More March Madness

Sad boy in snow... (Would be more relevant if I voted for Kanon...)

Okay good news, bad news time. The good: first voting results for March Madness over at DbD are out, with my personal favourite anime of 2006 in the lead!! The bad? My personal favourite of 2007 isn't even in... *sighs*


Honestly, I'm terribly disappointed Ookiku Furikabutte wasn't even included in Jason's Smythe Sports Division (The hockey -?- references are obviously lost on me) despite his positive review of the show some time back. Oh well, at least he mentions it favourably against Major which has been around longer (4 freakin' seasons? At least give OoFuri one more in the future then...) and has a larger fanbase, so if he really had to just choose one baseball series... *still sighs*

On a positive note, it's great to see Mushishi and Black Lagoon going on to the next round at least along with Ouran and the shoo-ins like Death Note, Haruhi, Fumoffu and FMA. Sad to say Muteki Kanban Musume is very likely out of the running (it only got like, 3% of the vote in the comedy division. Where is the emo-ramen love??) but at least we'll see the Minami sisters and the Azumanga gang as well.

The second part of March Madness round 1 covers the Sports, Giant Mecha, Harem and err... "Uncategorized(?)" series. My votes this round:

• Sports (Smythe Division): Have I mentioned how much I'd rather see Ookiku Furikabutte here rather than School Rumble and OtoBoku (which even Jason admits are there just to fill the gap...)? It's like appearing to support your favourite sporting team... Only they're not playing so you're left cheering for Tenma and Co's ridiculous basketball game to end all basketball games (SR being the only series in the list I've watched to the end). Okay, okay I'll stop ranting for OoFuri now. Incidentally, the two 'filler' series are leading in this division currently by a huge margin, which is an obvious indication of show popularity versus how much the show actually lives up to its categorization (and how few of DbD's readers actually enjoy true sports animes, I suppose).
  

• Giant Mecha (Norris Division): Easy pick, Gurren Lagann wins for making the impossible possible: letting me enjoy a giant robot show as a giant robot show - and not as a catastrophic trainwreck of cheesy goodness (if there was a category for that, Code Geass it would be =P)
  

• Harem (Patrick Division): Currently being lead by the two Key/Kyoto powerhouses. If I had to choose from the two my vote has to go to Kanon (2006)... But seeing as ef is in the list is there, the SHAFT bias came to play. (Though technically being less of a harem anime than even Rozen Maiden is...)
  

• ??? (Atlantic Division): Planetes (which I'm still pronouncing wrongly as "Planets") imho, was the best series I watched last year... which wasn't from last year, lol. Jason never finishing it probably meant he never got past the episodic slice of life (in space!!) episodes which took up a good part of the series, but the show thoroughly impressed me with its very believable take on how us humans are probably going to screw up (literally) life in space one day... Since there's no clear category here, there really is no reason against me voting for "Pla-ne-tes" (My main rant with the Atlantic Division would be since Mononoke's not even ranked highly on Anidb or ANN, Jason could've slotted OtoBoku here instead to give OoFuri a chance... okay, now I'll really stop)
  

Looking at the polls currently, there looks to be no surprises in seeing Gurren Lagann and (LOL) School Rumble next round. Now that I think about it, TTGL may just be the show to topple Haruhi... Voting stops 11PST on March 7th. Signing out for now.