The Grand Search for the Best Anime of the 2000s

[Maokun]

Mmmm see that assumes that everyone has the same ethics, morals and values or that those are what they look for in entertainment. Let me use an example (sort of spoilers for those who haven't seen Baccano). [spoiler]One of my favourite characters is Rail Tracer/Claire Stanfield. And I'm not talking just Baccano characters, I'm talking favourite period. He's charismatic, has an interesting world view and a twisted sense of honour. He's also a psychopathic mass murderer with sadistic tendencies (euphemism much?) and prone to extreme violence. Logically there should be no way I should like him. But I do anyway because he invokes positive emotions in me. I cheer when he does something cool, I'm happy when he beats an opponent or makes it out alive. In my experience that's heart rational not head rational.[/spoiler]On a more general note, while I do believe than quality can be judged objectively, I don't like to put much stock into it when it comes to entertainment. Something can be objectively very good, but if for some reason I didn't enjoy it, what's the point? I'd be wasting my time, and doing that on entertainment is just silly. It also means that other people might be dictating what I should enjoy and not what I do enjoy, which is also silly. Bonus of course if I like something and it's objectively of good quality, but we can't always get what we want. So a little off topic but that's just my two cents about heart vs. head. Smiley face for friendly discussion.

That's actually a very good response. I guess that I was trying to say that FMA:B is fulfilling in ways that Baccano! is not (subjectively) but that seems to be hard to put into words that do not involve qualifying everyone else's experience. Note that I don't think that lack of moral is a flaw in a narrative or that a character cannot be charismatic without them, just that a story with a good lesson has a chance to impact you in more ways that may resonate for the rest of your life. Or at least I think so

- You say the magical powers in it have an origin. I don’t see why that is any different from other mahou shows. It still is magic in people or objects.

- Then you say it has consequences. Sorry, but there is no such thing if eventually everything can be undone as easily as it is done, as proven by the ending.

- And most mahou shows eventually mention how being a magical girl means you can never have a truly normal life. It is subtle in most but it’s there. Again, Madoka took this element and raised it by the 11.

I think that you are oversimplifying what CO was trying to say. Yes, in other Magical Girl shows their lives change radically and things have origin and end... but in a negative way? (SPOILERS) Having to conceal a secret identity and getting involved in love triangles with your alter-ego (the usual fare of discomfort a Mahou Shoujo experiences) has nothing to do with being fooled into servitude to a heartless alien who is only waiting for her to go past her useful life and become a source of "food" herself, the magic that they get only some spare change out of the enormous cost they are unwittingly paying up front. Moreover, not "everything" was undone: Everyone who died remained dead.

Besides you are admitting that even if Madoka has its feet firmly planted in known tropes, it took things to uncharted territories, so why is there even an argument?

[Neane]

Out of the two, I am voting for Madoka. I really liked Baccano! when I first watched it, but it kinda loses its appeal for me after a second watching.

[Zeldafan2]

Baccano!: To put it simply, it deserves to win more than Madoka. I can see myself enjoying this much more than Madoka as well simply because I really liked Durarara!!.

[skreyola]

I'm voting for Madoka.

My view on why it's a deconstruction: In almost every other MG show, the MG is all sweetness and light, and whatever problems she has to deal with aren't inherently tied to her powers themselves, but to other things (balance of time spent saving the world vs. other things, having to hide her powers from friends, etc.). No other MG show I've seen shows any more cost to using magic than a WoW caster... the power comes basically free, and you don't lose anything by using it.

[Atria35]

Baccano! - Mostly, I think they're pretty equal on how much I enjoyed them, but Baccano! has withstood the test of time. With Madoka still being pretty shiny and new, I'm not sure wither it will hold up the same way.

[mechana2015]

Hmm... two shows about people gaining one thing at great cost...

[Atria35]

Y'all know voting technically hasn't started yet right?

I'm pretty sure that last post on the previous page says 'voting open until...' at the bottom of it. Isn't that the signal that voting has started?

[mechana2015]

I misread... note that I edited my post pretty quick.

I'm voting for baccano. I enjoyed it more, despite liking Madoka quite a bit. Better style, and it's the show I can and do watch repeatedly. I'm not really jonesing for another rewatch of Madoka, where I do go for Baccano episodes on a regular basis.

[KnightOfFive]

Baccano! is simply put the obvious choice out of the two. An interesting (if more than a bit dark) concept spun in an excellent way.

