The end of the year approaches, and with it come all the bloggers and writers crawling out of the woodwork to tell you all their favorite and least favorite things of 2013, myself included.

This is the first of a five-part series, but I'm starting things off a little differently. This post is all about assorted things I enjoyed this year that did NOT come out this year:

Super Robot Red Baron – I already talked at length about the brazen insanity of this show and the way they charge through the plot to get to the robots fighting. I’m about halfway through the series (I’m slow, shut up) and the budget for exploding shit has dropped significantly, so the writers have changed tactics a bit. There are some episodes of this that look and feel more like a crime film, like Female Prisoner 701 or something, which is weird and neat. I’ll finish it eventually.

Daikaiju – These guys were supposed to play in Johnson City last month. Things fell through, but I got a copy of one of their albums, Phase 2, for free, and I keep listening to it. Kaiju-themed instrumental psycho-surf rock! It’s pretty awesome. Jellyfish Sunrise is a favorite track of mine. While it's not as frantic as a lot of their other songs, it reminds me of being on the beach back in October.

Seijun Suzuki – Youth of the Beast. Tokyo Drifter. Branded to Kill. Gates of Flesh. All movies that I watched during my Criterion binge, and I loved every single one of them. This guy’s become a favorite director of mine, and his work was a pretty heavy influence on Shouting at the Void. Stylish, disjointed work that doesn't hold your hand and cuts the fat. This man is a hero of mine.

The Beast Trilogy: Chapters 1 & 2 – My favorite work of Enki Bilal’s. The closest to a Philip K. Dick novel I’ve seen a comic get. Beautiful artwork, a bizarre story, this has it all. I don’t think he’s done the final chapter yet, sadly. Hopefully that will come soon. Humanoids released it years back and I just kind of found it at the local comic shop, so I'm not sure what direction to point you in if you'd like to check it out...

Cronenberg on Cronenberg and Lynch on Lynch – “Sounds like a porno” says everyone I mentioned these books too. Each one is nearly 300 pages of these favorite bizarre directors of mine talking about their life and career, really good stuff.

Crying Freeman – This manga is 90% tattooed assassins fucking and stabbing each other relentlessly. I can’t get over how ludicrous and wonderful it is. As far as Kazuo Koike’s manga goes, Lone Wolf and Cub is absolutely superior, but I love this more for how far it goes. The hero, Freeman himself, is naked ALL the time, whether he’s fighting or making love. Come to think of it, so is nearly every other character that turns up. Ridiculous, yes, but so much fun.

Emiliani Torrini – Gun- A song about a lonely man and his unfaithful wife, sung from the point of view of his gun. It’s so simple, little more than Torrini’s vocals and a guitar for the most part, and it’s pretty much perfect. Give it a listen. They used it for the end credits to one of the first episodes of Luther, which I realized upon re-watching it.

Mechanical Violator Hakaider – Directed by Keita Amemiya, who made the Zeiram films! One of my favorite movies I watched this year, a crazy, violent tokusatsu movie. Hakaider is the villain from the manga series Kikaider, but he’s the anti-hero of this movie that has no real connection (that I know of) to this series. He rides a motorcycle, wields a shotgun, suffers from amnesia, and gets shot at a LOT. He joins a group of rebels trying to overthrow the ruler of Jesus Town, a creepy dude who wears a bird skeleton as a fashion accessory and commands a robot named after the archangel Michael. So far as I know? The religious stuff doesn’t mean jack, it’s just an odd choice to flavor the action. Just…I don’t have words for how much I love this movie.

That's it. Next post will be on my favorite music of 2013, I believe. STAY TUNED.