The A-List – 2009

Starting this year, I’m going to be listing my top media experiences of the year. I’m breaking them down into the categories of anime, music, and games. The only criteria for these lists is that they had to be completely new to me this year, so no going back to oldie but goodies that I’ve experienced in the past. If you’d like to take a peek at my lists and take some suggestions from it, please feel free to click past the break and leave some comments!

Anime

Bakemonogatari

I first encountered BMG when it was being discussed as a TL project for QQ. I ended up passing on it to focus more on my studies, and only ended up watching it at around the time episode 7 or 8 was coming out. Having said this, I regret not coming around much sooner, since I was completely enthralled by the quality of this anime.

BMG’s detractors will point out the “generic” nature of the anime, and the large number of placeholders instead of animations, but despite all this, I really developed a strong liking of the characters, especially the stapler-wielding Hitagi.

BMG also had my favorite OP and ED of the year, with OP4 (Ren’ai Circulation) and Kimi no Shira nai Monogatari. I think the entirety of Rizon is salivating over the prospect of the full OP being released, and I don’t think you’ll find many people who will argue that the ED was much worse.

Music

Lady GaGa

Just looking at my last.fm, this is a definite shoe-in. As of the time of this writing, I have 1,022 plays of her music, making her my top overall artist by over 150 plays. While the music that she cranks out may not be the most complex, there is definitely enough there to make me want to just veg out at my computer, close my eyes, and just enjoy it. As an added bonus, a lot of it makes me want to dance as well.

Of her work, I’d probably put “Just Dance” right at the top, just because I’ve spent so many hours listening to just that song. I’ve taken some time to listen to her new album, and I really like some of it, but none of it is as hypnotic as that.

Game

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This was too easy. I’d love to just give the award to BioWare in general, because I’ve really come to enjoy a lot of their works. KOTOR is not a new game, but I didn’t get to play it until I bought it off Steam on Black Friday. I loved every little bit of it, from the plot, to the characters (besides the whiner with the double blasters), to the way you could flourish your lightsaber while you ran.

I really dig BioWare’s branching dialogue trees and it’s definitely something that I also enjoyed in Jade Empire. KOTOR2 has definitely proven to be a disappointment (gg to my save game bugging out and being unplayable after NINETEEN hours), but I’m definitely looking forward to The Old Republic. Go BioWare!