From the look of a timid Saori to the one we know already, this episode shows the hobbies’ everlasting effects on people as it enables them to know other people with the same interests and even become friends. (Image Source)
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Editorials
Disney Princesses vs Females in Anime – The Problem with Damsel in Distress
Last weekend, I have watched Nostalgia Critic’s video on the princess hate. After watching it, I think he has a point since this trope exists in all types of media. The problem lies with Damsel in distress, which became a negative stereotype for females because it’s over usage. In particular, Disney Princesses tend to play this trope a lot, which is a bad representation of how women are portrayed in real life.
In Anime, it’s the opposite most of the time since some female characters take a bigger role. This is the main difference compared to Disney Princesses. (Image Source)
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Challenges of Keeping the Passion of Anime Going and Growing Out of It
Back in February of this year, I had shared my thoughts about why I continue to watch Anime. However, there are reasons why people lose passion for it and it’s not usually clear. Also, I will share some personal experiences.
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The Art of Reviewing and Scoring Anime
Before we end off the season, I wanted to share my thoughts about reviewing Anime and grading since they are highly subjective. In general, people will have different opinions based on personal experiences and tastes. While people on Social Networking and Anime Forums tends to share a few thoughts on what they saw, Anime Bloggers are different as we tend to be more critical on what we see. This is because we take the time to share our thoughts to make a more detailed review and for the fact that opinions aren’t necessarily the same. Because of this, I like to share how I write reviews and go into a few scoring systems Anime bloggers use. (Image Source)
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The Many Reasons Why I Keep Watching Anime
Although I shared my reasons why I blog about Anime almost two years ago, I never wrote about why I still watch Anime. Since Kai shared his thoughts about why he continues to watch Anime, I became interested in writing about it since it’s a rather diverse medium. (Image Source)
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Experience of Using Japanese Video Games as Practice
As you may know from my review of the Playstation Vita, I actually use video games as a way to practice what I have learned besides studying the textbook, memorizing new vocabulary and writing sentences. While the readings are great in the textbook as they show how the grammar is being used for a particular lesson, it can get a bit cheesy at times as it’s usually consists of people talking about school life and such. For that reason, I decided to play some video games in raw Japanese and I had a pretty good experience from it.
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Thoughts on Violence in Anime and Video Games
Since the Aurora Theater Shooting, there has been some discussion about violence in general from two notable Anime bloggers. While I had some thoughts about it, I decided not to share them since it’s a controversial issue. With the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting that took place last month, I felt the need to share my thoughts about violence in media as some politicians and NRA’s Wayne LaPierre decided to make media the scapegoat instead of addressing the issue. There are many reasons why I don’t think media like Anime necessarily cause someone to become violent. (Image Source)
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Challenges of Localization: The Never-Ending Debate
While I have talked a bit about the subtitles and dubbing debate early in my anime blogging career briefly, there is something that caught my attention regarding localization. Just this week, there has been news that Tecmo Koei won’t be having dual audio to the English version of Atelier Ayesha. As you would expect, the whole fandom blew up in rage just like that and advocating boycotts. However, there have been recent instances in Anime where licensing companies such as Sentai Filmworks excluded the Japanese Audio from Blu-rays, most notably the Persona 4 The Animation to make the release unattractive for reverse importation. Of course, that too had repercussions.
In general, localization and the whole sub vs. dub debate is a never-ending controversy for many reasons that I will explain. (Image Source)
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Reflecting Back Another Year of Anime Blogging for 2012
As 2012 comes to an end, I would like to reflect on what happened in 2012 related to Anime Blogging and other stuff since it was a pretty eventful year. (Image Source)
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The Best and Worst of 2012 Anime
As 2012 finally comes to an end, I felt that this year is rather subdued for Anime. Although there were some Anime that received some rave reviews that I didn’t watch, I was still satisfied by what I have already watched. Not only that, I only dropped one show this year compared to two in 2011. Still, there were some disappointments, which I want to go over.
