With July ending very soon, it’s time to share some interesting posts and some thoughts during the month.
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What Is on My Mind – August 2020 – Crunchyroll and Poor Translator Pay, Blog’s Domain Turns 10, In Defense of CGDCT Genre, and More
Editorials
What Is on My Mind – July 2020 – Blogging Motivation, Japanese Animator Salary Woes, Magia Record English Anniversary and More
Now that the month is coming to the end now that summer officially begun, it’s time to share what I have on my mind. Also, I also will share some thoughts on posts and anime-related news that I find interesting throughout the month.
Yes, I know that this post is early, but I will be away during 4th July weekend to visit my parents after being stuck mostly at home for months.
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Reviewing the Anime Streaming Platforms – Which One Is the Best?
A while ago, I shared some thoughts about anime streaming services. Believe it or not, in 2017, I realized that streaming anime is a lot more convenient than messing with torrents. While I dabbed into streaming sometime in 2016 by subscribing to three months of Funimation Now, I never shared my experience using it. Eventually, I cancelled it. A year later, I finally subscribed to Crunchyroll after being a holdout for years. It’s mostly because I couldn’t afford a subscription since was in college at the time.
While I was going to share my experiences with Crunchyroll and my three months using Funimation Now a while back, well it didn’t quite happen. Between the period when I lost my job, focusing my time finding another job, finally getting one and moving, this idea went by the wayside.
Since then, a lot has changed in the legal anime streaming landscape. Some players such as Daisuki and a few others have gone under. Of course, there are some new players as well such as Hidive, and the revamped Funimation streaming service.
What really inspire me to finally share my thoughts is Irina sharing her thoughts on streaming platforms. While her review focuses on the state of streaming in Canada, since most of our readers are from the United States, it’s time to focus on the state of streaming here. Of course, I subscribed to all three services. With that, I will share my overall impressions on after using them for a while.
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What Is on My Mind – June 2020 – Coronavirus Impact on Anime Blogging, Blog Changes, Black Lives Matter and Summer 2020 Preview
Now that it’s finally June, the rather desolate spring season thanks to Covid19 is coming to an end.
After the breakdown I had on Twitter, I want to change things up to perhaps improve the content of this blog. Since I usually do some kind of life updates on season previews, I want to do some kind of monthly summary type of posts.
Back in 2013-2015, I shared some kind of updates in a weekly summary of titles I chose not to cover individually. What I tend to do with these monthly posts is to share not only what I am up to and have planned, but also mini editorials on anime-related topics I find interesting during the month but couldn’t write a whole post for. Also, I will also share my picks for this summer, providing that it doesn’t get delayed.
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Dealing with Possible Blogging Burnout – How to Deal With It
Since the time I shared my concerns about the state of the blog, I fell anxious about where my blog is headed. Sure, I have tried making some improvements. However, I still feel the bottom is coming underneath me as the pandemic delayed a lot of titles. I fear that this could be the end of my blog. It’s not too surprising since there would be less content to cover, thus fewer comments and likes. The thing that really upset me today is the lack of comments in my recent posts. This is despite the hours put into writing these reviews and even an editorial nobody bothered to leave a like and/or a comment. I became upset that I complained on twitter in several tweets today. I felt that I can’t let this go on any further.
Believe it or not, at some point, some anime bloggers probably faced these issues. When he or she look at other blogs, they have no problem receiving comments and likes. It does make one feel that the effort one put into creating content is going to waste. Of course, this is not the only problem that can cause a blogger to become frustrated and/or even quit for good. Instead of continuing to vent on Twitter and going nowhere as I did this morning, I want to share my thoughts in a rational manner.
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Impact of Covid-19 on Japanese Animation Studios and the Need to Embrace Digital and Telework
Believe it or not, I have covered the impacts of the Anime Industry due to Covid-19. However, we still didn’t know the full impact back then, until now. This just didn’t happen overnight. Animation studios faced problems such as poor working conditions, a packed production schedule and noticeable delays in 2019.
