Category: Polls

Anyone else?

Here are the nominees thus far for best villain in anime.

Johan (Monster)
Cell (Dragonball Z)
Friagne (Shakugan no Shana)
Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)
Light Yagami (Death Note)
Leader Desslok (Space Battleship Yamato)
Lord Genome, the Spiral King (Gurren Lagann)
Gendo Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Ladd Russo (Baccano)
King Hamdo (Now and Then, Here and There)
Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
Piccoro Daimaou (Dragon Ball)
Joker (ROD TV)
Charles Solomon ((Not eligible for technical reasons.))
Yomi Isayama (Ga-Rei Zero)
Vegeta (Dragonball Z)
Freeza (Dragonball Z)
Lust (Full Metal Alchemist)
Lord Shishio (Rurouni Kenshin)
Char Asnable (Gundam)

Considering the number of bad guys throughout anime, this is a surprisingly short list. Who else should be on it?

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John C. Wright declared that April 22, widely observed as Lenin’s birthday “Earth Day,” was actually Pluto Day. Is Pluto really a planet? Of course it is; else why would it have its own Sailor Senshi?

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I recently found “Dennou Coil licensed” and “Dennou Coil Media Blasters” among recent search terms. Has the best show of recent years finally been licensed, or do the searches indicate wishful thinking? The latter, apparently. However, I do note that The Tatami Galaxy (Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei) has been licensed for streaming by Funimation, and if it is now possible to watch Masaaki Yuasa legally online, then there is still some hope that we may yet see Mitsuo Iso on DVD.

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Leiji Matsumoto made a video for “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

(Via Ogiue Matrix.)

It doesn’t work particularly well — the images have nothing to do with the lyrics — but it’s worth watching once for the curiosity value. If you want to see a better example of combining music with the Leijiverse, I recommend Interstella 5555. The best video of “Bohemian Rhapsody” remains the Muppets’.

Call for nominations

Shinji, as I expected, has a substantial lead in the “most annoying character” poll. ChibiUsa and Happosai are battling for second place, and C-ko and Kimura have also made strong showings. I doubt that the standings will change significantly with additional votes, so let’s start a new poll.

Who’s the best villain in anime? Please post your nominations in the comments. You can nominate more than one character, but please don’t get carried away. (Also, please avoid spoilers. If an apparently benign character is revealed to be a malefactor only in the last few episodes of a series, don’t mention him. There are plenty of other evildoers to choose from.)

You might find it useful to review Steven’s criteria for a good villain:

1. Hubris: He thinks he’s strong and dangerous because he is strong and dangerous. But he isn’t quite as strong as he thinks he is, which is why…
2. Nemesis: he eventually gets what’s coming to him. Maybe it’s incremental punishment, or maybe it’s a grand reckoning, but in the end he suffers and probably dies. And before it happens, he knows what will happen to him and why. When it happens, in the eyes of the audience there should be a feeling of justice being done, and feeling of triumph.
3. Comprehensibility: We understand his motivation, even though we may not agree with it. What he does makes sense.
4. Menace: Serious villains should genuinely scare us.
5. Attraction: But villains should also be a bit seductive. There should be just a little bit of a temptation to root for the bad guy over the good guys. We should admire the bad guy, just a little, maybe. And feel just a bit sorry for him in the end.

The best soundtrack, and a new poll

I doubt that anyone will be surprised by the first-place winner in the best anime soundtrack poll. Cowboy Bebop received more votes than the second- and third-place winners combined. I had expected that Noir would take second, but it was eventually overtaken by FLCL and Death Note. Here’s the top ten:

1. Cowboy Bebop (18.0%)
2. FLCL (8.0%)
3. Death Note (7.0%)
4. Noir (7.0%)
5. .hack//SIGN (6.0%)
5. Vision of Escaflowne (6.0%)
7. Lucky Star (5.0%)
8. Haibane Renmei (5.0%)
8. Macross Frontier (5.0%)
10. Mushishi (5.0%)

The other nominees were Ghost in the Shell SAC (4.0%); Princess Mononoke (4.0%); Azumanga Daioh (4.0%); Aria (3.0%); Code Geass/R2 (3.0%); Neon Genesis Evangelion (2.0%); Simoun (2.0%); ef: a tale of memories (2.0%); The Twelve Kingdoms (2.0%); Mai-HiME (1.0%); and, Last Exile (0.0%)

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So, who’s the worst character in anime? I changed the question to “most annoying” in the poll widget to make it clear that I’m looking for the most poorly conceived, pointlessly irritating or useless character, not the most evil. I added a couple more candidates whom I think should have been nominated, and I changed the representative of Sailor Moon to ChibiUsa, whom I had forgotten about.

