Chikorita157's Anime Blog

The thoughts, reviews and analysis of Comedy, Romance, Drama and Slice of Life Anime of a College Student

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False DMCA Claims and Daisuki – The Negative Implications on the Anime Blogosphere (Update: Getting fixed)

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Artist: きゅうり)

Artist: きゅうり

Recall what happened in 2011 and winter of 2012 for one moment. The United States wanted to pass two different acts called the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP. These acts aimed to grant the ability for companies to block sites that host illegal content. Of course, the legislation was so broad that companies and even the government can basically abuse it and request the Internet Service Provider to completely block a website for using copyrighted content, even if it covered under Fair Use under Copyright law for review or literary criticism.

If these two acts were to pass, it would allow companies to censor your content and limit your free speech. This means that you are not allowed to say anything bad about them because they can simply use these powers to take down your site. Of course, these two legislations never passed congress due to pubic outcry.

Shortly after, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) came along, which is another treaty like SOPA and ACTA. It basically did the same thing, but is a lot worse since it is now worldwide. Just like the previously two failed pieces of legislation, ACTA died in a fire after public outcry.

Now, I am faced with another dilemma. It seems that the media industry is not happy with how the war on piracy is going on that they are resorting to other tactics, namely DMCA claims to Google. You might be wondering why I am writing this post. While I condone piracy, some of my posts became collateral damage as they DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claimed some of them. In other words, they got removed for the search results, basically censoring my opinion about the show, which I am fighting against.
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Reasons for Dropping AKB0048 and Thoughts about Eastern Asian Idols (Updated)

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From the look of things, the reasons I dropped AKB0048 didn’t satisfy some people since I was full of rage after watching the second episode. After taking some time to let it settle in, I would like to share some thoughts on why I dropped it and my thoughts about the idol craze in East Asia that is going on in the past few years. (Image Source)

Note: Added additional thoughts regarding Idol Production Companies taking full control of the girls’ lives. (Originally published May 19, 2012)

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Extended Downtime = Extreme Rage

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Having a site go down for more than a few hours is every blogger’s nightmare and it seemed that it became reality this weekend. Yesterday, the site went down and I complained numerous times to the host on why it’s not fixed. This was not the first time it happened this month as my blog faced downtimes, some lasting a few hours.

Apparently, a few sites on the shared host got compromised in a XSS (Cross site scripting) attack, most likely from an outdated TimThumb library that compromised many WordPress blogs. Still, the poor communication with support and the inability to detect this problem before it was too late kind of shows how irresponsible WPWebhost is. They talk about how good WordPress is, but they care less about their customers. I felt that I received subpar hosting for them to the point where I’m furious at them for not fixing these problems before. To make it worse, this wasn’t the only problem I faced with them in the past. My site had numerous short downtimes, slow loading times and database not working properly because the tmp folder is full. From what I have experienced this weekend, I feel that their support staff and the people who manage the server needs to get fired and replaced with competent people since their response in this situation was horrendous.

Needless to say, I’m still going to send a complaint letter so maybe I can get out of the contract and get a prorated refund. If I’m successful in doing this, I will transfer my domain to another registrar and move my site to an affordable unmanaged virtual private server like Burst.net. If not, I’ll stick it out for another year, take daily backups and then move to a new host. Either way, there is no way in hell they will ever get my business again and heed the warning… Never get hosting from WPWebHost.

Aside from that, the post for Fate/zero episode 7 will be up in a few hours.

(Image Source) 

Thoughts about Bill 156 and Why the Law is Censoring like it’s 1984.

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Am I angry about this bill? Well yes and I am pretty vicious!

If you have known already, Tokyo pass the very controversial ordinance, Bill 156, which is also known as the “Nonexistant Youth Bill” that have strong support. However, this bill has been called an act of censorship and an apocalypse for the Anime Industry as a whole. While I think the bill is overblown by a certain tabloid blog in the Anime Blogosphere, I still think that this bill is very destructive to the industry and it’s an excuse to promote government-sponsored censorship. (Original Image)

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Moe and an Argument against Genre Elitist – Much more than just Cuteness

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Unfortunately, it is... but it does not have to be like that.

