Summer fever sets in and I totally forgot yet again… Oh well!
Not summer yet, but close to it… Like the last digest, blogs will be judged on content and design with content weighing more.
Note: Fanart used in this post is made by ミサコズ.
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Editorials
Aniblog Tourney – Round 2 Part 2 – Day 4-6 Digest
I got a bit sidetracked yet again with the iPad. I decided to get one and it works great so far… and I got distracted and yeah… forgot about the AniBlog Tourney…
Since I have a real iPad now, I will review blogs on my iPad instead. Like the last digest, blogs will be judged on content and design with content weighing more.
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Aniblog Tourney – Round 2 Part 1 – Day 1-3 Digest
Sorry for the long delay… I was caught up with final exams that happened on the first two days. On Wednesday, Steam for Mac was released and it came with free Portal, so I spent my time playing Portal and moaning about sacrificing my Weighted Companion Cube. I just beated the game when I totally forgot about the second round… so yeah.
In this round, I will do things a little differently. Instead of reviewing them individually, I will review them basing on content and layout/design. Content weighing a lot more than the layout/design. This will make things run a bit more smoothly.
Note: The fanart used above is made by えらんと
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One Year Later, I still enjoy K-ON!
It has been nearly one year ago since the first season K-ON!. When I first watched it, I actually enjoyed it and more so since in 2009, I was already in college and graduated from High School. I still enjoy the second season of K-ON! as much I did with the first season. So, how come I still enjoy this moeblob, music slice-of-life anime? For several reasons.
First, It brought back past memories on how my high school life wasn’t great compared the girls in K-ON and how they are enjoying school. I have attended a public high school where some or most of the students are from higher class families. The school I used to attend didn’t have a good environment because there were some students who do drugs, going out drinking, and obsessed about relationships for example. I was one of those teenagers that don’t do these activities. I had friends, but gradually I stopped talking them when college started. I was a minority in the school and the school was not a multiracial school. As a result, I was picked on and bullied in high school. These were the reasons I didn’t like my high school years compared to college years. Now looking back at K-ON!, they don’t suffer the problems and it seem that the girls actually enjoyed going to school and having fun after school and eating cake and drinking tea. I wished my high school years was like this… less teenage rage and more on enjoying school and having fun with after school activities.
Second thing I can relate to K-ON! is the music aspect. Yes, half the time spent on the whole season is watching them drink tea, eat cake, socialize, and etc, but they actually play. In middle school, I enrolled into concert band since 7th grade up to the last year of high school. I played Clarinet back then and gradually, I started to get better with the lack of practice since I spend time on the computer. Although I never got first chair in my high school years, I did enjoyed playing music. The same happened with Piano. Ever since I started when I’m young, I hardly ever practiced. However, I managed to play those pieces with some minor mistakes. I am talented like the girls in K-ON! who manages to play the songs perfectly without any practice. It was quite amazing. Since college however, I haven’t really touched the Clarinet and the Piano, but I should start playing again with Anime Music of some sort.
Lastly, K-ON! is not all about the moe factor or moeblobs. There is always going to be moe-haters, mecha-haters, action-haters, romance-haters, you name it! Deep down from the shallow perception of moe, K-ON! has what all the qualities slice of life anime have. Slice of life stories relates back to your or anyone’s life and past experiences. Although K-ON! may not a masterpiece, it is still a pretty good and well balanced slice of life Anime that most who can enjoy that enjoys the genre. Then again, isn’t a slice of life story supposed to be a mere image of everyday life? We may not see a person like Yui in real life, the character personalities can be a possibility.
Life experiences and the music is what makes me watch K-ON! like I do with the slice of life genre. While some people may not like this genre because of the lack of plot, I think most people would enjoy it as there is other elements in slice of life such as comedy, drama, romance, etc.
Attribution Information
Fanart used in this post is made by 眼鏡虫
Conclusion of Match 32 and Contest as the Whole
With the clear winner, Anime Princess with 6 votes unless it changes in the next several hours, it was a very close match… but a very ironic one at best since my blog from my assumptions would have won mainly on the strength of content. It simply proves that the Aniblog Tournament is a popularity contest and the voters aren’t voting based on content, but on popularity as described on a recent post: Although with Anime Princess winning being very close with content strength, I think with some matches, the following applied:
As you may have noticed, there has often been a difference in the number of votes in the two different polls in the one post. The main reason this happens is when people link to the tourney asking them to vote for someone (usually themselves), their followers/readers/minions blindly obey and vote in just that poll, never looking at anything else on the tourney whatsoever. So while its great that people are at least writing about the tourney, we would like to ask that you perhaps write something more substantial than just ‘VOTE FOR ME!’.
