The most recent episode of Giant Killing really doesn’t revolve around the characters or the game of football.  Well, it focuses on Kuro, but that’s not the point.  Rather, it tries to convey an important life lesson.  I love it when an anime can reach past its own universe to cause an impact on the viewer, and it’s not just because it makes it easy to write a post.  It does help, though.

Fear of failure is perhaps the most prolific fear held by humanity as a whole.  I would wager every single person reading this post fears messing up to some extent or another.  If you say you don’t, you’re lying to yourselves.  Just think back to high school when the teacher would ask a question and not a single hand in the class rose to answer.  Nobody in the room wanted to be called, because at best, they were unsure of the answer.  Of course, the instructor would eventually pick someone at random who would stumble through a somewhat coherent attempt at an answer.  It didn’t matter that everyone in the room would react the same way, what mattered is it happened to you.

When you grow up, the stakes grow far beyond a simple classroom screw-up.  As an extreme example, consider a doctor in an operating room.  If he fails at the surgery, it could lead to complications for the patient, perhaps even death.  I would never make a good doctor because those stakes are just too high for me.  Let’s bring it back down to earth and apply it to the show.  What happens when you fail in football?  Generally, you feel like you bring the whole team down with you.

Now, let’s consult the ramen shop owner.  If anime has taught me anything, it’s that a person who owns a ramen shop deserves my undivided attention.  They are seemingly omniscient and definitely know their stuff.  His customer says it is amazing this shop has stayed open for fifty years.  The owner goes on to admit he has had his ups and downs.  The secret to his success?  He never dwelt on failure.  If he failed to make good ramen one day, he would just return the next day and try again.  I’m sure all of you have heard some variation of this advice, and even given it yourself.  I seem to dish it out on an almost daily basis, but I find it difficult to apply the same advice to myself.  Why?  It goes against my ingrained fear of failure.  Despite the advice’s simplicity, we find it difficult to latch on to it unless someone stands there to prod us.

This past week I’ve felt like a massive failure with a new relationship I started.  Everyone has said I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it’s about as effective as telling Niagra Falls to run backwards.  Here comes Ramen Guy who simply says forget about it!  Don’t get depressed, just take it easy!  Enjoy life as it comes!  It’s the same advice, but it’s presented so honestly and bluntly that I simply can’t ignore it.  Plus, it’s Ramen Guy.  You’re damn straight I’m going to listen to him.

Back to the matter at hand: Kuro.  He gets hyped up for a match and fiercely wants victory for his team.  However, he has a distinct fear of failure.  It’s not as severe as Tsubaki’s, but it’s enough to throw off his game.  As his friend pointed out, they turtled up their defense the moment the opposing team scored, which left a large empty space on the field and made the problem worse.  Kuro sees the new players on the team lack his uncertainty.  This, plus Ramen Guy’s advice, makes him realize what he has to do.  He comes back to Tatsumi with his same brazen attitude, but now he’s ready to play the game.

Additionally, we Dori’s excellent example.  One of the players commits a foul, and the penalty kick gets past him to score.  The crestfallen player offers an apology, but Dori just waves him off and tells him to keep his head in the game.  If he doesn’t press the attack, then they will never score.  It’s good to see Kuro reflecting this later when he offers similar encouragement to a teammate on a missed mark.  The team has really come together and fought off their inner demons.  The work has not finished yet.  Tsubaki still lacks confidence in himself.  I hope that someone will fix him next episode.

It’s Cardcaptor Sakura episode 43, and Meilin gets a call telling her that it’s time to go home. However, Meilin feels like Shaoran doesn’t care for her and they get into a big fight. Sakura invites Meilin over for the night to try to help situation when the Twin card shows up. However, only Meilin and Shaoran working together are able to defeat it.

Whaaa! Meilin left! It was so much fun having her around too. But I guess this means we’re nearing the end if we’re starting to get rid of major characters. At least Meilin was able to have a few nice moments with Shaoran before she left, though I think that the day that Shaoran finds someone he likes more than her is going to end up coming far sooner than Meilin would like.

I also like that we got to see a tad into Shaoran and Meilin’s past, since we haven’t really heard very much about it up to this point. It’s nice to see a story have someone fall in love with someone that wasn’t love a first sight, since that seems to often be the case.

Twin was a pretty nasty card to try to capture, since there were two parts, and you had to immobilize both parts at once. I guess Sakura could have done it with two cards, such as maybe Firey and Watery, if she used two attack cards, or maybe Wood and Windy if she used two binding cards, but it still would have been tricky to pull off.  Having Shaoran and Meilin there who can predict each other’s moves without needing to communicate was a pretty handy.

Cards Captured: Twin
Card Count: 51

As usual, if you see me criticizing something about your blog, it’s nothing personal.  I tend to tear apart people’s websites when I do comparisons such as this, so just keep that in mind.  If you want my input about about the three categories I’m using, read the first page of this post.

Aniblog Tournament | HTML Bracket

Go below the fold for the goodness.

Round 2, Day 13

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Match 25 – #3 Kurogane’s Anime Blog vs. #62 _____ism

Design: OK, well, I can at least do a review of Kurogane’s blog, but for _____ism, he appears to be trolling right now, so I may need to rely on my not-as-thorough 1st round writeup for him.  In any case, Kurogane doesn’t exactly have the most beautiful design out there, but it works.  I thought they had some stuff at the top of their sidebar (page links, twitter feed, etc.) which may belong further down (like, below the category list) but that’s my main complaint there. (though one big reason why he may have decided to push that down was because it was so long).  For ___ism, well, this is what I had to say in the first round: “I know that the design is probably meant to be quirky, but still…”  OK, not very informative.  Since I didn’t seem thrilled with ____ism’s design in the first round, and since I kind Kurogane’s functional, if not a bit land, I’ll go with Kurogane. Winner: Kurogane’s Anime blog

