The 12 Days of Anime project was started 4 years ago by CCY, now known as Canon-chan via twitter and Manma via crossplaying tumblr photos. His blog passed away recently, although it was in a vegetative state for a long time, but I didn’t want the project to die along with it. So I half-heartedly suggested, in a post topped by a moustache touting Snorlax, that perhaps the anime blogosphere would like to resurrect this tradition for another generation. I’m not sure how many other people are joining in, but this will be my third year participating. So here we go, kicking off this Christmas with a short CGI anime with a grand total of two characters that stole my heart this year.

I can trace my knowledge of Fireball right back to the announcement of Fireball Charming and arguing over the new character design (Drossel’s character design change between seasons is to Fireball fandom what the console wars are to gaming fandom). I didn’t pay much attention to it then, because it was some CGI kids thing or something. I don’t know, I was ignorant and unknowing of its beauty back then, so I’m not quite sure what my thoughts towards it were. It was around this time that I started making those bloody seasonal charts. The promo pictures for Fireball Charming really caught my eye. That, combined with psgels review stating it was a sort of bizarre off-kilter comedy, prompted me to check out the original series.

Fireball is an absolute gem of a series. Each episode is only 2 minutes long and follows the tales of Drossel, the robot empress of god only knows where-ville, and her robot butler Gedächtnis, as they chat and waste time discussing everything from the meaning of life, the nature of humanity, and the whereabouts of the monkey. What I love about Fireball is the leaps in logic that occur within a simple conversation between the two of them. Drossel will pause for a fraction of a second, apparently deciding to skip several lines of her script and simply read the line down the bottom, leaving us to fill in the gaps that led her to that conclusion, all while being dryly responded to by Gedächtnis.

Fireball acts like a check list for what all series of shorts should do. Not a second of those 2 minute episodes are wasted. The dialogue flows thick and fast, the pauses for comic timing lasted no more than a second themselves, with that being all you need. The establishing shots last all of a second or two at the start of an episode, and any more information you need about the world is interspersed naturally into the dialogue. What’s brilliant is you learn a surprising amount of information about the world they live in simply through their comedic interactions. The dolphins have all died out. Humans and Robots can’t understand each other and are therefore at war. Drossel’s father tried to bring peace to both factions but never succeeded and instead wrote out numerous books so his successor could achieve what he never could. We get all this despite the fact the series never leaves the one room with no more characters other than Drossel and Gedächtnis.

Most of all though, it’s hilariously funny. It’s pure dry comedy where punchlines can sometimes come totally out of nowhere, mainly due to the leap of logic Drossel frequently makes, often catching you off guard. It’s also very assured of its own ability to make you laugh that it openly mocks the idea of having to point these jokes out to you. When an episode introduces canned laughter, the two characters spin around in confusion, wondering whether spies have entered their building. The best point of the entire franchise is, oddly enough, the Making Of Fireball special episode. I originally thought it would be an actual Making Of, with the staff behind the series describing how they made this CGI look so pretty. Instead, it was a spoof where Drossel and Gedächtnis talked about how they were hired as actors (Drossel being a BIG FAN of the original material while Gedächtnis is some irritated professional who doesn’t give a shit about the original material). It even mocks its own near non-sequitur format, showing Drossel read out a line of dialogue from the TV show, only to walk off camera asking what on earth did that mean.

I know a lot of people who read my blog find my most entertaining posts to be the rage ones where I rail against some piece of crap. Which is cool and all, I’m glad I’ve got that part of my writing down to a tee. But discovering and writing about Fireball, unearthing this gem of a series, and getting people to check out the original and watch this year’s Fireball Charming, was a great moment in my blogging career. Moment in Anime #12: Discovering Fireball.

Noitamina has only been around since 2005, so it’s not like it’s a massive stretch to include them all. The only Noitamina anime I haven’t seen are Antique Bakery, Tale of Genji, Hataraki Man, Ayakashi and Hakaba Kitaro. Anyway, to answer the actual question, my favourite Noitamina anime is Eden of the East. Yeah, the movies don’t live up to the series, but it’s still one of the most thrilling and entertaining anime I’ve ever seen. It was also the anime that made me pay attention to the Noitamina timeslot in the first place. Other than Eden, my favourites from Noitamina are Moyashimon, Nodame Cantabile, Jellyfish Princess and Bunny Drop.

Here is where I admit I’m such a humongous weeaboo that I don’t watch any TV drama. I watch comedians, whether in panels or stand up, or I watch sports. However I did catch a couple of episodes of an American TV show called Pushing Daisies a few years ago. Apparently the show was cancelled, but I loved the mad style it had. That’s something I think could be improved in animated form if the animators really went all out with the wacko style it already had in live action form.

Casshern Sins instead of Michiko to Hatchin. Twas the Autumn of 2008 and one young blogger, who had dubbed himself Scamp, had gotten himself all excited for the Next Cowboy Bebop/Samurai Champloo. But then came Michiko to Hatchin and it was a barrel of frustration and disappointment. I wish I’d covered Casshern Sins instead. Each episode had a story to tell that wore it’s intentions and meanings in a very clear fashion so there was always something new to talk about. Also, because of how seriously it took itself, there was a lot to make fun of. Well, mainly the CASSHERN KUROSE’s. I enjoyed that show a lot and I really would have enjoyed covering it.

