Top 3 Anime of 2015

While I did manage to start quite a few anime in 2015, I was not able to finish half of them. Part of this was a result of my attempting to juggle too many at a time, part of it was due to personal events outside of the blog that demanded my attention late this year. Despite this setback, I did manage to complete three series that stood as a cut above the rest. I’ve nearly finished two anime properties that I hope will kick my 2016 anime reviews off with a bang. Until then, here are me picks for the three best anime that I viewed in 2015.

#3) Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Considered by many to be the height of series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino’s ‘kill-‘em-all’ presentations, Victory Gundam carries a melancholy tone - more so that most other Gundam anime projects - which provides a curious but surprisingly effective contrast to the positivity exhibited by young protagonist Uso Evin. The hand-drawn animation still holds up quite well today, and avoids reuse of stock footage whenever possible, only increasing the perceived production quality for its day. The efforts of the League Militaire against the Zanscare Empire mirror the fight that the A.E.U.G. took to the Titans in Zeta Gundam, while also harkening back to the severity of losses during original Mobile Suit Gundam’s One Year War. The mobile suit designs are at their most bizarre for a Universal Century setting in Victory Gundam, with many of the Zanscare Empire’s bearing insect qualities. There are a couple laughable moments of gaps in logic, but on the hole, Victory Gundam still holds up well more than twenty years after its original release.

#2) Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine: A return to the flashy and upbeat action the series is known for, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine also displays a sultry, mysterious side befitting of the titular character. Effectively one of the earliest tales in the Lupin III chronology, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine focuses in part on how the classic cast first crossed paths with one another, but also explores Fujiko as a complex individual – the motivations behind her life of thievery, her sexuality, ghosts of her past, and the image others have of her versus how she perceives herself. While it certainly does not skimp on exciting chase sequences and zany humor that the franchise has become known for, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine treads into darker, more serious territory than most of its predecessors, to a mostly-successful payoff.

#1) Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Battle in Egypt: Building upon the already-stellar previous half of Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro, Joseph, Avdol, Kakyoin, Polnareff and newcomer Iggy face their toughest challenges yet from Dio’s Nine Egyptian Gods on their journey to defeat the time-stopping vampire. With each new installment in the Jojo’s anime series, the animation improves upon greatness, with wild color palette swaps, intense Stand battle sequences, and tactfully drawn-out scenes of drama and grief. This second half of the Stardust Crusaders anime adaptation wonderfully brings to life some of the most memorable encounters from the grander Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure storyline, balancing its action, humor, and mild horror elements with absolute perfection. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders is the best anime adaptation of the classic manga storyline fans could have hoped for. The absurd attention to detail and labor-of-love conveyed through this series make it easily one of the best anime of the past year, as well as among the most masterfully-executed anime of a generation.

2015 Year in Review: Anime

Resident Evil: Damnation

My rating: 7.75

Persona 3: The Movie – #1: Spring of Birth


My rating: 7

Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine

My rating: 8.25

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Battle in Egypt

My rating: 9.75

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

My rating: 8.5

Top five video games and anime of 2015 - Spring and Summer contenders

We are now more than halfway through 2015, and I feel that my contenders for this year’s best anime and video game picks are currently fewer and further between than in years past. I have only come across a couple of games that really blew me away, and one in particular was a title that I did not expect to impress me as nearly much as it managed to. There are, however, a few major titles releasing this Fall and Winter that may very well find their way on to the final, year-end list, including Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Star Fox Zero. On the anime side of things, there’s certainly been a clear front-runner since the year began, while other series have managed to offer me pleasant surprises with shorter episode counts.

- Video Games -

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - Persona Q combines the dungeon-mapping and exploration elements of the Etrian Odyssey series with the familiar faces and Persona abilities from the third and fourth numbered entries in the Persona series. Persona Q is, in many ways, a game that is directly aimed at established fans of the series, offering callbacks to events that transpired in Persona 3 and Persona 4 Yet, it does well to establish an engaging narrative all its own. The lack of Social Link depth is unfortunate, but all the same, Persona Q is one of the most jam-packed and wonderfully enjoyable spinoff games of its caliber.

