2014 was a year in which the country of Japan continued to exist, and continued to invest in the production of cartoons. Some of them were made available outside Japan, and occasionally – just occasionally – I watched some of them.

The following is a collection of nonsense words about some of those cartoons I watched. Not necessarily the best ones I watched, or even necessarily good ones, but most certainly ones I watched. Also maybe some I didn’t in passing.

Speaking of things I didn’t actually watch, keeping up the usual tradition, I’ve still not got around to watching Gundam Unicorn, though I guess I’ve now got the entire series sitting around on Blu-Ray. I also didn’t get around to watching the new episode of Code Geass:Akito the Exiled, but that’s mostly a result of it not actually existing yet.

I should probably also point out that, for the first time in years, I didn’t watch either of this last years Precure movies. I guess that’s what DokiDoki will do for you, but it did rather give me a gap in terms of things to write about this year.
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I’m sure there’s probably at least some expectation that I’m going to break (the entirely unintentional) radio silence surround this blog and say something about the Cinderella Girls TV anime PV which was released to coincide with this weekend gones live. That being said, I’m really not the person to ask about any of the mobaM@S properties – I don’t dereM@S or MilliLive to any real degree.
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I suppose it’s probably long past the point where me actually saying something about One for All is productive or useful to anyone. It’s not really through a lack of playing it, mind you, more a combination of laziness and bad timing. Whilst I’d well prepared for the games launch back in May, booking time off work to play it, I ultimately decided that it’d be far more productive to spend that time on a last minute trip to Chicago to ogle real-life idols instead of cartoon ones. Missing that launch window really threw off my timing, though.

Still, though, four months, a Platinum trophy and the best part of eighty hours of play time later, I guess I should write at least something about it.
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For the fourth year running, I’m going to have to confess that I’ve still not watched Gundam Unicorn. Yes, I have all, what is it, six episodes that they’ve released thus far sitting on my bookcase, but that this point, I may as well wait until the last episode is released rather than struggle, as I did with the second episode of Code Geass Akito a couple of days back, to remember what happened in the previous instalment once the long wait for the finale is over.

As for how the rest of the year ended up panning out, at least anime-wise, I feel it’s gone pretty well. Maybe it’s just a warm afterglow of this last season of the year, with shows like Kill la Kill, Kyousougiga, Build Fighters and Yozakura Quartet, it’s been a really strong last quarter in terms of the kind of cartoons I enjoy watching, even if the New Years episode of Sword Art I’m subjecting myself to whilst trying to finalise this post leaves a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

Anyway, on with the usual Token End of Year Post format. Just bear in mind that this is in no-way an Anime of the Year post, more just a bunch of things I feel like writing about – otherwise this’d be a whole mess of words about Yamato 2199 or Gatchaman Crowds (looking forward to that BD-version final episode) or some other show that isn’t about Attacking Titans that I don’t really mention. There’s plenty of others out there expounding the virtues of their version of the best of the year if that’s what you really want to know.
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Depending on where you reside in the world, the iDOLM@STER Secret Event happened earlier today (or yesterday), and the Bandai Channel re-stream of it wrapped up about half an hour before I started typing this. This isn’t to say that I actually watched it myself – I fear that messing around with proxy and VPN settings feels like one of those slippery slopes, starting with just wanting to watch one or two idol concerts, and climaxing ultimately with getting intensely frustrated with Kantai Collection registration lotteries. I’ve too much consuming my time already without having to worry about another bunch of time sinks.

I digress, however – what even I saw out of the event were the new PVs for both the iM@S Movie and the new game, One for All. Post event chatter has been somewhat dominated by the movie trailer, rather than that of the game. It’s perhaps not too astonishing, given that’s where the real bombshell was dropped – the movie is going to feature a number of characters from Million Live.
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