Guy is Back, Back Again. Guy is Back, Tell a Friend.

I don’t know whether you guys missed me or my writing, but I missed both: Both writing, and engaging more with you lot, and having some form to have longer form anime discussions.

Wait, I seem to have gotten ahead of myself. In case you hadn’t noticed, this blog suddenly grew extremely inactive towards the end of May 2016. Sadly, in case you hadn’t been following my Twitter, or hadn’t noticed, I was basically out of commission due to a chronic illness flaring up around that time. While the last couple of times this blog has gone on hiatus had been due to me getting sucked into video games or just taking a break from anime, this was not such an occasion, and while I kept wanting to both watch anime and blog, I could do very little of either. I actually started and did work on a couple of anime season previews that hadn’t gone up.

7 Years! 1,000,000 Page Views! 1,000 Posts! Milestones Ahoy!

Rome wasn’t built in one day, and neither was this blog. We’ve passed several noteworthy milestones over the past couple of months, so it’s a nice opportunity to take a moment and reflect on the journey this blog and I have gone on over the years, as I highlight them.

First, 1 million page-views was reached late at night on April 29th! It’s taken us a long time to get here, and I thank all of you who’ve read the posts, and took the time to interact with me, and other readers on the blog. I know I haven’t always been the best about responding to comments timely, and have gone on periods of inactivity at times, but thank you for all visitors, past and current. Trolls aside. Nobody likes trolls. Sorry.

An accurate depiction of the blog’s owner by Sephyxer.

Speaking of how long it’s taken to get here, the first post on this blog was made on March 3rd, 2009. That’s just over 7 years ago! It was an early screening review of the Watchmen film. It wasn’t a very good film, let me tell you that. Later that month, I covered the beautifully written Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susannah Clarke, which isn’t perfect, but is quite good. As you can see, the blog’s start in particular was much more wide-ranged than otaku interests alone, and later down the road I even covered a geeky bootleg shirt!

Goggles, not Labels – Feminism and Good Writing in [Anime]

The following questions were taken from my Ask.fm page, and in both of them the question is posed in a way that seeks to apply a certain label to anime, and I answer that it’s hard, and not all that fruitful. The reasons in each case are different, but I think both answers work well together as an exhortation to look at how we look at things, and to identify that as more important than the result itself.

Which anime works would you consider feminist?

I’ve seen some good tweets on the matter last week, let’s start with those:

The long and short of it is that, often, answering such questions (and also, “What’s a libertarian work?” or “What’s a socialist work?” when dealing beyond outright manifestos) means something sort of weird, because all these things are ideological goggles to view other things throughout, rather than labels that apply to things per se. Even “Libertianism” which I said Mahouka espouses the ideals of. It’s mostly that these works contain some of the things these things aim for, or the ideas they use as basis.

12 Days of Anime – Moment #12 – Connecting to the World via Durarara!! / “I am Not a Violent Man.”

For those of you who don’t know, the 12 days of anime is an event anibloggers engage in, where they relate 12 moments that are related to anime from the past year – moments which made them smile or angered them, from current shows or older, moments where they went to conventions, made dramatic poses, sung the Poke’Mon song at work, etc. Though I don’t celebrate Christmas, I’ve decided to join once more this year. You can read all the of the category’s posts (including last year’s) here. This year I dropped the ball on getting reddit participation, so you’ll have to do with me.

That’s how Durarara!! makes me feel, which makes it worth noting for that fact alone.

My so-called 12th moment isn’t actually my least favourite, but the one I came back to the most times during the year. I’ve watched Durarara!! back in March. I’m fond of revisiting moments in media I enjoy, especially in the couple of months after I finish it – a favourite half episode, a favourite 20-40 pages sequence of a book, etc. But every so often there comes a work where “revisiting moments” from it quickly turns into revisiting the entire series. It’s happened to me with series such as Code Geass, and with books such as Stephen King’s The Drawing of the Three (2nd book in The Dark Tower series), but it’s happened to me even more with Durarara!!

Getting Back Into Gear – Blog/Anime Plans for December/January.

So, each time my blog had gone inactive, the cause had always been the same – video games. No, not GamerGate or any such nonsense, but me just playing them, a lot. First Starcraft 2 and League of Legends, and now Diablo 3. But I’m going to do my best to balance more than one hobby at once, so while this season (and it turned out to be around one season) is basically “lost”, in terms of blogging from me, I plan to get back into gear from this month.

I’m currently up to date on the following airing cartoons: Sword Art Online II, Akame ga Kill!, Shirobako, The Legend of Korra Book 4: Balance, Parasyte: The Maxim (Kiseiju), Log Horizon 2nd season, Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, and Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. That’s actually 8 series, which is around how many I often end seasons with. So it’s not that bad, even if two of these weren’t shows I intended to watch originally, and this season is apparently filled with great series (I really need to watch Mushishi and Kimi no Uso, at the very least).

So, where do we go from here?

Media and Social Commentary – The Shows and the Fans

The following two answers had been given on ask.fm. I sometimes answer questions off of the blog and I think they’d make for good pieces. Specifically here, as following my almost infamous piece on how Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei is an “Ode to Meritocracy” I was asked or accused of condemning fans of the show for liking it. So I think this answer will be useful. The second question looks at a specific example of a show and whether it has subtext, and what it means if it does.

Do you think that, when making an evaluation of a piece of media, you are also (at least in part) making some statement about those people who enjoy that piece of media? e.g. thinking that Mahouka promotes a toxic message – does that mean you made a negative evaluation of it’s fans, on some level? Maybe sometimes somewhat?

