a blogger called Jaalin confessed his confusion. He links to other people.

But the thing is.

I am Jason Mraz. [here's my entire life story condensed into a single image, since it's basically worth over nine thousand words]

I have a huge fetish for K-ON. I even tried to write down a lot of the music. Well, the music kind of sucked, but it has a lot of moe, so you can see why I like it.

I wanted to incorporate the sounds of K-ON in my new single to try and bring out a new evolution in western indie music! That would be a lot of fun, right? While the music in K-ON sucks, my music is good, so it balances out. Not only that, but the strange asian music that thinks that it is western brings an exotic blend to my music. I wish to share to all of you otakus my new music that blends east and west, better and less better, my music, and K-ON’s music.

Future otou-san ghost had much to say about the paucity of testosterone in our much loved Hatsukoi Limited.

1. subjects and objects

Ghost writes that “[a] single alpha male would absolutely unbalance the force of haremette attraction at work here,” due to the structural influence of the genre at hand. But what piqued my interest were his thoughts on Dobashi. He writes:

In episode 7 Dobashi the tennis varsity player gets her moment in the sun, which should have been quite entertaining for me. Like the other alpha females, she is pursued by an omega male. Through her work and attention he gets stronger at tennis and gets a shot at going out with her. (my emphasis)

The significant part is the clause “she is pursued…” Ghost indicates (as does the anime) that Dobashi is the object of omega-kun’s (what was his name again?) pursuance.

Moreover, Dobashi is not the subject of the episode. The subject/object dichotomy (S/O) is very important here due to two reasons: (1) HatsukoiLTD’s narrative structure – as opposed to the internal narratives of each character – is decentralized, fragmented, it’s an “ensemble” show (I forget who said that) and; (2) shipping and love polygons are the focus of the show. To note, the “narrator” is, generally, the one who has soliloquies.

The S/O, then, is crucial because (1) a fragmented narrative structure is oriented towards weaving together the storylines of individual characters, and this emphasis on the trajectories of characters necessitates their subjectification or objectification because; (2) love requires a subject and object, a lover and a loved. While you could argue that love is about an egalitarian relationship and not a subject/object relationship, shipping, unrequited love and fantasy love are all about one-sided affairs, unequal relationships/feelings and clearly marked subjects and objects of love and lust.

2. polygons

Dobashi has an interesting role, she has the “different” one in relation to the other girls. This is based on the assumption that the anime is focused on girls (if publicity art says anything), and that girls are the subjects of love, not necessarily objects. When interpreting the “role” of the character, the criteria contains two values: (1) who is the narrator? And (2) who is the subject?

For instance, Enomoto is disproportionately the narrator, though her relationship with Kusuda is, so to speak, explicitly implicit. But I’m sure we can guess how it will end. The Enomoto/Kusuda relationship is largely mutually exclusive, meaning that they or their story doesn’t really overlap into others (i.e. I’ll talk about Yamamoto below). If you take a look at the final remark of each episode, where we hear an internal line or two of a character, usually such internal line is used to identify the narrator of the episode. However, during the Enomoto/Kusuda Christmas episode, there is no internal remark at the end. Instead, it ends on the verbal, coquettish exchange “old woman face,” “kappa face.”

Yamamoto is disproportionately the narrator but more of the object of love than a subject.

Koyoi is disproportionately the narrator and the subject of love towards her brother.

When Ayumi is the subject of love towards Mamoru she is the narrator. However, she is frequently the object of Misao’s narration and love.

When Bessho Yoshihiko is the object of Koyoi’s love, he is not the narrator. However, he is frequently the narrator when Yamamoto is the object of his love. But this relationship was upset in ep. 8 when Yamamoto was the narrator and subject of her love towards Arihara, thus moving Yoshihiko into more of an object position.

3. Dobashi

Dobashi and omega-kun have, thus far, a mutually exclusive relationship similar to Enomoto/Kusuda’s. The difference is that Dobashi isn’t the narrator and is omega-kun’s object of love. While each episode has a final internal remark that indicates the narrator, Dobashi is the one to deliver this internal line. This conflicts with her objectivity. I’d guess that her reticence – she’s not a full-blown silent girl archetype – is the other critical factor which thus forges a complex intersection between narrator, subject/object, and archetype. In other words, Dobashi’s position as a girl (which is absolutely central in HatsukoiLTD) and archetypal role as The Reticent One mitigate her objectivity of omega-kun’s narrated love. The innate structures of HatsukoiLTD allow Dobashi to be an object that is narrated upon inasmuch as her complementing features of reticent main female cast member mitigate that very objectivity. Dobashi, as a member of the main cast, must be central to the anime via the intersection we have discussed, lest her role end up contradicting the anime’s stylistic focus on girls.

You should listen to the song while reading the following textual pornography. It is very raunchy.

[ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THAT THERE IS DELICIOUS YAOIRABU]

And so do you know what we have learned about this?

In His name. Let us observe. Omo has spelled his name as such, to the dismay of the god of symmetry, and this is why the world is in such a bleak state; Zaitcev isn’t our ambassador to Mother Russia, Hinano hasn’t divorced JP yet, Owen still lives in a third world country, Pontifus still denies that his English degree is worthless, Von Schilling is actually Kristen of Chihiro, icystorm still hasn’t recovered from his latest moefluenza (he’s auu~ing on my lap now), digiboy is still a creep, lolikit hasn’t descended from the heavens, and so forth and so on.

BUT.

As per the magnificence of our lolikitean cryptology, we have just become conscious of the cipher for the omoite cryptology. It was so obvious!

And we were so blind.

Omo, his utter genius blinds us, and do you know why? Many American Liberals who think they are smart will try and point out ironies of Christianity, but they are wrong because the bible does not lie. And other than that, Omo has shown that a world of despair is necessary, because if Omo were to unleash the maximum potential of his brain, the world would explode. That’s right – we need despair, unless we are to perish under the holiness of pure orgasm.

The Lord Omo hath shown the path, that the world is actually in a default state of orgasm. We need despair to curtail this orgasm. The orgasm would have killed us long ago if it were not for the despair Omo has disseminated across the globe. The poor cretin, Owen, he knows not that of which he speaks.

But here, I will reveal the truth. I pray that you will not orgasm unto death.

THE REAL WORD:

omo

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?

LOOK CLOSELY:

omo omo

omo

omo

There is symmetry.

A special symmetry.

A godly symmetry.

This is the true union of humanity.

I started aniblogging roughly a year ago, my first post was April 29, 2008. So let me provide a rough sketch of events that make up a year’s worth of internet history.

Part 1 – Genesis

c. April 20, 2008: started stalking Animanachronism via his MAL, read Colonial Code Geas and Narnian Nerve Gas, this is the gateway blog/post/blogger, so I am indebted to all this (don’t forget about MAL!).

c. April 22, 2008: created blog on wordpress, it sits there for a while.

c. April 23, 2008: discovered anime otaku, begin archive binge, Mike will later turn out to be first of many good online friends.

April 29, 2008: wrote first post on Takemoto [original is lost in the aether].

May 1, 2008: Mike wrote a lunar new year post considering my first post, providing good publicity. I discover the names Baka-Raptor and lolikitsune.

c. May 5, 2008: started conversing with itsubun, she drags me into IRC. Humorously, when on IRC, a fellow called “saturnine” says “hi lelangir”, and as I recall, I ignored him a few times. I had not heard good things about this “saturnine” guy. He was an entity to be avoided.

May 19, 2008: in response to massive lolikitxowen dorama, the first overly-sexual comic-parody based on Kure-nai is made.

May 20, 2008: hilarious dorama at heterochromia, an equally lol-post is written in response, but, most importantly, my post is linked to THAT by Impz, creating big traffic for the day and more publicity.

c. May 25, 2008: the sphere collectively discussed microblogging, stemming perhaps from Bateszi’s creation of Afterimage (3/7/08). I start to use MAL blog and tumblr as primary retreats for microblogging, a starting point in theorizing about the internet.

