2011: The Year of the 'Dokes

Patrick George Jones (@Whats_Ur_Name) is just another guy on the planet Earth living in the Milky Way. He puts the "Pat" in "Psychopath" every time he spits hot truths into the microphone on his podcast called "Oh Great! Another Podcast" (ogap.tv if you're feeling dangerous). He also runs a website called THE WORST REVIEW SITE EEEEVAR, so clearly he is qualified to write reviews.

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This photo describes 2011 as well as ALL OF ANIME.

As questionable as this phrase may sound, 2011 shook up the anime industry.

This is the year that Akiyuki Shinbo struck gold and lightning. This is the year that someone finally freed Kunihiko Ikuhara from his cage to make another anime. Most importantly, this was the year Japan was rocked with one of its worst earthquakes. That Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 anime that came out a while back about a "what-if" worst case scenario is now the reality we face.

2010: ANIME IS DEAD, LONG LIVE ANIME

Mike (@cinco_bajeena), a lapsed anime blogger, has the same origin story as plenty of other fans of a certain geography and age: a cloudy mix of Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, and Macross Plus. You can occasionally find the telltale byline otou-san at Altair & Vega and Sea Slugs until his own blog returns from the deep again, as it probably will someday.

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One of the calling cards of the aging anime fan, a relatively new species in the West, is his insistence that they just don't make 'em like they used to. And in the 21st century, a case could definitely be made for that. While the OVAs of the late 80s and early 90s heralded an anything-goes era of experimentation where the spectacular outweighed the sensical, anime in the post-industry-collapse world is increasingly marked by formula and safety: works that guarantee a hardcore otaku audience yet alienate other potential consumers.

But we've heard all that before. Years as recent as 2010 give us plenty of reason to believe this is the case — there's always hope.

Right?

2007, Part 2: Seven for Seven: Two for Love

Having covered three tales of technology for 2007, Part 2 from Owen (Twitter handle @riajuunibyou) covers the human side of anime in two forms, one from a digital distribution and another from the more traditional means.

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More often than not, stories about love inevitably turn into stories about time. Whether it's the aftershocks of a breakup, a long, hard look at loves past, or even new love budding in the present, the lens of love is always there to colour matters. With each new relationship, the examination of the past is all but certain—we look to the past to think about the future.

Consider 2006's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It uses time travel not as an escape or an afterthought, but as a way of underscoring the pinning of love and how obdurate such feelings can be; it uses time travel as a means to emphasise, through repetition, how even the most fervent attempts to undo time cannot undo hearts. Love, it decides, is inevitable—just a matter of time.

The two anime covered this time as we embrace the shows from 2007 have no scientific or fantastic aspirations, yet in themselves do contain that dimensionality with their nuanced take on a subject well explored. It's unavoidable, after all, that the sum of one's here and now is but the result of every year, every day, every second that we've lived, and it's this that we bring to each relationship, new or old.

Love is like time travel in that regard. Romance stories in such a vein take the long route, an introspective that starts then and ends now; as much as it is about the feelings and hopes and dreams that two individuals bring together, it's also the way in which so many of us are shaped by what we've gone through and those we've loved, and how that affects those we're now in love with.

ZA SHAZAI (Our Apologies)

I humbly prostrate myself before your feet, Milord.

As editor and curator of the Golden Ani-Versary of Anime, I desperately ask for your forgiveness. Choose one of the above formats for a proper apology.

Yes, we have just under 4 years left to cover in this year-long worship of the past five centuries of anime (four years that have taken forEVER, Editor-san), but due to circumstances beyond control (a temporary three-month dispatch to places unknown and a few conventions to see), the ball has been dropped. That's not to say that interest has waned; there's just so much mental energy that the editor can devote to this project that every weekend became either a recharging moment or a trip back to the apartment to make sure nothing went up in flames.

