Presenting... the Occasional Year-in-Review Post
I don't always do an end-of-year "Best Of" list or anything like that. In fact, some time ago I gave up calling it a "Best Of" list, because how would I really know what the best of anything is?
This year, however, I've got the New York Times helping me out, by including my personal favorite anime series of the year among their Best TV Shows of 2018.
You wouldn't expect any anime to make the New York Times list (unless it had Hayao Miyazaki's name attached to it, anyway), but A Place Further Than the Universe pulled it off. This 13-episode series about four high school girls who join an expedition to Antarctica works on so many levels - characters, plotting, details, and themes. It's also one of the few shows that's ever affected the course of my real-world life. That doesn't happen often, but I'm a writer, so it does happen from time to time. In this case, when I heard about the habitat restoration project on San Nicolas Island, I was inspired to sign up and go on an expedition of my own.
As I noted back in February, there were several anime series this year that sent high school girls into the wild, both camping and mountain climbing. I'm hoping we'll see both of those again in the coming seasons.
Otherwise, it seemed like the year was chock-full of shows that were watchable but not very memorable. There was also a surprising number of shows that shouldn't have worked for me, but somehow did - whether they were about silly giant robot-monster battles, fanservice-heavy beach volleyball games, or dragons that swallow their pilots and then barf them out again when the mission is over. And that doesn't even include the lesbian age-gap romcom done in moe style. I guess that just goes to show me I shouldn't dismiss something out of hand.
Back in April, I discovered GeGeGe no Kitaro, a franchise that, I've concluded, occupies a similar place in Japanese popular culture to the one Doctor Who has in British popular culture. That is to say, it's a children's show from the 60s that stays fresh in the public consciousness by reinventing itself from time to time.
This year's 50th Anniversary series is the sixth version (the previous three had more than 100 episodes each), and there have also been individual movies and specials along the way. Like anything with that much history, some stories work better than others. Episode 20, though, might just have been the best single anime episode I watched all year.
I stopped doing a "Best Of" review for American TV shows because I just don't watch very many of them anymore. I've explained why a number of times, most recently just a few days ago, so I won't go into it again. I do watch some of the comic book shows, though, and my favorite among them is Black Lightning. Side note - when my siblings and I were kids, we made up our own silly superhero who just happened to have that name, and initially I checked out the show just for that reason. But it's a good show, and so I kept coming back. I like that the main character is someone closer to my age, in some ways I identify with his mentor Gambi (um, except I don't kill people), and the storylines are interesting. Runner-up goes to Supergirl, which is doing a good job exploring the immigrant/refugee issue we currently have in the real world.
For the first time, this year I'm going to mention my favorite podcasts. I listen to them when I go on my lunchtime walks, and also when I drive to and from LA County. My favorite US podcast is Chris Hayes's Why Is This Happening?, and my favorite international one is BBC Radio 4's In Our Time. The latter gets bonus points for ending each episode with a production assistant coming in and asking the panelists how they'd like their tea.
And I couldn't do one of these without covering the two SF franchises that have been with me most of my life, Doctor Who and Star Trek.
On Doctor Who, I love Jodie Whittaker's very Doctor-y Doctor. The rest of the show is still breaking in a bit. I seemed to like the episodes everyone else was panning, and felt flat about the episodes everyone else was raving about - which I guess happens to everyone sooner or later, if they stay in Doctor Who fandom long enough. As for the new "film quality" cinematography, it's nice but it doesn't really thrill me. I thought the previous look was just fine (as should anyone who remembers the cheesy old days), especially since we got more episodes with it.
Meanwhile, Star Trek: Discovery was... interesting. On the plus side, there was Michelle Yeoh in both her good and evil roles. Sonequa Martin-Green grew on me as Michael Burnham, as did Doug Jones as Saru. The romance storyline with Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler was pretty bleh until it took the wickedest turn I've seen in a long time. Bonus points there for using stage names and alien makeup to hide it as well as they did. On the minus side, they went and pulled the "bury your gays" trope, and I think the "mirror universe" well has just about dried up. And that spin-around routine the saucer section of the ship did when they used their spore drive was the dumbest thing I saw all year.