[Maokun]

Even though I love Madoka to bits, I've been voting for its [s]victims[/s] opponents all this time. This ends now.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is my choice. While Baccano! is very smart and entertaining, there's a depth to Madoka that the former lacks. It might be the very human shock of realizing that atrocious evil may lurk in the shadow of things apparently wonderful and magical. Or being reminded that breaking vicious ever-degenerating cycles take the utmost sacrifice of someone foreign to it and otherwise blameless. Or a myriad other things that become apparent the closer you look at it.

I may return to Baccano! over and over to enjoy the thrills and the witty narrative. I perhaps won't return to Madoka too often, but I'm still chewing on the memory of it and will for a long time, it's multi-layered core still bursting with flavor and powerful messages timelessly.

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It's funny how the more time I give for voting (trying to make sure everyone who'd vote will have a chance since this is the grand final, after all) has the only measurable effect of making people that otherwise -on a tighter deadline- would vote promptly put it on the back of their heads and end forgetting about it. That it encompassed a weekend didn't help, I guess (which is also ironic because it's by definition the time of the week when people have more spare time, but that's human nature for you.)

With blkmage's pardon, I'll extend the deadline by a full day if we don't get some more voters in the few hours left in the clock. I refuse to define the grand final of the big tournament with less than 50% of the regular voters on board

[GeneD]

Baccano!: I've been voting Baccano consistently throughout this contest and I won't stop now. It's my favourite. Madoka is really good but I just don't care about the characters in the same way as I do for those in Baccano. The quote below is from earlier in the thread and expresses how I feel about it rather well:

While the plot is fantastically tight, the visuals are fantastic, and the twists induced many a dropped jaw, I'm just not all that concerned about these characters. They are all appropriately tragic and I like them all but I never found myself devastated at their fates during the show. Madoka conveyed a general sense of despair excellently but I never really personal felt say, Homura's devestation during episode ten.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Baccano! is obviously my choice, but I do contest the idea that there isn't a message/moral to it. It isn't hammered over your head, heck, I'd say you really need to see the specials to really "get" it, but Baccano! is about the idea of people each having their role in the world. Narita's writing is fantastic because rather than the kind of plotting (I assume) most writers do, where they carefully structure their story and make it just how it needs to be, Narita creates the situation and sees where the characters go from there. This is true to life and the message as we see that Baccano! has no main character because the world has no main character. Baccano! gives us a peek into this mad and frightening world that is actually our own. As you can see by the ridiculous number of characters, everyone has a crazy story and personality. And you (should) love them. What if we applied this to everyone in our own world? What if we remembered that the old man you passed by on the street might have once been Claire Stanfield? What if that couple is actually a secret pair of thieves who "unintentionally spread happiness to everyone around them"? How would you treat them then? It reminds us that we are not the main character. Our lives are nothing special because everyone is just as special as we are.

[MangaRocks!]

@Maokun: Ah-- in my case, I had already planned to sit out these last two matches because I haven't yet seen/read Baccano!; however, I suppose I should have actually mentioned that I was doing that. My apologies.

Also, @Hat: Wow, I really liked the way you put that.

(...Guess I need to make reading the novels a bit higher priority... )

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Actually, I've only read two of the Baccano! novels, specifically The Rolling Bootlegs (which is the first novel and is animated) and Children of the Bottle (which is the first novel that was not animated) and as much as I love them a lot of the things I said apply only to the anime, as far as being deliberate goes. The anime (really the specials but there's some of it in the main show too) is the one that I think is really pushing that specific message because of some anime original content that ties the five novels it does animate into the bestest ending ever. So if you're really interested in that aspect I'd really suggest going with the anime. Plus, no terrible editing of the novels, which is the real reason I haven't read more of them yet.

[MangaRocks!]

Actually, I've only read two of the Baccano! novels, specifically The Rolling Bootlegs (which is the first novel and is animated) and Children of the Bottle (which is the first novel that was not animated) and as much as I love them a lot of the things I said apply only to the anime, as far as being deliberate goes. The anime (really the specials but there's some of it in the main show too) is the one that I think is really pushing that specific message because of some anime original content that ties the five novels it does animate into the bestest ending ever. So if you're really interested in that aspect I'd really suggest going with the anime. Plus, no terrible editing of the novels, which is the real reason I haven't read more of them yet.

