(Left to Right) Yuuta Togashi Yuuta (Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!), Rias Gremory (High School DxD), Kagami Sumika (chibi version, Muv-Luv), Sorata Kanda (Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo), Mikoto Urabe (Nazo no Kanojo X), Koyomi Araragi (Monogatari Series) Graphic : Stanlick

Right from the beginning of the year, you could feel that 2012 was going to be fucked up. It marked the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic sinking, and we started the year with another naval tragedy at the coast of Italy with Costa Concordia go ing down. One option to escape the cruel reality of our world is sink deep into the world of anime, that way you can forget about everything and just enjoy some good animated shows, right? Sorry to spoil this for you, but for that you’d have to look in a different year. We already covered two years (2010 and 2011) and more are still waiting for coverage.




Don’t play with guns, kids...

Beginning the winter season with Black★Rock Shooter sounds like a good start. It looks like a cute little show about two girls, one shy and the other trying to befriend her. After trial and error, they finally hit the jackpot to find something to talk about, some shared interest, just to derail the whole show into an alternative universe which represents the minds of these girls and how mentally unstable one of them is. After this quite dark turn, you might want to sit back and relax with a different show.




Oppai... Oppai!

Let’s see - maybe High School DxD, it sure sounds like fun. Who cares that Issei, main character and the biggest pervert in school, gets to go out with a beautiful and sweet girl? The jealousy you feel immediately disappears when by the end of the day she reveals herself as a fallen angel and brutally kills him. If this wasn’t enough, the prettiest girl in the academy, Rias Gremory, is a devil and revives Issei to be one of her servants. From that moment onward you quickly go in a hiding every time somebody enters the room while you’re watching this show, or maybe you quickly switch to an actual porn as it’s probably easier to explain to others.




Nope... just nope!

When you finally escape this social death trap, you calm your racing heart and turn on the Nisemonogatari. This is a sequel and you pretty much know what to expect - clever dialogue, likeable characters, and great storytelling, until you get a lecture on dental hygiene and instantly push the “eject button” out of the series.




After all of this, you return back to Mirai Nikki which you stopped watching at the end of last year because it was too much. It feels like a balm on your torn soul now. You are even able to digest the ending of Guilty Crown without a second thought, only to realize it was just one quarter of the year.

Run, Forrest, Run!


As the weather slowly gets better with more sun, new rays of hope shine on the Spring season. It feels weird to release a zombie anime in April, but why not to enjoy Halloween earlier this year? Why not indulge yourself with the second season of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?. It was only a year since the first season, but vague memories of epic fights and good humour persuade you to give it a shot, until you realize it also involved a dude cross-dressing, wearing super short pink skirt and waving a chainsaw. Once again, you are looking for literally any other show just to get rid of this image deeply engraved into you brain - again...



Armour & skirt, why not?


With your luck this year, you are sure to stumble upon Queen’s Blade: Rebellion. Who cares that it’s a sequel? Previous seasons are not important in these kinds of shows. The only things that matter are your thoughts if this armor is really enough to protect the frail female body while drooling on the desk.



Do you want some? Here, you can have mine...


After finishing the series, I recommend you to quickly wipe your desk. You don’t want anybody to come in, accidentally lick your drool, and end up like Akira from Nazo no Kanojo X. It’s one thing being obsessed with somebody (you learned that the hard way when you returned to watch Mirai Nikki last season to cure your soul), but to develop an addiction to somebody else’s drool is on a completely different level. When you finish this show you are left with a dry mouth, so let’s pretend it’s from the heat of approaching Summer, am I right?



Just get up!


With summer weather in your mind, I’d recommend to be extremely cautious - when suddenly rain pours down and you see a wet goddess in torn clothes on your front porch. It might seem like a good idea to invite her to your home, especially when she knows everything about you, but beware - you might end like Ryosuke from Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai and never play those eroge you have hidden somewhere.



Speaking about games - one of the best visual novels and an actual romantic comedy Muv-Luv is having an anime? That’s a must see - after you finish all the games in the series, so instead of watching it, sit down and play the damn games! I promise you’ll have a good time, but sadly our technology isn’t good enough yet to give you a quality immersive experience as this season’s best anime Sword Art Online.


I have two swords, I’m THE EDGE LORD!

It takes the concept of games and levels it up. Not only you get to play as the actual character, but the game doesn’t act like your nagging mother who thinks playing half an hour a day is enough. For that reason, logging out functionality doesn’t exist in the world of Aincrad and you are left with indefinite fun in a world where you can die in a heartbeat. Neat!




Meow! <3

After you realize it was a mistake to get your thoughts and mind into a game, it’s already fall outside, so with colder weather you make yourself comfortable at home, turning onto next season. Wary of the last entry in the series, you get overly cautious about Nekomonogatari: Kuro. You make sure that nobody is at home, you lock the front door and even the doors into your room are blocked from inside by a wardrobe. Luckily, there is only a cat aberration in underwear, so all the precautions were for nothing, but you can never be too cautious with this series.




I’m out...

Everything you’ve done leaves you completely washed out, so you can at least sympathize with Mashiro Shiina - the female protagonist of Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo. All she can do is to draw manga, but is totally useless in everything else.




Behold my true form and power...

It’s somewhat similar to you using all your energy to barricade your room - now you can only watch anime, which is a special power only you can wield! At least you think so, until you watch other people having similar delusions in Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!.




Finally, it’s the end of the year and everything you experienced left you in a state of praying for the cataclysmic event or end of the world on December 21st, the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. As you wake up on Saturday, December 22nd, you realize that nothing has changed. Your poor decisions about what to watch for the past year are something you must accept as a part of you and continue living with it. Despite the horrible memories still fresh in your mind, you step into a new year with hope - this time it’s with your right foot!

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