I think that at the time that I started this blog, I never would have guessed that I’d still have it four years later; it really was created on a whim, and eventually I just never had any intention or reason to quit it. Anyway, today marks Star Crossed’s fourth anniversary. Like I also did in the previous years, here are some statistics:

General Statistics:
Up till now, I’ve made 3019 posts, regularly blogged 108 different television series and 13 movies and OVAs.
The site has been received 3020186 unique visitors, which consist out of 1942846 first time visitors and 1257340 returning ones. (Basically, in the past year I received nearly the same amount of visitors as in the entire first three years combined).
18085 comments have been posted (many thanks to everyone who posted one)

Top-10 Most Accessed Series:
(note that this list is from the past year only, otherwise it’d just look too much like the list I made a year ago)
10. Michiko e Hatchin
9. Guin Saga
8. Bonen no Xamdou
7. Mushishi
6. Jigoku Shoujo
5. Pandora Hearts
4. Phantom
3. Casshern Sins
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
1. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood

Top-10 Most Accessed Posts: (a bit one-sided this time)
10. Hajime no Ippo - New Challenger Review
9. Which Autumn Series do you want me to blog?
8. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 23
7. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 26
6. Mahou Shoujotai Review (for a series that had such an enormous impact on me, I surely did write a crappy review of it).
5. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 27 (the internet is weird… this post is barely a month old… and it’s about a bloody recap…)
4. Bonen no Xamdou - 02
3. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 19
2. Darker than Black Review
1. Top 10 Anime (the old version)

Top-10 Google Keywords: (aside from the obvious ones as “psgels”, “star crossed” and variations of “top 10 anime”)
10. Umineko no Naku Koro ni
9. Pandora Hearts Blog
8. Saiunkoku Monogatari Season 3
7. Genji Monogatari Sennenki
6. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 23
5. Guin Saga
4. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 27
3. Mouryou no Hako
2. Aoi Bungaku
1. Darker than Black Review
(Especially number 2 and 3 surprise me: those were the last two series I expected to generate lots of hits O.o)

Amusing search-terms (I can’t believe how many screwed up ones I managed to find this year…)
anime girl with 5 different personalities - Schizophrenia, anyone?

crazy person claiming to be the real neo trinity forum - I don’t know what’s worse: a person claiming such a thing, or people actually searching for this guy…

dress up kurenai sense but first she has to be naked - What the heck did this guy have in mind? O.o

hi me anime - Hi… um, me psgels

porfy is a stupid name. say it. porfy. - It’s short for Porphyras, a greek name. Obviously it’s going to sound wierd in English.

anime in which a star turns into a skateboard? - Oh god, please no!

anime were can i buy paprika - at the local supermarket?

how to blog anime - Go to wordpress.com, register and start writing

how to make an anime with you as the star - You really don’t want that to happen.

sky bolg of nice girl - Even though this is a typo, I have no idea what this guy was trying to find with this term…

what does 3 year anniversary mean - That something is three years old, idiot.

what season is august in - You seriously needed to search for this?

26 + 74 = one hundred - Erm… thank you for this piece of information…

japan, producing of the worlds weirdest shit since 1952 - Certainly!

a 13 to 15 line paragraph on how i betrayed my best friend - Write it yourself, how should I know about that friend of yours?

a anime where you can see girls - You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that. ;)

who blogs star crossed anime - I do.

humanity calls out for a hero… can a child of ruin be the savior of mankind? anime - Oh no, not another one!

i can’t understand your blogs cuz of your bad english - Um… sorry. I’ll try to type more clearly from now on.

i will force that reasoning aside with my unreasonableness” - I like this one.

when did june start 09 - Um… on June 1st, 2009?

when some when apologize and i dont want .. nicknames - Why?

a letter to have good first impression from a nice girl - Again, write one yourself.

at the beginning, to begin with, afterwards, finally, after a while - Get on with it!

i have a great idea for an anime but don’t know what to do with it - Here’s my advice: just go sit in a corner, and wait until the idea goes away.

i’m not fully understood - Who is?

i’ve been a princess - Who isn’t?

interesting metallic thing - I really wonder what this guy was hoping to find when he typed this in…

what’s the weird anime that anne is not telling me about - … no comment.

