This summer 2011 season, I’m watching 4 new series and 2 older series that started in spring 2011, Hanasaku Iroha and Nichijou:

Top row: Usagi Drop, Mawaru Penguindrum, Ikoku Meiro no Croisée.
Bottom row: No.6, Hanasaku Iroha, Nichijou.

I’m a sucker for the slice of life genre (5 out of 6 series above are “slice of life”). Usagi Drop in particular is very promising – looking forward to how Daikichi and Rin’s story unfolds. Mawaru Penguindrum is probably the winner in terms of “interestingness” though – after all, it has penguins. After the brilliant Ano Hana from spring 2011, Usagi Drop is looking to be my mainstay for this season.

If you’re an anime fan, please leave a comment on what you’re watching or ping me on twitter (I’m @chuyeow) – I’d love to know what you guys like to watch when you’re not coding.

PC Game of the Year

This has definitely got to go to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The single-player campaign was short but visually impressive and amazingly realistic. It was like watching a movie in most parts. And really, sneaking by Spetsnaz just a few metres away in sniper ghillie suits and was totally pimp. Multiplayer is real good fun too, I’m still playing it now (usually on GamingSA.com servers as ‘konata’).

Special mention: World of Warcraft (yes, I quit it ages ago, but it’s still good for the early part of 2007 when I was still playing casually).

PSP Game of the Year

Yes, I got a PSP just this year. And yes, Jeanne d’Arc is the best game I’ve played and completed in a while. For those who don’t know, Jeanne d’Arc is a very accessible Strategy RPG (SRPG) that is very loosely based on Joan of Arc. It’s much easier to play than Final Fantasy: Tactics or Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and doesn’t leave you constantly wondering about missing out on secrets. Highly recommended if you’re looking for an RPG-like game on the PSP.

I haven’t had the chance to play many other PSP games, but look forward to getting deeper into Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (and highly anticipating Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core in March 2008).

Anime of the Year

2007 is the year I switched my anime tastes from mostly shonen anime (like Naruto and Bleach) to the seinen genre.

My favorite anime for 2007 (this is a tough one) has to go to Lucky Star. I even went through a prolonged Konata-ism phase and even had a printout of Konata saying “Relax” pasted right above where I sit in the office.

It’s therapeutic :)

2007 was a good anime year. Tekkon Kinkreet had an edgy, surreal drawing style but had a fantastic plot. I highly recommend it if you’ve missed it – it’s about 10 times better than your run-of-the-mill Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away type anime movies, in my humble opinion.

Potemayo‘s moeblobs were just too funny to watch. Gochuko (below) had me LOL when she went around using tape to fix everything she sliced with her big scythe. At first appearances Potemayo may look like a kid’s anime but it’s really a work of comic genius for adults.

Genshiken 2 picks up where the 1st season left off and while the ending left quite a bit to be desired, on the whole it was enjoyable watching otakus cope with life (who knew it was so tough to get a job in Japan).

What about you?

What did you enjoy in the last year and more importantly, do you have any recommendations for an ani-otaku like me?

I took the opportunity to fill in the missing ActiveRecord::Base#to_json documentation with examples using Konata Izumi and it got committed unchanged in revision 7905. Cute. I hope no one changes them.

Update: Managed to get more Konata Izumi documentation into Rails ;)

More reading:

• Odex on Wikipedia – check out an example of their bad subtitling.
• Odex’s response on their website (this was also printed in the 22 August 2007 edition of the Straits Times).

Despite first reading about the numerous negative comments on blogs about the first few episodes of Lucky Star, when I watched it I actually found it pretty funny (there are some good reviews, though rare, such as this one). Four moe school girls, one of them an otaku? KyoAni‘s really pandering to the “niche” crowd here (“niche” meaning just about every single anime gamer).

It was not until later (about 3 episodes in) that I realized the main character, Konata Izumi, was voiced by Hirano Aya (who played Haruhi in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Once afflicted by Ayaism, this fact enhanced the appeal of Konata.

Although, by the time I watched episode 5, I was hooked on Konata-ism. I’ll let the screen captures speak for themselves:

So she plays an MMORPG and plays a tank? Back when I was a World of Warcraft junkie, I had a level 60 warrior (yeah, pre-Burning Crusade n00b, I am) and had too much fun with it (to use a cliche, it’s like crack).

Hahaha… Fair enough. I had a mage in World of Warcraft before switching to a warrior and sometimes I do think that way about my ex-fellow mages ;) Though I’ve had the honor of playing with some of the best mages in my old guild.

“I’ll pull one.” “lolololo.” Classic.

Konata’s teacher (who plays with her often) logs on.

Konata gets a rare drop. Woo… Good times.

“LOL gratz”, “roflcopterskates” and “bbq” – I’m not sure if the fansubbers took some liberty here with the translation of the MMORPG-speak.

Ahh, and did I mention Konata watches a lot of anime as well? Konata is the new Haruhi.

Now go watch some anime!

Screencaps taken from a.f.k.’s excellent fansubs.