Anime blog that focuses on Yuri and School Girl Slice of Life Anime and Editorials
As the first round is coming to a close, competition is becoming fierce. As always, my review criteria won’t change as we review another 12 Anime Blogs.
Before going on, this review Digest will contain screenshots of the actual website and how they look on my machine, so slow connections, beware… I’m basing all content on quality, not the blogger’s overall opinion on issues and stuff. Also, if you want to vote in the tournament, you can do it over here.
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Almost about a year ago, I have written against the ban on eroge games and had a poll on it. A vast majority was against this ban. What caused it? Some controversial game called Rapelay appeared on the UK Amazon store that sparked outrage. Now like with some people, they like to butt into other countries business and extremist groups like Feminism Now, which I put the full blame along with news organizations like CNN overblown the whole situation putting the pressure on Japan to try and create anti-loli legislation that is clearly unconstitutional and having a group of creators in Japan speaking out against the legislation.
Along with it, minori, an eroge and visual novel maker decided to bar everyone in the west from their site. Just recently, they launch an assault on a popular visual novel translation wiki with an editing war saying the fans are not allowed to translate a clean, all ages visual novel eden. This obviously outraged a lot of minori fans accusing them of being betrayed even after importing the games legitimately from Japan, thus dubbing the whole situation as “minorigate.” Two blogs, Omonomono with the article titled Open the Minorigate” and another from The Nihon Review with the article titled minorigate, or, How to Piss Off Otaku Without Really Trying both produced very convincing arguments, but I’m not going to focus on Minori in this opinion piece. I want to show my opinion why I am against this whole eroge ban and why people who want to dictate how Japan should control their culture really need to stop now.
The Rapelay incident is just like the Hot Coffee incident that happened in July 2005, around the same time the Rapelay incident occur. Like Rapelay, Hot Coffee was a mod in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas that was a minigame that featured a sex simulator. This drove controversy and the game was rerated Adults Only and drove controversy. Jack Thompson arose from this incident and wanting to ban all video games with nudity and violence. He targeted violent games and also Sims 2, a popular life simulation game. Thompson’s attack on video games made gamers angry saying that what Thompson’s attack on gaming and his “Modest Proposal” was going to ruin freedom of expression. There were video game laws that were passed in California and Florida, but eventually these laws became unconstitutional and were shot down and Jack Thompson eventually lost his attorney license.
Why am I mentioning Hot Coffee Mod? In relation, Rapelay is the same, except that instead of being a western game, it is a game made in the east. Now we get into different cultural values and stuff and being Asian myself, I know how different these cultures are. The problem is that like with Hot Coffee, it is going to be like trying to ban violent video games. It’s not going to work because most free countries have laws that protect the freedom of freedom, expression and media. So what Japan is lax on stuff when comes to sexual stuff. The problem is, some westerners no matter how much they hate eroge or not, they have no right to tell another country how to dictate their culture. It is Japan’s culture, not yours. Say if another country said that they were offended by the stuff in Grand Theft Auto and want the game banned. Then the United States Senate creates legislation trying to ban every game that have violence in it, would you like it? For most people, they will not and complain over it. If people in the US don’t want violent games to be banned, then like with Japan, they don’t want their eroge banned. How do you think they will feel if the anti-eroge bill gets passed in contrast with a bill banning violent games used in my example… do you think they are going to be happy as you going to be happy with violent games being banned? The answer is most likely no.
As with violent video games, they do not equate to gamers who play these types of games to commit violent crimes as a Japanese person playing eroge and doing the same. Video Games do not influence people in practice. People should already know right from wrong and not to copy what happens in the video game.
Another thing I blame is news organizations and radical groups like Feminist Now. News organizations had overblown the whole situation when it didn’t need to. We get those radial groups that want to ban Eroge and then we have this massive chaos going around. Just last month, CNN tried to fuel the fire and go on and bringing up Rapelay again when the incident was several months old. This causes minori to do what they have done and I don’t blame them. I blame media organizations and radial feminist groups. The problem with them is they disregard what other people think about them and go ahead and start this holy war against Eroge games and ruining it for everyone else. People easily get offended over everything. If they get offended already, they should practice self-censorship and do it now. Why? It is a great practice so that you don’t have to go around and ruin it for people who wanted to play that sort of content.
In conclusion, it is more of the media organizations, politicians and radial group’s fault for letting this crusade to ban eroge games for going so far. They don’t care about what other people think or what they think about them. As long they are satisfied, fans of these games not only in Japan, but also outside of Japan are going to get hurt badly because they can’t practice self-censorship. Also, it is not their business for them to dictate what other countries should do with their culture. It’s the countries responsibility. I for one, think this crusade needs to stop and everything needs to go back to the status quo. Even if I don’t play Eroge games that often, I don’t want people have to suffer the fate of not being able to play the next Eroge game from minori they want to import. As some said, people should stop complaining about Anime Dying, but Eroge Dying because of these groups that want to put an end on Eroge.
This is the last of the Anime Music reviews for a while… until the Angel Beats! OP/ED comes out or some Insert Song Album shows up. Further ado, now onward to the K-ON!! ED Single Review, Listen!!
General Information
Album Title: Listen!!
Artist: Houkago Tea Time (Toyosaki Aki, Hikasa Youko, Satou Satomi, Kotobuki Minako, Taketatsu Ayana)
Catalog Number: PCCG-70073
Release Date: April 28, 2010
Tracks
1. Listen!!
2. Our MAGIC
3. Listen!! (Instrumental)
4. Our MAGIC (Instrumental)
General Thoughts
It has been proven that Hikasa Youko is a better singer overall compared to Toyosaki Aki. Proven with the single, “Dont’ say lazy” that was released last year. Not only that, she managed to pull off Fuwa Fuwa Time pretty well and bring out a very fluffy and catchy song that brought out her character’s “cute” side. Does Listen!! delivers on that consistent quality the last two single albums have done after the disaster called “GO! GO! MANIAC.” We will find out soon enough.
