trace_by_echo

Long time no see, Dreamwidth! I suppose I liked the tidy nature of having a non-fandom post at the top so much, I avoided making any new posts at all... In an effort to get back in shape for logging my fandoms, I'm starting off 2024 with another aggregate post - namely, if I look back at the rest of this millennium, which anime would be my favorites for each year?

Caveats include the following: I didn't actively watch anime in a furlough between 2008 and 2016, and was slow to get into seasonal anime until 2018, so many of these were not watched in the season they aired; it will become very obvious when I started to get more into anime. Furthermore, my tastes run towards slice of life and adult conflicts rather than the most popular battle shounen of the day, so there are many shows I didn't even give a chance to that are near the top of the popularity lists. I'm not planning to write too much about the shows or movies I select, although I might tally up common genres and themes near the end; I'll provide a little description for the less-well-known ones. ***Perpetual WIP***

( Let the navel-gazing commence! )

Backdated from a year later, to hang out with the other fandom posts. I got into this fandom for the supremely petty reason of wanting to watch a "Q" anime for an alphabet challenge. The joke was on me, because I loved learning about the Chinese e-sports world, and the characters of Team Happy have grown on me like a fungus.

( Running away from home & using my twin's ID to play video games )

While I've backdated this to come before my recommendations pileup, in truth I watched this anime in May 2020, skipping the anime-original episodes from season 1 (roughly 18-ending) but including season 2... and I just loved it, enough to immediately buy manga volumes 1-8 at a bargain bookstore.

( Ready to kick Satan's ass! )

As a middle-schooler, I used to run (badly) in cross-country and track & field. This anime hits all of my nostalgia points, and makes me want to go running again. It's been a joy to watch, and I genuinely haven't been able to predict nearly any of the plot, which is a rarity for sports anime. Perhaps being set at a college with older characters has made it more accessible - there's very little traditional high school antics here. The characters have been endearing - by being so realistic and balanced, while also gradually falling into place as a team united by a single goal: the Hakone Ekiden. It's a real-life relay-style race for college students only. It takes place over two days, 5 legs per day, with each leg around 20km for a total of roughly 218km. Not only that, but they have to run up and back down one of the steepest mountains in Japan. It's not a course for rank beginners, but we can see through the two-cour anime just how our guys are going to make it there... and how much we want them to succeed.

( The mountains of Hakone are...? )

For those unfamiliar, Natsume Yujin-cho (anglicized as Natsume's Book of Friends) is about a teenager who has been able to see spirits his whole life, and who has consequently been passed off from one relative's house to another's as they grow tired of dealing with his reactions to the invisible world around them (naturally, no one believes kiddie-Natsume when he claims to see youkai and ayakashi). Natsume has just been taken in by the Fugiwaras, who may qualify as some of the best parents in anime, and now lives in a small town... the same small town that his similarly-talented grandmother Reiko grew up in. This matters, as she was known for defeating spirits and collecting their names as payment; the ayakashi and youkai start showing up near Natsume, and either demanding to get their names back or begging for his help with their problems.

This series is known for being equally heartwarming and prone to bittersweet episodes (some youkai are very tragic). Even if you don't care about the supernatural, the true bones of the story are how a previously unwanted child learns how to accept being loved by his new friends and family. Most stories in this fandom play with that dynamic in some way. The recommendations below are mostly gen, with a handful of romance fics thrown in.

( Everyone needs a Nyanko-sensei )

Somewhat unusually for me, I went from not having seen a solitary minute of this anime last Wednesday, to binge-watching all 16 episodes off of a library DVD set on Thursday, to trawling eBay for my own DVDs on Saturday. Baccano! is a bit gorier than I like, but I can close my eyes as needed, and there's so much to like about it, from the Highlander-meets-the-Mafia plot, to the excellent relationship dynamics, to the wacky side characters and the high proportion of interesting female characters (I don't think it technically passes the Bechdel Test, but Baccano! manages to have enough proactive and identifiably different women in it that I'll let it off the hook). Warnings for gore, period-accurate criminal behavior, and hilarious character names like Jacuzzi Splot.

