Sorrow-kun
Writing soundtrack reviews is hard
So, I made the foolish “promise” to the staff that I’d somehow write a soundtrack review for Death Note’s (awesome) OST. Soundtracks is a bizarre section we have on our site. It’s the most neglected and I’d say far and away the toughest section to maintain. The link between these two postulates is obvious. But, with most anime series seeing one, often two, sometimes even more complementary soundtracks released, a site of our size (which, I’d approximate, manages to cover six or seven anime each season within a few months of their release, which I’d say is pretty good coverage considering our size) would have to demand at least one soundtrack review a month out of every one of our staff before we could even think about covering the soundtrack industry with the same comprehensiveness with which we do with anime. That might not sound terribly difficult until one tries to sit down and actually write a soundtrack review. Man, they are not easy things to write.
Mixed opinions of long running shounen series
Sometimes it can be difficult to find the motivation to write about anime, whether articles be reviews or blogs or whatever. I think anyone who’s been involved in anime-writing, or any sort of writing, professional or amateur has probably felt that at one stage. Really, it should be far too early for me to feel that, with respect to this blog, seeing as this is only my sixth article and one of them doesn’t count. Whatever… maybe if I had the time and effort to devote myself more to anime and reading about anime as I could while I was on a break, I could find the inspiration from other people’s work to write about things that I, myself, find interesting. It’s not happening at the moment, and real life is much to blame for that. I had such a busy week this week that on Friday night I crashed at 7.30pm and didn’t awaken until 9.00am the next morning. Anyway, while the internal conflict of finding the motivation to write would make for an interesting topic, it’s not going to be discussed this week. This week I’ll be spitting out a generic anime opinion in the form of a poorly thought-through article with minimal passion. If you happen to find what I write in this article interesting, it’s no fault of mine and purely coincidental.
Winter 2007 mid-season review
I had a few options of possible post topics this week, some based on discussions I’ve been having in the Shuffle! board and Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! thread on the ASuki forums, and even a possible semi-facetious ed piece on Marimite being a moe anime. They’ll make for possible future post topics. This, on the other hand, is something I’ve been meaning to do in a while. Standard deal for something like this: what I’m watching, and a short bit on what I think so far. No definitive judgements on series though… I still think it’s pointless to make total calls without seeing the whole thing.
No update this week
I just got back from Sydney, and I’m totally stuffed. Maybe later this week. In the meantime, have some lesbians:
An optimistic outlook on modern anime
Over the course of this week I had a discussion with a fan of old-school anime about modern anime and its current fandom. Most people who have follow my reviewing and other written trails on the internet on anime have probably guessed that I’m heavily into newer anime. In fact, I’d approximate that at least 95% of the anime I watch is less than a year old. Why my watching habits have gone in that direction is beside the point right now, and is maybe a topic for discussion in the future.
Though we both eventually came to the same conclusion and outlook on the issue, we both saw things from slightly different angles, largely, I’d speculate, due to our differing backgrounds in anime. My acquaintance has been, in a sense, captured by an era gone by, back in the 80s and 90s when mecha and action series were far more prominent, and when plot-heavy stories made up the majority of top calibre anime. I, myself, am a fairly recent entrant into the world of anime, and only began watching it incessantly during my undergrad years… during which time a large percentage of my ‘diet’ consisted of slice-of-life, romance, drama and shoujo (I was captured by shoujo very early in my anime “career” thanks to two particular series: Fruits Basket and Kare Kano)… in general, character-focused series. To put an exact number on it, I’ve been watching anime for just over four-and-a-bit years, and, even from very early on hot-off-the-shelf series made up a portion of that watching.
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- The Darker Side of Eroge Development
- The Country of Chihaya
- Is Spring 2012 the Best Season in Years?
- The Nihon Revue, Episode Eight
- Spring 2012: First Thoughts
- So, Gundam AGE Got (A Lot) Better
- Key Fans Are Too Entitled
- Will Eureka 7 Ao Repeat the Failures of Last Exile Fam?
- What I Learned By Watching Anime This Week! #3