Ringing in 2011 with… a post

by eternal on January 1, 2011

(This is the first picture I saw when I clicked on my image folder and I figured, hey, why not.)

2011 has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Well, no, it really doesn’t. 2010 is much easier to say and it looks cleaner when written; the 0’s create a sense of symmetry and it doesn’t force you to type the same letter twice in a row, like a jackhammer pattern in a rhythm game.

I suppose what I really want to say is that a new year is here, and that this is probably a good thing. Like all students, life revolves more around the school year than the calendar year for me so I’m not feeling particularly sentimental. Luckily for me, this year’s resolutions are hardly an issue since I wrote a bunch of them last year, and just to prove that I’m not the kind of person who says things and forgets about them, I’m going to go through that list–one by one–and evaluate my progress. Let’s hope I didn’t fail!

In the year 2010, I wanted to…

  • Achieve Privileged/Contributor status on Danbooru. (That was seriously the first thing to come to mind). [I got closer to this than I expected, but I prefer browsing Danbo over Pixiv so I’ll have to do translations to reach contrib instead of relying on sheer upload power]
  • Beat another Touhou game on Lunatic. I can’t run away forever. [Got it. Touhou is easy modo for the most part.]
  • Stop throwing in the words “actually” and “really” where they don’t belong. [I’m more conscious of it so I guess that counts… but “actually” is such a versatile word!]
  • Stop throwing in words where they don’t belong, period. [Getting better. Serious writing is more succinct, I think.]
  • Find a synonym for awesome. [Mission failed. It’s even worse since I have a habit of /brofist spamming…]
  • Sleep less, and set an alarm if I need to. [I’m in university now so sleeping less is the least of my problems.]
  • Stop waking up on time to turn off my alarm and go back to sleep until 11:00. [Surprisingly, I succeeded at this one.]
  • Play ef as soon as it gets translated and write an extremely long post filled with burning passion. [Guess that didn’t work out. The game is spectacular but my VN time management has been subpar.]
  • Play Rewrite and excrete varying amounts of bricks at the inevitable Ryukishi07 killer lolis. [The former is obviously impossible, and the latter… oh boy. Let’s just say that he played his cards well.]
  • Play Love Plus (I guess this one is out of my hands). [Man, this really shouldn’t have been a resolution.]
  • Start learning Japanese so that these things would stop being out of my hands. [Made some progress. Really gotta start hitting the textbooks more.]
  • Memorize more stuff from the ErogameScape database, including staff of games that aren’t translated or adapted into anime. [Only got through a bit. Language barrier is deterring me.]
  • Read more manga. My Days Completed is <10! [Day’s Completed is unreliable but I’m at 13.6 now and I did end up reading a decent amount.]
  • Learn more old memes. [Didn’t get around to this, partly because /b/ memes are boring, but there are bits and pieces of buried treasure in there.]
  • Not become one of those people who tries to swear off internet slang. They’re terrible. [Success.]
  • Not become one of those people who tries to swear off eroge. They’re even worse. [More success. I’ve made passing references to these things on Facebook.]
  • Watch some good Western movies that everyone watched decades ago, like Citizen Kane. [I kinda cheated by taking first year film but I guess it counts as a success.]
  • Read books that are not in any way related to anime or school. [Er…]
  • Not get caught up with school to the point that I can’t read anything else. [I didn’t do too badly. The blog was KO-ed but I had time for gaming and the fan translation group.]
  • Figure out how to use a washing machine. (I’m probably a little late with this one…) [Easy modo~ I should get bonus points for learning to make cup noodles too.]
  • Figure out how to drive with one hand. (Not recommended despite seeming easy) [I haven’t driven a vehicle in over 4 months, so no.]
  • Figure out if Beato exists. Uu-! [Still haven’t played ep 7 but I’m up to date enough.]
  • Watch some Gundam and Macross. […Crap.]
  • Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. All of it. [orz]
  • Watch Soul Link so that I’ll get the joke when people make fun of it. [26 eps is a bit steep for something terrible… I’d rather watch Garzey’s Wing.]
  • Find an anime worse than True Love Story, which, for some reason, is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. [Success]
  • Take part in a fansubbing project in some way, shape, or form. [Close enough]
  • Finish most of the translated VNs so that my moe withdrawal will force me to study Japanese. [Failed horribly, but I have enough incentive anyway.]
  • Stop making self-depreciating comments. [I might have gotten a bit better at this.]
  • Stop doing things that force me to make self-depreciating comments. [But not this.]
  • Finish Sepia Tears, or at least come close to it. [The team is assembled and the game will be good. I promise. I almost hope development drags on until I get to take a course on writing and rhetoric though…]
  • Find something better to do on Christmas Eve than working on a visual novel scene set on Christmas Eve. [Failed, but I came closer than you’d think.]
  • Pull a Keitaro Urashima and become awesome after leaving his harem to dig up fossils. [In progress.]
  • Pull a Tomoya Okazaki and become the greatest harem lead of all time. OF ALL TIME! [Nah, this is way beyond my grasp.]
  • Find a harem? Nah… but find a Good End. [Easier said than done.]
  • Keep using visual novel and gaming analogies to describe real life scenarios. [The database of metaphors and theories has grown!]
  • Clear 10th Dan in Beatmania IIDX. I’m stuck at 8th! [Made… some progress, but not much. This summer I’ll do it.]
  • Play some Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5 and not get utterly destroyed. [Minimal progress. I’ll try some this term.]
  • Learn to play BlazBlue and compete with the anime club, Genshiken style. [Same as above.]
  • Join the anime club, Genshiken style. [It’s not all that great, but it’s not too bad either.]
  • Pull a Kohsaka and- no. Pull a Madarame and increase my power level! [That’s an exaggeration, but the me of last year was a total newfag compared to the present-day me, and I hope the same thing happens in 2012.]
  • Increase my power level no matter what happens. [I didn’t quit the internet so that’s gotta count for something.]
  • Learn some more MTG and play semi-regularly. [A bit of progress, but not as much as I’d like.]
  • Learn Riichi Mahjong and play with anyone who is willing (preferably using my weeaboo Shuffle tiles). [Every Sunday. Shuffle tiles are a little impractical though.]
  • Play Poker with my weeaboo Yoakena cards. [I am totally going to do this this term.]
  • Play in a band with my weeaboo Yui castanets. (No, not really). […Yeah, I was kidding.]
  • Keep getting involved in the blogosphere, maybe do a podcast or start a revolutionary team metablog. [I’ll record the first ep of the podcast before the term starts, as soon as I decide on a topic.]
  • Make an online friend from Saskatchewan, New Zealand, or Poland. [This is harder than it looks!]
  • Find some cool people to plan a trip to Otakon. [Going to AX this year and it’s going to be awesome.]

