Pleasant Anime Surprises of 2011 (in your opinion)
 

This thread is a companion to the Most disappointing anime of 2011 thread. I thought it would be interesting to balance that one with surprises that went into a positive direction. Note that pleasant surprises needn't be masterpieces; just shows you enjoyed more than you expected to.

My pleasant surprises of 2011:

Kamisama Dolls:

What I thought I'd get: Generic fight-an-old-friend action.

What I got instead: The turning point was episode 3. The amount of development they put into that episode surprised me, and they didn't let off. Good characterisation, subtle presentation. Only downside is that it's nowhere near finished, and it's doubtful we'll get more anime-wise (though there are other media; I forget whether it's light novels or manga).

Lotte no Omocha:

What I thought I'd get: Lame ecchi comedy.

What I got instead: warmhearted family comedy - no masterpiece, but it gave my weekly warm glow.

Nekogami Yaoyorozu:

What I thought I'd get: Cute kitty driven comedy ("Dog Days" for cat lovers)

What I got instead: A show that was surprisingly good at mixing the utterly silly with the emotionally touching. The cheer-me-up show of its season. I almost passed this up.

R-15:

What I thought I'd get: Lame ecchi comedy.

What I got instead: Wacky characters and misunderstandings that - ironically - mirrored my preconceptions of the show. Meh, it's an anime comedy about a teen porn writer. Can that possibly be good? Apparantly, yes. (I loved the last episode. The best ending of the season.)

Mashiro-iro Symphony:

What I thought I'd get: Generic harem show.

What I got instead: Generic harem show. And yet I keep looking forward to it each week. Why? Maybe I'll know after I finish? :heh:

Looking at the list, I seem to be sort of prejudiced against ecchi content... Hm...

Kamisama Dolls

While I had a little interest in it,I wasn't expecting much,the first episode didn't reasure me but as it went on it just got better and better and turned into one of my favorite 2011 anime.

Can't say I've very pleased with Angel Beats and persona 4,but I've got to praise Seiji Kishi for Kamisama Dolls so I'll still check out his future work.

It also gets bonus points for having Sawashiro Miyuki and Hanazawa Kana playing complete psychopaths,not something you see every day.

Level E

Knew nothing about this,I just checked out the first episode out of boredom,what I ended getting was maybe my favorite comedy of the year.

Bakuman 2

Yay!They've sped up the pace so my main gripe with season 1 is gone,it's been a real pleasure to watch.

Tiger & Bunny

May seem weird including this here considering how popular it's become, but yeah. I only started watching it because I was really bored one day and expected it to be a really silly throwaway show because of the name, logo, and synopsis. Ended up being a show with likable characters, an interesting take on the superhero concept, and a plot that made it really difficult to wait a week for the next episode. One of my favorites of the year.

I will third Kamisama Dolls also.

I don't really know what I was expecting but this definitely proved to be an enjoyable watch. The fight scenes were well done and the characters' motivations and especially anger were really believable. I hope the second season hinted at after the last episode happens but I haven't heard anything about it so...

Kamisama Dolls is a manga and the source material for the anime. Though I am happy that the director chose to follow the manga faithfully instead of having a filler or an anime original ending (reminded me of Yumekui Merry anime).

So far the only show this year that excels my expectations of how much I would love it, is Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko.

That's not to say it's the only show I liked, but it's the only one that was something I had not expect to like but ended up loving it.

On a more negative note, there are a number of shows that I would admit to liking grudgingly >.>

Nichijou:

What I thought I'd get: Some K-On like anime but drawn in Azumanga Daioh style.

What I got instead: A pleasant anime with funny random jokes

YuruYuri:

What I thought I'd get: Some lolicon fanservice show.

What I got instead: One of the best slice of life that involves yuri.

Mashiro-iro Symphony:

What I thought I'd get: Harem show with tons of gross fanservice

What I got instead: A show that doesn't rely on fanservice heavily and doesn't show that it is harem in an obvious manner

I think 2011 in general has been a pleasant surprise for anime, so many enjoyable series this year.

But for an anime that I didn't expect to be as good as it was definitely Tiger & Bunny. Unfortunately I didn't watch it when it aired so I missed the fandom experience but I recently finished marathoning it and I really enjoyed it.

I held off for a long time because I am tired of the super hero genre and I expected it to be similar to those Marvel/Madhouse collaborations. But instead it turned out to be a lot of fun. Plot wise I suppose it wasn't anything special but I loved the buddy cop relationship of the two main protagonists.

Usagi Drop-- I expected some cute boring, slice of life stuff with some attempts at moe. What I got was a legitimately heartwarming story that manages to be adorable

Chihayafuru-- I expected to be about some shitty romance with sparkling bishies and airhead females. It is by and far the opposite with real, human characters.