Listen!!
Listen!! has energy, but not as much as the predecessor, “Don’t say lazy.” They seem to play it safe after the big disaster they had experimenting with GO! GO! MANIAC. The vocals are more present, similar to the style in “Don’t say lazy” and also, very catchy. Some may find the longer version better than the TV version… It is obvious that Hikasa Youko is a lot better than what I have seen with GO! GO! MANIAC.
Nevertheless, it was pretty damn close, but only a bit off of being just as good as the predecessor and is still a good addition for this season.
Our MAGIC
A bit slower than the last side and is more of a pop song that has a 60/70s feel as some people say. In contrast to the B-side from the “Don’t say lazy,” it is very different as it doesn’t have the rock feel. Our MAGIC is a very catchy song. As they say, this song sort of didn’t suit Mio’s character just like “Hello Little Girl” from Mio’s Character Album that released last year. Perhaps it could of suit Kotobuki Minako better, which had a pretty good singing voice from my experience… but I don’t know… Despite that, Hikasa Youko has done a pretty good job with this song.
Overall, Listen!! is definitely a better single album than GO! GO! MANIAC and a decent addition to K-ON!. It may not be on the same level as the predecesor, but it was pretty damn close. This pretty much proves Hikasa Youko is simply a better singer than Toyosaki Aki… As always, the animation of Listen!! is top notch just like “Don’t say lazy” from the first season.
And wait… Didn’t Hikasa Youko sing songs for Chu-Bra!! a long with Kotobuki Minako? Well, yes… of course. Although I didn’t heard any songs from that Anime since I have no interest in it, I’m positive that it is probably around the same level from my assumptions. I may be wrong, but oh well.
Verdict
8.5/10, Outstanding, but barely.
General Information
Album Title: GO! GO! MANIAC
Artist: Houkago Tea Time (Toyosaki Aki, Hikasa Youko, Satou Satomi, Kotobuki Minako, Taketatsu Ayana)
Catalog Number: PCCG-70071
Release Date: April 28, 2010
Tracks
1. GO! GO! MANIAC
2. Genius…!?
3. GO! GO! MANIAC (Instrumental)
4. Genius…!? (Instrumental)
General Thoughts
K-ON! in the first music had a very good amount of good pop music that sounded very good and very catchy. Did Go! Go! Maniac fulfill the promise to be better than the opening of the first season? Far from it since from first time listening to the TV version, it was a complete mess. However, does this album fixes that messiness. Not a chance… and you will find out soon enough.
GO! GO! MANIAC
Well, in comparison to Cagayake! GIRLS from the first season, GO! GO! MANIAC is two leaps backwards. The problem? The vocals are sadly a big mess. Toyosaki Aki’s vocals were a big mess compared to her first single, love your life, which sounded a lot better than this… The problem is that the messiness comes from the lyrics being sung way too fast and causing some squeakiness. I think the trend of Kyoto Animation providing not so good opening themes is becoming a reality since Suzumiya Haruhi S2’s opening theme, Super Driver, was also considered a disaster because of the not so good singing from Hirano Aya.
Oddly enough, taking the vocals away makes the song less cringing… but it doesn’t change the fact that the song was ruined by the vocals.
Genius…!?
Genius…!? sounds better than the former and Toyosaki Aki’s voice not nearly as bad, but fits in and pretty catchy. However, as with the overall horribleness of the opening song, this song simply doesn’t have the energy and sounds pretty simplistic.
From Toyosaki’s performance of these songs, the overall performance of the songs in the album was average. The problem is the opening song is obviously a big mess to make the song slightly unlistenable. I have heard a a lot better from Toyosaki Aki from the Houkago Tea Time Album and also Yui’s character Album. GO! GO! MANIAC did not deliver at all and was actually worse than the former OP in the first season. Even Toyosaki’s version of Fuwa Fuwa Time sounded better than this… Way better. From my impressions, it is clear that Hikasa Youko will perform better on the ending theme, Listen!! which I will review next time.
Verdict
7.2/10, Average
Now, we are on week two of the competition and it is pretty fierce. As always, my review criteria won’t change as we review another 12 Anime Blogs.
Before going on, this review Digest will contain screenshots of the actual website and how they look on my machine, so slow connections, beware… I’m basing all content on quality, not the blogger’s overall opinion on issues and stuff.
Day 7
Match 13
Black and Blue Socks
Black and Blue Socks have a clean layout. Although the theme is commonly used, I won’t criticize it since it’s a limitation on Wordpress.com. The layout is very clean and navigable. Although an episodic blog, it does have a decent amount of editorials mixed in and the content is fairly good, so I have much to say… It is a pretty well rounded blog…
Major Arcana
Major Arcana has a very nice and clean design. Although the author does episodic blogging as the former, unlike the former, there is a lot more editorial blogging covering a variety of subjects. The post quality is very good, except that unlike the former, the author doesn’t post as often… but from the quality of posts and content, the advantage is Major Arcana, but ever so slightly.
Match 14
Daijoubu
There is not much I can say about Daijoubu as it is another comic blog with well, comics that look as they were made in MS Paint and posts that lack quality and not as good as Beta-Waffle’s… I wished that this blog have done a better job in providing content that are higher quality. Perhaps some editorials and stuff… Oh well…
Mecha-Guignol
Although not particularly interested in some of the genres that the author is looking at, I think the author of this blog done a better job with the post quality. The author posts a mix of editorial and rarely episodic blogging. With the shortcomings of Daijoubu, it is quite obvious that this one is going to be my choice…
Day 7 Results
Major Arcana and Mecha-Guignol
Day 8
Match 15
Ani-Gamers
Despite the name of the blog, Ani-Gamers is a mixed episodic, editorial and review blog. Ani-Gamers have a clean layout, although not the usual layout as the stuff is on the left side. Fairly good quality posts and the author seems to post frequently.
