AceRailgun started this whole trend of answering a list of fifty questions last week, and I figured I might as well jump on the train. Hopefully this will tell my readers a bit more about myself. Marina seems to have the most complete list of other participants in this question answering. Here we go: Continue reading Fifty Questions About Me
Tag Archives: discussion
Anime Blog Carnival Roundup
The anime blog carnival‘s wrapping up now. For those out of the loop, a number of blogs explored the question
What makes a 10 / 10 anime?
together. So how did the carnival go? Continue reading Anime Blog Carnival Roundup
Anime Carnival: What Makes an A+ Anime
du5k decided to hold a “blog carnival” among anime blogs, in which we all discuss the same topic for a week. The idea is that we’ll all publish a post on the topic today, discuss, other people will join in, and everyone will do a wrap-up post on the last day, January 15th.
So here’s the topic:
What makes an A+ anime?
The Answer
I could say that an A+ anime needs detailed and memorable characters. I could say it needs an interesting story. I could say it needs to entertain me. I could say it needs beautiful, fluid animation and an exquisite soundtrack. I could (and do) say it needs to revolutionize the way you view the world.
But all these “answers” simply raise more questions. What is a good character? What is a good story? What entertains me? In the end, we won’t be able to come to any set of criteria (much less objective criteria!) to define what an A+ anime is. So I can’t really say what makes an A+ anime.
But all is not lost. An A+ anime is much like obscenity. I may not be able to define it, but, in the words of Justice Stewart,
I know it when I see it.
Or equivalently, an A+ anime is
Simoun. Continue reading Anime Carnival: What Makes an A+ Anime
1Q84 Review – A
I read it. It was amazing. I won’t attempt to summarize for fear of spoilers.
The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of Tengo and Aomame, the two main characters. Initially their stories seem separate, but the two narratives slowly and masterfully converge. The book is split into three parts, each published separately in Japan but combined for the English translation. The first two were fabulous, some of Murakami’s best work, A+ material. But the last third was a letdown. It consists of hundreds of pages of three people waiting around. Parts were great, particularly Tengo’s trip to the cat town, but most of the final third was just boring and I was eager to get on with things. Continue reading 1Q84 Review – A
Happy Birthday to Me!
It’s been a year to the day since I started blogging. At first, I thought I would last a week at most. Now here I am a year later. Let’s see if I can keep it going for another year.
Useless Statistics
Since I started the site, it’s had 43,500 visitors. We started out in January with around 10 visitors per day; now we tend to get around 350. Approximately sixty people subscribe to the RSS feed. A big thank you to all of our readers!
The site had a total of 1738 comments in the past year, and about half were mine. The commenting rate has continued to accelerate: over half of the comments were left in the past three months. Thank you to all of our commenters! If success could be quantified, this would certainly qualify. Continue reading Happy Birthday to Me!