Yup. My idea of a happy relationship is now one who can sing the Pokemon theme song along with me.

Tough, because my opinion changes over time depending on what series the person is covering or what their newfound subject of interest is. For now, I guess my top 5 would be Ogiue Maniax, Unmei Kaihen, Mecha Guignol, 2-D Teleidoscope and Star Crossed. Just look at the blogroll though if you want all the ones I’m currently enjoying reading.

Besides from the Studio Rikka 24 episode sci-fi series? I’d like to see Brains Base staff that do Baccano/Durarara/Natsume/Jellyfish Princess do an anime original production. Some kind of deathly serious psychological horror that quotes philosephers and can be interpreted in a bizillion different ways. Since most of his works so far have been fun, I’d like to see him spreading his wings and trying out something with a darker tone.

Read this, this and this. If you plan on starting a blog, wordpress.com is definitely the best way to go if you don’t know the first thing about building websites. It’s free and relatively easy to work out how to post stuff. There are other free blogging sites, like Blogger or Livejournal, but I’ve used all 3 and I think wordpress is far and away the best of the lot. The only problem is you’ll be stuck on the same handful of decent blog layouts that everyone has, but that’s just tough shit. You’re getting it for free. Hosting costs a lot of money.

Griffith from Berserk. Why he broke the way he did and what it was that caused him to act in such an irrational manner. That segment from the anime is one of the most fascinating pieces of character development I have ever seen, but what made it so fascinating is how none of it was ever mentioned by the characters themselves. We had to piece everything together ourselves. I really need to write a proper Berserk post one day. All I ever managed was this stupidly gushing fanboy post.

HELLO EVERYNYAN!

No, but that one episode did play over and over again in my nightmares. Does that count as watching a full season?

Including these two questions together because the first part can be essentially be put as “do you liked Redline”? Redline is all style. It does has the capability to tell stories, but these stories are only sent to further increase the style of the show rather than add anything resembling depth. Heck, Redline doesn’t even attempt to add depth, even poking fun at any audience member who might have tried to do otherwise. But the style is the substance. That’s sort of the point of Redline. It’s also the point of a few other anime, like Panty and Stocking. So the question is a bit of a misnomer.

Also, I’ve watched Redline 3 times. Twice in the cinema, once pirated. Still love it.

Part of the point of Madoka was that it showed what would truly happen if a girl gave up her life for a wish to become a magical girl. Same way Evangelion showed what would really happen if a wimpy teenage boy was put in charge of piloting a giant robot with the responsibility to defending humanity on his shoulders. In that sense, Madoka needs the magical girl part to work. Although I suppose you could twist the story to be about idol singers or something. Sell your soul to the studio, they hollow out your talent and market it. You live a year or two of dreams before being cast aside once your use is no longer needed.

There’s a big fucking difference between animation and manga/comics (if I’m understanding you right by sequential art). Animation has more in common with live action directing than manga, what with music and timing and direction and what not. The static form of a comic/manga cannot hope to achieve what an actual moving, talking picture can do. The diplomatic me would say that there are aspects each one does better than the other, but I’m no diplomat. Anime > Manga. It can move. It can make sounds. It can do stuff like timing. It gives the creators more control, rather than the consumption method being left to the whims of the consumer. People who prefer manga and books over moving pictures are stubborn who want to consume the material in their own preferred method rather than handing over the reigns to the creators.

Mass generalisation there, but whatever.

A bit too obsessed to the point that they put themselves in one of those car crushing machines so they too resemble a 2D person? Yeah, that’s a pretty worrying level of obsession there.

I have had dreams involving Holo, C.C. and Sheryl Nome but I’d prefer to keep those dreams to myself.

I don’t dislike manga. I just prefer anime. Same with books vs live action stuff. There’s just so much more you can do with the moving form than a static page. So recommending me manhwa is kinda redundant. Recommend me some movies though. I’ve been trying to plough my way through them recently.

One thing I’ve found interesting about shotacon is how much of it is aimed towards men. Take the infamous anime example of Boku no Pico. It’s drawn by a hentai artist who normally draws male aimed stuff. I guess a lolicon is more attracted to the nubile cuteness of young people than any feminine properties. It’s only once you hit puberty does any difference between the genders really become apparent. Before then, girls and boys are fairly indistinguishable, so I guess to a lolicon it doesn’t really matter. I’m not an expert on the porn side of otaku fandom though, so you’re better off asking someone else about this subject.

Sci-fi crossed with the Powah of Love!

No rape stories please. More the case in shojo and BL stuff rather than seinen, so it doesn’t effect what romance anime I watch. But seriously. No rapey stuff.

Woah woah calm down there. So far all White Fox have made are Steins;Gate, Tears to Tiara and Katanagatari. Tears to Tiara is a thoroughly generic fantasy series, but it was their first series so I’ll let that slide. I think Katanagatari is a pile of poop, but lots of people like it. Then there’s Steins;Gate, which is proving to be incredibly popular. Good start there, but the directorial and writing staff in White Fox are a bunch of journeymen. It’s not like Shaft or Gainax or Brains Base where it’s the same core group of people working on their projects. None of the main folk who worked on Katanagatari is now working on Steins;Gate, and again none of them worked on Tears to Tiara. It’s a studio of journeymen with no underlying similarity. Maybe with the money Steins;Gate is raking in, they’ll try to stick together to see if lightning strikes twice, but for now they barely count as an animation studio.

