Despite finishing the grammar in the first book, I have to admit that I fell behind because I played too much Idolmaster 2 instead of studying Japanese. Since the spring semester started about three weeks ago, I’m playing catch up and hopefully I can cover lost ground. Either way, this self-study progress will only focus on the short/casual forms.
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Amagami SS+ Plus – Nanasaki Ai’s After Story Part I – Cram School Dilemma
It’s Nanasaki Ai’s time in the spotlight and as you expect, there is a lot of girls in swimsuits.
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Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Second Season – Episode 4 – The Crazy Night’s Sleep
If you thought the second season of Milky Holmes can’t possibly get any crazier, wait until you see their dreams!
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Mouretsu Pirates – Episode 4 – Plannin’ th’ Attack
With the sails fixed, are the girls finally out of the woods yet? Hell no as they found a hostile ghost ship that might attack them out of the blue.
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Weekly Anime Rankings & Digest – January 23rd-30th
This week in general was rather quiet. On the other hand, ACTA, a disastrous treaty similar to SOPA/PIPA had picked up steam last week as people in Europe started protesting against it. As you noticed, I changed the announcement to reflect this and everyone should fight this treaty since it will affect everyone globally, not just in the United States.
Also, I decided to watch Mouretsu Pirates since I got bored of not having enough stuff to watch (Image Source).
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Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Second Season – Episode 3 – The Great Escape from Hakkei Island
I hope you like sea cucumbers because there are lots of them in this episode.
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Mouretsu Pirates – Episode 3 – Ahoy Matey!
As the final preparations got completed for their first voyage, Marika gets her hopes up on what lies ahead for everyone…
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Mouretsu Pirates – Episode 2 – Preparin’ for t’ Mission
Apparently, all the military and police is after Marika over the possibility of her becoming a captain of a pirate ship. Along with that, the Space Yacht Club prepares for a mission.
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Amagami SS+ Plus – Episode 4 (Rihoko After Part 2 END) – The Moment of Truth…
I bet that everyone have waited for this one episode to see if Rihoko is going to get “Friendzoned” again or not. Well, we will share the good news after the scheduled break…
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Mouretsu Pirates – Episode 1 – First Impressions
I have to admit that I have been experiencing some boredom since I’m watching hardly anything. Usually, I watch a minimum of three shows per season. With Milky Holmes S2 release taking longer than expected, I decided to check out one of the most talked about shows in the past few weeks. That show is Mouretsu Pirates (or Bodacious Space Pirates).
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Brief Thoughts about the US Anime Industry and Anime Collection
By now, this topic got hammered to death in the blogosphere by now, but looking back at my DVD collection back in 2009, it has significantly grown into a sizable stack. Therefore, I feel the need to share my brief thoughts about the current situation with the anime industry in the United States and of course, taking a look at my collection after these years. (Image Source)
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Weekly Anime Rankings & Digest – January 16th-22th
Knowing that Milky Holmes Second Season Episode 3 won’t get released until after I published this digest, I may as well write it now.
If you heard the big news about the Internet last week, SOPA has been officially killed off for good with PIPA getting delayed indefinitely. Congress has finally listened after the unprecedented SOPA blackouts/protests by Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and the Aniblogosphere. Although the battle isn’t over yet, these achievements are great and we should continue putting the pressure on everyone so the Internet stays open.
Also during the weekend, I worked on tweaking the theme even more and made a new header on my test site (featuring Miki Hoshii). I decided not to change the color scheme since I couldn’t come up with a better one and I felt that there is no reason to fix what’s not broken. The good news is that the header will celebrate my three years of Anime Blogging, which started back in February 17, 2009. I plan to have this up by the first day of that month. Despite these developments, you should have noticed the apparent tweaks I made to the theme such as the inclusion of number of comments/trackback in the headers. (Image Source)
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Amagami SS+ Plus – Rihoko After Part I – Her Second Chance for Love…
After Rihoko got screwed badly from the first season, I hope she gets her wish to get a happy ending because let’s face it, it’s sad to see such an innocent girl like her get “Friendzoned” forever.
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Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – Final Review
During the fall of 2010, Ika Musume had become a wild success in Japan and overseas. It was so popular that it got another season, which contains more of same squid girl antics. Since it’s over, how does it compare with the prequel? That answer lies below. (Image Source)
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Reflecting on Today’s SOPA/PIPA Strike… (Update)
As most people knew already, today was the SOPA strike and several anime bloggers like myself have joined in by either blacking out their site or spreading awareness by writing a post about it. If you haven’t known already by now, SOPA and PIPA are two extremely dangerous pieces of legislation that will severely harm freedom of speech, innovation, security and the openness of the Internet. Not only that, it will have profound effects on the Anime Blogosphere as we rely heavily on derivative works to share our thoughts about Anime, which protected under fair use. Most bloggers who didn’t participate and Anime Fans have to realize that this law will not affect everyone in the United States, but everyone if they were to get passed. Therefore, I have been proactively reminding others to keep a close eye on this and take action, even if you are in a different country.