Post Rate/Style: No post rate problem for Kurogane.  Unfortunately, they seem to indulge in the IPIP style, except for usually the final review at the end of their episode review posts.  In the first round, I had issues with ______ism’s post rate, and that still holds true, with only 3 posts in May, including the current troll post.  They might win on post style, but I think Kurogane wins this section on post rate. Winner: Kurogane’s Anime Blog

Content: Pretty much doing the trolling that _____ism is doing I think causes him to auto-lose this anyway, but even taking that out of the equation, while Kurogane sometimes has a somewhat questionable amount of content on some of his posts, but they still write pretty good.  ____ism I think mostly posts gag posts which, maybe temporarily funny, I’m not sure how much I’d feel like following their blog over it.  So I think on both quality and amount of content (and for non-trolling), Kurogane gets this.  Winner: Kurogane’s Anime Blog

Overall: Sweeps are easy. And don’t feed the trolls.

Winner: Kurogane’s Anime Blog

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Match 26 – #30 Mono no Aware vs. #35 Astrobunny

Design: Mono no Aware certainly has one of the more unique blog designs out there, I thought.  I guess my main thought is that it looks like something is missing in their design (though upon closer inspection, it’s supposed to look that way).  I’m kind of unsure myself if that’s good or bad.  It just kind of looks….weird.  Astrobunny’s design is as artsy, though in a different way.  I don’t know about the double sidebars, though I certainly understand having double sidebars, since I’ve experimented with them in the past (though they were on the same side of the design).  I like the nice picture in the banner (even if it’s a bit big), but I just think MnA’s is a bit slicker.  Winner: Mono no Aware

Post Rate/Style: I haven’t seen this since the first round, I don’t think: a battle between pretty infrequently posting blogs.  Mono no Aware has 3 posts in May, and 9 posts since the start of April.  Astrobunny has gotten a lot better since the first round, though, having 9 posts in May after having only 3 in April.  As far as post style, I think Mono no Aware does a pretty good job, while Astrobunny suffers from IPIP disease.  I think the difference in post rate and difference in post style kind of balance each other out here.  Winner: Push

Content: When it comes to amount of content, there is no contest in this one, since Mono no Aware posts more per post and, I think even though they’ve posted less frequently lately, still has quite a bit more overall content as well.  From what I can tell, their writing style and quality seems comparable, which means I’m pretty much always going to take the one with more content, unless there is a really good reason not to (and there isn’t in this case).  Winner: Mono no Aware

Overall: I still haven’t exactly pinned down what, exactly, Mono no Aware blogs about most of the time, since i only took a somewhat brief look at their blog (and this was my first time visiting), but it seemed pretty interesting.

Winner: Mono no Aware

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Round 2, Day 14

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Match 27 – #19 Mainichi Anime Yume vs. #46 Memories of Eternity

Design: Well, I’ve tried not to be too tough, especially on the design aspects since I could probably rip just about any webpage’s design to shreds, but Mainichi Anime Yume’s design is, well, not very good I didn’t think.  It looks like they used some sort of default template, which maybe I could understand if they were using some little used and no-longer updated blogging software, but they’re using Wordpress, and apparently on their own hosted domain, which basically means I leave them no excuse for not using a at least somewhat decent theme, even if it’s a commonly used one.  But as it is..the banner clearly seems to be too wide for the theme, pushing down the gradients along the side of the design down the page and, well, that’s just the start.  Memories of Eternity doesn’t necessarily have a flashy design, but it’s still pretty well done.  Winner: Memories of Eternity

Post Rate/Style: MAY doesn’t seem to have a problem with post rate, which is good.  Meanwhile, Memories of Eternity, while they’ve posted twice in the past week, only have 6 posts since the start of April.  Both blogs seem to have pretty similar posting styles, so I’ll go with the post rate on this one.  Winner: Mainichi Anime Yume

Content: I thought both blogs has pretty good writing, though I think I kind of liked Memories of Eternity a bit better. And they had prettier pictures lol.  Other than that, I’m not sure what more I can add for this category.  Winner: Memories of Eternity

Overall: I spent a lot of time deciding between these two blogs, but I think perhaps the content on Memories of Eternity that I liked a bit better, plus the more attractive design, ultimately lead me to them.

Winner: Memories of Eternity

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Match 28 – #14 SNAG Vs. World vs. #51 Eye Sedso

Design: SNAG has a pretty simplistic design, though I’d be nice to see categories/tags a litter higher on the page, but other than being very white, I don’t think there is anything too bad about it.  Eye Sedso has a decent design, I guess, though I don’t see any sort of category listing at all.  It’s also dark, but I guess it’s OK.  Both of these blogs are kind of in the “OK” design category I guess.  However, if you click on the nav links…you get nice 404 erros.  Oops.  While I think I might like SNAG’s design a hair more, having your main nav links going to 404 pages is a rather big no-no.  Winner: Eye Sedso

Post Rate/Style: Both blogs post at a good rate, so that’s a non-factor.  I guess I like SNAG’s post style a bit better, since Eye Sedso seems to have some IPIP.  However, it’d be nice if SNAG checked any YouTube videos he embedded to make sure that they don’t bust his page.  Winner: SNAG Vs. World

Content: Both blogs seemed to have some interesting content, though I think SNAG might be a bit more thoughtful, and while SNAG appears to have some posts which are questionably related to anime directly, Eye Sedso appears to have more posts like that.  I think just overall, I like SNAG’s amount of type of content more.  Winner: SNAG Vs. World

Overall: I think SNAG could do a lot better paying attention to detail sometimes (the nav links, the YouTube videos) but I think they do a pretty good job.  Eye Sedso is certainly entertaining at times, but I just thought SNAG was a hair better.

