My first digital review from Viz’s app.

Hiya!  Sorry for the longer than expected hiatus.  My life is still all messed up, haven’t heard back re: the job officially yet, just a whole bunch of unofficial platitudes, which is somewhat comforting, but not 100% comforting, you know?  Plus my apartment now has a pest problem which is giving me hives, almost literally.  Sooooooo… yeah.  Been preoccupied.

Anyway!  I’m reviewing Blue Exorcist via Viz’s iPad app.  I got an iPad for Christmas (totally unexpected), and I’ve been mostly using it as internet access from my bed so I can be even MORE lazy than I already am.  I am an old school bibliophile at heart and love the feel and smell of books.  Digital just doesn’t sound appealing to me.  Granted, I could do with the extra apartment space and the portability, but it just feels weird to be looking at a “book” on a screen.  I always hate reading forms and documents on email from work; I usually will print it out and then read it.

However, for signing up for Viz’s app, I got a free vol. 1 of any manga download.  After browsing through the choices, I picked Blue Exorcist which, for a shonen manga (action manga for teen boys, usually), was getting a lot of good reviews.

The premise:  Rin and Yukio Okumura (fraternal twins) were raised by Father Shiro Fujimoto, a priest and exorcist.  Rin’s always been a little strange with weird things happening around him, and after having a fight with some thugs he discovers to his horror that he’s the son of Satan, who wants his son to rejoin him in Hell.  When his guardian dies trying to protect Rin from his true father, Rin unleashes his inherited powers and decides to follow in his guardian’s footsteps and become an exorcist himself.

I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would.  I thought I’d outgrown most of the shonen manga genre, which includes things like Naruto and Bleach which I did like quite a bit at first, but they’ve dragged on sooo long, and I think the mangaka have sort of lost track of what they’re doing (especially Tite Kubo).  There is a lot of humor here, and the art is really good.  It’s kinda angular, and reminds me of Hellsing (especially with all the pointy teeth). Also, sometimes there are pages with just so much detail and linework!  It’s crazy.  And gorgeous.

(Well damn, I was going to upload a pic to show you an example, but Google’s image search is not cooperating. Just a whole bunch of pics from the anime, and a deleted file of the one picture I found. -_-)

Anyway, Rin is a good kid at heart, just has all the flaws of a typical shonen action hero:  short temper, average intelligence, rough around the edges, lazy.  His brother Yukio is interesting… the younger twin, and his weak constitution apparently did not let him inherit their father’s demonic powers.  However what he lacks in physical strength, he makes up with mental acuity; he, of course, is the exact opposite in personality of his brother.  And he has some secrets of his own…

Since I only have one vol. to go from, I’m not sure exactly where this is heading.  I’m assuming it will probably be somewhat episodic, at least at first, as Rin learn exorcism from the exorcism school and about the world of demons.   And of course there’s the overall arc as Rin gains powers to fight his father.  I usually don’t like reviewing series before getting more of a feel, but I wanted to get something down, and this was my first digital comic.

Re: the digital aspect:  it wasn’t too bad.  I read it vertical style, so one page fills the screen.  It also reads Japanese style, from right to left, which was great.  The art might not be quite as sharp as I liked, although iPad 3 is supposed to have better resolution, so maybe that’ll take care of that problem.  There were a couple of screens where the tinier fonted text looked a little blurred. Or maybe I need new glasses (entirely possible). I’m also not crazy at having to page through the entire manga to find scenes… maybe there’s a shortcut I don’t know about?  (Oh wait, I just found the slidey bar at the bottom; that helps somewhat)

I still prefer reading from an actual book.  So reading it digitally, while nice, I am most appreciative for having a free sample so that I can now turn around and go buy the manga from Right Stuf.

If I get my job grant renewed, I’ll buy another comic book and review that as well.

Once again, I apologize for the hopefully short break.

