Remedial Anime Awards, January 2007 + Announcements


Once again, it's time for the Remedial Anime Awards, the monthly award of Yamaki’s Anime Blog. As faithful readers of the blog would know, I’ve cancelled the awards for the last month, December 2006, due to the fact that I was having a holiday in Singapore. Now that I have everything back in control, I’m ready to “revive” the awards after a month of hiatus. Other than the awards, I also have a few other things/news/updates to announce.

I’ll start with the announcements. Firstly, according to Anime News Network, the anime Shuffle! was licensed by FUNimation; on the other hand, Japanese television had released a remake of Shuffle’s anime, Shuffle! Memories, and subs of the remake are also available on the internet. This means that, there’s no reason for me to continue to write episode summaries for each of the episodes for Shuffle! that I might end up confusing readers. So, I have decided to stop the episode summary writing; I’ll do an overall summary of the anime series. On whether I’ll be picking up Shuffle! Memories, it depends. I have two “brand-new” animes on my hand at the moment and the two are none other than “Honey & Clover” and “He Is My Master”. (/swt) Secondly, you should have noticed that I am lagging behind in the episode review of Negima?!. Rest assured I will not drop reviewing the anime series (for the time being. I might really drop it if I am not able to cope with Asatte no Houkou and Kanon), but I’m dropping the episode summaries writings. I’ll also do an overall review.

The winners of this month’s awards are indeed true winners (at least for the best female IMHO), and I believe that no one would totally disagree with my judgements. For the first time ever, I didn’t have much trouble choosing/nominating them. And best of all, I managed to avoid letting a single anime winning all of the awards. Seriously, I’m really proud of myself, lol. XD




Best Male: Aiba Kouji (Infinite RYVIUS)
He’s acts like a cool guy, but he is a friendly person nevertheless, unlike his younger but stronger brother. A sore loser, he’s a proven opportunistic person and is therefore hated by his brother. He works hard but never obtains the top scores. Plus, he doesn’t know how to make up his mind in his own love business, choosing to please one in the start and then regretting it. Despite all his downside, there are also his upsides. He never lets himself down despite all the criticisms from everyone. He even gets bullied by gangsters due to the fact that he has unlimited point for food & other necessities, but he never gets sad or angry about it. He usually knows what he’s doing, although sometime his ideas might get rejected.




Best Female: Kawasumi Mai (Kanon 2006)
Kanon 2006 watchers should know why I have chosen her to be this month’s winner. Pwning the episodes after Makoto, she welds her samurai-like sword and brings it along with her no matter where she is going to. She might look cold, quiet and slow-responsive in the outside, but she’s actually quite warm in the inside, having feelings she had always kept to herself. Memories were her burden, and believing that the person who left her would eventually come back was her faith, keeping her strong. Despite having a special power, she had to keep it to herself. A strong girl, she’s easily likeable by anyone who knew her history.




Best Non-Human Character:
Mai's "demon". Not going to talk much about it to avoid spoilers.




Best Villain: Kuze (Kanon 2006)
With Mai as the heroine, Kuze the single-named President of the Student Council was the unlucky chosen one to hold the award for the Best Villain. Despite having a cool look with a neat frameless pair of spectacles, once you get to know him, you’ll be sure to hate him a lot. His attitude is what made him a bad guy; or at least his attitude in treating Mai in Kanon. He’s like a politician, or rather he is one as the President of the Student Council. A word from him is like a bark of a dog. A dog’s bite is worse than its bark; but fortunately, he wasn’t able to bite Mai, thanks to her looney friends.




Best OP: Roling Star – YUI (Bleach)
In here, I would like to state that I do not watch Bleach. It’s just that the people over from music_and_more sharing the single and PV of the song. Being a fan of YUI, I couldn’t ignore it. And indeed, I felt in love with the song the moment I heard it. Then, during the preparation of the bazaar of my school, my group leaders added some Bleach elements into the movie they’re making. This is where I saw the opening video with the song. I couldn’t help but sing along with the subs, thanks to Dattebayo. lol. This is a great song. YUI’s a great singer, for being able to change from slow acoustic songs to this fast beating song. However, it seems that fans were angry that the opening video sucks and it had ruined the song with so much editing. =\




Best ED: Kaze no Tadori Tsuku Basho - Ayana (Kanon 2006)
I admit I’m a late bloomer in the liking for this song. Before I started watching Kanon, I was expecting some OP and ED like those from Air. But somehow, the songs that came out were lower than my expectations. I started to hate the songs. But as time goes on, I must say that I somehow got attracted to the songs, particularly the ED. The OP still sounded like a lullaby to me and I feel like sleeping whenever I hear it. Anyway, the ‘spark’ which made me choose this song as this month’s winner for best ending theme was the final episode for the Makoto story-arc which I had watched back in December. I was really feeling low because Makoto disappeared. And then suddenly the BGM played the ending theme, and then somewhat, Makoto reappeared. I was shocked. :O




Best Scene:
This is the place where Karada had told Tetsu about her secret wish back in the first episode of Asatte no Houkou. Until now, she still refuses to tell the truth, because she fears that he wouldn’t believe it (now, she’s an adult). Tetsu remained clueless about Karada’s real identity.




Best Quote:
“We must part with our past in order to move forward.”
The quote was one of Faina Shionzaki’s trademark quotes. You can always hear her repeating it to Kouji, and in the end, even end up with a conflict with Kouji because Kouji had became furious that he couldn’t leave his past behind; which means that he couldn’t accept Faina (the future) because he couldn’t forget about the Aoi (the past).


Best Seiyuu: Satoshi Hino
He’s the person behind the obedient faces (or at least if you think that Sakai Yuuji or Saito Hiraga are obedient children). He’s also the person who made the perverted voice in the Hecate-tan episode of Shana. But that’s not the main reason why I awarded him this month’s award. It was his voicing of Iokawa Hiro, the big, big brother of Karada in Asatte no Houkou. Hiro is a strong man, but there’s also his weak part too, and Satoshi had managed to balance them. Hiro’s a chain smoker, but I’m not sure whether Satoshi smokes or not...