Splatoon - The fictional hosts of this game, Callie and Marie, tell players to stay fresh, and that’s exactly what Splatoon is – a fresh culmination of third-person shooting, action-adventure, platforming, and slight puzzle design, all wrapped up in a wildly inventive, punky aquatic vision of Tokyo, where online multiplayer is the primary focus. The soundtrack is kickin’, the neon ink colors bright and a blast to splatter over every inch of the map, and the community focus incredibly strong.

Shadows of the Damned - Delivering a simpler, more singularly-focused tale than other Suda51 creations, Shadows of the Damned sees the grindhouse-inspired demon hunter Garcia Hotspur racing headfirst into the depths of hell to save his true love. Weaving a curiously cohesive string of environments together to create a fresh vision of hell, and offering tight gameplay the focuses on three core weapons and their occasional uses for solving puzzles, Shadows of the Damned is a surprisingly solid entry in the legacy of Grasshopper Manufacture, even if its crude sense of humor falls flat from time to time.

- Anime -

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (Egyptian Arc) - What is currently poised to take the cake as this year’s best-of-the-best anime, the second half of Stardust Crusaders has managed to ORAORAORA the competition and climb the ranks as one of my all-time favorite anime series. It’s a masterful follow-up to the first half of Stardust Crusaders, an adaptation which was already an incredible improvement over the wonderfully-realized animated telling of the first two arcs of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The series keeps on improving as it progresses, and I couldn’t be more pleased with this love letter to the Jojo’s fanbase.

Ninja Slayer - Despite a rocky start, this goofy, sometimes off-the-wall homage to action anime of the late 1980s and early 1990s has proved consistently entertaining since. Drastic changes in animation style and quality poke fun at limited budgets from the era that Ninja Slayer draws so much of its inspiration from, and the exchanges of greetings that foes share prior to each violent encounter puts a smile on my face as character designs proves increasingly more silly. Ninja Slayer knows when to play its cards properly, balancing wacky humor with kickass action sequences.

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam - Victory Gundam has aged surprisingly well given its early 1990s debut. Sure, there are a handful of gaps in logic and corny sequences, but by and large, Victory Gundam plays the part of a spiritual successor to Zeta Gundam, pitting a rebellious group of ragtag teens and young adults against the cruel and violent expansion of the Zanscare Empire. The hand-drawn animation also impresses with its lack of reliance on stock footage, and the soundtrack haunts with its soft, yet still imposing melodies.

Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine - A throwback to the classic action and espionage of one of anime’s oldest and most iconic series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine combines flash and flair of a bygone era with contemporary writing techniques for a smart, sexy, and thoroughly enjoyable telling of the earliest encounters between Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, Inspector Zenigata, and the titular Fujiko. The art style is gorgeous, retaining the traditional character designs with gorgeous lighting effects, harsh shadows, and an overall presentation factor that continues to impress with subtle impacts on the larger product.

Anime Update: "Back in Black, Time to Dust Yourself Off..."

Despite my best intentions, I still have not wrapped up the late episodes of Victory Gundam, as I poured practically all of my attention toward Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, and – to a slightly lesser extent – Ninja Slayer. Both proved quite entertaining to watch, if not for drastically different reasons. I have begun writing my review for the second half of the Stardust Crusaders anime, and I expect said review will be posted sometime later this month. As for Ninja Slayer, I intend to keep on plugging away at that series, one twelve-minute episode at a time, with a written review following not too long after its finale airs (whenever that is set to occur, later this year). While I was rather let down with Studio Trigger's debut series, Kill la Kill, I'm completely on board with Ninja Slayer's bonkers parody of late-1980s/early-1990s action anime.