After watching Ore no Imouto Episode 7 and the past incidents with a certain commenter on my blog started posting strongly biased comments against the moe genre. Well in reality, most anime fans don’t really care about the moe but care about the characters, story, animation and/or music.  Also, the strong elitist hatred towards a genre could be destructive for the whole Anime Fandom.

As demonstrated in the arguments between Kirino and Kuroneko over the kind of shows they watch, it shows the obsessive side of the fandom. Nevertheless, genre elitism is harsher in real life with bashing of titles, making fun of/bullying fans of a genre, have strong feelings of hate and saying that anime is dying because of it. Moe seems to get so much unnecessary blame to the point that I feel the need to defend the genre even though I am completely neutral to the genre.
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Opinion: Elitism and the Aniblog Tourney: What happened?

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If these people are able to make up, why can't the Aniblogosphere?

In light of the drama, I felt that I needed to write this editorial because things went out of hand. People arguing each other saying that Listless Ink doesn’t deserve this victory and that Random Curiosity should have won. I have discuss this on my sideblog that I won’t go into detail (just read the post on my Sideblog if you are still interested). Still, this argument keeps going and going, which disturbs me. This editorial won’t be about Random Curiosity and Listless Ink, but other things that bother me about the whole situation.

Note: Fanart used in this post is made by 紅雪

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Fanservice and Nogizaka Haruka, What the hell happened?

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A while back in June 2009, I wrote a lengthy editorial on how fanservice can ruin the overall story of an anime. Well, this becomes a reality with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.

I have watch both seasons and the first season was far better besides a few panty shots is that they focused on the over lining purpose of the story. Yuuto and Haruka sweet romance and also her Otaku interest. However, the second season lost it’s purpose completely. Like Kimagure said on Melative, “sweetness replaced by pointless fanservice.” The second season of Nogizaka Haruka just proved what I have said in my editorial I wrote in June of 2009 that adding lots of fanservice makes the over lining story alot worse than it would without the fanservice. All I got from this is more pantyshots, boob groping and other stuff that shouldn’t be in the anime. If I want to watch a fanservice-oriented anime, I would of watched titles like Ladies vs Butlers, Kampfer or even Chu-Bra! I bet one minute that 90% of the fanservice seen in the second season is not in the Nogizaka Haruka light novels (yes, the Anime is adapted from the light novel…)

The problem with the route they taken is that it’s completely unnecessary and the story can do better without it, besides the other flaws besides fanservice. I felt that Diomedea is trying to use fanservice to try to attract more audience to the show, at the same time, alienating its viewers who liked the first season and be constantly let down by every episode. If there is ever a third season, Diomedea better shape up and not add the fanservice and bring it back to what the story is intended to be in the first place because viewers aren’t going to take this excessive, overdone and redundant fanservice and panty shots anymore. There are already enough fanservice laden titles out there already, Nogizaka Haruka is a series that doesn’t need to go down that path too. We already have other anime that does that. 

New MyAnimeList Style… Hell no!

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wpid-My-Panel-MyAnimeList.net_-300x230-2010-01-12-22-41.png

Does this new style remind you of something? Yeah, the new Facebook.

This is annoying. The guy adds new stuff instead of fixing broken stuff. Makes me want to write my own MAL…
– FSX

This is something I didn’t realized when I woke up and after watching some anime, my MyAnimeList client broke for some reason… Well of course!

Earlier today, MyAnimeList, one of the popular Anime/Manga cataloging website looked different. I thought that this was a dream, but it wasn’t. I don’t care much about the new design, but I perfer the old design. This is bringing back memories of Facebook forcing it’s users to use the new layout, but the difference is that Facebook is more open to the developers… MAL on the other hand… well, it broke every MAL client out there since people are using it instead of the website, meaning less revenue from ads.

What the hell they are smoking? This is the main reason I actually HATE MAL… because they are not freaking open to the developers! WHY THE HELL UPDATE THE FREAKING LAYOUT WHEN YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A FULLY IMPLEMENTED API FOR GOD SAKE! This is making developers life’s like myself even harder. Not to mention, the freaking API is so hard to use that it’s not even funny.

Suggestion, stop using MyAnimeList and go for the alternatives like AniDB or even Melative, which does Manga, Anime and even other media such as light/visual novels, dramas, etc. While I’m at it, I’m making a desktop client for it to make it even easier, so when I’m finished, there is no need to ever use MyAnimeList. Until whoever makes MyAnimeList cleans up their act and actually make a USABLE API for developers to use, they owe me 8 strawberry sundaes.