You do know I will probably die if I watched Aria? Or is that why you’re asking me to watch it? Well, you did say please, so I guess I have no choice. But if I mysteriously stop updating sometime next week, you know who to blame.

Well I’m currently writing this while on the toilet, so I hope I’ll have upgraded my position in a few years from now. But if I’m willing to keep writing while taking a dump, that shows my devotion to blogging, so clearly The Cart Driver will still exist many years from now.

I’m as much of a fan of video games as I am of movies. That is, I don’t make any particular effort to keep up with what’s coming out. I take an interest and I like to watch/play them quite a lot but not nearly as much as I’d like to. I’ve never owned a current generation console. I had a Sega Megadrive (Genesis for you Mericaw folk out there) while all the cool kids were getting Playstations. I only got an Xbox after the 360 was out for a few years. My laptop is incapable of playing games less than 6 years old, and even then it can still sometimes complain. So I take the ‘several years behind’ approach to gaming. As for genre, I don’t think I play enough to have decided what I like or don’t like. My favourite games range from Portal to Pokemon to Sims to Halo to Might and Magic to Command and Conquer and so on. Probably the game I’ve sunk the most time into and gotten the most emotionally invested in is Football Manager, but I’m not sure I’d call that my favourite. Just worryingly addictive.

Second part: I have a post prepared on that, so look out for it in the future.

The girls are hot.

1) Because I hold the door open for people.

2) Yes. They provided the funds for this blog when I started it up, although I’ve had to fund it myself from then on.

3) I was originally pretty dismissive of cosplay, but I’ve since warmed up to the idea. Never done it though, although I do have some ideas of what I’d dress up as. I’m tall and thin, with a physique like an Irish noodle. I have fairly close proportions to a typical Clamp character design. So if I was going to cosplay, I’d like to do something Geass. Maybe Suzaku in either is royal robes or his Lancelot skintight armour (kyaa~).

They write a blog about anime, it’s still being updated, and I know it exists. Not particularly difficult. If you’re on anime nano, then I know it exists. It’s not like I run some sort of screening so only blogs that pass my strict quality check can pass. Although if I had my way, any blog with centre aligned text would be automatically disqualified.

I have. I put in on my college application form. All 5 colleges I sent it to accepted me, so I guess it worked. Or at least, it didn’t put them off.

It’s characterisation is poorly done because the motivations of the characters are obscured to the point that I can’t follow their train of thought, leaving their actions to appear irrational. The plot isn’t great either when the reason why No.6 is an evil totalitarian city is because, as revealed in episode 8, they’re an evil totalirarian city. Great explanation there guys.

Also it’s gay.

Well not Chibitalia anyway.

There’s a difference between the soundtrack in-show and listening to it outside of the anime itself. Especially in the case of techno music. The BGM in both Eureka Seven and Redline are some of the best I’ve ever heard, but listening to them outside of the show itself is a bore. On the other hand, I think the soundtrack to Shigofumi is amazing, but it’s really not used well in the show itself. Best overall would probably be Cowboy Bebop, as boring an answer as that is.

Because Scamp is a common username and is normally taken when I try to register somewhere. 5camp, on the other hand, is almost never taken. But please, never pronounce my name as ‘Five Camp’.

The guy in my profile picture is the main character from Legend of Black Heaven. You know, that anime I’ve been banging on about for the past 6–8 months. Ring a bell?

Tell me, light novel fans: Is there a trend in light novels that the first volume tends to be heavily story based, only for the later volumes to lose sight of what made it unique and delve further into trite cliche? That’s what I’m seeing in a lot of adaptations. They tend to lose sight of their unique qualities after the first 3 episodes. In my mind, it seems obvious why. Author sends in first volume with grand idea. Publisher loves it, publishes it, books gets popular, and author is asked to write more. Problem is, he doesn’t know where to take the story from here, and he’s not allowed to end it. So instead it’s padded out with the same bland sameyness every light novel turns into.

I still find it shocking that the latest big news in kids cartoon television is an anime propagating the glories of poaching. From the country that has serious problems with whale poaching, I really struggle to wrap my head around how Toriko was made.

I’m ashamed to admit the only Macross I’ve seen is Frontier and the first episode of the original Macross. Not that it was bad, but yikes was it ever dated.

Strangely, I get almost no commenter douche-baggery. You would think, what with me being rather undiplomatic, that I’d get far more. Even the ones I do get tend to be the type who say something like “this is funny because you’re so retarded”, which I don’t really mind because hey, at least you’re enjoying yourself.

Lurkers: Get out and make your voice heard if you have something to say…is what I’d like to say, but I know I’ve never left a comment on one of LittleKuriboh’s or Zero Punctuation’s videos, despite being a rather hopeless fanboy for both of them. Now this is partly because they get so many comments that mine would simply get lost in the heap, but it’s perhaps even more intimidating to comment on someone’s post that has far less comments. But that doesn’t mean you should follow my example. Stop lurking and get out there! Let your voice be heard!

Me trying to appear fair? I do not understand this suggestion. Fair to who? The creators? It’s hardly like Bakuman’s original author is reading my posts. I mean, I’d love it if the director of Steins;Gate read my posts about how he uses far too many dutch angles to the point that it ruins scenes where it would otherwise be effective and improve in his later works, but of course they don’t. Or am I supposed to be appearing fair to the fans? To that I just say: lol

As for how I got started blogging, I direct you to my About page.