I did in fact watch a good portion of G-Reco, and found it largely to my liking. The mobile suit designs, technology of the fictional setting, and even the art direction all remind me a great deal of Turn A Gundam, a series which I absolutely adore. I intend to finish G-Reco before the end of 2015 as well, which should prove a relatively easy task, considering that is has a shorter episode count than most full-fledged Gundam series. As far as the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin films are concerned, I will continue to watch those as they are released, though it does not appear that those films are slated to come out on a particularly frequent basis – in fact, their release schedule seems not unlike that of Unicorn Gundam, which I suppose is just fine, so long as they carry on with such a high production value.

As far as other, more recent anime is concerned, I would like to give the recent Mushishi sequel series a watch. I loved the original and its bizarre fantasy folklore delivered through a calm and soft-spoken narrative style. Aside from that, there are not many series on the immediate horizon that I’m particularly interested in. Perhaps I’ll get around to watching the second season of Space Dandy – the first season was good fun and all, I simply kind of forgot about the second season in the wake of all the Jojo’s excitement. Sword Art Online’s second act of its first season left such a foul taste in my mouth that I have zero desire to view the second season.

I will keep my eyes and ears open for word of an official release date for the second season of Knights of Sidonia, however, as the first season of that anime hooked me enough to warrant a follow-up. And with regards to an (potentially) even longer-term viewing schedule, I’m excited about what Under the Dog might bring. I understand the project recently had a few staff members leave the project over creative differences, but I believe that character designer Yusuke Kozaki is still on board, whose work on the No More Heroes games I am a huge fan of.

Anime Update: The Red Comet and Star Platinum

Yesterday, I watched the first entry in the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin series of films. While I would not say that this first episode kicked things off to quite as strong a start as the most recent Universal Century OVA, Unicorn Gundam, it was a well-written and entertaining view nonetheless. Despite the name matching up with the recently-popularized manga retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which expands upon the story of the One Year War, this four-part anime release appears to be a prequel to that, seeing all the major players rise to their respective iconic roles.

This first film, Blue-Eyed Casval, deals almost exclusively with characters in the space colonies who will ultimately end up fighting for the Principality of Zeon, namely the Zabi family and Zeon Zum Deikun’s children, Casval and Artesia, who would later come to be better known as Sayla Mass and Char Aznable respectively. To finally see Zeon Zum Deikun’s death and the rising political tensions that led to the Zabi family’s rise to power and eventual declaration of war on the Earth Federation was long-overdue but no less impactful animated sequence as the first major events leading up to the One Year War. I certainly enjoyed seeing a younger Ramba Ral worked into the story, as his actions gave me a greater degree of respect for him as a character, while Char’s determination and focus at such a young age set the wheels in motion for his plans to exact revenge on the Zabi family for the death of his father. The occasional overly cartoony moments might appeal to younger audiences, but I found them a bit unnatural, even clunky in execution, given the more serious and tense atmosphere of Blue-Eyed Casval on the whole.

Despite my habit of sometimes picking up a longer anime series to view, watching for a while, moving on to another anime, then coming back again many months later to pick up where I last left off, I am now a mere five episodes from the finale of Victory Gundam. I intend to finish this soon, as I want to give the current G-Reko series a shot, but not before I’ve finished my viewing of Victory. While Gundam AGE and the Build Fighters series both failed to entice me, G-Reco’s highly-creative mobile suit designs and certain sensibilities that seemingly harken back to Turn A Gundam have me intrigued. As G-Reco is currently airing and thus not yet complete, I will likely balance my viewing of that with at least one other anime – be it one of the two remaining Gundam series I have yet to watch in full (Mobile Suit Gundam, ZZ Gundam) or something entirely unrelated to Bandai and Sunrise’s long-running franchise.

I’m still loving the current run of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, and if the most recent two-part encounter with D’arby the Gambler was any indication, the best episodes may yet lie on the horizon. Strong as the series has been since the beginning, the first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure displayed a similar increase in quality in later episodes, with the Battle Tendency arc being more of both a visual and narrative spectacle than its precursor, Phantom Blood. While I was plugging away at Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 this Winter, it has since been removed from Netflix’s offerings, and thus I will have to find another means of viewing the series if I intend to see it to completion.

