Spring Interlude
EDIT - please excuse the fiddling around with the theme. I think it’s time for a bit of a spring clean of both how this damn site looks and what I’m writing on it. I can’t be bothered to test-bed a website because the makeup of this stupid thing is hardly the most pressing of my concerns, but expect things to be popping up randomly all over the place until it’s the way I want it…
Okay, so, I’ve been a bit slack lately.
There are a few reasons for this:
a) I’ve switched to watching stuff on the telly now I’ve got a streaming video setup thing thanks to an Xbox 360 (or “The Enormous White Waste of Money”, as I affectionately call it). This means I don’t have my fingers at the ready to note down my initial impressions at a keyboard, which inevitably means I forget things, and then I get distracted by something else and blogging becomes the last thing on my mind. It also can’t seem to handle softsubs, and as I’ve been drifting back towards watching subs recently it means I’m falling behind a bit on some halfway decent shows (Romeo X Juliet and Skull Man particularly; the latter is so cryptic that it’s just about beyond me without subs, whereas the former has been something of a comedown from the incredible first episode so I can’t be bothered to watch it raw any more).
b) I loathe screencapping with an unholy fervour. Never liked it, growing increasingly bored with it. I admire the patience of those who post about fifty screencaps per post.
c) It seems that I’m struggling to generate discussion-worthy thoughts about some of the shows I’m watching. I’m enjoying Kekkaishi a great deal, for instance, but there’s absolutely bugger all to actually SAY about the show; it’s just sort of… there. One episode is much like another without quite being filler - the characters act in predictable ways, but just in different configurations. I have about seven thousand episodes of it to blog, and I’m just not sure what to say…
Anyway, I’m going to make an attempt to catch up on the…30 episodes I’ve watched and not blogged recently, but there’s a few casualties along the way unfortunately.
So say goodbye to Chevalier and Code Geass from ages past, firstly. I completely lost interest in Chevalier as I decided that the show wasn’t actually going to GO anywhere; stuff kept happening, and I’d entirely lost interest in WHY it was happening. Geass, on the other hand, had Mao in, and the sheer over-the-top nature of the series finally put me off.
However, my first casualty of the Spring series is El Cazador. I’m not going to blog the nun episode, which is the last one I watched, because frankly it just cemented my dislike of El Cazador. It was a singular example of absolutely everything that’s botched about the series for me - the incredibly heavy-handed voiceovers that explain the plot to such an infinite degree that there seems little point in watching any more, the half-baked humour (nuns! Aren’t they funny and singleminded!), the ridiculous characters (Lirio has no place in a Bee Train show, for one, and Ellis is just a dweeb that I presume is supposed to be adorable in some way)… basically, it wasn’t the show I wanted it to be, and I’m sure that what may have made the show more popular with some people has completely turned me off it.
Anyway, on with the show. I have muchos work to do, and I don’t have any intention of killing this stupid thing off JUST yet.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
You’d better not kill it off! >:0
I’d still read your posts without screenshots. Hell, as long as you keep making me aware of shows like Dennou Coil, I’d read one-sentence posts!
June 19th, 2007 at 4:57 am
I agree with ↑
Keep up the good stuff! Okay, and it’s a pity you dropped Chevalier but I can understand why one’d lose interest… doesn’t matter, I’ll always hang on to see what you have to say about Dennou Coil and so on. :O
June 19th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I wholeheartedly agree with the others. You do great work. The shows you blog are the shows I end up loving the most. It’s all thanks to you that I hear about them in the first place.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Yeah, just drop the screen caps - it’s just not worth the hassle.
You always resize them down to stamp-size anyway ^^;
June 19th, 2007 at 7:57 am
What jdskeleven said. Relax. Watch your anime not for the sake of blogging, but because you want to watch it. Skip a few episodes or more if you want, never let blogging become a chore.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Blog the episodes you have thoughts about.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:10 am
That’s another idea - if you don’t feel like blogging about every episode of something, just do three or four episodes at a time (without screenshots) and give your thoughts on what happened overall. That way you could keep the in-depth entries for what you really like (*cough*DennouCoil*cough*).
June 19th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
This is the best anime blog on the internet, so you better not quite!
I agree with the others, just lose the screencaps if they bother you. Your fans won’t mind ^^
June 20th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
i’ve been silently reading your blog for a couple month. I have to disagree with others about screencaps. Because you have screencaps, and 3 of them per anime is why i read your blog, since i’m mainly interested in animation.
About inspiration on writing reviews, i always look to anidb.net . but there is too much stuff there, so blogger such as you is helpfull.
also, i wouldn’t mind to know what is good on TV in your opinion.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Yeah, screencaps are overrated. The summaries are helpful for shows that aren’t subbed yet, tho…
There’s probably nothing encouraging that I could say to get you to reconsider El Caz; lord knows that even I’ve struggled with it a bit too much. But here’s a thought… skip all the way to ep 11 — the only thing you’ll have missed is the “Taco Song” running gag, frankly — and see if it does better for you.
It could be that slogging through the in-between episodes has lowered my expectations enough that any little glimmer of plot helps, but it’s hard not to view it through a MADLAX lens and that makes it hard not be dissappointed with what preceded it.
Switching to a Captain Tylor lens, though… Hmm, maybe…
June 20th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I tried doing the screencaps thing when I took on the challenge of “blogging” Mai Otome. (Cue Templar Knight Voice from Indy3: “He chose… poorly.”) I’m 90% certain that trying to stay on top of those is what killed my enthusiasm for the project. I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep at it for as long as you have!
We appreciate your insight and viewpoint a whole lot more than we need screenies. Write what you want about the episodes which interest you. We’ll be here, readin’ it.
And (shameless plug alert!) if you want to chime in at a forum not much unlike the dearly-departed Anime Blog Muyo, check out my reincarnation thereof at A.E.I.O.U.. Most of the old ABM regulars are back again, even. (So it’s not just me in an echo chamber, honest!)
June 21st, 2007 at 12:20 am
I absolutely get what you mean by Kekkaishi and lines like this:
“I’m enjoying Kekkaishi a great deal, for instance, but there’s absolutely bugger all to actually SAY about the show; it’s just sort of… there. One episode is much like another without quite being filler - the characters act in predictable ways, but just in different configurations,” ensure my return. Caps aren’t what pulled me into your blog anyway and they’re not ones that make me come back.
But your brilliant insights — guaranteed ^^
~ nik who considers your blog the anime blogging standard
June 21st, 2007 at 2:41 am
You know what, after watching the raw for episode 12, I withdraw my recommendation. Never mind. :(
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
lol @ “guiltiest secret”…
I’m not a fan of the speckletastic background, by the way - it made me think that my screen was dirty ^^;
June 23rd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Oh, believe me, I hate the speckles too. Once I’ve worked out how to get rid of them I will do so; some of us have to sleep, though (and I did, for twelve hours…whoops) and I will get cracking on twiddling things around a bit more later.
Unfortunately, laundry, food shopping and other exciting chores do tend to get in the way!
June 24th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Sad to see Chevalier go into the dropped abyss. It was uphill from about 18 and up, with quite honestly the best twist in anime history.
It’s sad to see Code Geass go into the abyss, but I kinda expected that.
Poor Cazador.