Xebek\’s Blog

Hello everyone, it’s your favorite super cute loli, Xeby-chan here. I’m here to talk to you about everything! Weeeeeee….I’m going to be talking about the year 2007 in terms of what it meant for anime, talk about the most popular, most hated, most varying opinion anime that aired. This will include shows that were playing in 2007, not just that started. As long as it ran into 2007 for more then the month of January, it’s included. Of course, I won’t mention every anime…just the ones I find need some mention, ht eons that were my favorites, others favorites, and so on.

This post is a substitute for an awards like post that Xebek did last year. I figured there are way too many shows with way too many varying opinions to really label one show as the best so instead I‘ll mention several of the better ones, as well as shows that weren’t necessarily good but where a bit unique or special.

I repeat, this isn’t a list of the best shows it’s a list of the shows that “made the most noise” in the anime community and why.

This is also a very long post, so just keep reading, not get intimidating by the amount.

I do want to mention that there will be several series left out that may deserve a mention mainly because I haven’t seen them. It may seem most of these are just what I blogged and that’s because….well, it is. What I blogged is pretty much what I watched and I can’t give too much insight or opinion into shows I haven’t watched. I will mention a couple really big ones that I didn’t blog, but there are a lot that I’m missing and I know that. Don’t yell at the loli! That’s what comments are for (Not the yelling!) for telling me what else there is :D

Okay, I kind of lied. I will officially award one show an “Award” but not for best show, for the show that made the most noise in the anime community. Some praised it, some trashed it, but in my view it is the most talked about anime of 2007 and has the most varying opinion and changed some things. The award for “Most Talked About And Influential Anime” goes to…

Lucky Star

Regardless of whether or not you liked the show there is no denying how much discussion arose from this. Just the fact that there was so much varying opinion from people was interesting enough. This show was either praised as a gift form god or called a pile of crap. For the most part I didn’t get the impression people were bashing it just for being popular, as is the case with several popular shows. People will say it’s overrated and say it sucks when that may not be the case. However people seemed to genuinely dislike this show if they said bad things about it. It is one of the most varying opinion shows I’ve ever seen.

Some of this may be contributed to the fact that it was made by a company that had recently released two anime that were beautifully visually done, one of which became one of the most popular shows ever and the other that focused on a very unique kind of drama. Both of these shows were praised by many people yet when the same company came out with this, an incredibly random and rather odd show that was nothing at all like the popular pieces recently released people were a bit stunned. That cold be contributed to this, I’m not sure but the facts are that there were many people who loved it and many who hated it.

Lucky Star was certainly an interesting show. The show seemed to really be about nothing. It wasn’t like some other comedy shows, they didn’t solely get the humor form quirky characters doing weird things but they seemed to take every day situations and just talk about them. The characters were interesting but not incredibly outrageous. Even Konota had some basis in reality. It was pretty much about ordinary people doing ordinary things but the way they commented on them was what made the humor. I’m not going to get into saying if its good or bad, as that’s to the point of this post, but it certainly did find favor in several people.

Now, for the others….first though, I do have to say that as I was writing this post and writing the entry for ef – a tale of memories I decided to add another official “award” This is completely my personal opinion and pick, but this is my site so that’s all I need. The award for “Anime Of The Year 2007” goes to…

Ef – a tale of memories

I have to list this because it is personally one of my favorite shows ever, which means it has to be mentioned for this individual year. Some people don’t like it and it’s kind of to the point where I like this show so much that I’m not even going to bother defending it, if you don’t like it that’s fine. Some complained it was too artistic with all the Shaft animation things but I think it was fine. The stories and the characters were amazing and for me personally it just has to be listed. Definitely one of my favorite all time anime, which of course means its one of my favorites for this year. Ah hell, I don’t care what others think, This is by far hands down my top favorite anime of 2007.

Now for the other’s…really…

Kanon & Clannad

I’m going to be group some shows together because the thing that’s noteworthy about them is related. Kanon and Clannad are definitely a pair of shows that fit as a pair better then any other two shows excluding sequels this season. While Kanon wasn’t completely confined to 2007, about half of it was which makes it count. Both of these shows were based off of visual novel games made by Key and then both of them were animated by the same company KyoAni. That alone points to them being nearly identical, and in a way that’s kind of the case. I’m not saying there are no differences but the way they both handle the characters, breaking the series into several arcs that deal with individual girls is the same throughout.

