Best 10 Anime Openings of 2014

Top Ten Anime Openings of 2014

This would have won, but it technically came out last year. 

As many others do this time of the year, it is time for a top ten list. This year, I decided to do a top ten opening themes this. The criteria was really simple. It had to be a song I liked, a song that was memorable in some way, and it had to be from an anime from 2014 that I watched. This is a very subjective list, and I am sure it would change in some way or form depending on how I am feeling, but these are a good base. Also I should add that I know nothing about music, what is good and what isn’t, or anything like that. I will probably say some stuff that are completely unfounded or untrue just because I think they apply to one song or another, and I am just misusing the word or phrase. But leaving that aside, let’s begin. This is my top ten anime openings of 2014.

Garo Honoo no Kokuin ep 10-11-12

Garo Honoo no Kokuin

So I’ve been a little late with these this past few weeks. It’s been finals, and holidays, the 12 days posts, and just a lot of interruptions which led to me having to again do all three episodes in one go. Let’s not wait any longer, and take a look at the past three episodes of Garo Honoo no Kokuin.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day 12

Day 12- Hunter X Hunter

So I realized a few days ago I might have started this a day early. I think I was supposed to end this on Christmas day itself, but really ending it a day early isn’t bad. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that today I talk about one of the most important, most touching moments in anime that has happened this past year. I mentioned before that Space Brothers wasn’t the only long running anime that I loved to end this year. The second one was Hunter X Hunter. 

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day 11

Day 11 – Gugure! Kokkuri-san

Gugure Kokkuri-san is about a fox demon who finds a little girl who has emotionally isolated herself, acting like a doll and consuming only instant ramen. The fox takes pity on her and decides to become her guardian, feeding her home cooked meals and trying to make her becomes more human, instead of the doll like she acts. Eventually a cursed dog spirit who is in love with the little girl shows up, and hates everything in the world except for the girl, creepily worshiping her, and a tanuki spirit, who drinks, gambles and hits on woman at the drop of a hat. Together the four characters make a pretty great comedy filled with good references, decent gags, and some very stupid humor. The show is also one of the most heartfelt shows I have seen all year.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day 10

Day Ten-A bit more Sentai

When I did the big super sentai over the past year post at the beginning of this whole thing, I was thinking only of the current sentai series. But then I remembered there was another sentai series that I watched weekly over the past year. It was one of the first sentai seasons I had ever wanted to watch, but couldn’t because there were no decent subs at the time. I was disheartened, and instead watched Boukenger, which I still have fond feelings for even to today. But this isn’t about Boukenger. This is about Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Nine

Day Nine- Sabagebu!

9 times out of ten, a show like this is something I would skip over. On the surface it is a fan service heavy show that revels in the same cliché type of comedy that most anime use. Everything about this show on the surface seems like something I would just skip over after the first episode. But then there was one thing, one character, in the first episode that sold me on the show, and kept me coming back for more. And that was Momoka, the biggest asshole in anime.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Eight

Day Eight- Space Brothers

One of my favorite anime of all time has ended this year. Well, actually two, but I will get to the second one in time. The first series I will talk about though was so good that I decided a few months ago to read the manga, and as of today I am all caught up on said manga. That series was Space Brothers.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Seven

Day Seven- Sword Art Fucking Online 2

There are shows that I end up adoring throughout a year. Shows that I think back fondly to and even sometimes grow from watching. Then there are shows that I watch but forget about once they are done. Shows that aren’t bad, but are at the end of the day forgettable, that I enjoy watching but don’t really feel like I have to watch again. And then there are shows that are just plain bad. They are just plain awful shows, that most of the time I watch the first episode of and then I don’t watch the rest, usually forgetting about it. But once in a while, there is a show that I honestly just hate. A show that is just disgusting and annoying and hateful. And I watch that show. I hate watch that show. I sit through every episode and just feel the hate flow through me. And for the past six months, that show has been Sword Art Online 2.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Six

Day six- End of Naruto

                Naruto has a very old connection for me. I’ve told this story before, but I first found manga through Shonen Jump. I was obsessed with Yugioh, and I saw Yugi on the cover of a strange magazine and I had to get it. But in that magazine I discovered so many new things. I read One Piece, my manga series of all time. I found Sand Land, a mange done by the incredible Akira Toriyama. And I found a little manga about a ninja in orange with a fox demon in him. I discovered Naruto 12 years ago. And this year it just ended. 