June 4, 2008: wrote post in response to itsubun’s feminist round robin, I mean, all-girls-round-robin (AGRR), though this merely indicates itsubun’s influence of inter-blog collaboration and a basis for future thoughts on collaboration.

Part 2 – dasaku

June 29, 2008: moved to dasaku, you may remember:

c. July 15, 2008: deleted original wordpress archives, the formulation of nomadic blogging spree.

c. mid-July 2008: begin watching LoGH (life is forever changed).

July 25, 2008: final post on “lelangiric” iteration of dasaku hosting.

Part 3 – Wandering

July 26, 2008: first post at THAT.

July 27, 2008: guest post at Minimum Tempo.

July 28, 2008: first post at superfani.

August 1, 2008: first post at cal’intents.

August 3, 2008: first post at Yukan.

c. August, 2008: re-create “lelangiric” centralized archives, which are pre-50, post #50 being the first at THAT.

Part 4 – metatheory and google

November 11, 2008: create LoGH blog, first post there.

November 20, 2008: write first “on blogging” post, the start of many changes.

November 26, 2008: “optimize your reading” cross-posted, the glory of google reader shared items is discovered.

November 28, 2008: first post at fallen aizen.

c. late November: registered for twitter.

Part 5 – anitations, metatheory put into practice

December 8, 2008: first anitations post.

c. December 15, 2008: started to do collected notes on episodic posts at anitations as well as CCY’s 12 days of Christmas. The 2.0-ish role of collating is new.

c. Christmas 2008: round-robin-ish dialogue on Kannagi is churned out, teamwork effort is decidedly a failure.

c. January 2009: various dialogues with Crusader, lolikit, digiboy, etc., towards dialogue as a new style of content.

January 8, 2009: last post of the 5-part meta series, inarguably the most educational experience.

Part 6 – NAO

March 1, 2009: music blog instated.

March 17, 2009: ani-blog-music feed started.

March 29, 2009: podcast with calaggie.

c. April 2009: ０（笑）「２．７１」んのちんちんを食べました！オイシでした！

in perspective

- As of today, the secret-google-society has risen in ranks to at least 18 people.

- I haven’t written a decent post since April 7^th. Twitter is to blame.

- My main contributions to meaningful discourse are comprised mostly of spamming my poor google reader friends with K-ON MADs and/or commenting on other’s shared items with raucous and irate LOLOLOLOL or wwwwwwwwwwing. I rule.

- わーーーーーーーい！LELANGIR BANZAI. PROSIT。

[←122] Kaioshin:

Is it because Saki gets right into the whole Mahjong affair while K-On lingers until the very end of the episode? I’m not quite sure what it is specifically, but it’s probably a combination of the above and the fact that I find the Mahjong fair presented to me in Saki’s opener fair more sophisticated and to my tastes…then K-Ons light music which barely got approached in the first episode.

Yes, that’s very true. K-ON tried all too hastily to give us a full-blown exposition in the space of an episode. You can lay out a relative, reapplicable sequence of events:

1. Existence of the subject (music club) is made known (Ritsu confronts Mio)
2. Existence of subject is problematized (not enough people)
3. The problem is slightly remedied (Mugi joins)
4. Full remedy of the situation requires another Event (Yui needs to join)
5. The subject is unproblematized (music club is up)
*6. Problematic secondary subjects arise (Yui needs a guitar and she can’t play guitar)

Of course, each of these bullets is a process in itself. *6 is important because it’s the cliffhanger, it’s the event that establishes continuity between the first and second episode.

The part I didn’t like most was #3, when Mugi joins. She originally wants to join the choir club, but is very easily converted into the light music club. Obviously this was a directive to speed up the exposition, but it was contrived and felt very forced. Mugi’s passive archetype only corroborates this.

What I did like about this episode were the two parallel narratives. I listed the chronology of Ritsu/Mio/Mugi, but Yui’s is different:

1. Subject made known (Yui herself as a first year student via opening ceremony)
*2. Subject is problematized (can’t find a club)
3. The problem is addressed (Yui contacts the light music club)
4. The subject is slightly unproblematized (she joins but needs guitar and can’t play)

*2 is when the two narratives meet, which is fairly well into the episode. Yet the viewers always know the irony between the two narratives.

Saki’s timeline

1. The subject (Saki) is established
2. The site of the subject (mahjong club) is established
3. The subject’s problem is revealed (Saki hates mahjong)
4. The subject’s problem is addressed (but she says it’s different than playing it with her family)
5. The site is developed (SUPERHUMAN LUCK)

The key difference in expositional technique is that K-ON has to establish the premise, problematize that very premise, then resolve it within a single episode, and all that is just the exposition. Saki, on the other hand, uses character revealing to set up continuity to future episodes but focuses on the development of the site (mahjong game progressing). It’s also significant that a “passive third person” (student congress president) narrates the development of the site – I doubt she’ll receive any character development – to frame Saki’s narrative in perspective, rather than face-to-face as it is in K-ON.

But let’s be clear.

light music club > mahjong club
moe blobs > orthodox fan service

(屮゜Д゜)屮

Most of us enjoy a bit of music, or rather, anime music. Though the fact may be apparent: the animusic community is not that large. Yet, more importantly, the animusic community is not solidified by any driving force(s). The aniblogosphere has nano, antennae, and just a generalized perception that it’s there. I do not think animusic has this.

So in an effort to solidify the community, this is just a request to bloggers that have, at one point or another, blogged about their love for animusic, which contains other related topics like seiyuu, j-pop, sheet music, and so forth – post your music feeds! If you have a wordpress blog this is easy, just go to your front page, click on your “music” category (or whatever it’s named), and click on the feed button in the address bar. You should get several options, the bottom one indicating the feed for the specific category.

For bloggers that host their own blogs, this might be readily available (not like I know how to implement this anyway), but Pipes temporally resolves the problem. I’m sure bloggers that hosting know how to use it…

Here is the google reader public aggregate feed I’m constructing. It is lonely! Only 11 feeds, need moar plz.

[for some reason, trying to put nano's feed into Pipes won't work]

Philosophy of adaption

Well, I think Kyoani and its creative minds were surely in a syncretic state – they had to balance viewer satisfaction with satisfying their own artistic minds. They had to balance – what Cuchlann and I fight about – the meaningless of art and the superimposed politics of art, entertainment. [This would probably apply to everyone who's ever had to publish something.]

So then let us say, “to excise, or not to excise, that is the question.” In order to provide the viewer with a narrative that avoids resets Kyoani would have needed to remove arcs, ends, and possibly rewrite some material. Yet they decided to include all the original material in the adaptation. The relationship between these two choices – that of “chastity” or “adulteration” – is not hierarchical. This is not a political question, it is a philosophical question¹, and as such, the significance is not in the result of the deed (higher or lower viewer ratings, more or less money) but in the inseparable morality of the deed itself – the two are merely artistic choices devoid of any intrinsic meaning, therefore, both having no meaning, they are equal to one another.

So for some reason I don’t like bringing up talk about the VN and aspects of adapting material. Yeah, Clannad is an adaptation, yeah, aspects of linearity fail sometimes, that’s inevitable. I’ve been working under the presumption that it is literally impossible to encapsulate the aspect of VN replayability in anime, therefore it’s rather silly to compare an anime to something it is intrinsically incapable of doing because, remember, we’re operating under the philosophy that, basically, the means justify the ends (not a typo). Even if you were to reverse the position, say that Kyoani alters source material, rewrites a few endings, there would still be things that version would be intrinsically incapable of doing, like providing those very reset ends you removed and so forth. [hear hear!]