These shows almost again seem to be a love it or hate it kind of situation, although the sad thing is that seems to be the case with nearly every single anime. Some people hate anime just for being popular, saying that it’s not as good as the hype which automatically makes it horrible. Regardless, I loved both series. I think the kind of drama mixed in with every day situations and a supernatural them is very interesting to watch. They don’t have big magic fights and some of the magic isn’t as apparent, but its there. It’s as if they use the magic as a means to just progress a character, not as a focus itself which is interesting to watch. Both shows have a great amount of drama in them which I do find interesting. If you don’t’ that’s fine, I don’t want this post to turn into something that defends or attacks shows, but these two shows were made by the same company that really released some very high end and popular shows, these being among them.

Shakugan no Shana II & Zero no Tsukaima II

I have to mention these two together not only because of similarities in the actual show but just because they were both sequels. There were quite a few sequels that came out this year, these two being among the most talked about just because the original series was rather well known. Whether you like it or not they were both sequels to well known series and it was interesting to see how things changed with a second season being able to pick up right in the middle of things. It seemed as if both shows made use of this as they both seemed to kind of explode with romantic development because they didn’t need to spend a lot of time introducing things like the first seasons did.

Nanoha StrikerS

This show was certainly interesting in just the basic premise of what was going on. I’ll admit that this show didn’t really turn out the best. Even though I am a HUGE Nanoha fan, a fan of the first two seasons, I can see that this didn’t turn out the best and I don’t entirely blame people for dropping it. However despite it not turning out the best just the fact that the show would do something such as take this huge of a time gap was interesting. If you include all Nanoha series into one and refer to it as one series they spent half of the series with the characters at age 7ish (I’m not sure actual age and I think it’s listed as different in several places) and the other half of the series with them around 22. These ages may be a bit off but it seems as if there’s a good 15 year gap. StrikerS doesn’t deal with them as teenagers, Fate, Nanoha, and Hayate are full grown adults. For the show to take characters that were little girls and then make them into adults while saying it’s a sequel and not a spin-off was just interesting. The mood of the show changed a bit and the way the story was handled was different but just seeing them grown up was…odd and kind of fun to see. It was more then an epilogue it was a full length series with them as adults, and you don’t see that much…at all.

Shuffle Memories

I have to mention this around mentioning other sequels and pseudo sequels. This series was just…odd. It…it was the same thing that had been released before really. 11 of the 12 episodes were entirely made up of clips from the first series without any real new information. It was such an odd thing to do. Memories really isn’t a substitute for the actual show. Watching Memories instead of the original doesn’t do the show justice at all so to really get any kind of understanding from Memories is to watch the original and in doing so you’ve seen what memories offers. I’m just not sure what to say about this, it was like a recap of an entire series. For double the episodes you can just watch the real series and get a lot more understanding and enjoyment out of the arcs. Whether or not the original is good, it’s certainly better to watch the whole series then Memories so I’m not rally sure what this was trying to accomplish.

Sola

This was another show that I really loved in the 2007 year. It kind of came out of nowhere but I really loved it. It wasn’t really a “popular’ show and it didn’t get a lot of hype, but I still loved it. It turned from something that seemed like it was going to be a normal romance show into something that was heavily based on supernatural things. It turned form something that seemed like it would be rather happy and fun to some very serious drama. It’s a bit hard to explain but I loved it.

Kodomo no Jikan

I’m listing this not because of how good or bad it was but just because it was a bit of a controversial anime. The manga it’s based off of is rather controversial because of the huge loli fanservice it has. The anime had a lot of that, and it dealt with the same events such as Rin doing things that aren’t exactly the best for those concerned about the content. However the anime had a ridiculous censoring on it. It didn’t make sense at all half the time as they would censor some things and not others that you would think need to be. In other words they didn’t censor all the fanservice shots, just some of them. The show got to the point where I refused to watch it until the DVD releases so I could see it without censoring, not because I want to see those loli images but because the censoring just took away from the flow of things. Either way you view it the content it had and the censoring defiantly made it a rather interesting point of talk.

School Days

I feel I have to mention this show even though I’m not listing it at all because I like it. In fact it is probably my least favorite show of 2007. It started off with a lot of potential but then just went to hell. The characters became total bastards. They went from interesting to one of the most hated characters I’ve ever seen. The ending was just f’ed up. It wasn’t bad because it didn’t fit, but things just got so messed up in the series that it became a horrible show to me. Some may disagree but I absolutely hated the show at the end because I hated the characters and didn’t feel anything for their situation. I’m listing it because the show just became something I’m almost wishing I’d never seen.

The rest I’ll only say a little bit about.