I assume what you’re talking about here is that both BL and yuri aren’t aimed towards actual LGBT folks. They’re the products of tropes rather than actual real life romances, where rape = love is rife, and girls are apparently all insufferably nice to each other. So yeah, they exist. Can’t really say that more about either, because they aren’t genres I’m particularly fond and therefore don’t watch/read many.

This would essentially be a long list of “these things move, these pages don’t”.

How? I’m not sure ‘how’ I readjust expectations. The latest episode was better than expected, expectations go up. The latest episode was bad, expectations go down. I don’t do that deliberately, my mind just readjusts itself naturally. Some people subscribe to the school of thought that you should go into everything with low expectations because you will either be happily surprised or smug when proved correct. I see the logic, but having rock-bottom expectations means I don’t necessarily enjoy something as much as it probably deserves.

OK, first part: No, because I don’t want to step on people’s toes simply for the sake of stepping on people’s toes. Mikoto/Fangzhao/Flomu can get away with that because that’s his shtick. His internet persona is built up so that he can ‘get away’ with doing that (for a given value of ‘get away with’) and I’m glad people like him exist. Someone needs to give various parts of the blogosphere a kick up the hole every now and then. It’s just I don’t want to be that person. I’m too much of a pussy to do that so directly.

The ASIA thing is something I have had thought of before the OEG came into being. For those who don’t know, the Otaku Elimination Game were a group set up by a bunch of people who were really angry that people were calling themselves otaku when they really were just following some sort of mainstream ideal of what otaku meant, generated partly by Danny Choo. So they set up a site to critique various anime websites and give a verdict whether they were a true otaku or not. They were really just a bunch of trolls, only aiming to piss people off, but what took them by surprise was how many people asked to have their sites participate. Anime Bloggers are the type who are so starved for recognition that they’ll even sign up to a bashing contest if it means someone will tell them what they really think of their blog.

I think that alone shows that there is the demand out there for some kind of critiquing system like you’ve suggested. I’d add that you would only review blogs that ask to be reviewed, because there’s no point in offering criticism to a blogger that doesn’t want it. Also it might be a good idea to have a few anonymous panellists, because then they’ll be more likely to be blunt with their assessments. Will I run it? God no! I don’t want anymore meta projects on my hands. Too much hassle and drama. But good luck to the brave folk who do try set it up. I’ll be cheering on from the sidelines.

Also Gunbuster sucks.

I wrote about this back in those 80’s and 90’s OVA’s, but one thing I’ve noticed is the evolution of the panty shot. In the past, it would be a boring old pair of plain white panties, flashed briefly for a second in to the point that you find yourself wondering whether you’d even seen them and whether that was deliberate or not. The modern pantyshot is a full screen flash with a noise to imply that you’ve just seen panties, like the tinkling of a bell or something. It’s rather more blatant about the whole process.

Who?

OK OK, Fate/Zero talk then. I like Gen Urabochi, the author of Madoka Magica, Saya no Uta and Fate/Zero. The man can write really damn well. His writing is tight and succinct with well crafted purposes and themes. He doesn’t include redundant text for the most part and there’s a purpose to each story I’ve seen him write. He has two key problems though. One is that he can’t write comedy, which isn’t an issue so long as he doesn’t try to write comedy. The second is that he can’t write a character, only collections of ideals held together by plot points. This is where the Fate/Stay Night universe steps in. I think nasu’s writing is completely impenetrable, but he can write interesting characters. Combine the two and you get Saber written by someone who knows how to actually write.

Whut? I dunno what you talking about. Anime is fucking awesome. No really, I love this shit. Steins;Gate, Redline, Arrietty, Bunny Drop, Madoka fucking Magica. That’s just anime that have been released this year alone that I love. Fuck yeah anime!

Man, I am such a weeaboo…

The next Aniblog Tourney thing I’ll leave aside for now. Instead I feel like being a little bit meta and talking about how I perceive anime blogging has changed in the past year and a bit since the last tourney. Well, OK, I lied. I’m not being a little bit meta. I’m being very meta. You have been warned.

One of the biggest fronts to kick up in the past year was the rise of the warrior moe fans. It was less a charge up in defence and more a huddling together, afraid of critical thinking and throwing their hands up in delight at Infinite Stratos. They even set up a group called the ‘Moe Coalition’. Thankfully this trend appears to have died down, especially with Seanver’s Anime Blog kicking the bucket, which was not only their hangout, but the site that hosted the Moe Coalition homepage. Not that those people have all gone away, but organised anti-critical thinking in that form was a scary sight.

This group kicked up as a sort of response to the crowd who congregate around Colony Drop, who are still alive and kicking. They, thankfully, have become less abrasive and more insular since. If anything, they were already dying down in controversy when the tourney kicked off. The actual writing on their blog isn’t half bad, although the writers are still contractually obligated to force in spitting hatred and bile towards anime fans at least once per post. The main irony of their site still remains though. Proclaim that anime blogging sucks and that you are going to create a good anime blog, then the blog you proceed to create caters to only a very niche group and rigidly refuses to appeal to outsiders. Except now there’s the extra irony that the ‘Example Of The How To Make A Good Anime Blog’ now updates at the rate of one post every 2 months. They’re far too busy posting dumb stuff insecure people say on the internet, in one of the most pathetic cases of internet bullying.