LiCBS is pretty self-explanatory.  What she’s trying to do is collect pictures (with their permission!) of ladies in comic book stores and their comic purchases, in order to help encourage other ladies to go to their local comic book store and not be intimidated by the “guys only” stigma that usually permeates such places.  Also to show guys that we do read comics of all kinds, and maybe be a little more welcoming and helpful to us when we go in, and not treat us like the girlfriend/sister/wife of whatever guy we may be accompanying, or like freaks of nature.  Visits during delivery day (Wednesday) are especially encouraged, as that’s when the population is higher with people picking up their weekly holds.

I think I’ve been fairly lucky with my comic book shopping experience.  I started buying comics in the 90s in college and have usually been treated like any other guy buying comics.  When I moved to Davis, I quickly tracked down my local comic book stores and started visiting them regularly, and again was treated normally.  Bizarro World is still in Davis today with the same owner and a much larger space, and I make sure to drop in on my trips back home.  I also visit Drom’s, a newer store, but one of the workers there used to work at BizWo, and he’s always been super nice and helpful to me (and not in a creepy way).

I’ve only had two negative shopping experiences:  one was in Sacramento and the other was in Los Angeles.  In Sacramento I was talked about in whispers immediately upon entering the store (I overheard one guy hiss, “It’s a GIRL!”) like I was some sort of rare alien species and I immediately felt like an outsider.  And in LA, I was not acknowledged even when standing in front of the counter (the clerks were too busy discussing inconsistencies in Iron Man), and when I interrupted to ask for assistance, was looked at as if I were some sort of bug and finally one guy reluctantly detached himself from the counter and half-assedly tried to help me find what I wanted but soon ditched me for his discussion.  I left both places without buying anything and never went back.

Anyway, to help lessen the occurrences this sort of stupid behavior, I’m hoping this weekend to hit up some comic book stores in San Diego with my friend Shaz and submit photos to the LiCBS tumblr.  I also encourage any of you ladies out there who happen to read my blog (*crickets*) to submit photos to her!  I think this is a fun project and she’s been getting some great responses.  But she just started this up and hasn’t gotten many submissions yet, so any help I’m sure would be appreciated.  Just be patient about seeing your picture; she’s already had one drama queen who got huffy because her picture wasn’t posted immediately (it’s called “spacing your posts out”) and withdrew her picture after throwing a snitfit.

Now get out there and support your local comic book store!  There’s some great mainstream and independent comic books, graphic novels, and manga just waiting to be picked up by you.  And if you are a lady, please consider submitting your shopping picture to the tumblr I mentioned!

• Bizarro World, 223 E St., Davis, CA 95616
• Drom’s Comics and Cards, 231 G St., Davis, CA 95616
• Big Brother Comics, 1722 J St., Sacramento, CA 95811 (different from the horrible one I went to!)
• Dreamworld Comics, 12400 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066 (note:  hours are listed incorrectly on yelp)
• Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046 (note:  haven’t been here yet, just always hear great things about it!)

For buying ideas, the ALA (American Library Association) just posted their Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.  I’m linking to the nominations because that list is longer and contains many wonderful books that didn’t manage to squeak into the top 10.  If you poke around there, you can also find previous years’ contenders.

This post covers books 2-4 of the Parasol Protectorate series, which includes Changeless, Blameless, and Heartless.

The next 3 books in Gail Carriger’s five book Victorian steampunk series decide to leave the land of smuttiness (for the most part) and venture into more mysterious avenues.  Which is somewhat disappointing for me, as I found the smut highly amusing and entertaining.  Oh well.

However, the books do retain their sense of humor, which I completely enjoy.  Alexia and Conall are now happily married, and doing things happily married couples do, like work for the Queen, interact with suspiciously (yet practically) dressed women, and dangle dangerously off dirigibles (oh wait, no, werewolves don’t do so well in the sky).  Alexia also merrily whacks seedy people upon the head with her trusty parasol, which receives quite the upgrade in these later books.

Hm, it seems rather difficult to discuss these books without revealing some massive spoilers that occur.  I suppose I could say there are some colossal upheavals that take place that test the bonds of love between Alexia and Conall.  Something also very major happens to a slightly minor character that I like that disrupts the supernatural world, as that is just not done.  Ivy continues to wear the most hideous hats, so there is that remaining constant.