Sometimes it is all politics, but not in this case. I know my flaw is the banner, but that shouldn’t be a real weakness since I found a lot of flaws on Anime Princess, but my blog I have to admit is also flawed because I’m not exactly the best writer out there. I’m surprised that I have even gotten that far considering most people stop blogging after one year. My writing may not be the greatest, but certainty not the worst.
I think there is some things I can improve on with the following:
- Making people more aware of the blog: I think this is one of the problems. If you look at my blogroll, it is hopelessly small. I need other Anime Bloggers to help out and give the blog more exposure. Next time when there is another contest, I can probably have a better chance of winning since there will probably be more readers and such and with myself updating the blog regularly, it wouldn’t be a problem. Considering I have half the followers compared to Lossty on Twitter… it is pretty sad.
- More original title: I’m guessing that a very generic title like ‘s Anime Blog is getting tiring. I probably need to think up another name for the blog so that it would stand out more.
- Guest Editorials/Reviews: Perhaps I should allow other bloggers in the blogosphere share their thoughts on issues like Anime and the Industry and other stuff to get readers more interested.
- What you think I should improve on in the future besides the banner and the theme? I know I have some troubles with grammar, but I think I am pretty good in the content department since I no longer do those summary episodic posts and more of an editorial/thoughts type now and that I post editorials time after time again.
As the results stand, I wish Lossty luck and I will help her by sending a list of stuff that she should fix on her blog so she will have a chance to win against the next match. Also, I apologize for any rude remarks I have made and I never meant to attack the blog since Lossty deserves it after the tight competition.
Angel Beats – What was the purpose of bullying Tachibana Kanade?
Finally got caught up and from these three episodes, Yuri goal is to eliminate Tenshi (real name: Tachibana Kanade) because Yuri thought Tenshi was the god… The only problem is that she isn’t and couldn’t rebel because she is the student council president.
Yuri is a big bully and the SSS is becoming a gruesome bullying group. She intended of making Kanade loose in the baseball game just to make her cry? Also, what about the breaking into her room just to get information on her? Now, Yuri executed her plan to make Kanade fail all her exams just to ruin her reputation and have her kicked out of student council? Well, yes… and that was the result of it after the exams were over. Like with Haruhi, Yuri has no morals or even proof that Kanade is actually god or not… Just go ahead and go along with the Anti-Tenshi plans without knowing damn well that Tenshi is a human like all of them meant to be.
In contrast to Yuri’s bullying… it’s just as gruesome as real life bullying. Bullies have no morals and just doing it because they have no self esteem and think that by bulling a student or a person that is weaker than them, it will make them more powerful… What would that do to help the victim? With bystanders not doing to protect the victim from the bully… what would that do to the victim with all the pain and suffering like with Kanade is suffering after losing her position in student council after the SSS tried to sabotage her tests?
Tachibana Kanade needs a warm hug… I feel sorry for her on how she is mistreated by Yuri’s outrageous plans to get rid of her.
Thoughts
Away from the Kanade bullying by Yuri… I felt that the 4th and 5th episodes being very enjoyable and funny. However, the 3rd episode was filled with melodrama. Iwasawa’s story was very sad and I sympathize with her since she never got to finish her goals because the injury caused by one of the parents fighting. The music is exactly what I have said in my review of Crow Song single, so no need for the explanation…
This also brings up a new point after watching Episode 5, even good people who rebel even get eliminated… and also, Tenshi didn’t get eliminated after she was removed from student council, so I don’t really know what is Yuri’s reasoning that if you obey Tenshi, you will get eliminated. That is simply not true at all.
With the 4th Opening done by Yui’s singer, LiSA (don’t know why, but they probably don’t want the voice actor for Yui to sing) which was pretty decent, but I still perfer the Piano version.
