2015 In Hindsight: Most interesting shows of the Year

I’ve wanted to do a post like this for a long time, ever since 2014 actually, and I’ve started writing one many times, but for one reason or another I scrapped them all after a few paragraphs or so. The first few times were on New Year’s Eve 2014, when I decided to write a retrospective about the anime that aired in 2014. That time, the problem was that I set an unnecessarily brutal deadline: I wanted to get all the research and several thousands of words done in one evening so I could get the post out just as 2015 began. I failed, and I felt bad about it. I scrapped my first draft and started again, but this time I failed even sooner. That was a dark moment for me, because it was the first time in a long time that I had felt motivated to do something, but I ended up being unable to do it.

The next time I started was around September or October 2015, when I started writing a similar retrospective post for 2015. This time I didn’t scrap the draft, but I stalled and just kind of forgot about it. When I started this attempt, I thought I had fixed my deadline problem by starting the project 4-5 months before New Year’s. It sounded like a smart idea at the time, but it ended up spawning 3 new problems: First of all, the Fall season hadn’t started yet, so I couldn’t write about it at all. I had to leave gaps that I could fill in with comments about the Fall season. Secondly, because of the difficulties caused by the first problem, I didn’t feel motivated at all. And finally, I had no idea how to explain which shows I thought were “interesting” or why.

The first two of those problems are the reason why I stalled and forgot about the pre-Fall 2015 attempt. They’re no longer relevant problems, but the third and final problem definitely is. What is “interesting”? How do I select a list of shows to write about and then justify why I picked only those shows and no others while simultaneously making sure that the list doesn’t get too long(what’s the point of writing about it then) or too short(not enough reason to write the post in the first place)? Now, however, I realise that this doesn’t have to be a problem at all. I don’t need to conform to any a priori definition of the word “interesting”, I can just write about a bunch of shows and then describe them as “interesting enough to write about”. Clever, huh? You hear me, Nasu? Write me into the next installment of the Fate universe! I want to give long pseudo-philosophical monologues like Kirei!

2015 In Hindsight: OPs and EDs of the Year

I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going to write something like this, but screw it. It’s not like retrospective posts have to come out either on January 1st or never.

Note: I’ve tried to link to as many as possible of the songs I mention, but some of them may be unavailable, of bad quality or had their pitch changed. But I tried my best.

It’s not like I hadn’t been paying attention to OPs and EDs in 2013 and 2014, but I really only started taking my internal rankings of them seriously in early 2015. The reason for this was probably that Winter 2015 featured so many good OPs that I had a very difficult time trying to decide which one I liked the most. And, because I had not yet started blogging at that point, the decision was left unmade. It also doesn’t help that since Winter 2015 ended I’ve listened to and really liked a few more of the OPs from that season. And when it comes to the EDs, you guessed it, most of the shows with good OPs also have good EDs, at least in my opinion. But, maybe saying what I actually think out loud(or on paper, or on a blog) will help me make a decision, so let’s try that.