As expected, the coronavirus situation made the whole thing worse. Sure, a handful of titles suffered minor delays. Eventually, the coronavirus situation worsened with more than forty titles facing delays. As a result, studios had no choice but to delay productions. Eventually Japan declared a state of emergency on April 16, weeks after delaying the Olympics. This does not come at a surprise since the workplace at these studios clamped. As a result, this makes social distancing efforts nearly impossible. With that, I want to focus on some thoughts on the whole situation.
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Anime Blogging and Hosting – Why You Should Start One On a Virtual Private Server Instead on WordPress.com
Since we are stuck at home due to COVID-19 and have nothing to do, you are probably watching or reading a lot of anime. Yes, it’s probably a great time to start a blog about anime, but you don’t know where to begin. Should I just start my anime blog on Wordpress.com?
While Wordpress.com is an easy and free way to start, you are probably limiting your potential to grow your audience. You won’t get very far without getting a domain name. Even with that, the free version is every limited in customization and you need to pay $8, which is expensive when you can do it yourself.
Of course, this guide of some sort is the hard mode in any video game. Yes, Crow from Crow’s World of Anime did several useful guides, but I think using shared hosting is a bad idea due to my past bad experiences. Also, there is a big benefit of doing it of doing it on a virtual private server. Not only your site will run faster, and you will gain some new skills of setting the server yourself, especially if you are trying to get a job in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Information Technology.
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State of the Blog – Part III – More Frustrations, Possible Burnout, and Anxieties, But Still Hopeful
Since I last shared my frustrations, I felt that things were getting a bit better. Sadly, while things got better in terms of comments and such, it didn’t last. Things took a turn for the worst since the start of this year.
With Coronavirus outbreaks in Japan delaying some anime productions with more on the day, this does give me a lot of anxieties of the future of this blog. Not only that, the lack of comments on my recent posts, including my editorials from last month, which are hurting my motivation to blog. In addition, the lack of followers are becoming a sticking point too. What troubles me are the few who I follow are unfollowing me, which is a huge betrayal. I don’t know exactly what I am doing wrong since I do not post anything controversial.
Instead of keeping my frustrations in, I want to share them. Also I want to receive feedback from the readers on what areas to improve the engagement on this blog before I completely burn myself out. Hear me out.
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The SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak – The Impacts on the Anime Industry and Everyone’s Lives
As expected, it seems that the Novel Coronavirus has started to affect everyone’s lives. For an anime fan, it definitely had an impact. Not only anime productions are getting delayed, but also events and even anime conventions. Even the Tokyo Olympics that is happening later this year is in jeopardy and will most likely see a delay.
Not only that, various anime productions faced delays as a result. Some are very noticeable with Koisuru Asteroid, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T, A3, and others. It doesn’t end there. Some spring anime, most notably Re Zero Second Season along with a bunch of films pushed back until the summer. Moreover, Amazon is prioritizing shipping of certain goods to deal with the virus. This causes things like anime DVD/Blu-rays, merchandise, video games, etc to face shipping delays. With that, we are living with a new reality and life as we know it is changed forever.
You might be wondering, what is the Novel Coronavirus (aka Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2/SARS-CoV-2/nCov-19/Covid-19) and what affect it is happening on the anime industry. Most of you should have heard about this virus on the news and social media. As expected, it’s having a huge effect on people’s everyday lives. I will share some of my thoughts on how this situation is affecting me personally.
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Pitfalls of Anime Streaming, Competition and Subscription Fatigue – Is It Becoming Too Fragmented?
It’s obvious that the Novel Coronavirus has caused a lot of public events to become cancelled along with schools. Aside from people who have a job, but can’t telework, most will be at home. In other words, some or most of you would binge watch on anime while being stuck at home.