Winner: SNAG Vs. World

Episode eight of Working!! took the staff of Wagnaria to a hot spring. With promises of onsen antics, the reappearance of the Magic Hand, and Inami and her punch-happiness coming back in full force, I was expecting nothing less than hysteria. This episode, however, turned out much differently to what I was expecting. Nonetheless, it was still a huge amount of fun and we really got to see that things are moving in the right direction.

First things first, I really like the way Sota and Inami’s relationship is developing. At the start of the episode, Sota referred to himself as Inami’s caretaker and expressed worry over her inevitably attacking men while at the hot spring. To me, this really shows that he’s shifted in his attitude towards her. He’s gone from simultaneously being annoyed by her and fearing her (at the start of the series), to feeling responsible for her and even liking her. On the other side of things, Inami remains in love with him. While I’m not sure that the two of them will end up together, it seems like they’ve forged a strong friendship, and I’m glad for that.

Surprisingly, the Magic Hand has played a large part in them becoming closer, primarily because it’s allowed them to be in the same space without her attacking him. I think it’s fantastic that the series has turned what was seemingly a one-time joke into a catalyst for the improvement of a key relationship, because that’s something I rarely see in any medium, and I believe it’s something that makes Working!! special.

In addition to that, I feel like this episode was the first time that Inami’s androphobia was treated as an affliction and not just as a source of humour. In other episodes, she’s been presented more as someone to be avoided because of her violent tendencies than anything else, but here we just got to see her as a girl struggling with her phobia. The scene with Sota on the bridge was great, because we were able to get a little insight into her feelings about the condition. There was a tiny bit of drama, but it was kept to a minimum and certainly wasn’t overwrought, and the creators have to be commended for that. Instead of turning things into an angst-fest, they remembered that Working!! is, first and foremost, a comedy. Suffice to say, elsewhere in the episode some humour was derived from Inami’s hitting of Sota, but it was done much more subtly than it was in earlier episodes. It served as a good way to balance things out.

Last week, I said that I was looking forward to this episode because I wasn’t expecting the show to employ any of the usual onsen fanservice that other shows use. Unlike with the predictions I make regarding the other series I’m blogging this season, I was actually correct! The fanservice here was totally subverted, with the characters only bathing their feet in a small hot spring.This really wasn’t your typical onsen episode, and the humour remained light and clean. Hell, the closest we even got to a boob joke was one of the staples of anime popping up: the flat-chested girl – in this case, Inami – worrying about her cup size. Happily, though, this was only mentioned once (and quickly) and didn’t involve the other characters. It actually almost felt satirical.

While this wasn’t as funny as some other episodes, this was actually one of my favourite episodes of Working!! so far; to me, it showed me how far the series has come since its first few instalments. Back then, the jokes were pretty repetitive, character quirks were relied on far too much, and it felt like the show wanted to focus more on the characters’ antics than on the characters themselves. Now, we’re getting a strong, character-driven comedy which feels fresh each week and actually looks like it’s going somewhere. Admittedly, I’ve liked Working!! from the start, but now I can actually rationalise why I like it. I’m so pleased with the show and, as always, I can’t wait for more.

I’m not watching this show, but it still has a pretty nice OP I thought.

Maeno posed a question in Raph’s most recent post on Angel Beats.  Why didn’t Yuri just delete Angel’s program?  Wouldn’t that have solved the problem immediately?  The short answer to this question is she simply can’t do it.  I could just leave it at that, but it doesn’t really explain anything about the underworking technology.  If you’re prepared, click past the break so I can give you a little lecture on some basic computer theory.

Computers do not work as basically as most people think.  This is due to the wonders of abstraction.  You don’t actually need to know how the components work to operate a computer.  In reality, we could divide a program’s execution into three layers.  First, we have the place where we store all of our data.  For most people, you would use the hard drive.  Then, we have volatile memory, or RAM, which holds program and document information fetched from the hard drive.  Finally, we have the processor, which performs operations on data stored in the RAM.  Because of this layering effect, most operating systems “pin” data when it is stored in RAM so you can’t delete it.  Why?

Well, the first reason is obvious.  RAM is separate from the hard drive.  Thus, if data is already in RAM, deleting it from the hard drive doesn’t accomplish anything.  You can see this in action for yourself.  Simply open a document in your favorite word processor, and then try to delete the source file.  Your computer will tell you it can’t do it, probably with a message saying the file is in use.

The second reason is a bit more complicated.  You see, the computer only allows a program to use a finite amount of memory, even if more is available.  So, when you run a program, it won’t all be in memory all of the time.  On occasion, the processor will have to swap two segments of the same program to continue executing.  Now think about what would happen if you deleted a running program.  When the processor tries to make the switch, there’s no data to swap in!  At best, the program would crash, and at worse, it might try to continue executing with bad data.  Now think about how Tenshi is a melding of humanity and technology.  Do you really want to find out what happens when her ANGEL program is deleted while running?

This explains why Yuri doesn’t delete anything.  However, a sharp reader might wonder how Yuri can add to the program.  After all, it’s pinned down to the drive, right?  Well, there are languages that allow you to edit the program while it executes.  You can delete, change, or add to the code even though it’s running.  This does not stop you from causing errors, so you have to work with caution.  Yuri cannot delete or edit any code for that reason: she has no idea what will happen.  Specifically, she can’t read English.  Thus, she can only add to the program.  So long as her addition will not directly interfere with other functions, she shouldn’t have a problem.  Yuri types in a timer routine and links it to the program, and everything checks properly.

Now, I’m trying to explain this all off the top of my head and in very basic terms, so this still isn’t exactly how the computer works.  I simply present this as an illustration for why Yuri does what she does.  Hopefully, it makes more sense now.

It’s Angel Beats episode 8, and the new Angel battles Kanade, gravely injuring her. Yuri thinks all this was caused by Kanade using her harmonics power, which split her into two in the last episode. Yuri tries rewriting Kanade’s program, so that the clone will return to Kanade after 10 seconds, but it will require Kanade to use her power again. However, before they can get Kanade to do that, Angel kidnaps her and brings her to the lowest level of the old Guild.

