I’ve mentioned before in this space repeatedly how I always seem to miss out on the shows that people are watching. Either my taste is so different from the norm or I’m desperately unlucky. So just to keep you all entertained, I present the following list of shows that I dropped or didn’t feel the need to watch and some of the things that have been said on why I should have watched them.
Kuroko no Basket – The basketball on the show is amazing; I could care less about the basketball, there’s just so much shipping
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica movies – They include plenty of new things to watch for the fans of the series; It’s the greatest thing SHAFT has ever done.
Sword Art Online – It isn’t fair that you aren’t watching it and I have to write about it; It is so comically bad now; If you take into account that everyone in the show’s universe lacks common sense, it’s actually tolerable
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun– The reaction to the first episode was a bit over the top; It’s better than Sukitte
Binbougami ga!– It’s really good for a parody comedy; No, really it is actually funny
Accel World– No one has actually defended this show
Guilty Crown– It is the Savior of Anime
Chihayafuru– It has engaging characters and a real love for poetry
Girls und Panzer– It’s the most thrilling programming in anime since Strike Witches; It’s kind of funny if you watch it full-blown drunk
Kill Me Baby– It was literally the best show of the year; the opening has all you would need to determine its greatness
This page highlights all of the mistakes I have made over the years potentially. This year it just felt like I was being held to a higher standard for taste. That people actually began to care what I was watching was frankly surprising. I generally regarded my taste to be somewhere beneath this guy, and especially Scamp, who is constantly bombarded with comments questioning his taste.
I know there is part of me that accepts that I am stuck with the taste in fiction that I have. That I grew up in an environment where watching action movies like the infamous Highlander II and Rocky IV (best training montages ever by the way) without irony was a thing. It just made it easier to appreciate Last Action Hero as a piece of parody. No one really appreciates that movie now except when the expression “doing a 360” is used. Maybe it’s just more fun for me to watch something that is flawed and watched by fewer people? Who knows, but believe I have a grasp for what is really terrible at least.
Lower Mid-Table 
I did my bachelors in Modern History and did quite a lot of papers on WWII’s impact on industrial production and technological advances. So when Girls und Panzer came out, the WWII geek in me couldn’t resist. It’s far from a great show, but it has a certain charm to it that keeps me coming back to it. Cannot really comment on the rest. It’ getting harder and harder to choose what to watch and I have less and less time to dedicate to watching new stuff.
I can understand feeling a certain charm about some shows. Girls und Panzer just didn’t have it for me, and I wasn’t very much into tanks to begin with. But I can understand how that can appeal to a great number of people.
It’s basically “Saki” except with tanks instead of Mahjonng. Which is such an over-the-top concept that it’s gloriously stupid. And they know it, and wink at the audience quite a lot. (Things like the fact that the ring tone on Yukari’s phone is the sound of a cannon firing.)
I think that brings up another point. At what point does the over-the-top spectacle of girls doing dangerous things that aren’t in any way seen as dangerous in the show stretch too far? That’s an honest question.
I know what you mean man. With everybody talking about their favorite moments this season, I feel like I missed a lot. This was the first year I stared following anime though so I feel like I have a pretty good excuse. I’m going to pay a lot more attention for this coming season. Hopefully it’ll turn out better.
I would simply say pay as much attention to as you like, and don’t feel forced into watching more than you want to. These are highlights from people after all. I don’t see many writing on the worst moments of the year now.
With a show like Girls und Panzer, I can kind of understand why the obviously ridiculous parts would serve for unintentional humor. part of me is alright with things like putting their school on an aircraft carrier just because it would be cool to occasionally have shots of an aircraft carrier. The real redeeming quality of GuP, for me, is the battles are developed with strategies that are intelligible, not just speed lines and poses.
Chihayafuru was my favorite show of 2012. It was so good that it made everything else seem bad in comparison. Now with a second season looming, I’m probably ruined for anime viewing into 2013 as well.
I never even made it into the battle portion of the show. Only the first episode where everyone was excited about tank battles, except the main character. That pan out wasn’t even silly for me, but sad. Chihayafuru was another show I could never get into either. I guess that explains the post title.
Aww, you never got to watch the insert song in Girls und Panzer. That was the best.
The only other thing I can comment on is that Binbougami ga! really does have great parodies.
As for your concerns regarding your taste. Don’t worry, you have pretty good taste and even if you didn’t, you’d still be awesome-sauce.
I heard the fuss about the insert song. Music licensing is a needlessly complicated thing. Anyway, I also have to admit to not getting a lot of Death Note references as I never got beyond episode 6. What does that say about my taste?
More so than a comment on your taste, I am mostly just surprised that someone in the blogosphere hasn’t DeathNote.
Well, it is of no great concern. 😛
There’s plenty if stuff I haven’t actually watched that I probably should have by now. I probably could have used it in one of these posts.