Without a doubt this year’s Secret Santa built on the success we had last year and was even more stressful than we could have possibly imagined. We tripled the number of participants and thankfully we did not have to pick shows for anyone like we did last year. The big winners this year were Dennou Coil and Baccano! that were not only picked more than any other series but both of them got universally positive reviews. We also got a decent amount of reviews of Satoshi Kon movies which is a great acknowledgment of his contributions even though he is sadly no longer with us. Other than that the rest of the mix is very eclectic with everything from mecha and harem to slice-of-life and romance; it is a tribute to the diversity of the medium and the people in the blogosphere.
The Secret Santa Stats:
- 60 Participants
- 65 Reviews in total
- 5 Reviews still have not come in
- 56 Different shows reviewed
Dennou Coil – 4 reviews
Baccano! – 3 reviews
Ah! My Goddess TV – 2 reviews
Kino’s Journey – 2 reviews
Kurenai – 2 reviews
Tokyo Godfathers – 2 reviews
.hack//Sign, 5 Centimetres Per Second, Aoi Bungaku, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Asatte no Houkou, Bakemonogatari, Bamboo Blade, Bartender, Birdy the Mighty: Decode, Black Lagoon, Bokurano: Ours, Bungaku Shoujo, Cowboy Bebop, Cromartie High School, Dead Leaves, Fate/Stay Night, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight, Haibane Renmei, Hatenkou Yugi, I My Me! Strawberry Eggs, Inukami!, Invincible Super Man Zambot 3, Kaiba, Last Exile, Le Chevalier d’Eon, Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Now and Then, Here and There, Pale Cocoon, Pani Poni Dash!, Paprika, Patlabor: The Movie, Perfect Blue, REC, Roujin Z, SaiKano, Saki, Seirei no Moribito, Seraphim Call, Seto no Hanayome, Shigofumi: Letters from the Departed, Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Simoun, Sketchbook: ~Full Color’s~, Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, The Sea Prince and the Fire Child, Tokyo Marble Chocolate, Welcome to the NHK
As a bonus we also gathered together all entries we had for the 2010 Holiday Giveaway. To win our collection of fabulous prizes we asked readers to tell us what anime or manga license they are hoping to see in 2011. Hisui made an easy to read master list to see what titles were most popular and to look at any major trends in our little sampling of the desires of fandom. Notice that NisiOisiN was a bigger winner with overwhelming support for Bakemonogatari and Katanagatari. But the Noitamina block was the biggest winner of them all. While most unlicensed Noitamina shows only got one or two votes almost all the U.S. friendly titles were voted for by someone.
Holiday Giveaway Stats:
Bakemonogatari 4 votes
Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto 3 votes
Time of Eve 3 votes
Dennou Coil 2 votes
Detroit Metal City 2 votes
Flying Trapeze 2 votes
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai 2 votes
Katanagatari 2 votes
Mononoke 2 votes
Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture 2 votes
Natume Yuujinchou 2 votes
Nodame Cantabile 2 votes
Angel Beats!, Cross Game, Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, Kaguyahime, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Kaze to Ki no Uta, Kodomo no Jikan, Letter Bee, Mind Game, My Girl, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Princess Knight, Sailor Fuku ni Onegai!, Saint Young Men, Sket Dance, Souten Kouro, The Story of Saiunkoku S2, Umineko no Naku Koro ni
I’m really surprised by the turn out and overall positive reception for the Secret Santa Project. Most everyone picked innovative shows for the people they got. I was impressed by the shows most people selected for the project. They were almost all shows I enjoyed. I hope that people enjoyed the shows they watched and maybe will try something new again after their eyes have been opened by this project. I was only expecting to see half the reviews to be completed by the 25th but I have received all but 5 by the time this was initially posted. That fills my heart with goodness and hope. Also I’d love for someone to figure out a way to do this type of project with manga. I think it would go over well. If they do you know you can count Narutaki and I in as participants. And finally, if nothing else the project got me interested in Vertical’s release of 
I was more than happy by the response we had for this fun little project. We could also do this project evil style in which everyone tries to pick a show the other person would completely hate just to fulfill any latent (or active) sadistic desires of people. But that is for another time. As for this project, I had a good time with it, even if we were less than thrilled with our show. It really seemed to get people chatting and I even had a few people lamenting that they didn’t find out about it in time. Don’t worry folks, this will certainly be brought back for 2010! Good thinkin’ Hisui!
