I don't actually look anything like this

As far as I know this blog’s never been a victim of a hacker before, and since it’s been a bit neglected in recent months I’ve done only the bare minimum in terms of upgrades, maintenance and general housekeeping. Since a lot of anime/J-culture bloggers I’m in contact with run on the wordpress platform, I might as well outline my experiences in case it happens to any of you as well.

The wordpress Pharma Hack doesn’t show itself on the blog itself, but its effects are obvious in the victim’s google rankings: post titles are replaced with spam ads and it can go unnoticed for some time…until the blogger either sees a drop in site traffic, visitors have trouble finding it through search engines or similar.

After the initial feelings of panic and “I…I…I’ve been violated…” I looked up the potential cause and what to do about it. I disabled all my plugins, backed up my database and WP directory (when was the last time I did THAT?), deleted all files and folders, re-installed a fresh copy of the WP software and restored the rest piece by piece. I re-uploaded images first, then plugins.

One useful tool in these situations is the Sucuri Sitecheck Scanner, which runs a diagnostic scan to show up what sort of nasties are lurking in your site. At the time of writing, this blog is clean but last weekend the scanner picked up a piece of Black Hat SEO malware that’s associated with unwanted/bogus ads. To pinpoint the problem I installed the WordPress Exploit Scanner, which runs a check through the WP install to highlight lines of code which may be troublesome and therefore require removal.

The Exploit Scanner picked out a couple of lines in my Feedburner plugin that are attributed to the WP Pharma Hack, so I deleted that offending plugin, ran the Sucuri scanner again and it gave me a clean bill of health. In a way I feel very fortunate in that the source of the problem was a mere plugin; I’ve read horror stories about blogs with infected databases which, with my limited knowledge of SQL, I’d be pretty at a loss in terms of how to deal with it.

In all honesty I don’t feel the need for the Feedburner plugin anyway – a lot of my site promotion comes from GRSI (now Google+) or Twitter; I don’t *think* removing Feedburner broke my RSS feed, but you might want to re-subscribe this blog in your feedreader, just in case. All this seems to have done in the long run is eat up a saturday while I was trying to familiarise myself with this little beastie of a hack and re-install my blog, but since I’ve used it as an excuse to start playing around with a new theme/layout it’s not all bad. I’ve also learned a few things:

1. Regularly back up your database, themes, uploads and anything else important that’s unique to your blog’s install (duh!) That includes the config.php and the .htaccess file.
2. Change your password periodically (duh!)
3. Install only as many plugins as you need. Newer versions of WordPress have more stuff already included but some things, like anti-spam plugins, as essential. Each plugin is a potential target for a hacker. Keep those updated too, in case the developers come up with patches for security issues.
4. Keep tabs on your google search results and site traffic. Sudden increases and decreases in hits are worth looking into, especially when you have a regular posting schedule (I don’t, but still…).

I now have the new (TwentyEleven) theme installed with some pretty-shiny new banner images, and a long to-do list for upcoming posts and tweaks to the layout. Last weekend actually reminded me about how fun maintaining (not just writing) a blog can be so I now have a few things lined up. The SF episodic story thing I was working on over on the main site will continue (when I’ve spring-cleaned and checked that WP installation too, natch) and at some point I’ll upload the rest of the photos from last September’s Japan trip onto Flickr. I want 2012 to be a productive year, whether the Mayans (or Roland Emmerich) were right about the imminent apocalypse or not.

Source: Alafista (click image for full article)

Maaya is one of the few VAs I’ve paid much attention to: after seeing her name crop up so frequently a while ago, I checked her ANN profile and realised how often I’d heard her voice, both as a singer and an actress. Similarly, Kenichi is another industry veteran and it turns out that they’ve often worked together and have known each other for some time. Compared to, say, the negative reaction to Aya Hirano making certain details of her private life public, the messages of goodwill from the fans at this piece of news are both heartwarming and completely justified.

