This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Normalfaggotry hit me Saturday, so I’ll be making up for it today. Enjoy the awful.
Reviews Bracket
Each match will result in, at most, two winners.
Round 2 – Match 1
Auto-pass: ZakuAbumi’s Anime Blog & Isn’t It Electrifying
Round 2 – Match 2
Auto-pass: Swabulous Max
Round 2 – Match 3
The Glorio Blog – http://theglorioblog.com/
This is a fairly good example of a reaction blog. That is, the content doesn’t consist of summary; it consists of the writers’ thoughts and feelings.
Contrary to how I usually feel about episodic blogs, Glorio provides tangible value for the reader, and has an exceptionally clean presentation that indicates thought went into the blog. Yeah, I’m jelly it looks so nice.
In some of their posts, the Glorio staff talk about figs and such, mimicking the format they have in the episodic roundups. Conversational, yet to the point, I think these guys would do really well expanding their operations to Youtube.
…okay, that’s about as nice as I’m gonna get in this post. Prepare your body for the onslaught of cancer coming from these other blogs.
A Case Suitable for Treatment – http://suitablefortreatment.mangabookshelf.com/
The errors in Sean’s reviews contrast jarringly with his tryhard, Oxford-wannabe writing. These are from his latest review.
>the reasn that we don’t get to bored or irritated with him is that he has so many flaws and bad habits in among his invulnerability
>I’m hoping that this is the sort f series where everyone gets some attention paid to them
Perhaps that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, considering each review feels copy-paste. Why bother thinking about something when you already know how it’s going to turn out?
This is the kinda blog you get when someone who only ever got A’s in high school English thinks they can coast on that writing style for the rest of their life. Sure, Sean, your writing’s “good”, but it’s insincere and dull. Learn how to \voice.
The Otaku Spot – http://theotakuspot.animeblogger.net/
Jesus Christ, if anyone should have named their blog Whiners.Pro, it’s this guy.
Mikoto devotes the first 11 paragraphs of his Kantai Collection impressions post to explaining why people who haven’t played the KanColle mobile game are not allowed to criticize the anime, because they’re not real fans.
He then goes on to freak out over the character profiles in the least functioning way possible.
If cringing gets you off, I highly recommend reading the entire article. There wasn’t a point in it where I thought the author would be able to become a contributing member of society without volunteering himself for soylent green production.
AstroNerdBoy’s Anime & Manga Blog – http://astronerdboy.blogspot.com/
The gods were not kind to this boy. Here’s a writing sample:
You’re looking at the intro line for Astro’s “review” of UQ Holder, Chapter 67. Should you want more context for what he’s talking about, you’re gonna have to read the chapter yourself. …which I wouldn’t recommend, because if the manga attracts fans as dumb as this guy, it’s probably not worth reading in the first place.
Here’s the last bit of his writing that I’m gonna abuse you with, taken from Astro’s latest Hayate the Combat Butler impressions.
Every post on his blog is steeped in Engrish. Avoid.
Wrong Every Time – http://wrongeverytime.com/
This isn’t a blog so much as it is a repository for episode notes. Each post is essentially “Hey, I liked this show because I’m a shill,” followed by “check out my sweet ANN review <here>” and then a rambling list of thoughts provided without context.
Here’s an example of the episode notes in a typical “writeup”:
There is no reason to visit the site unless you want to dick suck your way into the English anime industry. Not that I’d recommend breaking into the industry in any manner, unless you feel compelled to take a vow of poverty.
Metanorn – http://metanorn.net/
Metanorn is more a forum than a blog (a heavily SEO’d forum, though). Great attention is to paid to how often you post, and the more you post, the higher your chances of becoming blog staff are.
While there is significant value to community involvement (and I rank it as the most important factor in a blog’s success), this is just… pathetic. And it shows in their writing. You can’t expect much from people whose only qualifications are “feels the need to share their opinion on literally every goddamn thing they can”.
(Some of) Metanorn’s writers:
skylion: Ain’t saying this kid’s a pedophile, but I am saying a court wouldn’t call it libel if I did.