Anime Full Circle
The problem with Anime Full Circle is that the text is a bit unreadable, maybe because of the fonts used on my system. In contrast to Ani-Gamers, they post fairly frequently, but the problem with the posts is that some of the posts lack some quality. If they improve their post quality, I would have vote for them, but the clear advantage is Ani-Gamers. Anime Full Circle should consider either getting a new theme or fix their current theme so it would be more readable.
Match 16
Since I follow Anime Instrumentality Blog on my RSS reader, it is obvious that I am going to vote for them automatically. It is rare that the Anime Blogosphere focus mainly on Anime Music as a whole, but I find this blog rather unique with high quality reviews on Anime Singles, Albums and Singles and also focus on Anime and related music as a whole.
The problem with Kita ze Inbou is that they focus way too much on Episodic Blogs and post a lot of screenshots like Random Curiosity. They have a clean layout, but why the banner add is on top of the banner? I would rather have them move it to the content area. Although the theme looks appealing, they really need to post more original content like editorials and stuff.
Day 8 Results
Ani-Gamers and Anime Instrumentality Blog
Day 9
Match 17
Behind The Nihon Review

Behind The Nihon Review is mostly an editorial blog. The pieces I have looked at were pretty professional and rational, although they don’t post as often. The layout design overall is pretty clean and easy to navigate.
Chocolate Syrupy Waffles

Chocolate Syrupy Waffles is probably one of the most controversial blogs out there that tries to be funny and interesting. The problem is some may not like the opinions shown on the blog. Also, they do episodic posting as well. As for the layout, it is pretty clean and easy to navigate. Despite the outrageousness of the blog, I think Behind The Nihon Review is better since it has a more rational approach on issues and being more polished.
Match 18
Listless Ink

The author of this blog must have put a lot of effort to make it look really nice. From the looks of the comments, that is simply insane. The content is mostly editorial and the posts are pretty good quality.
Super Noisy Rice Shower Goes Boom!!
Rarely there is a blog out there that focus primarily on Seiyuus. Like the former, the content is pretty good as well and it also has a very clean layout. Tough decision… so I’m going to let you guys vote for what blog I should ultimately decide on. The poll will close this Friday and I will decide on that day on what blog to vote according to the votes on this poll.
[poll id=”12″]
Day 9 Results
Behind The Nihon Review. Match 18 to be decided.
Okay, this wraps up the long blog digest… Now, vote for what I should vote for on Match 18 and I’ll be on my way. Next digest will be posted on Friday with another 12 blogs to review.
Attribution Information
Fanart used in this post is by G TONG (Pixiv Page)
If the artist name doesn’t ring a bell, well don’t worry. This single obviously contains the insert songs in the Spring Anime, Angel Beats! that is currently airing. It surprised me on how early in the season it was released, but then again, the K-ON!! singles just released recently as well… Sorry if I’m not good at music reviewing. Probably Anime Instrumentality Blog will do it better?
Album Title: Crow Song
Artist: Girls Dead Monster (Singers: Marina and LiSA)
Catalog Number: KSLA-0051
Release Date: April 23, 2010
The Album sounded fairly good, but it is not without flaws… Like with the music oriented K-ON! which had the characters playing with some rather good music, this is the same effect, but not perfect… Overall, the vocals were good for all the three song, except that the feeling in the vocals was somewhat missing or something as they sound a bit flat. I noticed this on all three tracks. If I compared this to Fuwa Fuwa Time or even Houkago Tea Time back in 2009, I think they done pretty close, except the flaws I mentioned.
This song is the insert song played in Episode 1. The overall song sounded really good and really like the instrumentals and had a lot of energy.
Alchemy is an album insert song. Although this song sounded good, but not as good as Crow Song as the energy wasn’t there that would make this song a bit forgettable. I think it would have sound better Live or something. It is sad that this one hasn’t been used in the Anime let.
This song is an insert song played in Episode 3 and it is a ballad. I haven’t watched Episode 3 yet, but it is a ballad. The song itself is powerful, and liked the acoustics. A bit better, but the vocals are still a little flat…
Overall, I think the instrumentals sounded really good because they are obviously composed by Jun Maeda which have made some really good music in past works. The only problem is with the vocals I mentioned earlier. While it is almost damn close to the K-ON! songs released last season, I think the flatness of the vocals is the problem I see here. If it wasn’t that flat, I think it would have done better…
7.6/10, Good
Going to do this digest today since I got bored and just wanted to review more Anime Blogs. Will be using the iPad Simulator’s Mobile Safari (still based on Webkit) instead taking a screencap of every window because of the inconsistent window sizes and blogs should be designed for a 1024×768 resolution. No ands and buts. Now onto the blog reviews…
Day 4
Match 7
A Product of Wasted Time
A Product of Wasted Time (an episodic blog) has a good layout design, pretty easy to navigate and such, except the large number of ads… well besides from that, the author seems to have decent content and frequently updates (from the number of posts made on the Archives). How about what the competitor is doing?
chaostangent
Chaostangent has a unique design which is very clean, appealing and original (the bottom shows his Last.fm, Youtube and Flickr profiles). His approach of blogging some can view as pretty good as he takes three episodes and write about them and afterwards, write a review in the end of the show’s running, which is pretty unique. Also, he posts rather frequently, so although some say it was a hard choice, the match goes to Chaostangent.