Overall, although the comedy scenes are out of place, I think it is still a very good series so far. The animation has been really good so far compared to the first episode. Perhaps, they will animate Little Busters! next? Who knows…
AniBlog Tourney Part 6 (Day 15-16) Digest and Round 1 Followup and Suggestions
As the first round is coming to a close, competition is becoming fierce. As always, my review criteria won’t change as we review the last 8 Anime Blogs in this round. I will be posting this early since next week, I need to spend time studying for exams for four subjects. The next 8 blog reviews will be posted on Monday…
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. Make sure to vote for us on Tuesday!
In addition, there is a followup and suggestions on what I have observed overall and problems that I have seen that some blogs should fix in the future.
Note that this post is paginated. First page is the blog reviews and second is the Round 1 followup and suggestions.
Note 2: Fanart used in this post is made by るしゅーと.
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The end of the Taste Test… Mayoi Neko Overrun just did not work for me.
I would have thought having show about a Nekomimi would be good. The problem is the glass is a quarter full… Although the show may not be as fanservice laden as Kampfer or the first or last episode of Nogizaka Haruka Second Season… I was proven wrong. It did have potential of being a better than average romance harem show, but it didn’t deliver. Why? A few reasons such as inconsistency, character designs and the level of fanservice.
Warning: Slightly not safe for work….
First, a problem I see with Mayoi Neko Overrun is its inconsistency… From the two episodes I watched, the tones are completely different. With episode 2, we are introduced to Nozomi and yes she is very skillful. Then in the third episode, the episode becomes drama packed and just recently, a hot spring episode packed with even more fanservice up to the roof. The problem is that it is not consistent as the tone of the story keeps changing. Now it comes from just being a normal harem anime with average fanservice to a melodrama to a full blown eechi romance anime. No, it’s not the material’s fault, but the problem is that each episode have a different director. It is pretty difficult to keep the consistency of the whole story when we have different directors for each episode. It’s just like Endless Eight when Koyoto Animation and Kadokawa thought it was funny to have different Animation Directors and we knew how that turned out… We have fans complaining that it looked like K-ON! or saying the animation sucked. Having two directors working on different episodes is okay, but having 12 different directors… I don’t know about that one after what happened with Endless Eight and their experimentation.
Second problem… Fanservice… Like mentioned from chaostangent’s taste test on Mayoi Neko Overrun, he mentioned the… well fanservice rather perfectly:
Fifty seconds in: under wear close-up. Sixty seconds in: abuse by an overly arrogant female. Four and a half minutes in: breast jiggle.
I didn’t caught that from the first episode, but I was a lot more careful in the second episode… Few minutes in before the OP, we already have boob groping and a panty shot… After the OP, Nozomi naked and more Gainaxing from Otome, Chise being completely naked, panty shot from Nozomi and it goes on and on… Some examples:
And guess what… It is not the worse of the fanservice… Episode 4 presents completely naked people…
The problem with this show is that as with all the typical harem anime “cliches” out there, Mayoi Neko Overrun certainty have fell into the ditch with the rest of the harem anime that are often fanservice laden. Fanservice with this type that is over done too many times become very distracting and ruin my overall thoughts about the whole show. This applies to all Anime I watch. While Nogizaka Haruka First Season had some fanservice, I never seen that many panty shots and Gainaxing, which made it less distracting and made the show more enjoyable. In contrast to the Second Season, the opposite happen although there were some episodes with no fanservice at all that I enjoyed. However, the first and last episode was horrible because of this… too much unnecessary fanservice! It may depend on the person, but I care more about the story, not some fanservice shot that doesn’t need to be there. Also, not all fanservice is bad… The sexual kind gets very bad in my opinion when it is overdone and in this case, I think so.
Character Designs… I’m guessing they are all right, but however, I would consider Fumino a run off the mill Tsundere as she is very violent and stuff… However, it gets a bit too out of hand and as always, very tiring… I can’t remember how many times she said “DIE TWICE” or something like that… Although the main lead isn’t as wimpy as some leads from other harem anime, the problem is well… not having an established harem and stuff…
In conclusion, Mayoi Neko Overrun is a run off the mill Ecchi Romance Harem and doesn’t go beyond that to improve itself. It was a promising story, but the problem is that the story’s tone is all over the place and there is too much fanservice. If they kept the fanservice to the level as the first season of Nogizaka Haruka, it would have turned out okay… but it didn’t as it fell into the pool of cliches that past and recent harem Anime fell in. In the end of the day, it is a “your milage may vary” anime. If you like the typical fanservicy romance harem anime with a nekomimi in it, this is the Anime for you… but not for me since I rather watch something more worthwhile without the ridiculous amount of fanservice that I can enjoy without being distracted by Gainaxing and stuff like it…
However, I did like the story in Episode 3, but it wasn’t enough for me to continue watching it… so yeah…
AniBlog Tourney Part 5 (Day 13 and 14) Digest
As the first round is coming to a close with the last few matches, competition is becoming fierce. As always, my review criteria won’t change as we review another 8 Anime Blogs. I will be posting this early since next week, I need to spend time studying for exams for four subjects. The next 8 blog reviews will be posted on Monday…
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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AniBlog Tourney Part 4 (Day 10-12) Digest
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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Opinion: One Year Later, Eroge is still under threat of Dying… By Who? Guess!
