiseki 2

Uh...What was I saying again?

So here's episode 2 of this wonderful show, will it live up to last week? Will the drama between Saki and Aizawa continue? ...Probably, but let's do this anyway.

They uh...seem...important...?

So the episode starts off with Aizawa, her little brother, and this shota/loli pair here doing what I believe are called "radio exercises". While this is going on, Aizawa gets lost in thought, still surprised about what happened to her and the other girls the other day. She's snapped out of her daze by her little brother and coninues working out, but is still in shock over what happened to her.

DON'T DO IT SAKI! YOUR WHOLE LIFE IS AHEAD OF YOU!

Saki is also in shock over what happened, and tries to recreate the event by jumping off of her bed. Her mother walks in on her doing this, and, after an awkward silence, she yells at her mother telling her to knock, her mother then apologizes, and leaves Saki in deep thought.

THANK YOU!

Aizawa has come home from her sexy exercises, and proceeds up to her room, but not before being stopped by her mother who asks if Aizawa and Saki are still fighting, Aizawa angrily storms up to her room as her mother says what has to be the best line in this show so far, and with that, Aizawa's mother becomes my favorite...

It's...really hot...or something.

Or not, Aizawa's back on top again. After opening her window due to the heat, she locks eyes with Saki who was doing the same thing, both of them try to bring up the events of yesterday but keep cutting each other off, Saki asks if Aizawa plans on going outside dressed the way she is and she angrily covers herself with the curtains and proclaims "We're not friends right now, so don't talk to me!" Oh Aizawa, your mother's words continue to ring true.

Swap meet broom.

At the same time over at Rinko's shrine, she's apparently being asked to clean the entire grounds with nothing but a lame dustpan and the worst broom I have ever seen, seriously, how is she supposed to clean with that? It looks like some shitty Harry Potter broom, but I'll attempt to turn off my janitor mentality for the rest of this post. Rinko goes out of her way to sweep around the big rock first, and who can blame her? That thing made her fly the other day! Maybe it can give her a better broom.

She's met there by Yuka, who is making a bunch of selfish wishes, wanting to become an idol, not wanting to ever get fat, etc, she's got an entire notebook page full of these. So I assume this thing doesn't grant selfish wishes.

What? Big Rock is evolving!

Yuka and Rinko start talking  about Aizawa and Saki, and during this conversation they talk about how stubborn the 2 girls are, how they wish that would make up, how unstoppable they are together, and how they want the 2 to make up. Unbeknown to the 2, the rock "hears" this conversation as well, and starts glowing like it did near the end of episode 1, how Yuka and Rinko don't notice this is beyond me, but somehow they don't.

Awww yeah.

The rock takes their conversation literally and puts Aizawa and Saki together, after a little bit of struggling and rolling around, the two quickly put together that the big rock did this to them, and that Yuka is behind it (Rinko was as well, but hey, she's kind of a wallflower anyway). Aizawa manages to get a shirt on and the two angrily stumble out of the room, looking for revenge.

Trouble? More like double trouble! DOHOHOHOHOHO!

Yuka is helping Rinko sweep the side of the road which has nothing to do with the temple so I have no idea why she has to clean it, and yes, she is still cleaning with THAT DAMN BROOM. Sadly for the two, they don't realize that trouble has found them in the form of the tastefully dressed duo of Aizawa and Saki. Yuka is happy to see them, the two then see how angry they are and that they're stuck together, Rinko grabs Yuka and runs, and Saizawa gives chase.

Remember kids, if they can do it, so can you.

A long chase around town ensues, Saizawa stumbles a bit at first, but eventually they get the hang of running together. The girls run all around town, only stopping for a second when Saizawa crashes into a street pole, I have no idea how these girls are still conscious.

Don't look at me like that Rinko! I wasn't thinking anything!

 The chase comes to it's conclusion around the shoreline, when Yuka simply cannot run anymore, allowing Saizawa to catch up to the two...

SHADES OF AJ STYLES!

OR DOES IT! Rinko, for some reason, decides to do a jumping crossbody onto the two...I literally have NO IDEA why she did this, Yuka was only moving at this point because Rinko was pushing her, how far did she expect her to get on her own? But anyway, Rinko then explains the situation to Saizawa, and the sincere intentions behind their unintentional wish, and Saizawa realizes that their friends were just worried about them, but at this point, Yuka is pretty much running on empty, and isn't paying attention to where she's going...which is right off of the pier. The girls yell at her to stop, but she's too exhausted to hear them.

OH GOD THEY'RE PISSED ABOUT THE YURI JOKES I'VE BEEN MAKING!

The two decide to grab her from both sides, hopefully before she falls into the ocean, but at that moment the two split apart, this takes them by surprise, and they both end up falling into the ocean while Yuka stops just before she does, which was hilarious to me.

RIP Saizawa.

After the two get out of the ocean, they sit and have a small talk about everything which ends with the two apologizing to each other and Saki agreeing to play tennis with Aizawa again, this is pretty much the feel good moment of the show, and a good one at that.