Match 8
見ないで! ひとり言 (mi nai de ! hitori gen)
The duo blog from jpmeyer and Hinano… who seems to RAEG a lot or focus too much on the negative. The overall design of the blog is good. Depending on the person, you may find the raeg funny or maybe not as your milage may vary. The notable feature from this blog is jpmeyer’s “what i was forced to watch this week” posts that many can find amusing, although lacking in some quality…
Caraniel’s Ramblings
Unlike the former blog, Caraniel’s Ramblings is less on the RAEG and negativity and more on the actual content. Comparing post quality, it seems that this blog is a little bit more higher quality than the former although the banner should of be design better, but the vote goes to this one as they seem to update more frequently, have better content and less RAEG…
Day 4 Results
chaostangent and Caraniel’s Ramblings
Day 5
Match 9
Just as Planned
Just as Planned has a clean and simple layout. The only flaw that I see with the layout is that the archives are missing. How I supposed to check older posts. The author posts fairly often and the author’s post seems to be very descriptive and high quality and is mostly an episodic blog…
Moe Check
Moe Check has a really good design and really navigable. Although the posts are good quality, the problem is the author seems to post infrequently, which slowly lessen the lead with design sadly. If only the author have posted a little more every month, it would get my vote, but the vote has to go to Just as Plan because the author of that blog posts far more often while maintaining good quality posts.
As the name say, Moe Check, the content is pretty persistent with that.
Match 10
Rainbowsphere
Rainbowsphere is very passionate with its eroge and hentai so much there is a post saying that he is not ashamed of his porno… Something that will turn me off (no, I have nothing against porno, eroge or such, but I find it… gross). The main problem with the blog is that it hasn’t seen an update since March 8th, which is almost like a month and being updated very infrequently, the chances of voting for it is very slow. The navigation is awkward compared to other blogs that have next and previous page on the bottom of the index of blog posts. The author should consider fixing that as well so that it will be easier to navigate towards pages and such.
JanaiBlog
Besides the fact that Janai on Twitter nagging about people not using licensed anime sources and this drama on twitter that causing myself and my friend on twitter to unfollow him (no offense) because of this reason… this shouldn’t be the big thing to be against of the blog because of something that happens on twitter. The design is pretty appealing, clean and navigable. The blogger focus primarily on the Anime scene mainly in America, so he focuses on issues that pertain to America and also Anime Cons and such… not that I would be interested in. The blogger also posts fairly frequently, so the advantage is clear… despite the shenanigans that happens on Twitter on theme design and productivity.
Day 5 Results
Just as Planned and JanaiBlog
Day 6
Match 11
Canne’s anime review blog
I seriously think the blogger needs to put more effort on the images as it look like something that came from MS Paint or something (hint: Use GIMP, Paint.net or Photoshop (If you can afford it). Besides from the fact of that, the content doesn’t reflect that at all. The posts are fairly good quality, but the blogger should really update more often! At least the author posts a few posts every month, I guess…Besides from that, the layout is clean and navigable.
COLONY DROP
I can say that the post quality is around the same as the former and they don’t update often. However, don’t like their design and what with this advertisement for Funimation… Ugh… I think I will vote for the underdog, Canne’s anime review blog. Also, they are missing archive links to older posts.
Match 12
Beta-Waffle
Although the color scheme and layout of Beta-Waffle is ugh, the content on the blog is pretty unique. They post comics that have to relate to Anime and such that they are funny… Only thing they should really improve is the theme and it will be all good.
bananaMuffin
bananaMuffin has a very appealing design to the eye and easy to navigate and has good quality posts and author posts fairly often… I don’t know… This is a tough decision… so what do you decide I should pick on this round? Its up to you now. The one that gets the most votes by next Monday is the one I will be voting for…
[poll id=”11″]
Day 6 Results
Canne’s anime review blog and Match 12 to be decided bananaMuffin.
Okay, this wraps up the long blog digest… Now, vote for what I should vote for on Match 12 and I’ll be on my way. Next digest will be posted on Tuesday with another 12 blogs to review.
No, seriously… This episode was filled with alot of Mugivision™… Wait… Wrong show…
If Takanashi didn’t have enough with the rather eccentric girls like Inami not liking men and want to punch the lights out of them, well meet another rather eccentric girl named Yachiyo. As shown in a flashback, she was bullied because she was carrying a katana for some reason… and one day, she gets picked on and Kyouko hit them with a needled bat and after that day, Yachiyo follows her around. This meant that Yachiyo seem to have some love interest to Kyouko, although Kyouko only cares about the food…
This episode had alot of Yuri of what you can imagine. Besides the parfaits and Yachiyo go dreamy over it, there were more hints of Yuri aka Mugivision™… For example:
Wait… Theres more where that came from:
Don’t ask, but Yachiyo did lash out at the general manager, Otou Hyougo with her Katana for taking Kyouko away from the damn parfaits… yes… it was bound to happen… You know that Yachiyo’s feelings for Kyouko is very sensitive you know… Kyouko got to have those parfaits no matter what favor.
And yea, Inami didn’t punch Otou… but instead Takanashi… I think punching him is getting a bit… well, old… I hope this doesn’t turn into a running gag…
Overall, from the look of it, it’s a bit better, but not good enough. The problem with Working!! like with other bloggers said that the show might start getting into the “stupid humor” ditch that once you get in, it is pretty difficult to get out. Like always, your milage may vary… We get that when Yachiyo only takes out the katana for that one instance… nothing else which made it slightly disappointing. Also, the whole episode left Popura out the spotlight… I thought she was the centerpiece of the show and that Takanashi likes her because she is short and childish? Did she become unPopura…. NO WAI!!!! It can’t be! It is for this one episode.
