And though I had hoped to be able to finish this series before the end of 2009, it appears that a few other things had my attention and that this will likely be reduced to a weekly thing. That might not be a bad idea considering that I also have the 2009 in Retrospect series to do and can thus devote just one part of my time per week to have something consistent for a while. Anyway, here are the ED theme songs that caught my attention in 2008 and also the best of them, completing a 2-part series on theme songs, the first being on OP theme songs.

And we move to the next category in the 2008 in Retrospect series, that of OP and ED theme songs of the various anime series I may have watched or completed throughout 2008. Some of these songs do come from series that I planned on watching but never got around to (or perhaps plan to watch in the future). This list includes songs from the well-established shounen series Bleach, and despite its downfall in 2008, I still regularly listen to and prefer some of its songs to others. Anyway, this post only covers OP theme songs; ED theme songs will be covered in the next post of the series.

Of late, or rather, as of 2007 since I started getting into anime rather “aggressively”, a seiyuu back then that just popped up as a small name on the side was Katou Emiri. She was hardly a name I picked up much on at the time for two reasons – the first was that I was not as grateful for the seiyuu scene back then when I was still a newbie to the anime world, and the second was that she was voicing a side character. But as of 2008, Katou moved into quite the high rank for voicing one of my waifus. And right now, in the summer season, she is taking on two roles that might as well be cast as mains in their respective series, and one other minor role, making it a total of 3 series this season I am watching (out of 5) that she is in.

The problem? These three roles seem to conflicting with what I am used to hearing from Katou. Let me attempt to find out why, and whether it may just be me. By the way, the picture above is the best I could do on short notice, I fail at Google it seems, finding a picture of her that does not make her look stupid. The picture comes from her own personal blog, Emiri no Nichijou, and is part of her banner.

I did not get as many responses as I had hoped to this time round, many thanks to all those who did put in their efforts for the quiz. There was actually a theme this time round, and quite frankly I was surprised that the ones in games got guessed easily. One of them of course I had let out beforehand and I had forgotten that I wanted to use another piece, but whatever. None of the ones in anime got guessed, WTF? I thought this quiz was seriously easy, in fact, other than for one particular piece. On to the answers, and yes, I know I am very late with this post.

Well, I did not think that I would cover Saimoe this year, and I still do not intend to. But I thought a look at the start of the tournament, which begins tomorrow from the time this post is done, may be a good idea considering how, after looking at the entire grouping in the actual tournament past the preliminaries, two of my wives made it in. Not that they have a chance of survival past the first round, but whatever. Since Group A starts on the 4th, while the other groups start later, I shall take a look group by group in the first looks, meaning a total of 8 posts for all first looks.