I think the only anime series I have watched from this year is Flowers of Evil... it's worth. If only, for the choice of rotoscoping the whole series. I wasn't so fond of it in the end, but it gets better as the story develops.
It seems the most acclaimed series of the year, however, is Attack on Titan, but I'm hearing some good things about the newest fanservice fest, Kill la Kill. And I have been getting increasingly interested on WataMote. Whatever, I haven't watched any of these, but I think they can be worth a try.
One interesting thing about anime is that they are not afraid of creating some very bizarre plots and every year the industry probably produces more genre stuff (i.e. sci fi, fantasy, speculative fiction) than Hollywood and Europe do combined.
I will review some of the 2013 anime I watched, including movies and direct to video stuff. Everything below is full of spoilers.
The Good Stuff:
Garden of Words (rating 80/100)
Makoto Shinkai latest movie. One of his best ones. Very similar in tone of romantic melancholy to Wong Kai Wai's movies (but this time actually watchable) it's a fully realistic drama film of only 50 minutes set in Tokyo (similar in a sense to stuff like Only Yesterday and Whisper of the Heart).
Also, the characters are drawn with realistic proportions and not in the big head style common to most anime.
From The New World (rating 81/100)
Based on an speculative novel, From The New World is one of the most disturbing fictional stories I ever experienced. Focused on the lives of the 5 main characters from their childhood to the time they reach their 30's, it shows the most oppressive fictional society ever conceived.
The plot assumes that by the early 21st century humanity developed through genetic engineering people with telekinetic powers. However, that means that these people now can easily kill others by simply thinking (for instance, forcing the brains of others to explode) and the effect of the existence of a population of such people mean't that modern industrial society eventually collapsed and 98% of the world's population vanished over the course of continuous warfare in the 21st century. Eventually human society managed to stabilize by making the 0.3% of the population that consists of the people with telekinetic powers the ruling class, and though genetic modification and brainwashing they cannot even think about killing other people, also, only people over 18 are considered humans and all children with suspected violent tendencies are exterminated. The other 99.7% of the population was genetically modified to look like rats (so that the ruling class can kill them at will since they are not considered people) and live in complete oppression from the "humans" (the people with telekinetic powers). This whole dystopian plot is gradually revealed thought the course of the anime to the main characters who serve more as a vessel through which these plot points are revealed. It's incredibly disturbing stuff and I was rotting for the oppressed rats to manage to kill all the humans by the end.
Also, the quality of the animation was very high for a TV series.
Psycho Pass (rating 78/100)
Another dystopian title this one, written by the same guy who wrote PMMM, so I had high expectations. It's a crime thriller set in the world in the early 22nd century where all society is regulated by a mysterious computer system called "sybyl" where the professions and social status of the entire population are determined by this system and people with high stress index are placed in prison and if this index is high enough they are summarily executed. The main characters are officers that are in charge of executing the "orders" of the sybyl system. Over the course of the series it's revealed that this computer system is actually a collection of hundreds of human brains that were previously serial killers now integrated into a collective conscience that determines the fate of all people in society. The idea is that those people that are the least integrated with society become those that judge it.
Interestingly, in this fictional society nearly all violence has been abolished to the point where a person is brutally murdered in the middle of a crowded street and nobody understands what happens: they only look at the murder like they were watching TV.
Girls Und Panzer (rating 85/100)
My favorite recent anime it's based on the concept of school girls fighting tank battles for sport using very realistically represented WW2 tanks. The series follows a championship where each adversary girl's high school represents a country in WW2 and uses the tanks used by that country in the match. This is the logo of the Pravda Girl's high school:
The captain of their team Katyusha:
Nothing very creative about the plot progression, direction or art. It's just very well executed mix of cuteness/WW2/sports.
Also, their new Tiger tank is prone to fires:
The So-So Stuff:
Attack on Titan (rating: 64/100)
It's the most popular manga/anime in the last couple of years: the manga sold over 20 million copies in a country of 130 million. So, how good is it? Well, the plot is rather interesting: in an alternate world where humanity is fighting a losing war with a race of giants that like to eat humans for no apparent reason. Humanity's technology is roughly in the 18th century level (similar in style to the human kingdoms of the Warcraft universe (a fictional universe of the Blizzard computer game franchise). The architecture of this world is early modern european (not the actual early modern european but rather the computer RPG style ).
The plot is about a boy whose mother was eaten alive by giant and the boy volunteers to fight the giants in the army. Very typical of teenager anime. It's later revealed that the boy was the product of some army experiments that enable him to temporarily turn into a giant as well.
Fate Kaleid (rating: 56/100)
Think of an adult series about lesbian 10 year old school girls who fight monsters with magical powers and dress in costumes of rather pedophilic tastes. Still better than most of Terence Malick's films.
Kill Me Baby OVA (rating: 70/100)
the whole thing:
Not as good as the 2012 tv series and the original manga. It's the most retarded thing ever conceived. I think I will include this short direct to video film into my top comic book movies list.
__________________
Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake... I... drink... your... milkshake!
-Daniel, There Will Be Blood
Watched the first 24 or so episodes of Attack on Titan with my son, 15. Morbidly fascinating. Even my wife, who likes neither "cartoons" (as she calls them) nor horror, watched most of them with us. To my taste, it got bogged down at times with too much internal monologue, but the final few episodes were exciting and had me mostly surprised. I find the main character, Eren, mostly irritating, but there are intriguing ones like Levi and especially Hanji that make up for it.
__________________ Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.
Your efforts are futile, Guaporense, this guy hit the right note.
He is talking about The Croods? Haven't watched it but I don't think it's very good (for obvious reasons, it's Dreamworks), but it's probably not bad. I guess I would rate it above Fate Kaleid and below Attack on Titan at the 60-65 range.
Watched the first 24 or so episodes of Attack on Titan with my son, 15. Morbidly fascinating. Even my wife, who likes neither "cartoons" (as she calls them) nor horror, watched most of them with us. To my taste, it got bogged down at times with too much internal monologue, but the final few episodes were exciting and had me mostly surprised. I find the main character, Eren, mostly irritating, but there are intriguing ones like Levi and especially Hanji that make up for it.
Attack on Titan is very entertaining though I think that the plot was very thin for 24 episodes (they could have done the same plot in 10 episodes easily). PMMM, for instance, has a plot much more complex in 12 episodes. From The New World, another 2013 anime series, has 23 episodes and a much more interesting/complex plot.
Also, I think that the term cartoon is all right. In fact I dislike the term anime since it separates it from western animation as if they were intrinsically different. But they are not.
Well, I think that the degree of difference between Japanese and American animation targeted for the same demographics and genre is the same as in live action and hence a product of cultural differences.
Most of the difference between US and Japanese animation stems between the discrepancy in genres and demographics targeted. Attack on Titan is for teenagers and is very serious and dramatic. Western animation is almost always either comedic or for kids under 12 (there are several exceptions, of course, such as Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis).
There isn't any western animation similar to Attack on Titan. In fact, the most similar western thing to Attack on Titan is The Walking Dead, it's very similar in tone and scenario in fact. Also, both series are based on comic books. It's an interesting fact that the two most popular niche TV series in the two largest industrialized countries are very similar in everything besides the medium, showing the difference in attitude towards the medium in both countries.
So if one is looking for serious (i.e. drama) animation in substantial quantities one must always turn their eyes to anime, it is pretty much the only option. I love US animation but it's scope is very restricted to low brown comedy like South Park and in low quantities (there are only a couple of different shows running and only a couple of movies per year).
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