This time it's time to take a look at the best anime titles that were released in the US during 2009. Mania/AnimeOnDVD's legendary Chris Beveridge took a look at what he thought were the top 10 titles to be released state-side during the year. Some of these are carryovers from last year that finished their run this year, such as Gurren Lagann & Death Note. But they're still all very worthy titles & the list presented here is pretty much perfect (#2 is the only one I'm surprised about). You can read the countdown at the link below, or if you just want to hit the results quickly, I've listed them after the jump:

http://www.mania.com/anime-gift-list-10-must-own-anime-dvds_article_119287.html

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It's now infamous Japanese website 2ch's turn to take part in the end of the year festivities, as its large user database was asked what they thought the best anime series of 2009 was. Last year, Code Geass R2 took the top spot on the website. But for 2009, the untouchable series Bakemonogatari easily came in at #1. You can check out the rest of the Top 10 below, & see if your favorite 2009 series made the list:

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Yahoo Japan recently conducted a survey, which asked otaku which anime girl that aired in a 2009 series would they wish to marry more than any other? Although now that otaku are seemingly capable of actually marrying their 2D dream girls, maybe this isn't the kind of thing Yahoo should be encouraging.

The top winner is unbelievably surprising- Mari Illustrious Makinami from Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0. I mean, seriously? I'm surprised she made the list at all, much less coming in first place. Neither Rei nor Asuka break the Top 10 either, so Mari managed to crush both of her predecessors. I'm a bit surprised at who came in at #2 as well, but the rest of the list makes sense (in other words, a lot of tsundere). Check out the top 10 below:

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Seems like I'm doing one of these Year in Review things pretty much everyday now. Today we take a look at the ten most shocking anime headlines of 2009. The list comes from a Japanese magazine, so don't expect any American-side anime news to make the list. A lot of these of course were covered here on the Nebs Blog over the course of the year as well. Check out the list below & see if you can remember when they happened:

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It's now online super store Amazon's turn to give us their list of the top 10... err, 9... anime titles of 2009. Why 9 instead of 10? No freaking idea. I mean honestly, was it that hard to come up with one more title? Well that little annoyance not withstanding, the list is pretty good. Bandai's epic release of Akira on Blu-ray topped the list, a well deserving choice indeed. You can check out the rest of the Top NINE below:

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With the end of the year now in sight, the top English search engines have revealed their most searched terms for 2009. For Yahoo's Top 10 of the year, "Naruto" was actually the 6th most searched for term on their site.

No anime terms made onto Google's overall Top 10 list, but a few did make it on their Fastest Rising in Entertainment list. Again "Naruto" does very well coming in at #4. It was beat out though by "Transformers," which landed at the #2 spot. Though that has more to do with the second live-action movie than the anime version. & finally, the term "anime online" made it on at #8. Considering how much free & legal streaming anime grew during 2009, that probably has a lot to do with that term doing so well.

Incidentally, among the top 10 hottest new searches for Japanese users on Google were Shinkenger & Kamen Rider Decade.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-12-02/naruto-makes-yahoo-top-10-for-search-terms-in-2009

With 2009 almost over, it's time to start taking a look back at the past year. One annual survey conducted in Japan asks light novel readers who their favorite character was for the year, & the results for 2009 characters are quite surprising. That is to say, the top 5 characters are all male. In fact, males dominate most of the top 10, which is quite different results from what you'd see in anime & manga surveys of the same sort. For instance, popular & well known novel series like Bakemonogatari, Magical Index, Seitokai no Ichizon, & ToraDora all make the list. Each one of these titles are well known for their attractive female characters, & yet on this survey either the male characters rank higher than the girls, or the girls don't even rank at all.

Mikoto "BiriBiri" Misaka was the highest ranked female at #6. If you were wondering why Haruhi didn't make the list, you gotta tell Tanigawa to get off his lazy butt & start the next novel already. & just to make things even weirder, the top character- Hideyoshi Kinoshita from "Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu" (pictured above)- is a trap. I guess the only thing better than a male light novel character is one that looks like a girl. The top 10 results:

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The latest issue of ICv2 Insider's Guide has revealed the top selling manga properties of the third quarter (July-September) of 2009 in the United States. In addition to an overall list, a top 10 list of both shonen & shojo titles was also listed. Viz continues to dominate most of the list, most notably with Naruto once again being the top seller. But Tokyopop held strong with their best selling title, Fruits Basket, beating everything else. Just a shame most of its sales came from the final volume, meaning sales for FB are all downhill from here.

