It is another solo year for me with as the only participant from the blog in the Secret Santa pool. I have to say when people are just picking for me the choices are far better. When it is both of us we get Gunslinger Girl, Texhnolyze, and Dead Leaves. (The scars from Texhnolyze will never heal. I’m fairly certain we both still wake up in the middle of the night crying because of that show.) When it is just me I get to leisurely pick from several shows that actually seem fun. I will admit while I love reviewing shows with Kate I think I was a little relieved that she bowed out again. Otherwise we might have ended up watching something like Yosuga no Sora or Kaiba. Also it lets me speculate who my Secret Santa is as much as anyone else who participates in the project.

I actually got four choices this year. The first three were Barakamon, Nagi no Asukara, and New Getter Robo. They also gave me the super challenge of the Touch but did mention that it broke the rules of the Secret Santa Project but figured they would throw it out there anyway. I actually picked my show fairly quickly this year.

I had actually watched Barakamon. The problem is I liked the show so much I marathoned it in two days and then forgot to note that on My Anime List. It was utterly my fault for leaving it off the list. But it was clearly a good choice considering my reaction to the show.

I watched the first episode of Nagi no Asukara but had mixed feeling on it as P.A. Works has a very distinct formula it uses on some (but not all) of its anime that can be very hit or miss. It was something I considered but figured it could be my backup show if I needed one.

I passed on Touch for two reasons. The first is that I actually read all of the Touch manga. There was no reason for the person picking shows to look into that but it does mean I actually know the story already. The second is that while I might not be the busiest human being on Earth even I would have a hard time watching 101 episodes in the time allotted. (Also Fate/Hollow Ataraxia does not play itself.) I was slightly curious how the anime differs from the manga but not enough to plunge into a crazy marathon.

I picked New Getter Robo for several reasons. The first is the reason I picked Aquarion Evol last year. We have not had that many mecha reviews on the site so I wanted to correct that to some degree with this pick. The second was the show had a fairly strong reputation so it seemed like something worth talking about just to see how my opinion stacks up with the prevailing attitudes. And the third was just to beef up my knowledge of Go Nagai. For a legendary manga creator I have not experienced a good deal of his signature creations so this seemed like a great chance to expand my anime database.

I’m going to try my best to watch all four shows before the end of the project. I’m a little too lazy to write that up so I will probably do that as a mini podcast. I will definitely review all the shows I watched by the 25th on a podcast. The question is how many of the four will I get to. If I add Touch to the list I will probably just watch the three compliation movies. It is not the full 101 episode experience but it is something I can do in the time I have.

But enough discussion of decision-making processes and internal politics. Lets talk about robots!

Continue reading →