So how good was 2012 for anime anyway? As recently shown by careful statistical analysis, 2010 was the best year in anime and 2011 was only slightly behind in 2nd. This puts a lot of pressure on 2012 to also stand out from the crowd and gain all sorts of honors for itself. The easiest approximation of 2012's anime status is to just count how many top 120 anime shows aired in 2012. The answer is (or will soon be come October) -- a lot!
The fall 2012 anime season is clearly going to be the best season in 2012, because it has Little Busters. But a lot of other shows have potential. The new Kyoto Animation work, Chuunibyou, which they chose to do instead of Little Busters, sure must be good. Then there's Shin Sekai Yori from A-1 pictures, which always produces quality works. Robotics;Notes is from the same makers as Steins;Gate, so it could be good. But for argument's sake let's say only Little Busters enters the rankings this fall and the rest fall short. How many series does that fetch for 2012?
2. Pretty Cure
3. One Piece
4. Code Geass
5. Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
7. Naruto
10. Higurashi/Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
11. Fairy Tail
17. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
20. The Idolm@ster
22. Bakuman
26. The World God Only Knows
27. Hayate no Gotoku
32. Saki
33. Major
39. Evangelion
40. Prince of Tennis
42. Usagi Drop
44. Rurouni Kenshin
54. Bleach
55. Bake-(etc)-monogatari
56. Macross
58. Strike Witches
60. Hunter x Hunter
61. Fate/Stay/Etc
63. Amagami SS
66. Shakugan no Shana
67. Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai
68. Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai
71. Berserk
75. Gundam
77. AKB0048
82. To Heart
90. Steins;Gate
93. Shinryaku! Ika Musume!
94. Zero no Tsukaima
95. Tamayura
96. Natsuiro Kiseki
97. Hyouka
115. Tari Tari
118. Yuru Yuri
??? = Little Busters
That's a lot of series with new content added to them this year! 41 series, and that's not counting random extra minutes in the Negima and Sora no Otoshimono films, Kobato specials, Baka to Test specials, etc. But actual new content, like an extra oav episode. A lot of these series will only contribute their share this fall, many more are in the forms of movies that can't be seen overseas until next year. Nevertheless, in terms of how great the anime industry was this year, it has to count for this year when it was made. 41 series with additional content is about as good as it gets. I believe 2011 might have had 43 but essentially this year is at the top. As for entirely original series that began in 2012, this year wasn't lacking either -- 2012 had six trailblazers, and that's if there are no surprises with new series this fall. I think one year had as many as ten trailblazers, but 2012 is again, near the top. I'm yet again amazed with Japan's productivity. It isn't normal for so many artists to be so good all at the same place and time. It's like watching the Florentine Rennaissance play out right in front of us, or London, or Paris, in their golden ages. Or Athens for that matter.
This wasn't always the case. This is what keeps stunning me. Anime has been around for decades. It has produced many good shows before now. But it was never this tour de force until around 2006, and ever since then it's just been accelerating into wild new horizons of artistic creation. 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2012 are the four best years in anime history. The four together are probably worth as much as all the years before 2006 together combined. Anime is an old art form, but its artistic quality is entirely new. When I was a child watching Robotech, I never imagined anime could become this good, or that it would be the defining reason why you would want to be born in this age rather than any other. We are witnessing a miracle in Japan equivalent to Jesus' multiplying of fishes and loaves. The number of good anime series, that used to be one or two a year at best, is just multiplying and multiplying into a cornucopia. 41 series this year alone? Are you serious?
And it isn't stopping either. The lineup already announced for 2013 is already sick. Sailor Moon, Code Geass, Dragonball, Tamayura, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, AKB0048, Da Capo, Fate/Kaleid Liner . . . If anything, 2013 is going to be even better than 2012. Where will it stop? When will the creative wellsprings dry up? And when will people begin to notice that anime isn't like Voltron and Speed Racer anymore, that it's something entirely new, and circa 2012, beautiful beyond imagination? If people only knew what a treasure horde has been laid before them. . . Rather than a subculture, anime should empower and inform the culture of the entire world. If everyone turned off the news and turned on anime instead, it would be a moment of such transmogrification of the human spirit as to rival the birth of a new religion.
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