I still don’t know about this… but from what I have seen, I still perfer K-ON!! over Working!! because atleast it is funny in its own way and it didn’t show “stupid humor.” Then again, it is just what I prefer…
Verdict
7.8/10
Like with most bloggers and such, I don’t spend all my time watching anime and such, but do other things like posting on AnimeSuki, tweeting, playing video games, writing editorial posts on my blog and even program stuff. For that, I need music to occupy myself while I am on my laptop. Even on the go, I will listen to music sometimes with my headphones with my iPhone 3GS, which doubles as a iPod. Since my return to watching Anime, my music collection was small, but it grew and grew as time went by… and I think I got what artists I seem to like personally… You don’t have to agree, but here they are (no specific order)
…
No, this episode is not about this turtle you are seeing here… it is about Ritsu…
Although I’m not a big Ritsu fan, this episode was enjoyable. Well, it is tough that you never be in the spotlight, but trying to do something else won’t help either because the bottom line of doing what you want to do is not all about the popularity favor, but if you enjoy what you are doing. Ritsu gets tired for not being in the spotlight, so she tried the guitar and…
Well, it seemed that it was too difficult and Yui seems to be glad to have Gitah back (lol). She becomes jealous at Sawako’s shining appearance that she also tried doing the keyboard like shown below:
Be amazed that she can make the keyboard talk, not make actual music. Well, after playing Piano for several years, I think I still know how to play the keyboard at least… more so than Ritsu by what she does with it. Putting her in front of the band or shining the light on her also didn’t help… Of course, popularity isn’t everything as she remembers why she played the drums in the first place… And yes, it only took the watching of The Who (yes, the actual band) and Keith Moon (who is part of the said band) on DVD… After all, The Who is a very influential band.
Funny, isn’t it… Ironicly, the person who really wanted to shine aka Sawako went too extreme and well, yeah…
If you cover your face with something, it is quite obvious that you went a bit overboard. Anyways, another factor is Yui… Yes, I know she doesn’t seem to be like Fuko, but I still find her rather cute and very funny despite this. literally, my intelligence fells when I see Yui doing something that a normal person won’t normally do, but it is all good. Also, Mugi figured out another song thanks to Ritsu fooling around the keyboard… Can’t wait to see how it sounds like next episode, if she does sing…
Verdict
8.4/10
Now I have some time, I will begin to review Anime Blogs from Day 1 to 3. This means 12 blogs in total. As mentioned before, I will be reviewing the blogs from these criterias listed in this post.
Before going on, this review Digest will contain screenshots of the actual website and how they look on my machine, so slow connections, beware… I’m basing all content on quality, not the blogger’s overall opinion on issues and stuff.
…
Nevertheless… this remains really interesting…
In continuation of this episode, the mission is to restock on weapons from the Guild underground. To get there, they need to get through the traps that are meant to repel Tenshi. Besides the “it’s a TRAP!” (not with boys crossdressing as a girl, but actual traps) moments that includes but not limited to a hammer, a laser trap that cuts your body (don’t worry, it doesn’t actually harm them after all), pitfall trap, big rolling bolder, falling ceiling, you name it! It is quite funny how some of these characters fell for these traps that I laughed… Well since they are immortal after all and only causes a lot of pain. Of course, our main character sees some, well you know for the first time and Yuri going all tsundere… well, dere with the blushing…
And then, there is this flashback which is on the verge of tearjerking sad…. The robbers decide to break into her house and nearly wiped out the whole family. Yuri tries to find something they would want, but fails to bring down the large pot since she slipped down stairs and started to bleed. Along with that, she is the leader simply because she rebelled against Tenshi first. Soon, they arrive at the guild and she decides to shut it down since Tenshi already found out and wanted to destroy all the knowledge and then rebuild the guild elsewhere. The workers start with preparation to demolish the guild and Tenshi got there. Otonashi and Yuri stand Tenshi off until the workers finally donated the TNT to blow up the guild, although the cannon was a complete failure.
Overall, this episode still made me rather interested in the show. Although the pacing is a little off, I think it will get better in the later episodes. Except for some scenes in the flashback, the animation was a improvement over the last episode and looked more appealing. It seems that they finally got the OP and the ED done with song and animation, which looked and sound amazing. About the OP, of course it sounded a little different compared to other songs that Lia sung (yes, I listen to alot of her songs, not only her Anime songs as seen on Last.fm), but it’s is rather mature… The ED sounded rather peaceful and yes, this is what I got from it. It is obvious that P.A. Works is trying to push to become like Kyoto Animation as always. Anyways, I can’t wait for the next episode…
Verdict
8.4/10
Well, it have been decided that I was going to ditch the old theme and make a new one. The last theme, Wicketpixie seems alright, but the problem is that it uses alot of images and it seems to load slower than it would on top of the glitches on top, so I decided to gut the theme. We are still using the same banner, but I made alot of mods and tweaks to the Thematic Theme Framework with the help of the Web Inspector in Webkit to figure out what CSS to edit and all that good stuff. I managed to maintain the top bar from the old theme, except for minor glitches that I need to fix. Overall, the theme seems to be very appealing to the eye and also loads alot quicker than the old theme… Several seconds quicker since now everything is done with CSS, not with images and such… I haven’t tested the theme in Internet Explorer since it is the worst browser ever made, but everything seems to work fine.
Anyways, tell me what you think about it and I will take some suggestions… No, the color scheme is here to stay, so yeah….
Also, I got rid of Wibiya… so people who are reading this blog don’t have to tear their hairs out when they see that annoying, floating toolbar. And yes, this theme has threaded comments!
Update: Subscribe menu should now view properly. Something was up with the positioning of the menu in the CSS.
