Well, if everybody is talking about finding ten good shows from last year...

I don't watch a whole ton of stuff. Furthermore, I tend to wait until a few weeks into the season to bother with anything at all. Part of that is the big pile already sitting around, part of that's so that I don't have to wade through the mediocre. By the time word of mouth gets around, I can generally tell if I'll like a show or not.

So from last year, huh? Just going off memory, no particular order...


Claymore was quite good, in a very Berserk kind of way.

Denno Coil deserves the praise it's getting. Excellent job of melding weird cyber-stuff with a "real world" we'd recognize; instead of tendentiously discussing the societal implications of a particular technology, we just see kids playing with it. GITS without the ego, by way of Ghibli. (Unfortunately, no Motoko. Ah well, nothing's perfect.)

Gurren Lagann was pure over-the-top; it was FLCL on giant robots. "Screw consistency, full steam ahead!" Dropped it when it was licensed, but I might have kept going were I not assured of seeing it when ADV's done with it. Best giant robot show of the year.

Gundam 00... only seen a little of it myself so far, but it has the usual crowd talking, plus some people from unusual crowds. Could work out well.

I got a big kick out of Lucky Star. Azumanga for the otaku, with a side dose of Seinfeld. I'd work on this show, given the chance...

Nanoha Strikers. Actually, it wasn't that good, objectively speaking. Too long, too much filler, too much training, both too much and too little of the main cast (except Hayate, who just had too little.) Tiny budget leading to kwality, though apparently the DVD version fixed some of that. Not a patch on A's, which I just finished doing some scripting for, so maybe that's not a fair comparison. But I still liked it well enough. Maybe they'll do a fourth season, it certainly sold well enough in Japan.

Potemayo. Mochi-mochi with scythe and laser horns. I wanna plush Guchuko. 'nuff said.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Unusually for me, I didn't wait on this one, and I kind of regret it. Started off strong and then jumped the shark when it ran out of wacky girls to introduce. Still, it's at least one funny volume of black comedy.

Speaking of black, Darker than Black was pretty good too. Only saw halfway before it was licensed. Series did jump around from pure hard-boiled to relative fluff.

Hayate the Combat Butler... just plain funny. More otaku references than even Lucky Star boasted, though it had longer to pack them in. Tsundere of the proper intensity (heavy on the dere), and they don't use her for (much) fan service. Good cast of secondary characters. It could burn out, but it hasn't yet, though I could have done without the Nabeshin episode.

I really enjoyed Seto no Hanayome. Very odd mix of comic anime and yakuza crime drama. Uneven - it's a show where they threw lots of stuff at the wall to see what would stick, and some of it did (the space-suited submariner!) while some of it didn't (Luna, rot in hell). Harem lead seems to be nicely bad-ass, though... okay, well, he gets there, anyway.

I really enjoyed Skull Man. Part of that was watching it with a co-worker, who liked it even more. Definitely a different flavor of action mystery than the usual. Nice to have a storyline without any kids in it, for once.

Moyashimon is another one where I'm not waiting for a lot of it, though this one turned out well. Funny stuff, if you've the stomach for a show about fungus and bacteria. ("Fermentation!") Apparently a goth-trap will appear, so fair warning.

Watched some Ninomiya-kun on a whim. Plus - harem lead of great badassery. But the plot just didn't hook me. Too driven by his sister and her brother, who seem to be mysteriously invincible superbeings of an even higher order. I'll take some jokes along those lines (Hayate especially - one-handed MG42 firing is worth it!), but it can't be the whole plot!

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