When I started blogging, one of the big things sweeping the sphere were the academic editorial blogs, only for all of them to mysteriously die off in the space of 6 months. All that was left when the tourney was on were a few who only update once every 6 months, and We Remember Love. But, with blogs like SnippetTee and Altair and Vega popping up, I think these style blogs are due a revival. Personally, I find this kinds of blogs too dense and dull, but there is an audience for them. So long as they don’t make the same mistake of assuming their exist on a higher plane to everyone else, as the older academic editorial crowd seemed to think. Still, the rise of these style blogs makes me glad that 2DT hasn’t hung up his blogging cane for good. He is a man who Gets It. How to make those style of posts approachable and interesting to the layman. Although it might be nice to have your anime podcast be about actual anime.

Episodic blogging has never had it better. Some might say it’s over saturated, but I don’t see how that’s a problem. Back in the old days, episodic posts all seemed to stick to the same formula of screecaps, synopsis, impressions. It was 20 posts on Clannad episode whatever all looking the exact same. Finally it appears anime bloggers have grown out of that format. There is no longer an established format for how to do episodic bloggings, so almost every blog out there approaches it in a different manner. OK yes, some blogs like Sea Slugs still use the old format. But at least now not every blog’s episodics look similar, so that style is as much a difference as everyone else’s. Plus the perceived over-saturation means that you can be guaranteed someone is covering your favourite show of the season. If you’re the kind of twat who thinks episodic posts are rubbish, just pretend each post is titled “The Art Direction in Steins;Gate” or something, and pretend this person is writing an editorial where he just so happens to use the latest episode of a currently airing series to discuss some points about it.

I love Anime Nano, but could someone please create a suitable successor. Nano is bugged up the bum with the creator being rather indifferent towards anime as a whole. I have a lot of respect for Hung, and I’m sure running that website is far more difficult than I could imagine, but I really do think it’s time for a competitor to replace, or at least challenge, Nano. Mind you, trying to get people to adopt a new site like that is a difficult task. There are still plenty of people who use the Animeblogger Antenna. Damn, that site really needs to lie down in the grave and let itself be covered in dirt. Let the aniblogpshere evolve! It’s hard with dinosaurs like Animblogger still kicking.

Finally, the animeblogosphere is alive, kicking and quite pointedly Not Dying. I don’t pay as much attention to what new blogs are breaking in on the scene as I used to, but there are enough decent quality new blogs appearing of a fairly wide variety that I can safely say we’re fine for now. For good new blogs I’ve seen, I really like Anime New Modality’s People Who Shaped Anime post series. There’s something strangely amusing about Strawberry Milk’s MS Paint anime characters. Baka Laureate has some really interesting stories to tell. It can’t be helped is a big stinkin’ elitist like myself (although man, put yourself up on AnimeNano! At least, until the fabled successor to it appears). It’s evolving, albeit slowly, and I wish the useless products of the bygone ages would just drop off instead of sticking around uselessly like a metaphorical appendix, but it’s certainly a healthy place.

About 17 months ago, I made a post about the two-year death many anime blogs fall prey to. The post has been continuously misquoted around the blogosphere by people who thought it was a proclamation of the death of anime blogging in general, when really it was just to show how many anime blogs don’t reach the 3 year mark. Those that do pass that birthday often do so in a state of semi-hibernation, only counting as alive because they average a post per month. It’s those blogs that manage to continuously update right until their 3 year birthday that have proven themselves to be in this for the long run and it takes far more for them to ever fall out of this routine. Enough significant life changes have occurred over the 3 years, showing that blogging was not just a fair-weather hobby when they had time.

I’ve finally reached my three year anniversary. I’ve proved to myself that I’m in this for the long run.

While I’ve had the occasional brief hiatus of perhaps 7–10 days when exams and deadlines loomed, the only significant hiatus I’ve ever taken was during the summer of 2009 when I had my final exams for High School (not that they’re called Final Exams or High School in Ireland, but I might as well put the words into internationally understandable lingo). In these past 3 years, I’ve moved house, moved country, changed my circle of friends, changed my education level tier, and generally had a whole load of crazy life changes. It’s not like the fire of passion continuously burned throughout those 3 years to keep me posting. There’s the occasional bout of ‘why the hell do I blog anyway’ syndrome that crops up a few times per year. But I keep posting through this anyway, because I’m not going to overcome my melancholy by doing nothing. I force myself to write even when I don’t want to, because I know that I really do enjoy writing and that will come only back to me through writing.

I’m not special. I like to pretend I have a big opinion of myself, but the reality is I’m amazed so many people consider my stuff worth reading. I’m only 20 years old. I started watching anime mid-2007 so I don’t have a particularly vast knowledge of the medium. I’d watched less than 100 titles when I’d started blogging. I put the effort in to be funny and entertaining, along with attempting to post regularly, but it does rather surprise me how so many people turn up to read these posts. Thank you for making me feel like this stuff is worth writing. That includes you, the 95% of you that simply lurk and never post a comment. Whether you’re here specifically to disagree with me, I hope I’ve provided you with something suitably rage worthy. Whether you’re here to find new anime to watch, I hope my endless dropping at hints to watch Code Geass/Fireball/Roujin Z/Black Heaven/Code Geass/Berserk/Mushishi/Code Geass eventually spurned you on to try one of those out and enjoy it. I hope I’ve kept you amused at work or in class as you tried to stifle a muffled laugh while reading a season preview. I hope, through whatever methods you see fit, that you have found something worth reading here.

