That most wonderful time of the year is once again upon us, as stores bedeck their windows with hideous Christmas decorations and zoo workers enlist the help of sentient animals to find out what a cafe waitress could possibly want. Most importantly of all, the Cart Driver is reexamining its FAL picks as Shinmaru and I languish over our terrible decisions, and Bossman Scamp lords his choice of Monster-kun over us like the heartless man he is.
This was originally going to be posted last week, but considering that none of our places changed much from Week 8 until now, I think some liberty can be taken just this once to make up for my lack of timeliness. Anyway, here’s Scamp’s gloating for your reading pleasure, followed by Shinmaru and I weeping profusely into our hands, wondering where we went wrong.
Scamp: 4th
It’s pretty clear now that I’ve won The Cart Driver FAL Game, partly because I am amazing and partly because my co-writers are idiots whose only option is to bow down to my superior intellect. I’ll leave them battle it out for the wooden spoon while I survey my chances of taking top spot in all of FAL.
Monster-kun, Chuunibyou and K are the top 3 performers for this season, so they’re locked. Psycho Pass is still currently the 7th best performer, but that’s because it’s Noitamina and had a slow start. It’s now faring well within the top 5 each week, so it’s also a lock. The final one is Little Busters, which is where the complications arrive. See, the rest of the top 5 people in FAL all have the same team as me. If I’m ever going to pass them out, I need to shake things up a bit.
Why Little Busters is key here is because its strong performance is entirely on the back of the forum discussion posts. I’m not quite sure why MAL loves discussing Little Busters, but there you go. On the other hand, LB’s viewing figures are pretty average, lower than Magi which I have sitting on my bench. Plus LB has a ton of dropped stats, which nailed it in the week where that was counted, meaning it finished lower than friggen Medaka Box.
Thing is, they changed the rules around this season so I can’t swap Magi out one week and bring LB back the next. Because discussion points are counted every 2 weeks, anything I gain from bringing Magi in will get instantly discounted the next week. I’ve got to time this final swap perfectly if I’m going to stand any chance of climbing up the ranks.
Shinmaru: 63rd
I’m still bringing up the rear among my Cart Driver cohorts, unfortunately, but I have at least jumped nearly 30 spots since the previous post, so I’m ahead of some of you knuckleheads. Getting K and Psycho-Pass onto my team certainly helped with that, since both are good performers, though my team might hit its ceiling soon. There’s precious little that I can do now that I have my highest scoring lineup going each week. The wildcards that are now in play because it’s week 9 don’t add much to my true goal of getting past Inushinde.
Robotics;Notes is the biggest disappointment of my current lineup. I thought it would be a much bigger performer; instead, it’s a decent points grabber in a season where so many shows are having success that that’s a liability. There are nine series that got at least 27,000 points in the latest results, and two others that came close! (And none of these series is Robotics;Notes, I might add.) The game has changed at MAL, my friends. It’s kind of crazy how many more new people join the site, especially since it’s, you know, kind of shit! (Though the people who organize FAL are cool.)
I doubt I’ll catch Inushinde because I’m 20 spots and 40,000-ish points behind him with but a few precious weeks remaining, but maybe some sort of Key-like miracle will occur since I have Little Busters! on my team. Perhaps I should gather my starfish and pray to the sparkly bubble gods to mess with the numbers enough to propel me higher on the list while somehow leaving Inushinde out in the cold. That seems like a sound strategy to me.
Inushinde: 46th
Once again, the specter of not choosing Kaibutsu-kun when I’ve otherwise nailed almost every other popular show of the season has come back to haunt me as I’ve fallen even further from grace. Unless everyone stops inexplicably watching the last few episodes, I don’t think I’ll ever return to my former glory.
The only show on my roster that’s really been a bad decision is Robotics;Notes, as everything else has comfortably stood in the Top 10 total rankings. Making bad picks for my benched shows probably didn’t help me either, a vain hope for Joey JoJo’s overall popularity being dashed in an instant. Really though, I’m surprised Little Busters has held up as long as it has, given that MAL generally isn’t as fond of it as I thought they’d be. As Scamp implied though, maybe there are people furiously discussing it on the forums because they don’t want it to lose its comfortable position in the Top Five. If that’s the case, you go, posters with ulterior motives! Validate my terrible pick in shows for my roster!
All that’s left at this point is to wait out the rest and pray that I don’t fall to the dregs with Shinmaru. (In this case, the dregs are anywhere below my current ranking.)
The Cart Driver 
I’m confused over how moe this post is.
Somewhere between “moe as fuck” and “moe-er as fucking fuck”.
