Happy New Year, and Farewell

I’ll make this short. I’ve joined the team over at Metanorn, and I’ll no longer be a part of Borderline Hikikomori. Thank you to all readers and commenters. It was a lot of fun being a part of this team, and it was gratifying to be able to reach and interact with so many people. I learned a lot about blogging and writing in my time here, and I thank Rakuen (and the now retired CJ) for taking a chance on me and giving me such an opportunity.

Anyway, since everyone’s been putting together lists, here’s my top list of all the anime I blogged in some capacity here:

1. FLCL (10 years later retrospectives)

2. Evangelion 2.22

3. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

4. Bakemonogatari

5. Magical Girl Madoka Magica (My last episodic here)

6. Durarara!! (Substituted in for Rakuen a few times)

7. Yet the Town Keeps Going

8. Arakawa Under the Bridge

9. Ookami-san and Seven Companions

10. Dance in the Vampire Bund (My first episodic here)

11. Amagami SS

12. Black Rock Shooter

Please pay me a visit at Metanorn some time. I’ll be active with a couple episodics this coming Winter 2012 season.

“Sexy Otaku Manifesto?” Say What Now?

About a week ago, 2-D Teleidoscope made a post titled The Sexy Otaku Manifesto, in which he wrote about “getting back into shape” and called out to other “geeks” and “otaku” to do the same. 21stcenturydigitalboy wrote a response on Fuzakenna, The Inauthenticity of Nerd Appearances – All of Us Are Slaves, And Most of Us Are Liars that elaborated on the idea further, going also into the mindset that leads otaku to be unfit. He also told a bit of his own story and that of his friends/relatives regarding fitness.

These posts piqued my interest because personal fitness is a (dare I use the term?) passion of mine. I understand their sentiment, more than you can imagine, as I’ll try to show in this post. But something about the posts bothered me. They rubbed me the wrong way. I believe that they got their message all wrong. If you want to engender change in behavior relative to fitness, if you really believe in some “Sexy Otaku Manifesto,” you don’t do it by telling others that they need to change or by calling them liars.

Reality Check

Blogging, simply put, is the defining tool of a new era of journalism, both inside of geekdom and outside it. It puts power in the hands of the underdogs: no matter who you are or what your education is, if you start a decent blog and pimp it hard enough, you’ll get your word out.

It also provides for discussions and social interactions unlike any other media form out there… and that’s why I started blogging. August 2007 was the month I began homeschooling, which did quite a number on my RL social life, obviously. I was determined to meet other people fascinated with Japanese animation and comics, just like me. Needless to say, that experiment worked pretty well: I now have some of the greatest friends in the whole world, and my baby is getting 25,000 pageviews a month with 250+ RSS feed subscribers.

But now I’m walking away. A third-degree existential crisis hit me yesterday, and though most of it was mainly about real life stuff, some of it was about my blogging. To sum it up, I’ve hit the point where blogging isn’t doing anything for me anymore, and it’s conflicting with my RL goals. I really hate to leave this behind, because I don’t want things to change; I don’t want to move on. But it’s happening, and this post goes a bit more into why. It’s a little tl;dr, but I’m explaining it all in hopes that maybe it’ll prove to be inspiring for someone else. I don’t want anyone else to quit aniblogging, obviously, but the emotions and logic in this post are fairly relevant to a lot of things besides blogging.

And in the words of my AP US History teacher, no, this ain’t gonna be a “sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya” post. (Of course, I guess that depends on your definition of one…)

Coming Clean

I had hoped for a long time that I would never have need for a post like this.  Unfortunately, hopes only get you so far in life.  I have avoided “the Janette issue” for some time, but in view of recent events, punctuated by this comment, I believe I must respond.  I will make two promises to you in this post.  First, I will be honest.  Second, I will handle myself with as much maturity as possible.  I present the post in a Question and Answer format because that is the way concerns have been presented to me, therefore it makes the most sense to use it.  Do note that the remainder of this post is quite long and directly relates to drama.  If you would like to turn back now, you are free to do so.

You mean I’m supposed to have a LIFE? Sigh…

No, this not going to be an emo, weepy, “I hate the blogosphere so I’m quitting KTHXBAI” post.

This is an optimistic but realistic “I wish I had more time for fandom and anime in general but life‘s kinda taking over” post.

Sigh.

Kodomo no Jikan in US newspaper ad

Update: Unfortunately the ad is no longer there… I had wanted to include an image, but Photobucket was down, and I held the entry until I could get it uploaded. But now it’s too late, though I guess I could at least say I saw it.

Update 2: Found a video clip of a news program in Portland, Oregon. Apparently their local paper got the ad, too, and the reporters talk about a possible scam with this converter box. That would more easily explain the Kojika appearance.

Update 3: Found the ad again! I saved the whole image now.

—-

A screenshot of Kodomo no Jikan appeared as a sample television image in a June 11 advertisement found on the Winston-Salem Journal, a local newspaper for the city of Winston-Salem in North Carolina, USA. (Other newspapers have the ad at an earlier or later date of their issues.)

