Top 5 Anime of 2005!

I haven’t quite figured out the format I’ll be doing preview for anime yet, and the new season of anime has already started, so I thought I’d go ahead and make a feature presentation: The Top 5 Anime of 2005! It’s pretty much the end of the year, and Top N lists are in demand, so here we go! Note: these are in no particular order, and in reverse, so when they’re all up, it’ll look like they’re in order! Oh, stack data structure, how I love thee…

5. Hachimitsu to Clover

I was really surprised by how enjoyable this series was to watch. Basically a slice of life anime with one particular insane gag character to keep it interesting, this anime kept my attention until the very end. The thing is, nothing monumental happens. No giant Gundams are forced upon the characters, no magical powers are given to the girl. Even so, all of the characters are well developed, and the art style is really cool. I especially like the water color backgrounds used in the animation.

As far as cuteness goes, Hagu holds up nicely, although I find it kind of creepy that these college students are infatuated with a girl who looks like she could be 8 years old…

The OP by Yuki is great, and so is the ED by Suneohair. I liked it so much I made it my cell phone’s ringtone! The first ED could have stayed for the whole series as I was not too fond of the second ED.

Overall Honey & Clover was one of my favorite anime of this year. Hopefully it gets licensed along with the manga so I can check out what happens after the TV series’ end!