…And above all, I’ll pull a Honey and Clover and search for that elusive thing, even if I never find it. [Still searching. It’s like tracking down a shiny Adamant Gibble with Pokerus.]

Well, what can I say? I didn’t do half bad, especially since this list was unreasonably long, impromptu, and not referred to for the entire year. Notable things that I did but didn’t expect to do was start playing Starcraft, learn more about Comiket, and learn more about IRC (and actually start using it). I won’t list any new resolutions for this year (I’m working on the remainder of these plus the stuff I mentioned in my anniversary post), but suffice it to say that 2010 treated me well and I somehow managed to level up in real life without having to quit the anime subculture that I so adore.

– – –

On a more serious note, you may have noticed that this is my first post in a very long time. If you haven’t been chatting with me or following me on Twitter, I can summarize the last few months quite easily: university is fun, people are smart, the normals here are actually worth talking to, and there are a ton of opportunities to do cool things. I’ve been making a conscious effort to spend more time socializing IRL and it worked out wonderfully. I’m not as much of a self-conscious 2D con but I’m still as much of an obsessive, srs bsns fan as I want to be, and I’m ready to prove it.

As for the future of this blog: it’s staying here, of course. My Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya post was finished a couple days ago and it’ll go up tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll remind people that my absence was not fruitless. I’m not sure how the year will, go but I’ll try to follow my target of one post per week and I’ll enforce my late middle school/early high school regimen of four eps of anime per day. Finding post ideas is no longer an issue so long as I actually watch stuff. The posting schedule might fluctuate but I intend on forcing myself to stick to the anime schedule since it’s far too easy to get distracted games and forums and other more relaxing activities.

With all of that said, I hope you’re looking forward to 2011 as much as I am. Chances are I’ll get pulled back into real life as soon as the term begins but you should be able to catch me on #Comiket/#tlwiki/wherever the cool people go, as well as the good old IM/Skype/Twitter. Happy New Year.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

P.S. Where does the stereotypical “pretentious aniblogger” crowd hang out? Outside of the people I know, of course. Anime Suki forums can be pretty good but their IRC channel is quiet and /a/ has too many shounen threads for me to take it any more seriously than /jp/. A few more months and I’ll be ready to send my application to The Nihon Review, but that’s a blog, not a community. Is /m/ all about super robot or do they have their all-around anime fans too? It’s ironic, but I can’t find a place to chat specifically about anime rather than its related media like doujinshi and visual novels, both of which require me to get past the language barrier to properly appreciate and discuss them. I know there are people who could analyze every facet of a show’s production and relate it back to the staff and studio involved but I don’t know if they belong to an organized community or not.

{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }

IKnight January 1, 2011 at 5:23 pm

/m/ has its virtues and certainly isn’t all super robots, but as a place to discuss things that don’t involve mecha, or to dicuss the intricacies of who animated what how, it’s not usually a good choice.

Have a good 2011, and don’t trust the normals.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:28 pm

Always gotta be wary around them! Take one step too far and you’ll end up listening to Daft Punk instead of Minamotrance :P (though I suppose both are good choices).

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Adun January 1, 2011 at 5:43 pm

That sure is a long list of resolutions. But I can say driving one handed is quite easy. Just not practical when racing :P Also enjoy university while you can. Because once you finish and join the full time workforce, it’s all downhill from there.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:29 pm

Haha, how optimistic of you. On the bright side, I like what I’m studying and I’ll probably go to grad school so I won’t have to worry about full-time work for a while… hopefully.

