With only few weeks until the official end of summer, it’s time to take a brief look of what shows I plan on watching along with future plans. As always, the shows I choose to watch are subject to change, especially since the list is small.
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu-ka??
Studio: White Fox
Air Date: October 2015
As you can tell from my review of the first season, I have to admit that the show is very enjoyable for what it is, a show about cute girls doing cute things at a café. I kind of regret not watching it when it aired last year since I enjoyed every moment of it, especially the scenes with Sharo and Rize. From the hints from the first season, it looks like there will be another character and I wonder how she will be like. We’ll see very soon.
Hidan no Aria AA
Studio: Doga Kobo
Airdate: October 6, 2015
You think that this would a second season, but it’s not. This is basically a spinoff of Hidan no Aria, which I covered in 2010. I have to admit that while it’s your typical Kugimiya Rie tsundere JC Staff show. While it’s nothing special, I still enjoyed it for what it is.
In this spinoff, the main character is a female student named Mamiya Akari who idolizes Aria. Considering the main character is not a male makes me wonder about the yuri potential since Kinji has a very minor role and hardly interacts with the girls from what I heard. We’ll see.
Welp, it looks like I don’t have any other shows that I plan on watching. If you can suggest some that I should check out that I would find interesting since two shows is hardly anything. If I see anything interesting, I will add it to this list.
Life and Site Updates
Currently, I’m doing fine where I am working. As usual, I’m learning some new software and database related things. Aside from that, if you have paid attention to the news lately, the government might be shutting down if Congress doesn’t pass a budget. Since I work for the federal government, this will leave me without a paycheck due to furlough next month unless Congress averts it. In short, some things I want to review and such video game wise will have to wait since I have to pay my living expenses first unless they pass a bill giving back pay. We’ll see what happens in September if I have to resort to doing that, which of course will push back the Love Live Movie review since I plan on buying the Blu-rays instead of watching it in theaters.
Speaking in which, I have decided that I will not be watching Love Live Movie right away. While I will be in New Jersey on September 12th, I don’t feel it’s worth seeing it on theaters since the ticket will probably cost about $12 and the theater is not exactly close since it’s in central Jersey. This means that I have to drive 45 minutes to get there in addition to driving four hours from south-central Pennsylvania. Since I am focused on getting the complete set of the Idolmaster Cinderella Girls on Blu-ray, I may as well hold off until it releases in Japan in December. In other words I will be reviewing it in January and hopefully by then, it will already be premiered in theaters worldwide.
Lastly, I am been increasingly frustrated by how my blog is going. Aside from my traffic dropping 20% more, which is absolutely ridiculous thanks to Google messing around with my search traffic along with them not removing the false DMCA claims yet, there is a recent drop-off in interactions (comments and likes) and page views on recent posts. It’s very discouraging to look at these numbers and I wonder to myself if it’s worth putting the effort into these posts since hardly anyone reads them these days, which of course somewhat adds to my stress. This is something that shouldn’t be worrying about because I enjoy sharing my thoughts about Anime and anything related. Not to mention, I’m probably the only one that nobody asks me questions, which also adds to my sorrows, especially with the possibly of a shutdown.
Hopefully this trend is temporary since I don’t want blogging to become a chore. If you have any suggestions on how to improve so I can turn this situation around, don’t be afraid to tell them. Aside from that, feel free to share what shows you plan on watching this fall.
I’m not really bothered as much by lack of activity on my own blog. I’ve reached the point where I could probably close the blog and very few people would notice (if anyone at all) and I’m actually fine with that. I created it with the purpose of practicing my writing and introducing me to the web dev world. I’d say now it just acts as a good reason for me to continuously watch airing series while collecting my thoughts about what I see, but it fulfilled its original purpose.
That being said, if I were to decide today that I really wanted people to start reading my work and commenting on my work, the way I’d go about it is probably through being active elsewhere, like on other people’s blogs, Reddit, social media, etc. Basically, the idea is to get people interested in my thoughts as a person before proposing this idea of a blog where these thoughts get organized. That being said, it’s a slow process with no guarantee of reward, but that’s just a decision I would have to make (it’s not one I’m interested in now). Things like Google’s algorithms or search engine views are among the list of events that I cannot control, so there’s no use trying to focus on them.
Google’s algorithms have been kicking in me in the butt lately, but of course, social networking is always a good idea since that it seems that everyone uses it although I don’t particularly like some aspects of it.
But yes, I pretty much created my blog for the same reason, although it eventually became a part of life since I don’t exactly do anything with my life except sit in front of my computer. Still, I like sharing my thoughts about anime and my hobby as I like sharing my thoughts and it’s something to pass the time away when I am not at work.
