Now we are at the halfway point of the fall season. So with that, I will share my mid-season thoughts on Uchi no Shishou wa Shippo ga Nai and first impressions for Kantai Collection Second Season.
Also, I will share what I am working on for the Twitter alternative, as things have been going downhill since Musk took over. Given the rising amount of hate speech and chaos with advertisers pulling out and layoffs over the past week, some are concerned that the downfall of Twitter is near. I thought of that and started to create an alternative to it.
The Elephant in the Room, Twitter in Turmoil and Alternatives
As expected, Twitter has become a worse cesspool since Elon Musk, the “free speech” absolutist. I went into having a false sense of security, thinking it would never happen as he tried to get out of the deal.
Well, it happened, and we are in the worst timeline with a flood of racist tweets, advertisers pulling out, and illegal layoffs in just one week. After all, ordinary people won’t use a platform filled with far-right extremist views and hate like other platforms that shall not be named. Also, who knows how long Twitter will last? Musk is losing a lot of money, which gives me Schadenfreude that an egotistical billionaire is losing so much money. All while using a third-party Twitter client, meaning he gets $0 from me. While I don’t intend to leave as I block many far-right accounts, I will stay until the thing collapses on itself. If I continuing using it without ads, Musk will lose more money and be forced to sell it, again.
Of course, this proves that moving the whole internet to big social network platforms is a bad idea. It wasn’t this way as in the early days until the mid-2010s, people still participated on internet forums or read and commented on blogs. Sadly, everything in the anime fandom shifted to Twitter, which might be a bad idea. After all, some egotistical billionaire can go and buy it and turn it into a hellscape.
I hope from this fiasco that, people shouldn’t rely on big platforms. Instead, I feel that people need to go back to smaller or medium size social platforms run by individuals rather than a corporation. Believe it or not, this was how the internet was until the 2010s. Hopefully, we will see a revival of blogs and internet forums with the rise of federated social networks like Mastodon.
Speaking of Mastodon, I decide to give it another try. The first try was a disaster since nobody really used it besides one of my mutuals on Twitter. The problem is that everyone is on Twitter, and it’s hard to find them on other platforms. Maybe with Twitter imploding on itself, more people will give it a chance. Of course, you can crosspost between Twitter and Mastodon and vice versa if you aren’t ready to commit to it completely.
With that, I set up a Mastodon instance called Sakurajima, which also has internet forums last Saturday. This instance will focus primarily on fans of Japanese media and anime bloggers with instances that allow harassment and hate speech blocked. That way, anime fans can find other users easily instead of joining a big instance like Mastodon.social. Note that since there aren’t ads, I rely on donations. I plan to create a ko-fi to allow users to donate to cover server costs. Note that you don’t need to be on this instance to follow users there. I’m already there and already crossposting Twitter posts there.
If you aren’t interested in Mastodon, it’s always the best time to start an anime blog and follow others using Anime Blog Tracker or WordPress Reader and comment on each others blogs. Also, there is Tumblr, which now allows nudity again and Discord servers. Finally, feel free to suggest other anime communities in the comments, and I might compile a list on my blog of Twitter alternatives for anime fans and bloggers.
For those who are in the United States who can, be sure to vote against far-right extremists on Election Day this Tuesday. I already did earlier last month via the mail and my parents and little sister voted against the extremists too. With that, I’ll get off my soapbox and share my impressions of two shows I am watching, but not covering.
Uchi no Shishou wa Shippo ga Nai (Episodes 2-6)
While I decided not to cover this show since it’s challenging, it remains an entertaining show. While it’s hilarious to see Maeda get into silly situations. Things such as Maeda chasing down a cat who stole Bunko’s fan, being forced to do chores, and of course, all the instances Bunko chastises Maeda. However, the one that tops them all is Maeda trying to get a Yakuza boss to watch her and getting scared of the boss giving up on her. Maeda begs him not to leave and keep watching.
Either way, it’s nice to see Maeda grow from being a prankster into someone serious about perfecting the art. In a way, she matured quite a bit and even made friends along the way. She has grown quite a lot, like transforming into a shamisen after the one Koito had broken in an accident. Surprisingly, Maeda managed to keep her transformation without getting detected until Koito pushed her too hard.
Also, we see signs of Bunko falling for Maeda slowly, with her not wanting to teach her to eventually support her along the way. It should be interesting to see how Maeda’s relationship with Bunko will turn out at the end of the season. Moreover, it’s nice to learn a bit about Rakugo.
Kantai Collection Second Season
As expected, the second season is different from the first season and the movie as it takes place two years later. The writers returned to the drawing board to make a better story, which is why it took a little over 7 years to get here. Of course, it started dark as Shigure, the main character of this season, barely made it out alive as her fleet got wiped out. The scene where she sends off a ship girl who looks like heaven makes this evident.
It’s been a long while since I played Kantai Collection, the PlayStation Vita port. Of course, Hamakaze getting Shigure is fanservice since Hamakaze was very popular, given her character design. Also, recognized Mogami since I had her on my team. She meets another member, Yamashiro, who seems strict and has a sister. Then, of course, we find out that the fleet Shigure is in is the left-over fleet that the commander intends to use as a diversionary fleet. Thus it’s basically a suicide mission.
While the first episode introduces the cast, the real action happens next time as they start their first mission. I don’t plan to cover this except for mid-impressions and final review since it’s only eight episodes long. Even so, the animation is a vast improvement over the first season. Learning more about the other ship girls in the second season should be interesting.
I’ll go down with the sinking ship since all I do on Twitter is post and RT stuff. Best of luck to people whose livelihoods depend on Twitter traffic though. Hope they hang in there. That or the alternatives grow one day.
Mastodon is looking up as being a possible alternative to Twitter as mentioned as it’s pretty close to functionality of Twitter, but slight differences of how it works. I saw an influx of people signed up on my Mastodon instance I set up since the Twitter takeover. I guess there is a demand and hopefully more people will at least create an account and crosspost just in case Twitter sinks. But I do hope more people and figures come over. I only really use Twitter to share stuff and follow with some interacting with others once in a while. It would be a shame to lose all those connections I made over the years.
That said, hopefully anime blogging will take off again, maybe someday.
I live in Brazil, where we just defeated the far-right extremist president in October elections. He was so disgusting that he delayed on purpose the purchase of anti-covid vaccines for months, causing the death of hundreds of thousands. He even yanked the mask from two children in front of the cameras during the worst time of the pandemic.
He was mantained in power by the support from the richest people in Brazil and in the World (Elon Musk included), by investing in an extensive fake news and hate speech network (that now occupied the twitter).
Even so, the humble people (suffering from the hunger and poverty caused by this president) was capable to vote in mass and took him down.
And after the end of this 4 years nightmare, I was able to relax watching Bochi The Rock and Uchi no Shishou wa Shippo ga Nai. Even more, for some time I will just watch relaxing series to forget all the hate speech we had to take in the last years.
That is good news, and thankfully the “red tsunami” didn’t happen in the US. Sadly, Twitter might be going down given that the workers there don’t want to do “hard core” twitter and work 84 hours a week. Maybe it’s a good thing the cesspool will go away, but I kind of feel bad for the normies who use the platform, especially with whose livelihoods depend on it. Hopefully a good alternative will replace it.