“parents are still alive”, anime - That’s rare…

what would kaiba say - “Screw the rules I have money” (only the ones who watched the Abridged Yugioh will get this reference, but ah well).

is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg?! is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg in a backpack?! - This one’s my favourite. ^^;

IRC-Channel
Oh and if I recall correctly, a few months some people requested an irc-channel. So, why not:

#starcrossed @ irc.chatspike.net

This is pretty much an experiment, but if it catches on I’ll post a link to it somewhere on the main page.

An interesting choice for an episode this time. In a lot of other series, this episode was surprisingly formulaic, and yet I only noticed this when the end-credits rolled. There are only two real plot twists in this episode. The rest can all be reduced back to character-building. But I have to say that this episode was very sneaky in trying to hide this.

This again shows that the contractors with the biggest powers are often the easiest ones to die: they get cocky, and think that their powers will protect them, even when they’re not paying attention. I really was fooled in this episode: I thought that that extremely powerful contractor would pose a serious threat for Hei and Suou, the way he just walked in and pwned everyone easily. But yeah: he forgot to prevent July calling Hei, and in the end simply got strangled. Hei on the other hand may also have powers of instant death, but that whip looks very hard to control: he must have practiced a lot to perfect this technique. Suou’s powers too have a major disadvantage: as soon as enemies get close to her, she’s screwed. And that’s another reason why I like Darker than Black: the lead characters kick ass, not because they have unlimited godmode powers, but rather because they spent a lot of time to fill in for their weaknesses.

Now that we’re seven episodes in, it’s about time that the climax of this show is getting in sight. At this point I have no clue at how the creators are planning to end this. All we got from this episode is that Suou’s father is still alive. It makes sense in a way: if he spent so much effort into hiding Shion, it’s not surprising that he also prepared some sort of fake body to throw the enemy off. The question also remains where Yin fits into all of this: she feels like a bit of a random element in the whole story at this point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Well, the third arc was awesome: it had a new twist in just about every new episode and kept holding the balls in the air with increasingly astonishing plot twists. In comparison, the past two episodes have really been a let-down. Especially considering how the creators have the arduous task of filling about 50 hours of visual Novel in just 26 episodes, they really could have used this episode better.

My problem with the past three episodes is simple: who the heck is Ange? Why the heck should I care about her? And why the heck does she have more background than nearly all of the other characters so far? This backstory of the past three episodes could easily have been squeezed in one episode, just like what the creators did with the first arcs. That would actually have left plenty of room for background on some of the other characters who deserved this, instead of this rather one-sided mini-arc that’s just there to show that Ange feels lonely and gets bullied by really, really, really stereotypical evil classmates.

The fun in Umineko comes from creating the theories and the crazy out of control plot in which you really have to guess what’s going on, and you can trust nobody. This episode… I just can’t make anything from it.
Rating: - (Disappointing)

Wow, what a ride. The underworld is a popular setting for anime, and this genre has already produced quite a few wonderful gems, such as Kaze no Youjimbo, Michiko e Hatchin, Baccano and many more. Gungrave, without a doubt, also belongs in this list.

This series tells about the lives of two thugs called Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowell, and chronicles their lives. And boy, it really takes the extra mile to develop these two! The majority of this series is just one huge flashback, which takes a look at the many, many events in their lives that made them into the characters that they are at the beginning of the story. Throughout the series, we get to see the two of them, and the people around them, during all kinds of different ages, ranging from when the two are about 10 years old, until they’re in the middle of their forties. Now that’s some awesome character-development right there!

On top of being a character-study, this also is an action-show. Quite a few of the fights are beautifully animated (courtesy of Madhouse) despite the rather sloppy drawings at times. The fights are varied, ranging from simple duels to huge shoot-outs, although during the second half, I do admit that they turn in this series’ weakness. Especially the fights against the big overpowered monsters are a bit dull, because these monsters have no personality nor free will at all. It’d be just like fighting your way out of a bunch of paper bags. I also didn’t quite like the concept of the so-called “Superior”-monsters: to me, they seemed a bit of a convenient excuse to give the important characters some cheap superpowers.