Foshizzel: Foshizzel is that guy. Considering the quality of his co-writers, it’s no surprise that his “lol I’m so random” posts are some of the blog’s most popular ones.
That hilarious image macro is the closest thing to a full thought I saw in his latest Yoru no Yatterman review. God, I hope he drains his veins into a bath tub.
Karakuri: Here’s some expert analysis from Kara on Death Parade:
“Meanwhile, Yosuke was reincarnated. Given how so many religions view suicide as being an extremely negative thing, this was maybe a bit surprising.”
Deep thinker we’ve got here. She took her participation trophies in philosophy club seriously.
This was only a sampling; there are 12 staff in total. Wish the silk road was still up so we could drop those numbers for them. Hell, maybe we can just crowdsource a solution. Anyone got shovels and baseball bats at the ready?
P.S. lvlln, since I know you’re reading this post, I never understood why you write for these shitbags. You should realize better than anyone how fucking manufactured the site’s “popularity” is. Take your talents to some place where Gaia rejects don’t run the place. Hell, Glorio might be hiring.
Next up: Another aniblog post, banner contest winners, and Let’s Read episode 2. Gonna be a productive Sunday~
Oh man, I sure missed those polls.
I’ve Wrong Every Time on my RSS feed, he writes good “essays” every once in a while but it’s pretty rare, don’t really follow his episodic stuff, other people do it a lot better.
I also had Metanorn for a while, I read a couple episodic reviews for a show some months ago and added them for the sake of it but never really followed them after that.
Dear Lord, that condescending, know-it-all attitude from Mikoto in The Otaku Spot really is something else.
>volunteering himself for soylent green production
I am once again awed by your insulting prowess, D_S. I’m stealing that one.
Mikoto devotes the first 11 paragraphs of his “review” to explaining why people who haven’t played the KanColle mobile game are not allowed to criticize the anime, because they’re “not real fans”.
Nowhere in the post did I say that it was a “review”. In fact, the header clearly states that it was going to mostly be a rant.
The whole point of said rant was to get across the fact that it’s pointless to get anything out of the certain anime adaptations because you’re probably not going to enjoy them the way they’re intended (in particular, games) without being a fan beforehand. Much like it’s pointless to review fansubs without knowing any Japanese, and also without context.
So yeah, the point *wasn’t* “people who watch the anime and never played the game are not real fans.” I clearly acknowledged that people, who never played the game and enjoyed it for what it was, were probably fans of at least the anime. I love how “review” and “not real fans” are in quotes when I never said such things.
He then goes on to freak out over the character profiles in the least functioning way possible.
I never said it was a “review”. Thus, the “comments” were just me enjoying (usually synonymous to “having fun with”, btw) the episode as a fan of KanColle and its characters. This is a review, this is a review, that wasn’t.
And whoa, I made a reference to moonspeak pogeymanz. Throw me in the socially awkward bin.
Dear Lord, that condescending, know-it-all attitude from Mikoto in The Otaku Spot really is something else.
I’m almost never a jackass to my commentators if they went to argue my point or prove me wrong, so hardly. :/
Well, unless it was tongue-in-cheek or there’s some context I’m missing, I’m not sure how “as an established fan” can sound anything but condescending.
But hey, it wasn’t personal. If you want, I’ll just leave it at that.
I’m not sure how “as an established fan” is supposed to be condescending or looking down on anyone. It means I’m… already a fan of the franchise, even before the anime came out. Some people aren’t. Not a big deal. “I’m going into this anime as a fan of the source material, rather than as an anime critic”, pretty much.
Not to mention the fact that, again, the wall of text before that was (in tl;dr terms) “I don’t get why some people bother to watch something of this tongue-in-cheek nature without being a fan first and then complain about not getting anything” rather than “harhar I am a true fan, you anime plebs aren’t.”
If I unintentionally come off as condescending or offensive to anyone that reads my blog for any understandable reason, they’re are free to point out such things in a civilized manner either by email or through comments and I’ll most likely be happy to apologize. Furthermore, I hardly think that saying I’m unable to be a contributing member of society, or the concept of “tossing shit at anime-related blogs on my own anime blog” in general, is any less condescending.
