This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Day 11. Okay, I gotta get on REAL reviews now.
Match 41
https://snippettee.wordpress.com/
Site type: Anime pictures and opinions.
Thoughts:
http://snippettee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/mahou-shoujo-madoka-magica-2011-best-of-the-best/
This site is very talented in its ability to pick out very pretty anime pictures. The writing in this article wasn’t terrible either, but then again it is a “Madoka is a good show” post, and it’s pretty hard to screw that argument up.
Overall rating: (*^▽^*)
http://interestsoap.wordpress.com/
Site type: Yuri pictures and anime opinions.
Thoughts:
http://interestsoap.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/the-physics-of-the-third-wheel/
Oh shit, another “kawaii pictures” blog.
Overall rating: (*^▽^*)
Match 41 verdict: Lemmas has prettier pictures.
Match 42
http://subtlechaos.wordpress.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
Thoughts:
http://subtlechaos.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/my-history-with-anime/
To the blog title’s credit, this really is just rambling. However, it’s the kind of rambling where you can sense his passion. While I don’t agree with Riyoga on a lot of things (for example, his 9/10 review of a Pokemon movie), I’m at least impressed that he managed to find a voice, unlike many of the blogs I’ve read so far.
http://subtlechaos.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/review-another/
And I take that back. Maybe the guy can only inject personality into his posts when he’s talking about himself. There were like 50 fucking paragraphs here with only one image in the entire post. Who does this?
Overall rating: :/
http://www.marthaurion.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
Thoughts:
http://www.marthaurion.com/2011/07/05/c/
Two wall-of-text paragraphs and a final rating of 8.5/10 for [C].
http://www.marthaurion.com/2011/12/28/lifes-great-mysteries-protagonists/
This was a lot of text just to say “I want a main character who isn’t a crybaby.”
Overall rating: :/
Match 42 verdict: I’m gonna go with the Rambler on this one. They both sucked, though.
Match 43
http://oishiianime.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
Thoughts:
http://www.anime-planet.com/users/chii
Holy shit, this girl said she’s seen nearly 3,000 anime. That’s fucking insane.
http://oishiianime.com/2011/01/chiis-does-not-want-list/
Holy shit, this girl said she thinks Clannad is the worst anime ever and she hates The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On, and Death Note. She’s fucking insane.
I didn’t even get to an actual article because her taste alongside her eyecancer blog (just take a peek at it for yourself) means I’m not gonna waste my time on the actual articles. Sorry, lady.
Overall rating: It’s cool that you’ve seen a lot of anime, but your blog sucks.
http://seventhstyle.com/
Site type: BD anime screenshots.
Thoughts: Maybe the blog has more than BD screenshots, but I didn’t bother to check.
Overall rating: I dunno. I just fapped and left.
Match 43 verdict: Seventh by virtue of not being as shitty as Oishii.
Match 44
http://www.allaboutmanga.net/
Site type: Manga articles.
Thoughts:
I don’t really like that every article is just splayed out across the main page so if you’re looking for a new article, you have to scroll for ages.
http://www.allaboutmanga.net/2012/04/25/mmf-signature-needs-more-marketing/
The content here is worth reading because it’s from the perspective of someone who actually works on manga for a living. However, as a casual manga consumer (with an awesome collection of manga), I have to disagree with your points here. Comic book stores will not save manga. Comic book stores are shambling corpses already, inhabited by neckbeards who despise anime. And you want to promote seinen to them? These people read the Walking Dead. Their vocabulary hardly matches that of a third-grader’s. Neither they, nor Barnes and Noble, can save the manga industry in America.
What will, then? I would pay a monthly fee for access to a site that lets me read all the manga I want (but I want a huge fucking selection). And I would pay more for it than I do for my Crunchyroll subscription. If I were offered links to places where I could buy the physical copies (for a fair price; I’m not gonna spend $12 per volume unless I REALLY like a series), a company could get even more from me that way. Anyway, enough
of my arguing here. Onto the next article.
http://www.allaboutmanga.net/2012/04/16/the-perfect-editing-scenario/
This is an interesting article where the author talks about her experiences copy-editing manga and the frustration of companies being more interested in getting things done as cheaply as possible instead of focusing on the quality of their product. As a fellow adapter (though fansubbing is slightly different than editing for manga companies), a lot of this stuff was interesting to hear.
