#24: Hell Girl

This show is addictive.

I picked it to watch kind of randomly from Netflix, not really intending to watch more than one episode.

But then I got sucked in.

By the story, by the setting, by the characters, by the music.

Next thing I'm eight episodes in and I didn't even realize it. Boyfriend came in and asked what I was watching and I was explaining it to him and realized that I had become so absorbed I hadn't even noticed nearly four hours passing by.

I had things to do around the house - lawn to mow and dishes to clean and garbage to take out and carpet to vacuum.

And I did none of that because I was watching Hell Girl instead.

Stinking addictive show. With its haunting music and mysterious mythology and dark stories and well-cast voice actors. Even the episodic nature of it was fascinating. Each episode had a new character who was dealing with someone who was abusing them or stalking them or had wronged them in some horrible fashion. Because of this the main character would call on Ai, the Hell Girl, to take their souls directly to hell.

The premise should have gotten old pretty fast, as it sounded like just another type of morality play.

But it wasn't, and it didn't.

Each episode was different in not only the characters but in how the good guys moved on, how the bad guys got their comeuppance, and even whether any kind of moral was learned at all.

In the space of one afternoon Hell Girl has become one of my favorite anime series. Impressive when that list contains the likes of Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I hope the next episodes hold up to the awesomeness of the first eight. Though that may mean I never leave my television again.

#23: King of the Hill

Hank Hill sounds like Anderson from Beavis and Butthead.

I had forgotten that over the years. I watched King of the Hill much more consistently than I did Beavis and Butthead (probably because it was on basic television) and things about it stuck in my mind alot better.

Partly because it was such a well written show. Consistently funny but able to throw in some more serious and mature themes once in a while.

And partly because I grew up in Texas and felt like I really knew the people that populated the town of Arlen. I met them at the store, spent weekends with them out at our cabin in the boonies, and even lived with them when my mom married herself a good ol' Texas boy.

Watching King of the Hill was like watching little bits and pieces of lives that I knew - but skewed toward the much more ridiculous and fun.

Mike Judge was almost the Seth McFarlane of my generation. He created shows that were controversial, remarkable, quotable, and memorable. Watching them is fun and easy and you can do it over and over again without getting bored.

Watching King of the Hill from the beginning is a great opportunity to see the evolution of animation in the 90's and 2000's, but you don't watch it just because its animated. You watch because its a great television show - animated or otherwise.

And because Hank Hill sounds like Anderson. But I doubt he would ever be stupid enough to let Beavis and Butthead paint his house, or mow his yard, or "hang out" in his trailer.

#22: Girls Bravo

Sometimes my boyfriend makes no sense to me.

I know what kinds of anime he likes to watch. Usually they include lots of action, sword-fighting, guns, things going BOOM!

His favorites are Bleach and Black Lagoon and Hellsing Ultimate and Afro Samurai.

They are full of bloodshed and cursing and adult situations and graphic everything.

They are not full of moe chicks and fan service and boys with allergies to girls. They are not super cute. They do not contain overusage of the color pink. And they do not make your teeth ache with how saccharin sweet they are.

Which Girls Bravo DOES.

Girls Bravo is full of all of the things that the anime my boyfriend usually watches excludes. There is cutesy nudity (its an anime thing) and a guy who gets rashes from contact with girls and exceptionally violent girls who beat up every guy they see and frequent fan service and high-pitched voices saying sugary sweet things.

So why the heck my boyfriend picked this from the wide selection of anime titles available from Netflix is beyond my comprehensive abilities.

Of course neither of us could manage more than one episode per sitting, so at least I don't have to worry about him having completely lost his mind yet.

But if I come home to find him watching it again I might have to call the guys with the straight jackets to come over.

#21: Beavis and Butthead

"Butt munch" is still a part of my vocabulary. Especially when I'm feeling particularly snarky and immature.

When I have too much sugar and am feeling hyped up, I will be sure to throw a few "I am Cornholio! I need teepee for my bunghole"s into the conversation. I do not pull the back of my underwear up over my head, but I will put my hands up in fists.

And when I am in a position to laugh at something that only a high school boy would laugh at, I do it in a very "huh huh, huh huh" kind of way. Especially if I'm laughing at something that involves boobs.

Because no matter how old I get or mature I become or learned I like to pretend I am, deep down I am now and will always be a product of my generation. A generation that grew up on Saved by the Bell, MTV with music videos, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Beavis and Butthead.

