Impressions: Air, Haruhi, Kurau and Innocent Venus

Yeah, so I’ve watched a lot of stuff lately, most of which I could do something longer on, but I thought I’d just run through my impressions on them.

Air (TV) – This is one of those shows where there was a lot that I liked and some stuff I didn’t. I didn’t have a horrible [...]

Impressions: Higurashi – tentacles and moe, oh my.

Every now and then I watch a series that makes me go totally fanboy. The last time was when I watched Code Geass.

But it’s been a couple months since then and even though I’ve watched some good series, I hadn’t seen anything that actually got me excited (in a completely non-sexual way, thank you very [...]

The Otakusphere: Micro-blogging, Identity and an unhealthy dose of navel-gazing.

So I’m going to try to avoid too much navel gazing in the post.

But recently there have been at least a couple posts about the nature of micro-blogging and its place in the Otakusphere.

What I found interesting about both Hige’s and Michael’s posts is specifically the idea of identity, both the identity of the writer [...]

In My View: My war against derivative

That is it. I’ve had it.

I’m declaring war against the word, “derivative.”

At first, I thought it would fade away. That it would be one of those words that popped into the general lexicon and then fizzled away. I had hoped that smarter minds than mine would prevail. I had secretly prayed that someone, somewhere would [...]

An ethical dilemma: A minor problem with Library Wars Episode Three

Here’s an ethical situation for y’all:

You’re a reporter standing at an edge of a lake. In the distance, you spot a boy drowning. You have the means and ability to save him and saving him will not have any unintended consequences (he isn’t a child Hitler or anything.) There’s also no one [...]

The Last Frontier: The reason for my love affair with Macross

So I just finished up episode six of Macross Frontier and I like it.

But I shouldn’t.

Not only do I like it, but it’s been one of the three shows that I’m following religiously (Amatsuki and InK, being the other two.) It doesn’t have the self-referential charm of Tower of Druaga. It doesn’t have the weird [...]

The Otakusphere: Impz’s brief history of the world (or at least all of the world that matters)

You can blame Impz, Martin, Bateszi, Hige, Lythka, Author and Michael for this post.

Really, I know a collective groan goes up anytime someone starts talking about “the community”. But after reading Impz’s brief history of the Otakusphere (that’s still my word for the anime blogosphere), Kabitizin’s interviews and Os’s new blogging [...]

In My View: Much ado about a loli

Talking about the industry is like having an itch in the middle of my back. I want to scratch it, but I can only reach the edges.

That said, I still want to do it.

Usually I can trust Author to cut through the BS, but even he is jumping on the “What is FUNImation doing?” bandwagon [...]

The Otakusphere: Civil Liberties, Dead Titles and Living Monkey Armor

Yeah, for those of you who don’t know, I’m a radical Civil Libertarian. And when I say radical I mean “no closed door meetings, destroy the FCC, try the prisoners in Gitmo and let the Nazi’s march” type of radical Civil Libertarian.

So when I read usagijen’s post on Library Wars, I just about got up [...]

The Case of the Invisible Parent: A Mother’s Day Post

(Note: This is part of the ABC Mother’s Day Extravaganza)

So a while back, CCY did a post about the reasons why parents seem to be missing from anime. Now, I think he laid out a reasonable explanation. Anime (at least the anime most of us watch) is geared at a 15-23 year old demographic. But [...]