Junichi Suwabe:

Junichi Suwabe is my newest member of the boy's section of my anime voices talent list.  These guys can never catch up with the girl's list, so it's always nice to see a boy introduced which gets us closer to equality.

Why is Junichi Suwabe so great?  It's because he has a silky smooth seductive voice that comes across as a total badass.  He's perfect for male vampires, and in fact features as such in many different shows.  Perhaps his best role is as the infinitely arrogant Keigo Atobe, captain of the Hyoutei tennis club in Prince of Tennis.  His voice lends so much authority to his role as 'badass rival/last boss' that it really carries the entire Prince of Tennis anime on his shoulders.  In Prince of Tennis, Seigaku's matches with Hyoutei were always the best and most exciting, and the main reason for that was Atobe, and the main reason for that was Junichi Suwabe's voice.

Other great roles Junichi Suwabe has done over the years include Bleach's Grimmjaw Jaggerjaques, Friagne in Shakugan no Shana, Vergo in One Piece, Freed in Fairy Tail, Takaya Kurisu in Amagi Brilliant Park, and Shinta Fukuda in Bakuman.  Currently he's playing the green dragon, Jeaha, in Akatsuki no Yona, as usual acting like a playboy.

Perhaps Junichi's most epic moment is as Archer in Fate/Stay Night.  When he recites that awesome line, "I am the bone of my sword. . ."  etc, etc, that's pure silky badass from stem to stern.  We've got this ridiculously cool voice reciting this ridiculously awesome mantra for what feels like an eternity, all ending with "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS!" which shows off one of the most ridiculously awesome attacks/magic powers in all of anime.  Junichi Suwabe is the only man who could pull off that scene.  He's the only voice that could keep up with the coolness of the poetry and the scenery, anyone else would have just come across as a dork.

Thanks to Junichi Suwabe, whenever anime needs a svelte badass, whether friend or foe, we all know where to turn.

Meanwhile, I've finished rewatching Kokoro Toshokan, Myself;Yourself, and Valvrave.  Kokoro Toshokan and Myself;Yourself went as expected from where I last commented on them.  Kokoro is adorable and Myself;Yourself is lagging.  Valvrave was interesting in that was a fun ride and easy to watch, but felt rather shallow and simplistic at the end of it all.  Compared to the emotional depth of Kokoro Toshokan or Tamayura, Valvrave is just a coat of neon paint.  Still, there's something to be said for a rip-roaring adventure full of tension and excitement, even if it does nothing else with itself.  L-elf is great when he's callously shooting people down one after the next.  Akira's angry voice is absolutely compelling and almost inhumanly beautiful whenever she's on screen.  This is a great anime, and 105 is a fair enough ranking, because there's never a dull moment in this show, unlike Tamayura which is full of them.  It just seems to appeal extremely in just one direction, instead of trying to make a more balanced show, like Key's works do, that hit on all cylinders.

Aisheteru ze Baby is an emotionally exhausting show so it's actually quite difficult to get through, despite being good.  It and Chihayafuru are my last targets until Doremi fansubs releases its new and improved version of Ojamajo.  I'll finish them off soon enough.

Meanwhile, I reformed my anime rankings a bit.  There are some shows that are spinoffs or sequels or related works or in any event somehow sharing the stage with each other -- like Higurashi and Umineko, that are both great and thus both add to the overall franchise's luster.  However, in other cases one of the shows is carrying all the weight while the other is just a burden, like Rave and Fairy Tail.  Or Accel World and Sword Art Online.  Or Card Captor Sakura and Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle.  Or Chobits and Angelic Layer.  In cases like these, I jettisoned the burdensome series and relegated them to their own place, in my runners-up listings as just 'good' series, instead of sharing in the glory of the 'great' series' listing.  However, in Durara's case, I decided it was equally worthy of the designation of great as Baccano, so now the two's length combined is the new franchise's length in my anime rankings listing.  Durara has really impressed me this season, and this is just the start, the show will be continuing well into 2016, so we have a lot to look forward to.

By splitting off these related but not exactly the same series, my series watched list has expanded all the way to 540 shows.  Divided by three, that's 180.  So ordinarily, I should now expand my rankings to 180 shows instead of just 170 like I currently have.  But there just aren't any good shows worth featuring at this moment, so instead I'll just add them in as they arrive, in a trickling manner, one by one.  Kyoukai no Rinne will surely be 171 when it starts this spring.  I assume others will take their place sooner or later as well.  There's always more great anime being made.  But the day and age of massive slates of ten shows being added to my rankings at once seems to have come to an end.  Oh well, all things must change.

For archiving purposes, the size of hard drives is always a pertinent issue when talking about how many great anime series you want to store for eternity because they are so good.  Current technology allows for 8tb hard drives, which is nice and all, but still not enough to serve the purpose.  What we really need is 20tb hard drives, or even 100tb hard drives, to make sure we have all the room we'll ever need for our blu-ray collections.  What will get us there?  HAMR.  TDK says HAMR drives of at least 15tb will be available in 2016, just one year away.  Once this drive comes out, anime collecting will become a much more fruitful hobby.  You'll never fear running out of space again.  1080p blu-ray files all day every day.  HAMR can handle it.  HAMR is God.  If we want to talk about quality of life upgrades, forget Intel's skylake chips, Seagate's HAMR storage is the real Moore's Law champion.