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The Art of Reviewing and Scoring Anime

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Artist: mattari yufi

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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Experience of Using Japanese Video Games as Practice

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Artist: miyama-zero

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

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Artist: dreamlight2000

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

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Artist: 05 (passelclow)
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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The Best and Worst of 2012 Anime

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Artist: naruse

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 1 – Amagami SS Plus

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Artist: akitotika

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

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Artist: oimo

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)

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Status of the Aniblogosphere in 2012 – Haitus = Dead Blog?!

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Artist: nakada rumi

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

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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

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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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Mitt Romney on Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai

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As Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts trails in the polls against President Barack Obama days before the election, he tries to connect with the middle class, which he is losing support. Therefore, we got three questions from a financially struggling college student named Yuuta Segawa [1. I thought Papa Kiki was somewhat fitting for Romney since he is a Mormon] who is currently taking care of three young girls. He wants us to publish the answers on my blog. At the same time, I have asked Romney if he wants to answer them. He accepted the offer, so we are now revealing the answers to them.

Note: This is a satire piece and it’s not meant to offend anyone’s political positions.
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PeTA, Team Plasma and Pokémon – Misconceptions and Concerns about Pokémon Welfare

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Artist: tosura-ayato

As everyone should know, Pokémon Black and White 2 have just come out in America. I didn’t get the English release since I already own a Japanese copy of the game when it got several months ago, but that is beside the point. Just this week, PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have released a parody game called “Pokémon Black and Blue” to promote their agenda by using everything that made Pokémon great and take it out of context. When I watched a person play the game with commentary, I felt disgusted. However, it brings up some ethical issues that were present in Pokémon Black and White that released last year. (Image Source)

Warning: If you haven’t played the game, there are some spoilers.
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A Year of Self-Studying Japanese – Some Experiences

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It’s almost a year since I started teaching myself Japanese and I think it would be best to share some of my experiences in certain aspects. Obviously, learning a second language takes a lot of commitment and it’s not easy like buying Rosetta Stone (which is a big waste of money) and expecting instant gratification. It took a lot of effort since it’s learning by doing.

On the surface, Asian languages tend to be difficult since most of them use logograms, also known as Chinese Characters along with different grammar rules. With practice and constant studying, it’s just like learning any other language, except it takes a bit more time to have a basic understanding

Aside from that, here are some observations I had after one year of studying.
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