Overall rating: Decent stuff.
http://illogicalzen.wordpress.com/
Site type: Shitty anime opinions.
Thoughts:
Holy shit. That’s a long fucking article. And it has fucking citations? Kudos for putting it out there, but I didn’t even read it.
Overall rating: It’s another episodics-primarily blog. Meh.
Match 44 verdict: All About Manga cuz an industry insider’s perspective is interesting.
tl;dr:
http://aniblogtourney.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/round-1-matches-41-44/
Lemmas and Submodalities vs. Interests of a Psychopath Otaku Panorama (they changed their name in the middle of their match)
Riyoga’s Ramblings vs. Marth’s Anime Blog
Oishii Anime vs. Seventh Style
All About Manga vs. Illogicalzen
I have to disagree about putting more literary manga in comic book stores! (Obviously, I’m going to disagree since it’s my article. XD)
The overall point is that manga like the manga published by the Viz Signature line has an audience outside of the regular manga reading audience, but that we need to get those manga seen by more new eyes to get at that audience. The best, easiest way to do that is to convince more stores to stock Viz Signature titles.
Now, it may just be because I live in a large city, but my local comic book shop is NOT full of neckbeards. I dare say that I don’t care if manga is read by the neckbeard type who had previously given up on manga. Even so, Viz needs to take this to shops that are interested in selling different kinds of manga. Thus this kind of precludes any shop that thinks its customer base is too anti-manga.
Furthermore, I doubt you fit my definition of a casual manga fan at all. You have an awesome collection and you’re a blogger, which means that you’re probably getting more manga news than the casual manga fan does. The casual manga fan picks up manga at a their local Barnes & Noble or their LCS at a very slow pace and doesn’t pay attention to manga news at all. They don’t follow manga online. They’ve probably never heard about Vizmanga.com, etc.
The idea is to get them, and non-fans, to see more Viz Signature titles stocked at their local book stores than before. Eyes on books in physical locations is far easier way to get people aware of (and perhaps buying) your books than the internet. The problem with one massive site like the one you described is that people need to a) know that Viz Media has a website where they can pay to read manga online and b) know that there’s manga they want to read on that site. Then there’s the whole issue of pricing, but forget about that for now.
Viz *could* launch a huge advertising campaign for Vizmanga.com. They probably already have. But if casual fans and non-fans aren’t looking at manga news online (where Viz would probably target their advertisements because most of the manga industry fails to see the potential audience that still outside of the manga-sphere), they aren’t going to see those advertisements.
Therefore, educating comic book shops is a far better way to better manga’s reputation in the long run. Not only will the store employees know more about manga, but they can make recommendations and help sell the stuff. You know, like they do with all the other kinds of comics in their shops. Sooner or later, that’s going to result in a sale to a fan who didn’t previously read manga.
tl;dr: Manga, particularly the Viz Signature line, will never be able to survive in America if we don’t get some fresh eyes into reading this stuff.
Also, thanks for the critical analysis of my blog’s content! Other places have been sticking more to analysis of my layout, which seems…silly.
holy shit your gravitar is 3DPD
I’m sorry for being real?
Bookmarked.
Read the Tokyopop process article and enjoyed it. It’s easy to forget that the people who are involved in releasing anime and manga to the Western world are in fact fans themselves, and that quality is sought as much by the translators/editors/copy-editors of official anime/manga releases as is inherent in the fansubbing world (well, in some corners of it, anyway…). It’s just such a shame that everything seems to revolve around profits these days that end up affecting the end product rather than thinking up marketing strategies to improve sales.
It’s a shame I noticed this too late to vote. Definitely should have made it through to the next round.
Aw, thank you!
I’d defend that Pokemon review with the fact that I’m a Pokemon fanboy, but it was actually because the last Pokemon movie I watched was the insanely bad Celebi one. My standards going into Zoroark were pretty damn low.
If it helps, I thought the new ones with Kyuurem and Zekrom were utterly horrendous. They were so bad I didn’t even want to open up the files again to get images for a review.
You know, at first I wanted to instinctively defend myself about the lack of personality in that review by saying that I wasn’t really emotionally invested in any of the shows last season, but even my Shana III review doesn’t look that great to me upon rereading.
