As stated, taking a really relaxed pace this year. Today, I'd like to welcome Steve - yet another of my many, many brothers - to our little band of reviews. Today we'll be delving into the characters that did and didn't do it for us.

Worst Character

Chris - Hina Takanashi (Listen to Me, Girls, I am Your Father) Holy gay sex, Batman, if I hated one character more than any in 2012, it was Hina Takanashi.

Now, you may be wondering how I can find it within myself to hate a character who is a mere three years old. Kids are adorable, right? Not universally, because her character annoyed me to such a degree I could hardly bear it at times.

Let's start with the voice, because whatever old wench they got to voice this character poured every ounce of wince inducing vocalization she could into this character. Real children have high pitched voices, don't get me wrong, but they're not grating in the way this one is, and real three year olds certainly don't speak with the mental capacity of someone much older.

And that's another thing: this kid is far too rational when it comes to emotional matters. Whilst the rest of the characters have a hard time coping with the death of their mother/sister, Hina spends one minute down at the very end crying about it before she grows a pair entirely too large for her age/gender and spouts off some sort of psychiatrist shit and immediately learns to cope with the fact that her parents are DEAD. I wouldn't be surprised if this kid popped out of the fucking womb with a doctorate in psychology.

And for the love of God, will the other characters just stop giving her dick shaped food?

Matt - Sako Shuntarou (Listen to Me, Girls, I am Your Father) This character - a fat ass, creepy, pedophile guy - is about 50% of everything that was wrong with Papakiki (the other 50% being that the show was written like shit). The way he openly drools over prepubescent girls is not funny and not cute especially considering that two thirds of the female leads fall into this category. What's possibly even more outrageous than this is the fact that everybody around him are aware of the situation and don't seem to give enough shits to do anything about it.

There are characters you love to hate. Benjamin Linus from LOST or Joffrey from Game of Thrones, for instance. Part of the intrigue of these characters is they're so awful that there is some sort of odd pleasure derived from hating on them.

This is not one of those cases and it fills my nerd core with rage.

Best Character

Steve - Manabe Yoshihisa (Kotoura-san) Although ‘Kotoura-San' is a brand new anime, only just begun, Manabe has quickly shot to the top of my ‘Favorite Anime Character' list. He may be an extremely pervy guy (aren't we all?) but he's the only one who can accept Kotoura as a human, something so many people have failed to notice.

Aside from all that, though, I think his most redeeming moment was when he called out that bitch, Miyori Horitani, for making Kotoura toss her cookies...or maybe it's just because I love it when bitches get what's coming to them...

Chris - Kanna Tanigawa (Ano Natsu de Matteru) This topic was a bit difficult, as there were relatively few standout characters in 2012. But thinking back on everything I watched, I remembered: I really liked Kanna Tanigawa, now I'll tell you why.

The main couple in Ano Natsu – Kaito and Boobs the alien – were both rather devoid of character; if I were to compare them to cereal, they would be Weetabix, or some shit. Cardboard, in other words, although I bare them no ill will.

Oh wait, FUCK YES I DO.

Sidelined in these shmuck's little love game is Kanna – she wants Kaito, and she wants him bad. This is made clear from the very beginning, and despite all of her hint dropping and final passionate confession, Kaito brushes her off as if she means nothing, as if he feels nothing – of course, that's probably not far from the truth.

So throughout the majority of the show, Kanna is hurting emotionally, and all because she has the balls to show some goddamn character and show some real affection for someone who is completely incapable of reciprocating anything but apathy. I sympathize with her, I care about her plight, and, despite my own opinion of her love interest, I'm rooting for her because, goddammit, she's a fun, cute, and likeable character.

Kanna will always have a fan in me, until the bitter end.

Matt - Yamada (B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time) I wanted to limit all the main lists to shows that aired in 2012, but I've got to bend the rules slightly for this one. Yes, there were many, many cute characters from this year, and awwnime bracket winner Rikka Takanashi is certainly a lovable character who even gets some development later in her show, but there really weren't any real stand outs this year. So, I'm going to rewrite the rule to include shows localized and released in 2012.

Enter the titular character from B Gata H Kei - Yamada's First Time.

I love to describe Yamada as a slut doing her damnedest to be a whore, but utterly failing in every regard. She's rude, crass, and a genius in the vein of stupidity. Her wildly outlandish schemes never fail to elicit laughs and the dub performance and localization job by the Funimation crew makes it even more hilarious. On paper, the idea of a character setting out on her “life goal” of nailing 100 guys sounds absolutely terrible.

In execution, it's hysterical.

One more set to go. Stay tuned.[/b]