Winter 10

Ahh, here comes that awkward time of the year where I have to use both 09 and 10 to prevent confusing people as to which year we’re on – however, as the majority of shows actually begin in 2010, I shall refer to it as ‘Winter 10′ – which just sounds like an anime in of itself.

Currently….15 shows. It can’t just be me who thinks that’s an extremely small batch of shows for one season? Maybe there will be more eventually. But it doesn’t seem to be bad.

Durarara!! should be promising, being from the author, staff and studio of Baccano!! and having an irish headless horsewoman on a motorbike.  SoRaNoWoTo is part of TV Tokyo’s intriguing new “Power of Anime” timeslot, which will be for anime-original series. It has owls. Katanagatari exhibits an interesting art style, and is from the author of Bakemonogatari, which should garner interest.  Hanamaru Kindergarten is Gainax’s new troll show about extremely young kids, so …eh, make of that what you will. Baka to Test and Qwaser further pushes back the boundaries of taste (davidmitchelllol) with using furry avatars to cheat in school and magical judeo-christian GRIMDARK characters who drink breast milk. yeah.  Okamikakushi seems to be a cousin of Higurashi, being from Ryukisihi07 himself and presenting a similar scenario – it follows a new trend of SCYTHES EVERYWHERE. The rest follows ordinary high school students who do things and things happen, in some cases becoming butlers or starting clubs devoted entirely to underwear, often in sequels. And there’s Kewpie, whatever that is.

Oh, and i’ve decided to go all abstract and creative with my formats. Love it or leave it.

Arabic Version – http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4417/winter0910v1ar.jpg

Visual Guide to Winter 10

2008

With many images at hand, I decided to quickly knock off last year’s consortium of anime in delicious chart format. There’s 130 shows there, so it’s been split into two – you can view them separately or together.

2008 Full

2001

Look at the difference between 00 and 01! It’s huuuuge. I guess this is where the boom started.

Anywhere, here is 2001 in delectable chart form. I may start splitting these charts up, as fitting so much on one image will begin to get tedious.

Enjoy!

2001

Fall 09 – V3

A few minor updates regarding OVAs and such. Now with weekdays attached and a clashing ugly colour scheme intended merely to frustrate you. Nothing major, just a round-up before the bulk of Fall begins in a huge weekly rush (weekends = good).

As for the actual timing/airdates/day equivalent that may confuse more than a few people (ie “Kampfer comes out on Thursday, not Friday!”), i’m converting anything past 24:00 in Japanese time to the next day – it’s a bizarre system of television timing, and understandable even if it is whimsically pointless. Then there’s the matter of multiple timezones obscuring things further and …blegh. My logic for choosing this method is that the later the show seems to be released, the closer to a fansub release the day actually is, so there you have it, it’s the least dissapointing route.

And so, enjoy the Fall season. I command you to.

F09V3

psd – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UZ72JWI5 (not sure how effective this is)

png – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T23XA52U

Old Charts

Since the end of this decade is dawning upon us, I have decided to spend some time making up some charts summarising the anime in each year – they’re more basic than those for new anime, meant for reference you might want for anime checklists or material for debates or whatever you want.

Visual Guide to Anime of 2000

Here’s the first. I can’t be bothered to do OVAs, as there are so many of them, much of which are either short, generall insignificant or just plain hentai.

Fall 2009 – Version 2 (zomg)

Super early, as expected /feckless sarcasm

It’s done, finally, and basically sums up most of what you’ll be watching (or not, if you’re dull) for the next three months. Complete with OVAs and Continuations, per usual. Considering I have most of the airdates already, I have decided to order it properly now rather than later. Weekdays will come in V3. I’ve toned down the brightness of some of the reds to be kind of the eyes (I don’t have a bad pun this time), but as usual expect more artifacts than a museum (oh wait, yes I do) when it comes to jpeg compression.