Psychology of time

Valsiner (2005) writes that

[t]he co-existence of different bases for time measurement in human cultural practices reflects the historical complexity of measuring time. Efforts have been made to turn time into reversible units, similar to measures of length, weight etc. These static depictions of time can be seen as examples of “reversible time”. Surely such units are convenient cognitive illusions, yet they have their practical utility. Thanks to that, continuous events can be turned discrete (for example, there can be specifiable “end points” to experiences such as sitting in a lecture hall…). By trying to measure time, the duration notion is lost and time becomes represented in ways similar to space. Practical needs for social organization of life activities in societies guide the thinking of persons about time in the direction of overlooking the irreversibility of the duration.

In sum – time is irreversible as it flows, intricately linked with our experiencing our relations with our worlds. As a result of human cultural history, we have attempted to describe it in terms of stable units, which have served practical purposes. For the understanding of development, units of time that are used in science need to retain some features of irreversibility.

The take-away message is that in our viewing of Clannad (or any sort of time travel) we have to separate psychological time from narrative time.

fig1

[There are some epistemological nuances here - the narrative as a whole doesn't "regress" because the progression of the narrative is tantamount to a developing human psychology within irreversible time, but the narrative does indeed return to events that happened within a past that was established within the framework of relative events of the holistic narrative.]

Previously, Pontifus had written:

I’m having a hard time convincing myself that Clannad is tragic at all, ultimately, when all its tragedy is erased by magic.

But this is a reductive view which equates constant psychological time with narrative time. If we were to say truly that specific events onto which we have attached personal meaning were erased it be tantamount to memory loss of the viewer. Thus we can expand our graph:

fig2

Here, because excel sucks for 3-axis graphs, psychological time = ∆0 because it is always constant. For every instance of psychological time we establish a narrative event, that ratio is 1:1. But narrative events can regress, so even in a ∆0 of psychological time there can be a +/-∆x narrative time. Finally, emotion is always situated in irreversible time (psychologies cannot transverse time) and thus, for the sake of this study², we can set up some syllogisms:

∆emotion = ∆0psychological time
∆narrative time = ∆0psychological time
+/-∆emotion ≠ +/-∆narrative time

A change in emotion equals no change in constant psychological time.
A change in narrative time equals no change in constant psychological time.
A +/- change in emotion does not always equal a +/- change in narrative time.

Figure 2 is a hypothetical calculation of Pontifus’ psychology of Clannad. His psychological time is constant, yet as narrative time regresses his emotional level drops drastically. This is because, as he stated, “tragedy is erased”, which is just to say that narrative time regressed within a constant psychological time. But, as opposed to an Aristotelian notion of tragedy as an end product, it is clear that even a regression in emotion is a process that cannot disregard one’s history.

Even Nazarielle said:

…after what happened, it’s hard for me not to think that they were just trying to hit us as hard as they could, knowing that they could later reverse the sadness and make us all happy at the end. In hindsight, I can’t help but feel that it’s all rather artificial or fabricated. [emphasis added]

But for Nazarielle to explain his discontent, he must first explain the process by which this discontent arose. The process of emotion-building is invaluable because irrespective of what these emotions entail, they are always the basis for a developing psychology. And to explain more fully the process model within this developmental psychology, a fourth data series is need: reflexivity.

fig3

For someone like Pontifus or Nazarielle, or nearly everyone in the ’sphere, reflexivity is crucial – it’s writing, blogging. If there is one thing that is not altered by emotion in irreversible time nor narrative time it is reflexivity – it is cumulative, you cannot erase it (unless you perform a frontal lobotomy or something).³

notes

“You are both extremely excellent students. Your grades and living habits are flawless. Eventually, you’ll both become capable people who will heighten this school’s reputation even more. I look forward to it.”

Theory

It’s a trope of anime to portray high school administration as cold, aloof and mechanically bent on setting students on “the right track”. With typical recourse to half-gendo-glasses Kare Kano paints this one Kawashima-sensei’s administrative functionality as a suppressor of love, love being the general premise of the show. Others have noted that Kare Kano stands out because it subverts the cliché that all overachieving class representatives are prickly assholes lacking terribly in empathy and invigorating youthfulness! I do enjoy the show in this respect – it provides a fresher, deeper perspective into the (more or less) “complicated” psychologies of high school students and their particular personal histories.

What Kare Kano seems to be indicate of, however, is a certain mentality of the role of the student. The role of the student is to study, to achieve, to perform up to the discursive status quo of your socioeconomic class, race, gender, age, ability, and so forth. This the show addresses clearly. Miyazawa and Arima challenge the administration, stating that they have the ability, the agency, to subvert the institutionalized, coercive norm that has established irreconcilability between academic and nonacademic life; apparently, they can do both.

In one sense, Kare Kano misses the larger picture because our protagonist duet uses their agency not to combat the hegemonic ideology of the student, but, on the contrary, to reinforce it by raising the standards to which students deemed as “excellent” (see opening quote) must meet. Now, not only must you conform to the overly-rigorous academic standards in order to fit into the ideology of the exemplary student, but your social life must be teeming with youthfulness. Briefly, yet in more complicated terms, this is when hegemony appropriates counter-hegemony (when does fighting the system actually hurt us more than them?)

So, on the one hand, perhaps you could say that Miyazawa and Arima did an excellent job of using their agency to fight the suppressive ideology of the student by making visible the fullness of their identity – they’re not merely “students”, but individuals as well. And on the other hand, you could say that the two only made the ideology of the student that much worse.

This is the larger mentality which the show is indicative of – the intent not to rewrite the boundaries of discipline but merely to contract them. Kare Kano is so very acutely aware of the larger discourse in which it is involuntarily situated because it does not bring the ideology of the student fully out of the dark. Why? – because Kawashima-sensei’s consequentialist rhetoric (nonetheless pertinent) on “the future” and “your goals” is, incidentally or otherwise, a diversionary tactic which curtains the hegemony of educational institutions by placing blame on students instead of the institution. Thus, the more leftist answer is educational reform – install “critical pedagogy” (please, don’t get me started -_-’) in order for “students” to become more than mere “students”, those passive receptacles for academic knowledge which instill in youth this problematic ideology of institutionalized identity.

Practice

So, where’s the practicability of all this, you ask? For the most part, I can only extrapolate and provide some basic data:

(source)

Nor does this graph alone say anything, but let’s pretend that near 100% of the age group 15-24 is comprised of students. It’s also important because, apparently, Japanese high school freshman are 15 upon entering, and through a series of convoluted causalities would explain the huge jump in suicide.

Given, these are statistics from 1992. Kare Kano, the manga, was published in 1995, the anime was produced in 1998. There’s really no reason for me to try and get all “scientific” based on such deplorable evidence (alas, my tongue is not of the runes!), so I’ll just say that an overly-intense Japanese work ethic is the cause for a number of youth suicides every year. One way to prevent suicide is to, well, make school a bit less suicide-inducing for Japanese students. Recently, the Japanese government initiated a counter-suicide white paper to reduce suicide by 20% within a decade. The referred to article states:

“The White Paper exposes the traditional approach in Japan of ignoring the issue altogether and presses for the kind of basic research into causes that is standard in most developed nations.”

This alleged “ignoring [of] the issue altogether” seems highly reminiscent of the anime we were just discussing – how Miyazawa and Arima merely try to prove themselves worthy of the institution’s status quo instead of trying to change the institution and its coercive status quo. That could count, if not as “ignoring the issue altogether”, then “ignoring one significant cause of the issue.”[1]

Ethics

RELEVANT!