I found myself rather disappointed with the original Ghost in the Shell’s narrative suddenly dropping off at the end of the 1995 film, but the recent reimagining known as Ghost in the Shell: Arise is currently available on Netflix, and I decided to give the first hour-long episode a try. Unfortunately, it did as little to keep me entertained as the few episodes of Stand Alone Complex I have seen ever did. Arise’s blundering gaps in logic as well as its obsession with not including viewers in on what would seem like prominent chunks of information have led me to effectively resign the entire Ghost in the Shell franchise as one of those properties that thinks itself much smarter than it actually is, and subsequently a property that I will not be wasting any more of my time on.

I intend to take my time with the third season of Sgt. Frog, as it is the last season that was localized by Funimation for North American release. There is a strong chance that I may see this third season to completion by the end of the year and review it accordingly, as I do love the series’ wacky humor in its pop culture references and the general behavior of the characters. With all of this in mind, the rest of the year is largely a blank slate with regards to my anime viewing plans, as Unicorn Gundam has entirely wrapped up, and other recent series I was viewing, like The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, I have since completed.

Anime update: Yare yare daze...

I am now twelve episodes away from the finale of Victory Gundam, and I plan to simply follow that through to the end before revisiting From the New World. While Victory Gundam does present some strikingly aged storytelling devices and animation aspects, I feel it holds up overall better than most old Gundam series. So far there has only been one major moment where I rolled my eyes at a particular character’s behavior, and though there are some cheesy bits here and there from Uso and gang, the fact that this story is centered on what is effectively a group of child soldiers engaging in guerrilla-tactic warfare lends the whole thing to carry a dark and serious air about it. The body count for characters that see some actual development is notably high here, but even with the more adult nature of the themes at play in Victory Gundam, it doesn’t stop the anime from being a fun watch.

I’m also now two episodes into Stardust Crusaders, the second season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Obviously everything presented thus far has been in the interest of setting the stage for what is to come, but season two did not kick off to quite as big a bang as season one. Part of that is due, I think, to the fact that viewers are already familiar with Joseph Joestar and Dio Brando, and even Jotaro Kujo was teased briefly at the end of season one. I’m not particularly hot on the new animation style. It doesn’t look poor by any stretch of the imagination, and technically it probably is a step up in quality from that of season one. But in terms of aesthetics, I much prefer to look of season one. Perhaps I will come to appreciate it more when the Stands start duking it out on a grander scale. If nothing else, it is a nice little nod to the ever-changing art style of the manga (which I intend to read more of after Stardust Crusaders has concluded).

Beyond that, the next major anime viewing I have on the to-do list is the final episode of Unicorn Gundam, which airs next month. The most recent trailer sure highlighted a lot of major plot points – more than I had expected, in fact. But given that this final entry is reported to have an hour-and-a-half runtime, there is a pretty good chance that all the currently revealed info and footage is merely the tip of the iceberg. Unicorn Gundam has had an incredible run, and is one of the few recent anime I’ve followed from start to finish as it was airing – that used to be a habit of mine back in the days of Toonami, obviously, but these days I find it generally more convenient to simply wait until an anime has finished airing to start my viewing of it. With Stardust Crusaders, however, I intend to keep up with new episodes as they are released.

Anime update: Make a contract with me and become magical girls!

So I really meant to finish watching that final episode of MS Igloo 2 last Fall… and then I simply forgot. I’ll do my best to get around to it soon, and then I’ll probably prioritize Victory Gundam and From the New World as my next anime to see to conclusion. Sword Art Online will likely be finished later this year, but I’m not in any real rush to start the second story arc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent enough anime, just not one that kept me as deeply invested as some of my other recent viewings.