This is an appropriate time I think to explain my opinion on why Maaya is one of my personal fave VAs, and why she’s so worthy of fans’ respect. Firstly there’s the range and diversity of her roles: getting her big break as a young fantasy heroine (Escaflowne), she’s worked in SF and mecha shows (Gundam Seed Destiny, RahXephon, Gunbuster 2), offbeat comedy (Arakawa Under the Bridge) and more serious and demanding series (Usagi Drop, Mushishi, Kara no Kyoukai). It’s also worth remembering that she has been able to consistently find work and do her job well in an industry that’s often fickle and rarely sees its stars spending long periods of time in the limelight.

She also has an impressive back catalogue as a music artist, working with the likes of Yoko Kanno and occasionally co-writing her own songs. Again, my scant knowledge of Japanese prevents me enjoying the vocal/lyrical content as much as I want to, but she has one of those pleasant and easy-on-the-ears voices with a wide range of pitch and expression. Everywhere is a good compilation of her work to date, but the studio LP Shounen Alice is my personal highlight and one I especially recommend.

Kenichi is a seiyuu who I must confess I’m not nearly as familiar with (I’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed the Tsukihime anime adaptation, so maybe that counts for something? ^_^), although he’s won a few awards and enjoyed some success as a music artist as well. Part of the reason I think why their pairing has put a smile on so many faces is that he and Maaya have been such a good match professionally: in hindsight, it explains why the on-screen chemistry between the two leads in KnK for instance felt so natural and convincing.

From the fans’ perspective then, this is probably one of those pairings that has many fictional parallels (life imitating art and vice-versa) but I’m now reaching a time of life when people my age seem to be getting hitched left, right and centre; stepping away from the otaku point of view it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling of “it couldn’t have happened to nicer people.”

In closing then, my sincere congratulations to them both and best wishes for a happy life together.

My personal opinion is coloured slightly by a personal run-in I had with them a while back but before saying anything else I need to point out that my opinion on the site is more complicated than simple approval or disapproval of what they do.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, on certain issues, I’m actually on their side. “The standard of my writing should match what I myself find interesting and would want to read,” is a rule of thumb I try to work to (sometimes I read an old post of mine and think “urgh, that’s shite…”).

That is to say, if you don’t see enough interesting writing, put your money where your mouth is and try it yourself. I must admit that 1. there’re a lot of episodic-style blogs around already and I’m not interested in them and 2. I’ve no incentive to either read or write episodic posts for that reason. I regularly read and enjoy Hanners and the Sea Slug Team as ‘episodic’ blogs that stand out from the crowd, but otherwise it’s a case of “other people’s idea of ‘interesting’, not mine.” (Re: the rule of thumb in the previous paragraph).

In that sense I can understand how CD wanted to write differently from what they themselves were used to seeing elsewhere; it was a gap in the market that needed filling, so to speak. Quite a few of the blogs I read are of the more eclectic and unusual but many of them have succumbed to Hiatus Disease; bucking the trend(s) and striving to write something different is a good thing, because you can’t have too much good content around.

In regards to showing everyone else how it can be done and done well, the fandom would actually benefit from someone who has thick skin and innovative ideas…someone who grabs it by the shoulders, gives it a good shake and looks it in the eye to say “this is boring! You can do better than this!” Being a vocal detractor of the status quo but failing to actually provide an alternative simply won’t cut it: just ask Yutaka Yamamoto after he made a grand speech about saving The Industry before going on to disappoint viewers with Fractale.

Combining intelligence and humour is a difficult balance too, and at first glance a well-intentioned stance of “You guys can do better! We have the balls so show you how!” can come across as arrogant or condescending. Even so, I can make a list of things I agree with these guys on:

• Macross Plus is awesome.
• Gurren Lagann is fun.
• Madoka Magica was surprisingly good.
• A lot of anime isn’t interesting to me.
• Many anime blogs aren’t interesting to me.
• It’s possible to write intelligent and fun articles about anime.
• Some anime fans make me shake my head in bemusement and then click the “back” button on my browser.
• It’s all too easy for satirical/sarcastic humour to be misunderstood.

