The thoughts, reviews and analysis of Comedy, Romance, Drama and Slice of Life Anime of a College Student
With July ending very soon, it’s time to share some interesting posts and some thoughts during the month.
[Read more…] about What Is on My Mind – August 2020 – Crunchyroll and Poor Translator Pay, Blog’s Domain Turns 10, In Defense of CGDCT Genre, and More
A while ago, I shared some thoughts about anime streaming services. Believe it or not, in 2017, I realized that streaming anime is a lot more convenient than messing with torrents. While I dabbed into streaming sometime in 2016 by subscribing to three months of Funimation Now, I never shared my experience using it. Eventually, I cancelled it. A year later, I finally subscribed to Crunchyroll after being a holdout for years. It’s mostly because I couldn’t afford a subscription since was in college at the time.
While I was going to share my experiences with Crunchyroll and my three months using Funimation Now a while back, well it didn’t quite happen. Between the period when I lost my job, focusing my time finding another job, finally getting one and moving, this idea went by the wayside.
Since then, a lot has changed in the legal anime streaming landscape. Some players such as Daisuki and a few others have gone under. Of course, there are some new players as well such as Hidive, and the revamped Funimation streaming service.
What really inspire me to finally share my thoughts is Irina sharing her thoughts on streaming platforms. While her review focuses on the state of streaming in Canada, since most of our readers are from the United States, it’s time to focus on the state of streaming here. Of course, I subscribed to all three services. With that, I will share my overall impressions on after using them for a while.
[Read more…] about Reviewing the Anime Streaming Platforms – Which One Is the Best?
Now that it’s finally June, the rather desolate spring season thanks to Covid19 is coming to an end.
After the breakdown I had on Twitter, I want to change things up to perhaps improve the content of this blog. Since I usually do some kind of life updates on season previews, I want to do some kind of monthly summary type of posts.
Back in 2013-2015, I shared some kind of updates in a weekly summary of titles I chose not to cover individually. What I tend to do with these monthly posts is to share not only what I am up to and have planned, but also mini editorials on anime-related topics I find interesting during the month but couldn’t write a whole post for. Also, I will also share my picks for this summer, providing that it doesn’t get delayed.
Since the time I shared my concerns about the state of the blog, I fell anxious about where my blog is headed. Sure, I have tried making some improvements. However, I still feel the bottom is coming underneath me as the pandemic delayed a lot of titles. I fear that this could be the end of my blog. It’s not too surprising since there would be less content to cover, thus fewer comments and likes. The thing that really upset me today is the lack of comments in my recent posts. This is despite the hours put into writing these reviews and even an editorial nobody bothered to leave a like and/or a comment. I became upset that I complained on twitter in several tweets today. I felt that I can’t let this go on any further.
Believe it or not, at some point, some anime bloggers probably faced these issues. When he or she look at other blogs, they have no problem receiving comments and likes. It does make one feel that the effort one put into creating content is going to waste. Of course, this is not the only problem that can cause a blogger to become frustrated and/or even quit for good. Instead of continuing to vent on Twitter and going nowhere as I did this morning, I want to share my thoughts in a rational manner.
[Read more…] about Dealing with Possible Blogging Burnout – How to Deal With It
As expected, it seems that the Novel Coronavirus has started to affect everyone’s lives. For an anime fan, it definitely had an impact. Not only anime productions are getting delayed, but also events and even anime conventions. Even the Tokyo Olympics that is happening later this year is in jeopardy and will most likely see a delay.
Not only that, various anime productions faced delays as a result. Some are very noticeable with Koisuru Asteroid, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T, A3, and others. It doesn’t end there. Some spring anime, most notably Re Zero Second Season along with a bunch of films pushed back until the summer. Moreover, Amazon is prioritizing shipping of certain goods to deal with the virus. This causes things like anime DVD/Blu-rays, merchandise, video games, etc to face shipping delays. With that, we are living with a new reality and life as we know it is changed forever.
You might be wondering, what is the Novel Coronavirus (aka Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2/SARS-CoV-2/nCov-19/Covid-19) and what affect it is happening on the anime industry. Most of you should have heard about this virus on the news and social media. As expected, it’s having a huge effect on people’s everyday lives. I will share some of my thoughts on how this situation is affecting me personally.
[Read more…] about The SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak – The Impacts on the Anime Industry and Everyone’s Lives
It has been a while since I have done one of those blog award posts. As you have might know already, I have been busy relocating to the Washington DC metro area. Yes, it’s for a new job that I have been working at for almost 4 weeks.
Since I have been doing lots of driving back and forth moving stuff, finding a new place and such towards the end of last year, I didn’t get the chance to do it. It’s not until the end of January that I finally moved into a new place. The only problem, I didn’t have stable internet since I didn’t have stable internet. In other words, I couldn’t publish any other content besides episodic reviews, until now.
While I was busy moving, two people appeared to have nominated me for the Mystery Blogger Award. They are SparkNorkx of Supaku Blog and Keni from The Anime Basement. Apparently, the latter person appeared to have lost their post, so if you want me to do it, contact me as soon as possible.
If you are wondering, here is some background on what is this award.
“Mystery Blogger Award” is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.
– Okoto Enigma
Since I am very busy, I will not be nominating anyone from this award, but I will just do it.
[Read more…] about The Mysterious Blogger Award – Part I
Since my blog hit the 10-year mark in February, I never wrote a post sharing behind the scenes. Yes, this includes the tools I use to create content. I think it’s probably a good idea to share the tools of the trade for those who want to get into anime blogging or interested in technology as I will cover some of the software and hardware I usually use on a daily basis.
Updated: Added some prices of the plugins/themes I use and added some more tools.
[Read more…] about Behind the Scenes – The Tools I Use to Blog About Anime
It has been a year since I started reading manga of series I enjoyed. This mostly consists of Manga Time Kirara series in Japanese. To me, it’s a good way to practice my Japanese language skills without the time commitment compared to other mediums such as video games.
Of course, there is more I want to touch upon the manga reading experience besides what I covered already. It includes the debate over buying physical or digital formats and of course the whole piracy debate with manga.
[Read more…] about More Thoughts on Manga: Physical vs Digital and the Problem of Manga Piracy
If you have read my editorial on the popularity of BanG Dream and the changes in the Japanese video game market, Gacha games are wildly popular. While I have some mixed feelings with mobile gaming in the past, smartphones and tablets have changed substantially. They are now powerful to give good enough experiences.
[Read more…] about iPad and Anime Blogging Revisited – The Ideal Tablet for Japanese Gacha games?
Yes, it’s that time again. It’s time to answer some questions with the second Sunshine Blogger Award. You can see my first award post back in 2015 over here. This time, this nomination comes from OG-Man, who writes a blog called The Yuri Nation. With that, it’s time to answer some questions that he provided.
[Read more…] about The Sunshine Award – Part II