Aside from that, I want to share an exhaustive list that participated or mentioned the bill’s existence (perhaps as an excuse to get out of a post):
- Anime Yume
- Baka Laureate
- Beta-Waffle
- Chikorita157’s Anime Blog (this blog)
- Desu ex Machina
- Ephemeral Dreams
- Ganbatte
- G-Empire
- Just as planned
- Kimaguresan’s road to nowhere
- My Sword is Unbelievably Dull
- Organization Anti-Social Geniuses
- METANORN
- NewAnimeThursday
- Shinde Iie Anime Blog
- Subdued Fangirling
- and others I probably have forgotten…
With that, the blackout was a success as it caught everyone’s attention even though some very ignorant SOPA/PIPA supporters like Chris Dodd still paints this as a “dangerous” gimmick and usual mainstream media supporters like CNN still against the opposition. On the other hand, the large-scale protest had convinced three co-sponsors to drop their support for the SOPA bill along with thirteen senators dropping support for PIPA, which is good news. Still, the fight isn’t over yet, so we still need to keep the pressure on Congress and supporters for both bills. Continue to spread the word to everyone in the fandom, not just the blogosphere and contact congress! We need to effectively kill both bills so we can keep continuing what we enjoy most, blogging about Anime.
Update: Just today, the creator of the SOPA bill killed it off for good. Not only that, PIPA got delayed indefinitely. This is good news for everyone in the internet, not just our fellow Anime Bloggers. Even with this huge victory, we must stay vigilant so future bills that are similar to these won’t pass by us without our knowledge like the “Indefinite Detention” clause in the NDAA. Needless to say, I hope congress will get behind the OPEN Act that will attack the source rather than the free, open and innovative internet.
Anyway, let’s thank the tech companies, our fellow Anime Bloggers and everyone else who spread the word about this disastrous bill and saved us from censorship…
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Second Season – Episode 2 – Sushi Madness
Endless supply of Sushi is everyone’s dream, but there is a catch. They have to earn it through some ridiculous chase!
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Improving Anime Blogs and Writing – 2012 Edition
Yep, it’s that time of year again with the wave of competitive e-drama from 2010 known as the Aniblogosphere Tourney. Since then, the blogosphere landscape has changed significantly with some blogs dying and new ones popping up while others improve. With 2012 being a big year for bloggers, I want to share how people can improve themselves, especially for the newcomers who have yet grasp the joys of blogging and writing good posts. (Image Source)
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Weekly Anime Rankings & Digest – January 9th-15th
Considering how quiet it is since I’m only watching two shows this season, I spent majority of my time playing more Idolmaster 2 last week. Just yesterday, I wrapped up my 5th play through before the spring semester starts. I had lots of fun conquering all of Japan with my idols in that produce (except the capital region as there is no reward). Aside from that, it’s back to college studies and studying more Japanese so I can expand my knowledge of the language with the hope of understanding more of the story later.
Also happening this week, I will write reviews for the Fall Anime, write more editorials and the Japanese Self Study Progress Part III. So, look forward to that. (In addition, some stuff about SOPA/PIPA after the jump) (Image Source).
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Amagami SS – Special II – Miya’s Arc – Little Sister and Big Brother Family Bonding
Since I finished Tsukasa’s after story, I felt like taking a look of the little sister arc, the second special from the first season and it’s what you expect… There is a lot of Miya.
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Amagami SS+ Plus – Tsukasa After Part 2 (END) – The Dream that Came True…
After what happened in the last episode, do you think that Tsukasa will let Kurosawa steal Junichi away? Not a fat chance…
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Thoughts about The iDOLM@STER 2 – Probably the Most Fun I have from a Music Game thus far…
Have you ever dream of raising a Japanese pop idol? If so, Idolmaster is the game that allows you to. Surprisingly, I haven’t heard much about the game even though I have seen other fellow anime bloggers played the actual game. This is mostly because typical Namco refuses to localize the game (and others) for obvious reasons and that it’s originally on the Xbox 360, a console I do not want to own. Sure, a PSP version of the original game and the Nintendo DS spinoff, Dearly Stars eventually came out. What made me interested in playing the game is the Anime that recently finished. When I heard that there is a Playstation 3 version of the second game, I just had to play it. It basically motivated me to learn Japanese and thus, I gave it a spin.
The iDOLM@STER 2 is a “second vision” game in the series that puts a lot of emphasis on “Unity” (or 団結) as shown in the Anime. In this game, you have to create an idol unit with three members (leader and two sub members) and manage them so you achieve the top position in the Idol Academy. Like in the older games, the choices you make are crucial in order to succeed. Since I played the game for most of my winter vacation, I may as well share my thoughts about the gameplay rather than writing a full review.
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Amagami SS – Special I – Risa’s Arc – The Inconvenient Truth about What Happened Two Years Ago
Since the second season of Amagami SS started airing last week, I may as well celebrate it by covering two of the specials from the first season. In this particular special, it’s big as it reveals why Junichi was so down during Christmas Eve after being heartbroken by a girl two years ago… Apparently, the can of worms gets opened several months after Risa confesses to him in secret.
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Weekly Anime Rankings & Digest – January 1st-8th
As the Winter Anime Season starts, I may as well resume my weekly digests since the Power Rankings restarted shortly after the New Year’s break. Since I’m only covering two shows presently, I will resume finishing my backlog to fill in the remaining stuff I can blog during the week. Starting next week, I’ll continue where I left off with True Tears and Tears to Tiara. These titles will not appear in the ranked episodes since they aren’t current shows. In addition, I will come up with a redesign for the third anniversary before February. Don’t worry though, I will modify one of the old banners and change from the Christmas one as a placeholder until February begins.
In addition, I’m planning to post the third Japanese Self-Study progress later this week and thoughts about Idolmaster 2. I just got sidetracked with video games and winter break that I haven’t been updating lately. With the spring semester happening pretty soon, hopefully I can restore my regular blogging patterns (Image Source).
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Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Second Season – Episode 1 – Screw being a Detective, I want to become a Farmer!
After Milky Holmes lost their powers for the second time, the second season starts right where they left off. The only problem now is that they completely forgot what they intended to become in the first place.
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