New Year’s Resolutions, 2010 Edition

by eternal on January 1, 2010

Ten years ago I was in 2nd grade, watching Digimon on TV and trying to beat Mario Party 2. Considering that the decade started in what feels like a different universe to me, I can’t reflect on it without monotonously listing the standard life experiences that occur over such a significant ten years.

Thankfully, New Year’s Day is more about looking ahead than looking back. Without further ado, I bring to you my personal list of goals for the year, filled with as much starry-eyed dreaming and inevitable cynicism as you might expect from a self-proclaimed Passionate Anime Fan™ who spent New Year’s Eve on 4chan.

In the year 2010, I will attempt (or attempt to attempt) to…

  • Achieve Privileged/Contributor status on Danbooru. (That was seriously the first thing to come to mind).
  • Beat another Touhou game on Lunatic. I can’t run away forever.
  • Stop throwing in the words “actually” and “really” where they don’t belong.
  • Stop throwing in words where they don’t belong, period.
  • Find a synonym for awesome.
  • Sleep less, and set an alarm if I need to.
  • Stop waking up on time to turn off my alarm and go back to sleep until 11:00.
  • Play ef as soon as it gets translated and write an extremely long post filled with burning passion.
  • Play Rewrite and excrete varying amounts of bricks at the inevitable Ryukishi07 killer lolis.
  • Play Love Plus (I guess this one is out of my hands).
  • Start learning Japanese so that these things would stop being out of my hands.
  • Memorize more stuff from the ErogameScape database, including staff of games that aren’t translated or adapted into anime.
  • Read more manga. My Days Completed is <10!
  • Learn more old memes.
  • Not become one of those people who tries to swear off internet slang. They’re terrible.
  • Not become one of those people who tries to swear off eroge. They’re even worse.
  • Watch some good Western movies that everyone watched decades ago, like Citizen Kane.
  • Read books that are not in any way related to anime or school.
  • Not get caught up with school to the point that I can’t read anything else.
  • Figure out how to use a washing machine. (I’m probably a little late with this one…)
  • Figure out how to drive with one hand. (Not recommended despite seeming easy)
  • Figure out if Beato exists. Uu-!
  • Watch some Gundam and Macross.
  • Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. All of it.
  • Watch Soul Link so that I’ll get the joke when people make fun of it.
  • Find an anime worse than True Love Story, which, for some reason, is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
  • Take part in a fansubbing project in some way, shape, or form.
  • Finish most of the translated VNs so that my moe withdrawal will force me to study Japanese.
  • Stop making self-depreciating comments.
  • Stop doing things that force me to make self-depreciating comments.
  • Finish Sepia Tears, or at least come close to it.
  • Find something better to do on Christmas Eve than working on a visual novel scene set on Christmas Eve.
  • Pull a Keitaro Urashima and become awesome after leaving his harem to dig up fossils.
  • Pull a Tomoya Okazaki and become the greatest harem lead of all time. OF ALL TIME!
  • Find a harem? Nah… but find a Good End.
  • Keep using visual novel and gaming analogies to describe real life scenarios.
  • Clear 10th Dan in Beatmania IIDX. I’m stuck at 8th!
  • Play some Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5 and not get utterly destroyed.
  • Learn to play BlazBlue and compete with the anime club, Genshiken style.
  • Join the anime club, Genshiken style.
  • Pull a Kohsaka and- no. Pull  a Madarame and increase my power level!
  • Increase my power level no matter what happens.
  • Learn some more MTG and play semi-regularly.
  • Learn Riichi Mahjong and play with anyone who is willing (preferably using my weeaboo Shuffle tiles).
  • Play Poker with my weeaboo Yoakena cards.
  • Play in a band with my weeaboo Yui castanets. (No, not really).
  • Keep getting involved in the blogosphere, maybe do a podcast or start a revolutionary team metablog.
  • Make an online friend from Saskatchewan, New Zealand, or Poland.
  • Find some cool people to plan a trip to Otakon.

…And above all, I’ll pull a Honey and Clover and search for that elusive thing, even if I never find it.

– – –

In a year’s time, I’ll be a different person, having finished my first semester at university and experienced life away from home for the first time. In a decade’s time, I’ll be a completely different person, working towards my career goals and doing whatever it is that old people do. But when it comes down to it, it’s the small, tongue-in-cheek goals like these that say a lot about yourself as a person, even if all they say is that I spend more time around Japanese cartoons and 2D girls than can possibly be healthy.

At any rate, I might joke about spending the holidays on the internet and hitting F5 on /jp/, but I feel far more satisfied than you’d think. Thanks for a great year, anime blogosphere, and I look forward to joining you as we experience what 2010 has to offer!