Aoi Bungaku, or “Blue Literature”, seems a notable edition to the line-up, being an Ayakashi Tales-type setup with classic japanese literature, and as an extra bonus, some good character designers from the world of Shounen manga. Let’s just hope Tite Kubo isn’t drawing the backgrounds. Add that to R3K and you can pretend be all sophisticated and clever with your famous oriental books in animated form.

Miracle Train has to be seen to be believed. War Heroes, Soft Drinks, Countries and now this. Imagine something mundane or ordinary you can turn into anthropomorphic sexual symbols and make an anime out of it quick, whilst the trend still lasts!

That guy from Macross Frontier and Basquash has a new bizarre anime, Anyamaru, which can only be described in one word as “Japanese”. Something about bug-eyed girls turning into animals – and then with three separate studios. Take a shot every time somebody sings.

Also present is a second season of Sunred, some bizarre compilation show involving Shugo Chara, The Three Musketeers (there are clearly four people there, what’s going on?!) some kiddy show about scary hotels, some kiddy show about a rabbit-monkey hyrbid, some kiddy show about a Russian Crocodile, some Kiddy show about a Girl-and..

There’s also flash series called Secret Society Eagle Talon and another young’un show, Gokyoudai Monogatari, which I genuinely considered could be an anime adaptation of Little Britain.

And that seems to be all the new anime. Maybe not so exciting as last year’s surprise last entries, but at least Blue Literature could be very interesting.

And that’s it until the end of the month. Enjoy! (png download below)

For those spanish, arabic or other nationalities amongst you who wish to translate this version to their own language, feel free. Using the image-editing program Fireworks, you can edit the original png contained here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FZ3IUH3A (8.34mb)

Some sections are locked to make it easier to edit, but now all important text can be changed. Be sure to post any translations so I can add them into this post.

Yeah, I intended to get V2 out a week ago, and as you can see – i didn’t. Reason: I’m lazy. That and I was on holiday and i’ve got Real Life stuff to do now, so blegh.

Eventually some form of update will appear, at least before the actual season starts. Don’t keep your eyes peeled, it will get here eventually. Also, peeling your own eyes would be dangerous.

Fall 2009

It be here.

I’ve gone for a mildly soviet colourscheme this season, to link in with all the pretentious Autumnal thematic inclusions. In fact, why is it “Fall” anyway? Real men say “Autumn”.

This time round i’ve chosen to include “alternative titles”, so people know both names – when choosing the larger title, i’ve gone for precedent and understandability (not sure that’s a word). I’m no translator, i’m just going by the interpretations of others, so be sure to correct me on any relevant glaring translation mistakes.

I’ve also decided to put back in the “adaption/sequel/etc” indicators from Winter 08 cos they’re handy, and depending, I might include the networks each show is airing on for V2, both to indicate fansubbers and provide info for those who like to use live streaming.

The spread of shows is fairly conventional. A few more famous shounen, some deeper shows, action, and plenty of moe, harem, bad eroge adaptations, etc.

High Quality Version, able to be edited with the program ‘Fireworks’ – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PE84CGGM

I apologise for the blurry thumbnail, Jpeg compression and the colour Red don’t agree.

Spanish – http://www.anime.cl/portal/media/pics_noticias/Fall2009_Spanish_Version_by_Animecl.png
Arabic – http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2946/fall2009v1asar.jpg

Fall 2009

Summer 2009

Version 3, Final Version. Enjoy.

Cobra follows Winter Sonata in being the Duke Nukem Forever of anime, and Ichizon also goes back by a season. A few less and more OVAs to boot.

Now with weekdays. I decided to go with animesuki dating method (I’m still confused by Japanese time), so that everything seems later than it might officially be – considering you have to wait for RAWs and Subs alike, it’s closer to how we might watch said shows anyway, so blegh.

Fall shows are also starting to be announced, so i’ll have that line-up in a month.

_ _ _

If you want to translate this chart into another language, you can use this:

PNG File – http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RQJG43Y0

You’ll need the image-editing program “Fireworks” to make any changes to it. You can also download it as a general High Quality image.

