Picture is vaguely relevant because I always figured Konata could make a decent aniblogger.
Before you say it, this isn’t another editorial vs episodic debate: those have been done countless times before I entered the ‘sphere, and they’ll probably be done many more times in the future. Instead, this is both a bit of a site update and a short ramble from yours truly about the topic mentioned in the title.Why bother bringing this up, you ask? Shouldn’t you just make these decisions on your own, and focus on writing something good instead?
Well, the answer to that is actually quite simple: I have an episode of Clannad sitting on my desktop, and the thought of screencapping and reviewing it sounds considerably less pleasant than writing another post like my last one.
First off, let me say this: I read episodic blogs. And that’s read in the present tense. Ascaloth is probably my main (dare I say only?) reason for frequenting RIUVA now, and AniAri always proves to be entertaining whenever they cover something that I’m following. DarkMirage and Jason obviously do an excellent job at satire, though I’m not following Gundam too closely, and I’ve recently taken note of the shockingly fast-paced episodic posts from the teams at Sea Slugs! and THAT. And even outside of the few sites I’ve mentioned, there are tons of episodic bloggers out there, painstakingly churning out information each week for their readers.
But that was one of the things that started to bother me: there are tons of them.
This isn’t to say that episodic posting is bad; good reviewers are able to write with flavour, and if a person is able to infuse their personality into whatever they write, then people will enjoy reading it. That’s probably a big part of DM’s and Jason’s success: even if they’re repeating information that we already got from watching the episode, they’re doing it in an interesting way. Opinion is what fuels any good blog, and opinion is something that both an editorial and an episodic blogger can have.
However, I’ve also found that blogging is a very personal thing, and if a writer doesn’t like what they’re writing, then pretty soon they’ll want to stop writing.
Why does no one talk about e-shuushuu? They seem pretty good to me, and if it weren’t for them, you probably wouldn’t have this irrelevant pic to distract you. Now keep reading.
The main reason I singled out Ascaloth above is because his episodics feel far more opinion-centric rather than information-centric. In fact, whenever I read an episodic post, I usually skip over the summary and screencaps and only read the part under the “impressions” heading, because that’s all that matters to me. That’s why I never really go to RC and Subculture, even though I’m sure Omni and Totali are both great people and active members of the community; it’s just that the information-based posting style doesn’t appeal to me. Opposite to that, just as Ascaloth phrases information that I know into a form that I may not have known, I tried to insert more analysis into my episodics than information. In fact, as any of you who actually read them would know, I didn’t even summarize at all: I simply altered between witty my-attempt-at-being-witty captions and a few paragraphs of my opinion.
But once I started following the editorial blogs, I came to realize that I could share my thoughts a lot more efficiently if I waited for something to impress me than if I posted religiously on a show every week.
Take OGT for instance: skimming through the front page, it looks as if most of his posts are reviews for either shows he recently finished marathoning or some form of commentary on something that’s currently airing. ghostlightning’s recent post on Toradora is also one of the many examples of this (though I have yet to actually read the post since I haven’t seen ep 14 yet). IKnight’s commentary also seems to be quite infamous, though a lot of it occurred before I started frequenting the analytical writers (and even so, he’s got enough of a reputation to draw readers regardless of what he’s writing on).
But anyhow, you get the idea: editorial bloggers don’t necessarily have to analyze things that already finished; they can also theoretically write about Clannad AS 13 (and, theoretically, not write about 14 if it didn’t impact them).
And that, quite simply, concludes my opinion on the issue of episodic blogging.
wildarmsheero was right, you really do see way more of her than Nagi.
So yes, in the end, it all comes down to each person’s writing style. That’s a given. I’ll keep following a few of the episodic blogs, just as I still read super rats and Adun even though I’m just about as far from a figure blogger as one can get. However, I suppose this can count as my first official declaration to the world that you can expect (slightly) slower and hopefully longer posts in the future. Not to bring up the whole length vs brevity debate again, but I’d personally rather read one good post each week than one mediocre post each day. When you have something to say, say it well, and when you have nothing to say, then say nothing and spend the time thinking about things to say instead; if people respect you and enjoy your writing, then they’ll be back. Just look at Epic Win.
(and just for the record, I don’t intend on slipping as far as one post per week. I personally think DKellis’s quota of twice a week sounds good, but who knows. I’m not a schedule person.)
~ ETERNAL
つづく
