This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Onto Day 4. We’re about a quarter of the way through the first rounds now, so that’s… something.
http://www.heartofmanga.com/
Site type: Shitty shoujo manga opinions.
First impression: A manga review blog for shoujo manga? Niche alert.
Article quality:
http://www.heartofmanga.com/shugo-chara-peach-pit-series-review/
Well, I can’t criticize her for writing to the intended audience of the series. The only thing I wish the review had was another picture or two. It’s hard for me to get into what she’s talking about when she mentions characters by name and I have no fucking clue what they look like. The pacing is also a little off. The writer mentions something about a “writing duo” in the third paragraph only to explain that there were two mangaka on the series… at the end of that paragraph. I had no clue whether “writing duo” referred to the characters of the manga or not until after she talked about it.
http://www.heartofmanga.com/i-still-like-comics-at-30-and-im-female/
I liked the “Fuck the normalfags; I’m just gonna do what I want” attitude.
Overall rating: It’s kind of hard for me to rate a blog which clearly isn’t aimed at me. However, for what it’s worth, I thought she did a good enough job.
http://ultimatemegax.wordpress.com/
Site type: Refined anime opinions, translations, and “look how much money I have” posts.
First impression: This guy really likes Haruhi Suzumiya.
Article quality:
http://ultimatemegax.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/brief-look-saki-rinshan-kaihou-special-blu-ray-box/
Pictures of cool shit he bought, Saki version.
http://ultimatemegax.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/mystery-solved-someday-in-the-rain/
But fuck how much money Megax has. The most important part of his blog, and the reason he deserves to advance, is his translations. Who translates an entire episode script of a Haruhi episode? Megax does.
Just take a look at that post and you can tell how much love Megax has for the series.
Overall rating: Fuck yeah.
http://deluscar.wordpress.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
First impression: The fuck does deluscar mean?
Article quality:
http://deluscar.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/weapons-a-reflection-of-ones-own-personality/#more-2377
Each swordsmen or the dojo they are following, mostly have their own rules and morals which were passed down traditionally. Most swordsmen take these morals seriously and once they violated their own morals, they had to proceed with their sepukku.
Deluscar managed to take an interesting topic and dumb it down to the lowest level. Thanks.
http://deluscar.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/nisemonogatari-review/
My biggest problem with deluscar is the reviews. Reading the Nise review, I got that the characters, plot, and pacing weren’t close to as good as Bakemonogatari, yet he gives it an A? For his Katawa Shoujo review he gives the characters and A+ and the plot an A- but gives the final product a C? Put simply, his review content does not match up with his final scores.
Overall rating: lol
http://kuroshinko.wordpress.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
First impression: ~観察~
Article quality:
http://kuroshinko.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/final-thoughts-on-last-exile-fam-the-silver-wing/
Its very rare that an anime like this deliver consistently episode after episode and not suffer a drop in quality, and this anime does it.
Because this anime has such great straightforward storytelling, I think this anime is a great gateway anime for the thinking anime fan.
…
Overall rating: The site is clearly not run by a “thinking anime fan”.
Site type: Shitty anime opinions. Maybe other stuff. Saa~
First impression:
Article quality:
They have 14 fucking bloggers on the site. I’m sure one of them is good.
Overall rating: 1/14
Additional thoughts: I owe lvlln a guilt vote here. I told him I’d meet up with him at Anime Boston after he invited me out for a lunch with his friends, but I never showed up. Sorry about that man, it was pretty shitty of me to ditch like that.
http://thekotatsu.wordpress.com/
Site type: ???
First impression: If this is a blog, where are the articles?
Article quality:
There aren’t any (mew) articles on the site to even review. No. ” ef=”http://thekotatsu.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/bobbierob-does-50-questions-too/”>Blog author creates a dating profile for himself” does not count as an article.
Overall rating: N/a
http://avvesione.wordpress.com/
Site type: Anime opinions and analysis.
First impression: ” I can only imagine that many of you are already tired after reading so much or scrolling through several new blogs already. If that’s the case, then let’s keep this short.”
Thank you.
Article quality:
http://avvesione.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/jormungand-2/
An anime review with thought put into it that explores the themes behind the anime rather than a recap of the episode’s events followed by the writer telling people how he liked the show? Jesus Christ, good blogs do exist!
Check out the intro to the article. This is exactly the kind of blog that deserves to do well in this tourney filled with low-tier blogs.
If we are to believe that Jormungand presents an accurate illustration of the modern arms dealing industry, then we can conclude that the intricate relationship between wholesalers and clients involves frequent gunfights, blackmailing each other, ruthless treachery, and little to no customer appreciation. We all know an industry as awesome as that could not exist in the real world but there is some truth in how the industry works in Jormungand. Of course, to make the story exciting and entertaining, elements of action and adventure were introduced to make the anime more appealing. However, that story cannot be merely idealistic and action-packed nonsense, Jormungand needs to retain some of the real world as a means to tell its story the way it wants to. So how does Jormungand find its happy medium by being both realistic and entertaining?
Overall rating: Yes.
http://theotakusblog.wordpress.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
First impression: I’m sleepy.
Article quality:
http://theotakusblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/danshi-koukousei-no-nichijou/
Is this supposed to be a review or a first impression? The gist I got is that the writer watched the first episode and… Well, I don’t think I got anything from the article. I didn’t understand why the author really liked the show or why I should. The post was meaningless.
http://theotakusblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/downs-of-being-semi-otaku/
If you’re going to write an article, have something worth sharing. All I got from this was “being a student is hard because I have little free time” and “people think I’m weird”. Thanks for wasting my time.
Overall rating: Not good. :/
tl;dr: My picks:
http://aniblogtourney.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/round-1-matches-13-16/
HeartofManga vs. UltimateMegaX
Deluscar vs. Kuroshinko
Metanorn vs. The Kotatsu
Avvesione vs. TheOtakusBlog
Katawa shoujo a C ? This Deluscar guy obviously has no taste.
Thank you very much for your kind words and vote. I apologize for the lateness in this comment, but I felt it necessary. As Haruhi is my favorite series of entertainment, I felt it necessary to fill in the gaps left by official translations to give Western fans more of what the Japanese fans get to experience. The script you linked was never released in any other magazine, so no one outside of Japan (and likely Chinese translations) could read it. Since the other source materials were translated, I felt it necessary to work on that. Other things like guidebooks/fanbooks are usually never licensed in English, so that too is something I like to give back to the community.
As for my reviews, I found that when I started importing the 2009 Haruhi DVDs from Japan (yes, that included Endless Eight), there was no resource available in English that would give pictures and other information for what came in each volume. I wanted to give that information for the sets I purchase as well as show “This is what you get when you import. It’s not just 2/3 episodes on a disc.”
Again, thank you for your kind words and vote. While I won’t move on, you’ve helped promote my blog tremendously, and that’s what matters more.
It’s a bit disappointing that you didn’t move on, but I do hope you got some new readers out of this. Thanks for dropping by. o/
Which browser were you using that wibiya widget broke like that? Or is that a scrunched up screenshot?
I didn’t want to make my readers scroll across my post to read that and I didn’t want to make it so small it was illegible, so I just cut the screenshot in half and stacked the two parts that had info on them.