Gundam is a 35-year-old anime franchise now, but it continues to become more, not less, relevant in my life as time goes on.

For example, one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2014 was to start a Gunpla blog with my husband as a place for all of our building efforts to live. In May, we launched Gunpla 101 with an awesome logo designed by Ben Huber. As a direct result, I’ve doubled my passive income and started building Master Grades with confidence. We’ve also got big plans for the site for 2015, including more advanced tutorials, merchandise, and an ebook!

None of that would be possible however, without a constant stream of Gundam shows to make me fall in love with these mechs over and over again. Here are some of the Gundam shows I watched and adored in 2014:

Gundam Build Fighters

After the spectacular failure that was 2011’s Gundam AGE, this show injected some much needed life into the Gundam franchise. Unlike so many earlier heroes, Sei can’t contain his love for all things Gundam. The show adds drama not only to fighting with Gundams, but building Gunpla models. And most powerfully, the cast of diverse but passionate characters made it a must watch, whether you’re a Gundam fan or not.

Gundam Seed

Every year John and I like to watch at least one older show together. We picked this one since it’s one of the most modern Gundam shows that is still good. Seed falls into the tropes that characterize a lot of old-school Gundam—a mysterious genius protagonist who doesn’t want to pilot the Gundam, women who die to further the plot—but redeems itself with incredible mecha designs and a gripping space opera of a plot.

Gundam-san

This show is not available in my country, but since each episode is only three minutes they’re all up on YouTube and there haven’t been any objections yet. In this absurd and silly take on the Gundam universe, no character is above a degrading, potty-humored caricature. It transforms handsome anti-hero Char into a whiny nudist and brave Amuro into a hormone crazed teen. It’s great that an institution like Gundam can still poke fun at itself.

Gundam Build Fighters Try

Not only am I watching this one; I’m reviewing it for Anime News Network as it continues well into 2015. Gundam Build Fighters is a tough act to follow, but Try has exceeded my expectations with a slew of amazing new female characters and suspenseful battles. It isn’t resting on its laurels, but continuing to develop a new world and characters at the same time that it calls back upon the last three decades of Gundam.

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This post is the seventh installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

Yesterday I talked about shows that suck. Fortunately, there’s a lot of amazing anime to make up for it. I watched a bunch of shows a second time this year. Instead of food, shopping, or what have you, I went on anime binges whenever I was in need of comfort. I’m not saying it’s any healthier, but it’s certainly my drug of choice!

Here are a few shows I experienced the second time around in 2014.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The first time I watched this show was in middle school, so I was pretty hazy on the plot. And judging by the subtle metaphors only an adult would get, I am pretty sure I missed a lot the first time. For example, I thought “Nanami’s Egg” was a pretty Dada episode when I was thirteen, but it’s pretty clearly a metaphor for puberty. Weirdly, I remember being kind of happy for Utena when she and Akio got together. Now, I see their uncomfortable relationship for what it is. It’s amazing how astute you get after 15 years of anime watching.

Welcome to the NHK

I watched this for the first time in 2010 when I was at the lowest ever point in my career—essentially, before it had even begun. I was a gym cashier with a Master’s degree, living at home with my parents, wondering why I couldn’t get a real job being that the recession was supposed to be over. This time, all the things I found comforting before seemed a little too convenient: Misaki’s need, Sato’s many second chances to successfully complete an eroge. There’s a little bit of luck when it comes to life, but most of it is hard work.

Natsume’s Book of Friends

I couldn’t shut up about this show in 2013, and I couldn’t even wait 12 months to watch it again. Natsume was even warmer and more consoling when contrasted with the similar but moodier Mushi-shi, which I watched for the first time this year. For me, it’s emotional catnip, a calming story against a muted background where even the spiritual elements are very human. I crave it whenever I feel lonely because it does such a good job of personifying that particularly universal human condition.

The Eccentric Family

Another 2013 favorite. As I wrote back then, it’s pure escapism to a world that never existed. Now that I know the plot by heart, I spent my second watch-through focused on the gorgeous scenery and music that embody this magical world the characters move through, seemingly ignorant to how good they have it. Backdropped against the turning of the seasons, the rich and varied settings are exquisite and cozy and make me want to live there. As Benten, preferably.

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This post is the sixth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

I have a friend who loves video games and is also an excellent writer. When a video game blog we both read was looking for reviewers, I suggested he apply.

His refusal was instant. “If I did that, video games wouldn’t be my hobby anymore. They’d be my job and that wouldn’t be fun.”

Clearly, this is a point where we disagree. Everything I do for a living right now—blogging, writing books and articles, and web design—is also something I do for fun. So when Anime News Network put out a call for weekly streaming reviewers this summer, I didn’t need to think twice before I put my name in for consideration.

I’m coming on four months of reviewing three anime episodes a week, every week. Most of the time, it’s amazing! I get to pick the shows I want to review, so I can feel good about a show coming into it. However, I don’t always make good picks. For example, I chose to review an anime, Nobunaga Concerto, that I didn’t like from the start! I don’t know what was worse, having to watch it every week, or letting down a slew of readers every week who were disappointed that I had so many critiques toward a show they loved.

This year I learned that it’s not reviewing anime that makes watching TV feel like a job. It’s sticking with anime I simply don’t like that feels like the worst kind of work.

Some of the shows I watched this year were not my cup of tea, like Nobunaga Concerto. Others were non-negotiably terrible, like Dramatical Murder—a show with animation so poorly rendered that they had to redo episode three. As a BL fan, I am Dramatical Murder’s target audience, and even so I would have given it an even lower grade than its reviewer did. Hands down, this was my worst show of the year. Of course, Psycho-Pass 2 could be the dark horse in that race—it’s getting dumber the more I watch!