You’re completely right, at some point I started sacrificing my personality in order to conform to a more, “list positives, list negatives, conclude” format. So thanks for that, hopefully I can make this season’s eventual reviews less vapid.
“There were like 50 fucking paragraphs here with only one image in the entire post. Who does this?”
I do. It’s part of the rambling style I go for. Though while I usually make up for it with generous paragraph spacing, the spacing in that Another review was admittedly pretty damn bad.
Thanks for the comments, Dark_Sage.
3,000 anime? Taking a quick look at the details shows that Anime-Planet counts the most ridiculous things as “an anime”. The DVD/BD bonus shorts for A-Channel? Counted separately. The one episode on-disc OVA for Angel Beats? Counted separately. The specials for Astro Fighter Sunred? Counted separately. While she’s certainly watched a lot of shows, the number itself is pretty meaningless.
MAL does it too. I’ve watched 10 Shana series according to the list and have two more in PtW. Anime are counted like that.
Why should on-disc bonuses be counted separately? While aniDB screws up a bunch of things, they include bonuses as part of the series if it’s on the same discs as the main show.
Database convenience, I guess. It’s easier to just have a new entry than come up with some sort of hierarchy system.
I’m probably missing something here, but why does there need to be a hierarchy? Mark on-disk specials as Episode S1, S2, S3, ad nauseum.
I’m going to fulfill my role as A-P ambassador here and say that a lot of it is most likely to do with the fact that they ARE separate shows/features, even if related (aniDB has OVAs as a separate entity too) – it’s also the case that most people are likely to mark off series as they watch them, whereas the DVD specials come later and aren’t really part of the main series. I can’t speak for the coder herself, but I’d imagine it’s a lot easier to add a new page for the specials than tack them on the end of a series that lots of people have already marked as Watched.
A lot of the entries are geared towards being able to tick them off a list (Watched, Watching, Want to Watch, etc.), so that’s probably the reason for it.
And I can vouch for the fact that she’s watched a lot of anime series, etc. because I’m fairly sure that the vast majority of synopses and screenshots on the A-P site are due to her sustained contribution (bear in mind, A-P has been around a while now). Rather than knocking her, can’t you just accept that it’s an impressive feat to like anime *that* much? I mean, I’ve only watched just over 200 series/movies and I’ve been watching fansubs since 2005 :o
I have no problem with OVAs being counted separately — provided they’re sold separately from the main series, bundled with a manga, bundled with a game, etc. Here’s what I find absurd: Anime-Planet considers Tachikoma Days as an entirely separate series… when they’re attached to the end of each episode. To me, this makes no sense at all.
> Rather than knocking her, can’t you just accept that it’s an impressive feat to like anime *that* much?
Please point out where I was “knocking her”; if anything I was knocking AP for their classifications. To help you out, the following is the only sentence that involves Chii:
“While she’s certainly watched a lot of shows, the number itself is pretty meaningless.”
Did I ever call her a loser for watching a ton of anime? Or say that she needs to do something more constructive with her time? Or that she’s a drain on society?
Nope. Nothing like that. I didn’t even call it insane, which D_S did. All I said was that the number was meaningless, which reflects on AP. Anything else is a case of you reading too much into it.
I apologise if I misread your intentions, cow – I think I read it a little more accusatory than you meant it. After all, chii doesn’t quote that number anywhere, it was one DS got from her A-P profile, so arguing against it for the sake of it seems a little… petty? Just seemed to me that a lot is made out of that number when she didn’t even claim it as a number worth validating, if that makes sense.
And as I said previously, I can only assume there’s a genuine reason for series being split like that – whether it’s a disparity between TV airings (read: fansub releases) and DVD releases, I don’t know, but I can’t imagine that it’s been done that way arbitrarily.
Even with the number “inflation” cause by the database, I question anyone that has seen over 1000 anime, much less 3000. Like, it would take an entire decade’s worth of anime, OVAs, and anime movies just to get over 1000.
Eh? You know it’s 2012, right? 10 years worth puts us Q2 2002. Some of us anime watchers are in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s.
Believe me, I’m aware of that. It would take approximately 15 straight years of watching every anime that came out in those years to reach a number over 3000. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No. Her list is particularly suspect since both her favorite and hated lists contain anime that most people have watched or are at least aware of. And for a person who has seen so much anime to refuse to watch Clannad, Elfen Lied, Nadesico, etc. seems to me to be a little strange.