And yes, it’s an extension to the other rant I made about MAL and it’s APIs. 

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Editorial: What ever happen to innovation in the AniBlogosphere?

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My view of the Anime Blogosphere in General...

My view of the Anime Blogosphere in General...

The OEG attempted to jumpstart the half-dead blogosphere, but it seems to only cause people to question them or even outright show themselves as internet trolls by other bloggers and one blogger did their work for them already. The problem is that the Aniblogosphere in my view is alot less on Anime and Manga or anything exciting and more about just news on Japan, which we can get from ANN or even Danny Choo. We don’t need the same post on Final Fantasy XIII elixir… It’s already covered nor we need to know about random Japanese news or happenings… It’s been done by so many blogs that it’s not funny anymore… just look at the few posts I found on AnimeNano…

The same, old... news. Nothing interesting about it.

The same... old... news. There's nothing interesting about it.

Posting news is pretty generic and not exciting in my opinion nor it will help solve the ever troubling problem of the half-dead Anime Blogosphere. Bloggers should not only review Anime, Manga or even anything related to it, they should drive innovation and do something that haven’t done like a project or something that will interests the readers such as sharing your thoughts about other things like visual novels or making commentaries on characters or anime you have interest in or do something creative besides posting news… That’s Anime News Network’s job, not yours. I highly doubt you will get a lot of viewers that way… It’s not wrong or anything, but bloggers should tone it down a bit and start doing something innovative besides copying like Microsoft copying ideas from Mac OS X and KDE/Linux/whatever for example. That way, bloggers can be more happier that the Anime Blogosphere isn’t half-dead anymore.

Remember, it’s you that can reignite the Anime Blogosphere by innovating… It’s not my job to push you to innovate, it’s yours. Otherwise, it will stay like that if nothing is done and most wouldn’t like a half-dead Anime Blogosphere, would you? 

Editorial: Sad state of MyAnimeList and it's APIs

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MyAnimeList is probably the most used site by most anime viewers and bloggers besides AniDB, melative, or Anime Planet to log all the watched anime and also manga, although not everyone read manga compared to Anime. However, I feel that MyAnimeList just like Facebook is cluttered and have too much going on and you have to log in just to update your list and most of the time, you forget to update that list. This is why there are programs like MAL Updater on Windows and MAL Client OS X on Mac OS X with a small number of other MAL Clients. However, MAL is not making it easy with developers to create these programs and I already have some trouble trying to figure out how to implement it.

The problem is that the MAL API is very incomplete. There is no documentation on how to obtain the list or even get the information of the Anime using the APIs. sliceoflifer made the Unofficial MAL API , which is the supposed replacement of the MAL API and also makes life easier since all the functions are there and you can easily implement the API. The problem is, there is no Manga support. With the Official MAL API, there is a severe lack of information on how to use the API and the lack of JSON support. Also, it’s buggy since in some instances, searching for titles like Kampfer does not even pop up any results due to the bad data spit out by the official MAL API.

MyAnimeList in my opinion is becoming too big and the developer APIs are left neglected for months and left to rot. MAL Updater is a closed sourced program and there is no native open source solution (No, AniChou does not count as native alternative) that would work natively on Windows or even a full Mac solution. The developer of MAL Updater have to resort largely with HTML scraping which is a pain in the neck to figure out and I commend him on his effort to do so… Why should developers be left having to do this time consuming process of making code to get rid of the HTML tags and convert it to XML? Does MAL want developers make more programs that would work with MAL and instant updating instead of resorting to the near-monopoly MAL Updater…

Another gripe is that their site is STILL not iPhone friendly or perhaps smartphone friendly… Most sites these days have iPhone versions of the website since the iPhone grew in popularity due to it’s powerful browser. iPhone friendly MAL would help since if some people watch anime on the TV and don’t have their laptop on or want to go to a computer just to update their status, they can do it easily on the iPhone. Why not jump on a iPhone solution for MAL, either a iPhone App or a iPhone friendly website… It shouldn’t be terribly hard to do since popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter already have one with their own iPhone apps.

Hopefully you take these suggestions seriously and help make MAL better, or I have to resort more with melative since it’s works alot better… (and why not join in on the fun). 

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