Speaking of which, 2014 has kicked off to a couple of pleasant surprises with regards to my anime viewing experiences. The first season of the 2012 adaptation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was a riot, and easily the most fun I’ve had watching a more pure action anime in quite some time. Meanwhile, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of its atmosphere, Madoka Magica is proving it can hold its own among other similar series that turned genre standards on their heads (like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain) while also retaining a unique identity. There was hardly anything that I knew about Madoka Magica going into it, and this largely-blind viewing has led my impressions of it to be overwhelmingly positive. Seriously, I’ve cranked through nine episodes in less than three days (normally, I take my time to let an anime sink in, but I can’t seem to put this one down). While I doubt Madoka Magica will end up ranking among my all-time favorite anime series, it is currently poised to rank among my top five anime of 2014.

That said, there’s a whole nine months left in the year, and a lot could change between now and then. Still, it’s nice that I started the year off with two pretty big bangs on the anime front, and the second season of Jojo’s, Stardust Crusaders, looks just as appetizing as the first. I’ll probably also follow up Madoka with the third film, as I’d prefer to watch the sequel/capping-off film while the series is still fresh in my mind. There’s a few other series and films out there that I wouldn’t mind giving a shot – I have yet to view the Steins;Gate movie, and I have not yet popped my copy of Tekkon Kinkreet into my DVD player (despite the fact that it’s been sitting on my shelf for about a year now).

I’d be damned surprised is Unicorn Gundam doesn’t end up as my number one pick for favorite anime of 2014, but it would be interesting to see the typical genres and series that make that list be ousted by some newcomers. It doesn’t hurt to mix things up and keep it fresh once in a while, you know?

Top 5 ‘What the hell were these characters doing?’ in Gundam

#5 - Wang Liu Mei (Gundam 00): Wang Liu Mei and her bodyguard/brother Hong Long are introduced early on in the first season of Gundam 00 with the implication that they will be important to the grander plot. They seem to be something of investors in the idea that Celestial Being can in fact succeed with their goal of eradicating war from the world. Which, admirable an ideal as it is, is in fact not the only deck Wang Liu Mei has her money bet on. As we find out in season two, she’s investing in the Innovators as well, presumably because she’s just that greedy and has a desire to come out of this conflict a winner. Except, apparently she didn’t make much of a plan for the event that she might not live to the end of the whole ordeal to actually see a return on her investments. Considering that Wang Liu Mei and her brother come from a rich and influential family line, one would assume they’d have put precautions in place in the event that things went belly-up. And when they do meet their untimely ends, it has zero impact on either Celestial Being or the Innovators.

#4 - Lupe Cineau (Victory Gundam) – Lupe Cineau has a few appearances over the course of Victory Gundam, and is shown to be a capable fighter in close quarters as well as in the cockpit of one of the Zansacre Empire’s robot-riding-inside-of-a-giant-tire Gedlav mobile suits. Around the midway point of the series, she manages to capture Uso with the help of Katejina Loos. And how does Cineau opt to interrogate the League Militaire’s ace pilot? By stripping down and taking a bath with the teenage boy. Granted, she intends to torture him by dunking him under and nearly drowning him, but why bother having both of them naked? There’s some very strange sexual tension brought on by this, while Uso is both confused and opposed to the situation. While I understand Cineau’s desire to keep Uso alive in order to try and pry information from him, this seems like the most half-baked torture method she could have devised, and considering how much her men seem to be incredibly loyal and intimidated by her, one would think she might seek out a plan that better expressed her finesse and power during the decent chunks of time where she is absent.

