Haruhi is back…. but a bit too overhyped… but doesn’t mean it’s not good….
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Splash Page taken over by Haruhiism
You might be wondering, why are you copying some websites who replaced their whole website with a SOS-dan logo? If I didn’t, Michiru would butt taunt me. Seriously…
Maybe not for that reason, but I wanted to commemorate that Kadokawa didn’t troll us again and the first episode of Haruhi Season 2 have finally aired as promise… Does that mean I will drop all the series I’m currently watching… Absolutely not… but I will be covering Haruhi Season 2, but no long synopsis since other bigger anime blogs are doing that already..
Air – Episode 2
In Yukito’s search to find the “girl in the sky,” he finds out more mysterious things about the three girls in this town.
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Kannagi – Episode 2 Impressions
Nagi-sama wants me to watch more Kannagi…
Yes, I have put Kannagi on hold because of tremendous amounts of college work, but since I’m free, I decided to watch more.
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Editorial: Is Anime really for kids? Not really…
This is the most debated topic in the Animeblogosphere and Anime forums alike, is Anime really for kids because it’s implied that cartoons are for kids? Not really, but shows like Pokemon, Naruto, Dragonball Z and others make it seems like that. However, most anime are not meant for children, but teenagers or even adults.
The difference between a typical cartoon and Anime is that Anime focuses more on culture, art and often have deeper plots than a typical cartoon. Also, Anime ranges more in genres like action, romance, drama, slice of life, etc than a typical cartoon that usually focuses on comedy. Most cartoons are stereotyped as for children because a great deal are made are for children and most wouldn’t enjoy it because of it (with some exceptions). Although there are some Anime series that are targeted to children, a vast majority isn’t. These are shows that usually have intense violence with murder scenes (for example: Death Note, Higurashi, Elfen Lied, etc), which no parent would show this to a child (unless you have bad parents).
Another problem is that some shows are not understandable by young children. These are usually a drama/romance show that focuses on deeper feelings of people and different situations that a 13 year old or higher will understand more. It’s pretty much like making a 8 year old child watch a drama show like Kanon and expect them to understand it… Most likely the 8 year old would get bored and won’t appreciate it opposed to a 16 year old who watches it and will most likely appreciate it more. The child who won’t appreciate it is because the child haven’t mature enough in life and would likely enjoy something like Naruto…
Depending on the show, most shows are not suitable for children, but does it mean that Anime is not really for children? In some cases, no… as mentioned before, there are Anime that are geared towards children
What is your take on this? Do you really think that Anime is really for children or not?
Cute Catchphrases…. So many of them.
Well, if moe anime is good, how about putting a bunch of cute catchphrases in it? I don’t watch a certain series because it have tons of moe in it, but what I did noticed when I was watching Kanon is that it’s filled with these catchphrases, the most famous being “Uguu~” which is imitated in one of the Lucky Star episodes.
Not just that, it seems every one of these series made by Kyoto Animation haves them.
Here is a rough list of all these presumed catchphrases for all the anime I have watched so far:
- Uguu~ – Ayu (Kanon)
- Nyuu~ Nayuki (Kanon)
- Fight-o dayo! Nayuki (Kanon)
- Auu~ Makoto (Kanon)
- “Liar” Nayuki (Kanon)
- Ahaha~ Sayuri (Kanon)
- Hae~ Sayuri (Kanon)
- Ehehe~ Various
- “I don’t like people who say such things!” – Shiori (Kanon)
- Gao~ Misuzu (Air)
- nyoro~n Churuya-san
- Anpan~ Nagisa (Clannad)
- “Are you a bully?” Kotomi (Clannad)
- “What the heck.” Kotomi (Clannad)
- Moe Moe Kyun! – K-ON!
So what is your favorite “cute” catchphrases?
Notice that I was bored, so I made this post…
K-ON! – Episode 7
Airheads and Santa Costumes don’t mix… in that case.
It’s finally Christmas Time, the best time of the year…
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Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san comes to a end.. New Haruhi Episodes coming soon?
Yes, I have been tremendously busy so I decided to halt blogging on Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san which means I have alot to catch up… but I have finally heard word that Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san is finally over… Hopefully, my predictions will be right and Kadokawa will release the new episodes… or decide to troll us again.. thats okay…Just hold your breath… Season 2 or the new Haruhi episodes are coming very soon!
I have seen the light: Misuzu is the most moe/cutest Key Female Lead
If you thought Nagisa from Clannad and Ayu from Kanon is the cutest/most moe… you are sadly mistaken… After seeing Air Episode 1, I have seen the light… Misuzu is probably the most cutest/moe female Key lead I have seen. Some may ask, I thought you don’t care about moe? Well, yes… I don’t… but this is an exception..
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Air – Episode 1
Gotta love that expression…
Since Spring Semester is over, I have decided to resume watching of Anime full time…
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Is the Aniblogosphere being flooded with mediocre quality blogs?
