2008 seemed to be the year that I ran into both new and old anime memes which just reminded me that, you know, I think all of us involved in this niche called anime really are insane.  But then again, all of this is in good fun as well and helps keep the community together (and entertained).

Two memes seem to highlight all of this the most for me – one which is old but which I just ran across this year, and the other is, I believe, new this year.

The first is the surprisingly addictive nature of Caramelldansen.  Now, interestingly enough the dancing characters isn’t what I necessarily liked the most about this meme – the song itself is addicting.  However, this song did bring about some pretty cool videos and AMVs and I have two favorites in particular.

The first is what is perhaps the best AMV I’ve ever seen called Sugardansen:

The other is a hilarious presentation of “misheard lyrics”:

The second meme – one I didn’t necessarily participate in, but which was rather hard to avoid – was the infamous Kyonko obsession:

Personally,I never got much about the genderbending since one is still lusting over a guy, it’s just that…they’re now a girl, but whatever.  I’m just glad that my fear of hordes of Kyonkos showing up to dance the Carmelldansen dance at Otakon didn’t come true.

In any case, memes gone wild helped define the anime community this past year, earning it a place on this year’s 12 Moments of Anime list.

The 12 Moments of Anime project is the brainchild of CCY.