The start of this new season has gotten me deliberating over this point, especially after seeing the first episode of Special A.
There have been may shows that right from the first episode, I’ve know they were going to be classics. Series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Honey & Clover, His and Her Circumstances, Ouran High School Host Club… Special A is pretty much like a combination of the last two of these, and it’s more than just your average high school show; the production values are probably about the same, it has a great vocal cast, they all fall into the same genre, and the story lines are similar. But after the first episode, although I know I will most likely watch the whole series and enjoy it immensely, I don’t have that overwhelming sense of adoration and obsession that I got after just seeing the first 20 minutes of those other shows. What makes Ouran High so much better than the vast majority of shoujo series out there?
Another example of this is Cowboy Bebop and Darker than Black. I adore Darker than Black. It was certainly my number one series from the last spring season. But even though, in terms of those involved behind-the-scenes, it’s almost a baby sibling to Cowboy Bebop, we know it’s never going to go down in the same league. And this isn’t just down to the place Cowboy Bebop reserves in the minds of so many anime fans around my age group (i.e. nostalgia); there is just something special about the series that even those who have come to anime long after Cowboy Bebop’s day get that same sense. It an unreserved classic.
In retrospect, we know how successful these shows went on to become. But I think most people watching them before they were sworn into the league of classics had at least the sense that if things continued the way they started, this would happen to them. It’s something that hits us very unexpectedly, and can be a bit of a shock when such a series unexpectedly pops up amongst the list of shows we choose to watch each season.
I don’t know if any of the shows I haven’t had the chance to watch yet will hit this mark. In fact it’s been a very long time since any show did (ah, the fond memories I have of the season where we had both Honey & Clover and Ouran High) and it’s a feeling I’ve been missing.
