aloe, dream

In light of the approaching New Year, it is once again time for year-end reflections. Do we wonder if 2008 was a good year for anime? Without a doubt, 2008 was no 2007, yet there was an abundance of good in 2008. Where did 2008 win, and why will I remember this year in anime?

In the Season

For my considerations, the series of 2008 began in Autumn 2007, as there were a few which rolled over from 2007 and I did not want to consider them for 2007. Series such as Bamboo Blade, Clannad, Gundam 00 I wanted to give a full viewing before assessing their order. Naturally, it wasn’t until Winter when 2008 truly began.

Winter brought a surprisingly strong showing. Though I’ve yet to consider the winter season on par with Spring and Autumn, Winter 2008 made me question that belief with the likes of Shigofumi and true tears bringing big guns to the table. Of course it was also a good season for continuations featuring Minami-ke Okawari, Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and the ever-appealing Aria. It was a good season to fall in love with 2008, but after seeing the promise of Spring, 2008 looked even more enticing.

Being one of the strong seasons, Spring had a large series count and the potential. Despite, the massive premiers, Spring was filled with more meh than awe. This did not echo well on 2008, since it seemed we were watching a quality-quantity tradeoff in procession. Against the odds, Spring managed to crank out a few winners among the net community including the likes of Kurenai, Macross Frontier, Library Wars, and the controversial Code Geass sequel.

The weak season of Summer came in standard, but carried with it surprising and anticipated premiers of Detroit Metal City and Xam’d. Xam’d will finish airing in 2009, but there has been decent momentum in among bloggers, and even though it is aired on the PS3 network, it’s becoming an essential. Another mentionable, but less appreciated series of the Summer would have to be Natsume Yuujinchou, which seemingly hit low on the blog radar, but did make it to various hotlists¹.

Again with the strong, Autumn arrived in full force; a large season with many premiers. It’s strength was more on par with 2007, but as usual, portion of the series will finish in 2009 [and I will consider them for next year]. However, single-season series managed to have an entertaining and thorough turnout; Kannagi, even Nodame Cantabile’s Paris Chapter, and especially Ga-Rei -Zero- finished with satisfaction. Essentially, Autumn 2008 has yielded momentum to make 2009 reach greater heights, yet it’s just a hope.

Overall

This year did not have the heights of 2007, but it had nice depth for the level it reached. I felt similar when discussing 2008 in #ab with Aroduc, and as Kuro mentioned in his perspective: “while the average increased, the top end of the bell curve wasn’t as high as last year“. It’s true. This depth without great heights has made it tough to single out characters and especially series in order of prominence, objective aptitude, and general greatness. In the style of aloedream, stay tuned for the completion of Dreams of the Year Behind, both characters and series, in which I order and slice my personal sampling of 2008, the year that I’ll remember as hazy and faceless, yet tender, emotive, teary-eyed, and subtle like a dream.

It was a good year to shed some tears.

1 Natsume Yuujinchou was on my watchlist, but I was unable to complete and didn’t feel the need to rush a semi-slice series.