Anime Carousel:

My Lost World anime project, finding good anime from the depths of the past and watching them for the first time, was a major success in that it found many good series worthy of joining my rankings.  But it also presented a major problem in that it simply takes a long time to watch so many new anime series at once.  The way I've been watching all these new ranked series is a carousel system.  I watch the first episode of them all, then the second, and so on.  This is what I've discovered from watching these series so far:

Almost all the series I put in the rankings definitely deserves their place there.  They've been magnificent, and a true joy to watch.

Even so, so far, none of them are nearly as good as Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai (#42), so there is a barrier of quality beyond which these past shows cannot pass.

Prism Ark and Okusama wa Joshikosei do not deserve to be ranked.  They aren't bad series, but they aren't good enough either.  Come this winter 2014 anime season I'll hopefully find new deserving candidates to replace these two open slots.

Of all the ranked Lost World shows, so far Rocket Girls has been the best.  This is all the more remarkable for how completely unheralded it was when it came out, and how unpopular it was in terms of sales.  It's such a beautiful, hilarious, yet emotional masterpiece that it's amazing that it could all be fit in to just 12 eps.  In a way, the shortness and simplicity of the story comes back to haunt it, because twelve episodes just isn't good enough when competing with 100 episode behemoths like Hunter x Hunter or Bleach.  But on a one-to-one competition the episodes of Rocket Girls can compete with anyone.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari and Kokoro Toshokan are also great, but short, tear jerkers that hit all the right notes.  They're around as good as Tamayura, and feel much the same as that sad but happy tale.

Saiunkoku Monogatari, Futakoi and Tales of 'x' aren't as good as their initial episodes hinted them to be.  But they'll suffice.

There's no point shifting around my rankings until I've watched all of these Lost World series in full and can reach a conclusive answer concerning all of them.  Which means a true top 160 anime rankings is still a distant prospect, as the bottom 20 of my shows continue to suffer from me just not knowing enough about them to rank them properly, and the winter 2014 anime hasn't aired yet so I can't replace my two failures for the next two months anyway.  But you can be sure I'm doing my best to complete this anime carousel and deliver a final verdict for all my newly beloved shows.

In other news, as I predicted a bit back, WoW has announced its latest expansion -- Warlords of Draenor.  We're going back in time to 'old Outland' before the place was wrecked by black magic.  Certainly an interesting idea, and steeped in the lore from the classic Warcraft games, which is a relief compared to the seemingly totally unrelated story in Mists of Pandaria.  As such, the zones of Draenor will be very different from the Outland zones of Burning Crusade, and represent a nice new continent to explore.  This expansion includes a giant ten level boost up to the magical number of 100.  That's a welcome change for people who want a serious power boost sufficient to let them solo old content that previously required groups, but couldn't do it with just the 5 level boosts of the previous two expansion packs.  All in all, it looks like a good, solid expansion that gets rid of a lot of the problems that existed in Mists.  Still, you have to wonder how they plan on keeping this game refreshing, new, and fun now that they're on their 5th expansion pack.  The game is definitely worth trying out, for both new and returning players (new players can instantly get a level 90 character and skip all that annoying stuff from the previous five expansions if they like), but whether it can hold players' interest is a different question entirely.

The final World Cup qualifying matches begin today and carry on for the rest of the month.  In a sense, this is the 'round of 64' in March Madness, and the World Cup is already underway as all these teams play in direct playoffs in order to secure their spot in the final tournament.

Saimoe is being completely dominated by the Madoka Magica girls, but it will at least still be interesting to see which Madoka girl eventually takes the crown.

That's all for updates.  There's more Anime Carousel to ride~