Let us all gather around the tree and see what gifts Santa has left us. For all those who do not know we sent out the word last month that we were doing a fun little cross blog collaboration called the Secret Santa Project. Everyone in the project would secretly pick three titles for someone else in the project that they hoped the other person would enjoy. Everyone would pick from the three shows they received and review one of them during the week of Christmas. On Christmas Eve we posted all the reviews so now everyone can see who their Secret Santa was. Hopefully everyone picked shows they liked and maybe a few people discovered a show they would have normally overlooked. You may notice that a few people got recommendations from us. Life hit some of the participants hard as it is want to do so they did not get their picks in on time. We gave them picks so everyone had enough time to get up their reviews. Just click the name of the show to see what each of our fine bloggers thought of the show they got. We will continue to update this list if people finish their reviews a little late so check back often.
- Ani-Gamers reviewed Kannagi recommended by Thinking Thoughts
- The Anime Chop Shop reviewed Haibane Renmei recommended by Stig of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews
- The Anime Life reviewed Dennou Coil recommended by Otaku no Podcast
- Anime Loveu reviewed Hidamari Sketch recommended by Ogiue Maniax
- Anime wa Bakuhatsu da! reviewed Soul Taker recommended by Patz of Insert-Disc
- Colony Drop reviewed Only Yesterday recommended by Anime Loveu
- Drastic My Anime Blog reviewed Princess Tutu recommended by Powered by Sugar
- Insert-Disc Patz reviewed Irresponsible Captain Tylor recommended by Reverse Thieves and lwelyk reviewed The Big O recommended by Colony Drop
- Insane Journal reviewed Bartender recommended by One Piece at a Time
- Memories of Eternity reviewed Kamichu! recommended by Reverse Thieves
- Nigorimasen! reviewed Texhnolyze recommended by Memories of Eternity
- Ogiue Maniax reviewed Lovely Complex recommended by Nigorimasen!
- One Piece at a Time reviewed Hatenkou Yuugi recommended by Drastic My Anime Blog
- Orz reviewed Martian Successor Nadesico recommended by Insane Journal
- Otaku no Podcast reviewed Twin Spica recommended by Anime wa Bakuhatsu da!
- Powered by Sugar reviewed Le Chevalier d’Eon recommended by Ani-Gamers
- Reverse Thieves reviewed Texhnolyze recommended by lwelyk of Insert-Disc
- Shameful Otaku Secret reviewed Iriya No Sora recommended by Orz
- T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews’ Brad reviewed Daughter of Twenty Faces recommended by Reverse Thieves and Stig reviewed Natsume Yuujinchou recommended by Reverse Thieves
- Thinking Thoughts reviewed Asatte no Houkou recommended by Brad of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews
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 Twin Spica and made we want to go back and finish Bartender.
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!
Reverse Thieves 
“…everyone tries to pick a show the other person would completely hate just to fulfill any latent (or active) sadistic desires of people.”
Hm, I feel like that’s the way this project turned out for me anyway… Ah well, at least it was fun to review Kannagi.
I had a great time with my show, and though it was a swing and a miss with the shows I assigned, I’d look forward to doing this next year too.
Though maybe next time I’ll be braver with the show I decide to watch, and less brave with the shows I pick.
I’m still going through Princess Tutu, but I liked seeing the responses of other people on some of the shows chosen for them. It’s interesting to see how people decided to watch the show, especially when comparing what they usually watch or dislike to the shows that they picked for Secret Santa.
I had an absolute blast with this project and eagerly look forward to the return of Anime Secret Santa in 2010, as well as any similar projects that you might concoct between now and then. It was fun going through the list of anime I’ve seen and trying to pick something that I think the other person might like, and it led me to reminisce about some of my favorite shows I hadn’t watched in a while… and of course that made me go grab the DVDs and dust them off. :-)
BTW my review is up (I was one of those few people that got hit with some rather bad news this month). The direct link to it is:
http://otakunopodcast.com/2009/12/27/secret-santa-project-review-twin-spica/
I’ve already emailed Reverse Thieves and hopefully they’ll update this post with a link to that soon.
Why am I not surprised that neither patz nor lwelyk has finished theirs?