I also watched a few fan service anime this year that had little else to offer. I loved the mini, moe Mashiro in Engaged to the Unidentified, but the other characters were barely more than sketches. I wouldn’t recommend the so-so Bakumatsu Rock, a silly manservice musical anime that had trouble keeping up a semblance of a plot. And then, I actually liked Love Stage!, even though it hastily ended on episode 10, a clear sign that it had issues.

You see, I didn’t drop a single show this year. I wanted to document a comprehensive record of everything I watched this year so I could calculate the hours on day 12 of my Twelve Days. As a result, I watched some pretty awful anime to their conclusions in 2014. I wouldn’t recommend this. I’m kind of ashamed that I carved out time in my life to do it. I am not sure who came up with the Three Episode Rule, but it’s a good one. In 2015, if I don’t like something by episode three, that’s the end of it. I’d rather have a job I love—reviewing anime—than to assign myself work I hate based on some misguided principle of finality.

Screencap from the infamous Dramatical Murder episode 3. 

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This post is the fifth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

Have you ever had butterflies in your stomach? A lump in your throat? That feeling when your heart pounds almost painfully when you’re around that special somebody? Those feelings are familiar to me from getting crushes on human beings. But in all my years of anime obsession, I never actually expected to feel that way about a cartoon character.

This is the most embarrassing of my Twelve Days, and certainly the most embarrassing blog post I’ve written all year. Here’s my confession: I have a crush on Toudou Jinpachi, a 2D teenager from a TV show, and it’s made me question everything I know about romance.

I discovered Yowamushi Pedal in the spring. The days were growing longer and lighter and every morning felt like the start of something new. It was the perfect time to fall in puppy love. Toudou, a loudmouthed, boastful, and vain character, immediately became my favorite. But then it became more than that. I’d blush when I’d think of him. I’d cover my eyes when he appeared on screen. I’d stammer when talking about him with fellow fans.

Suddenly, I understood what people meant when they’d say X character was their “waifu” and “husbando.” It wasn’t an ironic statement (most of the time), but a genuine expression of love for a character. Can a crush exist between a human being and a cartoon drawing? Maybe not, but our brains are really good at tricking us into believing it.

So for me, the weird-factor isn’t that I have a crush on a cartoon character. In my subculture that’s not too unusual. Fortunately, my friends are so used to me saying stuff like this that their reaction was more like, “Seriously? The other dudes are way cuter.”

What was surprising and a little concerning for me was having my first crush on somebody else after getting married. What I never realized before was that just because you get married doesn’t mean you only have eyes for one other person forever. Marriage (well, the way I do it) means you’re making a commitment to be only with this one other person forever. What’s great about me getting a crush on an inappropriate, not to mention impossible, target is that I can direct those positive feelings back into my marriage to make my husband feel more loved.

As to whether my husband gets crushes on 2D characters? Well, you’d have to ask him.

Screenshot via Yowamushi Pedal, episode 31.

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This post is the fourth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.

This fall I joined a running club. Every Thursday night, I go out on a three or four mile run in the dark with the occasional freezing rain pouring down. I come back exhausted, but I can’t stop smiling for the rest of the night.

My husband and my friends think I’ve gone a little crazy. But when I think about the encouragement of the other members, the high-fives and pats on the back, I realize I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for after watching all this sports anime all year: a team.

At the beginning of the year, I blogged about how shows like Free!, Kuroko’s Basketball, Haikyuu!, and Yowamushi Pedal were actually getting me into shape. I can’t swim, play basketball, or even ride a bicycle very well, but I can run. Onoda, the scrawny nerd who stars in Yowapeda, was a huge inspiration to me. He doesn’t look athletic, but he has heart. Slight of build but passionate, sports anime main characters like Kuroko and Hinata follow this same personality recipe.

Growing up, I always thought that being a nerd was in opposition to being athletic. I ran JV Track & Field because I had friends in it, but I never tried all that hard to be fast. In fact, when I wasn’t fast, I felt justified in an odd way, like it proved I was a “true” nerd. Of course, personality traits aren’t so black and white as they felt in high school. Even as they continuously break the sound barrier with their speed and skill, what makes sports anime heroes so sympathetic are their oddball characteristics. From Midorima’s quirky obsession with horoscopes to Makishima’s terrible fashion sense to Tobio’s socially awkward small talk, sports anime wouldn’t be worth my time if weren’t rooting so hard for these losers.

The lesson here is that it’s difficult to resist categorizing people, including yourself. Running a blog called Otaku Journalist for five years, I’ve highlighted my otaku side online because doing fandom activities in real life makes great blog fodder. However, I have a lot of other interests. I enjoy hardware hacking, knitting, experimenting with makeup—and now, running.

You don’t hear about this stuff very much because it doesn’t fit in with the online perception I am trying to convey. With “otaku” and “journalist,” I already have two identities to manage! And I don’t plan on starting to cover my other hobbies more often, either. Instead, sports anime has encouraged me to live a more offline life, with hobbies I don’t feel compelled to document on my blog. My favorite sports anime characters don’t usually bring their non-sports activities to the competition, but these interests shine through their personalities anyway and make them more memorable no matter what they’re doing. I hope the same goes for me.

Screenshot via Kuroko’s Basketball. 

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This post is the third installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year. For all the posts in this series, visit my table of contents.