As I tally up the amount of hours a week I spend either writing my own blog posts or reading the posts of others, I sometimes feel that such immersion in the “anime blogshere” is perhaps not the best thing to revolve my daily schedule around – instead of spending so much time expressing and exchanging my thoughts online, I should go out into reality and experience real human contact rather than just online. Not only would it give my already terribly near-sighted eyes a break from the computer screen, I could also learn to better express myself verbally instead of just through typing all the time. But while it does have its downs, anime blogging has also helped me in a number of profound ways…
On dropping anime
Deciding when and for what reasons to drop a series varies among fans. Some fans drop anime almost immediately if they don’t like the first episode, while others stick with it for the entire series even if they’re not thrilled with it. Since I rarely drop anime, I decided to reflect on exactly why…
“When” do you blog?
Similar to a previous post of mine called “‘How’ do you watch anime?” I’m curious as to when fellow anime bloggers decide to blog, not just in terms of a specific schedule, but more importantly, things like whether they wait for inspiration from other sources, do they blog about any random thing that comes to mind or do they stick to a structure, do they have to be in a specific mood to blog, and other things of that nature…
How many favorite anime have you gone through?
Anyone who’s been an anime fan for a number of years has probably experienced at least a few titles that really stood out to them in their personal fandom. Many anime have come and gone, some that I’ve especially loved, but there’s only a select few that were able to claim a place as my favorite for any amount of time…
There are two types of character development in anime…
When asked what one of the most appealing aspects of anime is, fans will usually mention character development. However, I’ve often wondered exactly what defines character development, at least in terms of anime narratives. Over the years, I’ve come up with two prominent types of anime character development, though I’m still debating whether that’s what they should both be called…
Is it weird to like anime characters more than actors?
The Academy Awards have once again come and gone, and once again I find that I have very little interest. The reason? Because I don’t watch any current American TV shows or movies (besides Disney/Pixar movies). Why not? Because, in all honestly, I just can’t get into live-action actors/actresses as much as anime characters…
Communal Japan vs individualistic America
Now that I’ve had some years of experience studying and being immersed in Japanese culture, one particular thing that’s always fascinated me about Japan when compared to America is the sense of communality that permeates many aspects of the country. Japan’s emphasis on the communal is quite contrasting to America’s emphasis on individuality…
The message of Summer Wars’ two worlds
I finally got around to watching Summer Wars, director Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime film that just won Japan Academy’s Animation Award of the year. What I expected to be a good movie ended up being a fantastic movie that gave me a number of things to ponder…
Observations on buying (or not buying) anime
Despite the complexity of anime fandom, it always amazes me how it’s a hobby one can be fully involved in and yet never have to spend any money on it. I’m not going to get into the whole debate about fansubs vs official viewing. Rather, I’m just thinking about what compels some fans to spend a good amount of money on their hobby, while others spend little to nothing, yet both are equally interested in anime…