15 years? I’m… really not sure where you got that number. Let’s do a little math:
1) Assume that the average series is 26 episodes long. This may seem like I’m ignoring the likes of One Piece and Gintama; however, don’t forget that AP counts even a 1-ep OVA or on-disc bonuses as separate series, of which there are many. Don’t forget that movies have an equivalent length of 4 to 6 (full-length features) episodes.
2) Assume that each episode is 24 minutes long. There are some that are a little longer (usually double episodes are marked as such), and others that are a little shorter (quite a bit shorter in the cases of kiddie 5 minute shows, like Higepiyo; yes I watched it, what of it?).
26 episodes/series * 24 minutes/episode * 1 hour/60 minutes * 3000 series = 31,200 hours. This works out to a little over three and a half years. If you watch on average 4 hours of anime a day — and considering how much TV the *average* American watches each day this isn’t entirely unreasonable — something like 20 years would be sufficient to watch 3000 shows.
I don’t know how old Chii is and whether she could have pulled it off, but for any given viewer it’s possible. Note that there’s also one other important assumption that we’ve both made: that she watched every series to completion, even the ones she didn’t like. While I’m neurotic about finishing each series that I start regardless of how I feel about it (this is why I never started One Piece or Gintama), it’s entirely possible for her to write off at least some of the series after just 3 or 4 episodes.
You do realise they have a handy little tracker over at A-P that tracks it in real-time (hours, etc.) Everyone seems to have missed that under the weight of the “3,000 series” factoid. If you look at Chii’s profile, she’s spent a year and two months *just* watching anime. That’s dedication, regardless of how many series it equates to.
I’ve probably watched at least that much. Granted, I cheat by setting MPC to play at double speed with the majority of the series I watch.
Well, make an account, add the series you’ve watched to your Watched list and find out, why dontcha? I’ve only watched just over 200 shows (and aborted about 100) and I’ve only just cracked the two-month mark.
Because manually going through all those shows is mind-numbing work. Do they have some kind of automated program?
I’m not quite following… how would an automated program know what series you’ve watched?
aniDB has aniDB’o’matic, which automates the process of adding files that you have on disk to aniDB. If Anime-Planet had a similar tool, I could just point the program at my file server and have it index all the episodes that I’ve already watched.
Wow, that sounds like a really good feature. Hm, may see if A-P’s admin can code something similar :D (so in short, no, that doesn’t exist on A-P).
…and of course after writing that and checking the user page, I finally notice that there’s a category for “dropped”. I don’t intend to sign up, so I have no idea if it’s just faster to “all watched” rather than selecting a few and then marking the series as dropped. Anyway, as to your other assertion — “I question anyone that has seen over 1000 anime” — the math would suggest that only about 7 years of watching would get you to 1000, which is quite feasible.
The time difference between checking “Watched” and the episode number you’ve dropped at is negligeable (one extra dropdown menu, I believe).
Never underestimate laziness!
>she thinks Clannad is the worst anime ever
I didn’t know such shit taste in anime was even possible, especially considering she’s purportedly watched ~3000 series.
>Also thinks FMA is the second best anime ever
She also put Elfen lied and Death Note on the worst anime ever list, not because they’re bad show but because of the fans. (I wouldn’t say either of those are in my top anime, but rating them low because of the fans is fucking retarded)
Bitch confirmed for retarded land whale with no taste.
That’s entirely what I suspected. Rather than judging anime by its individual merits, she based the list on how butthurt she was over each series’ public perception, voiding her pathetic lists entirely. So not only are her opinions retarded, she is a pitiable, petulant wanker.
OMG PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS?!
Are you guyz trollan?
I respect her opinions, but there’s no way in hell her list was based on anything but butthurt. Even with an irrational hatred for Clannad, it:
*Has a coherent plot
*Has decent animation
*Has decent voice acting
*Emotion impact (okay, that’s subjective, but if you weren’t at all saddened by the events of the story, you can hardly call yourself a sympathetic human being)
And believe me, there is an abundance of terribly drawn, extremely weak series that are practically objectively worse than most on her list. Considering her shallow criticisms, her opinions have no substance. End rant.
Maybe she watched ~3000 shitty series…. oh wait.
Why are you guys so hung up about this chick who claims to have watched 3,000 anime?