Gah! Stupid cliffhangers! Well, one of my guesses from last week was sort of right, in that this new Angel was a clone, and after someone suggested that it might have been from her using her harmonics power, I pretty much figured that was probably it.

So now the question is, what did the one clone mean that Kanade would have to “pay” for re-absorbing all of the clones her original clone made? Was it just the obvious pain she was in when absorbing them, or does it mean that their consciousness will battle with, if not take over, her own? Obviously that would be pretty bad since that would make Kanade permanently bad.

Another lesson in this could be that Yuri shouldn’t mess with things she doesn’t understand, lest she make the situation possibly worse. I had thought all along, once I saw her messing with Kanade’s computer, “how is this going to backfire?” Also, while Yuri was in there altering Harmonics, why didn’t she disable her other powers while she was at it, just so they wouldn’t have to face them while fighting the clones? I know she said she didn’t want to muck around too much, but still…

This series has kind of gone away from people disappearing, as was the focus for maybe the first 4 episodes, to more of a story between Kanade and Otonashi (and to an extent, Yuri) since then. Yes, they’re still worried about vanishing, there we haven’t had anyone in imminent danger of disappearing for a while. And with the cliffhanger, that trend looks like it will continue.

In any case, I had to kind of laugh at the Battlefront’s solution to getting past all the cloned Kanade’s, but if she were really smart, she would have gone all Agent Smith on them, and just grossly outnumbered them. Unless her plan all along was to get reabsorbed?

As usual, if you see me criticizing something about your blog, it’s nothing personal.  I tend to tear apart people’s websites when I do comparisons such as this, so just keep that in mind.  If you want my input about about the three categories I’m using, read the first page of this post.

Aniblog Tournament | HTML Bracket

Go below the fold for the goodness.

Round 2, Day 9

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Match 17 -#2 Random Curiosity vs. #63 Behind the Nihon Review

Design: Random Curiosity uses a pretty standard theme, which I think will hurt them a bit since they don’t have to.  I don’t know if it’s standard because other people have just used the same theme they did or what, considering they’re such a popular blog, but it’s always nice to change things up after a while too.  The first thing that I really don’t like is the banner ad.  I can take ads in the sidebar, since they’re out of the way.  But a banner smack in the middle of the page? No thank you.  Other than that, though, it has an OK design.  Behind the Nihon Review doesn’t have a wild design, but it is a bit of a different design than what I sometimes see around.  Again, despite my hatred for tag clouds, their swirling one is kind of cool, and I like their rollover Category/Authors/Archive thing.  Winner: Behind the Nihon Review

Post Rate/Style: Random Curiosity most definitely doesn’t have a problem with post rate.  In the first round, I was concerned about BNR because they only had 6 posts in the month of April.  They already have 7 in May, so they’re doing better, with a post about every 3rd day.  Random Curiosity has a pretty standard post style: a whole bunch of pictures, then their write-up.  Unfortunately, I think a well-done blog should probably do the reverse, at least if they’re going to have so many pictures. (having a few before the text is fine, but you don’t want to overdo it).  The font also seems to be a bit on the small side. BNH has what I would almost consider the ideal layout for an editorial blog: A long writeup with a few pictures thrown in, but not so many that it breaks up what you’re writing.  So in this category, BNR is only on track for about 10 posts per month, which is in the moderate category for me, but I’ll take their posting style any day.  Winner: Behind the Nihon Review

Content: Random Curiosity, if it’s not known for anything else, is known for this: getting episode reviews out faster than anyone else.  They aren’t perfect.  I think on a couple occasions, even yours truly has beaten it out with a review, but chances are, if you want to see a review as fast as possible, you go to Random Curiosity.  I haven’t really been able to fully evaluate how much this is still the case now that it’s under new management, though some quick anecdotal evidence suggests they’re still pretty fast.  On top of this, they appear to write some pretty lengthy and well written reviews.  I already noted in the first round how well I thought the articles on BNR are written.  I think Random Curiosity wins the content, but just by a nose, and only because of the speed factor.  I think the actual content on the two blogs are pretty similar.  Winner: Random Curiosity

Overall: OK, here’s the thing about Random Curiosity for me: they certainly hold up very well as an episodic blog.  They post quickly, and they post a lot of review content (as opposed to recap content), so they can pretty much hold their own against pretty much any editorial blog they might come up against in that respect.  Having said that, I have three things I want to point out.

First, while speed is nice, it can sometimes be a hindrance.  One of the problems with posting so fast is that, sometimes you’ll post things before the fan subs – even fast ones – are out.  If you don’t care about this and want to read a review asap, then RC is probably the place to go.  However, I kind of found that I don’t visit RC for that very reason.  If they’re writing a review of a show I’m interested in, it usually comes out before I even have a chance to see it.  And by then the comments tended to be so full that there was little point in adding my own.  Reading the thoughts is interesting, but I actually thought the speed almost hurt my wanting to go to RC than helped it.  But that’s just me personally.

Second, I really, really think RC should rethink their posting style.  Screen shots are nice, but I don’t really want to scroll through 40 pictures or whatever before I can even read anything.  I also thought that the font was too small – or maybe too light – or something. I just seems like, even though the text is all together, it still gets overpowered by the stack of images you just had to scroll through to get to it.  Finally, the banner ad.  I thought banner ads died a horrible death years ago.  I don’t mind ads.  Heck, I had text link ads on the sidebar of my blog.  But at the very least don’t put the ads in the most annoying place on the page.  Yes, I know that probably earns them the most money, but it also makes me want to leave before I even read anything.

I think these problems may still not be enough for me to vote against Random Curiosity if they came up against a mediocre blog.  However, Behind the Nihon Review is, I think, one of the better examples of how to do an editorial blog out there.  Yes, Random Curiosity has more content, but it’s not like BNR has nothing, and I think those weaknesses for Random Curiosity more than make up for the very close win they had in the content category.