This of course brings the topic of anime streaming. In recent years, anime has become more accessible legally through legal streaming services like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and others. Not only that, you don’t have to spend $50-250 to buy the whole series on DVD or Blu-ray to watch it. Of course, we started to see Crunchyroll losing the lion share of the anime streaming as competition heated up.
If you recall, Amazon tried to jump in the fray with Anime Strike and Netflix doing its own thing. While competition is good as it doesn’t cause a service to become complacent. During that time, Crunchyroll became a bit lazy by not updating their video player and with poor video quality.
Once competition took hold, they eventually added an HTML5 player. It’s not without consequence. They lost a good amount of their catalog once Funnimation pulled out of the deal.
As expected, exclusive simulcasting is becoming an issue as people have to subscribe to the multiple services to watch the content they enjoy. Otherwise, he or she will miss out unless they subscribe. As they say, each subscription adds up in the end. This phenomenon is called subscription fatigue. While some bloggers have covered this concern, it’s time to go more in depth in it.
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The Reasons Why You Should (Probably) Not Pirate Anime
Since 2017, I started the shift towards streaming mostly because it’s convenient and it’s probably the cheapest way to support the industry. From the monthly subscription fees, royalties are paid from the shows you watch, which eventually goes back to the studios and the industry.
Given the problem that studios are facing with low pay and poor working conditions, if more switched to legal alternatives, it would help the industry. After all, revenue generated overseas will become more important given the change in demographics in Japan.
While streaming is not the ideal solution mostly because of region restrictions, it’s not a problem if you live in North America. Of course, exclusivity of titles and fragmentation is another issue. Certain titles will only be available on Crunchyroll, HIDIVE, Amazon, Netflix or Funimation. In other words, this will require subscribing to multiple services.
If you take these drawbacks from the picture, it’s a better way to watch anime as it’s convenient. One doesn’t have to mess around with Bittorrent, worry about what video players to use, and having enough disk space. You just watch whatever you want.
However, people who live in regions where legal options are readily available and can afford it still choose to pirate. People have to realize that not only this is selfish and immoral given the poor state of the animation industry, you are also putting your information security at risk. Not to mention, piracy or rather the correct term, copyright infringement is illegal. I will explain why you should probably stop pirating anime and consider legal options if available.
(Note: Pardon the lack of images, they are coming in a few days)
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Top 5 Anime of 2019 and Top 10 Anime of the 2010s
Since 2019 is finally coming to an end, it’s time to take a look at the top five shows for this year since I only completed 14 titles this year. We will also take a look briefly at the top ten shows of the decade. As always, this list is subjective.
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Year in Review – Reflecting on Anime Blogging in 2019
As expected, I hoped that in 2019 things will finally turn around. As expected, I finally got my wish. Also, we will take a look back at the year in review. I know this is a bit early, but I still have two to three posts left before the year ends.
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12 Days of Anime for 2019 and Merry Christmas
As always, I do the twelve days of anime post. For this year, we are back with the usual sharing the anime along with any other moments related to Japanese video games and such. As always, nothing is in particular order.
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Behind the Scenes – The Tools I Use to Blog About Anime
Since my blog hit the 10-year mark in February, I never wrote a post sharing behind the scenes. Yes, this includes the tools I use to create content. I think it’s probably a good idea to share the tools of the trade for those who want to get into anime blogging or interested in technology as I will cover some of the software and hardware I usually use on a daily basis.
Updated: Added some prices of the plugins/themes I use and added some more tools.
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Tribute to Kyoto Animation and How Their Works Rekindled My Interest in Anime
On July 18, 2019, tragedy stroked as an arsonist set on fire the main studio for Kyoto Animation. About 33 people died from the incident along with several injured. In addition, the fire destroyed all their production materials in the first building. However, the second animation studio and headquarters were not affected.
This tragedy is heartbreaking to not only to the family members, but also the anime industry and fans of anime. It’s not too surprising since Kyoto Animation’s production values are regarded highly by most people. It’s mostly thanks to the talented people who worked on the productions. Not only that, they are treated well compared to other studios.