I’d also like to point out that they’re articulate and experienced in the fandom, and I enjoy reading quite a few of their posts: Loups=Garous was indeed a godawful film and deserved to be panned as such; Redline is a blast and Satoshi Kon was a genius at filmmaking. My opinion on the site though is still mixed and even though I can understand where they’re coming from better now, I still have issues with their methods.

The best analogy I have unfortunately comes from British TV, so bear with me on this one. Jeremy Clarkson’s public persona in his newspaper columns and on the Top Gear TV show is that of the opinionated, vocal alpha male. This on-camera attitude won’t be exactly the same as his real-life personality but even though it’s not an act, there’s a definite sense of it being tongue-in-cheek and playing on his own reputation. The CD staff came across as less, well, angry in interview but they admitted that their colourful blogging language is part of their attempt to get people to sit up and take notice, and also an attempt to be entertaining.

I’ve seen numerous instances where Clarkson and the other Top Gear presenters have offended people; similarly, I can appreciate that CD play the Angry Old Fan card and risk offending people to emphasise a valid point…or simply for the lulz. In my view, satire can’t fulfil its full potential if it avoids offending everybody!

Irony and sarcasm is easily misunderstood though, and it’s possible to argue “the writer fails at conveying this effectively.” just as easily as “the reader fails to get it.” An important issue here then is that of the target readership: according to CD’s perfectly reasonable goal of setting an example through posting interesting and entertaining content, they need to connect with people and encourage them to improve. Their irreverant style however implies that their readers must be of a certain level of intelligence and understanding, if only to stop them thinking “what a bunch of embittered old arseholes,” and going elsewhere.

I felt I was receiving mixed signals from the interview responses: do the CD staff aim to use their controversial approach to shock fans into being more thoughtful, interesting people? If their writing style is intentionally a “rabid dog running around the neighbourhood,” do they recognise that the implimentation of these aims can actually drive people away?

If people are intelligent and grown-up enough to understand CD’s humour, surely those readers aren’t part of the fan community’s problem? Conversely, if the blog is a campaign to make fools sit up and think, the last person you’d expect to appreciate a writing style that’s full of easily-misconstrued sarcasm is a fool who doesn’t like thinking about stuff. What concerns me, and may or may not be clear to the CD writers, is that it’s not just the idiots who dismiss them out of hand. It goes without saying that I’ve no intention of telling someone else how to run his or her blog, but I’d be interested to know if they realise that fact.

I agree with the intention to use sharp, dry humour, the desire to write high quality content and I recognise that the signal-to-noise ratio in the anime blogging community could be improved. Even so, this interview didn’t convince me that CD’s not also a thinly-veiled excuse to merely vent their frustration at the areas of the fan community that annoy them. I’m in a situation where I want to be mindful of what motivates them but at the same time I have a lingering feeling that it doesn’t need to be this way…and given the limited shelf life of any joke, it can’t last forever in any case.

The simple truth is that when people are angry with your attitude they are less inclined to listen to what it is you have to say. You be witty and clever, discuss issues others either ignore or are unaware of, but as long as you project yourself as an arrogant ass it runs the risk of falling on deaf ears. I understand why CD are annoyed at the fandom, why they want to show the world “a blog that doesn’t suck” but when tough love is mistaken for being a jackass it can actually be counterproductive.

I have no idea about what could possibly be relevant and break the wall of text, so here is a pic of a bear with a gun instead

Incidentally, when working for a team blog you also need to be mindful that what you say is going to affect opinions on the team as a whole. I personally find that responsibility constricting because my co-writers might get into trouble if I said something stupid, hence why this has always been my blog and mine alone. This is a point worth remembering; not just when you’re reading something CD posted, but when you’re reading any team blog or similar joint venture.

