Akira’s End of the Year Awards

I remember when I thought this was going to be awesome.

There are way too many fucking posts about good shit. People are literally jizzing themselves dry about Madoka and Penguindrum, so I’m not going to talk about them here. Let’s talk about some of the smaller heroes of 2011. I’ve got a bunch of awards here, without agenda or purpose, arranged in no specific order. Here we are, in true hipster fashion: the oh-so-generically-named Akira’s End of the Year Awards. Warning! I take zero responsibility for any and all spoilers. All opinions are mine only and may not be rationally justifiable.

The 13th Day: Reflections on a Life in Anime

I could have done so much shit with the time I dropped into this game.

By the end of 2011, I will have watched anime for almost 13 full years. That’s more than half my life. Anime affects my life every day, and while I’m not exactly proud of being so into anime, it’s an irreplaceable part of me.

12 Years of Anime: Rekindling the Flame

Dear Misaka-Santa: Thank you for saving me from a life without anime.

After trying to hide my otakuism during the first semester of college, I’d finally struck a great balance between my real life and my anime viewing. I understood how anime fit within the context of my real life, so I began to start ramping up my anime consumption again.

12 Years of Anime: Mellowing Out

Honestly, she was the only heroine I remembered from 2009.

2009 started with a bang. Literally. My first memory of 2009 was my head feeling like it was about to explode. After a night of drunken revelry which ended in us calling the cab for a one-block trip home because none of us could find the bloody place, I tripped, fell and passed out in my friend’s doorway. When I came to, my head was squished between his doorframe. I quickly rolled out of “bed” and went downstairs to go find myself some food to nurse my hangover.

12 Years of Anime: The Pilgrimage

One of my favorite anime couples ever.

In 2008, my love affair with eroge was in full swing. I fully cleared more than ten titles that year. My interest in eroge and my (limited) experience with translation gravitated me towards the visual novel scene, which was not very big at that point. I also took a big trip at the end of the year.

12 Years of Anime: The Point of No Return

Look at my life, look at my choices.

2007 was a huge year for me in my journey through otakudom. I experienced an explosion of activity: my first eroge (Happiness!, I’m really ashamed to say), my first Touhou game (Perfect Cherry Blossom, still my favorite), my first con (AX07, which I destroyed)— and, I joined The Nihon Review. Like I said, a huge year.

12 Years of Anime: Becoming “Hardcore”

It's her fault I'm a super-otaku.

In 2006, I turned hardcore. My consumption of anime and manga was no longer limited to what I could find at Borders or what my friends recommended me. 2006 is the first year that I considered myself a “hardcore” “otaku.”

12 Years of Anime: Looking for a Role Model

What a BAMF.

By 2005, my shoujo binge was about over. Shoujo manga couldn’t quite suit my needs— they were, after all, written from the perspective of the girl, and not the boy. I found the male love interests in shoujo manga to be impossibly pretty and hard to identify with. I had to find a new role model. Luckily, I didn’t have to look far.

12 Years of Anime: Puberty

The most apt metaphor for the unattainable.

It’s now 2004, and God, Kami-Sama, Haruhi (she didn’t really exist yet) or whoever’s in charge up there fucked up really bad: They let me hit puberty.

12 Years of Anime: Maladjusted

Oh God the nostalgia

In 2003, China was rocked by the SARS epidemic. My time in China was abruptly cut short when I fled the country and came back to the United States. My two-odd years in China had changed me— and now I was suffering from (reverse) cultural shock.