For now, I will list my top whatever lists of best Anime in 2012 along with some disappointing/worst ones. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 10 – Hyouka
On the 10th day of Anime, I can’t stop thinking about it! (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 9 – Tari Tari
With a few days left until Christmas, we focus on a girl who helped saved the last cultural festival from those vulture capitalists in Tari Tari. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 8 – Dog Days 2
It’s time to return to the land of Flonyard filled with people with animal ears and tails.
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12 Days of Anime – Day 7 – Little Busters JC Staff Rage
Sadly, not all announcements were good news as VisualArts gave an announcement that caused some Key fans to go ballistic. Yep, it’s JC Staff doing the animation for Little Busters. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 6 – 2nd Anime Blog Tourney
You know it’s coming! Yes, I’m mentioning the Anime Blog Tourney. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 5 – Fate Zero
On the fifth day of Anime, the focus is on the second part of Fate/zero. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 4 – Natsuiro Kiseki
On the 4th day of Anime, we have troll rocks aka Natsuiro Kiseki. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 3 – Saving the Blogosphere from SOPA/PIPA
For the third day of Anime, we remember the strike that saved the Internet.
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12 Days of Anime – Day 2 – Milky Holmes 2
On the second day of Anime, the focus is now on the lovable and toy-less detectives known as Milky Holmes. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Day 1 – Amagami SS Plus
With 12 days remaining until Christmas and since I don’t want to write a post on Christmas Day, its time to get started as I write about some highlights on Anime in addition to fandom stuff in 12 separate short posts. For the first day, I’m going to focus on a show that fits the mood a bit named Amagami SS Plus. (Image Source)
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12 Days of Anime – Prelude
It’s that time of year again and with Christmas coming in a few weeks, it’s time to announce the 12 Days of Anime project once again. Like the same suggest, it’s an activity that bloggers retell moments in anime or anything related to it. While each blogger does it slightly differently, it’s the same concept.
As for me, I’m doing the format differently since I have pretty much finished all the heavy lifting of my final semester besides finals. Therefore, I’m doing 12 separate short posts focusing on anime and of course covering two major events related to Anime Blogging. This obviously includes the SOPA/PIPA protests that happened early this year and the 2nd Anime Blog Tournament. Besides those two, the other 10 posts I plan on writing is a secret, so stay tuned until December 14th when I plan to start publishing them. (Image Source)
Status of the Aniblogosphere in 2012 – Haitus = Dead Blog?!
Just recently, the current state of the Anime Blogosphere doesn’t look great with a good number of blogs dying. In the last three months, We Remember Love, Kaminarianime, and Otaku Life: Anime Review hanged up their hats and call it quits (Moe Fundamentalism decided to go on hiatus before the author reversed the decision quite recently). Judging from my blogroll, there are 6 blogs that haven’t updated since October.
From the look of things, did the Mayans predict that December 21, 2012 is the end of Anime Blogging as we know it? Maybe, or probably we are overreacting. In a recent twitter conversation between Marow, Marth and myself concerning how long blogs last after Morrow mentioned a blog that only lasted two months (full conversation here), It gave me some thoughts where the blogosphere is heading. Early this year, I have covered quite a lot on blog longevity and the reason why blogs die. However, I would like to go over the current trends since there is a good number of blogs spontaneously dropping dead from the sky, which currently gives us this disturbing trend. (Image Source)
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Discovering New Anime and Personal Experiences
Just over a year ago, I shared my viewing experiences and taste testing shows. People might be wondering how do I discover new shows. It’s a good question since I’m picky and I don’t have time to watch everything. Therefore, I use several means in choosing what shows to watch at any given time, which I will share. (Image Source)
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Kyoto Animation and Why They Remained Successful
Believe it or not, sometimes a studio that animates a particular show sometimes brings appeal to a work. As seen with the likes of Studio Shaft, Production IG, PA Works, Sunrise and Kyoto Animation, they add something unique. Most notably, Kyoto Animation from the past several years has gained a lot of praise for its production values. This is more so with the airing of Hyouka and now Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai this year. I felt that they do deserve the praise for various reasons as they pay attention to detail, bringing appeal to the characters and their ability to make faithful adaptations. (Image Source)
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