Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

Beyond the genre and even the title there are the things that form a show as a whole. There’s the story, the characters, the seiyuu, and music. As a result of those there are certain shows we remember because they left a big impression on us for various reasons. It could be because someone died in a spectacular way or because we were introduced to one of the greatest douchebags known to man (okay, at least in anime/manga history). Whatever the element, we hold dear to us our favorite characters and moments and either smile, frown, or shake our heads at some of the shocks and surprises that blindsided us. That is a flash of what we’ll be discussing here in Part 2: The Black Blood Days.

Like last time there will be spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Best Male

Winner: Lelouch Lamperouge (Lelouch Vi Britannia)

My choice for best male wasn’t nearly as hard as the best female of 2007. When I first thought about it all a few suspects came into my mind but in the end only one of them stood above the rest. Lelouch Lamperouge or more accurately, Lelouch Vi Britannia, is the sole male character that I found to be the best of the best and of them all. Seeing him take the journey from a normal school life whose genius revolved around chess and strategy evolve to a persona that took on the country that he vowed to destroy as a child was simply amazing. Throughout it all he persevered all while showing signs of his humanity as a result of his actions and thankfully had an amazing woman supporting him through everything that happened. I can see a few things in Lelouch that I believe are within me as well which added to my liking of his character and I await to see more of him in season two later this year.

Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t win the award yet again at the end of 2008.

 

Winner: Shiraishi Minoru

Now this may seem like an utter whacked-out choice of mine, but there’s a reason behind it. Let’s say no one expected Shiraishi to gain glorious fame. After the whole Taniguchi Wasuremono meme things suddenly went nuts. In the premiere of Lucky☆Star, the first episode of the Lucky Channel segment introduced us to our lovely navigator Akira-sama and…. Shiraishi Minoru? Now that’s just too funny for words. This is what I call KyoAni’s response to the huge Haruhi fandom, especially to those that are thrilled by the infamous meme. Must feel great to have an anime version of yourself, especially as an original character in a 4koma adaptation. I found that to work rather well and now I just can’t picture Lucky☆Star without this guy. Over the course of the season he gets abused by Akira (either because he’s a wuss or he’s a masochist or both) but he suddenly snapped in his final moments. It was truly great. Shiraishi was so awesome that the second half of the series included his own hilarious ED themes including that very same Ore no Wasuremono.

Best Female

Winner: Balsa (Seirei no Moribito)

Honorable Mention: Takano Miyo (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni)

Unlike Youko I was pretty torn between my choices for this award. It took me much of a week to finally decide which lovely lady of 2007 would take the award in my heart. Well it all boiled down to the final thought the winner came out to be Balsa with Miyo very close behind. It was a tough decision but I think that I can rest easy with my choices. Balsa, throughout all of Seirei, radiated with the aura of a strong woman. That strength was in more than just her muscles but within her mind, spirit, and words. Given the situations she found herself in during the show it takes considerable mental strength to vow not to ever kill a person especially when they are in great number and didn’t hold the same vow as she did. Not only did she had to take care of herself but she had to look after Chagum. If you ask me she’d make a wonderful mother figure, something I thought to be confirmed in one of the latter episodes where she slapped the hell out of Chagum for running away and then embraced him immediately afterwards. Balsa is a type of woman that isn’t seen frequently in anime and throughout 2007 she proved herself to be at the very top of the list for females and characters in general.

As much as I loved Miyo I couldn’t see myself choosing her over Balsa simply because Balsa was the much stronger woman. Don’t get me wrong though Miyo had a lot of strength to not kill herself during her childhood for all of the stuff she went through and she grew up to be an absolutely beautiful and intelligent woman. However, the damage to her psyche from her childhood was still present and affected the overall strength of her character in the end.

 

Winner: Furude Rika

Honorable Mentions: Hiiragi Kagami, Minami Kana

I didn’t think long and hard on this one, though after much pondering I realized who to go with in the end. Now, when we first got a glimpse of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, she was just a sweet young girl who always had something to nipah about, among other cutesy meaningless phrases. But then suddenly it was like she became a drastically different person, with a much deeper voice and ominous tone. We didn’t really find out what that was about until the sequel Kai. That’s when her character suddenly skyrocketed in the chara development department and we then learned of her tragic story. Throughout the season’s run you can tell she struggled through them all and the battle with fate finally ended. Among other things, she was 2007’s Saimoe Queen, defeating many many solid contenders. Plus, it’s Yukarin and I’m a Yukarin fanatic.