Ah, I knew someone was going to recommend that -- however, to be honest, from what I've read about the anime, I'm not quite sure that I could actually handle seeing that particular level of violence/gore/etc. visually. I *can* handle reading that sort of thing much better than seeing it, though; so when that's combined with my usual source-first preference, it kinda makes a doubly-good reason for me personally to go with the novels right now (at least at first).

Thanks for the info on the changes, though-- I'll keep that in mind.

[ClosetOtaku]

Weh! Weh!
Du hast sie zerstört,
Die schöne Welt,
Mit mächtiger Faust;
Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!
Ein Halbgott hat sie zerschlagen!

Well, that telegraphs that.

I like Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It tells a complete story, maintains its internal consistency, provokes thought, reflects the human condition, offers an interesting and non-intuitive explanation for grief in the world, deconstructs the Magical Girl genre, quotes Faust, yet doesn't come off heavy handed or preachy, all in 12 episodes.

Bang-for-the-buck.

I like Baccano!, too, but in a much different way. Baccano! for me is like watching a sports event between teams I don't particularly care about. Some ups, some downs, some really good scenes, some things to think about -- but at the end of the day, hey, it's a story. Well-animated, no doubt, and entertaining -- very entertaining -- and so long as I don't take the whole blood-and-guts stuff too seriously, it's great.

So, I think Madoka and her crew get my support. Neither series would be my absolute favorite for the decade, but given the final two titles (both of which are worthy), the one that explores metaphysics in a decidedly different manner is my pick.

[blkmage]

For me, Madoka is the perfect storm of genre, characters, story, staff, visuals, music, intertextuality, cast, and actually being good. That it managed to reach out beyond its target audience is a plus. Think about that for a second. You all watched a show about magical girls and you liked it.

[Neane]

Madoka: 5
Baccano!: 8

[MomentOfInertia]

Baccano!
And I'll just steal Hat's reasons if no one minds.

[airichan623]

Well I'm sad that FMAB lost, but my vote still goes for Baccano! The reason? The characters. Each character in Baccano felt...complete somehow. They felt like real people, as crazy as they are. Madoka, on the other hand, had relatively forgettable cast (don't get me wrong, I love Sayaka and Homura). And the character designs are better in Baccano! I've never really liked the character designs in Madoka.

[Maokun]

I do contest the idea that there isn't a message/moral to it. It isn't hammered over your head, heck, I'd say you really need to see the specials to really "get" it, but Baccano! is about the idea of people each having their role in the world.

I think... I can agree with this.

Sorry about the lateness]Baccano![/B] 8


CAA's title of Best Anime of the 2000s (so far) goes to:

[SIZE="7"][color="YellowGreen"]Baccano![/color][/SIZE]

TV series, 13 episodes
Aired: Summer 2007 to Autumn 2007
Director: Takahiro Omori
Studio: Brains Base
Defeated: Eureka7, Princess Tutu, Birdy the Mighty: Decode, Summer Wars, Durarara!!, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Thanks everyone for participating, it was a blast! Please feel free to add ny commentary on the winner or the competition itself.

[Neane]

This was a rather fun set of tournaments and I, for one, had fun participating in these threads.

[GeneD]

\(^__^)/

[mechana2015]

For me, Madoka is the perfect storm of genre, characters, story, staff, visuals, music, intertextuality, cast, and actually being good. That it managed to reach out beyond its target audience is a plus. Think about that for a second. You all watched a show about magical girls and you liked it.

But not as much as Baccano .

Actually I'm not sure of the reach beyond it's target audience thing. Sure it's magical girl (which isn't a big deal to me, I've watched other magical girl shows and read manga and enjoyed them well enough), but it seemed it's target audience was less 'magical girl' and more 'anime philosopher'. It seems like it was aimed at the same people that don't like Mecha but watched/liked Eva. It seemed like it was aimed at the sort of person that liked Lain and Boogiepop Phantom rather than the target audience of Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure. I'm not for sure on this, since I don't know what time slot they put Madoka in vs what time slot Sailor Moon aired in, but I'm getting a feeling that Madoka was a later night show, while sailor moon was more in the prime time segment.

[Neane]

mechana2015 has a good point, most of my friends in the Madoka fanbase are not really the sort of people who would like traditional mahou shoujo shows like Precure for example, but are rather the kind of people who like stuff like Gunslinger Girl, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Evangelion or the darker ABe anime (Lain and Texhnolyze) for example. And at the same time it is rather hard-ish to find fans of Madoka amongest people who like stuff like Kaleido Star, Kitchen Princess or Fancy Lala or are die-hard traditional mecha fans.

