Personal Standout Anime of 2011

While the rhetoric that “you’ll grow out of anime if you know what’s good for you” may have faded into the background for me with time, at the start of 2011 I was a little conscious I just might be about to change everything. Having enjoyed crossing the Atlantic by ship two years before (too busy along the way to watch very much anime), I’d booked a cruise that would start in Japan and make a few stops in the north of that country on the way back across the Pacific. It would be far from an “anime fan pilgrimage” of the sort English-speaking fans talked about, but there did seem the possibility that in experiencing Japan as a normal country, it would be impressed on me at last “animation” of the sort being exported across the Pacific was hidden in a few disparaged nooks and crannies; maybe manga was a bit more respectable, if you were reading the right titles.
( What actually happened )

( Quite honourable mentions )

( The real personal standouts )