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.
AniTourney Review Part 3 (Day 7-9) Digest
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)
AniTourney Review Part 2 (Day 4-6) Digest
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.
Anime and Japanese Music… and Favorite Artists
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)
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AniTorney Review Part 1 (Day 1-3) Digest
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.
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Angel Beats! – Episode 2 Thoughts and Impressions
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
From OEG to the AniBlog Tourney… How it will help the AniBlogosphere and my Review Process.
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.
AniBlog Tournament, The ISML of Anime Blogs
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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Is the Anime Fandom really getting Dumber? Not Really but…
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.
Fanservice and Nogizaka Haruka, What the hell happened?
A while back in June 2009, I wrote a lengthy editorial on how fanservice can ruin the overall story of an anime. Well, this becomes a reality with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.
I have watch both seasons and the first season was far better besides a few panty shots is that they focused on the over lining purpose of the story. Yuuto and Haruka sweet romance and also her Otaku interest. However, the second season lost it’s purpose completely. Like Kimagure said on Melative, “sweetness replaced by pointless fanservice.” The second season of Nogizaka Haruka just proved what I have said in my editorial I wrote in June of 2009 that adding lots of fanservice makes the over lining story alot worse than it would without the fanservice. All I got from this is more pantyshots, boob groping and other stuff that shouldn’t be in the anime. If I want to watch a fanservice-oriented anime, I would of watched titles like Ladies vs Butlers, Kampfer or even Chu-Bra! I bet one minute that 90% of the fanservice seen in the second season is not in the Nogizaka Haruka light novels (yes, the Anime is adapted from the light novel…)
The problem with the route they taken is that it’s completely unnecessary and the story can do better without it, besides the other flaws besides fanservice. I felt that Diomedea is trying to use fanservice to try to attract more audience to the show, at the same time, alienating its viewers who liked the first season and be constantly let down by every episode. If there is ever a third season, Diomedea better shape up and not add the fanservice and bring it back to what the story is intended to be in the first place because viewers aren’t going to take this excessive, overdone and redundant fanservice and panty shots anymore. There are already enough fanservice laden titles out there already, Nogizaka Haruka is a series that doesn’t need to go down that path too. We already have other anime that does that.
Melative and Making Previews More Informative
Preview posts always had problems for not giving enough information or resorting to “chartfag” charts that become outdated when a stream of new information comes in, giving the readers not enough info on when the series will start, how long, what genre and so on. This leads people writing preview posts without enough information and just making noise for the sake of it.
There is a solution. If you familiar with Melative as I discussed a while back. The advantage of Melative that Melative has open APIs and a open Wiki format where the info can be edited by editors (and users can create their own versions of their pages) and add up to date information. Lime is what the whole thing is based on, well at least for the open Wiki part. I have suggested a WordPress plugin where a user just enters the URL to the title page on Melative (in a certain format) and it would be replaced with the up to date information that is currently in the database that includes the picture, any context information (date of when the series will start, how many episodes, genres, etc.), links to other resources and of course the description. This approach is a lot more informative and takes the guess work on researching information on that title. This is how I done my “Upcoming Anime” page.
The usage is really simple. Copy the link to the title and put it in this format. For example
It should look like this:
With it’s advantages, there are some disadvantages. One of them is that the “melative-item” plugin will not work on wordpress.com or any other blog software that isn’t a self hosted WordPress. This is because WordPress.com does not allow third party themes and plugins. Second, this WordPress plugin is still in development and not complete yet. Although the chances of it malfunctioning is low, the plugin can malfunction or do funny stuff, but it will not affect anything in the WordPress database.