Winner: Behind the Nihon Review

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Match 18 – #31 Xebek’s Blog vs. #34 Listless Ink

Design: First thing I noticed on Xebek’s blog is this: HUGE banner. It pretty much takes up half of the vertical space on my screen.  They also seem to have some frivolous things on their sidebar, but other than that, there is nothing particularly good or bad about it’s design.  Listless Ink has a pretty white design, but it’s still pretty good I thought, though I think the contrast in the nav under the banner could be better.  I can’t say too much, though, since it’s on wordpress.com. The one thing I didn’t really like was having the categories and archives at the bottom of the page, but they’re at least there, so they do kind of have their own quasi-navigation on the sidebar.  I think I’ll give this one to Listless Iink by a hair.  Winner: Listless Ink

Post Rate/Style: Xebek doesn’t have a problem with post rate, but Listless Ink, as can sometimes be a problem with editorials, does seem to have one.  In the past year, they’re averaging only 5.5 posts per month.  On the post style, Xebek has a similar problem as RC above, in that they pretty much have a load of pictures before you even get to any content (sans a very brief – usually a sentence – of recap).  Listless Ink has their own problem, however, with it’s tendency to do some IPIP in their posts.  I think since both blogs has issues in style, I’ll go with post rate, which goes to Xebek.  Winner: Xebek’s Blog

Content: I thought Xebek had a good amount of review content, which was well written and thought out from the pieces I read.  Listless Ink also has some pretty good content.  However: 1) I don’t think the quality is any better than Xebek, 2) I don’t think the actual original content per post is any more than Xebek.  Listless Ink does have the advantage of having a somewhat original slant to their posts, but I just think they post too infrequently, and there isn’t enough quality difference to make up for it.  Winner: Xebek’s Blog

Overall: I think if Listless Ink posted more or wrote more per post to make up for the infrequency, they would have done much better, but I think that Xebek writes enough actual review to pull this one out.

Winner: Xebek’s Blog

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Round 2, Day 10

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Match 19 – #18 Mistakes of Youth vs. #47 AstroNerdBoy

Design: Mistakes of Youth seems to have an OK design, if a little narrow, though I thought that his sidebar was kind of hard to read, with dark blue and gray on, well, bluish-gray.  AstroNerdBoy also has a pretty narrow blog, but the green is kind of overpowering.  I also don’t really see any category or tag list.  I think, end the end, Mistakes of Youth wins this category.  Winner: Mistakes of Youth

Post Rate/Style: Neither blog has a problem with post rate, so that’s not an issue.  Mistakes of Youth seems to have a pretty normal posting style.  Nothing good or bad.  With AstroNerdBoy…I still just think the images disrupt the flow of text more than they could otherwise, either by being separated from the text or being floated to the right instead of the left.  I just think I like MoY’s style a bit better. Winner: Mistakes of Youth

Content: Mistakes of Youth, along with his comic, has some art posts, as well as some editorial and reviews.  The posts that are written (ie, the editorials and reviews) appear to have a pretty good amount of content as well as an OK quality.  AstroNerdBoy does largely anime episode and manga chapter reviews, as well as some posts about other random things, nowdays usually relating to Angel Beats.  I think MoY and ANB’s “content” posts were pretty equal, but I think MoY’s other posts win out, especially since some of this are his own art, and then you have the comics.  Winner: Mistakes of Youth

Overall: Well, this is a toughy for me since I like AstroNerdBoy and we comment on each other’s blogs, but I’ve tried to keep things like having more interactions with certain bloggers or which blogs I visit more often out of decision making.  I think these blogs are pretty close, but I just think AstroNerdBoy has some design weaknesses that Mistakes of Youth doesn’t have, and Mistakes of Youth has some original content that AstroNerdBoy doesn’t.

Winner: Mistakes of Youth

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Match 20 – #15 Drastic My Anime Blog vs. #50 GAR GAR Stegosaurus

Design: Drastic My Anime Blog has a pretty decent design, though they’re on wordpress.com, so I can’t say too much about it.  Categories seem to be awfully low on the page, though.  GAR GAR Stegosaurus is also on wordpress.com, but the design is rather dark.  That isn’t necessarily inherently bad, but I think lighter designs are better.  They don’t really have a category list, but they do have a tag cloud, and it’s higher on the page.  I guess, in the end, there isn’t a lot I can say since they’re hosted, and the things they can control, both sites have a couple of issues, so I’ll make this a push.  Winner: Push

Post Rate/Style: Drastic has a moderate amount of posts, though in his post about the Tourney, he notes he’s still in school, so I can certainly empathize with trying to post while still taking classes.  The post style seems to be pretty standard, with nothing particularly good or bad about it.  GAR GAR appears to have a somewhat similar post rate, so that doesn’t look like it’ll be much of an issue.  Much like Drastic, there isn’t anything about the posting style to really make a note about, so I think again, we’re looking at a push. Winner: Push

Content: Boy, this is a tough one too. I’d be tempted to call this a push except, the other two categories were a push and I kind of need to find something to distinguish these two blogs in some way.  Both write more editorial style or reviews.  Both write a lot in their posts (generally) and both seem to write pretty well.  I think GAR GAR might have just slightly more content overall, so I guess I’ll have to go with them.

Overall: I think I pretty much just said what I wanted to say.

Winner: GAR GAR Stegosaurus

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Round 2, Day 11

Vote Here

Match 21 -#10 Omonomono vs. #74 Fuzakenna!

Design: I’m not really sure one can call what Omonomono has a design, since there pretty much isn’t anything there than text.  It doesn’t even have a sidebar.  Part of the problem with this (though it doesn’t have to be) is that there isn’t any category list or anything.  Fuzakenna!’s design doesn’t seem to be much better, but it is better, with categories, archives, and rss right there at the top of the sidebar.  Winner: Fuzakenna!