Nevertheless, this series ends with a very strong finale. All of the important characters get enough of a chance to close off their stories (and considering the development they’ve gotten, this really is a great thing) and that makes the entire finale just bittersweet. This series explores themes like trust and betrayal, family and loyalty, and it does this so well. This definitely is a series to look out for, with its deep characters and in-depth look at large mafia-organizations. Despite the few humps in the middle I really give my thumbs up for this one.

Now this is more like it. This episode was a major step in the right direction for me: simple slice of life with a bit of subtle drama here and there, instead of the forced and dragged-out cheese around a simple misunderstanding. It just showed the characters hanging out, while fleshing them out at the same time.

it’s a surprisingly well written episode in which Sawako gets more and more used to her new friends, and even ends up calling Kazehaya to join her, Yano and Yoshida at Ryuu’s house, which also is a ramen bar. We got to know the middle school versions of some of the characters (Kazehaya apparently played baseball), and the creators had enough inspiration to keep the rest of the episode going without getting boring.

My big worry right now is that call that Yano made to her mysterious “boyfriend”. While I like this subtle of an introduction, I still don’t quite trust this show for drama. This show is good at slice of life and dialogue, but the drama hasn’t caught me yet. Still, at this point Kimi ni Todoke is interesting enough to keep blogging, despite its flaws. Thankfully it’s not such a chore to watch and blog like other series I’ve dropped, like Valkyria Chronicles, Allison to Lillia and Soul Eater.
Rating: * (Good)

In a few weeks, I’m planning to write the first of my 2-part “Decade Summary”. Unfortunately it’s going to be filled with major spoilers, so I’m experimenting right now with a simple spoiler-tag. Let me know if you can read this text without highlighting it.

This episode really defied my expectations. With the clichés in the previous episode, I was expecting a rather cheesy aftermath, like so many of the other shorter arcs of this series screwed up before. And yet this episode was surprisingly good.

And this mostly comes courtesy of Tessa, who turned out to be a really genuine character throughout this episode. She’s so incredibly innocent and yet none of it is overdone or shallow like with the Randolf or Mildred episodes. I especially liked how she desperately tried to make up with Anne, knowing the things she did.

The point at which the headmistress called the entire class together also really hit home with me. The nostalgia! When I was a kid, we also had these points at which someone did something, yet refused to come clean, and so the teacher put the entire class on these long-winded lectures that at the time never seemed to end.

This actually provides hope for the rest of this series. Tessa now has enough depth and there’s no reason for the creators to develop her even more. The big question that’s going to make or break the finale of this series is of course going to be the rest of Anne’s classmates, with most importantly the bookworm and the tomboy. The rest of the series will be fine. It’s those two that the creators really need to pay attention at in order to prevent falling into past pitfalls. If they can get that duo right, then there’s not much else that can go wrong at this point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Seriously, are there no bounds to this series’ awesomeness? In this episode, Aoi Bungaku yet again surpassed my expectations, it was nothing like any other series of this show so far, it was full of the most awesome graphics, and the direction was just incredible. And then to think that there still remain four stories left! What the bloody hell do the creators have in store for those?

This episode was just crazy. But when I say crazy, I mean that in a Madhouse sort of way. This ranged from those small jokes as the cow people enslaving the humans and the old lady who thought she smelled her old husband, to the lead character cutting off even more heads, so that the lead female could play with them like dolls. What the hell?1 the final scene, in which the lead character runs into his feared cherry blossoms, freaks out and strangles her to death was incredibly intense. No Longer Human was very subtle in showing the mental decay of the lead character, but here it’s totally different. The mental delusions of this guy are in your face, but also absolutely beautiful and full of eye-candy.