Perhaps this may have resulted for the best, as it gave our final contributors some time to process and the editor some time to contemplate how to proceed from here. Some terrific ideas have been tossed around, including a possible convention run, another project for next year, the rumored "Hall of Fame" vote, and even a printed publication. Most, if not all, of those ideas will likely be tabled to the beginning of 2014, but stay tuned for information!

Meanwhile, we have a few weeks of publications to catch up with until we hit the end of our mad trip through time. The time machine is repaired, and with an "El Psy Congroo!" we will be returning to our journey, but not before we stop back at 2007 to pick up something we forgot (Part 2).

Until then, please accept our deepest groveling "orz" in the cutest manner we could find for free online.

There. That should do it. Thanks for your patience.

2008: A Briton's Guide to Anime

@IanWolf writes manga reviews and features for MyM Magazine, anime and manga reviews for Anime UK News, and a "Beginner's Guide to Anime" for On The Box. He has a degree in Media Studies from Teesside University, where his love of anime really flourished. He also works for his local anime convention, ONECon in Middlesbrough. His main ambition is to boost the reputation of anime in Britain, which is not always good in the eyes of the media and general public.

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In this article, I will be mainly be talking about the anime industry in the United Kingdom, but for those of you from outside of the UK, don't worry; there will still be plenty of interest. Plenty of anime will be covered--some fantasy, some sci-fi, some historical and some romantic.

The thing people have to understand about anime in the UK, however, is that it has never really had a good reputation. This first occurred with the video release of the tentacle-rape themed Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend back in the 1990s. When it came out, the newspapers attacked it, saying how horrible and violent Japanese cartoons were, as all cartoons for the British were for kids. Attacks came from both the left-wing and right-wing presses. However, in the end the moral panic it stirred up backfired, as Urotsukidōji accidentally received all this free publicity in a country where the anime market at the time was very small. Sales of the video boomed.

Conditions were also not helped by the fact that many anime distributors in the UK at the time practiced something called "fifteening". Companies wanted anime to be seen as something different, edgy and controversial, so they insisted that their video releases should be no less than a "15" rating, ideally an "18". Therefore, if a release was likely to be given a "12" rating, they would add excessive swearing when they dubbed it into English so the censors would give the release a "15". (Editor's note: this practice isn't strictly a UK practice; remember the original Appleseed OVA?)

In terms of anime shown on British TV today, there is hardly any broadcast at all, and just about all of it is shown on digital channels. The only anime that really gets shown are Pokemon and the Studio Ghibli films. Recently the rather small Sony Movie Channel announced it would start showing the Bleach films late at night in August 2013, but that's still a small piece of the pie. DVDs and Blu-Rays are also relatively slow in coming over to Britain. For example, One Piece, arguably the most popular anime of them all, was first broadcast in Japan in 1999. It came out on DVD in America in 2006, but in Britain, it was not released until May 2013. Also, many releases get delayed or are faulty in production.

2007, Part 1: Seven for Seven: Three Robot Tales

Owen writes copy for a living, and has been known to occasionally extend that ability to anime, although it's a while since he did so. When he's not attempting to finish his backlog of games on Steam, he can be usually found on Twitter, trying to break language 140 characters at a time.

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Everyone knows how this list ends. It's the beginning, however, that makes the most of what it really is: an unbridled look at nostalgia barely six years old. That's kindergarten age! How do you tell Nostalgia that they have to get out of the house, put on a uniform, and play nice with the others? One week at a time, I think.

For this year, I decided to focus on seven original, made-for-anime works. No adaptations, please; we try to keep the riff-raff out. The emphasis on "made for anime" here was a no-brainer; the problem with adaptations, inevitably, lies in how the original's vision has to be molded to fit into the target medium, and in this case anime. In this the premise of an adaptation is usually flawed; the arcs in a manga are either ignored or overtly drawn out, the sparse text of a light novel becomes a plodding 25-minute exercise in animated dramas, and the less said about visual novel adaptations, the better.

