Ah, how time flies.

In a nut-shell:
Spring/Fall > Summer > Winter

You don’t need me telling you how inactive I’ve been since, well, forever ago. Even now I doubt I can get pack to doing more than one post a month (Pokemon Y is eating up any free time I have, lol). That said, it’s not like I haven’t been watching anime these past few months. Over the course of the year, I do feel like I could’ve watched more (Maoyuuuu!), but I am happy about the shows that I decided to pick-up and ended up liking the past four seasons. Starting off with –

Winter. Is it just me, or does the Winter Season of anime seem to always be the driest of the bunch? I had to check my 2011 review to see if I’m remembering right and sure enough, Winter was at the bottom. It may just be me (I didn’t get to see Maoyuu after all :(). I’m working on it to say the least, but disregarding everything I’ve been saying after “Winter”, I have to put Nekomono Black as the real highlight for me in this season. Amusingly enough, it’s close to exactly a year since Nekomono Black was premiered.

Aside from that, I only really did watch Sasami-san@Ganbaranai weekly, and followed up with Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo (both of which were very very amusing).

Spring. A very packed season, sporting arguably one of the best shows of the year (you know what it is~). That said, I can only say great things about Attack on Titan. I admit I was fairly impressed with how it lived up to the hype, and I can oly hope that they follow it up soon. I dropped a couple of shows here, namely Date A Live, Aku no Hana, Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, and Devil Survivor 2; not because they were bad or anything, but I was just strapped for time. They were at the least that I could see (and with Aku no Hana being a questionable exception), surprisingly good adaptations – a theme that has been very prominent this year.

Other shows worthy of mention that I actually did finish are Suisei no Gargantia (close second to best of the season), Yahari (also really close if it had a more conclusive ending), Hataraku Maou-sama, OreImo S2 and Railgun S2 (who doesn’t love sequels). All, so so good.

Summer. Talking about sequels, the not so obvious highlight (for some), yet obvious for me still is of course Monogatari Series S2. I was so happy when I found out about this project way back in mid-2012, and it has been a real fun franchise to follow and take to heart. I’m equally happy seeing that Shaft still has confidence in the Monogatari franchise, which bodes well for future Nisio stuff (*cough* Kizumono, *cough* *cough* Zaregoto!). I was actually debating on having a three-way tie between Spring, Summer, and Fall – but although Summer has Monogatari, it lacked a solid lineup to follow.

Following the trend of good shows, this season also gave us DanganRonpa, Gatchaman Crowds, and Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA.

Fall. Fall is good. Fall is always good. I’ve learned that since 2011. Although I dropped/set aside an insane amount of note-worthy shows this season (Coppelion, Galilei Donna, Kill la Kill, Kyousogiga, Log Horizon and Strike the Blood), I was quite happy with what I was left with. Taking the top spot for me was the out-of-nowhere curveball that was Arpeggio of Blue Steel. Not for everyone I presume, but more than enough for me; the soundtack, the battle sequences, the characters – I throughly enjoyed them all. Kyoukai no Kanata would’ve and should’ve been my favorite for this season if not for that weird as heck ending. It felt really rushed, which is very weird for such a seasoned production company as KyoAni.

Though I did drop some good shows, I did/am watching Unbreakable Machine Doll (the most surprising adaptation thus far, which makes me look forward to future Lerche projects), Golden Time (or Toradora S2, lol), Yozakura Quartet -Hana no Uta- (finally a good adaptation of YZQ), and Ace of Diamond (because baseball)

AND, speaking of baseball (and as you may have read from the title), I finally finally got around to watching Cross Game. Fifty episodes of a lot of things I like in anime; romance, comedy, drama, baseball, realism, Tomatsu Haruka – I’d be a fiend to ask for more!

In all seriousness though, I definitely enjoyed it, and have since added it to my favorites, right under Kara no Kyoukai. Expect a review/quick look from me soon 😀

So there you have it – my take on Anime Year 2013. 2014 is only a few nights away, and I’m surely excited for the Winter Season to come around. I’m personally looking forward to Nisekoi and Chuunibyou S2.