Top Picks for '06

Okay, this is kind of a spur of the moment thing (I'd intended to do up that 'Spotlight On' article for Full Metal Panic! that I keep not getting around to working on), but I decided to do up a list of my top picks for 2006. Like many such lists, personal preference is going to play a huge part in this, as is the fact that there are a lot of shows this season that I haven't seen (including highly regarded releases like Death Note).

The Top Three (In Alphabetical Order)

Ah! My Goddess: Sorezore No Tsubasa/Ah! My Goddess Season Two

The brief reunion between the half-goddess, half-demon Urd and her mother

Hild (a high ranking demon) is one of the highlights of Sorezore No Tsubasa.

As mentioned in my previous post about this show, the second season of Ah! My Goddess somehow managed to be great despite the first season's mediocrity. I don't know whether this is because of a deliberate effort to fix the pacing issues and other problems that plagued the first season or whether it was more of an accidental thing, but somehow the people who worked on the second season managed to capture what was good about the first season while dispatching with much of what made it lame. There are still some issues with the new series (I think they ought to tone down Belldandy's domesticity a little) but overall it's pretty good. Belldandy's elder half sister Urd (who played a big role in keeping the first season's head above water) continues to be awesome in the second season: the portrayal of her love/hate relationship with her demon mother Hild proved to be one of the season's highlights.

Blood+

Blood+ manages to combine good characterisation
with excellent production values.

Okay, part of this one aired in 2005, but the majority of it aired in 2006, including many of the series' best episodes, and I fell it's okay to include it here. Boasting high production values, excellent characterization, and writing that manages to hold well under the strains of an incredible length despite a bit of a drop after the midpoint of the series, Blood+ is a real masterpiece of a series. Who would have thought a story about a girl who slays monsters could be so bloody good? (Forgive the horrible pun, please.)

School Rumble Nigakki/School Rumble Season Two

The cast of School Rumble returns for more Rumbling
in School Rumble Nigakki (Second Term/Semester).

If there is one flaw that virtually every series on this list has, it's a tendency to take a bit of a fall late in their runs. It's a problem that was quite pronounced in School Rumble Nigakki: for some reason the people behind the series decided to hold off on adapting the Kyoto arc from the manga and came up with original material as filler instead. Thankfully School Rumble Nigakki still has enough of it predecessor's spirit to make things a good ride however, especially during the earlier parts of the season when the show gives the first season a solid run for its money. I'm hoping we'll eventually see a third season of SR, though I hope that when they do it they either stick closer to the source material or come up with better original material. This series was definitely pretty good, but it could have been better.

(Oh, and also, what's with the title? Didn't the second semester start sometime during the first season?)