Whether a united front is present or not, it’s still comprised of individual human beings rather than some hive mind. Just thought I’d toss that general observation about the blogosphere in there (this observation also partly came about from a post on Shameful Otaku Secret!, when I congratulated Mike on a job well done then found out that Digiboy was the one who had written it. *headdesk*).

Believe it or not I’m actually considering putting Colony Drop on my blogroll, despite the flaws in their M.O. being so obvious to me. And on that bombshell…goodnight.

I also feel saddened at the minority who have made a negative contribution to the disaster with insensitive comments and hysteria, such as the irresponsible reporting from the media which is making a drama out of a crisis. To end my comments on a positive note though, the reports I’ve read of the courage and dedication from rescuers, relief workers and the “Fukushima Fifty” remind me that the worst of times can bring out the best in people. I can barely imagine what those thousands of people in Japan and the Pacific region must be going through, but I’m hoping and praying the situation will improve for them. That is all.

Think of it then as my writing of stuff that wouldn’t otherwise get written at all. The name, by the way, is a pun on the title of a song by 65dos combined with a few more layers of double-meanings of the sort that I’m constantly amusing myself with. Self-indulgent but eh, isn’t that what blogging is all about?

What I’m constantly trying to break is the usual routine of writing a 1000+ blog post in a cycle of Draft Rewrite Hell spread across several evenings, going something like this:

1. come up with an interesting idea in the shower or during a boring spell at work
2. start a draft that reaches around 600 words
3. leave it for a day or two then do other things
4. add more paragraphs until a critical mass of around 1100 words is reached
5. cut out ‘unecessary’ and repetitive bits
6. rearrange a couple of paragraphs to improve the flow
7. agonise over suitable screencaps/illustrations
8. repeat steps 5-7 until I want to punch myself in the face
9. add screencaps, check for spelling mistakes, say “bollocks to it…” and hit Publish
10. grin with satisfaction when it appears on my feedreader
11. spot a dumb typo that survived x draft rewrites. Raeg.

Needless to say it’s liberating to either post one pic or churn out three or four paragraphs right off the bat and only checking for spelling mistakes than going through what’s become an unbreakable habit over the past four or so years. Writing is a compulsion for me so stopping entirely would be like losing a limb, but there’s no escaping the fact that I put myself through a lot of aggro and come out of it less than satisfied with the results.

There are things I’ve grown to love about the WordPress approach though: categories, tags, page layouts that are easy on the eyes and most importantly the commenting system. I’ve no idea of people’s opinions, if any, on my Tumblr posts…I could be speaking into an empty room for all I know. The WP comments thread is the easiest way of getting the two-way traffic of Web 2.0 and I’d hate to walk away from that entirely.

The career business is depressing as hell which saps more of my energy than I’d like but the music-related project is finally getting moving at last…I even have a couple of proper blog posts in the pipeline in the next week or two but in between the usual schedule, Tumblr or GRSI are where you’ll find me. Beats suffering full-blown Hiatus Disease, right?

Uh, this. As in, trying to sort out my ongoing soundcard issues by buying a twin-channel preamp mixer and new headphones. About time too I might add

Back o/t my opponent is Astrobunny…a blog with an Aria-themed header, guitar chords to anime songs and whose posts include such things as “Nowadays with so many people crossdressing, maybe parents should rethink their view on dressing their boys as girls as “just for fun”. It might have some interesting effects, such as on the fetishes they develop.” So yeah, I don’t really mind if I don’t win when I’m up against that. The dates seem to be US time rather than GMT, so there should still be time to go vote for whichever one of us you think is cooler.

It’s been an interesting year for a number of reasons, not least world events in terms of economies and finances which led to some sad incidents and a general feeling that the film and music industries are dying a slow and painful death. Granted, things have been rough but I don’t buy into the idea that there’s a Moe Cancer killing the anime industry and as for Japan as a whole…who knows what the political changes can do in the long term. In any case, here are my highlights of Interesting Japanese Things from the year.