~ ETERNAL
つづく

{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }

mefloraine January 1, 2010 at 2:02 am

Your resolutions are awesome! I’m happy to say I’ve managed some of those…and I share a lot of those. Good luck with your new year.

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polymetrica January 1, 2010 at 2:03 am

I support many points in this list of resolutions, and especially “Pull a Tomoya Ok- uh, I mean, “Read books that are not in any way related to anime or school.” o/

Good luck with all of them, and happy new year!

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Micchi January 1, 2010 at 2:41 am

Happy new year!

I share the same problem with waking up just to turn off the alarm clock, then going back to sleep. Or maybe I need to place it on the other side of the room…

I dunno… Sugisaki Ken is a pretty awesome lead.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2010 at 11:17 pm

Considering he’s honest about aiming for the harem end (which is what everyone does in secret), he’s a solid contender… but he’ll have to match Tomoya’s relatable self-consciousness and his perfectly timed moments of GAR!

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CCY January 1, 2010 at 3:23 am

Come to Fanime. Bring your mahjong tiles. That is all.

(And secretly I sympathize with a lot of your goals too, I just feel like being more badass and spouting one-liners rather than going through all of them and going ‘me too! me too!’)

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Scamp January 1, 2010 at 5:10 am

I wanted to go on one of those Honey and Clover trips of self-discovery too. Heck, I even went to the shed to get the bike. Then the Irish weather, in the true spirit of comic timing, decided that was the exact right time to start raining as hard as it could. Self-discovery is all well and good, but all things considered I’d prefer to be dry

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Shance January 1, 2010 at 7:43 am

I LOVE that resolution about beating another Touhou game in Lunatic! What game, and what conditions are you applying on it?

That aside, it’s nice to see people making these kinds of stuff. They set goals before the year starts with the hopes of achieve many, if not all, of them. Such bravado is commendable, and it reminds us to give more value to ourselves, if not better ourselves in any way.

Happy New Year!

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lelangir January 1, 2010 at 10:05 am

I was kinda sorta maybe not really close to pulling a Takemoto…I rode 22 miles in a day, but then my bike broke down. The goal was to be able to do 100+ miles a day!

I have not acquired a new bike since then (maybe a construction worker will gimme a free one? =3)

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jpmeyer January 1, 2010 at 11:06 am

You can want to read more manga, but don’t pay attention to your days of manga. Their formula is totally buggy. I’ve seen people with more volumes read than others with like, half the time elapsed. Aim to increase your chapters or volumes or series or whatever number you like that isn’t days.

Mars of Destruction may be the worst anime I’ve ever seen. The level of competence for the simple nuts and bolts of stuff like, editing or animation is on the level of the movie the SOS-dan makes in the first episode of Haruhi: http://www.bakabt.com/145625-hametsu-no-mars-mars-of-destruction.html

Here is the most recent Sight & Sound poll from 2002. They’re every 10 years. Get to work: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/

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ETERNAL January 2, 2010 at 11:22 pm

As you wish! m(_)m

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Ryan A January 1, 2010 at 6:35 pm

You have a lot of work to do. XD Resolutions are nice.

Cheers.

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animekritik January 1, 2010 at 9:16 pm

Good luck with those! Happy New Year!

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usagijen January 1, 2010 at 11:31 pm

Resolutions are awesome, lists are awesome~ All the best with those! Reminds me I have to compile my own list too, quite late but oh well.

Happy New Year! :3

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2DT January 2, 2010 at 10:50 pm

I think the worst anime I’ve ever seen was “BAOH.” So, you can get started knocking off those resolutions right away.

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ETERNAL January 2, 2010 at 11:24 pm

It looks like it has potential for being terrible, but I’ll try Mars of Destruction first considering its legacy as lowest-rated on MAL :P

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jpmeyer January 4, 2010 at 11:00 pm

I just watched Garzey’s Wing, and the English dub is a thing of beauty.

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choux January 3, 2010 at 12:41 am

Hmm…I think melody of oblivion is still the worst anime of all time for me (I just REALLY hate that show for some reason). Good luck on your resolutions (one of mine is to finish Sepia tears too…)

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chii January 4, 2010 at 6:29 pm

Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. All of it.

YES you must and should! :D

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Hyr0 January 4, 2010 at 8:51 pm

Excellent resolutions. I enjoy it when people actually apply themselves and are honest about their resolutions for a new year. Listing things that you really find important and satisfying no matter if people think your crazy. Besides, I believe we share some the same ones. Best of luck to you and everyone in 2010!

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