Author: eternal

Miscellaneous

The Beginning of the End? Or the End of the Beginning?!?!

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Ah, shounen episode titles. Gotta love ’em.

That aside, I’m pleased to say that after a seemingly long adventure, I’ve returned home; to the internet, and the aniblogosohere. I may not have a confession under a firework-lit sky planned, but I’m sure I gained something from this reprieve, even if it’s something intangible. Life changes, after all. It keeps rotating, like that weather vane I’ve seen countless times while rewatching Honey and Clover. But things have a way of smoothing themselves out, one way or another.

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Miscellaneous

A Short and Temporary Hiatus

Because succinct post titles can be more effective than wordy ones.

Anyway, as much as it pains me to say it, I’m afraid that the dreaded H-word has finally seized control over me after a thoroughly enjoyable 9 months of blogging. I’m not burned out: I’ve been watching anime for years and I know that I still have a lot to learn. I’m not sick of the blogosphere: I”ve actually learned more about the world from you guys than from the mandatory careers class at school. I didn’t give up: I know that it takes time to get better at anything, and I’m nowhere near ready to abandon my dreams.

So why did I succumb to the almighty Hiatus Disease? Most likely because I need a break.

That’s all there is to it, really, and I’ll keep this short since it definitely isn’t a goodbye. I’ll probably still be around Twitter (follow me if you’re not already), I’ll be watching anime whenever I get time and I’ll try to keep an eye on the blogosphere, but unfortunately, I need a break from writing. A large part of this is due to the fact that I’ve started working on one of my fictional stories (you know, those), which will be occupying most of my brain power for the next little while. When you add that to the fact that aniblogging doesn’t work without watching anime, and the fact that all I really want to do is kick back with a few VNs and the remainder of the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, I simply won’t be able to keep writing.

But I definitely won’t be gone for long. My estimate is somewhere around a month. Really, I’m not sure if this warrants a hiatus note, but I don’t want anyone thinking that I got cocky, subscribed to the Slow Blogging theory, and started assuming that people will still care about me even if I post twice a year. (It works for some people, I know, but I wouldn’t take the risk). I always do what I can to keep up a decent post flow, and because I won’t be able to do that for a fair chunk of the early summer, I owe it to you to at least mention it.

Anyway, I’ve droned on for long enough. Keep writing, keep reading, and keep watching anime; I’ll be drifting around the interwebs in the meantime, and you can look forward to a full-forced return in approxitately a month’s time.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

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Miscellaneous

A Not Very Informative But Hopefully Entetaining Post On Anime North 2009

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Spring has sprung and con season has begun, but unfortunately for some of us, it has already come to a close. Canada’s biggest anime convention, Anime North, has been a tradition for me since my early days of fandom in junior high, and it has once more left me with a bottomless pit of bittersweet memories. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but anime cons are a great occasion for fans to get together, geek out, buy questionable merchandise, take pictures of attractive goth-loli cosplayers, eat overpriced Pocky, and avoid contracting the Narutard virus.

Strange as these things may sound, however, they all come together quite nicely when you’re with friends, and even if you’re not, there’s some kind of aura present at conventions that allows for the impossible. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a hotel room and I don’t have a car so I didn’t spend 100% of the weekend at the event, and I was too busy lazy to take many pictures, so think of this as a general impressions post rather than real coverage.

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Merchandise

Artbook Review: Mutsumi Sasaki Art Works Est

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Mutsumi Sasaki is another one of those popular eroge artists that you’ve probably noticed at one point or another. He’s been in the industry for quite some time, designing characters for the Memories Off franchise (the anime adaptations were mediocre, but that’s another story), and, more recently, titles like Chaos;Head and Myself;Yourself. Putting the inappropriate use of semicolons aside, neither of the aforementioned shows struck me as anything spectacular, but one of my favourite aspects of them was the character designs. Why? The answer should be obvious. I love Mutsumi Sasaki, and while he might not be my absolute favourite artist, his work always holds some sort of mysterious control over me. Est is his most recent professional artbook, and suffice to say, I wasn’t disappointed.

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Analysis

A Fanboy’s Analysis of Akiyama Mio

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I was an otaku before an anime blogger, I played my first visual novel before reading The Animanachronism. I collect things that have pictures of attractive 2D females printed on to them just because I can. The acronym of my blog’s name spells a familiar word. If I wore glasses, surely they would be rose-tinted.

But that’s not the point. The point is Akiyama Mio. You know, Mio. That Mio, that Mio, that Mio, that Mio…and yes, even that Akiyama Mio. So what does this mean, aside from the fact that Nasu’s pen has infected me? It means that Mio is popular.

…And it also means that I’m going to try and figure out why, because that’s what I do!

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Editorial

Why So Serious? The Equilibrium of Exposition and Comic Relief

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Serious business is serious. And it’s also important. Very important. Life, after all, is usually pretty serious, and since many works of fiction take on darker subjects than real life contains, it’s only natural that stories should be suitably heavy-hearted. However, the funny thing about seriousness is that there’s a very fine line between “serious” and “too serious,” and I’m sure we’ve all seen far too many times cases in which the creators of a show fail to notice that line.

The problem is, understanding how much seriousness to use is ridiculously important, to the point that a careless mistake can destroy an otherwise good story. And yet, the right balance between dark and light subject matter can make a good story even better. It’s one of those simple aspects of a work of fiction that’s easy to understand but hard to master.

Of course, this all begs the question: how serious is too serious?

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