Audition by Ryu Murakami is published in English

To my shame, the movie still sits on my to-watch shelf. The novel it’s based on hit UK bookshops this year, and it’s a really fun read. It saw me through a couple of exhausting night shifts too…

[original post]

Bakemonogatari airs

Hey kids, do you like Akiyuki Shinbo? Do you like Shinbo when he’s doing weird-ass Anno-esque imagery, razor-sharp dialogue and the best first date evar? Yep, Bakemonogatari was all of these things, and as such I loved it. Senjougahara Fascination begins here.

[original post]

Cutie Honey live action hits UK DVD

My inner Hideaki Anno fanboy talked me into buying this. It’s bad. Corny, overdone, breathtakingly silly…so bad in fact that it’s actually very, very good. I hope it’s the beginning of a trend into releasing more live-action J-cinema over here.

[original post]

Dir en Grey release Uroboros

The latest LP from the Angsty Men of Osaka is dark, challenging and really quite good. More varied and less abrasive than their previous one, it follows their progression towards the heavier end of the spectrum while drawing on their layered, more melodic roots.

[original post]

Eden of the East airs

The director of GitS:SAC, noitaminA, international terrorism and a few hundred unemployed naked blokes in shipping containers…who said anime was generic? I may have given it a bit of a lukewarm reception at points but Higashi no Eden was intelligent, refreshing and has tonnes of sequel potential. Just as well really since the two part feature film conclusion is on its way.

[original posts]

Kalafina release Seventh Heaven

The origins of this record can be found in Yuki Kajiura’s anime soundtrack work (see next item) but on its own that little girl group of hers made something really special. It turned out to be the soundtrack to my trip abroad and proved to be the best ¥3000 I ever spent.

[original post]

Kara no Kyoukai finishes its run of seven feature films

Strictly speaking it started in 2008 but with the final instalment just around the corner I can’t not mention it, purely on the grounds of it being the first screen adaptation of a Nasuverse piece that’s truly great. Not just the soundtrack: the visuals and most importantly the decision to be more faithful to the source material were all outstanding. Now go licence the English translation of the novels already.

[original posts]

Mono release Hymn to the Immortal Wind

After being so impressed with their Gone compilation (see my recent post) I was looking forward to their tenth anniversary recording. I’ve seen a few of you voice your respect for this band but quite frankly I don’t see why they can’t be even more successful internationally given the instrumental and emotionally intense nature of their music. Right from Ashes in the Snow (easy to learn, hard to master) I was captivated enough to call it my favourite new album of the year.

[original post]

Spice and Wolf season 2 airs

Remember how cute and heartwarming the first season was? Remember thinking “It’s good but I can see how it could be better”? I sure as hell did. Largely thanks to some sizzling character chemistry the second outing had all the charm of its predecessor but brought with it a certain je ne sais quoi that made a world of difference. It’s called character development, or something.

[original post]

Summer Wars is shown at the Leeds International Film Festival

I’m holding back on blogging about this properly since 1. the version available currently isn’t particularly good quality and 2. not many people have seen it yet so the post I currently have in draft format won’t mean one hell of a lot. It certainly wins the Anime Movie of the Year award for its warmth, vitality and visual excellence. Pure win all round, really.

[original post]

So yeah, it’s been one hell of a year. Perhaps the most important moment for me personally was the two weeks I spent in Tokyo – nothing satisfies the fascination for a country’s culture more than actually visiting the place for yourself. I’m planning to go back in approximately 18 months or so (and seeing some sights outside the city as well) but hopefully the double-whammy of jet-lag and culture shock from my first trip abroad won’t hit as bad next time. It was indeed epic so thanks to my fellow travellers who made it so special and also thanks again for reading. See you all in 2010!

