With 2017 coming to a close, it’s time to share my thoughts on the top 5 five anime for 2017. As always, the list is subjective.
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Top 5 Anime of 2017
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12 Days of Anime for 2017 and Merry Christmas
Every year, I do a twelve days of Anime thing. For this year, I am sharing the funniest and cute moments this year’s anime.
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The Sad State of Legal Anime Streaming or Why Anime Strike is Cancer – Update: It’s Dead
In recent years, there is a big shift towards legal streaming. As mentioned in an earlier editorial, streaming sites like Crunchyroll makes anime more accessible. While there are drawbacks such as region restrictions and lack of offline viewing, it keeps most people from pirating anime. Legal streaming overall allows anime to become more mainstream than it did in the past. Of course, this spawned more competition such as Funimation, Daisuki and others.
However, in 2017, the state of streaming deteriorated. It’s obvious that Amazon and Netflix now wants the piece of the streaming pie. Earlier this year Amazon launched Anime Strike. Meanwhile, Netflix becomes a serious contender by taking more high-profile titles such as Little Witch Academia and Fate/Apocrypha. While competition is good as it prevents companies from being too lazy, it has a lot of drawbacks. As seen with the huge backlash towards Anime Strike, it can have negative impacts to the fandom as a whole. Moreover, it can derail the trend towards legal streaming and drive people back to piracy.
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Bang Dream and the Girl-Band Boom, Does it Even Exist or is it a Pipe dream?
For a while now, I have come across an article about BanG Dream. It’s about a statement that Kidani Takaaki made. He said that “the idol boom that has continued until now is already finished this year.”
In other words, he believes that idols will make way for the girl-band boom. However, I am very skeptical of that for many reasons that I will share.
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Chikorita’s Top 5 Anime Confessions
Now that a fourth of the year have passed, it’s time to share my anime and video game confessions. I know it’s embarrassing, but I think it’s going to be fun too.
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Avex Export Ban and Why It’s Bad for the Anime Industry
Just a few days ago, something blew up in the fandom. Apparently, Avex Pictures have banned exports of Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs to countries outside of Japan. While this does not affect the music division, it does bring negative implications for people who imports Anime Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs. I will share my thoughts about the Avex export ban along with background information behind it.
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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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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 10 – Bakuon, Pan de Peace and Hundred and Kumamiko Ep 10
Machi becoming an idol? That’s impossible!
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 9 – Bakuon, Pan de Peace and Hundred and Kumamiko Ep 9
As expected, I spent most of my Memorial Day weekend playing games.
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 8 – Bakuon, Pan de Peace and Hundred Ep 8 and Kumamiko Ep 7&8
Yoou would have guessed, I have started playing Kantai Collection Kai on the Vita and it’s fairly addictive even though it’s not the same experience as the browser version, but oh well…
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 6 – Hundred, Pan de Peace, Kumamiko Ep 6 and Bakuon Ep 5&6
Yep, modding can be a lot of fun, especially when bikes are involved!
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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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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 5 – Hundred, Pan de Peace and Kumamiko Episode 5 and Site Updates
As expected, it seems that Hibiki is vicious when it comes to romance…
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 4 – Hundred, Pan de Peace and Kumamiko Episode 4
I am surprised that Hibiki who is Yoshio’s childhood friend could be this vicious towards Machi.
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 3 – Hundred, Pan de Peace and Kumamiko Episode 3
Yep, I knew it was a matter of time until Emile’s true identity will get revealed.
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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 2 – Hundred and Pan de Peace Episode 2 and Kumamiko Ep 1-2
Yep, we are already in the second week and of course, I decided to pick up another show, which I will share my impressions for this week.
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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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Anime Weekly – Spring 2016 – Week 1 – Hundred and Pan de Peace Episode 1- First Impressions
Now that we are finished with the winter anime, it’s time to focus on the first bunch of shows for spring. Considering how short Pan de Peace is, I will be bringing Anime Weekly back from the dead, meaning that I might cover one more show and only sharing brief impressions for each. The other two shows that will air in the latter half of the week will be covered normally.
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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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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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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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