Most of all, I hope I’ve entertained you. If I’ve managed that, I’ve achieved all I ever wanted to achieve.

First impressions are over. Oh sure, there’s still Deadman Wonderland, Blue Exorcist and Moshidora to write about, but I’m bored of first impression posts now. So on with my obligatory seasonal status update post, in which I actually have interesting stuff to say in for once.

Blogging Plans

Blogging plans for this season are finalised and ready to go. I’m going to be covering Steins;Gate, Fireball Charming and [C]. Before the season started, I said I only planned on covering 2 shows per season, but my empress Drossel called out to me and Fireball only has 2 minute long episodes anyway, so that’s not much hassle to cover. Admittedly the two shows I’m covering, [C]  and Steins;Gate, are the two anime this season that have the biggest chances of self-destructing in spectacular fashion, but hopefully that will make it still fun to blog. That said, I would much prefer these anime to deliver for a change. I don’t want another Fractale or Magical Flying Panther on my hands. Still, it’s turned out to be a high quality season, even if the mecha genre is only noticeable again by its absence. Ah well, the final 2 Break Blade movies are coming out 27th May and 22nd of July so that should keep me going until Sunrise release their highly original new anime this summer. It has a fancy male character who forms a contract with a mystical girl to gain magical powers. Oh, and there’s rollerblading mecha.

Movies

My knowledge of movies is painfully lacking. I love them, but I just never got into the natural groove of watching them when they came on TV or going to the cinema to see them, except for social occasions. So I decided I was going to correct this and watch as many of the bloody things as I could over the next year. I’m going to be chronicling my journey too: Scamp watches stuff that’s not cartoons. It’s nowhere near as in depth or as carefully calculated as my posts on anime will be. This is mainly a personal thing to keep track of what I’ve learned. But if you can’t get enough of me or something, then by all means check it out. There’s a few short reviews up already.

London Expo

I’m going to London Expo wooh! My first time ever at a convention. Well, apart from that one convention I went to, saw a bunch of people playing Blaze Blue, setting out a twister mat and no sign of anime whatsoever, which I promptly left after 10 minutes. But yep, I’m going to be at the UK’s biggest convention, probably on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th. I’m not going to be running a panel or anything like that, but I’d love to meet some folk I know from online there. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do at a convention for 2 days by myself. Also if you have a spare bed, I can cook for you. OK, just took a look at the hotel prices. Suddenly I’m no longer joking with that line, a place to sleep would be hugely appreciated.

Podcasting

No, I won’t be podcasting myself. Instead, I’m going to be making some super exciting guest appearances on some other anime podcasts over the next week or two. I’m appearing on the Bakacast at Project Haruhi and the Metaverse at Metanorn. At least, they said I would be. Unless my tongue falls out or they suddenly decide they don’t like me, both of which would be rather embarrassing. Do go listen to them when I’m on to listen to my smexy Irish accent.

1 Year Later

The Aniblog Tourney started exactly one year ago. The dust has long since settled on that tourney, but anime blogs are obviously still ongoing. To see how these blogs are still doing, I posted up a list on the tourney site detailing each blog that entered the tourney and whether they are still updating regularly today. Basically, most of the anime blogs are still alive and well, albeit plenty of them have moved about or changed owners or blogging styles and whatnot, with plenty of newcomers to fill the gaps vacated by the deceased.

So what better way to spend our time by pitting them against each other!

In 2008, a bunch of people, led by Impz from THAT Anime Blog, decided to set up the inaugural Anime Blog Awards. I started anime blogging just after it had ended so I didn’t really know much about it, but I did read the posts about the event. Posts pre the event occurring were quite excited about the thing, but those after the event seemed far from pleased. Many didn’t seem to even know who had won each award. There was obviously some drama, it was labled as just a chance for the big boys to pat each other on the back. I liked the idea of the awards, but there didn’t seem to be any plans to ressurect and improve the format. So I asked people on twitter about what had happened. Many of the people I talked seemed interested in some sort of knock out anime blog tournament. So, with quite a considerable amount of time on my hands, I went to AnimeNano and the now defunct AnimeBlips and drew up a list of all the anime blogs on their lists.

Not exactly the best planned procedure, was it now? It showed as well. Some of the complaints filed against the tourney when it set up were some legitimate concerns. Drama and trolling was inevitable, but we never had a set-in-stone method of dealing with them, which meant some of avoidable drama spiralled out of control (although crazy Tenchi Muyo fans is not something you can exactly plan for). It ran on for too long. It was a bit of a mistake to start the tourney without having consulted the people who ran the ABA’s 2 years back for advice on what went wrong with that, instead of drawing every conclusion from old blog posts that didn’t have the luxury of retrospect.

But the net result was definitely a positive, although often in ways I didn’t see happening. Instead of resulting in all the competing blogs with new readers, it gave a whole load of readers new blogs to read, which isn’t quite the same thing. I was wary about even allowing comments on the tourney, because most dorama could be avoided by closing comment. What it did allow was for readers to provide constructive criticism and discussion about the merits of various blogging methods, which really came as a massive surprise. This includes conversations that tread close to the dorama line, such as the merits of blogs like Colony Drop, because they still provided many different viewpoints to a style of blogging that a lot of people don’t like. Many people commented that it gave them a greater feel for what the aniblogosphere was like and made them feel like part of the sphere for a change. It also got more people to read Mecha Guignol, which is always a good thing.