Back in November of last year, as you recall, there was this troll game called the “Otaku Elimination Game” that well RAEG about blogs and give no incentive to improve and also discouraged people in improving their blogs with their faux RAEG. Yes, I have written about the OEG back in November where I was against it. Several months later… the Otaku Elimination Game died off since they probably were fresh out of ideas and some of the blogs they were reviewing were not even Anime Blogs…
Now, fast forward to April 2010 and Scamp, the author of the The Cart Driver decided on doing a ISML type of contest with Anime Blogs where readers decide which blog is better. In some ways, there is a difference from the OEG since it’s not biased. It can encourage bloggers to improve their blogs from suggestions from readers and attract attention to a rather unknown blog. Sure, it is a popularity contest to some extent, but readers should pay more attention to the content, layout and design and functionality. I will be looking at blogs during this time to review them and see what I think about them on my sideblog. I will be reviewing them on the following:
Layout/Design
The layout is perhaps the most important for an Anime blogger or any type of blogger. This means the banner image and how the blog looks like a whole matters. The problem I see with some blogs is that they use a very common theme, which causes a lack if originality and such. I think most won’t have a problem with themes, although a few may. Another thing is banner images and how creative and how much effort a person puts in. In consideration, blogs with extremely big banners above 200 px in height isn’t a very good idea since not everyone has high resolution screens (such as mobile devices and laptops) and cause people have to scroll down even more just to look at the content. (the website should be designed for a screen with a resolution of 1024×768 as a bare minimum.)
Accessibility is another issue. How accessible is your blog on mobile devices? Devices such as the iPhone, Android and Blackberries are commonly used by people who want to browse websites on the go. With a lack of a mobile accessible theme such as WPTouch or Wordpress Mobile Pack, readers who want to read something on your website may have a hard time browsing your website and reading your content since they now have to do more zooming and stuff to read the text.
Navigation is the last issue I’m checking in layout and design. How easy is it to navigate your website. With a bare minimum, a blog should have categories/tags and also the archive which contains links to posts made in a specific month. Some readers may be interested in viewing posts in a specific month without needing to go to the next page to read posts that were made last month.
Content
Another important aspect is content. How much effort you put into making your posts and what kind of posts you make on your blog. I don’t care if it is an episodic, editorial blog or both, as long the content is good and the vast majority is related to Anime. Also, frequency matters as well. Posting only a few posts a month will make me less interested in your blog because of the lack of new content. Also, if a blog have a history of having too many hiatuses, I will view that the blogger isn’t putting too much effort in his blog and make me uninterested.
Quality also matters too. Publishing a lot of posts does not always equate to quality posts. As they all say, Quantity over Quality can degrade the blog as a whole, although I have seen blogs that publish posts frequently and have high quality and/or entertaining posts. Things like grammar and spelling is important since readers may get turned off by your posts if too many grammar/spelling mistakes are made. If you are unsure if you have made grammar and/or spelling mistakes, use a Spell Checker and read over your post before publishing it.
RAEG blogs, depending on the content can also be viewed poorly, unless the Anime itself is not good. RAEGing just to get attention to attract a mob of angry fans will not fly with me.
Conclusion
Besides the popularity aspect, I think the tournament will be a lot more helpful than faux raeg from the now defunct OEG. This is an opportunity for bloggers alike if they don’t win a round to improve their blogs upon the readers suggestions and make it so it will be more presentable for readers. Constructive criticism is key to encourage the bloggers to take upon the suggestions to improve their blog and the blogosphere as a whole.
I can’t stop these flowers of moe!
From this… You surely know what will happen next… Filled with little sister tsunderes….
From the last episode, it was obvious that Misaki became less harsher from the last episode, but not completely. In this episode had less yelling on her part. She also saves the two males in the library with the falling ladder and hurting her arm in the process and said she would save anyone, regardless of gender. Of course, Usui patches her bruise up and also saying a really funny excuse to a girl who was confessing to him while he was looking at Misaki in the building. This excuse obviously cracked me up so much, and it is obviously not true… He said that he is a high-level otaku that loves maids than everything that he plays games about them and stuff and cross-dresses as a maid and leaves… Yes, highly unbelievable, but very funny…
The highlight of the episode is obviously the “Little Sister Day” at the maid cafe where she acts like a imouto so perfectly with twin tails! Moe! However, everything changes when Usui comes and she tries to serve him and he becomes unreasonable that she flips out at him as shown:
Afterwards, Usui decides to leave and yes… she shows a different type of imouto… Tsundere little sister character? I laughed afterwards…
Well yes, Misaki shows her dere side, complete with twin tails! Essential for tsunderes… :o. Overall, the episode was very entertaining and pretty good… Although Misaki seems to be annoyed at Usui at times begins to warm up and… yes, he picks out the color Misaki should wear on Setai Meido Day… Well, it’s white! From watching this episode, it surely has alot of moe that was parodied since this is a Shoujo Anime after all. From that, I leave this post with a picture of this bad-ass Misaki in a white meido outfit.
Last notes: As from the last episode, it seems that the group of three males who are fan of Misaki… well besides from over-obsession of her, one guy starts drawing pictures of her in meido… Luckily, she didn’t find out about that yet… or did she? :p
Verdict
8.6/10
From my surprise, someone felt like doing something that the Anime Blogosphere haven’t done before… an ISML (International Saimoe League) like tournament, but instead with moe female characters, now with Anime Blogs and we are listed. As they say, if you want a blog to win, you have to campaign… so this is what I’m doing right now.
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It have been awhile since I have written a long line of editorials… but I think this is a pretty good question. This topic came to attention when I saw that thread on AnimeSuki. Haven’t said that. it depends. As most know, I have been a fan of Anime for a long time since the first anime production I seen from Studio Gibli, this is when I step foot into the Anime World. as more of these shows shown on TV, my interest for it went up. It wasn’t until High School that I started watching more, so I’m not exactly a new fan of Anime, it was something that was on and off, but never loss interest in. I have never participated in any Anime Clubs while I was in High School and still continued not to after my sister joined one in fall semester in college and well, not going on well and she stopped attending. Being in the Anime Blogosphere, I have seen less of the dumb part of the fandom and more of the more intelligent bloggers for the most case like to do what they enjoy most, watch anime and write their thoughts on it. Also I participate on AnimeSuki Forums (If you see me, give me a poke…) and Melative that also has a very good amount of intelligent fans who I converse with.
