Category: Meta

Blogging about blogging

Meta

Meta Notes: Making the Anime Investment

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s funny how the strangest things can cause bloggers to appear and disappear. For many writers, the pressures of work and school build up and eventually lead to a hiatus – for others, the worst case scenario of actually having a social life proves to be the finishing blow.

Of course, I haven’t suffered anything like a finishing blow. I simply took a little reprieve, much like last year. It’s a shame since the Aniblog Tourney is currently running, but it can’t be helped (thanks for voting for me by the way – and don’t forget, my second match is coming up!)

Anyway, something interesting occurred to me while I was not writing. The first is that it’s not very relieving to take a break from writing when you know you ought to be writing anyway, which makes me glad that I didn’t do it intentionally. The second, though, is a bit more important. After all, it’s not like I’m behind in Angel Beats because I have exams or real life tasks to take care of. I’m behind because I haven’t been able to separate myself from the very subculture that I’m writing about.

And that leads me to the point of this post: the hidden benefits of not blogging.

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Meta

The Impact of Gateway Anime

[banpai akira]

I don’t usually reflect on my own history as an anime fan, but something occurred to me the other day. What is the significance of a gateway anime? What kind of impact does a person’s first experience with a medium have on their enjoyment and preferences of that medium? Most fans who choose to pursue anime seriously become more well-rounded over time, but I think that the early experiences are given less credit than they deserve.

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Analysis

Contextualizing Jargon: The Secret to In-Universe Writing

[arsenixc]

Fiction would be in a sad state if jargon did not exist. In this case, I’m not referring to the fan-made terminology used in reference to various bodies of fiction: I’m talking about the jargon used within fiction, the internal laws that most fantasy and sci-fi stories rely on.

lelangir‘s recent post on the matter makes for an enlightening read, exploring the role of mechanics in a story’s narrative structure. There’s no doubt that the internal mechanics of fictional worlds can be more than just feigned depth – speculative fiction would have a hard time speculating if it couldn’t act independently of the laws of common sense. As lelangir notes, consistency is more important than plausibility: it’s foolish to expect realism from Lord of the Rings, but a story that is consistent with itself lends the structure and framework needed to build whatever needs to be built around it.

Having said that, there are more than a few pitfalls to the elaborate universes created by writers of fiction, and they extend far beyond the issue of plot holes. The creation of a universe is not only a challenge in terms of maintaining consistency, but it also requires enough context within the plot for the viewer to see the relationship between the mechanics and the story’s intention.

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Meta

For Great Justice – A Commentary on the Otaku Revolution

What does it take to change the world?

A now-famous anime character by the name of Light Yagami once asked himself that question when he witnessed the horrors that humans are capable of. If you’ll allow me to take things out of context and talk about a story I haven’t read in 3 years, you’ll see where I’m going with this.

He was just a kid, ultimately. A genius, maybe, but still only human. But even so, did he stop? Did he hold back? He dared to do something that few of us could ever do – and he paid the ultimate price because of it.

Was he a hero? I’m not quite sure. An anti-hero, maybe; or at least that’s the term we use for people like him. But practically speaking, every reader finds a different answer to that question. Some would sympathize with him, understanding his hatred for the scum of society; others would despise him for his self-righteous attitude. Like Hakim and Hachi from Planetes, it would be unfair to paint one as right and the other as wrong.

…Are you tired of reading yet? Wondering why I’m talking about Death Note when I barely even remember the story? Maybe your ears will perk up when I mention the Otaku Elimination Game.

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Meta

A Comprehensive Guide to Selecting your Top 5 Anime

[mikeneko ringo]

Ah, the good old favourites list. It’s a tradition as old as anime itself – perhaps older – but it hasn’t lost its significance over the years. Your Top 5 list is the first thing people will notice about you on MAL, aside from your profile picture and your total completions. It’s the first thing that comes up in conversation when you’re meeting up with your fellow otaku at a convention, and a good list might make the difference between a good first impression and an awful one.

However, contrary to popular belief, there is more to creating a Top 5 list than selecting your 5 favourite anime. In order for a list to be effective, you must consider several other factors, which include – but are not limited to – an anime’s critical reception, popular reception, and cultural significance.

Does that sound pointless to you? Are you silently thinking that a favourites list should be nothing more than a favourites list? Skepticism is understandable, but if you’re willing to bear with me for the next thousand words, we just might get to the bottom of this.

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Meta

Art and Aniblogging: A Non-Critical Take on Criticism

I’m not an English major. I probably will be at some point in my life, and I have some sort of intrinsic attraction to the act of looking beneath the surface, but that’s a different point entirely. What I’m trying to say is, I’m by no means a scholar on this topic: and frankly, the use of the word “criticism” in the post title was likely enough to give more than a few of you false hope when you saw it on Anime Nano.

However, the title reflects exactly what this is: a non-critical look at the act of literary criticism, and the way we apply it in the anime blogosphere.

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Memories of Eternity