Kawashima-sensei is surely not a pernicious conservative whose aim it is to destroy the lives on his liberal students. Perhaps I’ve portrayed him that way, but I’m certain that he has his own ideology and personal history. He’s probably from the war era, when times were tough, when, perhaps, love was secondary to financial security – love is indeed a sociopsychological privilege (more like burden?) of those affluent enough not to be worried about how many children it will take to farm your fields when you’re not able to anymore. So Kawashima-sensei’s “consequentialist rhetoric” is very important – unless you change the very structure of the global economy, you should indeed be concerned over the future of your financial security. Here is the main ethical concern of discourse (or as some scholars like to floridly call it, semiotic demand setting): should we be concerned with the immediate or the long-term? How do we reconcile the two? By directing discourse towards the suppressive features of Japanese pedagogy we then label the positive aspects of such pedagogy as “diversionary tactics”. On the flipside, ignoring your financial future in favor of high school rabu rabu could indeed ruin the rest of your life (possibly leading to suicide!). Whatever the most pragmatic answer is, I think the first step (and in related scenarios) is to be aware of the extent of the situation and all its possibilities of development. The first step, at least for me, is political consciousness.

Back to the damn anime

Does Kare Kano directly address most of the aforementioned stuff? No (nor any other anime I’ve seen). The anime is a love story about two high school students overcoming obstacles that impede their love, it’s not about complex social theory. I don’t think the anime sympathizes with Kawashima-sensei as I have. That makes the anime that much more shallow – it’s an empathy based on cliché binaries of good and bad. The anime does not present complex and problematic ethical questions, but merely an easy way for the viewer to relate to the typified struggle of high school romance. Finally, this is not to say that all I have just excreted is false – cultural texts are always situated, involuntarily or otherwise, in political and ideological terrains. Blah blah blah, watch the show, it’s enjoyable!

Here’s my attempt at irony: a recently-established blog that somehow tries to draw attention to other blogs. Heh. Actually the reason I’m posting the links here is that I’ve started to find I’ve been moving more and more feeds on my feedreader into the wittily-titled Hiatus Disease folder; a feeling shared by others if this is anything to go by. Fresh meat for your feedreader is important so without coming across as arrogant (I know I rule but that goes without saying, right?) I want to see more posts like this one from the rest of you. Hit me with your Recommendation Stick!

Might as well go all out.

My [entire 493 blog] google reader subscription.

But for those who have any sensibility in their reading habits… [copied haiku format from kabitzin]

Hey Say Anime

:

over 9000
bloggers substitute for the
swift death of yukan

asperger’s anime blog

:

from way down under
a medley of everything
he will pierce your heart

anime kritik:

mein kaiser reinhard
philosophy, philosophy!
hegel faps to this

continuing world:

a /m/an above /m/en
for GAR is insufficient
in describing him

anime instrumentality:

listen to my song!
[wait, seldom are there comments]
uguu~ uguu~ auu~

Same rating criteria too.

Fashion Sense – My personal grading system for the style; whether its original, stylish or just plain weird. [A scale from 1 to 10 where the higher the better]

Styling – The level of difficulty in achieving that intended hairstyle in real life. [Insanely

Difficult/ Difficult/ Normal/ Easy/ Piece of Cake]

Mobility – The level of difficulty in maintaining that hairstyle when moving around in real life. [Insanely Difficult/ Difficult/ Normal/ Easy/ Piece of Cake]

Upkeep – The level of difficulty in keeping the hairstyle the way it in real life. (e.g. whether water ruins the style, the amount of gel, how long the style lasts, upkeep, etc) [Insanely Difficult/ Difficult/ Normal/ Easy/ Piece of cake]

Comments – My personal inputs.

Hairstyle #1

Fashion Sense – 5/10

Styling – Piece of cake.

Mobility – Piece of cake.

Upkeep – Piece of cake.

Comments – A simple cut, looks like a totally average one. Perhaps it’s too average for some of you guys out there though? It’s important to note that his bangs aren’t hyperbolically huge.

Hairstyle #2

Fashion Sense – 9000+/10

Styling – Not For Mortals.

Mobility – Not For Mortals.

Upkeep – Not For Mortals.

Comments – Afro is one stylin’ mutha fuckah. He can probably hide shit in that thing, and he uses it to deceive his opponents into thinking they’ve pierced his skull when really, it’s just his mighty fro…

Hairstyle #3

Fashion Sense – 8/10

Styling – Difficult

Mobility – Difficult

Upkeep – Difficult

Comments – Not like I’ve seen many Asian guys keep up that kind of texture in hair. Seems fairly hard if your hair isn’t that long, but I think the bangs in the eyes would be a pain. (also see Koichi from Kimikiss)

Hairstyle #4

Fashion Sense – 7/10

Styling – Easy

Mobility – Difficult

Upkeep – Normal

Comments – I must admit, Gundam 00 being full of bishies, it’s only reasonable to say that you’re fond of at least one of the guy’s dew. It’d be fairly impossible for an East coast Asian guy to get his hair like that, but I’m not sure about an actual Kurd.

Hairstyle #5

Fashion Sense – 3/10

Styling – Difficult

Mobility -Difficult

Upkeep – Difficult

Comments – I wouldn’t bother with this for more than one reason…

Hairstyle #6

Fashion Sense – 8/10

Styling – Piece of cake

Mobility -Difficult

Upkeep – Piece of cake

Comments – You’d probably think of me as a liar if I said that my hair in real life actually looks like this…only not blonde…and I don’t have bangs. I rarely comb it (oh but knot central…), but I use conditioner, and it end up kinda semi-curly like that. And, Reinhard Does Not Have A Mullet. I think I’ll have to get my hair cut one day…In any case, Reinhard is one dashing Kaiser.

Hairstyle #7

Fashion Sense – 5/10

Styling – Insanely difficult

Mobility – Insanely difficult

Upkeep – Insanely difficult

Comments – Must take either a lot of gel or a lot of days not shampooing to get the back at a 90 degree angle like that. Not likely to be seen in real life – cut your bangs please.

Hairstyle #8

Fashion Sense – 7/10

Styling – Piece of cake

Mobility – Piece of cake

Upkeep – Difficult

Comments – Not that I’ve ever had my head shaved to that extent, but I think keeping it shiny would be hard to maintain. And the goatee, you can’t forget the man’s facial hair, which is a pain if you get a 5 o’clock shadow and need to shave twice a day. Thankfully, like a lot of Asian guys, I have nearly any facial hair so I can by with shaving my less-than-a-mustache once a week; hair on the jaw line….let’s not go there.

Hairstyle #9

Fashion Sense – 5/10

Styling – Piece of cake

Mobility – Piece of cake

Upkeep – Piece of cake

Comments – Poor Ryuuji…found out all that effort into fluffy bangs was in vain. Looks weird in the second picture anyway. Like something out of Happy Days.

Hairstyle #10

Fashion Sense – 9/10

Styling – Difficult

Mobility – Insanely difficult

Upkeep – Difficult

Comments – This is the worst length hair, it’s in the annoying phase when it is always in your face. It can’t be too long or too short…yeah…the worst length, however, it looks good. Dunno how this trap Toboe does it, but…but….but…IT’S CUTE.

←[112] There’s this nice BGM piece we hear, I’m thinking specifically of ep. 15, around 14:27.

I tried to upload my favorite bleedy rhodes patch, but it got royally fluted via conversion, and has degraded into some cheesy as hell synth crap.

AND BEHOLD, A NICE PDF SCORE FOR U.

While Toradora’s composer is Yukari Hashimoto, this piece specifically resonates with a lot of the soft, solo piano OST pieces Yuzo Hayashi did for Honey and Clover, like Dramatic transcribed for piano, which was great.