Post Rate/Style: Omonomono has a pretty good posting rate, which bumps up against where I usually stop counting.  I guess not shockingly, his post style is as simple as the blog design: usually a single picture and then the rest of the article (not that there is anything wrong with that).  Fuzakenna also doesn’t have a problem with post rate.  While this isn’t always the case, Fuzakenna seems to have an issue with IPIP.  I think given that, Omonomono wins this category.  Winner: Omonomono

Content: Omonomono certainly has quite a bit of content per post, so that’s a big plus.  Fuzakenna on the other hand…I don’t know.  It just doesn’t seem like they write as much, and the fact that it’s all broken up between pictures doesn’t help.  I think I have to go with Omo on this one.  Winner: Omonomono

Overall: I obviously have an interest in this match since, if I win my own match, I’ll be facing the winner.  I personally think Omo would be the tougher match for me in the 3rd round (though I also personally think it just might not matter who I face, except for determining the final margin).  Having said that, while Omonomono has a bland design, everything else about it seemed pretty good.

Winner: Omonomono

Added note: Perhaps ominously, the vote I just cast for Omo just broke a tie and put him in the lead 51 to 50 lol.

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Match 22 – #23 Josh’s Anime Blog vs. #87 Oishii Anime

I’d been debating about how to deal with my own match up for a while.  Do I just review it like normal (and what if I conclude my blog is the one which sucks lol)?   Do I just review my opponent’s blog (though there would be an easy claim of having an interest in dissing it if that’s what I did)?  What I think I’ve decided on is just a short post on why I think people should vote for me, in each of the 3 categories, without necessarily doing a full review.

Design: I think my design is simple and effective.  I try to keep the more important things people are looking for high on the sidebar, as well as in the nav.  For example, see the “blogged series” link, where you have easy access to the categories for the series I’ve bloggged. Or the “anime reviews” nav link, where you can find the series reviews I’ve written.

Post Rate/Style: I try to post something every day, though I”m not always 100% good at it. I also try to fashion my posts to be read easily, and to be easily accessible.  (for example, while I haven’t done a full out season preview post for a while, I used to make them with links to each series at the top of the post, so people could just click down.)

Content: I try to mix up what I post, having episode reviews, series reviews, new DVD and Manga releases, and anime credits (and I’m fishing for another idea to fill my Friday slot, assuming I can ever get around to posting Working!! on Wednesdays like I mean to).

Overall, I just hope people like my blog to vote for it.  Of course, if you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to leave them on this post.

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Round 2, Day 12

Vote Here

Match 23 – #26 Reverse Thieves vs. #39 Cross Channel

Design: Reverse Thieves definitely has an interesting logo, even if they have a rather non-design design.  Maybe the main thing I would point out is that I think their font may be a bit too small.  Other than that, I guess there isn’t anything particularly bad about the design.  Cross Channel uses wordpress.com, so there isn’t much I can say about it, and they have categories, etc.  I guess I’ll give this to Reverse Thieves cause they have a cool logo.  Winner: Reverse Thieves

Post Rate/Style: Reverse Thieves’ posting rate can go up and down, but on average it seems to be about in the moderate range.  One thing I don’t really like about how they post is that they seem to mix a lot of topics into a single post, like in their Ongoing Investigations post.  Cross Channel seems to post up to about my cut-off point (or they did in April anyway).  They were a bit below that in March, and seem to have slowed down in May.  They still post more than RT, but not significantly more.  RT’s post style appear to be, generally, a single photo then the rest of the post.  Sometimes other pics are thrown in, but they’re well paced.  CC appears to post in a similar style, so I think that’s a push.  Since CC posts slightly more often, I’ll give this category to them, and because of RT’s topic mixing.  Winner: Cross Channel

Content: Reverse Thieves seems to do something which I haven’t really seen done before: not only is it a team blog, but from the looks of it, they team post as well (meaning several writers contribute to a single post).  They have their Ongoing Investigations segment which, I’m not really sure what’s going on with it.  I guess they’re just talking about what they’re following or watching for the moment.  Cross Channel seems to have a lot of good content as well, though I’m not sure it personally interests me too much.  I think on sheer content, Reverse Thieves probably wins this category. Winner: Reverse Thieves

Overall: So here’s my problem here.  I think Reverse Thieves has better content, both in quality and amount, but I think a good portion of their content is in a format that isn’t easily digestible, ie, in their Ongoing Investigation segments where one might has to wade through a lot of unrelated stuff to get to something you might want to read.  The question for me is, is this enough to counter their advantage in actual content (or do I dismay Author again by voting for CC again).  Well, actual content is the most important factor, and I think RT does win that category by a significant amount, in my opinion.  So I think how they do some of their posts is problematic, I’m still going to go with them

Winner: Reverse Thieves

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Match 24 – #7 hashihime vs. #58 ∑Xce7ion

Design: I don’t see anything particularly good or bad about hashihime’s design.  It’s on blogspot, so it’s likely a template (you CAN make your own template on it for free, unlike wordpress.com, but doing so is still a pain in the ass. Believe me, I did one for a project at work).  ∑Xce7ion seems to have a pretty nice design.  They also have one of those funky tabbed things on the sidebar.  While I think they’re cooler in concept, I still think they have a couple flaws, such as the mystery meat tabs and, at least in this case, the font looks way too small.  ∑Xce7ion also has a pretty large header, both image and the stuff that’s above it.  I barely see the top of the content section in my browser.  I think I like the general idea of ∑Xce7ion’s design better, I think hashihime’s is executed better.  Winner: hashihime

