Most of those choices are pretty self-explanatory. With
Sacred Star of Milos, I’m somewhat aware that there are quite a few bad reviews (which honestly surprised me after I had watched the film). I just want to say that I still haven’t actually gotten round to watching
Brotherhood yet (I’m rather particular about watching Brotherhood in dub as I did the original series so I’ll just buy the DVDs when I get my next paycheck XP). I took the opportunity to see this film as a way to get back into the story so it didn’t end up feeling as “fillerish” for me as it probably did with others. Instead it ended up being quite a wonderful reminder of everything I loved about the first series and probably the best reintroduction to the series that I could’ve hoped for.
The year seemed to be lacking good pure drama that I could vote for but I guess that’s more due to my own personal rule about not voting for drama already covered by other genres. I could have probably still gotten away with putting
Fate Zero or even
Sukitte Ii No Yo, in there but they were kind of iffy and I leaned more towards a pure list.
In contrast there were quite a few good comedies that I didn't get to vote for.
Joshiraku,
Binbougami-ga and
Nisemonogatari were all pretty damn funny too.
As for the new horror category, I could have maybe put in
Mirai Nikki or
Another in there but with the latter deteriorating into a perversely entertaining blood sport and the former being one from the get go, I didn’t really want to...
Too bad the Sport/Games/Hobbies category was changed into just Sports this year because otherwise I could have given
Tsuritama and
Tari Tari a nod. Oh well (Wait, is a fishing a sport? Well I suppose it doesn’t matter since it wasn’t in Tsuritama. XP)
The hardest one for me was probably the new Settings category.
Accel World,
Hyouka,
Sword Art Online,
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita,
Fam of the Silver Wing,
From Up on Poppy Hill,
Sacred Star of Milos,
Inga-ron and to a lesser degree
Tsuritama,
Moretsu Pirates and
Rinne no Lagrange were all noteworthy as well. So why the hell did I put in
Aquarion Evol of all things? Honestly I’m not too sure of that myself...
I’ll get round to watching more OVAs that have been released this year but I doubt my top choice will change.
The year was kind of lacking in good proper antagonists, though I guess that doesn’t really matter when that area is almost completely mastered by Urobuchi Gen anyway. I already have a pretty good idea who I’ll be voting for next year too. I was sorely tempted to put in a certain Sacred Star of Milos villain but realised that was technically kind of spoilerish...
Speaking of Sacred Star of Milos, I also had a bit of difficulty in deciding whether Julia Critchon counted as a side character or a lead and in the end I settled for lead. The Side Character category is a real bitch to shows without conventional character roles. Honourable mentions for Best Female Lead include Nanami from
Kamisama Kiss, Shizuku from
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun and Mine Fujiko from
Lupin the Third. Honourable mentions for Best Side Character include Kanata from
AKB0048, Jin from
Aquarion Evol , Daisuke from
Lupin the-...Hmm...I’m noticing a trend emerging...
YO, I PUT SOME HATRED IN YOUR HATE SO YOU HATERS WILL BE HATIN’ (The better honourable mentions include Assistant and Y from
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and Junichi from
Sakamichi no Apollon.)
Another ridiculously hard category was the Credits Theme one. I was
really tempted to put in the
Shining Hearts ED. If you've seen it, you'll understand why. (And you have to actually see it too. It's not just the song, dude...They’re dancing and signing...They’re dancing and singing
and baking...)
In the Soundtrack category, I had to balance out my desire to vote for the best and my desires to vote for those I think deserve recognition. It was originally meant to be
Eureka Seven AO, then
Fate Zero, then
Guilty Crown but if I had done that then
Sakamichi no Apollon wouldn't get a nod and I just think it would be a crying shame if it didn’t go through. Yuki Kaijura already has enough recognition as it is, anyway.