( Well, no matter. )

I've been fascinated by Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun (or, as often translated, "Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun") since I first saw a clip from the fourth episode of the anime about a year ago. This series is about a girl, Chiyo, who's been crushing on Nozaki for months without getting closer to him; once she tries to confess, he mistakes it for an offer to assist with his girly manga. You see, Nozaki is a teenage male manga-ka who uses his friends as plot-fodder and unpaid labor, and once Chiyo gets dragged in there's no end to the ridiculousness of the situations the ensemble cast end up in. The core highlights for me are the subversions of gender tropes (essentially, if it's a stereotypical male behavior, it will be done by a female, and vice-versa).

I started with the anime, and have recently been acquiring the manga in its Yen Press translations. The anime has only had one season as of 2017, and it was several years ago; thus many of the manga storylines were never adapted. In the recs below, I will try to mark any that rely on manga-only spoilers.

( You love fireworks? Me too! )

The world-building is great - a universe in which people have been developing Quirks, which are essentially mutations, for a few generations and so have been changing society at the same time - and there are some very talented authors working in the fandom. It's a young fandom, so many of the recommendations are WIPs. Quick note: I find Bakugou Katsuki to be somewhat but not deeply problematic (I prefer fics where he gets some character growth and stops being 100% a dick - which I hear is happening canonically as well, so it's not OC for him to change) so there are a few stories about him in this list, and like much of Western fandom I prefer not to read the canonical version of Mineta Minoru (although I don't read bash!fic).

LAST UPDATED: 6/19/20. The cracks in the canon world-building are yawning wider now, although it's hard to tell whether the manga-ka intended Japan-with-Quirks to have dystopia implications. Also, BnHA is becoming less of a deconstruction of shounen than a typical example of one (with the attendant problems regarding female characters). I may be ditching canon soon, but keeping up with WIP fics. EDIT 12/27/22: I've lost patience for most WIPs, as they haven't updated in years. I'm keeping only the ones I like well enough even if they're never finished.

( It's fine now. Why? Because I am here )

Like much of the world - at least the part that participates in fandom, figure-skating, anime, or a mix of all three - I have been delighted by the plot developments of Yuuri!!! On Ice (the three exclamation points are obnoxious, but I've resolved to be accurate when it comes to titles). It's rare for any form of fictional media to have openly gay characters in healthy relationships, but in a sports anime it's practically unheard of. This anime about a slumping skater who catches the attention of the bored prior-gold-medalist, and consequently gains him as his new coach and eventually his lover, is really breaking new and fun ground.

( How about that Episode 10 reveal, though? )

How could I resist such an enticing combination of history, porn and lulz? There's some longer fic and some really sweet stories to be found if you look hard enough.

( Because *I'm* the hero! )

This fandom was all due to Maldoror, who I followed from Naruto to One Piece. That must have been sometime in 2006. The fics are a mix of humor, slash, or both. There may be some het in the authors' archives. EDIT: 9/14/18, to add one fic series.

( *I* Will Be The Pirate King! )

Naruto fandom, for me, is a guilty pleasure sometimes. You see, the Naruto fandom to me is all about Naruto himself. I think the canon post-timeskip is screwing him over, and I like the opportunities fandom gives him. EDIT: now that the manga is done, I can say that the final chapter screwed everybody over, to a remarkable degree for an ostensible happy ending. I don't care for the Boruto next-generation stuff, either.

Stories are gen or non-romance-focused unless otherwise marked.
LAST UPDATE: 8/5/23 - basically all WIPs are dead in the water at this point.