"Original", of course, tends to be usually tenuous, but was defined here simply as "a story that did not exist in any form or medium prior to the anime." Filtering with this criterion was mindboggling--there was no Baccano, for instance. No Bamboo Blade. Not even Gakuen Utopia Manabi High, which, to my surprise, actually existed as a manga by ufotable before it was an anime.

By the time I was finished, there was one problem: the ones that were original weren't good, and the ones that were good weren't original. Shigurui? A straight-up adaptation; possibly one of the best around, but an adaptation nonetheless. Dennou Coil? Didn't sit well. Towards the Terra was a manga, albeit one decades old and entirely changed from its origin, as were Bokurano, Hitohira, and Hidamari Sketch. Gigantic Formula felt too mecha-heavy by way of visual references and homages, while Sky Girls was relatively simplistic.

In the end, I decided to separate the seven works by the tentatively fragile genre trappings they employed: mecha, romance, and vignettes. Mecha, of course, deserved no further explanation. Romance explored the age-old question of love, and all its trappings. Vignettes told short stories that explored a greater whole.

This week is dedicated to exploring the first of the three: Mecha. Because everyone loves a giant robot or ten.

2001: 21st-Century Digital Toys

Alexandra Roedder is finishing her Ph.D. in musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, writing about Joe Hisaishi's Ghibli soundtracks. She first encountered anime on her TV in the form of Sailor Moon, but didn't recognize it as anime until years later when a friend who was really into anime had her watch Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies, and then the first few episodes of Ergo Proxy, all in one night. Since then, she's never turned back. When she's done with her degree she plans to write a few books about anime music aimed at closing the gap between academics and fans. She also plays cello professionally. You can find her personal blog (blog.alexandra-roedder.net) and her Twitter account at on @alexandramuses.

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2001 was a year mostly notable for its anime films: Spirited Away is probably best known, but there was also Studio 4ºC's Princess Arete, the gekijouban presentation of Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and the epic Metropolis based on Tezuka's manga. However, television also had its gems from the year, surprisingly enduring shows on surprising subjects, each of which showed sensitivity and depth and tried to turn away from many of the stereotypes which 1990s anime had developed. Below I will discuss three shows I feel to be representative of the year: Mahoromatic, Hikaru no Go, and Angelic Layer.

2000, Part 2: Retrospect Before Passage

Happy 2000 (all over again!)

At the rollover of the 1990s into the 00s, fandom was digesting the collectability of Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Digimon in Japan, while America was awash in the competition between the likes of ADV Films, Viz, Bandai Entertainment, CPM, Media Blasters, and Pioneer. Perhaps due to the thickness of the market, Patrick Stoeckel's analysis on the biggest shows from the last year of the last millennium was just so big that he decided to give us a glimpse on the lesser-known shows of 2000 that were lost in all the kerfuffle.

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As I look at more animated output for the year, I'm struck by the connections to the past. As the 20th century drew to a close, anime studios had a great opportunity to examine Japan's history and see where the country's headed. John Coltrane's 1942 rendition of "I'm Old Fashioned" makes for a good piece to listen to while writing this article; as the years pass by, being old-fashioned isn't so bad when you have someone to be old-fashioned with. The approach of a new millennium provides ample opportunity to see the history of a society, and where to go from here.

2000, Part 1: Last Stop of the Millennium

Patrick Stoeckel began his anime life with the Toonami line-up, then moved on to the unedited DVDs. After that, it's been a steady stream of writing about it (via The Anime Discussion Corner before moving the blog to Anime Commentary) and occasionally teaching an informal class on the subject. His passion for anime runs deep, and his blog is his outlet for commentary. You can also find his commentary on Twitter at, appropriately, @AnimeCommentary.

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I chose the year 2000 primarily because it lay within my early years of anime-watching (and, to be honest, it was one of the few remaining years available that I had any real knowledge of). My first real exposure to anime came through the significantly edited broadcasts of shows like Sailor Moon that made the rounds on Cartoon Network back in the day. That first experience got me hooked, and I began purchasing DVDs when I could. The unedited DVD releases of these shows informed me of how diverse Japan's animated fare could be, and I remained a fan ever since.

