Now that 2017 is almost here, it’s time to reflect back on what happened in 2016.
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Year in Review – Reflecting back on Anime Blogging in 2016
Editorials
Top 5 Anime for 2016
Now that 2016 is finally coming to a close, it’s time to share my top 5 anime of 2016.
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12 Days for Anime for 2016 and Merry Christmas
Every year, I always do the twelve days of Anime thing and this year is no exception. Instead of sharing twelve moments related to Anime, I will share my thoughts on twelve anime girls from shows aired in 2016. This only includes new series, not sequels.
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Love Live and Idolm@ster – Both Good Idol Series with Different Appeals
Kai of Deluscar here reporting for duty. I’m here to wage idol war against Chikorita since I know he’s an idolm@ster guy. As I’m on the Love Live camp, unfortunately we will always be in opposition. Here’s my mission today, to infiltrate Chikorita’s blog and to spread the influence of Love Live from within an enemy base. Guerrilla warfare 101.
Before I go on though, I will admit I like both im@s and Love Live a lot. However it took me a rewatch for the former to appreciate it more, which I think was poor timing on my part. When I was watching im@s, I was still in the process of opening up to more genres, and marathoning it didn’t help either. The idol anime genre was definitely one genre I was pretty lukewarm to when I first came across it. As much as I love im@s now, it didn’t springboard me into an idol anime fan when I first watched it. So what did? Well, Love Live.
Watching Love Live allow me to see the bigger picture in idol anime, something which im@s never accomplished. So with this alone, Love Live pretty much won a lot of points for me. But additionally, despite being the same genre, both just have incredibly different settings with different appeals.
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Idol Anime and What Makes Them Similar to Sports Anime
It has been a few years since I shared my thoughts on idol anime and why they are popular. While looking at some discussions on Love Live! Sunshine!! on anime forums, I realized how similar idol anime is to sports anime. With that, I will share some thoughts on what aspects makes these genres feel similar.
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Another Dark Side of the Anime Fandumb – The Toxic Purity Culture
Last fall, I have focused on the voice acting industry in a similar way I did with the animation production industry. Believe it or not, voice acting is not only very difficult to break into unless you are very talented along with low pay, especially for those who are not as popular, there is a dark side to the fandom that creeps from the idol fandom. This is what many refer to as the purity culture, a very toxic aspect of the fandom, which I will explain.
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Bakuon and the Joys of Watching Others Ride Motorbikes
I thought to myself whether or not to watch Bakuon since it has cute girls being enthusiastic about motorbikes. After deciding to watch the first four episodes, I felt that it’s a lot deeper than what I thought initially and it’s quite obvious why.
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Does Downloading Anime Makes You Less of an Anime Fan?
In the past, I have touched upon thoughts about piracy and how they are taking a wrong approach. Although legal alternatives have made some strides, it has shortcomings besides other issues like region locking and that the subs have quality issues in the viewer’s eyes.
With that in mind, while fans tend to look down other fans because of their tastes of Anime, there is another issue that is also apparent, people chastising people because they prefer to download anime opposed to streaming it legally or buying Blu-rays. While I will share why this practice is counterproductive, there are various reasons why people choose to continue to download instead of watching it on a legal streaming site.
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Thoughts on Oversensitive People and Creative Media – Are They Harming it?
In the past, I tend not to talk about these issues.. Sadly, it has gotten to the point that the mainstream media is using them as a scapegoat for all these issues including sites like Anime News Network inserting politics to some of their reviews, thus the discussion becomes polarized. In some cases, this eventually lead to censorship and lack of localization while people shaming others who enjoy these types of media.
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Pokémon Turns 20 Years Old and The Origins of How I Become Interested in Anime
It’s surprising how fast time flies since Pokémon officially turns 20 years old later this month with the first generation games (Red and Green) releasing back in February 27th, 1996 in Japan. While I have reflected on the franchise (mostly on the games) in the past, it’s time to share my overall thoughts on how Pokémon made me become an anime fan that I am today.
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Physical vs Digital Releases – Why Japan Still Loves Physical Formats
For a while now, I have bought physical copies of games, music CDs and even anime DVDs/Blu-rays since I prefer owning an actual copy. Nowadays, the trend has shifted towards digital distribution even though Japan still prefer physical formats over digital. Why is this the case and what effects does it have on the industry as a whole.
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Year in Review – Reflecting back on Anime Blogging in 2015
2015 is finally coming to a close. Since I have shared my top Anime for this year, it’s time to reflect back on my blogging and what happened during the year.
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Best and Disappointing Anime of 2015
Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to take a look at the top 5 anime I enjoyed and completed during 2015.
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12 Days of Anime for 2015 and Merry Christmas
It is that time of year again, it’s time to share my 12 anime moments for this year, a tradition I do every year. Since I am busy with work, I decide to do it in one shot.
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Site Updates, 12 Days of Anime and Thoughts about Muse’s Decision to Disband
Now that Thanksgiving is over, 2015 is almost coming to a close. With that, it’s time to focus on the plans I have in store along with my thoughts on the recent announcement regarding Love Live.