I took a leaf out of Epic Win‘s book and moved the blogroll to its own separate page, to tidy up the sidebar if nothing else. I want to add subcategories to my links to make use of the extra space and organise them a bit better as well – it’s all in aid of looking classier and more readable (unless you read these posts solely on a feedreader, in which case my efforts will be lost on you). There are still the usual niggling details to iron out but as far as I can tell this theme looks the same in Firefox and IE, which is as much as I could hope for really. Not bad for something I threw together in the space of an evening.

To put it bluntly, CSS is a royal pain in the arse and no amount of Muse and Kalafina can sweeten the experience of misplaced semicolons and colours that refuse to behave themselves. The gravatars and comment quicktag boxes are next on my list so should make a glorious return as soon as I can sort them out; feel free to make suggestions and bug reports in the (currently incorrectly-sized) comments form as usual.

In other news, pretty much everything I’m currently watching is finishing so expect the last of Spice and Wolf (squeeeeee), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ( T_T ) and even thoughts on Canaan, assuming the last ep leaves enough of an impression for me to actually have an opinion on it. Darker than Black is finally being released on DVD over here now so I can rewatch that before 2009 is out too.

During my week offline I was reliant on reading good ol’ fashioned books to kill time so expect posts on the Crest of the Stars and Haruhi novels – they’re damn good reads but the differences between the originals and the TV adaptations are interesting in themselves. There isn’t much in the new season that’s caught my eye but the DtB second season and possibly the second helping of White Album will be worth looking into.

The rest of my energies at the moment involve the upcoming replacement of my trusty old laptop with a new desktop rig, which I’m planning on putting together and fitting with a Blu-ray drive in the next couple of months. There’s a Top Secret project involved in this too (hint in the pic above)…well, two people know about it so far but I’ll post details when the pieces are in place.

Finally, I’ve never mentioned the subjects of the current banner images either, so here they are:

• Ryougi Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai) deskop; unknown source
• Screenshot from Byousoku 5cm
• A view from Tokyo Tower at sunset that I snapped earlier this year.

Source: xkcd.xom, a site I love

It started with this unfortunate incident that’s an example of (on this blog at least) a mercifully rare side-effect of the user-comment feature: the Annoying Unconstructive Comment. The anime blogging community is a pretty closed one but every now and then, alongside the usual discussion with your blog’s regulars, you get a comment from a stranger who in all probability is ‘just passing through’. I try to reply to these but when it’s a one-line or incomprehensible comment I don’t normally bother – they’ll probably never read my reply anyway. This time I took the bait and was, well, a bit abrupt; in retrospect I was in the wrong but that’s beside the point. Nor am I taking back what I said. Here’s why.

It depends on your own writing style but I’m not one of those gifted few who can kick out a long, complex article in one sitting on a regular basis*: agonising over screencaps (now made slightly less tedious thanks to this plugin), turns of phrase and even punctuation frequently lead to a cycle of Post Draft Hell. It takes me a long time and a lot of effort to get one blog post online, which is why I don’t post with as much frequency and as a result every one is a big deal. If I waited until I was certain it was perfect in every aspect I’d never publish anything.

Blogging is fun but I still have a constant fear that I might make flawed arguments, unseen typos and other errors that go unnoticed until it’s too late. I go to a lot of trouble to weed these out but the thick skin that comes with writing publicly-viewable articles is something I’m still in the process of acquiring; there’s always that nagging feeling that after clicking the Publish button everything I say is going to be ripped to shreds or ignored entirely (or, worse, have the important points ignored while the trivial ones get all the attention). It appears some people actually enjoy nitpicking but after going to all the extra hassle to remove mistakes and give those people less cause for complaint it makes it all the more irritating when it happens anyway.

