Month in Review – November 2009: Purchases and Media.

Well, it’d please you all to know that while I’m not sure what’s going on with Figure Friday, there will be Figure Monthly rolling out next week, for October, and shortly thereafter November, at the very least. This very entry should have gone up earlier this week, but school is putting the crack down, as well as dealing with the public beta of the Hordes wargame which is currently ongoing.

Read on for last month’s media consumption and purchases, which had been relatively light, due to both school and a new girlfriend taking away from my free time. Also, happy birthday to me

Media:

Geek Fashion; A Surprise Encounter.

Well, I’ve recently come across a list with the markers identifying one as an “otaku“, according to a survey held in Japan. One of the items had described “Anime T-Shirts”, as a negative thing, and I thought that impression should be fixed.

I do agree, there are the totally drawn, overdrawn, over-the-top fashion-victim shirts you see people wear, such as the neon orange and yellow 100% drawn Dragon Ball Z T-Shirts, but there are plenty of shirts one can wear, and which look good, even, and perhaps especially when those who view them do not know that they mark one as a geek. Heck, I’m sure many non-geeks will proudly wear them.

Lagann, on one of my new shirts!

I had the “pleasure” of going out and buying some l0ng-sleeved more fashionable shirts yesterday, and to be honest, I felt quite a bit like Madarame, from Genshiken. My older shirts are very comfortable, but being flannel, they tend to give a certain pajama feel. And I decided something had to be done. Well, imagine my surprise when I saw Lagann at a very mainstream shop.

Geekorner Blog Month in Review: August (And Tail of July)

This may or may not be a permanent feature. But since many of the people currently reading this blog did not read this blog when it was new, it’ll be here this time.
And don’t worry, we’re going to resume normal postings tomorrow or the day after.

August in review (and yes, details are lacking, since WordPress only shows me top 40 clicks/referers, and only “past 30 days” and such, can’t tell it to look at August as a month…):

Hits: 1,955 hits in August, the first full month of posts.
129 hits in July.
Note, at the beginning of August/end of July, I had 30 hits on the “hot” days, 10 on the rest, and a couple with 1-2, from August 6th or so, I’ve had a minimum of 30 hits per day, and from August 13th, almost all days had over 50 hits per day. I aimed at 500-600 hits total, for the month.

Comments: 154 comments in August (including my own).
6 comments in July.

Notable Referers: Note, if your site linked through numerous sites, I can’t see it, can only see the top 40 individual pages who referred. Also, counts some early September data.
Wordpress news (I made the fifth comment, mostly “bounces”, one time-visitors): 300.
Animenano: 166.
Gunstray: 28.
Taikutsu Remedy (Snark’s site): 28.
(It’s not random that Gunstray and Taikutsu Remedy lead to so many hits here, it’s in their site’s setup.)

Notable posts (doesn’t include posts people read off the blog’s main page):
Figure Friday (1): 151 hits.
[TIL]: Element Hunters: 122 hits.
My Room, July 2009: 116 hits.

One more QUESTION before we continue; would you guys be interested in hearing how one can gain a nice level of activity on one’s blog without too much effort (1.5-2k hits a month)? Or do you think you’re all there and it’s superflous?

And now, after the “read more” tag, a description of all the last couple of months’ entries. Please check to see if there are entries you’ve missed which you would’ve enjoyed reading. Thank you.

[TIL] Mai-HiME – My Princess, Focus thy Attention [Long]

Mai-HiME is an anime which I love. Many people don’t love it as much as I do, and I will try to remedy this situation here, somewhat, and will hopefully help you guys love this series as much as I do.

Left to right: Mikoto, Mai, Natsuki

This post will have major spoilers, so the rest of it is behind the tag. This is a series that plays on emotions. That’s what you need to remember.

Nendoroid Review: Yoko Littner/Rittona

This will be a review, of sorts, of my first anime/manga figure that is not a trading figure (Ganshapon). This will also be my first Nendoroid figure review, naturally. Yoko Littner(or “Rittona”) from Gurren Lagann, which I covered here last post.

Yoko's box

[TIL] Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; Definitive Shonen

Spoilers ahead.

Gurren Lagann, which is actually called “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”, is an embodiment of the shonen genre, in anime form.

Shonen series are series aimed at boys, many of them are combat/adventure heavy, series such as Bleach and Naruto. The protagonists are usually teens, who overcome their enemies, and like in Poke’Mon‘s 5th episode (I have one heck of a memory, I know), the protagonist often loses, and then through sheer guts and determination (bloody-cussedness) trains or just comes back and wins.

In Naruto Shippuuden, there’s a bit of a ridiculous moment where Team Guy faces their clones, they get kicked, and then win just because they decide to be stronger than they were yesterday… rather than just switch who they’re fighting or try new techniques. It was a serious “WTF?!” moment to me.

In Gurren Lagann, there are actually three phases to the series. It begins with the Kamina and Simon’s home community underground, and then quickly goes on war. They wage a war on the beast-men and their mecha who keep them down (both underground and stopping them from reproducing). They fight and fight and fight, and after episode 8 there’s a slight change in the atmosphere, though the fights continue.

Then in the second half of the series, which many people like less, what was revealed in part at the end of the first half is explored. We find out that beings which can reproduce have something called “Spiral Energy”, and the reason Simon wins is because he wants to win strongly enough, and using his inherent spiral energy, well, he wins.

So the second half of the series is in the future, several years after the first half ends, with our characters leading either quiet lives or leading the new and freed humanity, political machinations, and then they go into space to fight the “Anti-Spirals”. Right now it becomes much more about how the “Will to win” translates into “Winning”. And this to me makes Gurren Lagann not only a series, but commentary on the shonen genre; the “I win because I want it more than you” is given context and reasoning inside the series, and while many think it is flimsy, it is better than it happening without context. In a way, this is a context to all those series.

I loved the series, and would give it 4.5 stars out of 5. I was really surprised at some point, the one where the series switches tone in its first half. I was like, “No way!”, and it was emotional and good.