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The Dark Side Behind the Glamor or Why Being a Voice Actor in Japan is Difficult
Earlier this year, I have focused on how being an animator is tough given the poor working conditions, salary and being overworked in general. However, I have not covered the other aspect of anime production, voice acting. As seen with Shizuka in Shirobako having extreme difficulty in landing in a role, there are a good number of people who want to become a voice actor or rather, a seiyuu (声優), but they do not realize how difficult it is to gain a role.
Like I did with my analysis on how much animators make, I will focus on some of the basic aspects in regards to how people become voice actors, how much they are paid, how roles are determined and issues they face.
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Anime Scoring – Has it Outlived Its Usefulness?
As you recall, I have shared my thoughts on scoring in the past. Sure, everyone has their own way of scoring things when it come to writing reviews. However, as time goes on and our opinion changes through experiences, you might look back at the list and wonder to yourself, why you gave a show a certain score. Moreover, scores usually do not tell whole story since it is just an arbitrary number. This makes me wonder why bother with them?
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership – The Trade Agreement that will Destroy the Anime Fandom as We Know It
Remember the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act from 2011? These acts aimed to stop piracy, but at the same time introduced unintended consequences since the legislation was so broad that companies and government can use it to request internet service providers to censor sites. If thy were to pass, companies can use it to censor your content and limit free speech. Thankfully, people protested and these two legislations died. ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) faced the same fate since it was SOPA-like.
Now, we have a new bogeyman that will threaten free speech, reign in censorship and limit free speech. This will not only destroy anime blogging, but the anime fandom as we know it. That is the TPP, which is commonly referred to as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade deal that involves the United States and other Asian countries in the pacific, including Australia, Canada, Japan and others.
This recently leaked treaty has a lot of nasty copyright restrictions that will undermine fair use and make copyright violations a criminal offense. This mean that you might get a hefty fine or even get thrown into jail. With that, I’m going to share some background information about the treaty and then go into certain provisions that will possibly impact the anime fandom as a whole.
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Thoughts about Japanese Anime Releases: Why they are Expensive?
A few years back, I have shared my thoughts about collecting anime Merchandise. While I stopped buying anime DVDs several years back since I wanted to focus more on importing Japanese games and anime CDs from Japan, I decided to buy Idolmaster Cinderella Girls in Blu-Ray, which makes me wonder about Japanese anime releases and how they differ from licensed releases.
While I covered it somewhat in previous editorials, I never gone into much detail considering that I did not own a single Japanese release. Now I do, so it is time to talk about some differences and why they are expensive.
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What makes a “So Bad It’s Good?” and Ridiculous Anime Enjoyable to watch?
I have been wondering for a while why people tend to enjoy shows that are either have a ridiculous premise or ones that it can be considered as “so bad it’s good.” While I have shared my thoughts about bad anime, I wonder what qualities make a show so bad it’s good.
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Charlotte and Jun Maeda – Did he learned from his mistakes in Angel Beats?
With Charlotte coming to an end in two more weeks, there has been some discussion going around on whether or not Jun Maeda learned his lessons from the mistakes he made while creating the story for Angel Beats because he made a lot of questionable choices that impacted the overall quality of the show. Since five years has passed, it makes me wonder if he learned from his mistakes. (Warning: Spoilers!)
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Overly Obsessive and Misbehaving Anime Fans – How it Negatively Impact Normal Fans
For a while now, I have covered several aspects of the fandom and of course there are always going to be good and bad fans. However, after hearing news about fans threatening others through violence over other fans opinions and such, it makes you wonder if there are some really bad apples and messed up people in the fandom that are worse than the anime fandumb since their behavior hurt the overall reputation of ordinary people like you and me who happens to enjoy anime or even video games.
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False DMCA Claims and Daisuki – The Negative Implications on the Anime Blogosphere (Update: Getting fixed)
Recall what happened in 2011 and winter of 2012 for one moment. The United States wanted to pass two different acts called the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP. These acts aimed to grant the ability for companies to block sites that host illegal content. Of course, the legislation was so broad that companies and even the government can basically abuse it and request the Internet Service Provider to completely block a website for using copyrighted content, even if it covered under Fair Use under Copyright law for review or literary criticism.
If these two acts were to pass, it would allow companies to censor your content and limit your free speech. This means that you are not allowed to say anything bad about them because they can simply use these powers to take down your site. Of course, these two legislations never passed congress due to pubic outcry.
Shortly after, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) came along, which is another treaty like SOPA and ACTA. It basically did the same thing, but is a lot worse since it is now worldwide. Just like the previously two failed pieces of legislation, ACTA died in a fire after public outcry.
Now, I am faced with another dilemma. It seems that the media industry is not happy with how the war on piracy is going on that they are resorting to other tactics, namely DMCA claims to Google. You might be wondering why I am writing this post. While I condone piracy, some of my posts became collateral damage as they DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claimed some of them. In other words, they got removed for the search results, basically censoring my opinion about the show, which I am fighting against.
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Anime Influences on Japanese Games and Thoughts about Licensed Anime Games
For a while, anime influenced many types of media not only because of its popularity, but also for its art style and the story telling. Because of this, it is easy to not only see anime not only as some form of advertisement, but also having a big influence on other types of media such as video games. You might be wondering: what aspects in video games do anime influences? I will share my take on it along with my thoughts about licensed anime games.
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