/semi-bias

Now, as far as my honorable mentions are concerned, I really really love Kagamin. She was just the perfect character I could ask for. Voice of reason and probably the only realistic character out of the whole group (why even the creator’s name is Kagami!), she had a lot of lovable traits, no doubt. Katou Emiri gets a new fan! ;D Of course I’m still quite irritated at the huge upset defeat at Saimoe. What’s up with that, Nihon? Finally, Kana, the middle sister of the Minami family. Let’s face it, she’s the epitome of stupid females, but we love her for that. You can’t go wrong with the hilarious crap she comes up with and playing pranks on everyone.

Best Cast

Winner: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Honorable Mentions: Minami-ke, Lucky Star

This really comes as no surprise if you’ve been keeping up with my SZS posts. This, I believe, was the best cast of 2007. Everyone was so diverse and yet fit together so well despite their differences and quirks. Itoshiki and all of the girls (a few of the guys too) carried the show from start to finish with wonderful dark comedy that always managed to pierce my soul with joyous laughter. Zoku is doing the very same thing too and it’s like heaven all over again.

 

Winner: Lucky☆Star

Honorable Mentions: Minami-ke, Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA

No brainer for me. KyoAni always pulls out the finest and best seiyuu I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot. In the months before the series even aired, I checked out the thread @ AS. I read that it was being produced by KyoAni, the same group of people behind the Haruhi anime. Haruhi was actually the first of their works I stumbled upon and after seeing how they handled Kanon, I loved them from then on. Knowing just how great they are with adaptations and their high quality animation, this was surely a must-watch for me. When I found out it was based off a 4koma I was pretty surprised as I never thought they’d do something like that. I looked at the cast list, or what was to be the supposed cast based on the seiyuu from the DS games/Drama CD. I was very excited to see a bunch of well known favorites (Koshimizu Ami, Shimizu Ai, Nakahara Mai, Tamura Yukari, etc.). Then the cast list shows up. Absolutely none of them were the same. Was I surprised? Definitely. Was I sad? No, not really. I noticed Hirano Aya listed as Konata and I immediately began to think that KyoAni was up to something. Looking over for the role of Iwasaki Minami, it lists Chihara Minori. Now I know they did this on purpose. So I didn’t care much, as long as I got to hear more of Aaya.

After watching the first episode I didn’t care about the change anymore. I loved every single voice. I’m glad that KyoAni did this (was it because it would’ve been far to expensive to get all those others?) because I fell in love with even more brilliant seiyuu. Fukuhara Kaori’s Tsukasa is just the cutest thing and everything about Emiri is perfect. Of course it’s not just them; everyone else did a damn good job. Moving on to my honorable mentions, Minami-ke has a really spectacular cast as well. Marina’s voice has always been special to me so I know just about an show she’s in always has a good cast. And finally, though I never finished Idolmaster, you gotta give them credit for having a freakin’ godly cast of the most famous and wondrous female seiyuu possible. Sure, Rie’s tsundere chara was dropped (voice and design) in favor of Yukarin but I’ve no real complaints (when it comes to the series’ cast no, but the story, yes).

Biggest Shock

Winners: School Days – Kotonoha of the Nice Boat; CODE GEASS – Euphie of the Massacre

Honorable Mentions: Great Hinamizawa Disaster

I think this choice was obvious. Sure, I kind of expected a violent end but what I didn’t see coming was Kotonoha using shunpou on Sekai, killing her, and then opening her up to see if there was a baby inside and then uttering the best line ever “Just as I thought! There wasn’t any baby in here!”. That is the true definition of OWNED. Don’t get me started on the whole boat thing and her sailing into the sunset with Makoto’s head. Simply, they were two of the biggest WTFs of 2007 for me.

My second choice is the lovely Euphie being accidentally Geass’d to kill Japanese/Elevens. I didn’t see that coming at all and I still remember the “Oh shit” I said when I saw Lelouch’s Geass accidentally go off. Honestly, everything after that was hard to watch for me. Others might have laughed at it but I certainly didn’t. I really liked Euphie and to see her do something like that completely against her well was hard to swallow. I think that’ll always be a WTF moment for me well into the upcoming second season.

 

Winner: Euphie’s Massacre

Honorable Mentions: Great Hinamizawa Disaster

So far, there’s nothing I’ve seen that labels itself a WTF moment like this one. Lelouch’s Geass haywires at just the wrong time and the next thing you know, Euphie reddens herself madly, killing a bunch of the Japanese. I expected a fair negotiation between her and Lelouch but then the unexpected happen and things just got a whole lot more trainwrecky. As a desperate move, Euphemia had to be taken down. Great setup for the climatic ending… which happened to be a huge cliffhanger.

When you think of biggest shock, you can’t help but wonder about the time when the GHD occurred. Rika prophesied that horrible night when she was killed and just about everyone in the village was gassed to their deaths. I was really upset about the whole Houjou hate and it made me even more mad and freaked at the ending which I didn’t expect. I was with Ooishi on that one. So damn close to the truth. It was a very bad end, but that’s what made the episode itself damn good.

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