We didn't have cable most of the time while I was growing up, and when we did it was usually during periods where my mother would restrict our television watching. So I didn't see Beavis and Butthead consistently. But I did see it. Whenever I had control of the TV and my mom or stepdad weren't around I'd flip to an episode. When the feature film came out I saw it in the theater. And when re-runs played in later years I'd tune in for "old times sake."

Watching now from the very beginning has been fun and sad at the same time. Its great to see the crappy hand drawn animation, and hear those obnoxious and inapproriate laughs, and remember what it was like back in the day when this show was the most controversial and awesome thing on television. Its also awful to think of how many years ago it was when I was young and impressionable enough for someone to get upset that I was watching it in the first place.

I hate being old.

#20: Toy Story 3

There is a rule, an unwritten one at least, that says the third movie in a series shouldn't be anywhere near as good as the first. It should lack plot development, or character development, or production values, or authenticity. It should be direct-to-DVD or pay-per-view. It should only be talked about to be laughed at and scorned for not living up to the greatness of its predecessors.

A few third films break this rule - Star Wars: Return of the Jedi comes immediately to mind. But many don't (Jaws 3-D, Star Trek: Search for Spock, A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors to name a few). Especially when they have a Disney logo plastered on them somewhere (Aladdin 3 anyone?).

So by all accounts, Toy Story 3 should be bad. Awful even.

And yet it isn't. Because its Pixar and they don't release bad films. It means something to them to work their butts off producing the best quality animated movies they can.

Toy Story 2 was better than an sequel had a right to be, and Toy Story 3 (in my opinion) was even better.

I laughed. I cried. I apologized profusely to all of the toys I left alone and forgotten over the years of my growing up.

Sure some of the elements were the same as elements from the last film. And sure the plot was relatively predictable in its intentions.

It was still a beautiful, touching, bittersweet, hilarious, gorgeous film. It was the perfect send-off to the Toy Story franchise. And a heart-wrenching but honest end to the story of Woody the toy cowboy doll and Andy the kid who loved him.

It may have been a third installment in a franchise, but Toy Story 3 managed to be its own wonderful and watchable film.

19: Gurren Lagann

Yoko of Gurren Lagann is one of those popular cosplays you see at anime conventions that you hope will only be worn by women of a certain body type. It basically consists of a bikini top, short shorts, and a big gun. It was one of the first really skin baring costumes I saw at a convention, and one I've seen over a dozen times since. But it wasn't until after Sakuracon this year that I took the time to a) find out what anime the cosplay was from, and 2) watch an episode to see if it was any good.

And even though I really hoped Gurren Lagann would turn out to be one of those horrible, stupid shows that the "kids today" are into for no good reason except to look cool, in the end it turned out to be alot better than expected.

In fact it was pretty funny. I even laughed more than once, and not that "this is so horrible I must laugh or lose my mind" laugh like when I watched 2010: Moby Dick (not an anime, just a really REALLY bad live-action scifi/fantasy movie). But an honest laugh for something that I honestly found funny.

Besides moments of humor there were also big guns and monsters and mech-type things and interesting characters. The setting was unique for the most part (like I said, there were mech-type things which aren't really very unique at all) and the dubbed voices weren't super awful.

I could actually see why the characters (or at least the scantily clad one) were so popular with the cosplaying crowd. It might hurt me (and my deep down adult anime fan snobbish heart) a little to admit it, but there you go.

#18: Code Monkeys

Another American animation series, Code Monkeys is designed to look more like an old skool 8-bit video game than a cartoon. It has life and health bars, giant pipes for passing between levels, and even Pause menus.

But unlike most old skool 8-bit video games (at least that I can remember) Code Monkeys is absolutely filthy and completely offensive and hysterically funny.

Characters sleep in dead donkeys, they pee on their office carpeting, they shoot at each other with automatic weapons, they have intimate naked relationships with dolls, they kidnap small Asian children and force them to test prototype video games, they spend company team building exercises in state prisons.

If you can think of something people probably shouldn't do if they want to stay on the moral/inoffensive/societally acceptable high ground, it has probably appeared on this show.

And it was funny. And viewers laughed. And somewhere far-right conservatives were shocked and appalled.

And that was probably funny too.

And I'm Back!!!

I hate when personal and/or family and/or financial drama happens at the same time as vacation. It makes it difficult to have fun without feeling guilty.

It also makes time seem to pass by more quickly than you realize, until suddenly its been three weeks since you updated your blog and you can't remember how that happened.

But I'm back now and ready to get caught up. I'm about a million anime behind now in my goal for the year, but I won't let that stop me.

At least I saw lots of anime characters at Sakuracon in Seattle.