I have noticed a drop of quality posts ever since K-ON! started (no offense to people who like it). I have been seeing posts with only a picture with a few lines of text which spills quantity over quality.
I pretty much agree with this person because people want to read interesting articles about Anime and at the same time have readable articles with no grammatical mistakes.
To prevent pollution of the Aniblogosphere, I suggest the following:
- Don’t just post a picture and a few lines of text… It’s not interesting to the readers. If you have something minor to say, open up a Twitter account and have people follow you so you can share your interesting findings if you can’t write much about it.
- Proofread your posts before publishing! I suggest using the grammar/spell check and reading it to yourself so you can find the errors in your post.
- Be creative… Post your own thoughts about something thats bothering you about Anime or anything related to that. Don’t just post countless posts about something that people might know already, unless you really wanted to. That way, you can catch the readers attention and also have the potential for people to come back and read your Anime blog. Also, try to add interesting facts about the episode you might know or write in a different voice.
- Be creative with your blog layout… The problem with some blogs is that they use the same dull, generic theme that have been used by many blogs. If you know PHP or HTML and/or good at Photoshop, make your own theme so it will make you stand out from other blogs.
Midseason Report: K-ON!
Missing Artist Infomation: help us out!
Since K-ON have 7 more episodes left and we are in the middle of the report, I should give my overall reaction to all 6 episodes I have watched so far.
(click read more to read the full report)
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K-ON! – Episode 6 – Nice Bowl Kyoani!
I just had to do it…
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Air TV Complete Series: First Impressions
Extra thick peach nectar…. I think I’ll pass….
After waiting for weeks dying to see another Kyoto Animation’s Key adaptions after Clannad ~After Story~ was finished weeks ago, I finally received my Air TV Boxset… which I had to wait because it wasn’t released until late April.
You might be wondering, why would you watch something that is 5 years old… Well, if you haven’t know about the history of Kyoto Animation and Key… thats the reason because basically they revolutionize how Visual Novels are adapted to TV because they are faithful to the original source material which others didn’t care about. Thats why Toei’s Kanon was largely forgotten due to it’s poor animation in 2002… Also, I became interested after watching Kanon 2006 remake in late December and wanting to watch Air ever since.
Now for the unboxing pics…
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Don’t be "lazy" ~piano ver~… with sheet music.
While browsing the internet, I found sheet music for Don’t be “lazy” at josh’s anime music collection (also I mentioned this on Twitter)… Although I can play piano, I’m still rusty since I haven’t played for awhile, so I always put the midi files into Garageband to see how it sounds like for real (not some crappy midi synthesizer)…
Don’t be “lazy” sounds just as awesome on the piano… and we know how insanely popular this song is… but I also want to share how it would sound like on the piano (screencast below):
If you really have the urge to play Don’t be “lazy” for weeks, just follow the link to the sheet music: http://bit.ly/16o0Zu
So what you think about K-ON’s music. Do you like it or not?
Calling any anime series "overrated" is overrated.
I have been reading the Top 5 overrated anime thread at AnimeSuki Forums, and now coming to the realization of people listing anime they don’t like “overrated” without any real justification which is the most of the people who list overrated anime with no reason or a reason which is not justified enough.
Let’s say calling any anime series “overrated” is overrated because simply, it’s just another way to say you hate the series you watched… Why not just say dislike or hate instead of using overrated?
Why am I calling anime series “overrated” overrated… I feel that most fans are missing the point of calling a series overrated just the reason for not liking it. Overrated means something is overhyped, overcredited, and usually very popular. It’s just like calling a series like “Clannad” with a small fanbase overrated just because you don’t like that genre or not in your taste… it’s completely asinine. However, calling a series like Bleach or Naruto overrated due to it’s popular and very high fanbase is justified. (maybe not Haruhi since it’s overhyped…)
Before posting your list of overrated anime… think to yourself first… Are you doing it because you hate/dislike a series that have a small fanbase and is regarded as a masterpiece by most due to it’s good storyline, character development, animation, etc? or you watched a popular series which is highly rated and you don’t think it’s that good (in a case of Naruto).
Editorial: Anime Elitism is never a good thing… (Updated view)
After reading a blog post about anime elitism… how about now? Does Anime Elitism still exists in the year 2009?
Unfortunately yes… it still exist at the same level… Why? It gotten worse…
What is Elitism?
Dictionary Def: a person who believes that a system or society should be ruled or dominated by an elite. (from the Oxford American Dictionary)
The term anime elitist is similar to any kind of elitist… They are just as bad… labeling anime they don’t seem to be in the line of taste and call it “overrated”, especially anime that needs a lot more understanding like most serious and deeper stories like ef series, any of Key’s anime adaptation, etc. I am starting to feel that people are simply calling anime overrated because they seem to have a strong dislike or it’s not within their taste which in my opinion isn’t justified unless there is a very good reason.