I’m, like, sooo tsundere for the Internet

We’re only human after all, so with the best will in the world (accompanied by Wikipedia and the MS Word spellchecker prior to C/Ping) there’s no cast-iron guarantee that what you write is 100% correct and meets the approval of everyone. Nobody likes being wrong; constructive criticism is good but there’s a difference between ‘constructive criticism’ and ‘splitting hairs’. Genuine trolls usually go by the username Anonymous so I’m giving this random passer-by the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s a misguided attempt at being helpful. So…

Writing intelligent blog posts is a time-consuming and labour-intensive process and inevitably, despite my best efforts, errors will occur. I have a contact form for private correspondance but a petty, single-line comment that ignores the main point to concentrate on trivialities will achieve nothing more than pissing me off.

This is why I won’t take back my annoyed reply; an explanation as to why I was annoyed in the first place is much more meaningful, right?

I don’t like to fall back on the excuse that this site is maintained in my own spare time and at my own expense in justifying this sort of thing; “this is my blog so I can say what I like,” is fair enough up to a point but it’s the start of a slippery slope. As much as posts that are inaccurate, offensive or just plain dumb can discredit me as an individual, there’s a limit to how much damage can be done. Multi-author blogs on the other hand are risky business because individual contributors’ writing, and quality thereof, reflects on the venture as a whole.

Which leads me onto the issues some of us are having with ANN’s current roster of reviewers. The article on Shigurui interested me in particular because it’s a title I know of by reputation but have yet to watch: I read ANN’s review with interest but was disappointed with the quality of writing, to put it mildly.

You know a reviewer has failed when the discussion that follows is more insightful and helpful than the article they’re discussing. As in, the commenters got a better gist of the subject matter than the reviewer did. In the case of bloggers who start being jaded and cynical towards the stuff they’re covering, it’s a sign of burn-out; Hiatus Disease follows and they take a much-needed break, end of story. In the case of a high-profile, multi-author venture such as ANN, the stakes are higher: the writers are presumably working to deadlines and have an incentive (financial or otherwise) to keep going. Remember Zac’s relief when he relinquished the reins of Hey, Answerman! to let a new writer step into his shoes? Zac’s a good writer I’m sure, but that was burn-out on an epic scale.

I think I know what to suggest to ANN, although implementing it is difficult, I’ll admit. The task of reviewing for their site, catering for casual visitors and dedicated fans alike, requires a clear, objective mindset. Getting the balance between giving fanboys/fangirls and haters certain titles to review is tricky when, say, moe shows aren’t popular amongst the current roster so the ‘right’ person for a given title may not be available. Apparently they have a shortage of good reviewers…but then, I saw some very articulate and entertaining writing in the comments forum thread that followed…

There’s also the problem of a Serious Misunderstanding again: a favourite site of mine once received a lot of flak for publishing a review on Grave of the Fireflies, for example. The admin decided to keep the review, which basically panned the movie, online; not because they agreed with the reviewer’s opinions but because the said opinions are representative of a portion of the potential audience, however minor that portion may be. I don’t agree with that review either, but I know the site well and don’t think any less of it for that; casual just-passing-through visitors on the other hand might not know this and as a result could make a Serious Misunderstanding…which may be the problem I recently experienced.

Perhaps ANN need to do a serious recruitment programme in order to top up their staff with some fresh, intelligent and articulate editorial talent to breathe life into a site that’s becoming increasingly distanced from the fanbase. They need to ask themselves a lot of questions: Are we honest and impartial? Are we in touch with the people we are writing for? Who are we writing for in the first place?

There’s a big jump between writing for your own satisfaction and getting some aggro from one or two visitors, and writing for a world-famous online site with the potential for getting A LOT of aggro from many visitors; but some rules still hold true in either case. Good writing still matters but honest mistakes still happen. Honest misunderstandings still happen too. What’s important is to do the best you can, which ought to mean an apology shouldn’t be necessary.

*This post was written with as much honesty, clarity and accuracy as I could scrape together, as always. It was also written in one sitting with no use of a spell-checker, so if that gives you cause for complaint it just proves my secondary point. It should also go without saying that I won’t change anything I’ve written, and won’t apologise for anything either.