Most of all, it was entertaining. It made the sphere a hell of an interesting place to watch for a while as blogs feigned ambivalence, only to change their tune and proclaim that, if they were in it, they might as well be in to win. It was endlessly entertaining to read the various call for votes posts, along with some of the surprising bitterness. It has forever warped to the way I see Tenchi Muyo. I don’t really have a moment to pick from the tourney though. The stress of running the thing made it all go by in a bit of a blur and thanks to RP and Mefloraine for helping out (along with our ninja admins that must not be named). I still plan to run the tourney again in two years time…wait, I mean 16 months time. Holy shit, that’s not that far away at all! Argh!!!

There is one train of thought that I feel I have to address though. It’s nothing about the show itself, that is all ultimately just opinions. Neither am I talking about how people phrase their arguments, despite some of the comments bringing to my attention the prevalence of people using ‘haters gonna hate’ as a legitimate counter-argument for criticism (no it’s not, and stop using it you idiots). What I want to address is the idea that this discussion across blogs in such a manner is a negative thing. That responding to each others’ posts in a manner directly disagrees with what they wrote is a negative thing. It absolutely is not. It’s by far the best thing anime blogs can do as a community. You don’t want everyone agreeing with each other in one happy circle of joy. You need dissenting opinions that show each side to the anime or subject in question. Between bloggers’ reactions to Endless Eight, the arguments over fanart recognition and other such incidents, I wish the aniblogsphere had more of this. That’s what really promotes critical thinking and challenges people to properly construct their posts when they know there are those out there who will disagree with them.

Sorry for those of you who only read this blog, but it’s well worth your time checking out other anime blogs and not just listening to my narrow view of the world. The blogroll on the sidebar is a good place to start, as is Anime Nano. Anyway, enough of that. Onto the actual episode.

Episode 5 was a step straight into melodrama central, with varying degrees of success. It can be divided up into 3 segments.

1. Doujinshi in the Rain
2. Hugging the Heart Cushion
3. Kyousuke becomes The Cart Driver

In between these 3 massive pieces of melodrama, there were much more subtle pieces of character development. I guess this comes down to me being a massive fan of subtly and not a fan of melodrama, but the quieter pieces were far better executed.

Take Doujinshi in the Rain. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but I had a massive grin on my face the entire way through, even breaking into laughter when Ayase said “we can’t be friends” in a deadly serious tone. It was so corny and handled in such a heavy handed way that it was impossible to keep a straight face. Hugging the Heart Cushion was handled quite considerably better, probably because of the lack of ‘mood-setting’ BGM and oppressive atmosphere. But it did serve that extra annoyance of trying to depict a realistic bro/sis relationship while remaining an imouto-complex otaku-pandering anime. The two simply do not mix and it’s frustrating and jarring to watch them try to fit in the two together.

But then you take some of the smaller aspects of the show, such as Kuroneko’s reaction to Kirino rejecting them as weidos, or the dad’s oddly tsundere attitude, or even Ayase’s surprisingly level reasoning as to why she didn’t approve of Kirino’s hobby, suddenly you realise how clever and well-written this show can be. I keep wanting to say this is a well-written show at at heart that insists on pandering to the otaku, but the opposite is really the case. This is a true otaku-pandering show at heart. It’s just the layers over it are of real high quality, so much so that the core otaku-fodder isn’t readily apparent and can be dismissed as misinterpretation in the earlier episodes. But nope, pre-season predictions were correct. I was led on by those who said it really wasn’t otaku pandering and my own wishful thinking. I shouldn’t have expected anything else from AIC.

In a way, coming to terms with this is a huge relief. I no longer find myself quite as frustrated at the glaring flaws in presentations of two themes that simply cannot exist simultaneously. It’s still annoying that it tries to play up the bro/sis relationship while also depicting Kirino as the ultimate otaku wet dream and having Kyousuke being the character they project themselves into. Her spiel about how she’s the absolute perfect girl but also happens to be an otaku would have been painful to watch if I hadn’t come to terms with this.

In short, I’ve given up on this series having real substance. ‘My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute’ is a show about an older brother baffled by the imouto complex depicted in Japanese literature, mainly when it comes to eroge and otaku products. However my original thoughts was that this would lead to the show disproving that older brothers don’t want to bone their younger sisters by depicting a relationship between two in an environment where so many signs tell them that they should fancy each other. Instead what we got is the anime showing us that having a tsundere little sister can be just as awesome as having the clingy type of little sister normally depicted. I don’t think this will ever turn into an incest anime directly, as in they will never actually admit they love each other or anything like that (the synopsis of the latest book that is flying about is just a tease to get people to buy the book expecting the cocktease relationship to finally boil over). We’ll get an anime in which the little sister is just as desirable, if not more, than those depicted in the eroge they play so far. It’s kind of depressing to think that Ore no Imouto thinks that it’s subverting the genre by changing the character archetype of the imouto character.

