From Listen To Me Girls, I Am Your Father!, or PapaKiki as those who don’t want to type long titles (or wish to disguise how embarrassingly titled the show they’re watching is) are fond of calling it. This was a submission from Mr. Shillito over the Twitters – I have to admit, I’ve not so much as braved an episode of the show myself. The concept briefing and the Haruhi-design mimicry that the promotional art displayed, along with the shows title, set enough alarm bells off in my head that avoidance seemed the only sensible course of action. As such, I’ve no idea which episode this was from. I’d have to presume it’s the most recent one (Episode 6, was it?).

So, yeah, this isn’t exactly an interesting post, because I’ve got absolutely nothing to say about the show in question. Absolutely nothing at all. Sorry.

This comic came out of a conversation on Twitter last week, coming in light of the Live-Action GeroGero Kitchen from the recent iM@S BD release. By way of questioning whether or not Chicken Breast with Aoi Tori Sauce was real dish or just something named after the song in iDOLM@STER, it was posited that it may have infact been used as a joke in Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere at some point. The joke there being derived from the fact that the protagonist is called Aoi Tori, and he very much has a bust fixation.

I’m not sure we ever came to a conclusion either way as to whether or not such a joke existed, but to me, it kind of sounded rather more like the title to a mucky doujinshi when placed into the context of Horizon…

From episode 3 of Chihayafuru, which I’ve been running catch-up on today. It’s one of the boxes into which Arata was packing his stuff into before moving. Admittedly, I’m going out on a limb at will with this one, with only the last two hiragana visible – it could well be Iyokan (which, admittedly, is a type of Mikan) for all I know. But, whatever.

(I’ll also admit that I’m sitting on two genuine Mikan Boxes I’ve not got around to posting about yet. Need to dig out some DVDs for one of them).

Chihayafuru is pretty good, I guess. I’m not digging on it as much as I expected giving all the praise many have lauded upon it, but it’s a very pleasant watch non-the-less. It didn’t really pick up for me until after they got back to current day post-flashback. I’ve still got a few episodes left before I’ve fully caught up though, but I’m typing this in haste whilst watching Sherlock, so that’s going to have to wait for another eve.

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.