( A genius of hard work will beat a natural genius! )

I can blame this fandom on Ciceqi, as well. She turned to writing FMA after her stint with Saiyuki (or maybe that's reversed) and I followed. :D Only the 2003 anime, with manga!Ling as a fun addition; I can't keep track of the manga, and some of what goes on there seems a little too cracktastic even for me. Plus, I like the idea of the Alterworld.
EDIT: 8/15/16; I started reading a couple of new epic length fics and rekindled my interest. There's some more manga and 2nd anime based fics mixed in now.

( Equivalent Exchange. )

This fandom is Daegaer's fault. When I started reading her fics about the florist assassins and the psychic assassins that opposed them, I had to find more. Hmmm, maybe late high school, or early college? I'll call it 2002. Mostly now I just re-read old stuff, although one WIP has 230+ parts and shows no sign of stopping.
EDIT: 7/8/17: most of the old websites have disappeared, so this is just a tidying-up update to fix broken links. I'm also making it clearer which "Aya" is being referred to by sticking with Ran for male Aya, and Aya-chan for female Aya.

( White Hunters, deny these dark beasts their tomorrows! )

I started reading fanfic for Gundam Wing long before I watched any episodes. I bought my set in 2006, so before then. I read it because *everyone* seemed to have read some GW.

( That fandom in which everyone's name is a number. )

I started this one also in college. Possibly freshman year, so '03-04. I'm still waiting for the manga updates, and like Eroica, I buy Saiyuki regularly. However, my interest in fandom waned sometime in the area of '06. I got the fics I wanted, and canon's so great anyways.

( Into the West! )

Ranma 1/2 was one of my early fandoms. Hearing about an aqua-transsexual's romantic and adventurous escapades through the web was too tempting. Since the height of the fandom was back around 2000, most of the links are dead. Here's what little I have left.

( Heh, sorry about this. )

Bleach caught my interest in, oh, either early 2006 or early 2007 - it feels like longer than a year, so let's go with '06. My interest waned as I saw just how far canon and fanon were diverging... and canon seems to have been spiraling downward for the several arcs after Hueco Mundo. This is the same problem that Naruto has - the canon loses the heart of the plot that made it so engaging.
LAST EDITED: 6/21/20; I still don't generally bother with anything canon later than the appearance of the Vizards, but the ships of Grimmjow/Ichigo and Ichigo/Urahara have grown on me.

( Oh, the drama! *faints* )

I started reading Eyeshield 21 in early 2007. It's all PeroxidePest's fault - when browsing her enormous fanfiction.net account, I became curious, and started to explore. LAST EDITED: 1/9/15.
( Christmas Booooooooowl.... )

I blame the anime for being so shiny and funny. I certainly can't blame the manga, as I haven't read it. On second thought, I blame all those with Ouran icons for making me track down the source. :)
I don't read a lot of school-fandoms. However, Ouran is funny, as I said, and the inevitable pairing up that must be occurring in the manga never had a chance to gel in the anime - in consequence, one girl, smart, poor and grumpy, is not-so-subtly becoming the love-interest of a pack (well, club) of ridiculously rich and weirdly-socialized boys. She doesn't see it, but the audience does, and the fandom makes it happen.

( Ouran High School (Never Ends) )

Annual Anime Favorites: 2000 Onwards!

Fandom #49: The King's Avatar (Quanzhi Gaoshou)

Fandom #47: Blue Exorcist

Fandom #44: Run With The Wind

Fandom #43: Natsume's Book of Friends

Fandom #42: Baccano!

Fandom #41: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

Fandom #40: Boku no Hero Academia

Fandom #36: Yuuri!!! On Ice

Fandom #26: Axis Powers Hetalia

Fandom #23: One Piece

Fandom #22: Naruto

Fandom #20: Fullmetal Alchemist

Fandom #19: Weiss Kreuz

Fandom #14: Gundam Wing

Fandom #12: Saiyuki

Fandom #8: Ranma 1/2

Fandom #5: Bleach

Fandom #4: Eyeshield 21

Fandom #3: Ouran High School Host Club

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February 2025

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