I find using a second monitor to be useful at times but more than that I want an audio cable long enough to stretch to my hi-fi rig so I can back up my full catalogue to mp3 on an external HD

In addition to making my tag cloud a bit more aesthetically pleasing I’ve tweaked my layout a bit here and there and had a minor purge of my blogroll. It’s not that the blogs I removed aren’t of good quality – quite the reverse in fact – but they haven’t offered anything new in a while and I want to keep my sidebar tidier than my old blog’s was. There have been some new additions though, so here is some reading that I hope will provide us with wordy win for months to come without them dying on us. So go read them. ^_^

Ha Neul Seom

http://guriguriblog.wordpress.com/

This blog became one of my favourites almost overnight, not least because it has one of the most interesting titles. It means ‘Island in the Sky’, not to be confused – I think – with this one but is also bloody well-written (Gaguri is Korean I believe but his English is over 9000 times better than mine…if he weren’t so polite and cool I’d hate him for it. :P ). Since most of us write about the new stuff and the occasional cult fave, it’s good to see a few forays into the obscure, overlooked and underrated; it’s a varied mixture that blurs the divisions between editorials, commentary and review but most importantly it’s a blog I can read and feel enlightened by without feeling like a thicko.

Low on hit points

http://www.lowonhitpoints.com/

A rare beast is a blog that’s self coded: we all seem to rely on WordPress or Blogger in some form or another but Michael has built his purely from the sweat of his brow (and remembering my own distant days of self-coded blogging I daresay involved a lot of hair-pulling and cursing of IE’s raeping of CSS layouts too). More importantly it’s candid, opinionated and topical; speaking your mind means two things: you’re likely to get flamed but you’re also cooler than most people for risking being flamed. As far as I know this blog hasn’t whipped up any such dorama but it’s still a stonking good read.

Memories of eternity

http://memories-of-eternity.com/

See what he did there? Even though Eternal has yet to bring me round to the moe fanboy way of thinking, anyone who gets me to admit that Clannad is really quite good has to be doing something right. Putting your own spin on things and conveying your love for the medium effectively are, for me at least, two of the most important things in writing a good anime blog. Here you’ll find sincere and thoughtful impressions on the heartfelt, sentimental and downright cute…I’ll never hear anything said against tl;dr enthusiastic fanboying after all! It’s actually been going for much longer than I thought, which kinda reiterates the problem with good blogs getting the site visits in their early days.

Opinion Prone

http://opinionprone.blogspot.com/

What was that about being opinionated and why it’s a good thing? The title says it all but ever since Kiriska posted how supposedly “The fans ruined it for me!” I realised I’d stumbled on another refreshing source of well-written common sense and commentary. It takes matters away from anime-specific topics too, so in that sense you’ll find a more varied mix to read and inwardly digest. If I said the articles relating to the Darker than Black anime and the potential new direction for Batman hadn’t swayed my decision to include it here I wouldn’t expect you to believe me but go visit anyway.

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis

http://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/blog/

A candidate for The Blog With The Most Awesomely Random Name is this, personal blog of industry stalwart Jonathan Clements. I’m not sure how well-known he is outside UK fandom but over here he’s one of the few high-profile professional journalistic types who can be relied upon to give an objective stance on anime as a Serious Business art form. Far from being a cynical plug for his latest book, this is a witty and insightful blend of personal thoughts and retrieved columns from his time writing for the likes of Neo magazine. More Brit Anime Blogging solidarity on my part too I guess.

Well, that’s it for a while. I really do want to hear from anyone who reads (or has) a new anime or geekdom-related blog they want to shout about since it seems the best way to keep this blogosphere lively and interesting. Of course, the days are lengthening and becoming warmer so it won’t be long before we’ll see the glorious days of spring and summer on the horizon. Good times ahead!

I apologise to anyone who isn’t UK-based (or indeed, hasn’t met me IRL, which will be most of you) for this insular gag. I’m merely expressing my reverence for Type Moon…like this (Warning: spoilerific for Fate/Stay Night)