Favourite Anime of 2013

It’s always a difficult task coming up with a simple list of my favourite anime that aired throughout the year, the list always seems to extend over several pages, only to be pruned and cut down to a simple selection of the series and films I truly enjoyed watching. This year I have decided not to put the anime in any specific order, or even give them a number as I feel numbering, and ordering the anime to be rather arbitrary. Apart from one specific series the anime in this list have all been equally enjoyable for a variety of different reasons. Interestingly most of the really popular series, ones that acquired lives of their own are missing from this list, largely because I found them almost universally boring, or didn’t particularly interest me in one way of another. But before the list proper a few special mentions, series that I certainly enjoyed, but have not made it onto the final list for a number of reasons.

Twelve Days of Anime 2013 – The Magnificence of Dera Mochimazzi

Tamako Market – Looking at the world through the eyes of a talking bird

Tamako Market is a fascinating series largely because of how normal it is, with the characters going about their daily lives without having to contend with demons, magic or giant mutated monsters or aliens from outer space. The very presence of Dela Mochimazzi is also rather curious because of how normal a talking bird is in the context of this series; far from being weird or out of place he has quickly become just another character in the Market. The normal world that we see in this series is however a highly romanticised one; we never see any crime, violence or social disharmony; instead everyone goes about their businesses and generally remains happy. In many respects Tamako isnt necessarily the main character of the series, rather the community of shop and business owners in Tamako Market make up the single most important character, or more accurately existence within the series. Tamako and her friends are a part of this community of traders and we are given a glimpse into their lives through her families business and everything that revolves around it.

Tamako Market 01 – Royal Birds, Mochi and Top Hats

Kyoto Animation have a wonderful habit of infusing their tales of apparently everyday life in Japan with a real sense of wonder and fantasy, with the main characters often wandering off into their own worlds or encountering strange and wonderful creatures or ideas. Tamako Market continues that tradition with the introduction of a relatively normal school girl and the mochi shop that her family runs, but instead of sticking with the ‘cute girls do cute things’ formula, we are also introduced to one of the greatest characters of the season. Dera Mochimazzi is a fascinating character, especially because he is a bird, and a talking bird at that, the humour that his presence and sharp remarks bring is wonderful to watch, especially when without his character Tamako Market would simply be a relatively everyday slice of life series. Although this doesn’t mean that slice of life anime are boring, but it is nice to see another take on it without having magical monsters and demons or aliens appearing from everywhere.

The slightly Illogical Winter 2013 Season Preview

It is that time where, with the current season beginning to wind down that we begin to look ahead to the next season, although I am looking at it significantly later than many others seem to do. As per usual this season preview wont be definitive since there are always series I’m just not even remotely interested in. It will also be based off of whatever information I can find except for the preview trailers since I have never trusted those to tell me anything useful about any anime series. Trailers simply show the bits that the studio think will sell the series rather than give any real indication as to what the series will actually be about, and as such I don’t believe in watching them. There are quite a few particularly interesting series next season, including a number of sequels and a few light novel adaptations that look to be potentially fascinating. I have to say that there seems to be a nice mix of series next season, ranging from your normal slice-of-life and slapstick series, through to the harem anime and the more serious, perhaps psychological series.