A couple things to note:  1)  make sure to have Blameless ready to go as you get near the end of Changeless.  One of those dreaded cliffhanger endings.  Fortunately my friend gave me both of these for Christmas so I was all set.  Heartless similarly ends on a slightly cliffhangerish note, but not nearly as bad as Changeless.  2)  While Lord Akeldama continues to be as flamboyantly outrageous as usual, Carriger’s other gay characters are not nearly so stereotypical, so he no longer bothers me as much as I mentioned in my review of Soulless.  (In fact, as someone pointed out, Lord Akeldama could easily be portrayed by Austin Scarlett of Project Runway fame.  Utterly flamboyant and utterly fabulous.)

This series will end with the fifth book Timeless, which is due out at the beginning of March 2012.  And then while this series is done, I believe she will continue to revisit the world via other characters, which is a relief, because I do so enjoy the setting for this delightfully funny series and would be most saddened if she were to abandon the world altogether.  I await March most excitedly!

A note:  Soulless is coming out in manga-fied form at the same time as Timeless’s release.  Yen Press will be publishing it.  My worlds collide!  I normally don’t read OELs*, but I am making an exception with this book, as I can’t wait to see Ivy’s hideous hats.  And see what some of this steampunk technology looks like.  I’ll definitely be discussing the manga in a few months!

*OEL=original English language “manga”

Once again, Del Rey/Kodansha leaves me hanging.

Hana Suzuki loves sleeping so incredibly much, she studied her ass off to get into the prestigious high school 3 minutes from her house so she could have that much more sleeping time. While walking to school one day (in a sleepy daze), she accidentally walks in front of a limo and gets hit, damaging the car.  Threatened with having to pay for the repairs, she gets forcibly inducted into the all boys’ field hockey club as goalie after Izumi Oda sees her reflexes and resilience.  At first she balks, even with the blackmail, but then she learns they’re really more of a travel club, going around eating at different cities, and happily joins them.  Alas, things are never that straight-forward and what follows is ridiculous slapsticky situations, involving tennis club rivals, the ability to sleep literally anywhere, a bishounen-loving chicken, spirit possession, and deceptive creepy old people who dabble in a bit of blackmail.

While the title implies that this is a sports manga, it’s actually a reverse harem romantic comedy (especially as they hardly ever actually play hockey).  It’s also weird that two such similar titles came out together (only months apart), as this is remarkably like the more well-known Ouran High School Host Club in that:

1. poor female student is accepted into a rich kids’ high school
2. said female student is blackmailed into a pretty boys’ club
3. female student cares not a bit about fashion or style, much to pretty boys’ horror
4. female student’s weak point is good food, normally out of her price range
5. pretty boys are completely clueless about “commoner” lifestyle
6. there’s a set of redheaded identical twins that are too similar for their own good
7. the lead guy is obnoxiously stubborn about getting his way
8. the fated couple are oblivious to their inevitable coupledom and spend most of the time bickering

Many people say that this is a ripoff of Ouran, but I believe this actually came out first (2002 vs. 2003).  After that, I’m not sure who was parodying whom.  They may have fed off of each other, ouroboros style, as the stories continue to have similar situations.

A difference between the two manga is that that My Heavenly Hockey Club seems to rely more on comedy, even going into crude humor territory, making numerous boob jokes (Hana is extremely flat-chested), and chicken poop jokes.  Ouran seems more focused on the romantic aspect, even venturing out of comedy and into drama towards the end.

Unfortunately for the US, Del Rey stopped publishing it at volume 8 (there are 14 total), so the romance had hardly started between Izumi and Hana.  Kodansha USA has not resumed publishing this as of yet.  And probably never will as they seem to like sitting on their titles while readers like me froth at the mouth at the injustice of it all.  So where My Heavenly Hockey Club would’ve gone I’m not sure, unless I want to go read the scanlations (which I don’t).