While the lists do divide which gender each title is targeted to, it doesn't specify which gender is buying which. For example, despite being shonen titles, Rosario + Vampire & Chibi Vampire both have huge female followings, & more than likely more girls purchase each title than guys. (Girls are buying vampire books? Whoda thunk?) Details below:

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A Japanese otaku online dating service conducted a survey asking their clients what their favorite anime was, as a way of better matching singles. The results? Men like anime about cute young girls doing cute things, & chicks dig giant robots girls like manly mecha series. It's almost as if anime has reversed what used to be the "proper" interests of both sexes. The top 10 for each gender below:

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It's one thing to talk about the top seiyuu of today, but talking about classical seiyuu is another matter entirely. The survey masters over at Oricon recently asked the Japanese public which voice actor would they consider to be a legend. The results were nearly all seiyuu of older generations, ones who've voiced infamous characters of anime's past. Nobuyo Oyama, the original voice for the still ongoing Doraemon anime (though she no longer voices the titular character), came in at #1. The only real oddity on the list was one of the two that tied for 10th place:

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Two separate anime magazines in Japan, Megami & Dengeki G's, surveyed their readers about who their favorite anime character was. Despite how both magazines cater towards otaku, the readerships for both are still different. Megami's readers are fans of bishoujo anime, while Dengeki focuses on ero-ge (hentai video games).

Despite their differences, one thing remained clear- no matter what kind of otaku they are, all otaku love the girls of K-On. Even while every other girl on the Dengeki list is from a hentai game, a few of the K-On girls still manage to get enough votes to be on the list. You can compare & contrast the two lists below:

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It's still early on in the Fall anime season, but 2ch has already conducted an online survey asking what the best series of the season are. This is all based on early impressions of course, & can't really compare to the previous list of Top 10 Anime of Summer 2009, which was conducted after the Summer season came to an end. Also unlike that list, this one seems to focus exclusively on titles that debuted during the Fall, & not any series that's running new episodes during this time, meaning shows like Needless & FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood aren't eligible.

Season two of Darker than Black took the top spot, which I was personally surprised by. Only the top 5 series really got any substantial vote count, with all the other titles getting low support & close in numbers. Tied for last place, though, were Fairy Tail & season two of Asura Cryin. The top 10:

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While anime took off in Japan about 50 years ago, it only really took off in America around half that time- 25 years ago. But to celebrate a quarter century of success in the US, IGN decided to count the Top 25 anime characters to ever come out in the States. Perhaps is to be expected, but the list is largely dominated by male characters. A few females do make the list, however, & at least two that aren't even human. I say at least two because because one could argue that nearly every character on this list isn't human for one reason or another.

You can check out their list in the link below, where they count down the characters from 25 to 1 & go into greater detail about why they chose who they did. But if you're pressed for time & just wanna see the list, head on past the jump below:

http://movies.ign.com/articles/103/1036651p1.html

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The latest survey to come out of Japan asked 10,000 anime & manga fans who they thought the strongest character ever was. Some of the results are pretty typical, with DragonBall's Son Goku taking the top spot. You don't have to even like the franchise to admit Goku reaches god-like levels of power by the end of Z/GT. Check out the Top 10 results below:

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The latest survey among Japanese anime & manga fans was to ask them which character would they most like to live with. Now of course it's easy for one's mind to turn dirty on a survey like this, & you might expect results similar to the Top Voted Characters to Have Sex With survey. But as it turns out, those partaking in the survey chose their heroes or childhood icons for the most part, with the infamous & all-powerful Doraemon as the #1 choice.

The only females that made it into the top ten were more of the classical variety, such as Lum & Belldandy. Some more modern & sexually appealing characters such as To Love-ru's Lala & Kannagi's Nagi made the list as well, but a bit further down. Here's the Top 10:

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