A look back: The Best Anime of 2011

The above is a decpiction of a scene from Hidan no Aria, one of the standout anime of last year.
Loljk, it was god-awful. Needed a picture at the post header though.

This past year's been a bit weird for me. Even ignoring random personal/life stuff, I mean just in terms of timekeeping and memory. The whole of 2011 seemed to pass by incredibly quickly in my mind, and I was reflecting recently that it had actually been a pretty poor year for an animeholic such as myself - presumably because of the abismal showing in this season just past. So I was surprised to learn, when I came to start making this post, that series which in my mind's eye were done with long before the start of 2011 actually fell into the confines of this list, i.e. they were from last year after all. More fool me. This was very welcome news though, as it widened the field sufficiently so that shows like Hidan no Aria warrant no further mention. Let's get on with it then, eh? What follows is a top 10 in no particular order:

Avoiding Episodic Summaries: What I'm Watching

So here's one of what I assume shall be many little summaries of where I am in a season and what else is going down. Find out what I'm watching and what I make of it below...

Make or Break of Anime: Overarching Storylines

They seem to have taken a bit of a backseat in recent times. Does a show need one to be entertaining or, going further, fulfilling? Can a show get by simply on its wit or action, or does it need a strand of thread running through to connect the madness? I'm going to look at some specific examples through the course, and naturally I'm mainly referring to your 12/24 episode series as ongoing ones flit between main story arcs in the same way as your shorter series progresses from episode to episode.