You may not have failed to notice that I haven’t exactly been updating on my usual regular basis. Or you may not have noticed anything, because whatever you use to figure out that I have posted some kind of update hasn’t triggered itself – it’s not like I actually expect anyone to be proactive in checking for updates or anything. In any case, what I mean to say is, I haven’t updated in the last week or so.

So… yeah, turns out I did myself something of a back injury. Nothing particularly serious that I shouldn’t recover from in short-ish order, but does in the short term require the consumption of pain-throttling medication. As a result, I spent part of last week slipping between drug and/or pain induced delirium, and watching the Australian Denno Coil DVDs I picked up a couple of weekends ago.

More significantly, whilst I’m now at the point where I can (mostly) go about my normal business, maintaining a drawing position for a prolonged period of time is, shall we say, an undesirably uncomfortable situation. So I’m going to take a few weeks off from the whole comicking thing. I’ve a few things to do in the coming weeks that it would have been awkward to arrange continuity of comics around anyway, so the timing is curiously convenient in a sense.

I suppose this does mean that I should actually, you know, start writing on this blog some to make up for the lack of other content, or something equally crazy. Maybe.

(On the subject of Denno Coil, I’d give that show an A. The first half of the series is totally A+++ stuff, but the second half is merely B+ quality. It’s all good stuff, but I feel the marginalization of a number of characters and the lack of the first halfs playfulness in the shows tail-end does it something of a disservice. Still absolutely worth seeing, though).

So, another year has come to a close, and since I’ve written so very, very little about anime in the last six months, I figured that I should follow up last years end of year posting.

The pre-amble to this years End of Year Post is a bit of a sticky wicket. It’s been a pretty good year in general, at least as far as TV anime goes. Theatrical anime, or at least those I’ve gotten to see this year, has been a little disappointing in comparison to last years smattering of high-budget spectaculars, but even then it’s hardly been bad.

I think the real problem is that, well, anime news and discussion has kind of been dominated by Madoka Magica this year. It’s pretty unusual that a show that aired in the earliest part of the year is still being brought up at the very end of it, but even as I write this, the top stories on some of the news sites I check are about the show. With the movies in production, I guess that’s probably going to end up being the case for 2012 as well.

Oh, and I’ve also yet to get around to watching those Gundam Unicorn OAVs I’d said I’d not got around to watching last year, despite the fact that the forth instalment turned up a week or so ago. Given I’m spending £30+ a disk on that thing, I should really keep on top of that. I also regret to say that, alas, despite my best efforts, I managed to get spoilt for the ending of Katanagatari about two episodes prior to it’s conclusion. That was frustrating, to say the least.

Ok, without further ado, let’s talk about the specifics with the Beta-Waffle Entirely-Pointless Awards for 2011 Anime Existence.
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Geez, could they have chosen a worse place to put a three-month break in Fate/ZEROs broadcast schedule? Probably, but maaaaaan, it’s going to be a long three months. Well, actually, I suppose it’s technically a short three months, given that, even in a leap-year, February isn’t the longest of period denominations, but let’s not argue semantics.

Anyway, I’d like to wish all of you reading a pleasant Holiday season from all of us here at Beta-Waffle – and since it’s just me here, that’s not a difficult operation to complete, being free of any grumpy or tsundere staff members to extract pleasantries from. Personally, I’ll probably celebrate by watching the Haruhi movie or something, since that’s nice and seasonal and all. Or maybe Tokyo Godfathers. Or maybe neither.

I’m about three weeks too late to jump on the Product Placement Is Bad, Mmkay talk that was on the Twitters a short while back, no doubt fuelled by the fact that Bunny recently found a new sponsor for his right arm (or was it his left?). Anyway, I’d like to present a brief thought exercise for you to ponder upon.

For context, examine the screen cap above, taken from the fourteenth episode of Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo, in which Bougainvillea there is enjoying her first ever slice of pizza so much that she’s been brought to tears. Touching, eh?
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That’s how many copies Redline sold in it’s first week on sale in Japan – blu-ray and DVD combined, indications are that it sold a mere 3134 copies. That must be a bit of a downer for the staff who’ve spent the last seven years crafting possibly the most visually resplendent animated movie Japan has ever committed to film. I really don’t get Japan sometimes.
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