This story really strikes me as a very critical look at the traditional roles of the male and females. It’s overblown of course, but the lead character just keeps killing people for the woman he loves, until the past finally gets the chance to bite back. It portrays these values as utterly ridiculous.

What also makes this series pretty unique is that the longest stories aren’t saved for last. If this already was a mindfuck, then I really don’t know what the creators have in store for the final two episodes, which if I’m not mistaken are going to be two stories of just 20 minutes.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ah, thankfully the inconsistent animation of the previous episode was just a one-of-a-kind thing. This episode made up for it with pretty nice animation and a number of very creative shots and camera-angles (you especially have to love the Armstrong-scene in this episode).

Anyway, there’s lots of interesting stuff going on in this episode that introduces even more side-plots. We finally get our fist glimpse of the strange blond-haired woman we’ve been seeing in the OP. She’s the head of the Armstrong family. One particular filler episode from the first season suddenly gets an entirely different dimension. ^^;

Kimbley also waste no time to go after Scar, although his subordinates desperately need a lesson in the art of ambushing (seriously, did they really think that it was a good idea to corner Scar, a man who is known to fight back, on a bridge, from two sides? It’s like saying; “go ahead; escape. We’ll just shoot ourselves.”). The creators are also hinting a bit too much that Scar is travelling with that moustached guy that’s been hanging around him. they’re trying way too hard to hide his face.

In the meantime, Ed and Al also meet Bradley’s son and Grumman has taken up cross-dressing. A very eventful episode overall, I’d say.
Rating: * (Good)

Now that Akane has been introduced, Kou and Aoba have started their usual bickering again. nevertheless, the addition of Akane really gave an extra dimension to it, especially since they’re also starting to bicker around her. This really was the episode in which Akane got to know the two of them. Along with the fact that she looks just like Wakaba thanks to the blabbermouth of Senda.

This episode also ended with a baseball match, but unfortunately Akane didn’t manage to give that one an extra spark. As usual, everything around the match was awesome: Aoba getting angry, the way the creators made it seem at first that Aoba poisoned Azuma, it all rocked. But the match itself… it gave me deja vus. I’m not exactly sure where, but I could have sworn that the creators have ended a match in the EXACT SAME WAY once before.

In any case, with this Akane also demonstrates how she’s a very keen observer: she has a great eye for detail in her sketches, but she also critically looks at her environment (in the way she asked who the “Wakaba” on Aoba’s door was. This episode never showed how she reacted when she found out that she looked like Wakaba, but I suspect that there’s a whole lot going on inside her head that the creators haven’t shown us yet.
Rating: ** (Good)

This episode really shows the power of long and slow-paced series. While Erin indeed lacks the excitement of series with an erratic pacing like the Armed Librarians, at the same time it’s got a story that’s so well built up that it can really take an in-depth look at it. The power of the story of Erin lies in the fact that Erin sees things that everyone else sees, and just keeps taking daring conclusions and actions that nobody else in the setting sees. Thanks to the slow pacing, we’re really given an insight into how this happens.

This series is full of things that are bound to happen: in this episode, Damya finally threatens Erin with the safety of the students and teachers at the academy. It’s something that was bound to happen, the moment Erin started to take care of Lilan. And yet this episode showed her as she comes with a solution that I never even thought of: what if the Grand Duke became king? That would mean that the Beast Kings would lose their function as war machines. We’ve seen people claim before that the country would fall apart when its two half get unbalanced, but I realize that we’re also supposed to take that with a grain of salt: I mean, with Damya at the head, the country is bound for destruction anyways.

The only thing that I dislike about this series is the great amount of flashbacks in this series. This series just keeps recycling the same frames under these flashbacks, when a character is talking, and it’s about to get a bit overused. Ah well, at least it’s not the worst way to save budget. The drawings still look as solid as ever.

I think that at this point, I still consider Seirei no Moribito as superior to Kemono no Souja Erin. While Erin has better developed characters and a longer length, it still beats Erin for me in terms of the awesome production-values and its huge attention to detail in just about everything. Still, I do have to say that Erin is getting closer and closer to the height of SnM.
Rating: ** (Excellent)