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Five

Day Five- Studio Trigger

I’ve never really been a big follower of any particular animation studio. While I could recognize Studio Bonez or J.C. Staff or in the very least knew the names, I never considered myself a fan of any particular one or another, or a follower of any particular studio. But in the past year that has changed. I might actually consider myself an actual fan of Studio Trigger. 

12 days of Anime Christmas - Day Four

Day Four- Orenchi no Furo Jijou

As you may know, I watch a lot of micro series. A micro series, for those who don’t know, are any show that is unrealistically short, around 5-10 minutes, but usually less than 5. There have been a few this year, Tonari no Seki-kun makes the cut in my mind, Strange + and its sequel, the lesbian animal girl show Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san, but the show I want to talk about today is the homoerotic merman anime, Orenchi no Furo Jijou.

Twelve Days of Anime Christmas - Day Three

Day Three- Majin Bone

The bands all here

After two days of talking about transforming five man bands and guys in armor fighting monsters and other armored guys, let’s talk about a five man band who transform into armor and fight other guys in armor. Wait… But anyway, let’s talk about Majin Bone.

12 Days of Anime Christmas - Day Two

Day two- Kamen Rider

Like Super Sentai, every year there are two Kamen Rider seasons, one that ends and one that begins. Unlike Super Sentai, the show with the longer run time over the year is the old show, while the new show only gets the last few weeks of the year. As such, I am going to flip the order of what I am writing about, first talking about the current series and then about the one that ended a few months ago. Let’s first look at Kamen Rider Drive.

12 Days of Anime Christmas

12 Days of anime Christmas

So for the Christmas season I’ve decide to do the 12 days of anime Christmas. For those who don’t know what it is, here’s the long and short of it. http://thecartdriver.com/12-days-of-anime-project-call-to-arms-christmas-2014/ basically for the 12 days up to Christmas, and Christmas itself, I will be making a post a day about something that has happened in the past year that is anime related. From just talking about shows I liked to specific moments and many other things. So let’s start this off with a bang for day one. 

Garo: Honoo no Kokuin ep 7-8-9

Garo: Honoo no Kokuin 

It is coming to the end of the semester for me, so writing these weekly posts are getting a bit harder. Mostly because they are being interrupted with real work and everything. So at least this week’s post will be about the past three episodes. There is a decent amount to go over, so let’s just jump in. 

Garo Honoo no Kokuin ep 6

Garo Honoo no Kokuin 

This week, we learned a piece of the villain’s plan, how bad ass a father can be, and that Leon is a virgin. Obviously the last piece of information was the most important. In actuality Leon is shaping up to be an interesting character. On the outset he looks like he is a cool, calm warrior type. He cares about honor and working towards his ultimate goal. Distractions of drink, money, and flesh mean nothing to him. But that is only the most visible layer. In actuality he is still young, an adult by the standards of the time period of the show, but he is still a boy, and not only because he is a virgin. I mentioned before that he is naïve as a Makai Knight, but that naivety seems to stretch further than that. While he acts calm and cool, his emotions are always surprisingly just about to boil over. He is basically just a normal teen. But this gives me hope for his growth. Yes he is an emotional youngling right now, but by the end of the show? Who knows?

Ignore the shitty play button and animewow in the corner. I needed to make screen shots fast, alright!

                On the episode itself, I want to say that is was very standard. That isn’t a bad thing, standard Garo is still getter then most things on television. While the plot of the week was just ok, I have to admit I really like the villains plans. The idea of inducing the darkness that is required to be first consumed by a Horror, and then forcing the Horror into the person is an evil yet effective plan to build an army of the damned very quickly. While they don’t get a lot of screen time this season, I am really digging the villains this season. My only complaint is in the next episode it seems to be introducing another Makai Knight. This brings the totally up to four, and this one will actually be evil. I believe the most Makai Knights we have gotten before was in season two, but I am not counting the final battle with all the Knights, I mean just named ones. And they were working off of ones from the previous season. This season alone we have gotten three brand new Knights. I feel like we might be getting too many. But on the other hand, that is a benefit of animation over live action. It costs less to draw a new suit then to manufacture one and do the CG for it. 

This is a good plan. I am happy to be a part of it!