Actually my favorite part of this piece is probably the first measure. The melody hits that lower f# to harmonize the nice emin9. It’s hard to describe the quality of minor ninth chords. They have a similar “suspended” quality like that of perfect fourths, though the only interval of a fourth is with the fifth, B. Hmmm…

The subtleties of this piece blended in with the scenery too, the high parts, twinkling, a lot like stars would, in a poetic sense. The higher register sounds delicate – it’s when Taiga let’s her shield down, she cries, the viewer is treated to her memories. Ryuuji is there, ubiquitous, the dog? The piece itself is sparse, not busy, not clustered, cold, the scene was too, we suppose, as MoritaRyuuji wraps HaguTaiga in a scarf. Nor is the piece resolved. It ends in an ambiguous arpeggio of fourths and fifths, a lack of finalized thirds to accompany the hazy stars that fade in and out of sight. I guess, for Taiga, tears obstructed their light.

To make the template easier to follow, this time our collaboration has been formatted as a chat.

Crusader: Well while Sei is keeping her hair short and looking rather masculine it seems that Yoko has stayed largely the same. Sadly Eriko was absent, I wonder what became of her and her eccentric target, but perhaps another time, one thing I kind of don’t like is that we never see much of life after Lilllian though I suppose it prevents the cast from getting BIG and HUGE. As for the young mother scaling the wall…well if she was going to do an urban assault she lacked the upper body strength.

lelangir: Yoko’s appearance was interesting. She was kind of this “dominating” maternal figure when she was at Lilia Gakuen, though now she’s, at least in appearance, the quintessential business lady: trousers, blazer, big purse, dress shirt. It does make one ponder, as you said, about life after highschool. Is her change in appearance not really a change in her personality (because we rarely see the girls out of their uniform), or what else does it signify?

Crusader: I wouldn’t call Yoko a business lady it just seems to be casual dress and nothing too formal, besides she just graduated last year unless she has connections she either in college too or at a low tier position. Gotta love how Sei made the aspiring infiltrator squirm. If I had to make a judgment on what their new civie clothes signify it’s that hey have gone into a new world probably the real world in relation to Lillian. The universal use of pants instead of skirts is probably the real significance if you think about it, most women I see these days don’t wear skirts.

lelangir: But…this is Japan. TvTropes tell us that “[e]ven the author admits that the series should best be seen as a fantasy story. None of the girls even use a mobile phone, even though it’s obviously set in the present.” I was getting a strange 90’s vibe from the clothes. Especially when Sachiko got jeans with Yumi. As for skirts, I guess in the American northeast, as it is fairly cold, I never see pleated skirts. Though the Catholic all-girls school as fantasy vis-a-vis “the real world” makes sense.

Crusader: Actually I went to high school near an all girl’s Catholic school, and an all boys school too. Catholic School Girls are really mean spirited and a few are public school rejects. The rotten bastards think otherwise, but they got the money to hide the fact they got kicked out of public school. Rich Bastards. I digress though, still I like this fantasy the reality sucks. Still how did Yoko come to the conclusion that Yuuko Hosakawa looked like some one she knew? Neon green is a rather hideous color though, they stick out but so does a county jail jump suit.

lelangir: They put a lot of emphasis on Yumi’s squirrelish behavior, and it’s partly her “duty” to balance out the other polarized personalities in the Yamayurikai, like the Twin Drills Tsundere, etc. I don’t know how Yoko drew a deeper connection between Yuuko and Yumi though. Any thoughts?

Crusader: None at the moment, though since Yumi is one of those meddling kids I suppose she shares that much in common with Yoko given how Yoko was into meddling in the affairs of others while she was Queen of Lillian. Despite bieng bigger poor Kanako retreated before Touko, I guess there’s just no fighting fate. Poor Yoshino has to hold the fort while Yumi is out and about, though I guess having Yoshino make a funny face was worth it.

lelangir: This episode did a lot more to subtly establish that Touko takes precedence over Kanako. Kanako was reduced to a “sub-plot” within this episode, she was the focus of the filler, while, despite the brief contact Yumi had with Touko, such contact helped develop Touko’s deredere side. I suspect that Kanako’s relation with Yumi only provides for a memetic “journey to find the true self” as Kanako eases up more and more to others.

Crusader: Lord forgive for some vulgar thoughts had crossed my mind when Yumi had two hotdogs on a stick. Kanako, I suppose find her own way, and stand tall on her own, not that she needs to be any taller. Still maybe someday Kanako will end up being tall, dark, and bishoujo. Lack of fullbody shot of Shimako was a tad disappointing. Though if Yoko is to be believed then Yumi might end up banging a coach and drive Sachiko into a jealous rage. Still for Yumi and Yuuko to be similar it’s bit of stretch. Comparatively I was a bit surprise that Kanako beat out Sei in stature.

lelangir: What surprised me most was that this Yuuko-senpai had a child with Kanako’s father. I have no idea how old Yuuko is, but she looks fairly young; young enough to be hailed as “-senpai”. This is the second time we’ve seen a fairly controversial relationship, the first being Eriko’s love for a weirdo paleontologist. It is perhaps also significant that Kanako was comforted by such a small girl, Yuuko is Yumi’s height, so the appearance there would suggest that Kanako’s stature only emphasizes her small confidence and insecurity. She’s more vulnerable.

Crusader: Yeah it seems Kanako’s dad is living the dream. In terms of age gap Yuuko is is at least one year older possibly two or three years older, but still that’s pretty young given how old Kanako’s dad looks. Hey if nothing else at least Kanako has an awesome step mom. For me age isn’t much of an issue, it’s just that Yuuko was his student after all not to mention his daughter’s friend, but hey they’re happy I hope that is what really matters. Still Sachiko was deliciously duplicitous this time with her half truths, way to wind up Kanako.

lelangir: Sachiko’s playful deviousness did indicate quite well how she was keen not to sake things too seriously. She had the insight to make a mess out of things, but I wonder if her perceptiveness will last until she’s able to make sense out of the ensuing Yumi/Touko drama?

Crusader: Also I just realized that Kanako’s dad was crying too. Reunited and it feels so good, indeed. I am all for a yuri three-some, and I doubt Sachiko is unwilling to share Yumi. Sachiko certainly had mellowed out a bit and I think that she understands how Yumi will need to have a souer once she is gone. Yumi can’t be the last to hold the torch. Was it wrong of me to think for a moment that their crying was coming from the bag? In any case some one needs to shop Sachiko from pointing off into the distance, either Objection or Fleet Engagement will do. BTW I have to ask comrade how much did you enjoy Touko with her hair down or are you only in love with the twin drills?

lelangir: I thought that was a wig lol. She looked weird with the long hair, and the old fat mom dress didn’t help. But on another Yumi/Touko note, there was their short exchange concerning gifts: Yumi gives some food tickets to Touko as a gift, but Touko refuses her generosity, saying there’s no need for such a gift, then Yumi retorts by saying that Touko helped the Yamayurikai with the play and that she would go see Touko’s performance later. When Yumi says she’d watch Touko, we get a slight Touko Facial Contortion, coupled with her forgetting about the gift entirely. Touko is soooo tsundere.

Crusader: You wanted more hopes and dreams I take it? Touko won’t last much longer… I love how Sachiko reaffrimed her onee-sama rights before telling Yumi that it was time for her to find a souer. Still next ep looks like Eriko will be making a return and I wonder how her life has turned out.

Omisyth: black
lelangir: blue ←[109]

First thing I noticed was that the OP got kind of a generic pop sound to it. Yeah, I wasn’t fond of it, but the lyrics were significant. It’s very similar to the OP change in Marimite – there’s a line that says something like “embrace the fact that you can laugh honestly and run,” which signifies Natsume’s development from totally scared of Youkai to his more open relationship with them. I tend to ignore lyrics in most shows for fear that the fansubs are wrong or the original meaning is lost in translation, but even when thinking of that I see your point. Yeah, although you see him walking across a bridge and looking back, reminiscing, so that metaphor is definitely relevant. Either that or the creators just wanted a shot of him in repose. He seems a bit more fabulous than I remember. I actually liked the OP, the fact it’s more energetic and bold than the original seems to reflect what you said about his relationship with the Youkai. A great technique they used in the OP was that it was half without Youkai and half with Youkai. It demonstrated how much of a silent presence they are in Natsume’s world, especially with the Youkai creating a ripple on the water’s surface.

