1. Reply to this post with 'Icons!', and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will - allegedly - create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

And here are the five that

evil_authoress picked for me! ( Behind the cut. )

As an aside... I think I must be going senile in my old age, because I swear swear swear that I remember doing this same meme once before, possibly months ago. But I searched back through my journal using my own tags, and I absolutely couldn't find the post. Maybe I just hallucinated doing it...? I distinctly remember being asked to write about this icon, and explaining that it was a birthday present from

poisonangel7, and about how awesome Anissina is. Aaaah, this is driving me crazy! Maybe I accidentally deleted the relevant post, somehow...?

Edit: Never mind, I found it! My eyes must have skipped over it several times when I was searching. Derrrrr.

I was looking back at my anime year in review post, and I realized that most of the shows that I recced (and ALL of the shows that I uber-recced) were from the spring 2007 season. There was almost nothing that really pushed my buttons in a good way from the fall 2006 season. I mean, I enjoyed Hataraki Man, Red Garden, and Kanon (the latter despite the I-knew-it-was-coming-but-still-hated-it ending), and I enjoyed Code Geass for all the wrong reasons, but... The fall season definitely didn't IMHO produce any truly great series like Seirei no Moribito, To Terra, or Romeo x Juliet. Looking back, I definitely felt like the fall 2006 season was a mushy pile of generic harem shows stacked on top of generic harem shows, but the spring 2007 season felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I mean: Juliet, Seto San, Balsa, Swena, Clare, Nadie, Nia, and Yoko were all on TV at the same time, and how awesome was that?! I felt like anime was finally moving beyond the moe moe moe moe moe moe endless trend of generic moe moe moe moe generic shows. Which isn't to say that moe shows stopped altogether - there was plenty of moe in the spring 2007 season - but that we finally got a variety of shows other than just endless episodes of moe moe and more moe.

And now, what does the fall 2007 anime schedule look like?

Yup. We're back to square one. It's almost nothing but generic harem comedies, and endless amounts of moe moe moe moe.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm annoyed that other than Shakugan no Shana (which YES contains moe but at least it has a PLOT and awesome female characters) and You're Under Arrest, there's almost nothing good on TV for me to veg in front of this season. Or at least, nothing "good" for me, as I have very little interest in harem comedies or moe.

On the other hand, American television is currently exploding with awesome (Avatar, The Boondocks, American Dad, South Park, The Simpsons, and Robot Chicken), so that at least makes up for the dearth of good animated television on this side of the Pacific.

Here's hoping that the spring 2008 anime season will bring back the bucketloads of win and awesome that the spring 2007 season provided. Isn't Haruhi Season 2 supposed to air in spring 2008?

Well, it's that time again. October means the start of new anime series in Japan, and everybody and their dog is throwing up a "fall preview" post on their blog or livejournal. I was thinking of doing that too, but first, I went back and looked at what shows I predicted I would watch last spring, and laughed a bit at myself. Then I started thinking and writing, looking back on a year of watching free anime in wonderful Japanland, and, well...

I guess it's the normal procedure to wait until December to do an "anime year in review" post, but I think that fall would actually be a better time for me to do so. First, in Japan as in the United States, fall is the nominal start of the Year in Television. Second, I arrived in Japan last fall, so if I wanted to write about a year's worth of anime, of course it cover the span of time from autumn to autumn!

So without further adieu, here is my year in anime. ( Behind the cut. )

And, to conclude this amazingly long post...

Recommendations?

Level One: If you breathe air, you will probably like this series.
Seirei no Moribito/Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Romeo x Juliet
Dennou Coil

Level Two: Recommended, but your mileage may vary.
Gurren Lagann (must love old-fashioned schlock done right)
Code Geass (must love old-fashioned schlock done horribly, horribly wrong)
Claymore (must be able to love a good story despite terrible art)
Hataraki Man (must not be grossed out by onscreen depictions of people eating natto)
Moonlight Mile (must have tolerance for slow pacing)
To Terra (must be able to love that old-school space opera)

So, if I had to sum up all of the above in one sentence, it would be this:
Everybody should watch Seirei no Moribito.
That is all.

Video of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra recording the score for Gonzo's Romeo X Juliet.

This anime is absolutely fantastic. This music is freakin' fantastic. And I looooooove the opening song by Lena Park, a Japanese cover of the always-excellent "You Raise Me Up." The closing song is actually really "meh" for me, but whatever. Not every Gonzo anime can have an ending theme performed by Jean Jacques Burnel, now, can it?

In other news, I am so happy to have a good anime series to enjoy this season, as opposed to, you know, a bad anime series to enjoy. Oh, Code Geass, how I love to hate you.

(*is counting down days until the Romeo X Juliet soundtrack hits the stores*)

Paper Moon

The Dreamwidth version.

Entries tagged with anime/manga: romeo x juliet

Icon meme.

TV!

The Giant Anime Post of Doom

Recommendations?

Hey orchestra buffs!

A whole lotta ramblings.