Seeing as I don’t have the whole series, I can’t say which is better, this or Ouran.  I think that while they are descriptively similar, their styles are different enough to both be enjoyed.  My Heavenly Hockey Club is what I would read if I wanted some good, over the top, ridiculous comedy (with just a splash of romance).  Ouran is where I would go if I wanted more of a romancy dramedy.  They both definitely do serve up a healthy dose of bishounen though, if that’s your thing.

For the first half of what I saw in 2011, see here.

This covers movies I saw from September to December 2011, what I still need to see, and what I enjoyed the most.

• Detective Dee:  Chinese martial arts mystery flick.  Saw with Des.  Enjoyable, but not like Once Upon a Time in China, which is what I measure my Chinese martial arts movies by.
• 50/50:  Semi-autobiographical dramedy about a young man diagnosed with cancer and his fight against it.  Saw with Hotokeoni.  I was suspicious since it had Seth Rogen in it, and I’m pretty much over Seth Rogen (still like him in Freaks and Geeks though), but this was a really good movie.  I liked JGL (but I usually do) and he and Rogen cracked me up.  And totally made me cry.
• The Muppets:  Loved, loved, loved this movie.  Which you can read about here.  Saw with Hotokeoni, Des, and Mo.
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy:  “Real” 70s spy thriller, as opposed to “action” spy thriller.  Spectacular cast:  Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarnan Hinds.  Of course, me and Shaz went to mainly see Benedict Cumberbatch be all Cumberbatchy.  Although he had bad hair.  But looked killer in his suit.  Mmm… uh… anyways… a good movie, although I can understand some complaints about it being slow.

I made up for what I originally missed in early 2011 by watching a slew of new DVDs in the past four months.

• Adjustment Bureau:  SF movie about people who tweak the timelines for the “big picture.”  Has lots of good looking men wearing hats.  Like John Slattery.  Which makes me wish new Mad Men was here already.  Emily Blunt is also in this movie, and I love Emily Blunt.  Anyway, the time tweakers find their project foiled when one person discovers what they’re doing and most definitely does not want to be tweaked.  Totally enjoyed this.
• Jane Eyre:  Okay, so technically I watched this in 2012, but since it’s so close to the beginning of the year, I’m going to let this slide in.  I quite forgot the Jane Eyre had such a crappy childhood.  And Rochester is kind of a jerk.  But a Fassbendery jerk in this movie, which means it’s kind of ok.  And of course he redeems himself and you knew that was coming (since this is classic literature), so it’s ok to be all moony over the jerkface.  Jane is pretty awesome.  And Judi Dench plays Mrs. Fairfax, which I totally either forgot or didn’t know, which is even more awesome.
• Hanna:  Watched this solely due to the reviews from the Beta Male Experience (see ep. 41).  And boy, am I glad I did.  It has Cate Blanchett being utterly deplorable, and a young girl being completely badass.  Hanna has been trained to be the perfect assassin by her father, and at 16 gets sent off on a revenge mission to kill the woman (Blanchett) who killed her mother.  Not only is this a great suspense thriller movie, it also has a killer soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers.
• Fast Five:  Another movie I probably would’ve skipped, except the Beta Males were raving about how ridiculously good it was.  And that’s exactly what this movie was.  Ridiculous.  But weirdly good.  And complete fun.  Problem was I had to watch the rest of the series to set up for #5.  You can read my review of the franchise here.
• X-Men: First Class:  A decent entry into the X-Men movie family.  Xavier and Magneto were great!  Except Xavier was kind of an arrogant ass, which was an interesting take on the character.  Magneto was all Fassbendery, like Rochester above.  I don’t know why they continue having Mystique being all weirdly scaly.  January Jones as Emma Frost was TERRIBLE.  Holy crap.  I think JJ is only good at playing Betty Draper, and that’s it.  That was the flattest, least passionate, most pouty Emma EVER.  And I love Emma Frost.  She’s cool because she’s strong, and intelligent, and fiery, and takes no crap, and deals it instead.  JJ’s Emma was cold and aloof and BORING.  And DUMB.  She wasn’t even sexy, and she wore lingerie for most of the movie!

