Here we are at the final day of the year and our little anime awards show. So, here they are and we'll see you on the other side!

Best Show of 2011

Chris - Steins;Gate Time travel stories are amazing, and this is something I've always known. However, Steins Gate -- a show I started watching out of idle curiosity - has confirmed how badass I think they are. Why is that, exactly? Sit your ass down and I'll tell you.

Like all good time travel stories, the show starts out all, "Huh?" then proceeds to, "Ah!" and ends on a "I FUCKING UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING NOW." You know what really helps these temporal feelings along? A refreshing cast of badass and well developed characters -- surprisingly light on school girls -- teams up with the plot to create a story so badass that you will sit down on the stoop of your Manhattan apartment and think like a GODDAMN MAN.

Convinced yet? Not enough info for your tastes? TOUGH SHIT. Absorb it through every orifice and be glad you did.

Jeff - Nichijou (My Ordinary Life) Are you looking for a good time? Good, because Nichijou just saw your good time and raised it one shitload of what-the-hell-just-happened?. The title means "ordinary life", but the show is anything but ordinary. Epic shoops whoop out of people's mouths, dogs go full retard, cats talk, and there are explosions which turn everything into big, smoking craters of completely unharmed. Yes, you read all of that correctly, and it is all accurate. "Not a single fuck was given that day" sums up this show perfectly, and I would have it no other way.

Matt - Nichijou There are a few somethings about Nichijou that separates it from nearly every other anime I've watched. First of all is its gratuitous use of slapstick style visual humor. This is something that is present in most of my favorite Western cartoons (Dexter's Lab, SpongeBob, etc), probably due to the more serious/light-hearted/based in reality nature of most of the shows I've watched. The scenarios that Nichijou presents are ridiculous in and of themselves, but its the timing, animation, and supremely awesome voice work takes the insane and makes it exponentially so. I posit the following evidence (Wadsworth's constant applies). Balancing out the insanity side of our equation are the cuteness overload portions of the show with the super intelligent five year-old Professor and her robot maternal figure. Nichijou is pretty much everything I love about anime and Western cartoons rolled into one quite hilarious ball of awesome. It is the complete package.

Best Show Watched in 2011

Chris - Death Note If Death Note came out this year, I would have a tough time deciding between it and Steins; Gate as the best 2011 show, but as it didn't, this is my way of splitting the highest award.

Death Note is, put simply, a real man's show. Singularly focused on the intellectual battle of its main characters -- Light Yagami and L -- this show exudes cerebral juices that will MELT YOUR BRAIN. If your brain doesn't melt, you likely didn't have one to begin with, eliminating your ability to enjoy this show -- a tragedy on a scale not seen since the sinking of the Titanic.

If you haven't seen Death Note, watch it now, then go out and buy me the DVDs -- you'll be glad you did at least one of these things.

Matt - Death Note Death Note is a show that one of my college buddies had been pestering me to watch for a really long time. Finally got around to it two years later and I'm glad I finally did. The reason that had kept me away from the show turned out to be one of the most intriguing elements of it: the notebook that can kill anybody by simply writing their name in it (some rules apply). The moral questions raised are enough to ponder on their own merits; would one choose the way of Light Yagami, punishing those who break the law, or that of L who believes that there is no place in the world for any such device? Beyond this, the cat and mouse game played by super geniuses Light, who kills criminals under a psuedonym, and L, who is trying to uncover the identity of the criminal killer, is highly entertaining as you watch each of them calculating their next move to try and attain their goal. Unfortunately, the show did kind of peter out towards the latter half, but it was still an intellectual roller coaster of enjoyment.

Jeff - Death Note/Baccano! "Death Note", or "Baccano!". This is my quandary. Unfortunately for you, I'm going to cop-out and say both. I can't choose. "Baccano!" is mystery story that takes place in 1930s United States where the Mafia rule the streets. Most of it even happens on a train. Alchemy is also involved, as well as immortal beings and crazy people who love to shoot guns. How do you go wrong with that? You can't, and they don't. "Baccano!" is also home to that lovable crazy couple, Isaac and Miria. If they were to make a show about these two characters alone, I would watch it. "Death Note", on the other hand, is a more cerebral experience, where you enjoy the characters and their actions simply by how well they think it all through. Two ultimate masterminds going at it, manipulating everyone around them to get what they want and undermine the other. Good times. What's more is that you don't want to see either side lose, because the characters are so great and likeable(UNLIKE SOME CHARACTERS I WILL TALK ABOUT LATER). I could gush about these two shows all day, but I don't actually have that much time(that and spoilers). I'll just go on and say that both shows win the award and be done with it.

Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year ^_^!