The problem lies in the mainstream Anime forums. AnimeSuki may be popular, but not as much so than Anime News Network and MyAnimeList. There lays the problem as now we are given a vast amount of fans and of course, there are going to be some newbies who are going to have very narrow taste in liking only Naruto and the such and don’t give a damn about other people’s opinion. This is the main reason I do not participate on MyAnimeList forums (except to develop the MAL client) and catalog my anime (until I gotten away from it and now use Melative to catalog everything!). When they see something that isn’t Naruto, they will likely rank it down on purpose… Then again, what is the purpose of rating an anime while its airing. However, the ratings to not stick and only ratings on people who watched the season in whole at the end only counts. Maybe some dissatisfaction perhaps?
The problem I’m seeing is not the fandom as a whole, bit maybe the person. As they all say, tastes are everything and people have shows that they like the most and some they do not like. I admit that I do enjoy most of the stuff I seen, but as recent examples, I have been dissatisfied by Kampfer and Nogizaka Haruka Second Season as a whole because of excessive fanservice, which led me to think that most fanservice anime aren’t that good. Open minded view is a key of balance and giving an anime a fair chance. I have done that for the most part and enjoyed it… maybe not with the case with fanservicy anime since I have been constantly disappointed by how it was brought out. With my dislike to fanservice anime, this come to the point that tastes are different for each fan and changes over time. Say that you initially didn’t like a genre you watch and over time you realized that you actually enjoyed it.
Back to balance and open minded view, newer fans and old should be more open, give a fair judgment and don’t compare shows with other shows. The most recent example with people who are comparing Sora no Woto to K-ON and thinking it’s moeblob anime… The problem with that kind of judgement is that people are warping their view and not looking at the content as a whole. People who think it is K-ON! will probably miss the overlying plot or the complete difference in character design. This is the same who call some anime “moeshit” and all those degrading terms without forgetting it and just watch and enjoy. As long a person become nitpicky at all the flaws and not looking at whats good, it always going to bring a negative view that wouldn’t be if the person didn’t nitpick at every flaw in the title. As my friend said, “Being negative just to RAAAAGE and FFFFFF isn’t funny or clever. Balance is the key to life, and there’s something beautiful even in the ugliest of places.” Unfortunately, I haven’t lived up to that quote since I have been rather negative on other things that are not related to anime. Also, I have seen a small amount of bloggers raeg because they like to bring attention… It’s okay, but it’s pretty obvious that it will bring out the bad of the fandom by disgruntled commenters depending on the content of the post.
Fanboyism is another problem. Rabid Fanboys are annoying no matter how you look at them. They will bash the show they don’t deem to be perfect and praise every aspect of their show even though there are flaws. Acting like a fanboy sadly does not bring any good except getting people annoyed and such and this can apply to anything, not just Anime. This was apparent in the console wars between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and Mac vs PCs and believe me, they get really ugly quickly and it is hardly open minded at all.
In conclusion, from what I have seen so far, for the most part the fandom isn’t getting dumb from what I seen. Maybe in other Anime communities and definitely MyAnimeList and ANN. However there are some controversial issues like Anime Licensing and Crunchyroll that brings out the bad of the Anime Fandom, but I tend to ignore it now since I don’t want to get involved, I buy my Anime that are licensed and I want to watch or want to own and it gets rather redundant since I don’t care where it come from, I only care about the content. Besides from that, I think it is a good thing for people to be more open minded on what they watch and stop comparing titles to other anime and write it off as such and such without getting the whole point of the plot or the gist of the whole show. Less RAEG (unless you are doing it for fun) and negativity would be a better goal of improving the fandom and also bring more intelligent discussion on what we love most, watching Anime.
Inami (Izumi or whatever) and the fear of men… Well, we have been there, but Takanashi doesn’t seem to have a like for her since she always punches him and also… a pettanko compared to the well like Popura who is well endowed… and short, something that Taknashi seems to like. Does this make him a lolicon or what… just don’t ask. Pretty much the whole episode was focused on Izumi and punching Takanashi… I don’t remember how many times she had punch him in the whole course of the episode, but with a few laughs.
The episode was slightly better, but I’m still slightly ever disappointed. The problem I’m seeing is that the jokes are getting repetitive. How many more times we see Takanashi’s lolicon tendencies or Izumi punching him ever few minutes… Well, it did work, but soon I… well, yawned. As they put it, they seem to clam way too much in one episode and as a result, all the jokes gets repeated over and over again rather quickly… If it wasn’t so packed in together, it wouldn’t get so old rather quickly. Oh well, there is always the Manga…
Also, the animation is okay but… A-1 Pictures can do a better job than this since they were able to put out really good animation in Sora no Woto… why not this? Anyways, I’ll give it a few more episodes… but I have pretty low expectations… I mean, they can do better than this so it will become more enjoyable… but I guess it is better than seeing a fanservicy series that I would otherwise be disappointed on the spot.
7.6/10
This episode is probably the most funniest one compared to the first season, thanks to Ritsu. They clean out that messy closet and they found a really heavy, pristine guitar that looked like it was never used. Actually, it was Sawako’s and she doesn’t want it anymore and wants them to pawn it and use the money for the club. They end up in the shopping center where Ritsu and Yui fools around while Mugi becomes amazed because she really wanted to go one of them (for herself being a ojou herself have never seen one for herself). They finally pawned the guitar at the music shop and they got 500,000 yen ($5,500 USD in current exchange rates) for the whole thing and the other girls except Mugi becomes obsessed on how to use to money. They clean up and Sawako comes and Ritsu lies about the money. Then, Sawako wants the reciept and she ate it until Sawako takes it out and finds out it is 500,000 yen. She takes the money back and later the club decided on buying that turtle at Azusa saw… Although disappointed at first, she finally makes it her friend and it was cute!