Movies missed in 2011 that I have to see some time in 2012:

• Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Rango
• Beginners
• Hobo with a Shotgun
• Super 8
• Mission Impossible 4 (although I need to see the other 3 still as well…)
• Attack the Block
• Adventures of Tintin

Still, not a bad year for me.  Saw way more than last year in the theatres, plus made an effort to see new releases on DVD.  I think this is partially from listening to the Beta Male Experience podcast regularly.  They’re infecting me with their enthusiasm.  For those unfamiliar with them, and want a fun new podcast to listen to, this a group of 20-somethings, mostly guys (with the occasional stray female poking her head in, or somewhat older guests) who are all really good friends, and they sit around and bash and/or praise movies, as well as each other.  They are absolutely hilarious.  Sometimes I laugh so hard I’m crying at my desk at work.

To finish off, my unranked Top 5 for the 2011:

• Bridesmaids
• The Muppets
• Hanna
• 50/50
• Fast Five

Total 2011 movies seen:  15.  Up from 7 last year!

My friend Beth recommended this to me AGES ago, and now after I finally read it, I wonder what took me so long to heed her advice. (Oh good lord, it was over a year ago, I’m horrible.)

Once in a while, I get into this mood where I want to do nothing but read YA fiction.  Never mind the fact that I’m WAY past being a teenager, like, I can’t even see the shadow of teenagedom behind me.  There’s just something so good about them.  Yes, they’re usually faster to read, but I usually love the protagonists more, or they’re funnier, or they’re just more interesting.  I identify with them more, I guess.  Maybe it’s because they still have so much life in them as I turn into a dried out husk of a person.  Wait, does that make me some kind of vampire?

Allie lives in Berkeley, home of the hippie, and works at the local independent record store.  Yes, record.  Oh sure, they have the latest CDs for the trendy weekenders, but the heart and soul of the store are the vinyl records.  (You do know what those are, right?  Large pizza-sized discs of black plastic where there’s one long spiraling groove and if you run a needle along the groove, music comes out of it.  Pretty archaic, I know.)  Her parents are divorced and she lives with her mother who is working on her dissertation and her love life.  Allie’s best friend Kit works at a vintage clothing store down the street from Allie, and bemoans her love life.  Allie has no love life, other than with music.

At least not until the mysterious guy (or “M” as she names him) wanders into her record store and her life.

Okay, now you might be all, “Blah blah, teen romance, blah, barf.”  But really, for me the romantic aspects of this book was kind of a side story.  The real story is Allie and her absolute devotion to music.  The author is the co-founder of the famous Amoeba Records, so all of her love for music is poured into Allie.  This book has me missing my turntable (it broke years ago) and wanting to create playlists of the songs mentioned.  Allie is a wonderful character–imperfect, flawed, relatable, human.  She’s funny and wry.  She grounds her ding-y best friend.  She puts up good-humoredly with her mother.  She also is quick to make assumptions, is stingy about sharing her friends and family, and maybe isn’t as experimental as she should be (c’mon, all that good Indian food in Berkeley, and she always gets paneer?).  I really enjoyed this book.  YA fiction needs more protagonists like this, and less like Bella Swan (bleh).

Oh, and FYI, my first record was Songs from the Big Chair by Tears for Fears.  I bought it during a magazine sale.  Second was Depeche Mode’s Some Great Reward from Tower Records.  I can’t remember my first tape or CD, but record definitely left an impression.  What was your first album, and what form of media was it?

I want to be able to read Lychee Light Club, but I have been cursed with becoming dizzy when things become too graphic.  Like that fingernail scene in the movie Black Swan.  Or… never mind, already starting to feel blechy just thinking about Black Swan.  ANYWAY, Shaz read LLC, and she was all, “Uh… yeah, I don’t think you can handle this.  I’d have to put post-its over all the more graphic scenes before you can attempt this.  With kitten pictures drawn on them.”  So, instead I turned to another series that Furuya did, Genkaku Picasso.

