What determines our favorite anime?

I know there are some people who have trouble picking favorite anime, but as for me, I’ve always been particular to favorites and enjoy thinking about what it is that makes me like one anime over another even if I can sincerely say I like both. Most of the anime among what I’d consider favorites have been the same for years actually. So today I’d like to discuss factors common to anime I consider favorites that distinguish them from others I like…

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The significance of the second viewing

I’ve always believed that any great work of fiction that you enjoyed the first time should definitely be watched at least a second time – the first time it’s new to you and a lot of the value comes from surprises and novelty, while the second viewing allows you to focus on things like thoroughly examining the story, characters, and writing, and seeing how well its entertainment value holds up when you already know what’s going to happen. Anime is no different in this respect and there are many titles I’ve watched over the years where my opinion did change for worse or for better upon a second viewing…

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Interpretations of time-travel in anime

Time-travel has been a popular trope in science fiction media for a long time, and anime is no exception. While not extremely common in anime, there are nevertheless a handful of titles where time-travel plays an important role. Today I want to examine how time-travel is interpreted differently in a few such anime…

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Remembering Love: Haruhiism

This post is part of trzr23’s “Remembering Love” project, a project where bloggers rewatch their favorite anime during the month of May and post about why they love it each week. There’s supposed to be four posts in total, whether they choose just one anime to write about or several. However, due to my personal blogging preferences, I decided to dedicate just this one post for the project…

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Knowing an anime’s story beforehand

A recent post by Marth brings up the idea of how our perception of an anime adaptation can be greatly influenced by our prior knowledge of the anime’s original source material. This can apply to all forms of media really, such as book-to-movie adaptations or movie retellings of TV series. In anime fandom, there’s strong opinions among those who intensely care about faithfulness to the source material and those who don’t know or care…

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My 12 moments of anime for 2011

It’s now New Year’s Day here in the US, and like always, I want to do a “picks of the year” type post to celebrate. I started participating in the blogsphere’s annual “12 moments of anime” project in 2009. Since last year however, I’ve preferred to list my moments all in one post, unlike other bloggers who give each moment its own post. I usually reserve New Year’s to countdown my favorite anime of the year, but since I’ve already done that via The AniBloggers’ Choice Awards, I’ll be posting my 12 moments today instead. So, without further adieu, here are my 12 best anime-related moments of 2011…

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Examining the weak-willed anime male lead

A recent post by lostty over on Anime Princess discussed the ever prominent fan activity of bashing anime’s many weak-willed male leads. lostty considers most hate for these guys “unjust.” I tend to agree and would like to examine why…

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My favorite anime character trope – examining the tsundere

Naming one’s favorite anime series or characters isn’t hard, but favorite anime character trope isn’t something we always think about, nor is it something an anime fan necessarily has. As a matter of fact, tropes could be something an anime fan dislikes since they’re likely to go hand-in-hand with cliches and pandering. But for those of us who don’t mind having our tastes catered to once in a while, we can’t help but notice character tropes in anime, and perhaps appreciate one…

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Should any anime be called a “classic”?

Just as there are numerous books, movies, songs, and other cultural works considered “classics” by many, I’ve often wondered if certain anime should be labeled in a similar way…

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What I’ve learned from fan translating

As some of you probably know, for the past couple of months I’ve been part of a translation group that’s been working on providing an English release of the latest Haruhi novels (volumes 10 and 11). We finally completed the project earlier this week. Baka-Tsuki, the group that had provided fan translations for the previous nine novels, could no longer work on the series, so myself and a few other dedicated individuals took on the task. I translated and edited one chapter myself (72 pages) and edited two that were translated by someone else (222 pages). Since this was the first major translation project I’ve worked on, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about the experience…

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