If you interested, you can download the plugin here. To install, just unzip, upload the melative-item folder to your WordPress Plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins) and use the format I demonstrated above to show the information from Melative in your posts or pages. If you have any issues, report them on IRC, #melative on freenode. Also, the plugin will be available on wordpress.org in the future, so keep a lookout.
And this plugin pretty much made chartfag charts obsolete… for most bloggers. Also note that a melative account isn’t necessarily required to use the plugin, although you should take part in it and ditch services like MyAnimeList.
Editorial: The Harsh Reality of the Anime Industry
With the last article, I decided to write a response to the author of “The Golden Waste” as he seems to be ranting about people not buying licensed anime for some reasons. Everyone should be buying licensed anime if they like the show and/or want to support the studio, there is no way around with that. However, the money that comes from both the Japanese and licensed Anime sales of DVDs is very small for the Animation Studios. We can argue or rant about dub versus sub-only releases, Crunchyroll and licensing companies as much we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that how much corporate greed comes from the Japanese Anime Industry causing the animation studios be left with peanuts in comparison with the American Music Industry.
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Editorial: US Anime Industry and Corporate Media, What is the Problem?
After reading this particular rant, I believe that it haven’t covered the most important area. Sure, Anime have gotten cheaper, but they remain more expensive than a whole season box of a US series like Heroes or Lost which have alot more episodes and I end up spending 40-50 dollars for the whole season. Sure the days of 3 episodes on VHS for $30 or 4 episodes on a DVD is over, but this is not the main focus on this topic, The main focus is the US Anime Industry and Corporate Media.
And believe me, I buy licensed anime on shows I want to watch and my sister owns a pile of licensed DVD releases.
The editorial fails to mention about licensed anime outside the US.How about Europe? Some series will probably never get to be licensed in other countries, which leave people who want to watch the series having to import, which cost more and requires another DVD player due to region coding. DVD region coding is another problem caused by corporate media.
With corporate media, you think you own the media, but you don’t. The anime you have on your DVDs are licensed to you, not owned. This holds true with streaming media in one particular postkimaguresan posted:
Ownership: This is the elephant in the room. When you watch a streaming show, you see it, and then it’s gone.
There is no freedom with corporate media. Their interest is to license the show, distribute it and make a profit, and while you at it, restrict your fair use rights with crap like digital rights managements, region coding, streaming, and other things. There is no freedom in this model, ever. Another point with big media is that the content creator gets shafted and get a very small cut of the profits sold from these licensed DVDs. Big media companies like Funnimation and Sentai Filmworks take most of the cut from the sale of Anime DVDs which leaves the Animation studios like Shaft, Kyoto Animation and the rest with so little profits. This is the same with music labels where the music labels like EMI, Warner and others get a big cut from album and digital music sales guess what the artist or even the composer get? A very small cut from it. The problem here is corporate greed and less profits from the content creators. On top of that, the greed comes in form of high prices on price gouging on Blurays (on lesser extent, DVDs) and DRMed media. On top of that, removing DRM from your media such as DVD ripping is illegal according to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) because using such programs circumvent Digital Rights Management. Stuff like DMCA further take away our fair use rights away. What happens if our media gets scratched up and become unreadable, do we have to buy another copy of the media? I think this is wrong because anyone should be able to back up their DVDs because we own the media already, why can’t we since “fair use” allows us to make a personal backup copy. (Note, it’s technically illegal to rip DVDs in this Real Network ruling.)
The end of the day, no matter if we own the media, we are slaves to corporate media and with streaming, our freedoms are basically gone with this and the content creator don’t benefit from this at all. The only way you can surely support the series you like is buying related merchandise such as figurines, artbooks, albums, games, etc. The merchandise they sell usually generate more money than licensed DVD releases and remains a great way to support the series you like while still buying R1 releases.
Note: I do not advocate not buying the Licensed DVDs or resorting to illegal means to obtaining “licensed” DVD releases because of some of these reasons… You should still buy R1 Licensed DVDs despite this and expressing my opinion won’t change that, I will still buy anime that is licensed.
Further Reading
kimaguresan on Crunchy and Big MediaOne License to Rule Them All
Melative Library, it puts all MAL Clients to Shame!
Melative Library is a Melative Client that came in the making after finishing MAL Client OS X on January 10, 2009 and evolved quickly shortly after the Unofficial MAL API broke and there was no usable API.
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