(slight spoilers follow in the next paragraph)

Hikari, nicknamed Picasso by the other students due to a misspelling of his name and his love to draw, shuns his classmates, only talking to the pretty Chiaki who goes out of his way to be friendly to him.  When Chiaki suddenly dies in an accident, Hikari finds a mini angelic version of Chiaki in his pocket.  Chiaki tells him she’s been sent back to save him from dying, by using his artistic ability to look into other people’s hearts and help them with their problems.  At first he resists, but when confronted with his impending death (his arm starts rotting), he starts drawing what he sees in his classmates’ auras and begins reaching out to help them.

Furuya’s art here is immensely detailed, unlike many mangaka.  He seems to be using two different art techniques in this manga–the “real world” and the “art world” when Hikari is inside the pictures, exploring the art that he drew.  The real world is cleaner and sharper, like ink, while the art world is more shaded and sketch-like, like pencils.  I really like the sketchy quality of Hikari’s art world.  This is also where Furuya’s imagination runs free with Hikari and Chiaki trying to puzzle out the hidden meanings behind the art.

The art gets a little disturbing at times (hints of Furuya’s much darker side), but it’s all completely tolerable levels.  Nothing really graphic.  It’s more psychologically disturbing (bondage, a dying rabbit, slashed up toys, etc.).

The stories are pretty much self-contained as Hikari helps his fellow students.  Sometimes he even goes back and helps them again when something else comes up.  You do see several of the students grow though, and of course Hikari himself, as he learns to open up and begins making real friends (much against his solitary nature).  And you eventually learn what’s going on with Chiaki and Hikari.

I’ve read this series twice now, and both times had me crying at the end.

This is a short series, completed in a mere three volumes, which is much easier to pick up rather than a daunting 60 volume series (and still going strong) like One Piece.  And it’s completely released and available in the US.  Such a sadly rare phenomenon these days.

Picking my “Best of” manga is WAY more difficult than my “Best of” anime as while my anime viewing has dropped, my manga reading has skyrocketed.  Plus there’s the added difficult of manga that actually was published this year, as opposed to manga that I just discovered and devoured this year.  (nom nom nom)

Okay, I’m running out of time so I’m doing this quick and dirty, I apologize:

New Releases:

• Drops of God (wine manga on 2 “brothers” competing for their inheritance; Vertical’s doing a selected release)
• A Bride’s Story (completely gorgeous manga on life in Central Asia during the 1800s; Kaoru Mori is one of my favorite mangaka; she has the most detailed and simply beautiful art)
• Wandering Son  (realistic touching manga about 2 transgender children and how they are dealing with the fact that they are “different”)

Continuing Releases:

• 20th Century Boys (suspense manga about a cult in the future that has its roots in a group of friends’ childhood in the 70s)
• Real (slice of life wheelchair basketball manga)
• Slam Dunk (sports comedy basketball manga)
• Bunny Drop (1st 4 volumes ONLY; beautifully touching manga about a man and his sort-of adopted daughter–technically his aunt; you can read my review here)
• Cross Game (a simply awesome baseball manga about a boy, the girl he loves, and her sister; even if you don’t like baseball at all, you will still love this manga)
• House of Five Leaves (slice of life samurai manga)
• Yotsubato (comedy manga about the world from the eyes of a most peculiar and charming little green-haired girl)

Discovered (but published earlier):

• Old Boy (gritty manga about a man who is released from being kidnapped for 10 years and he doesn’t know why)
• Nodame Cantabile (slice of life romantic comedy about two mismatched young musicians trying to achieve their dreams; you can read my thoughts here)
• Pluto (Naoki Urasawa takes on Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga)
• Land of the Blindfolded (high school romance about several teenagers who have the gift of seeing the past and the future)

Concluded this year:

• Fullmetal Alchemist (this epic fantasy of an alternate past finally concludes most satisfactorily)
• With the Light (sadly the mangaka died before finishing her lovely story of a young family and the difficulties and rewards of raising an autistic son)
• Eyeshield 21 (one of my favorite sports manga finally ends; you can read my review here)
• Genkaku Picasso  (a sort of creepy and dark manga involving a boy, his dead friend, and his drawing notebook; I read this because I wanted to read something by Usamaru Furuya that wasn’t as graphic as Lychee Light Club)

Missed, but on my MUST READ list:

• Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (this must’ve hit every single manga critic’s Best Of list; semiautobiographical story of a Japanese soldier during WWII)

Anticipating for 2012:

• Soulless (OEL based on the fantasy steampunk novels)
• Heart of Thomas (classic BL manga from the queen of shojo manga, Moto Hagio)
• Sakuran (interesting looking manga about courtesans by Moyoco Anno, who’s hit or miss with me)
• GTO: 14 Days of Shonan (sequel to the hilarious manga GTO with everyone’s favorite ex-gangster teacher)
• NonNonBa (I don’t know much about this manga, but I’m trying to expand out to the less popular stuff; this one is about yokai, or spirit monsters)
• Alice in the Country of Hearts/Alice in the Country of Clover (a license rescue from Tokyopop and its sequel; inspired by Alice in Wonderland)

My anime roundup for 2011.

Due to anime companies not really catering towards my tastes (I hate moe/loli, am indifferent towards mecha, and burned out on high school anime), my anime watching has plummeted in recent years.  It takes a lot of word of mouth, outstanding reviews, or a feeling of “something different” to pique my interest.  This year, there wasn’t much doing that, but when it did, it was outstanding.

Chihayafuru:  Chihaya, Taichi, and Arata are childhood friends, bonded over the poetry card game, karuta.  When Arata moves away and abruptly cuts off all contact with his old friends, Chihaya continues to play, determined to find Arata again via the game.  This is my favorite anime of this year, and a lovely one at that.  The art is beautiful, and the card game has me itching to learn more about it; at least about the poems used.  The flashback episodes are heart-rending and I completely choked up watching them.  It’s about halfway aired so far and is viewable at Crunchyroll.

Bunny Drop:  see my review here.

Tiger & Bunny:  This is on my must finish list.  I got distracted and I’m about halfway through so far.  It’s a pretty awesome concept–a superhero reality tv show where superheroes get points for rescues, criminal apprehension, etc.  That’s how it starts anyway, and then it starts delving into the past of one of the superheroes, Barnaby (or Bunny, as his crime-fighting partner, Wild Tiger, calls him).  This is the first anime in a long time that will probably appeal to even non-anime fans.  Possibly the first since Cowboy Bebop.  Also viewable at Crunchyroll (click the name for the video portal).

Honorable mentions:

Wandering Son:   This anime I haven’t watched, but I know if I did, it would be up in the above list.  The reason I haven’t watched this is because for some reason, the anime picks up in the middle of the manga.  Since the manga just started coming out in the US, and I am naturally buying it, I prefer to wait to watch it until I get the backstory, and grow with the characters.  The story is about two transgender children:  Shuichi, who either wants to be a girl, or just likes to cross-dress (it’s not clear yet), and Yoshino, a girl who definitely wishes she were a boy, so much so that as she goes through puberty, her body betrays her wishes and it sends her into tears of anger and frustration.  The story starts off with them discovering that they are indeed different in the fifth grade and proceeds with their life through middle school (and possibly later; I’m not sure how far it goes).  What I’ve seen from the anime is beautiful, much like Bunny Drop with its pastel watercolor palette.  Viewable at Crunchyroll and watchable if you don’t plan on reading the manga at all or until later and don’t mind spoilers.

Princess Jellyfish:  Okay, so I know this isn’t really a 2011 anime, but I discovered and watched the whole thing this year and absolutely fell in love with it (see my review here), so I threw it up on this list as an HM due to the anime shortage.  Funimation has given a release date for the BD/DVD set as February 28, 2012, and this is being preordered as soon as my favorite anime buying site, Right Stuf, announces a Funi sale.  They should be about due for one…