Post Rate/Style: The rate that hashihime writes is up and down, but it seems to average out to a somewhat moderate about.   It also looks like their posting style, while maybe not the best, isn’t too bad.  Meanwhile, ∑Xce7ion hasn’t posted since early April, only 4 times since the start of March, and only 12 times this year.  Otherwise, the post style seems OK, though there does appear to be some occasional IPIP.  However, ∑Xce7ion’s post rate is killer. Winner: hashihime

Content: hashihime appears to be mostly a blog about seiyuu (or largely about them) which we had, I think, one other blog about that topic in this tournament (can’t remember who right off the top of my head).  Not necessarily my cup of tea, but they seem to have pretty good content given the focus.  ∑Xce7ion, when they actually do write, seems to write a good amount, and with good quality.  I think on sheer content per post, ∑Xce7ion wins this category.  Winner: ∑Xce7ion

Overall: OK, so we have ∑Xce7ion, which has, I think, more content per post, but hasn’t posted in a month and a half, and posted sporadically before then, and hashihime, who may not have as much content per post, but posts consistently.  I just don’t think ∑Xce7ion’s content per post is good enough to make up for the fact that they just don’t post.

Winner: hashihime

As can be expected of this series, the eighth instalment of Angel Beats! was a wild ride indeed. And yet – despite the humour, action and adventure – for the majority of the episode, it looked as though we would get almost no plot progression. Until… wham! We received an absolutely killer ending (with yet another cliffhanger), which provided an excellent set-up for the remainder of the season.

I’ll start my impressions off by stating what might be the obvious: there were a lot of parallels here to the second episode of the series. From the journey to Guild to the killing off of the SSS members one by one, it was pretty much the same journey, only with different obstacles to overcome and no backstory being told. This allowed for some fantastic jokes referencing the team’s prior adventure and made this a very funny ride (I also loved the dig at shonen action series); the action was also very well done. Suffice to say that standing alone, this was an excellent episode. As part of a larger work, though, it was something of a let-down. My main gripe with it was that I was left frustrated by so much repetition, especially so late in the game. In addition to this, even though the conclusion made things worthwhile, I’d question the director for taking so much time to build up to a rather simple reveal. The use of suspense would have made the wait forgivable, but that wouldn’t exactly have fit with the rest of Angel Beats!. Anyway, there are only four episodes left and there’s still a lot of ground that the series needs to cover. Now, with the addition of a powerful antagonist in the form of the fused Tenshi, I’m worried that the ending will be a rush job. I really hope that the series can get itself together, because this series just has so much potential and I don’t want to see it wasted.

While I wasn’t all that pleased with this episode, it really reminded me how much I love the show’s characterisation. The series is excellent in the sense that it has characters who are so charming and yet so mysterious. They also behave in ways that make sense (which can be a rarity in works of fiction). Hear me out: when crazy things are thrown at them, the characters in Angel Beats! all act in ways that fit who they are. Naoi, for instance, remains cold and rational but still sweet to Otonashi; Yui remains annoying/adorable, depending on how you look at things, and babbles; Hinata is selfless, as you’d expect from him; etc. etc. On a related note, I loved how things were set up with Kanade and the doppelgangers. She’s a passive girl – you could even see it in the way she responded to the SSS, way back when she was viewed as the antagonist – and this characteristic was further accented by the fact that her aggression was transferred to her doppelgangers. I thought that this was a really nice touch and an extremely clever move too. It transformed the doppelgangers from battling clones into worthy adversaries.

With talk of characterisation in Angel Beats!, it’s inevitable that one comes to talk about Yuri. She’s an outstanding leader and really great to watch, but I have to wonder if there’s more to her than what meets the eye. My rationale for thinking this is that the other characters seem to have more facets to their personalities than she does. Yui and Naoi both have two distinct sides to them, Kanade and Otonashi are shaped by their experiences in this world (she being alienated and he being new to the afterlife), and the others are largely enigmas. Yuri, however, is an outlier. With her, unlike with so many others, things seem to be presented as black and white. Even though so many role-shifts have taken place in the series so far, she’s always the ‘good guy’ who’s bravely fighting the ‘bad guy’. One could argue that her treatment of Kanade in earlier episodes marks her morals as more ambiguous, but this can largely be glossed over because she was doing what she believed was right. So is she simply a unique case? Or is there something she or the creators are hiding? Strangely enough, I want to believe the latter. I’m craving a bit more depth from her character, and I think that Jun Maeda can give that to me.

“ALL OF THAT WAS YOUR IMAGINATION!?” Oh yeah! After what seems since forever ago [two episodes] we’re back to sex crazed Yamada and her awesome delusion! But that is not all, this episode treated us with some story advancement. That’s right! Kosuda FINALLY confessed to Yamada…in a stupid lol retarded way, but it got done [...]

WTF!? Another curve ball thrown at me! What the hell was this random episode!? I came here to watch some moe and super thick tsundere but all I got was shounen-esque episode. Ugh…seriously I didn’t like it. I mean, it was alright with Daimaou because you can really tell they were making fun of the [...]

I just heard this song on the radio and I thought the title was appropriate for what just happened.  This episode felt like a game of roulette where the main protagonists found out some details about their major roles in the conflict.  Of course, no one knows everything, and none of them realize Izaya has done a fair amount of work manipulating from the background.  The key here is how they find out about each other or their affiliated groups.

I will tell you, if you hurt someone, the best thing you can possibly do is to go up to them and tell them directly.  Yes, the truth hurts, but when you reach out by yourself, you have a unique opportunity to explain your actions and perform damage control.  You may never have the same kind of friendship or relationship you once shared, but at least you took responsibility for your actions, and many people will respect you for it.

The absolute worst thing you can do is allow the person you hurt find out about your actions from a friend of a friend, or similar circumstance.  You’ve already added degrees of separation between yourself and your damaged friend.  Not only that, but he or she will form their own opinions of what happened and why, and in almost every case they will come to a very negative conclusion.  When the two of you inevitably collide, I wish you good luck in making any headway with the conversation.  Maybe you’ll somehow pull a positive resolution out of your ass, but you’ll probably end up hating each other.  Bottom line?  Honesty is the best policy.

