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?

2009: The Internet Finally Takes Over

Feeling rather humbled by participating in the project, Raindrops (@DaydreamsUK) is a relatively new blogger from the UK who has been a fan since the early nineties. She spends most of her free time watching anime and speculating furiously about the future of the industry overseas. Choosing 2009 was originally a thinly-veiled excuse to mention her favorite show, and you can follow all those opinions on her blog, Raindrops and Daydreams.

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As we draw closer to the fifty-year milestone for anime on television, we've seen the medium moving from monochrome to color and from cel animation to digital. Along the way, it's inspired a vast global audience and survived several new home video formats. 2009 ended up being a year bursting with the same rich innovation as anime continued to explore new approaches both on screen and behind the scenes. While I'm not sure whether any will end up as future classics, there were so many interesting projects on offer that I was forced to make some tough choices in selecting the series I wanted to introduce.

The first title on my list, however, should surprise nobody who was active in the fan community four years ago. Its sequels are still selling well today, its theme songs have become anthems and the script was often rumored to be "untranslatable" by fans trying to rationalize the length of time it took to appear in the US. The series I'm talking about is Shaft's Bakemonogatari.