>Non-admirals will not know what this thing is
>I’m going to be honest: I barely use Yuudachi in any of my fleets.
>[Shimakaze is] my favorite (along with Shoukaku and Amatsukaze)
>Also, I barely recognized Fubuki because she looks sort of… disconnected from her game art. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it’s different.
“Hey guys did I mention that I play this game and am better than you because I play this game”
>it’s only natural that Diomedéa would have the fans in mind while producing the anime.
It’s also a natural assumption that they want to expand the fanbase because there’s no way they planned to make money off a TV anime through disc sales.
Oh boy.
Okay, first off, sure. I can agree with your quotation mark point. I wasn’t using them in a quoting sense, but the context could lead to that assumption, so I have edited the post accordingly. My gomens.
Now to the important bits:
The argument that someone can’t critique something without being (fill-in-the-blank) is as old as time itself, and just as tired. All you’re doing is making a flimsy excuse as to why your thoughts are more valuable than everyone else’s. Quite frankly, it’s easy to go down the path you already tread as a means of discrediting your own opinion. You aren’t a real KanColle fan, because you’re playing it as a gaijin. You aren’t a real KanColle fan because you aren’t involved in the 2ch community. You aren’t a real KanColle fan because you’re not playing it with your friends at your Japanese high school. I could have just as easily changed to “high school” to “college” or anything else, really. Do you see how broken the logic is?
Besides, what makes a game fan’s opinion more important than someone new to the series? I would argue both perspectives are important. And the more perspectives on a series there are, the more fully it can be analyzed. You just want to believe you’re more special than everyone else — because you liked it before it was cool (hey, sure you did).
But I don’t care about your argument; I care about how you portray it. And you did that in the most cringe-inducing way possible.
See, instead of going over your unique insights into the series, you spent 11 paragraphs going over why literally everyone but you had no right to talk about the anime. I mean, shit dude, I felt embarrassed for you. How fucking clueless can you get?
Your reactions hurt my soul too. “Heh, guess how much I know about pokemon — a JAPANESE series, you silly baka desus” “Shimakaze needs more screen time. She’s a popular ship after all!” “Haha, lesbians have vaginas” Do you even realize people like you are the reason everyone hates anime fans? You dense fuck.
Christ, dude, I don’t even know if I want to look at your fucking reviews, considering how awful this post that you’re defending is.
Actually, how about you link me your absolute best post? My interest is renewed.
The argument that someone can’t critique something without being (fill-in-the-blank) is as old as time itself, and just as tired.
People are free to criticize whatever the hell they want. My point is that in this very specific instance and other similar ones, is that doing so seems pointless.
Going into an anime adaptation of a game that’s intended to be only available in Japan, with a insanely large playerbase in said country and the franchise appeal itself being fanbase-driven”, and then going on to complain about not “getting anything” in the anime seems like the most pointless thing in the world to me, personally.
Because I would assume a quick Google search before watching something will make it clear if confusion should be expected beforehand, and if that kind of thing is a turn-off to someone, they could instead focus their energy on watching something else that’s actually friendly to newcomers. Like an adaptation of a manga. Or an anime-original.
All you’re doing is making a flimsy excuse as to why your thoughts are more valuable than everyone else’s.
See, instead of going over your unique insights into the series, you spent 11 paragraphs going over why literally everyone but you had no right to talk about the anime. I mean, shit dude, I felt embarrassed for you. How fucking clueless can you get?
You’re putting words in my mouth. The only time I compared the “value” of anyone else’s opinions compared to mine in that post, was when I was pointing out that suggestions I’ve seen brought up by people unfamiliar with the game would ruin my personal enjoyment of the anime.
Which is fucking subjective.
”You aren’t a real KanColle fan, because you’re playing it as a gaijin. You aren’t a real KanColle fan because you aren’t involved in the 2ch community. You aren’t a real KanColle fan because you’re not playing it with your friends at your Japanese high school. I could have just as easily changed to “high school” to “college” or anything else, really. Do you see how broken the logic is?”
