Summer 2011 Season in Review – Blown Away

American TV has slowly started experimenting beyond the standard “debut every series in September and see what sticks” model, but it’s still the case that fall is the season where the big ticket items are debuted. Similiarly, the big anime seasons tend to be spring and fall, with the winter and particularly the summer season left to left to flounder with continuing shows and one or two decent new offerings.

That was certainly the case last summer, as noted by our very tepid awards post for summer 2010. It was not the case in winter 2011, with some remarkably solid offerings including Madoka, which is still the most likely candidate for show of the year. It’s also not the case here, with some strong continuing series being equaled or bested by shows that debuted this season. Neither of us were prepared for how remarkably strong, on balance, this season’s offerings were.

It’s unfortunate that the strength of the best series of this season eclipsed some other gems. When the most competitive category is “Best Show We Didn’t Cover,” that’s a good sign that summer 2011 was a great three months for anime. And that remains true even though the second most competitive category was “Most Offensive Series.”

As bear didn’t have a chance to watch most of the summer shows, this post is written entirely by 3HM.

Spring 2011 Season in Review – Army of One

The main advantage to taking over an anime blog for a season is that there’s no one to contest your choices for best shows of the year. (Save you, gentle readers, which is what the comment box is for.) The Spring season started off with a greater number of watchable shows than there were are the start of the year, although few aspired to the same level of greatness of a Madoka. Combine that with the fact that some of season’s best shows are continuing into the summer (and are thus ineligible) and the field dwindles down to a handful.

Having to cover a season by myself has the downside of there being more than a few shows I just didn’t get around to watching at all. I don’t think I missed any of the season’s great shows, but feel free to chime in if you know of one or two that slipped by me.

Winter 2011 Season in Review – It’s Technically Not Summer Yet

These awards posts seem to be getting later and later. We figured we should post this before the current season ended.

Anyway, the winter 2011 season was an embarrassment of riches, with what will probably end up being the two best shows of the entire year, and a dear old friend returning for another go. The rest of the pack paled in comparison to these, which is probably why there’s not a lot of diversity on this list.

The Best of 2010 – antiotakucast Episode 1

About a month ago, 3HM and I met in person for the first time in years. As usually happens, we started talking about anime. This time, though, I had a microphone with me, so we decided to record a podcast talking about the year’s best anime. You can listen to it here.

I’ll apologize in advance for the recording quality. We didn’t have a microphone stand, so we just laid the thing on a table, so it picked up a bunch of ambient noise. But, I hope you’ll enjoy listening to us talk for an hour and a half. If people like this, we might do more (shorter) episodes, talking about things we don’t get a chance to talk about in the review format.

Those of you who don’t want to listen can find our picks after the jump.

Fall 2010 Season in Review – Fashionably Late

I was a little late in finishing up my reviews for this past season, so forgive the lateness of the awards post. This was a much stronger season than the last, with some strong shows in every category. We still couldn’t agree on a clear winner for best show, mostly because I have yet to finish Shiki and Katanagatari’s ending was such a letdown. So, without further ado, here are our picks for the season.

Summer 2010 Season in Review – Dealing with the Dregs

For those of you who didn’t come to this as your first post, you probably know that neither of us (particularly bear) were all that pleased with the crop of shows that ran over the last season. That’s not to say that there weren’t good ones airing here and there, but the best (Katanagatari and Shiki, to name just two) are still airing, and thus aren’t up for this run of awards. Which leaves us with … not all that much.

In some ways it’s not quite fair to make these sorts of comparisons, as last season saw the end of some of the best shows, not of the year, but of the decade. Even on its own terms, however, this season failed to offer a particularly strong field. The shows covered here may be good. But none of them are great. Keep that in mind.

Spring 2010 Season in Review – Hell is other Exclamation Marks

With Angel Beats!, Working!!, Durarara!!, Mayoi Neko Overrun!, and the still running K-On!! and School President is a Maid!, it might be simpler to name the shows during this season that didn’t have exclamation points somewhere. Their inclusion, sadly, was not a reliable marker of either quality or worth, either good or bad.

With the close of our first season here at antiotaku, we thought we should review the season and provide a more reliable marker for what went right and wrong during the season. It also gives us a chance to talk about what we think is important in a good show—not like you haven’t picked up on that already.

For the purposes of this review, only shows which finished their run during the Spring 2010 season are under consideration. Thus, Durarara!! is eligible (even though it started in January) and School President is not (since it is still running).