#3 - The other Zabi brother (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin) – The Zabi family served as the main antagonists in the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and helped fuel Char’s convictions and ideals as son of Zeon Zum Deikun. They are gradually taken out one by one as the Federation forces gain a foothold in colony space and Char goes about exacting his revenge upon those who twisted the vision of spacenoid independence his father had in mind. Garma, Gihren, Dozle, and Kycilia all carry out important roles in the One Year War, and go out in (generally) spectacular fashion. But there is one Zabi family member who never showed up in the original series. Cicero Zabi (otherwise known as Sasro) was a sibling of the other, more well-recognized Zabi children, but died before the One Year War even began. The cause of his death? Assassination at the hands of loyalists to the ideals of Zeon Zum Deikun, many of whom believed Deikun’s death was caused by Cicero’s father. Apparently Cicero was so unmemorable (even to his own family members) that he was never mentioned again, only seeing a brief inclusion in the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga.

#2 - Lord Djibril (SEED Destiny) – Opposite to Durandal, Lord Djibril is in charge of all the operations carried out by Logos. He appears to indulge in a rich and lavish lifestyle, owning a mansion and sipping red wines while watching over the mobile suit battles he helped to orchestrate from his high-tech bunker full of monitors. And… that’s basically it. Whereas Durandal is shown travelling from place to place, meeting with ZAFT’s mobile suit pilots, and helping to boost his own political image to gain support from the masses, Djibril just sits in his comfy chair for nearly the entirety of the series like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget until he is eventually killed.

#1 - Wufei (Gundam Wing) – Only a handful of Gundam series over the years have dared try and divvy up the spotlight between multiple lead protagonists, and while some might roll their eyes at Gundam Wing’s reliance on five pretty boys to try and boost the show’s viewership, one of my biggest problems with it lies in the fact that not all of the lead pilots see equal screen time. Wufei receives the least by far, and frankly I wonder if the writers had much of a story in mind for him due to how uninvolved he is for the vast majority of the anime. Sure, Heero and Duo receive lots of screen time early on, and Quatre sees a decent degree of character exploration. But Trowa probably received the second least screen time behind Wufei, and he managed to temporarily lose his memory, join the circus, and team up with Heero to infiltrate the ranks of Oz. Wufei, on the other hand, spent his days meditating with Shenlong by a waterfall, and had one sword fight with Treize before receiving one of the antagonist’s many famous monologues, leading Wufei to yell in frustration. He does show up conveniently at the end of the series and plays a notably more important role in Endless Waltz. But really, if you’re going to write in five characters to share the lead role, you ought to have a game plan in mind for all of them and not forget one until the series is practically over.

Anime update: Stand up to the Victory!

I mentioned in my last update that I had some interest in checking out Space Runaway Ideon, as I understood it was something of a spiritual predecessor to both Zeta Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, a brief look into some short snippets of the series has led me to reconsider. I don’t mind my anime being dark from time to time – after all, Evangelion is my all-time favorite – but Ideon looks downright morbid. Young children being brought along onto the battlefield only to have their heads blown off? No thank you.

So with that said, I think I’m going to go full steam ahead with completing Victory Gundam – I have approximately twenty episodes left, and though I do make a habit of taking breaks about halfway through these longer anime, I am quite hooked on it. I’m also all caught up with Unicorn Gundam, and I am happy to say that it got back on track after that brief stint of preachiness in episode four. I can’t say for certain yet, because Unicorn still has one more episode before it is completed, but if the last episode stays on the same track the rest of the series has, it could end up as one of my favorites from the Gundam franchise. Assuming I complete Victory Gundam before the end of the summer, I plan to pick up either ZZ or the original Mobile Suit Gundam thereafter as I move into the final phases of completing my viewing of every Gundam series to date.

Also, I recently powered through roughly two-thirds of the episodes that make up Shin Sekai Yori (aka From the New World), and that series has me very interested as to where the remainder of the story will go. Expect that to be reviewed in the near future, likely around the same time as Victory Gundam. I also took a crack at the first handful of episodes of Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and while I have to say it’s even more explicitly sexually charged than older Lupin works, it’s just as humorous and entertaining as the classic series. It’s a series that I don’t plan to work through as quickly as either Victory Gundam or Shin Sekai Yori, but I will certainly get to reviewing it as well once I’ve completed it.