Unless WordPress decides to charge for its services or my time becomes extremely erratic, that will be the only way I stop blogging. However, with my week mostly consumed with back and forth commuting, work, and other miscellaneous real life events…I just haven’t been able to comment like I used to. From everyone I know and visit, I do get notifications sent to my phone when a new post is made, but with time zone differences and such, the notifications come either late at night or at work. Weekends are somewhat more forgiving, but that is when I partition off my time to work on the blog: anime reviews, editorials, or stuff that I’m sent to review. As vapid as my writing can be, I do sometimes spend weeks just on a single post just to make it more presentable. So between that and what little social life I have..I’m clearly in position to give advice. Although, since I do enjoy sharing whatever I come into contact with and relieves stress as it can easily add to it…I try to make time anyway I can for blogging and of course, people (online and off).
Since I manage my server since I use a virtual private server, of course it will be more effort and some things breaks once in a while and I have to scramble to fix it. There is one time that the database broke that I had to restore the backups while reinstall mysql, but backups aren’t problematic.
Still, I find blogging a learning experience. Aside from writing and sharing my passion, I use my linux administration skills, which are important for my job. This is why I don’t use WordPress.com, aside from having to pay just to get more space and better themes and customization.
Aside from that, I don’t have as much free time as I used to (only about 6 hours a day during week days), so it takes me a bit longer to reply to comments, although I do make a best effort to reply to all of them and come up with posts. While editorial topics are getting somewhat difficult to find, I still have tons of things to review, so I will be around towards the near future.
I never excepted myself to be around long or necessarily wanted to spend any cash, so never went with self-hosting or managing my own server. I probably would of like to for the learning experience and coinciding with my major, but leave that up someone else, so I can focus on writing which is difficult in its own right. I was leaning toward maybe doing anime reviews and discussion pieces through podcasting, but with limited time and never asking if anyone else would be onboard it was quickly scrapped.
I mainly choose to host myself because WordPress.com is very restrictive (it costs more money to use a domain name as well since you have to pay $13 a year plus the registration fee, which is a big ripoff) and the upgrades make it cost more than self-hosting it. Still, it’s not very expensive nowadays to host it yourself since I only pay around $5 (actually $4.86 a month) for virtual private server hosting and $9 a year for the domain, about $70 per year, which is pretty cheap and feels more worthwhile since I can customize and use any type of plugins. Sure, backup is a pain, but I use a cron script to generate the backups and my WD MyCloud runs another cron job to download those backups to my drive (I plan on having my Mac mini server to do that later once I get my RAID array up).
There is a benefit from doing everything by oneself as I got to learn a bit more on database and system administration. But I guess you can achieve this by building a home server, throwing VMWare ESXi on it and play around with some Linux and Windows Server set up for webhosting and such. Personally, I bought a Mac mini for a low power file server, ESXi lab, Plex and other things.
I have tried podcasting, but it’s not really my thing. I guess you can get some writers or guest reviewers if they want to write a review.
I still need to check the full list, but just from here, I think I will just be checking out GochiUsa S2. I don’t know why, but just not too keen on Hidan no Aria, lol. Feels kinda weak even for a Rie Kugimiya-centric LN show.
I think you know about my situation at work, lol.
As for the blog, man, I would love to comment more, but you know me and my weird “episodic” habit. While I had opted for a more “weekly viewing” approach instead of marathoning, I can still comment weekly somewhat, but I’m still watching these at my own pace instead of watching them as soon as they are released, so I wouldn’t be able to comment on the latest episodes if I haven’t watch them; also to avoid spoilers too, lol. Editorials sometimes are kinda tough for me to reply too, since I need to slowly understand them before I make a reply, and there are also times where I seriously have nothing much to contribute to the discussion on said editorial. I will still try to comment as much as can though.
Also, if it helps, I asked you a question :p
I’m hoping that the Republicans come to their senses and not shut down, especially since it will hurt them in the elections in 2016. But even if they shut down and decide to not give us back pay, I will survive since I do have a good amount some savings, as long it doesn’t last too long.
Editorials are getting tough for me since I pretty much used up all the easy topics. Now, I have to dig deeper or wait for a good idea to come in my head. But of course, with the lack of time, I can only really cover two shows nowadays, although I’m trying to share my impressions for other shows I don’t blog on social networks like Twitter. I will probably experiment with Tumblr if Twitter is not good enough.
But aside from that, I will probably end up picking up one or two more shows that are not on the list once Fall starts rolling.
We’re seeing low traffic probably because anime blogs are going a bit out of fashion, but we’re probably all equally responsible for that, because in general our writing is boring. And people don’t comment as much on other’s posts anymore, like they used to. Which is also a problem that stems out of lack of stimulating or provocative posts.
Aside from the blogging decline (excluding search engine algorithms), sharing of Anime impressions have pretty much shifted to social networking since it’s a lot easier to share one’s impressions and of course hundreds or thousands of people see it.. Still, like Anime forums, I think there is still a place for Anime Blogs where social network is common place.
Sure, there’s a place. But I remember blogging 9-10 years ago. The bloggers were more willing to post on others’ posts or about others’ posts. Lots of people tuned into the blogosphere for the blogosphere dynamics (and also the drama). I think that vital part is now much less common.