2000 was an interesting year for anime. Toonami still broadcast edited versions of shows that remained popular; the debut of [adult swim] the following year will change the broadcast dynamic for Cartoon Network. With Toonami, it would broadcast old favorites (such as Rurouni Kenshin and G Gundam) throughout the upcoming decade. As should be noted, Pokemon's popularity in the 1990s saw the emergence of the controversial 4Kids releases–controversial because of the "Americanization" and censoring elements prevalent in their broadcasts.

The dawn of the 21st century (and the new millennium) marked a surge of popularity in the Dragon Ball franchise, as well as other titles such as the various Gundam shows and Pokemon (all of which remain major pulls). The U.S. market proved very receptive to anime, ever since the previous decade, and the upcoming decade would see more shows being released (particularly on the Adult Swim block). As far as television in general goes, a few live-action dramas debuted (including Ikebukuro West Gate Park, which received a manga adaptation), and TV viewing had been astounding from the 1980s onward. But what did the anime scene look like in that year?

Well, that's what we're going to examine with this article. Sit back and enjoy; 2000 had some great releases, and this article looks at three.

1997: Take My Evolution

Eric McLeod (@SweetDurga) didn't really know what anime was until high school. His only anime before that point were Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but after discovering shows like Trigun and Cowboy Bebop, he decided to give this thing called anime a try. He is currently the editor of anime content at TheBrokenInfinite, where he blogs about the current anime season, and is working to become a history teacher when he's not bemoaning the anime fandom on Twitter.

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1997 is a prime example of the adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Many franchises would be born, die, or take a break in 1997. Magical-girl shows were still selling like hot cakes, super robot shows still had a footing in the market, and a little series about taming magical monsters would become one of the biggest things in the world. However, there was a noticeable shift in the content of TV anime this year, and that shift owes Neon Genesis Evangelion a favor.

Hold your horses. I know we already have an article on Evangelion, and you should go and read it now if you haven't already, but I need to set the tone for this year and the anime I'm about to talk about. Were it not for Evangelion smashing all conceptions of what televised anime was capable of, the anime I am talking about might not have found an audience. This was the year that Evangelion was supposed to end, but its legacy would live on, not only through its massive merchandise franchise, but through the anime trying to recapture its magic.

1990: Anime Dives Through the Blue Water

(Vincenzo Averello has been an anime fan for as long as he can remember but would probably say that Toonami's run of Outlaw Star is what cemented him as an anime fan. Recently he has been writing and podcasts for his site All Geeks Considered. You can occasionally see him doing panels at conventions in the north eastern United States. You can also see what's on his mind through his Twitter account, @VinnieAveAGC.)

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I don't want to start with saying that 1990 was a year of transition for TV anime. Yes, this was a time of shift from 1980s to 1990s, but that is only because of when the year was placed. In all honesty, TV anime was pretty stagnant at that time, and very little stands out as truly great. Where greatness lied at this time was in the OVA market, which in seven years since 1983 had grown and flourished massively. This was the year when cult hits like Mad Bull 34, Cyber City Oedo 808, and Record of the Lodoss War began. With such releases as Guardian of Darkness, Devil Hunter Yohko, The Hakkenden, Patlabor: The New Files, and Sol Bianca, this year had 42 different OVAs hit the market. However, this article is about the TV shows of 1990, not the OVAs.

TV anime has always been known for its long-running shows, and this time period is no exception, as shows like Dragon Ball Z, Yawara: The Fashionable Judo Girl, Ranma 1/2, and City Hunter 3 had premiered the previous year and ran into (and often through) 1990. Even with these pillars of anime covered in other articles and getting ignored here, there is still a nice list of things that make 1990 a year with at least a few good and memorable shows.