Here’s a list

These are the nominees for the most poorly-conceived, unnecessary, pointlessly irritating and absolute worst character in anime. (I’m letting Sailor Mars and Kazuhara represent the entire casts of Sailor Moon and Girls Bravo.)

Jinnai Katsuhiko (El Hazard, The Wanderers)
Gauron (Full Metal Panic)
Happosai (Ranma 1/2)
Basera Nekki (Macross 7)
NB (Tenchi Muyo GXP)
Dr. Kyogi Ogami (Amazing Nurse Nanako)
Rei Hino/Sailor Mars (Sailor Moon)
Kazuhara (Girls Bravo)
Shinji Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Nanami (Revolutionary Girl Utena)
Pain (Naruto)
Tomo Takino (Azumanga Daioh)
Kimura (Azumanga Daioh)

Are there any other anime characters who make you cringe whenever they appear? Nominate them in the comments. I’ll post the poll sometime this weekend.

Call for nominations

It’s about time for a new poll. So … who is the worst character in anime? I don’t mean who is the most evil — a good villain can be a pleasure to watch and is essential for some kinds of stories ((The loathsome Dolores Umbridge is perhaps the most memorable character in the entire Harry Potter franchise.)) — but, rather, who is the most poorly-conceived, unnecessary or pointlessly irritating? Who provides unfunny comic relief, pathological angst or repulsive fanservice? Who spoils every scene he’s in? List your nominations in the comments. You can nominate more than one, but please don’t get carried away.

Some possibilities:

Rei Hino/Sailor Mars (Sailor Moon) — She may be the best-looking of the Sailor Senshi and a magical miko, but she is also quarrelsome and obnoxious.

Tomo Takino (Azumanga Daioh) — AD should have been a great show. Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems. One is the insufferable Tomo.

NB (Tenchi Muyo GXP) — Never was comic relief so tedious. Or so unnecessary. Without Nabeshin’s self-insertion, TMGXP would be a solid four stars out of five; with him, the most I can give is three.

Barashishou (Rozen Maiden Traümend) — It’s obvious early on that she’s not a proper Rozen Maiden: ((Yeah, that’s a spoiler, but I don’t care. The show is a waste of time.)) there is no personality behind the smirk.

“Ms.” Aki (Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi) — I really, really don’t want to see middle-aged transvestites. Uninteresting footnote: Aki is voiced by the same voice actor as

Kimura (Azumanga Daioh) — I’ll just quote Steven from his legendary lost review of AD: “Someone please shoot him.”

Best soundtrack poll, round two

The problem with the poll widget had to do with the update to the plugin, not WordPress 2.8. I was able to get the poll working again by dumping the new version of the plugin and reinstalling the previous one.

This is the second, and last, preliminary round. The top ten from this poll will advance to the final round. You can vote for up to three candidates.

Grrr

It looks like upgrading to WordPress 2.8 broke the poll widget. Nevertheless, I think there were enough votes to pick the first round winners:

Cowboy Bebop (42%)
FLCL (23%)
Haibane Renmei (23%)
.hack//SIGN (17%)
Aria (15%)
Last Exile (13%)
ef: a tale of memories (11%)
Death Note (11%)
Azumanga Daioh (11%)
Code Geass/R2 (11%)

These ten will advance to the final round of the best anime OST poll. I’ll post the second round once I figure out how to get the poll working again.

Anime knitting

Here are some curious items from the most recent batch of search terms:

heresy is not kawaii
gurren lagann knitting
cowboy bebop knitting
knitting anime themes
ponyo on a stick
sailor moon cardboard cutout
a religion based off of sailor moon
canzoni kawaii
languid gay charles solomon
gender critics are idiots
anime girl wolf boy frog
haruhi peanuts
kawaii the murderer pics
safe for work babes
oink supervisor

There were a few that make me glad that I am unlikely ever to meet the searchers:

anime manly girls
armpit hair pictures
kawaii tentacle monster

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Anime cosplayers are normal, sane people — at least compared to these.

Via Steven, who recently discovered Pokémon. (Update: note the third-place item in this list.)

Ubu, meanwhile, has discovered RahXephon. In a comment at Ubu’s place, Avatar confirms what I had suspected:

RahXephon was a show where we constructed a couple of really elaborate theories that explained everything, wrote off to Japan with a “so which one is it, we need to know for the translation”, and got back “huh? We did all those things because they looked cool.”