In the past, I shared my thoughts about the studio. In this post, I want to share how the productions from this studio influenced me to start blogging about anime.
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Transfer Limitations in Pocket Monsters Sword and Shield, Is Game Freak Betraying their Fans?
Back in February 2019, Game Freak finally announced their next generation games, Pocket Monsters Sword and Shield for the Nintendo Switch. This game will finally have a third person view in an open world compared to the previous games. However, after showing off new features at E3, a lot of people became upset. News broke that you won’t be able to transfer all your Pokémon from the Pokémon Home service to the new games. This is because of Game Freak’s change in direction.
To me, this decision is a big betrayal to the loyal Pokémon fan base. Of course, many people are angry about this decision and for good reasons. He or she won’t be able to use all of their favorite Pokémon in the new games. With that, I want to share my thoughts on why Game Freak is out of touch with the fan base.
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Vita Retrospective – Why It’s Better than the Nintendo 3DS for Anime and Japanese RPGS, but Still Unsuccessful
Since I finally obtained a PlayStation Vita in 2012, it was my console of choice. It had a great library of Japanese role-playing games and anime themed games released throughout the Heisei Era. While the console did poorly in the west, it sold well in Japan. This is not too surprising since Japan vastly prefer portable consoles opposed to home consoles.
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The Power and Popularity of Manga Time Kirara
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, there has been various debates about moe. Despite the critics, moe in general has eventually became mainstay in modern anime
I feel the main reason moe actually saved anime is of course the adaptations of Manga Time Kirara series and Houbunsha, a Japanese book publisher that is behind it all. The first few series in 2007 started receiving anime adaptions. The first being Hidamari Sketch and Doujin Work. After that, the rest was history after K-ON aired and became wildly popular.
Since the 2010s, there are usually anime adaptations of series from the family of Manga Time Kirara family of magazine air almost every season. Sometimes, there might be two that air in the same season. You might be wondering why I think Manga Time Kirara is the savior of anime and why these magazines are popular? I will explain why.
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State of the Blog – Part II – Frustrations and Possibility of Burnout
In recent months, things have been very frustrating in regards to the state of my blog. The past few episodic and editorial posts received no comments at all, which adds to the frustration. If you have been following me on Twitter, the lack of comments has been my torn in my back for the past few months. Rather than keep my frustrations in, I want to share them. Also, I want to ask for your suggestions on how to motivate readers to comment on my posts.
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More Thoughts on Manga: Physical vs Digital and the Problem of Manga Piracy
It has been a year since I started reading manga of series I enjoyed. This mostly consists of Manga Time Kirara series in Japanese. To me, it’s a good way to practice my Japanese language skills without the time commitment compared to other mediums such as video games.
Of course, there is more I want to touch upon the manga reading experience besides what I covered already. It includes the debate over buying physical or digital formats and of course the whole piracy debate with manga.
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The Many Reasons You Should Start Reading Manga
For most people, watching anime is the most convenient form of entertainment for most people. It’s not too surprising since the voice acting, music and visuals make it a lot easier to experience the story opposed to reading it.
The reality is, anime productions are very expensive. In other words, some of the story will be left out so it can fit it in twelve or twenty-four episodes. When the show ends, you might want to experience more of the story since in most cases, most shows won’t receive another season. With that, there are some reasons why you want to read a manga or light novel.
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iPad and Anime Blogging Revisited – The Ideal Tablet for Japanese Gacha games?
If you have read my editorial on the popularity of BanG Dream and the changes in the Japanese video game market, Gacha games are wildly popular. While I have some mixed feelings with mobile gaming in the past, smartphones and tablets have changed substantially. They are now powerful to give good enough experiences.
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State of the Blog – Addressing my Frustrations and Changes for the Future
Now that we are heading to the 10-year mark next month, I would like to share the state of this blog. This month has been a very frustrating month. Rather keeping my frustrations in, I would like to share how I feel along with future changes.
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