Steven chastizes Jeff for not being enthusiastic enough about the 10 notables of the year:

2007 really must have sucked if Jeff couldn't find ten series he was genuinely enthusiastic about, and doesn't have to apologize for recommending.

The problem mainly that indeed, while making 150 series a year, the industry cannot produce 10 masterpieces. But the secondary issue is, nobody with a life even watches enough to complete a selection of 10. At any rate, I don't. As a rule of thumb, a series takes a week or two, and we have 52 weeks in total.

The 2007 was a banner year for me. Manabi Straight alone would carry any year. Then I saw the amazingly realistic Rocket Girls, which had beat Planetes fair and square despite the hideous animation. The moving and disturbing ef, the ghibli-reborn Dennou Coil ate quite a bit, although they haven't ended yet. I dropped Gurren-Lagann after 3 episodes, but I'm quite enthusiasic about its R1 release. That's another half-week, to the total of 7 to 9 weeks (Dennou Coil is a double-size series). You'd think, 41 weeks would be enough to find another 5 series, but it does not work.

I inevitably watch something that does not break the threshold of "enthusiastic", e.g. Kimikiss, Haruhi, Bamboo Blade, Lucky Star, and so on. But more importantly, there's a ton of old shows and rewatches to do. Just to mention better ones, this year I saw RahXephon, Shingu, To Heart, Figure 17, 08th MS Team. That's about 20 weeks, if we're efficient, or perhaps even 25. Then we have inevitable rewatch of Mahoraba, Stellvia, Banner, Chobits and perhaps more that I cannot remember or watched on the entertainment stack, so I have no records.

What about the rest though? Surely we still have 15 weeks left? I regret to inform, that it was stuffed with the likes of NieA_7, Hidamari Sketch, J2, Xenoglossia, Abenobashi, World of Narue, Magic User's Club, Dual, Nadesico (which alone ate 3 weeks with all the fuss), Mai-Hime, Ninja Nonsense, Shana and certainly more. Not necesserily bad shows, and although not near the "enthusiastic" category, a necessary overhead. Now that I look at the actual notes and screencaps it's surprising how many there were, although fortunately many were dropped in progress.

If Jeff is as busy as me watching, there's just no way for him to catch 10 shows to be unreservedly enthusiastic about. This is not supposed to be a full-time job!