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I recently watched the first two episodes of El Hazard: The Magnificent World. Good grief. Here’s our hero:

I really wonder sometimes: do Japanese boys want to be girls? If you think I’m exaggering, count the thumbnails on this graphic:

The first El Hazard OVA was written by Ryoe Tsukimura. He also wrote the scripts for the first Tenchi Muyo! movie and the many UFO Princess Valkyries. They have their moments, but they’re all essentially anime junk food. Most of the rest of Tsukimura’s output looks similarly undistinguished. However, he does have one classic to his credit, Noir, which was his idea and his script. In this, he reminds me of Kou Ohtani, a competent, unmemorable soundtrack composer who on one occasion exhibited afflatus.

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Since I closed nominations for the current poll, commenters have mentioned Ghost in the Shell, Tenchi Muyo GXP, Kimagure Orange Road, Spice and Wolf and Wolf’s Rain. The first has been mentioned twice (the second time in an email), so I’ll probably add it to the second round candidates. Would anyone care to second any of the other series?

The winner

After four rounds and over a thousand votes, we have a babe:

I’ll post the complete results sometime this weekend.

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There were 62 nominations altogether for the best anime soundtrack. I’m going to run two preliminary rounds of 31 each, in which you can vote for up to three candidates. The top ten in each round will go on to the finals.

Ideally, I should post excerpts from all the nominated soundtracks, but I’m lazy. If you want to campaign for your favorite, feel free to post a link to an illustrative video or .mp3 in the comments. (There are a number of such links in the comments here.)

Here’s a list

Soundtracks nominated so far for the next poll:

Aria the Animation/Natural/Origination
Azumanga Daioh
Bartender
Bleach
Bubblegum Crisis OVA
Bubblegum Crisis 2040
Code Geass/R2
Cowboy Bebop
Death Note
ef: a tale of memories
Elfen Lied
Eureka 7
FLCL
Full Metal Alchemist
Haibane Renmei
Kaiji
Kamichu!
Macross Frontier
Madlax
Manabi Straight
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Noir
Oh! Edo Rocket
Princess Tutu
Record of Lodoss War
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Shigofumi
Shigurui
Simoun
Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann
True Tears
Vision of Escaflowne
Welcome the the NHK

A few others were mentioned, but I’m not sure that they were meant as nominations:

.hack// et cetera
Vampire Princess Miyu OVA
Vampire Princess Miyu TV
Witch Hunter Robin

Some other soundtracks worth considering:

Ah! My Goddess: The Movie
Angelic Layer
Binchou-tan
Denno Coil
Interstella 5555
Kaiba
Macross Plus
Metropolis
Mushishi
Paprika
Saiunkoku Monogatari
Shingu
Someday’s Dreamers
Sugar, a Tiny Snow Fairy

What else? I’m sure I’m forgetting something obvious.

Also, would someone care to nominate a specific Miyazaki movie OST?

Call for nominations II

The next poll will probably be anime soundtracks: which is the best? There are the obvious candidates: Noir, Haibane Renmei, nearly everything by Yoko Kanno; and some less-obvious ones: Denno Coil, Oh! Edo Rocket, Mushishi. What other examples are worth considering? Please leave your nominations in the comments. Links to illustrative mp3s or videos will be helpful.

Note that this is about specific soundtracks and not who the best composer is. That is a topic for a future poll.

I’m going to let the anime babes poll run for another week or two. I’d like to see at least 200 votes before I close it and compile the top ten. Please vote if you haven’t already.

Update: I just checked that other dealer. Although the soundtracks to Haibane Renmei and Noir are gone, there are still many noteworthy OSTs available for $4, including Arjuna (the series itself looks like toxic waste, but Kanno’s score isn’t bad), Azumanga Daioh, Someday’s Dreamers and Utena (four eccentric CDs’ worth of the last — if nobody else nominates Utena, I will).

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Poor neglected Eineus. She hasn’t yet received a single vote in the final round of “who’s the babe?” I’m trying to resist the temptation to campaign for or against particular candidates, but I will note that I think she has a better claim to be a proper babe than at least one who is headed for a top-ten finish.

Query

The adult Mikuru Asahina is leading the current poll. You all do realize that in voting for her, you’re voting for a character who appears only in one four-minute scene during the entire 14-episode run of Suzumiya Haruhi, in which all she does is talk to Kyon and display a little cleavage? Is that really sufficient qualification to be one of the outstanding babes in anime?