Tiger and Bunny-- It has a pretty good plot, you know.

Only two words:



:D

I can definitely agree about Tiger & Bunny, but I also want to mention Gosick. Even though it was bordering on outrageous in the final stretch and the order of the story arcs brought in some inconsistencies, the character development on Kujo and Victorique was adequate and the mysteries themselves had good construction. It's not a hard detective plotline, nor is it a romance or adventure, but rather a combination of them that presents itself in a manner that makes it difficult to segregate anything. I won't call it anything more than good, but if anything I just mentioned sounds like your fancy, be sure to give this one a try.

Yeah, Tiger and Bunny is probably the pleasant surprise of the year for me as well.

I thought it would probably be an average action show, but it ended up having a lot of heart and soul to it, and it also will end up being one of my Top 10 (if not one of my Top 5) anime shows of the year.

Can you believe I was somewhat disappoined in Tiger & Bunny? Not that it wasn't a good show, but from the first episode I was kinda hoping it would go down the route of exploring the marketing of real superheroes and perhaps some interesting commentary on capitalism. Too much? :heh:

But I have to say that the most pleasant surprises for me were Chihayafuru, Penguindrum, and Oujisan no Lamp.

I'll add another one which I forgot Ikoku no Meiro Croisee. Another favorite of mine from 2011 but if you said that in the beginning I would not have believed you. I thought it would be cute with little substance. I didn't really like the main females' character design. I was very wrong to pre-judge the series and I am so glad I watched it. It was cute but it was a lot more than that. I thought it was a really wonderful humanistic tale of characters interacting from different cultures and classes.

True it probably went for the more heartwarming than introspective approach but it definitely worked on me. I loved the interaction between the main two characters especially. But even the stereotypical rich girl turned out to be much more than she first appeared.

The Idolmaster:
What I thought: Thought it was a show about Makoto and her friends fighting meteors in space with mechas while giving concerts to fund their expenses.
What I got: Interesting show that handles its fairly large cast in a good way. Characters were much more interesting than I expected.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee
- Instead of being zzz with zero plot, Ikoku Meiro turned out very heartwarming and did have alot of subthreads regarding characters' relationships

Level E
- Thought it'd be some oldschool lame comedy. It's oldschool alright, but hilarious comedy.

Nichijou
- Wasn't really that fond of it in the first half, but second half became very entertaining. Now I miss watching it each week. :(

Ben-tou
harem with badly animated fights -> best satyr of the year with amazing fights

Chihayafuru
shoujo boredom -> the rare interesting shoujo that pops up once every other year

Kamisama Dolls
shounen crap -> second half had rape, murder, tears, blood… unfortunately still kid-friendly, but that's TV

Rotte no Omocha
lolis -> Mercelida :bow:

R-15
generic harem with crap art -> hilarious harem with crap art

Kore wa Zombie desuka?
generic harem -> hilarious harem with excellent chemistry between the cast

No because you and I have some oppositism thing going on where we have seemingly polar opposite tastes and likes dislikes. Also amusingly I may be one of few people who expected to like Tiger & Bunny right off the bat so I'd agree with people were it not for it just basically matching my expectations.

As for shows like MPD and Nichijou, both had a ton or hype going in so I'm not sure about those two qualifying from where I'm standing, however I suppose its possible to have just never been caught up in the Kyoani and Ikuhara hype machines. Personally I wasn't but never got into Nichijou and am still not sure where I stand with MPD. I feel like I've been just on the cusp of getting into it for about a month but somehow it keeps missing that one little push to get me over that last little barrier with how it keeps switching gears and focuses just as I am about to break through. As it stands I'm starting to think my fear of it just meandering itself into a corner and running out of time to tie it all together will be realized, but I hope to still be able to add it to this list. It seems at this point though that it'll have to come off of something completely incidental and possibly unintentional though

Mashiro-Iro Symphony: While it may romance/harem show but it had good soundtrack and didn't use its ecchine-ness to sell itself, unlike R-15 and Manyuu Hikenchou.

Chihayafuru: I expect just another shoujo with sparkling bishounens and stupid, plain-looking female characters but instead its like Hikaru no Go, only better.

Nichijou.

I went in with the Minami-ke attitude of not expecting much and I got more than expected. It was also funny. Didn't get any hype from it at all really. Only minor confusion from the OVA.

What was a surprise was the animation quality out strips what you would expect from a comedy series.

Nichijou.

I came in thinking that "KyoAni couldn't possibly make this moe." They didn't really, but it was a great comedy.