Anime blog that focuses on Yuri and School Girl Slice of Life Anime and Editorials
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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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
Well, it have been decided that I was going to ditch the old theme and make a new one. The last theme, Wicketpixie seems alright, but the problem is that it uses alot of images and it seems to load slower than it would on top of the glitches on top, so I decided to gut the theme. We are still using the same banner, but I made alot of mods and tweaks to the Thematic Theme Framework with the help of the Web Inspector in Webkit to figure out what CSS to edit and all that good stuff. I managed to maintain the top bar from the old theme, except for minor glitches that I need to fix. Overall, the theme seems to be very appealing to the eye and also loads alot quicker than the old theme… Several seconds quicker since now everything is done with CSS, not with images and such… I haven’t tested the theme in Internet Explorer since it is the worst browser ever made, but everything seems to work fine.
Anyways, tell me what you think about it and I will take some suggestions… No, the color scheme is here to stay, so yeah….
Also, I got rid of Wibiya… so people who are reading this blog don’t have to tear their hairs out when they see that annoying, floating toolbar. And yes, this theme has threaded comments!
Update: Subscribe menu should now view properly. Something was up with the positioning of the menu in the CSS.
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.
I can’t stop these flowers of moe!
From this… You surely know what will happen next… Filled with little sister tsunderes….
From the last episode, it was obvious that Misaki became less harsher from the last episode, but not completely. In this episode had less yelling on her part. She also saves the two males in the library with the falling ladder and hurting her arm in the process and said she would save anyone, regardless of gender. Of course, Usui patches her bruise up and also saying a really funny excuse to a girl who was confessing to him while he was looking at Misaki in the building. This excuse obviously cracked me up so much, and it is obviously not true… He said that he is a high-level otaku that loves maids than everything that he plays games about them and stuff and cross-dresses as a maid and leaves… Yes, highly unbelievable, but very funny…
The highlight of the episode is obviously the “Little Sister Day” at the maid cafe where she acts like a imouto so perfectly with twin tails! Moe! However, everything changes when Usui comes and she tries to serve him and he becomes unreasonable that she flips out at him as shown:
Afterwards, Usui decides to leave and yes… she shows a different type of imouto… Tsundere little sister character? I laughed afterwards…
Well yes, Misaki shows her dere side, complete with twin tails! Essential for tsunderes… :o. Overall, the episode was very entertaining and pretty good… Although Misaki seems to be annoyed at Usui at times begins to warm up and… yes, he picks out the color Misaki should wear on Setai Meido Day… Well, it’s white! From watching this episode, it surely has alot of moe that was parodied since this is a Shoujo Anime after all. From that, I leave this post with a picture of this bad-ass Misaki in a white meido outfit.
Last notes: As from the last episode, it seems that the group of three males who are fan of Misaki… well besides from over-obsession of her, one guy starts drawing pictures of her in meido… Luckily, she didn’t find out about that yet… or did she? :p
Verdict
8.6/10
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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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.
Inami (Izumi or whatever) and the fear of men… Well, we have been there, but Takanashi doesn’t seem to have a like for her since she always punches him and also… a pettanko compared to the well like Popura who is well endowed… and short, something that Taknashi seems to like. Does this make him a lolicon or what… just don’t ask. Pretty much the whole episode was focused on Izumi and punching Takanashi… I don’t remember how many times she had punch him in the whole course of the episode, but with a few laughs.
The episode was slightly better, but I’m still slightly ever disappointed. The problem I’m seeing is that the jokes are getting repetitive. How many more times we see Takanashi’s lolicon tendencies or Izumi punching him ever few minutes… Well, it did work, but soon I… well, yawned. As they put it, they seem to clam way too much in one episode and as a result, all the jokes gets repeated over and over again rather quickly… If it wasn’t so packed in together, it wouldn’t get so old rather quickly. Oh well, there is always the Manga…
Also, the animation is okay but… A-1 Pictures can do a better job than this since they were able to put out really good animation in Sora no Woto… why not this? Anyways, I’ll give it a few more episodes… but I have pretty low expectations… I mean, they can do better than this so it will become more enjoyable… but I guess it is better than seeing a fanservicy series that I would otherwise be disappointed on the spot.
7.6/10
This episode is probably the most funniest one compared to the first season, thanks to Ritsu. They clean out that messy closet and they found a really heavy, pristine guitar that looked like it was never used. Actually, it was Sawako’s and she doesn’t want it anymore and wants them to pawn it and use the money for the club. They end up in the shopping center where Ritsu and Yui fools around while Mugi becomes amazed because she really wanted to go one of them (for herself being a ojou herself have never seen one for herself). They finally pawned the guitar at the music shop and they got 500,000 yen ($5,500 USD in current exchange rates) for the whole thing and the other girls except Mugi becomes obsessed on how to use to money. They clean up and Sawako comes and Ritsu lies about the money. Then, Sawako wants the reciept and she ate it until Sawako takes it out and finds out it is 500,000 yen. She takes the money back and later the club decided on buying that turtle at Azusa saw… Although disappointed at first, she finally makes it her friend and it was cute!
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Overall, this episode was alot better than the last and it had very funny moments including some boy scaring off girls with a face painted on his body, that caused him to be locked up in a room by Misaki. However, Class 22-2 proposals were too outrageous. Usui tries to convince her to do their last proposal, but the next day it gets shot down and they do a cafe. Usui comes to the cafe while Misaki was working and he seems to like the cat ears on her, but as usual, Misaki is annoyed. Also, about the guys who found out that Misaki is a maid.. well, they are her fans and she brings out this “moe moe rice omelet” and wrote annoyed on it. I was laughing by the way… While the preparations for the festival, Misaki was being too harsh to the boys and later when she was taking the trash out while she was working, Usui warned her that if she be too tough on the boys, they won’t listen and also another instance where the girls say Misaki should enjoy what she is doing in her job… This becomes a reality where she lashes out on the Class 22-2 boys which caused them to walk away and yes, Usui participated. She helps the girls who were struggling and suddenly after they see what she was doing decided to help in a appropriate manner. At the end of the festival, Usui finds Misaki and seems to have a interest in her… because, well you know…
Anyways, the whole premise of the whole episode was funny… Yes, there was somewhat less yelling, especially towards the end… but as it seems.. even though Misaki find Usui annoying sometimes, Usui seems to like her that much that he is a regular customer at this maid cafe… no matter what… and yes, she was cute with the cat ears and the maid outfit… lol… and how she lashes out was also funny, but then again… Is the second part of the episode evident that she is becoming less harsh to the boys… I don’t think it will stay once things go back to normal… Anyways… can’t wait what will be in the next episode since this is a pretty interesting story… and also funny as well.
8.4/10