hontou ni sou omou?

2002 was memorable for the lovely Ai Yori Aoshi and I tended to think of it as the Anti-Love Hina.

I could see why Onegai Teacher was popular but I didn’t care much for the lead couple and was watching it mainly for Herikawa; she lost in love but was definitely no loser. Mahoromatic 2 was sooooo bad - Blade Runner and the ageless Shikijo-sensei!? Yet one of the enduring mysteries to me is why Stripey chose Minawa’s catchphrase as the title of his blog! Chobits wasn’t bad but it is still probably my least favourite series based on CLAMP material.

2003 is apparently Megami’s Year of the Eroge conversion. After endless nagging from the tanuki, I watched D.C. Da Capo and, surprisingly, I enjoyed it. Mainly because of the vicious Sakura versus Nemu battle. LOL

And said tanuki, who apparently feels an affinity to Bakayuki, also got an earful from me when he passed me jus the first two eps of KimiNozo even though he had the whole series. What an awful prank! I pretty much love to do this to KimiNozo newbies these days too. :3

Ai Yori Aoshi - Enishi was good too - I call it the Tina season. Which is good because Tina was my favourite chara from that series.

On the yuri front, I tried to watch Ikkitousen but failed. Even though it had copious fan service yuri, the assault on my cherished memories of Romance of the Three Kingdoms was just too much. In contrast, I was confused by YamiBou but it kept well and I thoroughly enjoyed it (even though I still disliked the ending) when retro-blogging it a few years later.

2004 as the gattai of sprouting moe and burning moe. LOL reference to Mai Tokiha’s episode preview pun. Mai HiME is a series that I’ve had very mixed feelings about but have recently decided to be less grumpy about the reset ending. But also probably because of my delight at the :(((( and T_____T of all the lolicons who wanted MOAR Mashiro. Yuuko Ishihara would say: ‘Your wish can be dangerous.’ Behold Mai Otome’s Mashiro in the next year! LOLOLOLOL

I can understand the reasons why Rozen Maiden and School Rumble were/are popular. I did enjoy them at the time but I never picked up Traumend and my interest in Sukuran just tailed off as I felt that the characters didn’t grow very much and their relationships didn’t develop.

In 2005, Kamichu! was pretty sweet with a great opening line and the nonchalant response. SHUFFLE! was memorable for how it threaded together a pretty medicore game into something worth watching for Miki Itou’s Onee rendition of Asa Shigure and, of course, immortalising Yuuko Gotoh’s association with the yandere emblems of boxcutters and stirring empty pots. Shakugan no Shana will always have a place in my heart for two reasons: Shana-tan and Shizuka Itou as Wirhelmina Carmel de arimasu.

The other landmark series over these two years was, of course, Nanoha and A’s. But I didn’t actually watch it until last year, in preparation for StrikerS. I was quite surprised at how surprised some HNSO readers were that I hadn’t watched this series until then. Of course, this franchise is summarized by two words: AWESOME (jpmeyer) and YURI LOVE LOVE DESU (via Shinzantetsu). LOL