…
Overall, this episode was alot better than the last and it had very funny moments including some boy scaring off girls with a face painted on his body, that caused him to be locked up in a room by Misaki. However, Class 22-2 proposals were too outrageous. Usui tries to convince her to do their last proposal, but the next day it gets shot down and they do a cafe. Usui comes to the cafe while Misaki was working and he seems to like the cat ears on her, but as usual, Misaki is annoyed. Also, about the guys who found out that Misaki is a maid.. well, they are her fans and she brings out this “moe moe rice omelet” and wrote annoyed on it. I was laughing by the way… While the preparations for the festival, Misaki was being too harsh to the boys and later when she was taking the trash out while she was working, Usui warned her that if she be too tough on the boys, they won’t listen and also another instance where the girls say Misaki should enjoy what she is doing in her job… This becomes a reality where she lashes out on the Class 22-2 boys which caused them to walk away and yes, Usui participated. She helps the girls who were struggling and suddenly after they see what she was doing decided to help in a appropriate manner. At the end of the festival, Usui finds Misaki and seems to have a interest in her… because, well you know…
Anyways, the whole premise of the whole episode was funny… Yes, there was somewhat less yelling, especially towards the end… but as it seems.. even though Misaki find Usui annoying sometimes, Usui seems to like her that much that he is a regular customer at this maid cafe… no matter what… and yes, she was cute with the cat ears and the maid outfit… lol… and how she lashes out was also funny, but then again… Is the second part of the episode evident that she is becoming less harsh to the boys… I don’t think it will stay once things go back to normal… Anyways… can’t wait what will be in the next episode since this is a pretty interesting story… and also funny as well.
8.4/10
Imagine yourself in a virtual reality… this what it is, except that anything that is out to kill you won’t actually kill you, although it will hurt a hell alot. This was obviously an introduction episode and from the look of it, the show is probably something that isn’t like the previous works. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty good so far. Animation is pretty good, especially on the second half, but the glass was half empty… Animation on the first half was meh until the second part where it got better. As with people are in the afterlife, they do not age and also the so called NPCs (Non-Player Character) don’t either… Damn, is this some kind of RPG or what?
Well, Yuri, wants to get rid of Tenshi, who is the chairperson of the student council and she tries to target her in the beginning of the episode… Obviously Otonashi doesn’t believe her and had Tenshi attack him. Afterwards, he agrees to join the SSS and plan this operation where they use the concert as a diversion and attack Tenshi. He takes a shot at her, but it hit her the first time, but the second time failed. Everyone else starts targeting her with their weapons and firing at her, but in the end… it didn’t turn out well as planned.
Anyways, that was pretty much the whole gist of the whole episode. It was interesting, but then again, it’s obviously different than before… Intense battle scenes with gore and stuff… As long it turns out interesting… then I’ll keep watching… 🙂
8.3/10
I was forced to watch it though a suggestion on Melative and I did so. It was decent and enjoyable, but like with my experience with Haruka, I’m weary on the fanservice on the show. Anyways, The premise of this show is of course cats and Nekomimi in contrast to Nyan Koi, this is another one of these romance comedies which could only mean one thing… Fanservice! Ugh… Okay… maybe it’s not as distracting as Purezza, but yeah…
Well the premise of this episode is well… Takumi Tsuzuki, a boy lives with her sister, Otome Tsuzuki (not blood related!). Also, Fumino Serizawa is another girl which is a violent type A Tsundere… Just make sure you don’t make her angry… and they own a cake shop that has alot of stray cats… After school, they find that cake was eaten by some cat and Fumino Serizawa and a little boy go out to find it. Meanwhile, Takumi and his friends makes the cake again… They almost find the cat, but couldn’t catch it… After delivering the cake, Takumi finds out her sister brought home a cat girl back instead…
Ok, it was decent, but not really a show I’m really in to since I’m not that into fanservice anime. Fumino is very tsundere, so much anger in her that she actually kicks people and also got angry at Chise Umenomori, a spoiled Oujo-sama who wanted to dress Fumino in a skimpy cosplay outfit… and yeah… Funny thing is that there are actually a cameo from you know… Anyways, I am still on the fence on continuing it, but not bad so far… I’ll wait and see, unless someone forces me to watch the next episode… lol…
Nyaaaaaaaa~
7.4/10
Working is one of those slice of life animes that have… well… Moe~… However, Working is sorta enjoyable and had some potential, but this episode was mediocre at best. For the first part, the animation seems to be a slight disappointment. After seeing Sora no Woto’s nice animation from A-1 Pictures, I thought they can do just as good… but not in this case… A good thing is that the animation is better than Fairy Tail, which is a big mess.
Obviously, Takanashi got a job at the family restaurant because he can’t resist Taneshima’s cuteness. Taneshima is definitely a moe~ character and really cute and all, but suffers the height problems like Kurimu did in Seitokai no Ichizon, where she is made fun of her height by Ken. The difference is, Taneshima is not a pettanko (flat chested), so no DFC here. Anyways, we are introduced to other characters and well more moe… including Kyouko… well, never ask how old a woman is, or you may suffer the consequences… and lastly that girl that is afraid of guys punches Takanashi in the face… Ouch…
Overall, Working is sorta like K-ON!, moe~ except that it’s not all girls and that it’s in a family restaurant. I enjoyed it, but not enough to keep watching at the moment. I might continue on if it gets better, but for the time being, It’s on hold…
7.3/10
K-ON is back… well, this time in widescreen… which means no more waiting for several weeks to get the widescreen edition. TBS must have learned its lesson. The five girls are back and the four, Mio, Ritsu, Tsumugi, and Yui are in the same class after Sawako pulled some strings to put them in the same class, along with Nodoka… Yes, they were crying for joy… but realized that when they graduate as seniors, Azusa will be all alone, so they attempt to find new members through all means as dressing up as animals, stalking people’s clubs and stuff, but failed. They do a performance and still… no new members, although Azusa is okay with it, but she is going to be even more stricter than before and Yui now wants a new member again…
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