Look. We are what we consume. Sometimes we realize what it is and ignore it. Sometimes we realize what it is and embrace it. Sometimes we don’t realize what it is and we’re affected to varying degrees.

Liebster Award Round 1: Otaku Lounge.

This is a blog, and while most of the entries aren’t centered around myself, I think getting to know some trivial bits and pieces about my life couldn’t hurt, and it could even be fun, heaven forbid ;-)

Anyway, Liebster Award is one granted by bloggers to other blogs whom they think deserve more attention. I thank Artemis who nominated me here, back on December 17th (how time flies. I now see a post I promised to reply to within a week is a month old in a couple of days!). Artemis’ blog, The Otaku Lounge, is interesting, well-written, and worth your time. Aside from answering questions, I’m not going to actually nominate more blogs, because they’ve all been nominated and I dislike nominating people. Ho.

1. When did you first start blogging, and do you realistically see yourself still blogging in, say, 10 years from now?

14th March, 2002, back on LiveJournal, a personal blog, some prose, some micro-fiction, RPG related thoughts, etc.

Will I blog in 10 years? I’ve had 4 blogs, about 4 very different topics, but I do tend to not blog when I get busy, and I prefer chaining my interests. I’ll probably write, in some form. When I was heavily into league, I wrote some thoughtful posts on the league forum, when I played a miniature wargame I had a stickied post on the official forum where I wrote strategy guides and different ways to /think/ as you played the game.

So maybe I won’t “blog”, but I’ll probably still write masses, of some form, in some manner.

12 Days of Anime – Moment #12 and Introduction – Getting Back on the Saddle

For those of you who don’t know, the 12 days of anime is an event anibloggers engage in, where they relate 12 moments that are related to anime from the past year – moments which made them smile or angered them, from current shows or older, moments where they went to conventions, made dramatic poses, sung the Poke’Mon song at work, etc. Though I don’t celebrate Christmas, I’ve decided to join in this year. Aside from my moments, I will also share moments provided by people on reddit, to whom I am thankful.

…but without the free time, it’s more like hell.

Well, my #12 moment? It’s only proper to start in the beginning – resurrecting this blog from its three-years’ slumber. On April 1st I’ve declared the blog is coming back to life, and a few days later I’ve made one of the entries I’m still more pleased with, my editorial-review about Sword Art Online, where I discuss falling in love with a show and its characters, and perhaps describe the process of infatuation in general.

Editorial Grab-bag: Birthday, Blog-facelift, Episodic Posts, more

Well, I’ve got quite a few things I want to talk about, and not a lot of time, so let us begin.

First, today is my birthday. Go me, survived another year :3 – For those of you who wonder, I’m 28 years old now. Plans for my birthday? I’ll go to a restaurant with my family next weekend, watch a movie with friends next weekend, meet with my grandparents some weekend. I’m busy this weekend with Aristotle, so no fun allowed! I did buy myself a thing or two on Black Friday sales online though.

Visiting Google, I was surprised seeing a personalized message.

This blog is nearly 5 years old now, and it was time for another face-lift. In order to make the blog’s content easier to read (and that is what this blog is all about, after all), I chose a slightly wider theme, with a more legible font, spacing, etc.  I modified the theme further with some CSS-changes to eliminate some warts related to images and links.
The blog-header is the same header I’ve used two themes ago (see this post about its creation).The header had to be created anew since the old resolution looked appalling when stretched; Neontaster helped me with adding shadow to the letters. In case you wonder, the image used is of roleplaying game books I own, that shelf looked like that back in June 2006. You don’t want to know what it looks like right now.
What do you guys think, do you like the new theme? Do you like the old-new header?

Anime-Thon Wrap-up, Midseason Posts, Blogging.

Well, my attempt at watching 54-ish episodes last week didn’t really pan out. I managed 31. I also managed to watch about 4 episodes of shows not related to that “project”. I sort of burnt out. I managed to cover the shows I’ve already been watching, I’ve managed to clear Blood Lad, Free! and Gin no Saji early in the week – but then, I didn’t actually manage to cover the shows I cared for such as Monogatari 2nd season, Day Break Illusion and Fate/Kaleid Prisma Liner Illya.

You know how having deadlines is supposed to motivate you, except when you feel crushed under them? I ran head-straight into the moe-bland brigade of Servant x Service, Kiniro Mosaic and Love Lab (Hnnnnnnnggg!) I probably should have started with the stuff I care for, it’s the stuff I care for after all, right?
It’s just that I stared at my anime-library, saw these episodes, including ones I wanted to watch, and just didn’t feel like watching them.

Now, a weaker and less introspective person might blame themselves for their weak will or trying to bite off more than they can chew, but being the ever-perspicacious (gotta love words that cover the feeling of alliteration within just one word!) person that I am, I am going to blame the lot of you readers (or rather, the seeming lack of readers), for the lack of moral support as I stopped halfway down to diabetes in hell moe-moe land.

Well, this week will see me posting 4 “Mid-season impression posts”, this week being the next 7 days. I’ll sort them by the days of the week in which the anime gets released, with the first half of the week requiring a grouping and Friday-Sunday each getting their own entry. This also means I still have time to catch up on the shows I want to cover, but this time I’ll only try it with those I care for…

As for blogging in general, I decided to post between 1 and 3 entries a week, or if I’m really working hard on a long entry then there might be a week without an entry. I’ve decided to take the time and write the entries I wanted.

The early schedule had proved useful in getting me back to writing and engaging with the anime world, but now that I’ve got it covered I think I can just blog as I write, but still trying to make sure I blog consistently. I might drop a bit in activity until September, but then I expect to pick up steam and clear my post backlog.