While I’m still a bit frustrated with Toonami’s shift in the programming earlier this year to accommodate One Piece, Bleach, and Naruto, I can say that Sword Art Online has me intrigued. The first two episodes were quite solid, and it seems like an easy enough watch. I think it helps that I didn’t experience the series back when everyone else was on the hype bandwagon for it, because, while I do have decent expectations for it, I don’t expect it to be the most mind-blowing anime of its kind. I expect it to be fun and adventurous, but beyond that I’m simply hoping it’s a solid blend of science fiction and fantasy.

On the note of the ‘bandwagon effect’, I will go out of my way right now to state that I have absolutely zero intention of viewing either Attack on Titan or Free!, the two most recent flavor-of-the-season anime that everyone and their grandma seems to be gushing over. I did try a few episodes of Attack on Titan and thought the writing was subpar at best, while the characters didn’t interest me much and the art style was grotesque and unappealing. As for Free!, the whole sports anime genre doesn’t do anything for me to begin with, and the pretty boys in speedos approach seems very much like a one-trick pony. You’re welcome to indulge in those series all you want if that’s your scene, but I’m firm on my decision not to.

Anime update: Row, row, fight the power!

This year, I have been focused primarily on video game reviews and haven’t posted much that relates to anime… yet. Whereas last year I tried to keep a more consistent schedule by posting at least one video game review and one anime review each month, I’ve opted for a more free-form schedule in 2013. That said, there are a few anime films I viewed last month and the month before and simply have not yet written up a review for due to my busy schedule as of late. But I hope to write up the majority (if not all of these) reviews in the next few weeks, making June a month more for anime reviews than video game-related posts. The list of anime I’ve already finished is as follows:

- Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
- 5 Centimeters Per Second
- The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki

In addition, I’ve nearly finished viewing Steins;Gate, and am a little less than halfway through my viewing of Gurren Lagann. I also have Tekkon Kinkreet in my collection, and have simply neglected to pop it into my DVD player as of yet, so there is a chance that film may be reviewed early this summer as well.

As for the Toonami block, I’ve grown a little frustrated with their insistence on altering the schedule to accommodate earlier time slots for Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece, three anime which I have neither patience for nor any interest in. However, I have found Soul Eater quite entertaining, and I plan to follow it through to its finale. I’m really hoping that Toonami picks up some new shows this summer to present greater variety – at the moment, I’m really only tuning in for Soul Eater and IGPX, as I’ve already seen Thundercats, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and Cowboy Bebop through to completion. Inuyasha (while enjoyable enough) is on far too late for me to stay up and watch, and Eureka Seven really isn't my cup of tea.

Admittedly, I am a bit behind with Unicorn Gundam and have been meaning to catch up on everything that has been released since episode four (where I last left off). I plan to return to watching Victory Gundam before the end of the year, and I’d like to give another old anime, Space Runaway Ideon, a shot, as it is another of Tomino’s works and is apparently something of a spiritual predecessor to both Zeta Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion (two of my personal all-time favorite anime).

Project Gundam - The Final Five

It's been more than two years since I first posted about my intentions to view every Gundam series, film, and OVA ever made. And during those past two years, I've covered a fair amount of ground. At present, the complete list of Gundam anime I have viewed includes the following:

- Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team
- MS Igloo: The Hidden One Year War
- MS Igloo: Apocalypse 0079
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
- Mobile Suit Gundam F91
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
- After War Gundam X
- Turn A Gundam
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray MSV
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Stargazer
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer

Which, of course, leaves me with the following:

- Mobile Suit Gundam
- MS IGLOO 2: Gravity of the Battlefront
- Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam
- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn
- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

I will probably watch MS IGLOO 2 some rainy day when I'm bored. The other two MS IGLOO entries did not take long at all to get through, and I imagine this sequel will be no different. Ultimately, I will probably finish viewing Unicorn last, simply because the release date for the seventh episode has the series wrapping up in spring of 2013. Currently, I am working my way through Victory Gundam, and while I can't say for certain when I will complete it, I would guess sometime in the range of late September to early October, assuming I take some breaks to view other anime.