Durarara pretty well covers the start of the worst-case scenario.  Mikado, Anri, and Kida were all friends before this night.  However, Anri learns Kida runs the Yellow Scarves from a few of her Slasher buddies.  She doesn’t believe it, so she goes to find out for herself.  Sure enough, he’s sitting on the throne.  Finding out one of your best friends is actually your enemy isn’t a terribly original plot point, but Anri isn’t the typical protagonist.  The experience shatters her, and she has to fight off the soothing voice of Saika in her head while she waits for rescue.

Unfortunately, the rescue just makes everything worse.  The Scarves suspected Celty worked for the Dollars.  Anri then reveals herself as the Slasher.  Guess who they think the Slasher works for now.  On the other hand, this brings Kida to a startling realization: he doesn’t have as much control over his gang as he thought.  He doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but the gang has already decided the guilty party and wants to fight.  Similarly, Mikado finally realizes he has no control over his group and fragments of the “enemy” groups work for the Dollars.  Anri could very well lose her grip as well.  If the three want to avert the crisis, they will have to work away from their organizations and in tandem.  However, the massive violation of trust might prevent it.

Of course, other parties can play a role in this.  Kida goes to Dotachin and his crew for advice, and it looks like he will receive a healthy dose in the next episode.  Then, we once again have the enigmatic Simon.  It looks like he’s absolutely everywhere, and he even manages to interfere in an attack by the Scarves.  I could be mistaken, but I think he narrates this episode.  I’ve said it before and I know I’ll keep saying it, but he knows too much.  I’m just waiting for the big reveal at this point.

It’s Working!! episode 7, and Otoo returns, this time bringing a new employee, Aoi Yamada. Aoi arrives with a sad and sorrowful tale, but Souta sees through her story in an instant. Aoi proceeds to cause havoc everywhere, almost causing Yachiyo to attack Oto again, out manipulating Hiroomi, and telling Yachiyo that Jun likes her.

Well, we had a nice thing going in the restaurant, and except for the few usual disturbances, pretty much things were going well and no one was really rocking the boat.

Than Aoi arrived and totally threw everything off. Of course, the biggest thing she did was let the cat out of the bag about Jun liking Yachiyo, which is, of course,  just irritating Jun even more now, but seems to have thrown Yachiyo into full out confusion. This could possibly be the start of Yachiyo perhaps seeing a world with more than just Kyouko in it.  I’ve kind of thought that Yachiyo and Jun might eventually get together, but didn’t really know how they would get from where they were to that point.  This certainly opens the door pretty wide for that to happen now.

Also, while Souta might be the weirdest one at the restaurant, he at least appears to be the smartest one, seeing right through Aoi’s story. However, since everyone else there bought her sob story, he ended up having to play along, at least while they were around. But it’s pretty clear that he nailed it when he said she had simply run away from home, and that Yamada isn’t really her last name.

Having said that, I’m with Souta in wondering what the whole story is. She may have a legitimate reason for running away (though, considering the type of story this is, it could be a really dumb reason too). The only person who might have the ability to find out is Hiroomi, though it seems that Aoi has perhaps found a way to counter him, at least for the moment.  However, given that Souta is the only one who really suspects something, I’m guessing he’ll be the one to find out sooner or later, probably because Aoi messes up.

Once again, we saw very little Poplar in this episode. We really, really need a good Poplar-centric episode here soon. If one didn’t know better, one would think that Inami was the centerpiece female in this story, given how much we’ve seen of her (though we didn’t see much in this episode). However, in theory, the story is supposed to center, partly, around Poplar, which makes it even stranger that we see so little of her.

Yes, it is finally that time…Josh’s Anime Blog’s turn in 5camp’s AniBlog Tournament.  It’s been a long wait, but this blog’s fateful day is finally here! It’s time to vote! (and while you’re at it, vote in all the other open polls too, as well as visit my opposition’s blog.)

It’s hard to believe, but over 320 days since the first episode of Bakemonogatari aired on July 3, 2009, the show is still not complete. It has been almost 3 months since the latest episode was released. It was easily the most popular show of 2009, dominating the chatter in anime fandom both in Japan and out. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at this incredible – unprecedented? – delay from a couple different perspectives.

Wait Between Episodes:

Usually, series will be aired on a set schedule weekly, leading to a predictable wait from episode to episode. Some will have recap episodes or skip a week for special occasions, leading to a 2 week wait. Bakemonogatari followed this for its 12 on-air episodes, but its online releases has failed to do so. Its BD/DVD releases have failed to follow schedule as well, as Volume 4: Nadeko Snake was delayed by a month, from December 23 to January 27. Note (5/25/2010): This chart was updated to reflect the news from 5/21/2010 – 1 day after I made this post – that the final volume was delayed to July 28.

What’s Happened Since the Last Episode:

The last episode of Bakemonogatari to be released was 14, titled Tsubasa Cat: Part 4. It was streamed on Shaft’s website on February 23, 2010. Here’s a look at what the main cast and its director, Akiyuki Shinbo, have done since then.

Money Left on the Table:

For a time in 2009, Bakemonogatari dominated the mindshare of anime fans in the East and West alike. The sales of its BD and DVD releases in 2009 are proof enough. But it’s difficult to keep a franchise relevant when there is literally nothing new happening in it. You gotta wonder, with new shows coming out and gaining popularity, how much in potential revenue are Shaft and its sponsors losing out on due to this interminable delay?

Data was collected from Anime News Network and Tokyo Toshokan. Images are from official art released by Shaft or screens from episodes themselves.

Of course, my research could have some holes in it; I had to rely heavily on 2nd hand sources because I do not understand Japanese. If you see any errors or omissions, please let me know in the comments.