Thoroughly Analyzing Digi’s New Style

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Fall 2012 Anime Wild Mass Guessing

Blind and mostly-blind speculation eats poo, right? I haven’t seen a season preview in six months. I’d be doubting that they were still around if I didn’t remember that the blogosphere generally thinks they’re a good idea for some reason.

I always open my season previews by badmouthing season previews, then doing one anyway. I’ve been doing them for exactly five years now, starting with Fall 2007, back when I didn’t know SHIT, and my post was as worthless as the next asshole’s.

Now it’s different. Not to sound (too) pretentious, but I think I bring a little more to the table with my season previews. Not because I have magical clairvoyance and can predict if a show is good or not, but because I can bust open the speculation doors with staff analysis and raise the stakes on hype to drive you mad, wondering if the show will live up to the reputation of its creators, or flop hard.

That’s the thing with predictions. They’re never more than the tiniest bit certain. Every creator has their shitty shows (sometimes shitty decades). No matter how much of a dream team you get working with an A+ studio, you never know when they’re gonna crank out a no-try cash-in. Who could possibly have thought that after Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, Michiko e Hatchin, and even The World God Only Knows, Manglobe was going to crank out fucking Deadman Wonderland and Mashiro-iro Symphony, while working on a Hayate movie? No one. No one at all.

All I can do is tell you what the staff has done before, and evoke a picture of the possibilities. I can build a hype wave that can mercilessly crash on your expectations, like Ao no Exorcist or Yozakura Quartet of Gunslinger Girl S2, or I can understate the potential of a show that turns out to be fucking awesome.

Whatever happens… this is my preview.

1000th Post: The Titles Keep Changing, But the Intent Is the Same

Might’ve been more romantic if this came a month from now on the site’s fifth birthday, which is also two days before my blog debuts in the second aniblog tourney, but what can I do? I can’t pass up making a special 1000th post. 1000 posts! That’s a lot! This is including the 87 posts that I have set to private, though not including the 54 drafts. When I published my last post, WordPress told me, “this was your 999th post!” so as far as I’m concerned, it’s an unambiguous 1000th. At least the birthday and tourney should get pure content posts.

Figuring out how to run this blog is difficult. I’ve moved away from being an “anime blogger” at present, having spent more time in the past two months blogging My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and, on this site, writing as much about video games as I have about anime. What am I now? What I’ve always been: just a blogger, only now one who’s less focused on one specific subject.

In this post I’ll explore what I should do about my sites, what my dream is as a writer/blogger, my future in anime blogging, and why I want to be more than just an “anime fan.”

I had a dream: of escaping anime fandom

And I succeeded. You’ll remember that two months ago I stated the following: “…there’s an extent to which I think my anime fandom isn’t so much more massive than my other fandoms as it is more inescapable and easy to be a fan of.” I then successfully escaped anime fandom without even trying. I didn’t watch any anime for almost two months, and consequently didn’t read anything about anime (unless it was by otou-san or ghostlightning because I read their writing indiscriminately). Meanwhile, I stepped into My Little Pony fandom in a way as massive as I’ve ever stepped into anything in my life, if not more so.

I didn’t stop being an anime fan, but I stopped being, “Digibro the anime fan.” For a while you could’ve called me, “Digibrony the self-explanatory,” and there’d be no reason for debate since ponies had a totalizing effect on my life that even anime never achieved. I couldn’t have seen that coming, but I knew that things would even out at some point, and then I was wondering… will I just become an anime fan again? Will I be “Digibrony the anime fan?”

It’s too early to say, because I’ve only re-emerged heavily into other cultures for the past two weeks. However, I didn’t find myself getting hard back into anime as though I’d been unknowingly harshing for a fix (as I’ve done after breaks in the past). I thought I’d end up diving into a new season like I’d missed out on a bunch of shit, but I didn’t react much to the things I watched, and while I remembered love here and there (Zetman), I didn’t go crazy back into otaku mode. I imagine that the effect of Japanese sounding weird to me all of a sudden will go away soon and I’ll remember why I liked some of these seiyuu that right now I’m going uuuhhrrrggg about, but what I also see is a long-broadened horizon waiting to be walked. Right now, more than anime, and even more than ponies (because I’ve almost consumed everything pony that there is, so now it’s more keeping up with new shit), what has my attention is video games. Who knows where this could lead?

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I have a dream: of establishing a personal canon

For years I’ve tried to perfect my favorites list. I’ve known forever that favorites lists are meant to evolve constantly, but now I understand that they key isn’t in a list per say; it’s in having a personal canon.

What is a personal canon as opposed to a favorite’s list? Here’s what four entries in my dream canon would look like, roughly sketched.

What makes this so different from a favorite’s list? Importantly, it’s mixed media, and more importantly, it can contain anything. This would be a literal canon of *everything that I care deeply about, period.* It would all culminate into something like this thing I’ve already started on, only minus all of the stuff outside the “favorite things” section.

My dream is for everything I do to tie into one central canon. I want one location that is a hub for absolutely everything: a singular website that is host to everything which I care about. This raises the all-important question:

Is that place here?

Even though working towards a total canon is my god-tier ultimate dream, it would hardly contain all of my writing about creative works. None of the posts I’ve written since coming off of my last hiatus, for instance, have a place in this canon. Yet, the posts within this canon certainly have a place here (after all, the whole site has been structured around perfecting it). But to what extent?