Follwoing Victory Gundam, I plan to move on to ZZ Gundam. I loved Zeta, and to my understanding, there is a fair amount of content in ZZ that is relevant to Unicorn. As weird as it may sound, I am going to conclude this 'Project Gundam' by watching the show that started the entire metaseries. All of these will last me a while, however, as the three big titles in the franchise I have yet to view are all forty to fifty episodes in length.

For anyone wondering why Gundam AGE is not listed above, my answer is quite simple - I have zero desire to watch it. Everything I've seen and heard about it makes me cringe, and I fear it has a lot of potential to rank as my single least favorite Gundam series ever. I know a lot of fans judged the series by the first trailers released, but now that I know a bit about the plot and characters, I am even more hesitant to view it. To be honest, I will probably give it a shot at some point in the future, but I have absolutely no plans to start anytime soon. Also, the primary goal of this 'Project Gundam' was to explore many of the older Gundam series, many of which I have found quite enjoyable.

This whole experience has proved to be rather eye-opening. I've viewed series that I knew little to nothing about beforehand - Gundam X, and MS IGLOO. I've also come to find that my opinions have, on a number of ocassions, aligned opposite the popular consensus. While Wing and 0080 have many fans, I am not among them. On the other hand, I expected little out of both SEED Destiny and F91, but what I got was a decent series that easily surpassed SEED as well as my very favorite of the standalone Gundam films. From what I have heard thus far, I'm expecting ZZ to be decent, though not exactly the cream of the crop. Victory Gundam, on the other hand, is proving superb, and if it keeps on this streak, it may find itself a spot among my favorite Gundam series.

Top 5 Gundam Intro Themes

When I was planning my various top five lists for this year, most of them leaned toward the video game side of my blog. While I still plan on posting at least one top five list per month, some months (like this month) will see two lists. For February's anime-related top five, I decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite franchises, the king of mecha, Mobile Suit Gundam. I have not viewed every single series in the franchise in their entirety, but I have seen all of the opening and endings at least once. I've decided that I will only allow one intro per series, so the likes of SEED Destiny would be a bit more constrained than, say, Zeta Gundam. These top five are my favorites not just because of how catchy the themes might be, but also because of how well I feel they reflect the mood of each respective series.

#5) Victory Gundam - "Stand Up to the Victory"

Victory Gundam is sort of an odd duck, as it presents the harsh realities of war through the eyes of innocent Uso Evin. The intro theme harkens back to the original Mobile Suit Gundam with its chant-style lyrics. It's certainly an exciting intro theme, though the 'dirty' guitar riffs sort of tie it back to the more adult theme of the series.



#4) Gundam SEED - "INVOKE"

The first Gundam series to be digitally rendered, Gundam SEED is a lot about flash and flair. While the story gets stuck in some cheesy pitfalls during its second half, it's still a series that is a lot of fun to watch. This theme echoes many of the intro themes that preceded it, but takes on an identity all its own.



#3) Zeta Gundam - "Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete"

A bit more mellow of a tune than the other entries on this list, I feel this song embodies the tragic tale that Zeta Gundam turns out to be. Though I love Kamille Bidan, Lt. Quattro, and practically every other character in Zeta Gundam, not all of their hopes and dreams become realized before their time has come.



#2) Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - "The Winner"

This is the essence of classic nineties rock. It has a goofy electronic undertone, a singer with soul, and a bit of a repetitive drum part. But I love every minute of this tune. It's a great parallel to Kou Uraki's hopes to become a strong enough pilot to take on Anavel Gato.



#1) After War Gundam X - "Dreams"

The only tune more rockin' than Stardust Memory's "The Winner" belongs to one of the most overlooked, most underrated Gundam series. I think this song suits both the sort of post-fallout world where the story unfolds, as well as Garrod Ran's antics and aims as one of the most entertaining lead characters in any of the Gundam series to date.