Hayate no Gotoku

This show has been going on since the spring season of 2007 and is still going on. The show itself may have fallen into a bit of a rut as the episodes are becoming a bit repetitive because of how long it has gone on but it’s still a great show with a lot of really cleaver humor and plenty of parodies. Plus, tsundere lolis – that’s all a show really needs.

Minami-ke

I hadn’t heard anything about this show before it came out but it quickly became one of my favorite shows. It has tons of great humor and I’ve hardly seen anyone say a bad thing about the show. It’s a very funny show with great characters.

Manabi Straight

This aired at the beginning of 2007 but it was a very fun show to watch. It really didn’t turn into anything that became super outstanding and it’s almost been forgotten to a point because of some of the other pure comedy shows that came out but it was a very fun show to watch. Even though it didn’t have the best of comedy it was just fun to watch and the characters were great.

Idolmaster Xenoglossia

I don’t watch much mecha shows but I watched this one and I ended up loving it. It just seemed to have something about it that was different form many other mecha shows that I’m not huge fans of. This show had the right amount of interesting characters and an interesting enough rules for mecha and their “souls” that made things interesting and not stupid like other mecha shows.

Myself; Yourself

This really turned out to be an amazing show. It seemed from the beginning that it would be a typical harem romance comedy but really turned into something far more, focusing on some rather serious and dark issues and drama. It aired at the same time as my Anime of the year, but if it didn’t it would have won a lot more episode of the week awards.

D. Gray-Man

This show really was completely a 2007 show. It aired right before 2007 and is still ongoing, so it’s aired continuously throughout 2007. It’s not really amazing of a show, it’s pretty much a typical shounen show but it’s defiantly my favorite shounen show. Then again, this is one of the only ones I’ve seen. The show started getting boring with a lot of fillers but when the “second season” came about after episode 52 it picked up and has been great ever since.

Here now are some of the more noteworthy shows that I haven’t actually personally watched. Some I am very familiar with while others I don’t even know what it’s about.

Code Geass

Unfortunately I haven’t actually watched this show yet. I have it downloaded and on my “To Watch Soon” list but I don’t have any first hand opinions on the show. However I have heard enough about it to know that it is one of the more popular shows of 2007. Again like some shows this wasn’t limited entirely to 2007, as it started in 2006 but enough of it was in 2007 that I’m including it. Although I didn’t watch it myself I certainly remember all the talk about this show while it was coming out. It was talked about…a lot, and just the fact that I’m including it without having seen it shows that it is one of the more noteworthy shows of 2007.

Death Note

This certainly was an extremely popular and much talked about show. I haven’t watched the whole thing, I saw the first couple of episodes but I do know how it turns out which is partially why I didn’t follow through with it. It was very popular probably because the basic premise of the show is rather unique to it. That and the fact that the main character is kind of evil was just fun to watch.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai

The first season of Higurashi was certainly unique enough. Psycho murderous lolis is a character type you don’t see much. Well, there was Illya from FSN. Anyways, I haven’t seen either season but again I have it downloaded and on my “To Watch” list. It doesn’t seem like this second season was any less violent, in fact this and School Days were actually suspended for a while because of real life murders that may have been edged on by either show.

Moe-tan

I only watched the first couple episodes of this show, partially because the subs didn’t keep up, but it was certainly an odd show. Based off of something that taught Japanese/English it was a weird mahout shoujo show about a high school girl who looked loli and wore very fanservicy outfits, way more then other mahou shows. It was just such a unique and odd show that I had to mention it.

And here are the rest of the shows that I have heard from several people as being some of the better or more interesting shows but I have no information on them really, however I’m just listing them to make fans of them happy. If anyone wants to say in the comments why any of these shows were good go ahead.

Claymore

Seto no Hanayome

Dennou Coil

Nodame Cantible

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Gurren Lagann

Well that’s about all. I know I’ve forgotten several series that may deserve to be on this list and have something mentioned about them but my take on these shows is limited because of the fact I haven’t seen them. That’s where you reader’s come in! Help a cute loli out and tell me what you think, your takes on some of the more popular, good, bad, and unique shows of 2007 – especially the shows that I’ve neglected to mention due to not watching them. I may even decide to watch them if you’re nice enough. If you do, I’ll give you a super special awesome loli cookie.

So from us at Xeby-chan’s blog, Happy New Year’s, may the loli gods watch over you. Xebek, say something.

No, and it’s not your blog damnit.

Xebek say’s Happy New Year’s as well.

No I don’t!

Bye-Bee

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