[KnightOfFive]

Congratulations Baccano! You may not have been even my 10th choice but you were well a worthy victor.

[Maokun]

it seemed it's target audience was less 'magical girl' and more 'anime philosopher'. It seems like it was aimed at the same people that don't like Mecha but watched/liked Eva. It seemed like it was aimed at the sort of person that liked Lain and Boogiepop Phantom rather than the target audience of Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure.

*sneezes*

[blkmage]

The target audience is most certainly not people who watch magical girl shows, and especially not magical girl shows aimed at actual little girls.

Whenever people talk about Madoka, they're forgetting an important aspect to the show, which is the information that we had before watching it. The target audience are the people who would've watched it as it aired and the information they had would be whatever the CMs gave them. What did the very first Madoka CM advertise? It was just text, and it was as follows:

ORIGINAL
ANIME
PROJECT

Director: Shinbo Akiyuki
Scenario: Urobuchi Gen
Original Character: aokiume
Animation Production: SHAFT, Inc.

COMING SOON

That's it, that's the entirety of the CM.

That's the target audience: the people who would be excited at the prospect of those names attached to an original project and would throw large piles of cashmonies at BDs and merch. In other words, people who can recognize these names, or hardcore otaku. It's not until the second CM that there's mention of magical girls, and that's only because it's in the name of the show. After that, we're introduced to Kajiura Yuki on music and the characters by their character design and cast, or in other words, more things that only hardcore otaku would care about.

Here's what I mean when I say that it hits outside of its target audience. Madoka is incredibly engineered and intentionally produced in such a way to appeal to hardcore otaku. I've said this before, my favourite aspect of the discussion surrounding Madoka is that it tricked people into liking a show that panders hard to otaku, which is something that a lot of people who aren't hardcore otaku seem to despise, that pandering. But they love Madoka! It's great.

[SilverToast]

I'm glad Baccano!won because it is 1 of my favorite anime. I would like to see Madoka some day after reading such great things about it.

I showed Baccano! to my cousins who have only seen a few anime but don't care to watch more.They are more interested in other entertainment I guess. They loved it and were so entertained by it! They were a little confused by the not chronologically ordered approach to telling the story, but they still enjoyed it.

In my opinion, it is the characters that really do make the show so great as well as the plot. They both seem to attract people and get them to watch more.

[ClosetOtaku]

Actually I'm not sure of the reach beyond it's target audience thing. Sure it's magical girl (which isn't a big deal to me, I've watched other magical girl shows and read manga and enjoyed them well enough), but it seemed it's target audience was less 'magical girl' and more 'anime philosopher'. It seems like it was aimed at the same people that don't like Mecha but watched/liked Eva. It seemed like it was aimed at the sort of person that liked Lain and Boogiepop Phantom rather than the target audience of Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure. I'm not for sure on this, since I don't know what time slot they put Madoka in vs what time slot Sailor Moon aired in, but I'm getting a feeling that Madoka was a later night show, while sailor moon was more in the prime time segment.

Agreed.

That's the target audience: the people who would be excited at the prospect of those names attached to an original project and would throw large piles of cashmonies at BDs and merch. In other words, people who can recognize these names, or hardcore otaku. It's not until the second CM that there's mention of magical girls, and that's only because it's in the name of the show. After that, we're introduced to Kajiura Yuki on music and the characters by their character design and cast, or in other words, more things that only hardcore otaku would care about.

Here's what I mean when I say that it hits outside of its target audience. Madoka is incredibly engineered and intentionally produced in such a way to appeal to hardcore otaku. I've said this before, my favourite aspect of the discussion surrounding Madoka is that it tricked people into liking a show that panders hard to otaku, which is something that a lot of people who aren't hardcore otaku seem to despise, that pandering. But they love Madoka! It's great.

Gotta think more on this -- in my stereotypical view, pandering to hardcore otaku = fanservice. But you have a much better pedigree in anime than I do, so your point can't be dismissed. I'm enough of a critic that when some of my heroes of anime (Satoshi Kon, Yoshitohsi ABe, Masao Maruyama) make a poor showing, I'm the first to express my disappointment. I wouldn't consider myself a Gen Urobuchi fanboy, and that's not why I liked Madoka. But if your point is valid, there is something that he and others like him are doing to get our attention, but it may be more subliminal (and therefore, possibly more artistic) than just a name on a marquee.