Again, the post was never about whether or not people are “real fans”.
Besides, what makes a game fan’s opinion more important than someone new to the series? I would argue both perspectives are important. And the more perspectives on a series there are, the more fully it can be analyzed. You just want to believe you’re more special than everyone else — because you liked it before it was cool (hey, sure you did).
The game audience is the core audience of the anime. People who watch anime, maybe nothing else, are free to watch anything they want and point out the myriads of flaws as a standalone as they wish. I just think complaining about game references and lack of “depth” when the whole thing is supposed to be a game reference to begin with is a waste of energy.
But I don’t care about your argument; I care about how you portray it. And you did that in the most cringe-inducing way possible.
I’m trying my best not to say anything about your infamous fansub reviews.
Your reactions hurt my soul too. “Heh, guess how much I know about pokemon — a JAPANESE series, you silly baka desus”
So I’m a big fan of Pokemon, who mostly plays the Japanese-language games and watch the Japanese-language anime when he was younger.
Does this fact murder your family?
“Shimakaze needs more screen time. She’s a popular ship after all!” “Haha, lesbians have vaginas” Do you even realize people like you are the reason everyone hates anime fans? You dense fuck.
>liking characters
>acknowledging lesbian relationships in chinese cartoons
Sounds like the scourge of the planet, we must obliterate.
Actually, how about you link me your absolute best post? My interest is renewed.
That’s a difficult request. “Absolute best” would be subjective. I let my co-writer and readers decide that. I end up being dissatisfied with everything I write anyways tbh, but if you insist, I suppose this is the least self-dissatisfying in terms of actual recent “animation reviews” that I’ve actually done within the past year. If not just animation, I actually liked the DCII post I linked to earlier, and I have no problems with my HoshiMemo review besides my drunk decision to include H-scenes. So yeah, pick your poison.
Otherwise, I’ve only been able to do mostly CCSakura posts recently because RL gets in the way, but I enjoy writing them because revisiting and talking about an anime I loved since childhood is…fun. I don’t think they’re the best, nor will I claim they’re the best, though.
Wordy. I’ll get ya a reply tomorrow, nakama-chan.
Good Jesus Christ. I went into your “animation review” because drinking anti-freeze would have been a better use of my time than reading a VN review, but I think I chose wrong.
Your absurd pretension makes me feel so embarrassed for you, it’s hard to reply without thinking I’ll somehow make you worse. Three paragraphs in to what’s purportedly an English review and then we’re bombarded with this?
You are literally the person for which every negative stereotype of an anime fan is made.
Ignoring the writing for a second, the styling and LOL~REFERENCES~ turns me off more than when people stop struggling.
You do understand style guides are used to make your writing look better, not worse, right?
Back to the writing. …maybe you have potential. You’re not stupid; you just have no self-awareness. When you mature some (and look back on these days with the same dread I look back on my high school faggotry), I’ll be interested in seeing where your writing goes. But as of now, it’s stuck at a dead end.
Those comments in Japanese. キモイ.
Your point about KanColle is ridiculous and one I’ve argued against in the past many times (it seems to be perpetuated by a lot of fanboys, for some reason :D). The anime series should be viewed as a standalone or even as an advert for the game – that’s how the game studio makes money, after all – it should *not* require previous experience to make sense. If people who have only watched the anime series complain about a lack of depth, that is most definitely a legitimate gripe and it does call into question your ability as a reviewer on the whole if you let your own fanboyism cloud your judgment on such matters. Disclaimer: I say that as a former reviewer for a popular anime website.
Your argument is basically analogous to telling people to stop criticising *any* lack of detail on plot or character points in a Marvel movie if they haven’t first read the comic it’s based on. It’s preposterous to expect that of an audience. Especially if the source material hasn’t been released outside of Japan, like you suggest.
Is that why all those Key adaptions are held in such high esteem? We can all appreciate just how well they stuck to their source material.