Except I don’t really usually make this kind of end of year post, meaning that this is less of a token post than it is an anomaly.

It’s been a weird kind of year for me anime-wise. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of stuff, but I’m not really sure that’s actually the case. I mean, the likes of Kurogane talk about having seen some 40+ shows, and I know for a fact I’ve not seen that many (at least, not that many from this year). Sure, I’ve seen a fair amount of older shows on home media formats, but I doubt even that would make up the difference.

No, in actuality, I’ve been watching a lot of anime these last three or four months, whilst the first half of the year was pretty barren. I don’t think this is anything to do with the quality of the shows airing during those periods, more just where my mind was at the time. In addition to that, with the anime events at the BFI back in May, Scotland in October and at the Leeds Film Festival in November, I’ve certainly seen a hell of a lot of anime movies theatrically this year (Actually, I’ve just seen a crapton of movies theatrically in general).

But, hey, it’s certainly been another year of anime. I don’t really think it’s necessarily been any better or worse than any other given year in recent memory, even though we are in a still downturn in terms of the number of shows being produced. I think my biggest disappointment of the year is that Sunrise have been in some regards quiet. Of course they still made those Gundam Unicorn OAVs I’ve not got around to watching, the Gundam 00 movie and a few other bits and pieces, but at the same time they’ve not made any of the kind late-night otaku fare I’ve tended to get far too obsessed with in the last decade. If it wasn’t for the fact that it ended with what felt like a clear set-up for an OAV series they didn’t sell well enough to fund, I’d say that it probably explains the whole tone of last years SoraKakeGirl – somewhere between a loving tribute and a scathing mockery of everything Sunrise was in the 00’s. Kind of an “out with the old, in with the new” thematic purge, if you will.
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That’s six “9”‘s then. I suppose I could say it’s over (point) 9000, but that would also result in me having to apologize with great immediacy for inflicting such a terrible joke upon you all.

This is the last of the Japanese DVD releases for the second season of Haruhi, which was actually released about a month ago now, but I’ve been sitting on it for the simple reason that I sat on the previous months volume for over a month as well, and there’s nothing quite like a bit of consistency. Anyway, since it seems like a befitting thing to do for the final volume, I guess I’ll reiterate to context for the whole thing.
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Procrastination is, perhaps, the name of the game here – this post has been delayed not because my DVD was trapped in postal hell, but, infact, has not previously appeared due to me being kind of lazy. Indeed, I’ve sat on it long enough that the final volume of the second season arrived today. Yes, I now know the true conclusion of the epic battle between Man and Troll, DiGiKerot and Chairman Kadokawa.

But I’m not telling you that today – you’ll have to wait for that knowledge. Rather, I’ll be answering far more immediately pressing matters.
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DiGiKerot 3 – Kadokawa 3. Two volumes to go, and things are all even now. Except, it’s Kyon, again. I almost feel like Kadokawa are still trolling me here…

Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s really not much point in protracting these posts out at this point – there’s never anything new to say about them. The only really significant thing to say about this volume that doesn’t apply to the ones preceding it is that this volume sees the move from Endless Eight into Sigh’s.

It’s another month, which means the arrival of another ludicrously monikered instalment of Haruhi to make me squint in an attempt to correctly read off it’s annoying string of numbers. It’s Endless Eight again, of course, meaning that there’s really little point in saying anything at all about the content (even the extras are, once again, just continuations of the previous volumes) beyond mentioning that it’s the final instalment of that particular run of episodes. Presumably that means that next months (or this months, if you live in one of those parts of the world where it’s ticked over into 2010 already) will, aside from containing the first instalment of Sighs, see the end of Yuki’s dominance of the front-cover space.

But it’s not as if discussing the content is really the point behind these posts. Rather, it’s all about the eternal struggle of Man versus Kadokawa. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
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