w00tworld's Anime Of The Year 2005

What. A. Year. Here are the series' that have defined the year as well as what I have judged to be the best anime of 2005.

Bleach
I'm not a big fan but it has to be said. Bleach has been this year's Naruto.

Tsubasa Chronicle
CLAMP's crossover masterpiece blew us all away when it hit in the spring. Over 26 episodes we were gripped by the struggle of Syaoran, Fye and Kurogane to save Princess Sakura. What could've so easily been an easy cash in proved to be a thrilling blend of romance, comedy and sublime action. Even brief appearances by nearly every CLAMP character ever created came to join the party but the ending proved inconclusive. A movie is planned and series 2 starts in April.

Fullmetal Alchemist
The story of Ed and Al has captivated everyone this year and is probably the most successful anime of the year after starting its 52 episode run on Rapture TV.

Elfen Lied
Gruesome. Evil. Superb. Elfen Lied stunned and shocked everyone who saw its fansub release in the sunrise section of the year. Its out on DVD in the UK in February.

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Masamune Shirow's cyberpunk masterclass finally came to the small screen with this 26 episode series. No expense was spared and as a result Stand Alone Complex easily became the best UK released DVD series of the year even winning a Neo award in the process.

Haibane Renmai
No fancy stuff. No big explosions. No panty shots. Just a beautiful fantasy story of a young haibane (burnt angel) learning the ways of her new environment. Life affirming stuff.

But although these series' are superb it took a hentai game designer to create w00tworld's Best Anime of 2005.

Shuffle
The story of Tsuchimi Rin takes a nasty turn when the rulers of the gods and demons appear and ask him to marry one of their daughters. What could've so easily been a bland, lifeless harem comedy changed gears suddenly at the halfway point to become an incredibly dark drama. After the early comedy episodes we suddenly cared about these characters. We were riveted as Rin's choice of girl could affect the future of the world (but that wasn't empasised much in the series). The only series I can recall to have brought me to tears for 3 episodes in a row Shuffle is an epic defiance of the harem genre and one you should quickly look into if it gets licenced next year.

Shuffle is still ongoing with episode 21 screened in Japan tonight (8th December). The final episode will show on Japan's WOWOW network on Thursday 29th December 2005 at 10pm. Expect it to arrive on bittorrent around Sunday.

Trackmania Sunrise Extreme - What's New?

TMSX is here at last so why should you download the 210mb upgrade?

Game
New Extreme Race mode to show off the new track blocks.
New Stunt mode to just plain show off.
New hyper boost block for all 3 environments.

Island
New airport block set, use planes, runways and hangars.
New vertical corner pieces, literally corner on the walls or provide barriers for those tough jumps.
New rocket piece, make those tough jumps even harder.
New pipe block set, construct F-Zero-esque pipe tracks.

Bay
New suspension bridge blocks.
New port block set, use boats and car parks.

Coast
New loop block.
New cliffside road block set.

Now the bad news, you'll have to update any car models you have to make them compatible with Extreme.

There's also an expansion for the original Trackmania. Named Trackmania Original it upgrades the graphics and blocks to Sunrise standard. Perfect for those who decided to stick with the original.

Both expansions can be found using the 'Upgrade' button on the launch menu of both games.