This show is all about reciprocity, the giving and receiving of things. This theme spans generations too, which is why all the Youkai confuse Natsume with Reiko. Reiko’s obligation to reciprocate the deeds of the Youkai (giving her their names) is transfered down two generations. But it’s not Reiko’s obligation. We haven’t learned enough about her relationship with the Youkai to get an accurate grasp of why she was taking their names in the first place. Natsume feels that he needs to give back the Youkai’s names to make up for the deeds of his grandmother. I don’t know if they’ll ever really get into Reiko. Nyanko-sensei can transform into her appearance, but they haven’t said anything about that at all. And on another note, I like the metaphor of giving/taking, but a lot of it just seems like a contrived way to “bishify” Natsume and produce lots of melodrama. I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that Natsume’s going to be the sensitive upstanding mediator between the Youkai and the humans, uncompromising in his feelings of protecting each race (most of the time from each other). There are times when the drama just comes off as cheesy, mostly due to the dialogue, like that line where he says “there’s an important reason I need to get that book back”. It seems like they’re just re-stating the same thing over and over with that aspect of the show. That is one reason why (perhaps one of two) that I don’t like this show – it’s redundancy: then again, that is a reason to savor it each time.

One aspect I didn’t like was how conveniently the “high spirits” are beautiful and the lowly ones ugly and grotesque. That’s a common symbol though, it’s in Bleach, with the Espada taking human form, but the less powerful not obtaining that appearance. It’s an easy way to signify personality, virtue and conscience through appearance. That’s for sure, even the lesser spirits who aren’t on the same level as Bishie Angel look more human, and they’re shown to be emotionally deeper than, say, the likes of those rioting Youkais. Though there was that huge ugly one that Madara fought in the first season… Yeah, it’s “the masses” of spirits that are in anime form, some are just ghastly looking too. Those are the ones that, as Natsume said previously, seek the Book of Friends for their own devious ends. The more humanism a Youkai contains, the more “noble” his/her deeds appear to be. We could even look at this as pity for those masses of Youkai, though that may be going too far. Due to their weakness and horrible appearance, what do they have to hope for in their lifetime spanning hundreds of years? A life of solitude and decadence, living on the bottom rung of their society. They must aspire to something, and the Book of Friends seems to be it. Yeah, that’s seems implicit without the show. Ironically, in the first episode of season one we see a semi-ghastly looking Youkai, but her history is revealed, and the melodrama is produced by pity, as you said, for how can such a haggard looking thing be as emotionally refined as a human? – but it’s precisely the dissonance between ugly appearance and beautiful soul which makes the show powerful. It’s no coincidence that the ones that involve the most bishie-fied characters are the least engrossing.

It was interesting to see how easily Natsume fit in with the Youkai, despite his smell. It suggests that the border between human and Youkai is very thin. I think this type of scene just takes the cake. I understand that this is meant to be a disguise, but it’s just a piece of paper. That he can see through. That also seems to partially cover up his smell. Bit too ridiculous for me in this show about transforming cats and magical books. Well for all the other “high” Youkai, the artifacts marking difference to humans is small. There was the super hot Haru Youkai that was a firefly, and she just had a mask. There was some butterfly mask Youkai in this episode too. And the lord, Riou-sama, just had wings. The difference is only skin-deep for all the Youkai, really. They act as many humans would, albeit less civilised than today’s society. They fight for their lord like many people would back in previous eras (perhaps feudal Japan).

And what would you say about Natsume keeping his Youkai-seeing ability a secret? He said that he didn’t want to trouble his foster parents, and I suppose that ties in with the theme of obligations/reciprocity. It once again brings up this image of him as a selfless person. He doesn’t want to stop others from seeing him as a freak (something which comes up a lot with a protagonist having a secret ability), he just doesn’t want to bring down worry upon his foster parents, who evidently love him more than his previous ones. You could see it as a trading of affection and consideration, I guess.

So we’ve reverted back to the classic NYC ED, replete with sexy art and even sexier music. I love how he’s walking in snow, and it actually is winter (in the northern hemisphere), so that’s a little bit of fourth wall there. I’ve always liked the use of sketchy animation; the lack of definition gives everything more of a calm and collected feel, perfect this show and perfect for the music. One thing NYC does excellently – they start playing the ED music before the animation sequence starts. It really makes you keep watching and sit through the ED every time. Kimikiss also did this. I don’t think there are many shows which round off an episode in such a good way as Natsume. There’s always a sense of conclusiveness and satisfaction at the end of each episode(which is crucial for an episodic show), supported by the use of the traditional pan-up camera shot towards the always blue sky.

OMG! A hawt new rival for Sasada’s love?!

“Ne, lelangir-san, lelangir-san~!”

“Nani, eruke?”

“For the awards, do you nominate your favorites or the ‘objective’ best?”

“wut”

Here, lolikit and lelangir take a look around the ’sphere and discuss whom they would nominate for what if the Anime Blog Awards were to take place this instant. We only address those categories we thought would give us things to talk about, and, of those, some are more organized than others. Please weigh in with your own thoughts on the topics at hand in the comments, as this is more than a popularity contest.

Best Editorial

Editorial is a broad term. I guess in my own view, you have the bateszi/IKnight/Lawson style of commentary, and then there are the more analytic pieces. Not that styles and bloggers are mutually exclusive, of course.

Lawson-style is, in more cases than not, just fanboying about something with airy diction that makes said fanboying sound harmless. All the while it infects his readers and turns them into automatons of love and moe! It is a disease! A diseeeeeeeease!!

Favorite (non-meta) commentary: IKnight & bateszi. I’m not surprised it’s the brits with the flowerly writing. I don’t read bateszi, I think because Owen’s hero-worship turned me off. If you hold him in such high regard, maybe I should change my ways? I guess it’s like eating, as IKnight would say, a very dark, rich chocolate cake.

Well. I’m going to throw some nomnomnominations the way of Mike and jpmeyer, because I am living in the past. Take that! I remember jvaldez being an enjoyable read, but he’s been kinda dead lately.

Most Thought-Provoking

For little old me, thought-provoking in the ’sphere has come to mean “RyanA, ghostlightning, Cuchlann, and lelangir debating something on a grossly meta level, replete with literary references and the names of psychologists.” That gives me over nine thousand directions to go in for listing blogs, as we’ve got RyanA’s one blog, Cuchlann’s two, ghostlightning’s three four, and… well, I can’t even begin counting all the blogs lelangir posts at. Ten, I think.

If you were to put a gun to my head, however, I’d list the following three for most thought-provoking:

Super Fanicom

It’s a powerhouse of insight. It’s got three of the deepest writers in the ’sphere. I must admit that I am not too familiar with Kaiserpingvin, but to be fair he’s only written on the site twice. I’m a special fanboy of Pontifus because he waxes literary on Aria from time to time, which gets me bothered and hot. I’d say, no offense to ponti-dono, that Cuchlann is easily the most thought-provoking blogger in the ’sphere. I think OVER 9000 WORDS can attest…if you’ve read it. He basically kicks my ass and proceeds to rape me. I never said Pontifus was deeper. Just sexier. Not everyone has a rape fetish (to the relief of my next pick!). LOL, I finally get that joke after reading “public enemy #2″; priceless, really.

Anime Almanac

No, this isn’t a joke. Nor is it a troll. The reasoning behind this pick might not be what our “ever lovable blogger” SVS might hope for, but I think it’s justified: Anime Almanac gets me thinking about why certain lines of thinking fail and why certain styles of blogging are better than others. I guess it’s harsh to say “your failure has made my mind stronger,” but it’s true. Thanks, Scott. Ah, you see, this is one reason why the category “thought-provoking” fails. A blog you find stupid can be very thought-provoking. Hell, I find Sankaku Complex fairly thought-provoking at times. Does that mean it fails? I don’t think so. We still have “Best Editorial” for those blogs that have truly good… well, editorials.