Garo Honoo no Kokuin ep 5

Garo Honoo no Kokuin

The new episode of Garo really focuses on a topic that I haven’t talked about much in these weekly logs, and that was the Prince. The story seems to be having two separate story-lines that at some point will meet up and then both groups will go after the final boss. The Prince’s story is the Shakespearean tale of a disposed prince who will go out, raise an army, and come back home taking the throne and saving the day. He is teaming up with the Purple Knight, who we now know is the Knight of Defense Gaia. For now at least the Prince will be training under the Knight to gain the skills and powers to defeat the Horrors. I really like this, because it creates a good mirror for Leon, especially since Leon and the Prince are cousins. I am reminded of the mirror storyline from Gekiranger, which turned out really great, though that had the added benefit of the mirroring being much deeper, it involving the main character and the main villain. I hope this dual storytelling works out, as it will be something new for the Garo franchise to do and it can make for a really great story.

The Prince and his Knight

The other big thing I wanted to talk about from this episode was the idea that armors are passed down through bloodlines. This is interesting, to say the least. Before, armors weren’t necessarily passed down via blood. While the Garo armor itself is passed down this way for the most part, it was never confirmed Ryoga, who is the main character of Garo: The One Who Shines in the Darkness, is in any way related to the previous Garo, Kouga, though to be fair it isn’t said he isn’t related. The third season takes place so far in the future that Ryoga’s ancestry might be forgotten. And even if the Garo armor is passes down, we have seen other armors that are not. The Zero armor is passed down to adopted son Rei in the original series. So that makes the whole idea of blood lines in this kind of questionable. I think it is more like it is common to pass down one armor to another through a family, but it isn’t 100% necessary. And I think that means that the Prince will take up the Gaia armor before the series is over. 

This dude is seriously cool.

The anime is still going strong and has yet to, in my opinion, make a misstep. I think my only big complaint so far is that the shows focus on the overall story might eventually impede the more standalone episodes, but that has yet to be shown. So until next week, have fun watching.

Garo Honoo no Kokuin Episode 4

Garo Honoo no Kokuin

I might still be on a Zaruba kick.

I really like the way this series is teaching the audience the ins and outs of Makai Knights and the Garo franchise in general. This episode showed the Horror checker of the season, usually a lighter with a special flame but currently a bell, which is a good of way of showing the temporal setting of the show for long time watchers and is good to explain how Knights tell the difference between Horrors and regular humans. Also brought up is the Knights non-confrontational nature when it comes to anything not related to the Horrors they hunt. It is something important for the show to establish. It explains why these people with amazing magical powers get easily caught and killed by regular humans, and also why those same super powered people aren’t ruling the world. It is something important. 

The third Makai Knight of the series, who ever he is.

One of the things Garo has always been good at is showing just how horrible humans are. Yes, Horrors torture and maim their food, just to make it sweeter to them, but humans can be just as cruel and for less reasons. We have seen humans feed others to a Horror, human’s that rape and murder before they were Horrors, and this time we see a whole village of people who have no association to the monsters ritualistically sacrificing their own members. While there is a Horror involved, everyone in the episode was working fully independent of that, acting like horrible people, keeping secrets and always looking for the next excuse, the next person to sacrifice in the name of purity. And showing how awful humans are fits into the theme. It is the darkness that we create that brings to life the Horrors. If it wasn’t for us, there would be no monsters.

Example of the darkness of humans? or Just sage fatherly advice? You decide!

The other thing this episode did was really highlight Leon’s inexperience with being a Makai Knight. Combat wise he is fine, with the exception of his suit breaking apart from the inside. What he lacks is experience dealing with people. He is young and foolhardy, and almost always willing to believe anyone. When the villagers said everything was fine, he was ready to move on. That was partially because of his lust for revenge against those who killed his mother, something that this episode also touched on, but we also see that he can’t see past other people’s lies. He believed the mother outright, and I am pretty sure his father didn’t. He also hesitated whenever the Horror showed him the face of the child. This is natural for humans to do, but a Knight can’t hesitate against a Horror, no matter what. One wrong move and it will be over, and that Horror will go and kill many more innocent lives. This is a good way of showing Leon’s inexperience, but also hopefully showing that he will grow as the season progresses. 

The anime has been progressing well over the past four weeks, with each episode being both an interesting look at this new world and also a good introduction to the overall world of Garo for new viewers. Next week though we get to start something brand new, the exploration of a new Makai Knight, a purple knight who is helping out the main character of the secondary plot, the son of the King who was manipulated into killing all those Priests and Knights. It looks like it will be a good time. So until next time, have fun watching. 

I still really like this image.