Borderline Hikikomori’s 2009 Awards~!

At the beginning of the year, the biggest mayhem surrounded the announcement of a second season of Fullmetal Alchemist and rumor of a second Haruhi series. Now, though, we’re all hyped up over the potential of SoRaNoWoTo and other ambitious projects scheduled for 2010. Lots can change over 365 days, and anime fandom is one of those things that’s fickle and subject to change in as little as 25 minutes of an episode.

It’s basically been a crazy year, with some particularly crazy things happening in the anime world. Now it’s time for BH’s writers to discuss and vote on the Bests and Worsts of 2009. A few quick notes on the proceedings:

- Only series that A) aired in 2009 or B) were released in North America in 2009 are eligible for awards.
- “Continuing Manga” refers to series that began serialization before 2009 and continued into/through 2009. “New Manga” refers to series that started in 2009.
- BH’s staff were allowed to compose “Dissenting Opinions” if they strongly disagreed with the winner of an award and wanted to argue on behalf of what/who they think should have won.

Now without any further jabbering…

Winter 2010 Season Preview!

Winter Preview?! It’s like Christmas all over again!

… Well, sorta. This season looks pretty crappy.

The Blog Reorganization Project

First, I’m announcing the Winter Preview will be out by the 31^st of the month, so that gives you something big to look forward to.

Now then, I got the idea in my head to do a major organization overhaul.  After getting approval from CJ, I spent most of my Thursday going through every post of the blog for this project.  This post is about the in-depth changes that I made, mostly to the categories structure.  That would be that drop down menu on the right side of your screen.  If you’re not interested in reading about that, suffice to say everything now works as intended and it should be easier for you to navigate.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 12 – Paneling Hijinks, and a special Ohayocon announcement…?! (UPDATED)

UPDATE: Anime Blogging 101 and 201 are set for Saturday, January 31, at Ohayocon, though we have no definite time yet and the date is still subject to change. \m/

One of my highlights of this year that I never really got to elaborate on was the Anime Blogging 101 panel at Matsuricon 2009. This was the first time Rakuen and I had done that panel, and despite having no people show up for the first 5-ish minutes, it went surprisingly well. Me being me, though, I got off on a few rabbit trails, and we kinda killed time with a chainsaw, and we had to rush at the end to get everything in, and hey look a Rena plushie complete with working cleaver…

BUT. We had some great people show up, including the fine boys over at Ending B, and we’re looking forward to doing it again at a certain Ohayocon 2010 from January 30-February 1!

Yes, you read that right; despite the snags that we ran into last year that (sort of) prevented some of us from going and presenting at Ohayocon ’09, we’re doing it for 2010! This time there’s even more to expect, though, and it’s not just gonna be one panel anymore.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 11 – International Saimoe League

Aside from working full-time now, much of my extra time lately has been on developing the 2010 website and programming for International Saimoe League (ISML).  Since my first involvement as a statistics guy in 2008, I have found inspiration to take the tournament further, and I have now been elected to the Commissioner position for the 2010 season. This means a lot of work but a lot of potential for something exciting.

The main event will be the same as the previous two years: round-robin tournament lasting a few months, then a double-elimination finale for the championship. But don’t discount the preliminary period early in the year; it’s been revamped to something that’ll be a lot better than in 2009.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 10 – Mixed Martial Arts (and Crafts)

I like anime.  I find it more aesthetically pleasing and mentally stimulating than western cartoons, and it has introduced me to cultures and characters that are now also very dear to my heart.

I also like knitting.  It’s fun to take two sticks and some string and produce something creative and beautiful.  I find it relaxing (well, most of the time), and it’s always a good conversation starter.

The million dollar question: how to combine these two interests?

(Warning: picture-heavy post ahead.  Readers with dial-up may want to grab a drink and/or book.)

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 9 – Suou-tan~

Darker Than Black season one was a fairly popular show, but the only thing I really noticed about it was everyone’s commentary on Yin and her deadpan-ness. With the new series, Ryuusei no Gemini, though, Yin is MIA (or AWOL, depending on how far you are in the series and how warped your sense of humor is) and she’s essentially replaced by Suou, a similarly deadpan loli.

… except with more moe, as I discovered upon finally watching the first episode of season two last night.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 8 – Do As Infinity

Today, we’re going to talk about music for a bit.  No, this has nothing to do with K-ON!, which is a show that is pretty much entirely about music.  This is about a band that is very near and dear to my heart, and part of the reason that I am even here writing today, Do As Infinity.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 7 – Note To Self: Watch Kampfer

While writing the Fall 2009 Season Preview, I wrote off Kampfer as “crap.” (Understandably so, some would argue, but that’s not the point…) Despite having bunches of well-known seiyuu in its cast, the series didn’t seem worth watching for a girl like me. But after having an undue number of Kampfer-related posts from a variety of blogs show up in my Google Reader, I finally began poking around the blogosphere to see what everyone was so excited about.

“Poking around” turned out to be a bad idea. Sorta, anyway.

[12 Days of Christmas] Day 6 – Reminiscence

You might remember that last year, I made a post in this series about how much things have changed over time.  This year, I’m going to talk about how things have stayed the same.  Read on as I reminisce for a few minutes.