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.

Crusader: black text
lelangir: blue text ←[105]

Note: In an effort to remedy the current lack of team work I hope you all don’t mind me conscripting Comrade lelangir for this one, I normally have trouble blogging about non mecha shows and this time it was easier since lelangir is a rabid marimite fan. I thank him for his cooperation and hopefully we can do this again sometime. I hope that the format we used is realtively easy to follow.

So far so good even if the ED is spoilerific as hell I suppose that at least Kanako seems to get a conciliatory prize in the OP. I thought the ED was very trashy, and the song was awesome – awesome wah and cheese synths are awesome. Still the OP was like hey did Yumi just get magical powers or something, must have been a subtle knife or some such. Well Cuchlann said how the new pop OP suited the matriculation well – leave the classical music behind for the seniors, the new girls are in power now. Well at least it will be a bloodless coup I suppose. I also see that we have some minor consistency issues still, but this washed out color pallet seems a bit weird. if memory serves me correct it use to be a bit brighter, might be the sub though. I still see little resemblance between Yuki and Yumi though. They’re using the art style they used in the third season OVAs, which I actually prefer. I suppose so still for a genderbend it’s just not as fun as I was hoping it would be, though pretty much everything is subdued.

Well the cat’s out of the bag already…

Will they finally kiss this year? It’s tradition…

One day Yoshino will be writing fan fics about this…

I thought this episode did a fairly good job of painting Kanako as a ‘tragic’ character. It’s also good because they didn’t have to start from scratch, as they had three previous expository seasons at their base. I would have been more partial to Kanako being petite soeur, but I guess with Touko it’s borderline selfscest. The boys on the other hand, well at least it is still not about them so much. Nevertheless Yuki in Kimono is very much glam band cross dressing. You have to wonder though what kind of parents would name their kid Alice. Oh Alice…I don’t know what to make of him. His presence in the previous seasons wasn’t memorable and he was parodied a bit in the DVD funny specials.

I wasn’t particularly fond of Kanako’s blatant sexism. Besides that, it’s an obvious ploy for later character development, but feels rather contrived. She’s right you know men are scum, I know them very well, hell I am one. Any way since the cat is out of the bag anyway they have to peel her off some how. The only guy in the show I didn’t like was Sachiko’s incestual cousin or whatever. Pretty full of himself, trying to come onto Sei. According to Wiki he’s gay for Yuki…any way the guy is an ass, they ought to trade him for Hosaka. Haha oh lord Hosaka…

She totally ate your lunch dude.

Yuki has a much to learn about the Oyama way.

I fail to see the resemblance as well. Looks like Mako-cakes and Maria will not have to worry about competition here.

What did you think about Touko’s appearances? Liked the (no pun intended) drama? As for myself, well, I always like twin-drill tsunderes. But Touko’s “natural” grace was nicely complemented by Yumi’s internal thoughts, especially when she notes how Touko is a natural liar. So there, they set up a nice contrast between Kanako and Touko. You could say both are introverted, while one is silent, the other is blatantly false. Well I guess Touko wants to be a manly man for Yumi, the Drama Club thing was kind of meh. Still I understand why she felt that she could not show her face there. Touko has a lot of pride.

One interesting thing was how Kanako reacts to Sachiko’s bidding. Of course Sachiko is the big boss around there, and Kanako was acting incredibly submissive, putting on a disgustingly insincere smile. And while Sachiko can easily see through Touko’s masks, could she see through Kanako’s? Practicality trumps pride any day, though you are right Touko is proud to the point of arrogance sometimes. Kanako is a bit harder for Sachiko to read, after all they hardly know each other despite both being tall dark and bishoujo. Still for now they seem similar in some respect, I like that Kanako is at least trying to kill every man she sees.

Some like Rule 63 more than others…

Touko makes funny faces too.

Varying degrees of want?

Honestly though I kind of wanted a “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” when Yumi confronted Touko. Oh man that scene was LOL. What was Yumi doing? – I was clearly waiting for a bitch slapfest. It’s freaking marimite, a bitch slap is as likely as a colony drop, still I wonder if they are going to do Little Women, after all relatively speaking Touko is rather little. I mean, Yumi’s antics are pretty hyperbolic (and they satire that in the DVD specials too), which is why I enjoy watching her. She’s very moe, I suppose, a quintessential klutz. Touko does at least have the funny face similarity going for her, come to think of it it seems the House of Chinensis is populated with dojikkos of one sort or another, only Yoko wasn’t in the habit of embarrassing herself. Even if Yumi is hyperbolic I suppose that is the mark of a politician, and there does seem to be a Chinensis Dynasty. Yeah, you could call Sachiko hyperbolic in ways, subdued hyperbolism, especially her drama (particularly season one), though Sachiko really seems in control of herself this season, the true mark of maturity, perhaps? – so you can see how we’ve been through three years of students, and this rite of passage theme is always evident. The generational thing is an aspect I do like, in most cases time seems to stand still for other slice of life type shows.

That one’s enthusiastic to say the least.

Would you kindly?

A man chooses, a Yumi obeys…

I wonder if we are going to get Yakk Deculture Touko and Sachiko when they finally visit Yumi in her natural habitat. Well I think Sachiko’s already been exposed and attuned to Yumi’s rather wild-side, especially when they go jeans-hunting in the first season. But I think the Yakk Deculture might come around for either Sachiko or Kanako when they have to confront each other. This will be important because Yumi has to decide between Kanako and Touko, so you’re going to have Sachiko, the grandmother, incur her divine matriarchal intervention somewhere along the line. As if Sachiko is ever going to give up Yumi. Well, I mean that this first episode was a really good exposition in that it clearly established the Kanako/Touko dichotomy. What is left is how Yumi is going to deal with it, therefore setting herself up for some intruiging character development. I have no idea what the solution will be but I doubt it will be orthodox. I suppose though given the preview it will be time to meet some one’s parents, probably Kanako’s. It’s certainly off to a good start, though with a series this venerable I don’t think much will change, not sure if it will draw in any new fans though since it was not beginner friendly and requires the viewer to be privvy to some past events as well. Yeah, one thing I like about this anime is that parents actually exist, however marginally. Overall I think that at least given the spate of parental problems in the stuff I have been watching or at least noticing, it’s nice to see parents that are fairly normal in that they do not intervene heavily into the lives of their children. The Girl That Leapt Through Time also displayed this in a very nice manner, IMO. We rarely see Yumi’s parents, but it was funny when they showed up during the sports fest and there was a whole bunch of irony going on; just a typical “my parents embarass me!” moment. To be honest kids embarrass their parents plenty in return…

In case you missed it.

Nervous eh?

So moe you died?

Because we’re not finished with the school festival, we’ll still see how effective Sachiko’s ploy is – she’s just trying to use dramatic genderbending as a means for extroversion, but it’s backfiring for Kanako. It hasn’t backfired fully yet, and she was sort of agonizing over two tickets, I can already guess who they are meant for though. Hah! – well, I think the genderbending trick can’t go wrong. However it ends, it will produce some sort of drama that leads to character development, though this development – regardless of the drama the path takes – will probaby be the same. Indeed in marimite as much things change many things stay the same, or you could call it two steps forward one step back!

Would you kindly?

I think Touko is very similar to Yumi…

Very similar…

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?