Tag: Polls

Here’s a list

Here are the nominees so far for the scariest girl in anime:

Aizawa (Great Teacher Onizuka)
Asakura (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Chloe (Noir)
Diva (Blood Plus)
Dokuro (Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan)
Enma Ai (Hell Girl)
Kaede (Shuffle)
Kansaki (Great Teacher Onizuka)
Kirika (Noir)
Lain (Serial Experiments Lain)
Lucy/Nyu (Elfen Lied)
Marie (Umineko)
Miyu (Vampire Princess Miyu)
Nanami (Katanagatari)
Punie (Magical Witch Punie-chan)
Rena (Higurashi)
Rico (Gunslinger Girls)
Road Kamelot (D. Grey Man)
Satomi (Shadow Star Narutaru)
Shion (Higurashi)
Yomi (Ga-Rei Zero)

Who else? Also, would someone care to nominate a specific Claymore?

Post script: It would be helpful if you name specific characters. I haven’t yet seen Black Lagoon, and I will probably never watch School Days, so I don’t know which characters are which in those. Thank you.

Call for nominations

Who is the scariest girl in anime? When Nanami smiled in Katanagatari, it occurred to me that the question might be worth a poll. So, which young women give you nightmares? Besides Nanami, some candidates might be Kirika and Chloe from Noir, Punie from Magical Witch Punie-chan, Yomi from Ga-Rei Zero, perhaps Lain Iwakura and Sailor Saturn. Who else? List your nominations in the comments.

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By the way, does anyone know how to get in touch with Lain and Kirika? My site was inaccessible from mid-afternoon until just now (10:30 p.m.), and I’m a wee bit irritated. According to the hosting service:

The datacenter in which [xxx].com resides, has blocked the primary IP of the server due to a phishing complaint for a client utilizing the IP. The issue has since been resolved. Technicians at the datacenter have been made aware of this and we are awaiting them to unblock the IP. Connectivity to WHM/E-Mail/FTP and Web services maybe interrupted for any clients that are using this IP until the block is removed.

I figure that Lain can easily determine who the culprits are, and Kirika can deal with them appropriately.

Vocabulary question

This has nothing to do with anime. It’s just a minor issue that came up at work this morning.

Vocabulary question

Here’s a little poll related to an issue that came up at work this morning.

New poll

Which anime has the best opening? I ended up with over 30 candidates, so I’m going to do this in two rounds. In the current one, you can vote for up to three openings. The ten with the most votes will advance to the final round.

I found videos for most, but there were a couple that eluded me. If the openings to Dennou Coil and season one of Hare & Guu exist somewhere on the web, please send me the links. It will save me the trouble of extracting them myself. Update: I have Dennou Coil up now, but I still need Hare & Guu.

If there is an opening missing that you feel absolutely must be in the poll, please make a note of it in the comments and include a Youtube link. Maybe — maybe — I can add it.

Please note that not all these openings are “family-friendly.” I put a couple that might be problematic inside spoilers.

Continue reading “New poll”

Boo, hiss

Light Yagami is the best villain in anime, with more than twice the votes of his nearest competition, Johan. Sephiroth came in third and Gendo Ikari fourth. There’s a three-way tie for fifth place between Knives, Lord Genome and Vicious. Ladd Russo and Beatrice tied for eighth, and Lord Shishio and Orochimaru tied for tenth. Other candidates receiving votes were Lust, Diva, Vegeta, Char Asnable, Yomi Isayama, Friagne, Millennium Earl, Leader Desslok, King Hamdo, Joker, Cell, Queen Beryl, Frieza and Piccolo Daimao.

There’s a new poll up.

Call for nominations

It looks like Light Yagami is the best villain in the history of anime, at least for this week, with Gendo Ikari as a distant runner-up. So, let’s get started on the next poll. Which do you think is the best anime opening? Which exhibits the most creative combination of good music and imagery and is appropriate to its series? Here are some possiblities:

Azumanga Daioh
Baccano!
Cowboy Bebop
Haibane Renmei
Lucky Star
Noir
Paranoia Agent
Ramen Fighter Miki
Serial Experiments Lain

What else? Post your nominations in the comments, if possible with YouTube links.

New poll

Who’s the best villain in anime? Cast your vote in the poll to the right.

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The most annoying character in anime is, inevitably, Shinji Ikari, with 28% of the vote in the previous poll. Voters were also seriously irritated by ChibiUsa, 15%; Happosai, 14%; C-ko, 10%; Kimura, 8%; and Tomo Takino, 6%. Nanami, Pain, Jinnai, NB, Basera Neki, Naga, Gauron and Kazuhara each received fewer than ten votes of the 179 cast.

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.