Tag Archives: community

You gave me Page & Plant, I give you Yuki Kajiura

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I should have reviewed After Eden by now since I bought the thing on release day but like many things, I never got around to it. Even after watching the live DVD that arrived last week I still don’t have a burning desire to write about it; I don’t think it’s the strongest offering from them so far but there are some great tracks on there so I like it and still recommend it. What was interesting though was the unexpected response I received from my “Kalafina live blu-ray arrived! Awesome night in!” Facebook status update I posted late last week.

Relevant to the interests of sixty-something motorbike-riding UK rock fans, apparently

I’m sure those of you who share my tastes in Japanese music, art, entertainment, culture and whatnot will have your own stories about what families and friends think…a lot of that depends on whether you make a public show of it, but some of us are surrounded by like-minded people while some of us…well, aren’t.

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Reading stats: 1233 words, 2 images; estimated reading time 4:56 mins

Katawa Shoujo

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I hadn’t followed the development of what’s commonly known as ‘that 4chan eroge about disabled girls’ but since the finished product isn’t really anything like that, maybe I was better off in blissful ignorance after all. The initial reactions at its full release, claiming it was tasteful and respectful towards its subject matter, were what caught my interest; reading the developers’ blog archives, I realised that it evolved independently from the infamous /a/ board and I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s not an eroge about disabled girls either.

It’s no more an eroge than Tsukihime and F/S N are if I’m honest. I would’ve thought the story-to-smut ratio would have to be lower for it to qualify since, like those Type Moon forays into the genre, Katawa Shoujo involves a lot of reading to get to the H-scenes so it’s plot-driven before anything else; outside of fiction written for a young audience, characters end up in bed together every now and then in many romantic drama stories anyway.

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Reading stats: 1312 words, 2 images; estimated reading time 5:15 mins

A quick message of congratulations to Kenichi and Maaya

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I rarely pay any attention to the latest news in the worlds of seiyuu and Jpop (my knowledge of the language is too limited to appreciate the former and my musical tastes veer too far into the indie/alternative to appreciate the latter) but I felt that the announcement of Maaya Sakamoto recently marrying fellow VA Kenishi Suzumura deserves commenting on. I’m supposed to be working on another writing project ATM though, so I’ll have to keep this short.

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.

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Reading stats: 571 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 2:17 mins

I-I-It’s not like I regularly read Colony Drop or anything

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I listened to the ANNCast with the editorial team of Colony Drop recently and found it to be an interesting listen. The interview used the site’s noteriety as a springboard for questions on a number of relevant issues from conventions to Danny Choo but it clarified a few things I’d been wanting to say about their approach to blogging and the fan community as a whole.

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.

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Reading stats: 1488 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 5:57 mins

Why having Tumblr might save my sanity

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I caved in to temptation. I know this Tumblr malarky could well be a passing fad or whatever, but it’s currently a less labour-intensive way of writing that fits in well with everything else that’s going on at the moment. This blog ISN’T dead yet (I know I haven’t been replying to comments as often as I’d like) but there are too many ideas that float around inside my head and never make it as far as becoming blog posts.

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?

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Reading stats: 504 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 2:01 mins

Remembering Satoshi Kon

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I must admit I didn’t hear about Perfect Blue until around 2004, when the only anime I’d watched were Miyazaki’s Laputa, Anno’s Evangelion and Tsurumaki’s FLCL. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least, but that day was a pretty significant turning-point in making me the fan I am today.

I’m sure the obituaries and tributes to Satoshi Kon from his family and friends will be formed as I type and my sincere condolences go out to them. I’m afraid I know nothing about who he was as a man: I sadly never had the opportunity to meet him. His work however is something I’ve become very familiar with over the years, and it’s my love of this that I want to express, as my way of acknowledging what he achieved.

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Reading stats: 801 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 3:12 mins

News just in: waffling idiot tries to solve the fansub debate

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A recent comment thread on GRSI, plus this bit of news and my experience with this site, has led me to ask myself a question so bleeding obvious that I feel stupid asking it. I’ll stress right now that I’m not a professional computer programmer (why else would I be using a stock WP theme?) and I don’t follow the industry too closely (Omo does some very insightful and in-depth analysis on the subject though) but even so, I do wonder: I’ve noticed a potential solution that would help fans AND make money for the industry…two facts that ought to mean it should’ve been done already. Only it hasn’t.

The current attempt at a solution to the fansub/piracy problem is through the streaming with region-locking and paid subscriptions, i.e. Crunchyroll’s model. I’m not aiming to criticise what CR are doing here: they did great things in giving Eve no Jikan exposure, made last year’s Global Shinkai Day even more special and are so far the only independent site that has made a high-profile attempt to seek the middle ground.

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Reading stats: 1276 words, 2 images; estimated reading time 5:06 mins

So, I’m in this aniblog tourney thing…

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I got an e-mail asking if it was okay to include my blog in the running order so after being reassured that I didn’t have to make any special effort I happily agreed. Whatever the point to it is, I’ve made some cool additions to my feedreader thanks to the blogs being featured on that site; win or lose, I guess it’s good harmless fun and shines a spotlight on the contenders. There isn’t much recent material for the online electorate to go on here I know, since I’ve been preoccupied with other things lately…


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

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Reading stats: 224 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 54 secs

How Shinkai reminded me that the earth is not a cold dead place

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A few days off work have eased a bit of the writer’s block but I must admit that my K-On! post stubbornly refuses to leave Draft Rewrite Hell. Anyway. A little late given that Global Shinkai Day was last weekend, I feel the need to hammer out more strings of words to mark the event. It’s pretty neat to have a special time set aside to raise awareness for a filmmaker…we should have a Global Kon or Oshii day sometime in the year too.


Given the context, “What she said.”

I’ve rewatched the various bits of the Shinkai back catalogue but it was nice to have an excuse to marathon them all in one go (She and Her Cat, Voices of a Distant Star, Place Promised in our Early Days, 5cm Per Second and Neko no Shuukai, in that order). This time the anchor point for my scattered thoughts was a truly stellar AMV (link after the jump).

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Reading stats: 1293 words, 5 images; estimated reading time 5:10 mins