I’m currently 7th and I have the same exact goddamn team as Scamp and all those above me, so I can only hope that everyone completely beefs it on their first swap. Bring it on bros.
I hate you Click. #NotReally
Well, I didn’t do bad for my first time. But goddamn Tonari. How was I supposed to know that would be the most popular anime on MAL?
And yeah, R;N was a poor choice.
Scamp, Click & my good self: Top 10 reprazent, bitches!
It was obvious it was going to be popular. Remember Kimi ni Todoke? It attracts exactly the same crowd.
I’ve been watching Click and fathomlessblue slowly reach up the rankings to try catch me, but they’ll never make it. I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve
I was in the top 5 for the first week (and probably would have remained there), but I dropped several places due to switching in Robotics;Notes instead of Psycho-Pass for To-Love Ru. Fortunately beating other anibloggers is all that matters. I’ll get you next week, you dirty bastard.
And come on, always go for shojo shit. Works like a charm every time.
I just noticed that Shin Sekai Yori also scored lower than Medeka Box that week. That was the week of that controversial Episode 8, wasn’t it? Ouch.
Episode 8 took a big hit for the show, sadly.
Based on the number of viewers following the top shows, I estimate there are almost 50% more users logging the anime they watch this season than in the Spring. 50% more active users than just 6 months ago! That’s astounding. Does this suggest a fundamental demographic shift in MAL within the last year? The underlying cause is probably beyond our ability to answer, but is noteworthy in how it affects FAL predictions this season and going forward.
Specifically, direct sequels are no longer viable team choices. Everyone acknowledges sequels never gain as many viewers or discussion posts as previous seasons, but they could make up the deficiency with inflated ratings and much fewer drops. For example, Kore wa Zombie 2 and Fate/Zero 2 (if it had counted) did very well last time out. But with the enormous growth in overall viewership, the potential audience for new and original anime properties profoundly outsize the scoring ability of sequels. Bakuman 3 hit the numbers I predicted it would, but while those numbers would have made it relevant in the Spring, it’s at lowly 20th place this Fall.
You’re just pissed because I was totally right about Bakuman and you were wrong
OK. I GUESS I’LL TAKE MY ANALYTICS BALL AND PLAY SOMEWHERE ELSE. ;_;
Needs more wideface obvs.
And Scamp is nothing if not Wideface incarnate.
It’d be so much easier if this were based off of GOOD anime.
That would be a logistical nightmare all its own, and would take away most of the fun.
Seriously, why is Monster-kun so popular ?
I don’t participate, so I don’t really care, but I just can’t understand…
The romance is annoying as best and creepy at worst…
…I’m not here to whine, I’m just wondering.
Not watching the anime, but after so many seasons lacking shoujo, people will pounce on one with three. Kaibutsu-kun happens to be the most accessible out of the three this season.
And I like the manga not much for its romance but for the heroine and development of its side characters. And for being refreshingly unorthodox.
I watch it and Kamisama Hajimemashita.
Some episodes are good, and I like it for the “Haganai” side. The characters who are not used to have friends…
I find Kamisama more consistent. It never really takes itself seriously, so it’s more fun…
About shojo… Am I the only one surprised that Crash! doesn’t have anime adaptation yet ?
I like KamiHaji a lot too, but it never had a character I could latch onto, unlike YA☆MA☆KEN.
Plus, they introduced Nanami’s back story wayyyyy too late for me to care about her early enough. ):
I admit that I haven’t been up-to-date with Nakayoshi/Ribon, but…
Is Crash! actually popular? I mean, it originally ended (poorly) before getting revived with a new heroine (and they did that poorly too).
Imo, Seiyuu Ka! is the one sitting there waiting for its anime to be announced.
hana kimi doesn’t even have an anime adaptation, and it already has 3 live dramas and a manga special coming out like every year despite the manga being finished ages ago! it also has everything a shoujo anime fan would want: endlesssssss amount of bishounen, fanservice arcs and drama everywhere! series freaking gave birth to the crossdressing accidental reverse harem genre! what gives? baffled not enough males threatening to rape the heroine i guess ;/
Monster-kun has Natsume. That alone separates it from the pack.
I may have rated it 8/10, but I only watch Tonari Kaibutsu whenever I feel like. There is no urge at all to watch it as soon as possible, unlike Psycho Pass. So, yeah, weird…
It’s just a pretty standard shoujo story.
Wah, you guys are having so much. I wish I had signed up for this fantasy business.
Oh well. Next time, I will be sure to beat every last one of you.
I’ll be counting on you to beat Scamp next time, along with the rest of us.
That pic…
INUSHINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! CURSE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!
You had it coming for having the audacity to not make horrible picks.
ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!!!!