Let me start the ball rolling again, even if it’s late. The key to restarting a blog is to start talking. I’m fairly noisy over on my Twitter, so I hope it could translate into something here.
I’m trying to shift focus this time. Because honestly, the bishoujo side of things isn’t up to snuff lately. Sure, Clannad is still as good as ever… but do you remember [AIR->air-tv]?
I don’t think even KyoAni topped their own previous creation. AIR was arguably the greatest-looking TV anime ever made, and I think (hope) many would agree. It had the stuff you’ll jizz your pants with even if you only have a 720p rip of the not-even-true-1080p Blu-ray version. But it’s not only about visuals, the story (though compressed) had a perfect pace episode-after-episode. The music was completely based on the game (and therefore faithful to the original), and the overall package is just superb. The legend of KyoAni didn’t start in Haruhi IMO, it started with this one.
Aside from the yearly almost-consistent quality bishoujo anime from Kyoto Animation (AIR, Kanon, Clannad), the quality of the “side-dishes” (I may be harsh) of this genre has somewhat degraded over the years. Well, it is a relatively recent category (it just exploded in 2003) so I’d give it more breathing space. Who knows, it may have some kind of influence that we aniblogger gaijin may not notice. Ever wonder if it (Shuffle overexposure) ever made an impact when [Densha Otoko->densha-otoko-bishoujo-tracker] aired? Hey, those may be picture cameos, but with 20% of Japan watching that show, someone must have noticed. Right? Right? If Densha Otoko started some maid cafe boom, did it start some buying-eroge boom?
I used to make a [yearly poll->http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=59973] of the best bishoujo game/visual novel/eroge-based anime over at AnimeSuki Forums. This year, I’m not so sure if anyone’s interested. I myself have praised nothing but Clannad, and I expect the overflooding of votes for that anime since I don’t think anything else matters this year. [Kimikiss->] was IMO great, but not for everyone. [Da Capo II->dc2] was really great, it was faithful to the game, but only in the latter half did it commit to its promise.
After those two anime… er… I had to check anime lists to see what else aired during the year. H2O? Anything good about that? How about Koihime Musou (wasn’t it an ero anime too?) How about Akaneiro and Chaos:Head? I think the reportedly decent ones this year are true tears (but that’s not based on the game) and ef (haven’t watched yet because I’m lame).
So that’s my bishoujo catchup. Up next… hopefully… the shoujo catchup.
Wait, Kimikiss was an eroge? All this time I thought it was just a regular game on the PS2. Well, I’m glad I didn’t go ahead and buy a used copy then.
Ah yup it’s just a dating sim, no ero.