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zzeroparticle January 1, 2011 at 9:16 pm

Actually, the Nihon Review’s forums are pretty active for a relatively small site that we are, and I’ve been kind of amazed at some of the commentary that’s come out of there. Also, send that application! Stat!

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:31 pm

Hmm, I might check it out, but I’m looking more for real-time chat or a fast moving board rather than a forum. I know some people don’t like Anime Suki but they have some pretty experienced users and that pretty much sates my forum desires. But yes, it would definitely do me well to write formal reviews with you guys… just gotta catch up with anime first.

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drmchsr0 January 1, 2011 at 10:14 pm

/m/ talks about mecha in general. There has been a lack of mecha to discuss, so they also talk about tokusatsu stuff as well.

The #animeblogger channel is the worst place to be. Don’t ever think of going there unless you want to hate anime forever.

#aquastar-anime @ Rizon is a nice place to be. So is #denpa @ irchighway. Latter is more for VN translation work but it’s a great place to be in general. But don’t mind me. I have other interests as well.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:36 pm

Heh, I kinda figured that about #animeblogger. Kinda seemed like the “watch every show every season and bitch about it” crowd, but I’m sure they’re not all bad. What’s #aquastar-anime? Fansub group? I usually lurk in #denpa and #mangagamer though I seem to recall both of them being on synirc. My only problem with the VN channels is that I don’t know enough Japanese to play untranslated games so it’s usually just a bunch of translators talking about games with names that I can’t read. Decent for lurking but I can’t really chat yet.

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animekritik January 1, 2011 at 11:45 pm

Life sounds great, huh! Happy New Year…

Now I need to watch disappearance myself!!

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:38 pm

Happy New Year! For the record, I’m slowly creeping closer to watching some of the old Leiji Matsumoto stuff that you post about so I may be diving through your archives soon (soon meaning within half a year lol).

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Elineas January 2, 2011 at 12:14 am

As a fellow NHRVer (-ite?), I’ll support zzeroparticle’s plug for our forums, which does carry a decent, if small, community. And as a review site and blog run by roughly ten people, we do discuss things quite often. And yes, send in your application in the near future, more writers never hurt.

It also seems the one thing our History of The Nihon Review article doesn’t say is that we may not have cultivated the image as the best review site yet, but we already have the image as the most pretentious review site :P.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Well that’s certainly encouraging! If there’s one thing to be said about writing for a pretentious review site, it’s that it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to keep up that reputation.

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AspieSincerity January 2, 2011 at 12:39 am

Great post man! Looks like you’ve come a long way in the last year. I’m gonna need to grab your MSN address or something soon.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2011 at 6:44 pm

Sure thing! Send me an email and I can give you my MSN. I’m on Trillian so I have accounts on MSN/Gtalk/AIM/etc.

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lelangir January 4, 2011 at 12:06 am

Here’s to another great year, taisho. Hopefully we can finish the VN this year.

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eternal January 4, 2011 at 5:02 am

Definitely. I don’t have much to do in the meantime so I’m messing with some creative writing in preparation for the final edit/sorting out the script that I’ll do when the other stuff is in place. It’s gonna be tough, especially since I think the writing and rhetoric courses in uni aren’t until third year, but I think we’ll pull through. It’s going to be epic once everything is finished and it’s pretty cool to know that we’re working on something that’ll one day have its own VNDB page and get reviews scattered across the blogosphere (and if we’re lucky, it’ll even have /jp/ troll threads).

Also, it’s your fault that I think if you every time I hear Umehara say “taisho” :P

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Aorii January 4, 2011 at 9:44 pm

Wooo, not bad actually given that huge list of resolutions you made at start of the year XD
I still think you should try firing up a team (meta?)blog, maybe for english visual novels or such =P
Anyhow, good luck for 2011~ and keep your blog alive~ ^o^ (otherwise MOE dies, pretty hefty)

P.S. Morita Kenichi totally beats Okazaki Tomoya for being the greatest harem lead of all time from VNs— now go play Sharin! XD

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eternal January 11, 2011 at 3:47 am

Honestly, your constant reminders to keep my blog alive have helped; nothing gets a person working like the knowledge that someone is watching them slack off! Please keep it up if I get sidetracked again :P

P.S. A high-quality editorial team blog would be a great idea (thinking along the lines of Wah’s new Analog Housou, though we can certainly lean toward VNs), but I’m going to have to… think about it, I guess? First I want to catch up on anime and keep writing, then I want to apply to The Nihon Review and write for them from time to time. I might try to set something up when I start feeling really ambitious. I’m not afraid of the challenge but it’s going to be hard to earn our own reputation rather than joining a pre-established group and borrowing theirs.

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Yi January 5, 2011 at 9:10 am

Wow, you got through quite a bit of your resolution. Actually, even remembering such a long list is impressive on its own.
Anyway, cheers to 2011.

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