We Remember Love

ghostlightning, beyond collaborating with lelangir and others (myself included), has helped me reexamine my place in the ’sphere. He has given me reason to continue applying “lolikitean understanding” (IcyStorm’s testicular prespiration helps (ønlÿ For WôRMs LIKE Yöu who dó nOT Understand!)) in my reading of anime, and he has caused me on multiple occasions to pause and… for lack of a better word… think about things more than I otherwise would. In other words, he’s kept me in check, kept me pondering, kept me sharp. That’s thought-provoking, and that’s ghostlightning’s ever lovable (no joke here) blog. Well, what would you expect from a 30 year old dude who’s studied philosophy and literature? You could say, “just as planned.” He’s like the Kamina to my Simon…

Coburn at Claiming Ground

Coburn was one of the first blogs I frequented when I was starting out. What I like about his writing is that it is very theoretical, often providing frameworks with which to analyze anime. I don’t see this very often, but another great case is IKnight’s seminal pieces on GAR. I will specifically mention coburn’s “Reaction Porn” theory which insightfully distinguishes between character “development” and “revealment,” though he’s told me elsewhere the distinction thereof has more to be said.

Best Meta

If there’s one important lesson that the recent crop of metablogging has yielded, it’s that “blogs” don’t define blogosphere content as well as “bloggers” do. As such, it would almost be counter to the teachings of meta-anibloggery to nominate blogs in this category.

Actually, fuck hedging.

It would be counter to the teachings of meta-anibloggery. [but that's why I said the ABA should nominate bloggers not blogs...]

There, I said it. And I make no nominations.

I think you’re forgetting ani-nouto and anitations. Yes, author is probably the best meta-blogger out there. If you don’t like his trolling, don’t take him seriously. I’d like to say anitations has great meta value because it’s a proxy. I lens content, as RyanA would say. So far, these are two of a kind…

I don’t know if I’m forgetting them; mostly I’m thinking about you guys as bloggers rather than blogs. I don’t see how that makes a difference… It’s hard to divorce lelangir from lelangiricism. Meta-anibloggery essentially preaches separation of aniblog and aniblogger. Wait, we need to expand “meta”. I’d take “meta” for discourse on discourse. Introspection counts too. And in that case, I’d nominate usagijen for her awesome introspections. BigN and Jacob Martin come in close as well. Doesn’t TheBigN say the same thing everytime, though? Something about love, peace, and pancakes? No, =p =p =p =peace =pancakes Q.E.D..

Best Music

I’ll let you handle this one, lelangir. I don’t read music aniblogs; as far as I’ve heard there aren’t many, they aren’t diverse, and they tend to suck. All yours, capitan. Zzeroparticle. He’s like, the only person that writes consistent music reviews. I don’t think I’ve ever seen musical analysis besides mine either…

Then we are agreed: this is a category that actually fails. Yes, that’s kind of a shame, because the music community is so pathetically underdeveloped. I wish it were developed, but sadly, it isn’t… I’d love to see that, too—I hear you’re thinking of starting something up? But – and this is a constant debate in the metaverse – society isn’t up to the level of technology. Usually technology is a product of society. But I can’t just go make a music blog if there’s no plausible readership or niche there. It’s like that Heisei Democracy post where there’s this manga cafe in San Francisco. It can’t work because they’re attempting to transplate Japanese culture in America – they’re trying to force society to adapt to them, and it’s like trying to move an elephant with a toothpick. Makes sense, yeah. Well, best of luck should you try in the future!

Rookie of the Year

ghostlightning, digitalboy, and lelangir all seem like fairly solid choices to me. I’m not familiar with too many of the newer blogs, but those three are all rookies who bring a fuckton of positive energy to the table. ghostlightning is Mizunashi Akari if she were to fangirl about something. digitalboy is Mizunashi Akari if she were to make home videos and introduce profanity into her vocabulary. lelangir is Mizunashi Akari if she were the biggest slut ever. And as you all know, I love Mizunashi Akari. Yes I am a whore.

What? … digitalboy isn’t a rookie? Older than one year.

Fuck that shit. He’s a noob, and I’ve got no one to refill his place. The halo glows away…

You’re forgetting coburn, pontifus and itsubun – they’re my three picks. It’s a shame that itsubun died off so quickly, but she made quite a large impact on me when I was starting out, especially with the dorama surrounding her and Sasa, lol. The pointless, idiotic drama between two idiots who just can’t leave well enough alone… sigh. Do they at least get points in the drama category? You’d be surprised, I took quite a bit out of some posts, as they really were great food for thought. That was not the impression I got from reading Sasa’s posts and talking to Mr. Pippers. The impression I did get was that some people were overreacting to each other and accomplishing little. There was one post by adventure_killy which was one of the most insightful posts I’ve read to date. It really got me thinking about the “location” of the otaku, and how we use loan words and how culture is transplanted.

I can’t say much for coburn nor do him justice, only that his intelligent editorials are always a pleasure to read.

Best Multiple-Author Blog

Oi! Hayaku [hands down] [my hands are down too]

Yes, you may think that OH is really a team blog but their content isn’t – as far as the reader is concerned – heterogeneous. I have heard there is quite a bit of teamwork behind the scenes, but if that teamwork is used only to produce homogenous content, I can’t see much difference. In any case, OH has the most awesome content (and at a prodigous rate) on an aggregate blog I’ve seen in a while. Did you somehow miss the two weeks of team posts (lame example)? In any event, you’ll be changing your tune by the ABAs… OH! has some sick shit to unleash! I’m concerned about these GATTAI posts, whether they’re actually any good or not…oh shi- They would be if Riex had us using Google Docs for collaboration. Talk about underused utility!

Aaaand… who else? I’m disinclined to give awards to the would-be shoe-ins THAT or Yukan (THAT isn’t even qualified this year, right?), for the sole reason that they’re just same-old, same-old. An aggregate blog gets a bit tedious after a while, especially if the authors come and go without changing much.

How’s it like over at Calamitous Intents? To be honest I don’t read them much, but they seem fresher than THAT-spawn. I don’t read them much either since I don’t follow the media they blog, VN’s and the Naruto manga.

Super Fanicom is good aggregation I guess, since it’s the home of a lot of awesome posts by a lot of awesome people. And what, ghostlightning hopped on board while we were writing this post? Shit man, this is what I mean by a “fast-paced” aniblogosphere.

Shall we move onto true team blogs now?

Best Team Blog

I’m stumped. Did we decide there are no true team blogs? OH! is trying to be one, other aggregate blogs aren’t trying, and whorish team bloggers are sort of wrecking the status quo’s shit. Fun stuff! Yes, I haven’t seen any true tream blogs, per se (I don’t know if epicwin counts), though many blogs and their constituent bloggers exhibit teamwork. Oh. Epic Win! Why did I forget them? They definitely count.

GO TO EPIC WIN!! GO TO EPIC WIN!! I’ll show you the true meaning of epic win…

Most Influential

I’m calling #1 right now – derailedbydarry.com Its influence should be obvious; “we hold these things self-evident.”