By making your way from the main website to Shopping, then Newspaper Ads, then Shopping (category), then Computers & Electronics (subcategory), you can find the article for the Miracle ClearView TV.

(this is just a piece of the whole article/ad)

The most amusing part of it is that the above caption talks about parental controls, something any American parent would definitely want if shows like Kodomo no Jikan were on the air.

My guess is that someone is an anime fan in the newspaper staff (or the product staff who submitted the ad) but didn’t quite realize what this series is. Or, worse, it was an image that randomly came up in a Google search for “kids show” or something (that string didn’t turn up the result).

As for the product itself, you’d only be interested if you don’t pay for digital cable and just want the free local channels. Even then, the converter box is supposedly not a good deal.

~Crisu

Anime Club How-To

At jedko‘s request, I’ll review top points of the “Anime Club How-To” panel at A-Kon 19 by Mu Epsilon Kappa. The MEK society aims to unite all anime/manga/comic-book/etc. clubs under one banner, hoping to achieve a network of contacts and information that may one day make an influence in the commercial decisions of the anime and manga industry. Wouldn’t it be great if companies like FUNimation or RightStuf came to MEK to ask for recommendations as to how to promote anime better in the United States?

Moment of silence for those lost in Akihabara

Our condolences to those injured and killed in Akihabara today. The blogosphere is ablaze with news; I’m not sure where to begin linking sources. In short, 25-year-old Tomohiro Katou (now arrested) ran over random innocent pedestrians with his truck in Akihabara, Japan, and stabbed 10-20 others with a 12-inch knife after leaving the truck. He had no other reasoning than letting out his frustration at the world.

“I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter whom I’d kill.”

As some have already said, why not just kill your own self then? You get to end your so-called miserable life faster and don’t have to alarm anyone else in the process? But I guess when your state of mind degrades that much, you develop this warped sense of justice or “misery loves company” where, if the world has become sickening, it must be true for everyone else. And so you take it upon yourself to execute a great plan to demonstrate your feelings to the world.

Meh. This is unlike children attacking their parents with axes. The seven people who died had absolutely nothing to do with this incident except for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. =( My thoughts to their families, and I hope all this news would deter any other psychotic attempts to “hate the world.”

Sources and Coverage: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, with more by the hour…

Those lost today…
- Katsuhiko Nakamura (male, 74 years old)
- Kazunori Fujino (male, 19)
- Kasuhiro Koiwa (male, 47)
- Naoki Miyamoto (male, 31)
- Takahiro Kawaguchi (male, 19)
- Mai Mutō (female, 21)
- Mitsuru Matsui (male, 33)

Mainstream news sites should be picking this up. Look for YouTube links of Japanese news broadcasts, too.

I wonder quietly if most of us are ablaze about the news because it’s Akihabara and not any other place in Japan. Of course a crime like this is terrible no matter where in the world you are, but are we a bit partially concerned about the collateral damage? This is Akiba, the otaku capital of the world. Like others, I’m wondering: what if this killer has anime figures in his room? What about those who are injured? Will this damage the industry or the overall open and bustling culture of Akiba?

…Perhaps it won’t. About the killings that delayed Higurashi and School Days episodes, those news stories were soon left behind with the rest of history, no? Sadness.

~Crisu

That’s the guy

Anime-themed cocktails

Well it’s an idea, actually; I don’t have any actual recipes to share yet. After Kotaku reported on this event which featured Final-Fantasy-themed drinks (they also had a Mario theme), I wonder if an anime convention could (if not already) cash in on a similar idea with anime-themed drinks.

Not that I’m much of a barista to know what goes well with what, but perhaps the community is more well-versed in the language of alcohol than I am.

The site has drinks such as Cactuar, Moogle, Summoner Yuna, Limit Breaker, and Phoenix Down. I was thinking of coming up with general anime drinks with the names:

1. Spirit Bomb
2. Kamehameha
3. Tallgeese
4. Ikari Shinji “virgin”
5. Shinigami
6. Dragon Slave
7. Ilpalazzo
8. Bulbasaur
9. The Tsundere
10. Chocolate Coronet
11. Bloody Sekai
12. Sui Dream
13. Starlight Breaker

Of course names don’t mean too much without the drinks that make them up, but I suppose they give guidelines as to what color and what taste they should have.

Just a random idea. I need to pack to go to A-Kon this weekend…

~Crisu

The Moogle

My cosplay ideas have been shot…

Believe it or not, it was my mother who brought up the subject of Ohayocon on the way home from school today. We chatted about Artist Alley for a while, but then the topic turned to cosplayers. And then my mother outright said that she didn’t want me cosplaying as a guy (aka crossplaying.)

So now I’m seriously bummed. I was planning on going to Ohayocon as Komui Lee from D.Gray-man (no comments, Jenni) and I really had no female backups. It’s not like I had started making the costume or anything, but this still royally sucks because I have no really good ideas. I have brown hair and glasses; and while dying my hair is an option, the glasses still pose a problem.