Sorry Yuka, Idolm@ster already happened.

They then start talking about the rock again, and as you'd expect, she starts talking about becoming idols again, the other 3 lie down and pretend to be asleep, frustrating Yuka and ending the episode on a good note.

You're a wizard, Harry!

After the end credits we see a boy along in his room reading the book you see above you entitled "Witches of the world". Wonder what this could mean? guess we'll find out next time!

Overall thoughts: This was a very good episode, I admit the chase scene went a bit too long, but forcing Aizawa and Saki to work together in order to save their friends, and realizing what their friends were going through while they were arguing was executed very well, the drama which came across as meaningless in episode 1 was given a purpose and a nice conclusion, which is exactly how it should've been, hopefully the show keeps this sort of pacing for the rest of the season.

Natsuiro Kiseki 1

Most anime fans have a genre that appeals to them more than anything else. Most times this genre tends to be shoujo, but sometimes it can be horror, mystery, or god forbid, ecchi. Slice of life is my genre, out of the 142 series that I've completed, Slice of life makes up about 97% of them, so of course the latest Slice of life anime from Sunrise grabbed my attention...okay, already I have a confession to make, what really drew me into this show was the shiny logo, LOOK AT THAT LOGO! That thing is amazing. It's one of my dark anime secrets, I always get sucked into shows with shiny logos, B Gata H Kei trapped me with it's beautiful pink and blue, hopefully this trap is worth it.

Natsuiro Kiseki, or Summer-Colored Miracle, is an anime about 4 high school girls.

Aizawa Natsumi is in front there with the red hair, she's a member of her school's tennis club and is an overall stubborn girl.

Hanaki Yuka is to her left with the green hair (might be a little hard to see in the pic but it is indeed green). She's kinda spunky and obsesses over the fictional idol group, Four Seasons.

Mizukoshi, Saki is to Natsumi's right, she's also in the tennis club with Natsumi, her dream was to enter the tennis championships along with her.

Tamaki, Rinko Is located to Natsumi's far left, and has some funky light pink hair...? She's the shy girl of the group, she also works as a shrine maiden where the main point of this story is located.

Aizawa wakes up and grasps what has to be THE WORST CELL PHONE I'VE EVER SEEN, seriously, this thing is ugly as hell.

Aizawa proceeds to send a message to Saki before heading out, I'm sure Saki has the same crappy phone as her, right? ...Right?

OH COME ON!

Anyway, the message says "You'd better come to practice today!"  AW SNAPZ, AIZAWA LAYIN DOWN THE LAW! Flash forward to school...

Saki does not, and is instead content to have Four Seasons merchandise shoved in her face, great choice there Saki.

Badass Aizawa isn't having any of this, and intends to take Saki by force, she resists, but is eventually dragged down to the tennis court...

 Where shit instantly gets real, you do NOT drop a tennis racket in Natsuiro Kiseki, a show that's not even about tennis.

Saki then quits the tennis club, Aizawa proclaims that they will not be friends anymore if she does (because tennis rackets are serious shit), Saki is okay with this and storms off, and there's your mandatory drama.

Later on in the episode we learn that Saki is actually moving, providing a possible reason for her sudden disinterest in tennis, END DRAMA?

Nope, now the problem is that Saki never told them that she was moving, Saki then informs Aizawa that she doesn't remember promising to get to the Nationals together, Aizawa responds by running out of the room in tears.

A little later on, thanks to the scheming of Yuka and Rinko, they meet up at "The Big Rock" Now back when these girls were kids they thought this rock had magical powers and would grant their wishes, typical adorable kid stuff, anyway they decide to wish for the same thing that always wished for, to be idols, but nothing happens.

Saki went into complete bitch mode after this and started bashing the idea of a "magical rock" driving Yuka, who believed in it more than anyone, to tears. This led to another Aizawa/Saki cagem- I mean argument.

During this, Rinko looks up at the sky, and says 4 simple words "The sky is blue"

The fighting stops, the crying stops, and all 4 girls look up at the sky together. Their minds and hearts are in sync for a second, and Rinko makes a wish.

"I wish I could fly"

 A blue, pulsating energy comes out of the rock like something out of Pokemon Heroes, taking the girls by surprise.

And the next thing they know...

They are indeed flying, they're taken by surprise for a bit, but once they get their wits about them, they slowly land after a beautiful scene with them looking over the city. And since they're peaceful around each other now...END DRAMA?

Oh goddammit, Saki storms off, this argument is still going on, so I guess this argument will continue, the rock was probably a one time thing, and I'm sure nobody saw them flying right?

...Right?



Overall the episode was nice, the animation was very fluid except for a few lazy spots, the energy from the rock was a nice example of the great animation this show can bring, But like most Slice of life shows, the drama is annoyingly forced and ridiculous, but then again that's the genre in a nutshell. This show could go places, it certainly has the potential to be a hit among Japan, it's got the formula, and depending on where they go character wise, they could make an amazing show, I'm not expecting too much out of a 12 episode show, but with shows like Ano Hana out there, nothing would surprise me anymore.