The Big O
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Anime's Best, Sort Of (Part One)

First, it would be appropriate to warn all you good readers that there are various spoilers afoot in today's column. Second, it's vital to warn everyone to take this list with a grain of salt.

I was commissioned elsewhere to put together a video list of "Anime's Ten Best Moments" (link pending). I'm really a wuss when it comes to bullying people into thinking my way. I'm one of those people who mumble, "Well shucks, I guess everyone has their own preferences." It's true. Even I have guilty pleasures like Waterworld.

Anime's been around for a long time, so fishing out and deciding on the ten "best" moments was no small task. Adding to the complication is the fact that I had to provide a working video link for each selection. Some anime (Neon Genesis Evangelion for example) is hard to find on YouTube, because even three-minute clips are hunted down and shot off the server.

Long story short: I did the best I could and I wasn't allowed to weasel the list into a collection of "Ten Greatest Moments in Anime."

Well, what's life without controversy? Here are my first five choices. Next week we'll count down from four to one--unless I decide to stick it to the Man by mixing up the numbers or something.

10. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - The Ending Dance

Believe it or not, The Melancholy of etc. is an anime I have yet to fully indulge in. When it comes to comedy anime, I'm hit or miss. I loved the high school exploits in Azumanga (I loved the manga even more), but for the most part I'm not interested in visual gags and puns, which anime relies heavily upon.

I do know, however, that I love the now-famous dance that ends the anime. It's so bloody cheerful, it perks me right up no matter how foul of a mood I'm in. It earns its place on this list.

9. The Big O - Big O versus Big Duo

Mecha is a staple of anime, and not surprisingly the genre is oversaturated. A lot of great stuff has gone unnoticed in favour of Evangelion and Escaflowne, and one of those forgotten heroes is The Big O. Imagine Batman: The Animated Series with steampunk mechs. Pretty good stuff. Definitely unusual. The Big O hosted some great fight scenes as well as some great music. The final battle of Season One was a particular favourite of mine.

8. South Park - Let's Fighting Love

"Hey, that's not!--"

Yeah, I know. South Park ain't anime. South Park is … well, hard to describe, but it's certainly its own thing. Still, I couldn't in good conscience exclude the classic fight scene from the episode "Fun With Weapons;" It's probably the greatest parody of anime in existence. Most anime parodies are content to give their characters big watery eyes and bad voices, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone take it far beyond that with a cheesy J-pop song that combines Japanese and nonsensical English (all sung by Stone, who studied in Japan) in an unholy union familiar to any fan of the medium. What's more, South Park has always portrayed the dark side of childhood with eerie accuracy, and Fun With Weapons especially nails it. The boys "transform" into their anime personas when their imagination submerges them in their ninja fantasy, but the illusion quickly shatters when adults are present. It's like a reverse Calvin and Hobbes.

7. Dragon Ball Z - Gohan Goes Super Saiyan

Logically, you can substitute this scene for any transformation scene in the Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z series--I think most of them equally rock because they're all so fun and ridiculous. I actually scoured the Internet for a movie of Goku's first transition into a man-eating oozaru, but I couldn't find one. A shame, that…it's an excellent dark twist in an otherwise lighthearted anime.

When it came down to the wire though, I narrowed my favourite Super Saiyan moments to Gohan's and Trunks. With Trunks, it gets messy because he has two futures that branch depending on the status of the Androids that take over the world in the Cell Saga. In the "good" future, Trunks literally goes Super Saiyan for the hell of it, much to the astonishment of his father, Vegeta. In the "bad" future, he goes Super Saiyan with the death of Gohan, his mentor. In the end I got a headache after too much thinking and just went with Gohan.

6. The Last Unicorn - Opening Montage

I did an extensive write-up of The Last Unicorn some months ago for Mania (I also met Peter Beagle at 2007's Otakon, and I nearly flew to the moon). The movie does qualify as anime, having been animated by the precursor of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. It's also one of the most beloved animated movies of all time and well-remembered, particularly the opening's creative use of the Unicorn Tapestries.

The truth is, the majority of animated fantasy movies suck eggs. The quality of Last Unicorn remains something of a legend in itself, something I came to realise as I sat through the painfully mediocre Dragonlance movie. Sigh…

5. Kimba The White Lion - Kimba Swims Home

Of course, I had to include something by Osamu Tezuka, the father of manga. If you're less than forty years old, you probably didn't grow up with Kimba, but the animation quality for the era was pretty impressive. In the clip, Kimba escapes captivity and swims home to Africa with some moral assurance from his mother's ghost. It's a touching scene on its own (God only knows what lurks below the ocean surface in blackest night), but there's a scratchy, retro charm to the animation and soundtrack that can't be denied. I can just imagine my father sitting and watching Kimba struggling against weariness and loneliness…except I don't think my father watched much television as a child. Way he tells me, he spent his early years starting a lot of fires.

The first countdown is complete. Don't agree with me? Maybe you'll have better luck next week. In fact, I'm willing to bet on it, space cowboy. Until then…