_ _ _

Enjoy~

Summer 09

Newer Oldness:

Here be Version 2 , just before the sugoi~ (stop that) Summer season officially begins, though it truly gets going in July. Cue applause..or something.

This version has OVAs and TV Specials, Continuing OVAs and TV specials, four new shows, a few more pretty pictures, dates and months for OVAs and TV series respectively, and more ORANGE, because you can never have enough. Basically i’m experimenting with colourschemes and such, to liven up the image and not stap people’s eyes out with primary colours – and of course to appease the Designfag inside. There are also a few added boxes, lines and font placements, all for the good cause of pretentiousness.

(This uncouth image has decided to rebel and poke out the sides a bit, I don’t understand MACHINE CODE so I guess it’s stuck there)

Enjoy! And by that I mean stop bitching, herpderp. (In case you can’t SEE this image, try clicking on it. I still refuse to believe people can’t read this in full and weren’t just squinting at the blurry thumbnail)

Double Oldness:

soon… Now -

- with a hazardous colour scheme stolen directly from Newgrounds. At least there aren’t any bee or wasp related anime or I could be accused of favouritism. There are, however, Wolves, Cobras, blue things from uncanny alley and Seafaring felines.

Yet again, I hasten you to TAKE NOTE OF WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY:- Neither the images, nor the summaries, can paint an accurate picture of the anime it describes. It will be close, but before you judge an anime, wait for it and watch it – or do the proper thing and make use of  sites such as ANN to check out the stafflisting and see what things they worked on. From this, you can work out that shows like CANAAN have experienced people working on it and will perhaps be very professionally done, whereas shows like Sora no Manimani probably will not be. /rant

Most Spring shows pass the baton in July. And really, Spring 2009 has been very good, with a large variety of  decent shows displaying lots of different themes and quality, and a handful of anime rising even above that. It certainly leaves a better impression than 2008.

As a result, it seems the backlash of inevitable harem and moe flicks distills into Summer season – though there are certainly a good bunch of enjoyable and intriguing anime shows on offer, which gives more prospects than last year (which incidently, is when I started this charting lark). You have innovative concepts in the form of Tokyo Magnitude and Element Hunters, loveable sequels from Brains Base and Shaft, some nice slice-of-life manga adaptations such as Aoi Hana, the mandatory Visual Novel anime of Canaan and Umineko, and even blasts from the past – Cobra.

Anyways, enjoy this season, and anticipate the next.

Spring 2009

Version 4 (omg update lol)

This is probably the last one for Spring, there can’t possibly be any more left with a week to go.

I changed the summaries for Mazinger and Valkyria Chronicles due to weapons-grade complaint drives, though whether they are actually right is another matter. Too late now, hahah.

To make things slightly more convenient, I added some Weekdays, though Area 11’s – what appears to be a – 26-hour clock makes as much sense as any other japanese system of organisation (read: little), but i’m sure its somehow unreasonably efficient.

There are also some shiny new pictures and maybe a few other other extra things I have apathetically neglected to remember.

As for some shows that have faded into the void – Appleseed’s studios are squabbling over finances, COBRA TV seems to be non existant and Rainbow seems to have been pigeonholed. Bakugan and Robo Crosser also lack news, but then again, I question what you traded your dignity for if you are seriously anticipating these. If there are any other shows, then it’s their fault for being late to the graphical party.

Sunday is going to be a fun day,  i’m sure.

(this is 2mb. there’s a limit to how artifacty this thing can get in jpg format)

Spring 09

In case you’re still considerate/bored enough to read this, then I may as well mention that my most anticipated are Eden of the East, Shangri-La, Guin Saga, FMA and K-ON. Combine those and I suppose you get naked alchemists defending royalty from ecoterrorists with guitars – oh, I would totally watch that.

Anyways, enjoy. Summer season starts in July, but it looks like the current line-up could tide anyone over, it’s  great so far.

..oh, and if any fansubbers are reading this

1: We don’t need you all subbing FMA.

2: Script files are really useful. If you release .ass or .srt files first, it makes much more sense. Seriously, try it.