So I thought I was late on this one last year. Well this time seems like I’ve taken even more time getting this out.  I’ve been busy (and lazy), but I’ve finally put together a list of all the best Japan had to offer anime-wise in 2009.  My buddies mgviperman and Neo_NMO helped out putting this together again this year too, so a big thanks to them.

Find out who were the best characters, opening and ending sequences after the jump, as for the rest, it’ll come in part 2 in a few days.

First comes the best of the best character-wise. This year we kept the non-human award, but we decided for a serious choice instead of something like last year.

Male Character

What makes a good character?  One could write a whole book on this topic.  What we picked for the best guy had to include a degree in badassery, had a way to either make us laugh, think or just really show a lot of courage.

Winner: Adam Blade (Needless)

Why: Adam Blade is a priest. It’s never explained why in the anime though.  He’s also a clone of God/The Second Christ and is kind of badass, though his fights are usually more frustrating than impressive.  More important than anything else though is that he’s good at making us laugh and that he’s a completely incurable lolicon.

Runner-ups:

Takizawa Akira (Higashi no Eden) 

Ushiromiya Battler (Umineko no naku Koro Ni) 

Lockon Stratos (Season one’s twin) (Mobile Suit GUNDAM 00 Second Season) 

Female Character

Female characters can be cute, charming, sexy, tsundere, dominating, etc.  Just that alone isn’t enough to make a winner out of one or another.  There needs to be depth to a character for it to stand out.  That’s why our winner is…

Winner: Hitagi Senjougahara (Bakemonogatari)

Why: Well yeah, technically, Bakemonogatari isn’t totally over, as there’s still two unaired episodes.  But it’s TV running has ended earlier last Fall, so we decided to include it this year instead of 2010.  So why her? The truth is that she would have killed me if I hadn’t picked her.  Yeah, she’s the most completely crazy character we’ve seen in a while that had a lot of depth in her.  The way she handles her relationship with Arararagi is quite interesting in itself too.

Runner-ups:

Golden/Endless Witch Beatrice (Umineko no naku koro ni)

Shizuku Sangou (Kämpfer)

Ogata Rin (Rideback)

Non-human

Like I said before, this time, we went with actually something that isn’t as silly as Kannon’s hat. So we went with characters that aren’t humans and not “things”. Here we celebrate the furries and such!

Winner: Wise Wolf of Yoitsu Horo (Spice and Wolf II)

Why: Why not? Sure she’s “female”, but she’s a wolf goddess that’ll rip you a new one if you’re not on her side.

Runner-ups:

Kyoko’s little devils (Skip Beat!) 

Spanky (Basquash!) 

Guin (Guin Saga) 

Best Couple

What makes the best couple in an anime is up to interpretation. No doubt though this year would be a debate between two specific ones though. Yet the winners are…

Winner: Taiga and Ryuuji (Toradora)

Why: The romance of the tiger and the dragon was a touching one. How they both grew to love each other even though they were only friends helping out each other getting closer to their original “crush”, was as touching as it gets. Heck, it almost went on the Romeo/Juliet ending scale near the end.  Meanwhile, Tomoya and his daughter’s relationship is one of the biggest tearjearker out there, as well as the one he has with Nagisa.

Runner-ups:

Ushio/Tomoya as daughter/father (Clannad After Story)

Nagisa/Tomoya (Clannad After Story)

Senjougahara/Araragi (Bakemonogatari)

Overall Cast of characters

What makes a great cast of characters will always be how much the bunch of them are interesting, how they grow as a whole and how they interact with each others.

Winner: Toradora

Why: Characters growing through a series is a dominant theme in most anime.  But rarely do they have characters grow so much in such an interesting way as in Toradora.  And the way how they interact with each others, including minor characters just helps Toradora’s cast stand out that much more.

Runner-ups:

Taishō Yakyū Musume 

Basquash! 

Soul Eater 

Now it’s time to present the best Opening and Ending animations.  These takes into account both the song and animation.  A lot of great ones were omitted because they failed in one or the other category.

Best Opening (song and animation)

An opening theme ideally needs to be good enough to suck you into the world of its series.  This is exactly what this one did for us when we watched it.

Winner: resonance (Soul Eater) by T.M.Revolution

Why: The animation in this is fantastic.  The background is redrawn on every frame and gives us a great feeling of depth in Soul Eater’s world.  Its pacing is fast and frantic which goes hand in hand with the series itself and the song follows suit with it.  This wins hands down.  I loved some of the runner ups more than this one, but they lacked the technical side to match up to this.

Runner-ups:

Falling Down (Higashi no Eden) by Oasis

Silky Heart (Toradora) by Yui Horie

Chouhatsu Cherry Heart (Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza) by Milan Himemiya and Chocolate Rockers

Best Ending (song and animation)

While the Opening animation draws us in, the Ending animation is somewhat of a cool-down and doesn’t usually requires as much movements in its animation and there’s opening for more variety in song types.

Winner: Don’t say “lazy” (K-on!) by Yoko Hikasa with Aki Toyosaki, Satomi Satou and Minako Kotobuki

Why: It’s not the first time I bring up this one on TSP, and while the runner-ups (all 4 of them) all present something great, from fan-service to awesome paper animation, this one has a visual style that just resonates too well with my taste.  Mio is awesome and the whole Internet agrees with this.  If you don’t, then just find yourself another Internet.  Anyway, the song is also some of the greatest J-Pop I’ve heard last year, not that I listen to that much of it though.

Runner-ups:

Aggressive zone (Needless) by Needless★Girls+

Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari (Bakemonogatari) by supercell

Futari no Yakusoku (Basquash!) by Eclipse

Futuristic Imagination (Higashi no Eden) by School Food Punishment

Well that’s all for the first part of the Best of Anime 2009. Expect the rest in a couple of days.

David A. Anime