Overrated anime is supposed to be in the line of being overhyped and overcredited, which mainly applies to shows like Naruto and Bleach, which have very high popularity, but the content is not.
Also, anime elitist seems to bash dubs and saying that the original voices are superior and complain about any changes. While most people won’t mind, they seem to overblown the poor quality of dubs due to the bad perception of 4KIDs dubs which they don’t dub anime anymore. Although the perception of dubs are poorly perceived, some series that have dubs have decent ones.
Content, Storyline, Character Development, and etc matters… no matter of which Genre.
No genre is inferior to the other. It’s common belief that many people say that harem genre is inferior to something like mecha… but you got to understand that every genre have a amount of well acclaimed series because of the content, animation, etc opposed to a poorly done one in the same genre. It usually depends on production values, where the content originally came from, and also the production. Without one of them, the series most likely won’t be well perceived.
Fandom and Elitism… do they mix?
Are you always annoyed by Haruhiists, Naruto and Bleach fans saying that their anime is superior than your favorite anime… If so, you are not alone. There always a lot of people who complain about these rabid fanboys/fangirls due to the fact they want you to accept it. Unfortunately, in the end, it ends up having a negative effect on the fandom… Even well done anime can be labeled as overrated due to the fact of the rabid fanboys/fangirls of a very popular series and their annoyance.
Why do I mention Haruhiism… If you haven’t read several posts about them complaining and bashing about Kyoto Animation doing anything other than Haruhi Season 2 (for example: Kanon and Clannad), you most likely know why..
Don’t get me wrong, I do like Haruhi, but sometimes the rapid fanboys/fangirls of the series can be annoying.
Conclusion
In the end, elitism is never a good thing because it hurts your creditability and also your reputation. Anime is something that all fans of anime should enjoy and fans should spend more time enjoying and have friendly discussion rather than bashing each other’s anime without any good justification.
So, what is your opinion on anime elitism? Do you think it’s annoying or not?[poll id=”3″]Poll closes on May 8, 2009 at 11:59 PM EDT
K-ON! – Episode 5
“Acting cute won’t solve anything!”
Sawako makes a debut… but have a strange past which the light music club members discovered and….
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Poll Results: K-ON! OP/ED Album Songs
Since the poll is pretty much finish, I decided to close it a bit early.
The results weren’t surprising at all. Most of the readers voted Don’t say “lazy” as their favorite K-ON! album song while 1 person voted for Cagayake GIRLS and one person don’t know what is K-ON! is.
Next poll will be posted this Saturday.
K-ON! Widescreen Comparison
Like with both seasons of Clannad, TBS seems to shaft the animation and only show it in 4:3 which make the animation rather disappointing … After Clannad went widescreen several weeks later, the results were awesome.
With K-ON!, it’s no exception… the animation improved tenfolds in Widescreen compared to 4:3. Comparison shots below:
K-ON! – Episode 4
Here comes the obligatory beach scene!
Episode 4 is a pretty enjoyable episode… More after the jump.
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Theme Redesign
Uguu~ You said you wouldn’t laugh!
After messing with the theme files for WicketPixie 1.1.2 for one hour in Espresso trying to make the banner view correctly, make it XHTML Transitional valid, and some various tweaks, it’s finally here just in time for Spring.
New Features in the Anime Blog:
TweetThis: You will be able to share any of the anime posts posted here on Twitter, providing you have a twitter account. Make sure you follow this blog’s Twitter account for the latest anime updates
New look: No more white boxes on the side, now seamlessly integrates with the sidebar. Also, there are new buttons to subscribe to this blog and go to this blog’s Twitter account.
Other internal changes: There are changes under the hood that only I can use, including the ability to edit posts directly without going through a list of posts, customizable home page (disabled since I want to use the default Wordpress layout), and various customization options without editing the code.
Otherwise, there isn’t that much drastic changes in the theme. I’m hoping to work on a new banner soon so it would be rotating. The WicketPixie theme is still in beta, so if there is something buggy, please contact me ASAP so I can try to fix it.
Spring Semester coming to the end… alot of work….
While Spring Semester is starting to wind down and piles of homework, exams, and etc are coming with no end causing me to delay alot of the viewing of other anime besides K-ON at the moment. Like with most anime bloggers in college, college is my first priority and blogging in the anime blog is not my highest priority but I usually post atleast one post a week.
Once spring semester is over, I will start watching Kannagi, ef, Haruhi-chan and hopefully Air and start posting about it… but just hang in there for a few more weeks… they are coming..
Note: I don’t do haituses… they are pointless and counterproductive…
K-ON – Episode 3
Yui fails her test… and needs to make it up but…
Not much in plot advancement, but still remains a enjoyable episode.