And my favorite influential blog would be lovelykitsune.com

I’ve said this a million times in a million posts, none of which I’ll link here, that Lovely Kitsune was the one person who introduced me to anime blogs. While Jason Miao is technically the catalyst of the reaction that created “lolikitsune,” if it weren’t for LK-senpai I never would have even gotten that far. I never would have discovered the then-AOMM, I never would have begun blogging, and, as I point out in my most digustingly self-loving post ever, the aniblogosphere would have developed very, very differently. You make a point – it’s hard to determine “influence.” I can’t say I directly copy or strive to emulate any particular blogger to the point of fetishism, and because I don’t read Danny Choo or Dark Mirage or Jason Miao I’m kind of clueless on how these big guys have influenced the entire sphere over the years. It’s not that we aspire to emulate (though I did emulate Miao as a joke for a while), it’s that these people used to be big players in a very small sphere. Now that the ’sphere has grown, the percentage of said sphere that is these Ancient Ones’ penises is smaller. So they’re less directly influential on new people… but they shaped the sphere in big ways.

Hm, well, I guess I have to give credit for IKnight for being my gateway blogger. If it weren’t for his MAL profile and “Colonial Code Geass & Narnian Nerve Gas” I might not be here today. I can see IKnight being a huge influence, especially for the editorial types who came before him and were like “OMG! I gotta shape up!” (here’s looking at you, Mike *clink*). I…I…I..it’s n..n..not that I’d call blogging about soap influential or anything!

Best Dorama

I make a point of ignoring this shit as best I can because more often than not it’s sparked by spiteful elitists. My favorite drama would be Omo x Owen on Twitter, but does that count? I don’t know; it’s certainly not a blog, though. Perhaps we could award Owen with something for sparking so much drama (he was getting me good, at least, in mid-November), but that might be erring on the side of “too close to home.” Actually, these past few months, I’d give best dorama to a sort of plane of bloggers revolving around the fansub thing, Von Schilling et al. It even gets IcyStorm all hot and bothered. Oh yeah. SVS. Sigh. I guess… I guess I WOULD give him this award. (Let’s see how that affects his self-perception as “ever lovable.”)

Best Satire

Obviously I think I should win in this category. I won’t make any nominations here because I don’t want it to look like I’m setting up losers, but I will gladly comment on lelangir’s picks. I also like lolikit’s satire because, while it is hilarious, it is also lucid and insightful. Though I enjoy lolikit’s meta-satire moreso than when he satires anime. Of course Baka-Raptor is up there when he makes fun of anime. Who’m I kidding? Baka-Raptor is a king of satire. Hinano is also quite sharp quite frequently, as is JP (and now that they’re on a single blog it’s only one nomination! Take that, blogger’s bloggers!). I was never really into HINANO RAEG… Her blog posts are usually better than her tweets. Maybe it’s just the emoticons? They make me laugh while thinking, “man, this shit she’s posting about, it’s so shitty.” You know I’d put IKnight up here too. His satire is subtle (it’s British), but boy is it hilarious. Didn’t he quit blogging or something? lol he’s been alive for quite a few posts now. He was pretty active while in blogohiberation anyway. Not to say inactivity’s going to stop me from making my third nomination in this category…

LovelyKitsune.com

I’ve beaten this dead horse to the metaphorical pulp, but I’ll beat it again. Lovely Kitsune is my hero. If it weren’t for him, I never would have discovered three important things: loli, yuri, and a sense of humor. Oh, and a fourth: the aniblogosphere. He’s a shoe-in for most influential, but the important thing here is how he roped me in, and that would be masterful satire played to its fullest. His wit broadened the anus of my sense of humor and left me wanting more. … “dial-up would never suffice again.”

OmoxOwen aka HarukaxYuuta

Yeah, well, him and Owen having sex is pretty funny to watch. Especially on twitter. Agreed, but refer to what I wrote under Best Dorama. Their bickering isn’t satire… it’s high school girl idiocy.

“WHORE! WHORE!”

AAAAAND that’s it. This is lolikit bee tee dubz, stealing lelangir’s color briefly. Just wanted to wrap stuff up with extremely awkward and un-funny words such as these. I hope you read everything, as there’s some good stuff up in there. Again, please weigh in on the “discussion”—this is more than a popularity contest; there’re issues addressed in the above with implications affecting the entire ’sphere. Also, could we get some applause for Google Documents? An omiclap, perhaps? Thank you.

This round robin took place in the form of a chain letter. I wrote a short remark, and emailed to the next participant. I hoped that this would develop a linear dialogue, although that’s only part true.

Round 1. See Round 2 Here

lelangir: So, in relation to Christmas and religion, one interesting case is in Kannagi, specifically Zange (which wiki tells me means “penitence” or “confession” in Japanese). In essence, Zange chooses her host, a Christian nun, because it is a more popular religion, and so all the faith she receives is what nourishes her existence. Nagi, on the other hand, comes from an ancient religion, which is not so monolithic in itself, “Shintoism” being an agglomerative representation of many tribal religions. This is also shown in Natsume Yuujin-chou 02, where a god continuously shrinks until he vanishes because his only worshipper and source of faith, an elderly lady, dies. People have mentioned how Kannagi is social commentary on religion and cultural idolatry. And this is supported by, literally, the idolization of Nagi, manifested quite clearly in the OP.

Lbrevis: I think it all comes down to the fact that generally speaking the Japanese are not religious, at least not in the way the West is. Just the other day I saw a bumper sticker that said “Keep Christ in Christmas.” The driver would undoubtedly be horrified to know that in Japan Christmas is a commercial event where the Christmas cake is far more important than a baby in a manger.

So getting back to shrine maidens, it’s not surprising that Kannagi mixes pop culture with religion in a way that would be sacrilegious to everyone else… in America! (thank you, Bandit Keith). It may be, for better or for worse, that Nagi has really hit on something here and this is the only way to make an ancient religion like Shintoism relevant.

ghostlightning: The Philippines is the largest Christian (Catholic) country in Asia, and over here, the Christmas season begins in… September! So imagine the eerie juxtapositions of Santa Clause and Jack o’ Lanterns during Halloween. Here however, despite the overt colonization into Christianity, we appropriated Catholicism right back – in very animistic ways. Patron saints bless locales the same way Nagi the patron goddess of her area.

You’ll really see oddities, such as the Black Jesus in the heart of Manila (Quiapo district).

The people, the worshippers, by appropriating religion to fit within their own understanding and comfort levels, perpetuate religion. I’m pretty sure Jesus isn’t black, and neither are Filipinos, but the Catholic church didn’t/couldn’t declare this sacrilegious. Nagi may be on to something.

usagijen: I recently thought about how Japanese can’t say the pun-ny line ‘Christ puts “Christ” in Christmas’ because of how they represented Christmas in their language — クリスマス — simply KURISUMASU, with no Christ in sight, and I guess that would make more sense when you take into account what Lbrevis said. They could’ve opted for the Chinese equivalent, 聖誕節, if they really wanted to show its religious roots, but they didn’t, as though they just adapted Christmas for the sake of its “modern-day rituals”. In the words of ghostlightning, it’s like they simply appropriated Christmas to fit their own understanding, in the same way religion works, or pop culture for that matter.

There’s a reason why idols, both in religion and pop culture, are called as such. And when you see the incredible feats my fellow countrymen — the Filipino devotees — go through just to touch their beloved Nazarene idol each year (illustrated in the pic provided by ghostlightning), no less than the die-hard fans of, say, Michael Jackson or Miley Cyrus (or other phenomenal craze), who cry, faint, and fall head over heels for their beloved pop star idol, the intersection between the two becomes even more vague. Do we call the religious devotees’ act sacrilegious, or simply an admirable display of faith and devotion? How about the overzealous act of fans? The thin line that separates them is the sanctity aspect of religion, which is quite ambiguous in and of itself. Religion is a mainstream pop culture, after all. Now if my confusion serves to affirm the social commentary present in Kannagi, then all I can say is, Nagi may be on to something indeed.

Concluding questions for the reader

1. Are you a religious person in any way? Does your anime watching conflict with or support your beliefs?

2. Are you comfortable with how religion is portrayed in anime? If so, does it make the show interesting? entertaining?

3. If you were to draw a line, what is/should be taboo?