Discovery was the only streaming series (apart from anime) that I watched all year. If anyone wants to make a suggestion or two, then maybe by next year I'll be able to include a category for them.
This year, however, I've got the New York Times helping me out, by including my personal favorite anime series of the year among their Best TV Shows of 2018.
You wouldn't expect any anime to make the New York Times list (unless it had Hayao Miyazaki's name attached to it, anyway), but A Place Further Than the Universe pulled it off. This 13-episode series about four high school girls who join an expedition to Antarctica works on so many levels - characters, plotting, details, and themes. It's also one of the few shows that's ever affected the course of my real-world life. That doesn't happen often, but I'm a writer, so it does happen from time to time. In this case, when I heard about the habitat restoration project on San Nicolas Island, I was inspired to sign up and go on an expedition of my own.
As I noted back in February, there were several anime series this year that sent high school girls into the wild, both camping and mountain climbing. I'm hoping we'll see both of those again in the coming seasons.
Otherwise, it seemed like the year was chock-full of shows that were watchable but not very memorable. There was also a surprising number of shows that shouldn't have worked for me, but somehow did - whether they were about silly giant robot-monster battles, fanservice-heavy beach volleyball games, or dragons that swallow their pilots and then barf them out again when the mission is over. And that doesn't even include the lesbian age-gap romcom done in moe style. I guess that just goes to show me I shouldn't dismiss something out of hand.
Back in April, I discovered GeGeGe no Kitaro, a franchise that, I've concluded, occupies a similar place in Japanese popular culture to the one Doctor Who has in British popular culture. That is to say, it's a children's show from the 60s that stays fresh in the public consciousness by reinventing itself from time to time.
This year's 50th Anniversary series is the sixth version (the previous three had more than 100 episodes each), and there have also been individual movies and specials along the way. Like anything with that much history, some stories work better than others. Episode 20, though, might just have been the best single anime episode I watched all year.
I stopped doing a "Best Of" review for American TV shows because I just don't watch very many of them anymore. I've explained why a number of times, most recently just a few days ago, so I won't go into it again. I do watch some of the comic book shows, though, and my favorite among them is Black Lightning. Side note - when my siblings and I were kids, we made up our own silly superhero who just happened to have that name, and initially I checked out the show just for that reason. But it's a good show, and so I kept coming back. I like that the main character is someone closer to my age, in some ways I identify with his mentor Gambi (um, except I don't kill people), and the storylines are interesting. Runner-up goes to Supergirl, which is doing a good job exploring the immigrant/refugee issue we currently have in the real world.
For the first time, this year I'm going to mention my favorite podcasts. I listen to them when I go on my lunchtime walks, and also when I drive to and from LA County. My favorite US podcast is Chris Hayes's Why Is This Happening?, and my favorite international one is BBC Radio 4's In Our Time. The latter gets bonus points for ending each episode with a production assistant coming in and asking the panelists how they'd like their tea.
And I couldn't do one of these without covering the two SF franchises that have been with me most of my life, Doctor Who and Star Trek.
On Doctor Who, I love Jodie Whittaker's very Doctor-y Doctor. The rest of the show is still breaking in a bit. I seemed to like the episodes everyone else was panning, and felt flat about the episodes everyone else was raving about - which I guess happens to everyone sooner or later, if they stay in Doctor Who fandom long enough. As for the new "film quality" cinematography, it's nice but it doesn't really thrill me. I thought the previous look was just fine (as should anyone who remembers the cheesy old days), especially since we got more episodes with it.
Meanwhile, Star Trek: Discovery was... interesting. On the plus side, there was Michelle Yeoh in both her good and evil roles. Sonequa Martin-Green grew on me as Michael Burnham, as did Doug Jones as Saru. The romance storyline with Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler was pretty bleh until it took the wickedest turn I've seen in a long time. Bonus points there for using stage names and alien makeup to hide it as well as they did. On the minus side, they went and pulled the "bury your gays" trope, and I think the "mirror universe" well has just about dried up. And that spin-around routine the saucer section of the ship did when they used their spore drive was the dumbest thing I saw all year.
Discovery was the only streaming series (apart from anime) that I watched all year. If anyone wants to make a suggestion or two, then maybe by next year I'll be able to include a category for them.
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