Oh, and Kyousuke the Cart Driver? Nicking this from ExecutiveOtaku who threw up this idea on twitter. Currently what Kyousuke is doing is gathering up the hate of the world in order to protect Kirino. Sound familiar? If Ore no Imouto has a Cart Driver ending, I will drop everything negative I’ve said about this show.

There’s the original burst in hits as the tourney hits the scene, followed by a sharp drop as those who never really had much interest in the tourney in the first place stop visiting. The core audience of the tourney will make up most of the hits, mainly consisting of bloggers and those who read anime blogs on a regular enough basis to already be fairly in tune with anime blogs in general. There will also be a few people who show up randomly but these will make up a small percentage of the people visiting. Also, these people might be slightly put off by the number of blogs present along with the lower quality of those blogs on display. Hence the extra hits these blogs are getting are mainly coming from those inside the sphere already. An echo-chamber, circle wank, whatever you want to call it, is what’s happening. Not that the other blogs competing in the first round aren’t getting readers from outside the sphere. The tourney has gotten hits from places well outside the sphere, but it’s mainly an echo-chamber.

However the important thing here is that (sorry if I hurt some feelings here) the tourney is genuinely voting forward the better blogs. Not those that are most known inside the sphere or those with big reputations, but on the genuine quality of the blogs in question. Many will point to the fact that it’s mainly been on first impressions, which I’ll get to later. With the second round beginning and the bigger name blogs competing, more people will start showing up because of how interesting the match ups are. It’s already clear that the more interesting the match up on that week is, the more people pay attention. The Colony Drop post is tribute to that, which is why I kinda want them to win. A lot of these people aren’t actually visiting the sites in question or even voting in the other poll, but enough are for it to make a difference. And again, the genuinely good blogs should continue to advance. Case point here would be Mecha-Guignol, a relatively unknown blogger whose popularity has suddenly increased thanks to the tourney. Just look at how much more comments he’s got on his latest post compared to the older ones. Ah, I remember when there was only about 5 people who ever commented on that blog~

The important point here is that the randomers visiting the tourney will now be faced with rounds with genuinely good blogs competing. Better yet, a lot of these blogs have been voted up on first impressions, which means the randomers with the typical Internet interest span of maybe 20 seconds will be impressed quickly. And they will too start to visit these blogs and become readers. And this shall continue as the rounds progress. More people will start to follow the tourney as the rounds progress because the quality of the blogs on display will also increase. What people tend to forget is how few people actively search out anime blogs to read. Those who follow none will start to read those who ranked in the semis and the final. Those who only read the big ones will start to follow some of the other high quality ones that have progressed further. Basically, if you’re someone reading this post and feel rather overwhelmed by the tourney, it might be better to wait for some of the later rounds.

I said it on the opening post. This tourney is to promote good blogs who aren’t maybe getting the attention they deserve. So far, people are voting up the blogs they genuinely think are better. The only problem I can see thus far is that blogs that may appeal to a specific audience are losing out, which is just something that is an inherent flaw with democracy anyway. I personally like to err on the side of originality when voting in the tourney (for example, I voted both Colony Drop and Anime Instrumentality because they both cover things almost no other blogs do). I really hope people do continue to vote for the actual blogs themselves and not based on friendships, random twitter campaigns or reputation that they were once a good blogger.

As for the question people really care about; who is going to win the thing, I’ve noticed a certain tendency to vote against episodic blogs, although pretty much all the big guns in the episodic blogging world got byes in the first round. Those thinking Random Curiosity will steamroll the thing are totally underestimating the backlash people will have to these types of blogs. I am a betting man though, so my guess would be for Sea Slugs to win the whole thing (they’re number one seed for a reason). I think it largely depends on how good the most recent posts are on the editorial blogs are when they are featured. What do you guys think?

::Note:: this is the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that almost everyone stops caring after the first round and it becomes a total circle jerk between a select few

This was originally meant to be a post about the first episode of House of Five Leaves (for real this time) but I really couldn’t come up with anything interesting to say about it. Not because it’s a bad show, far from it. This was one of the most impressive first episodes of the season. No, it’s because I’m jaded from writing so many of these first impressions posts. I decided to go with a new version of first impressions this season because my old format didn’t let me express my full opinion and was too restrictive, leaving me unable to do absolutely hilarious post formats like this. However now I think I understand why Aroduc is such a cynic. After about halfway through the season my brain started to fry as I tried to come up with something to say about each first episode, resulting in miserable posts like this for Senko no Night Raid. I’m not a fan of people who go ‘hur hur, why you guys read my shitty blog’ self-deprecating nonsense because I have a big ego and I am awesome, but some of those posts were terrible. Next season I’m going to have to do something different, but that’s a bridge to cross when I get to it.

Also, showing my inexperience yet again, I totally forgot to take into account airing dates when picking anime to blog (I’ll never be one of the great episodic bloggers!). As much as I love Angel Beats, it clashes with Durarara while Giant Killing clashes with Arakawa Under the Bridge. So the only new show I’m blogging this season is Arakawa, which is just as well because I’ve been pushing myself to much to post recently as it is without picking up too many series to blog. Besides, the no anime is dropped forever posts will make a return soon. I would like to curse those of you who told me to pick Kobato back up again. Kobato Ganbarrebleargh~!

Finally, I would like to send a little message out to the Icelander’s asking them could they please keep their volcano’s under control because they’re going to make me miss the start of term