Video games and anime posts feel right at home here. My Little Pony and music posts don’t. This leads me to think of a separate central location for my canon which would link to posts on all of the separate sites that I use to talk about different things. I already have more than one central location of that sort, and while their purposes aren’t quite the same, they’ve all proved a cumbersome and unappealing system.

The problem is that I like this site the best, and I still have the hardest time reconciling what I want it to be against what I insist on making it. I’ve always said that this site was meant to be the ultimate hub of my output; yet, I have a site for pony posts, I have a site for personal posts, and I have sites for about nine hundred million other things (including, of all things, manga!).

The fear of integrating it all here is diminishing, however. For one thing, my readership is already more than well-established. For another, I never write a post expecting people to read or reply to it, and if I do, I go around publicizing the shit out of it. I’m not terribly concerned with netting new readers is my point, and I trust my readers won’t unfollow my blog just because it becomes varied. (If anything, it could have the positive consequences of 1. not forcing people who just like to read whatever I write to go all over the place, and 2. possibly interesting those people in new things through my writing).

The main post feed of the site isn’t even a thing of great importance. You come here, and there will be tabs, reading “music,” “games,” “anime,” etc., and you can damn well figure out what you’re looking for.

My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull has a long and storied history. At no point was it solely an anime blog. One of the first posts I did here was a review of the Halo 3 beta. I’ve talked more about myself than I have about anime, written about many different aspects of the subculture and surrounding cultures, and all the while deluded myself into thinking that this site was somehow focused. (Myself and probably no one else.)

Where does the site go from here?

It should be obvious: the answer is to condense all of my godfucking ridiculously innumerable blogs into two sites: the Digibro Canon (My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull), and the Digibro Creative Output Center (Modal Hsoul Productions). MSIUD becomes a center for many subjects, though, full-stop, it probably will mostly consist of anime and ponies (and possibly video games if the trend continues).

But what of the community? The people who want to read shit about anime, so they come here, and I go read their blogs or whatever? Look, I’m done watching and blogging current shows beyond the occasional impressions/analysis. I’ve been done reading anime blogs outside of the <10 I subscribe to for a long time. I’m done with the idea that I’m writing for anyone but myself and those who care to take a peek. If anything, I think that the readers who really enjoy me will be happy to see me writing more meaningful articles like the ones I’ve put out maybe once a month in between all the other shit I’ve been crapping out these past seven months.

What can you expect?

– More of the same, since that’s never going away

– More of all the stuff you see listed in that canon image

– More pages

– A site once-over (the site will go down sometime in the next 48 hours and I’ll add shitloads of shit to it)

– More things that aren’t anime

In other words, expect what this site has, at heart, always wanted to be. (animekritik.wordpress.com).

This Is Now Officially A Hiatus

And here’s why I’m bothering to declare such a thing:

My Little Pony fandom has altered the way I think just a bit. It makes me feel like taking a more friendly voice and outlook in general. I’ve always been bright and optimistic, but I also have refused to reign myself in and act like I’ve got some class. Something about MLP just makes me want to speak with a little more… I dunno, likeableness. People respond really well to that stuff (see: why 2DT and ghostlightning are so loved by their readers) and maybe I just want to try a little harder to put smiles on peoples’ faces.

But here’s the weird thing: I’ve been acting like that… in the MLP fandom. My posts on the Rainbow Dash Network or my blog Digibrony have avoided the sort of… fucking idiocy that happens on my twitter account. Of course the obvious reason for this is that these people don’t know me, so I’m getting a chance for a fresh first impression. Meanwhile, however, the people on twitter and my blog already know who I am.

This is no excuse to not take on my new attitude here as well. The trouble is that instead, it seems like I’m just piling all of those dumb and negative-sounding thoughts into my old hangouts. Like I’m going “here’s a snarky or cynical or stupid thought, let’s post it on twitter because who gives a shit.”

I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore I’m really tired. Anyway I want to put myself on hiatus before, in my lack of caring, I start making really stupid, worthless, and snarky posts.

My Hatedom of Bee Train Now Has Its Own Website

Appropriately titled I Hate Bee Train. If you like angry rants about terrible, terrible anime, this is a place to go. For those unaware of what Bee Train is, it’s the most terrible anime studio in history. Some of their worst shows include Madlax, Phantom, Avenger, and the bad segments of Halo Legends and Batman Gotham Knight, while some of their less-utterly-fucking-terrible shows include .hack//SIGN, El Cazador de la Bruja, Noir, and Murder Princess. (All of which are still bad.) I’ll be episodically blogging these shows and tearing them to shreds for sport.

So far, there’s only one post on the site (Fucking Madlax Episode 1), but if you want more rage over Bee Train, check out this post I did here a long time ago:

Halo Legends is Completely Awesome If You Ignore Bee Train Fucking It Up As Bad As Humanly Imaginable

Gone To Philippines, Be Back In A Month (Not That I Can’t Blog There!)

Here at the start of June I’m going to leave my rich-spoiled-American-white-boy life behind on a whirlwind adventure to the Philippines, wherein I’ll be staying with ghostlightning of We Remember Love for an entire month. This isn’t a “not blogging” notice—on the contrary, I’m sure I’ll do plenty of blogging, especially because ghostlightning and I are constant collaborators, and we can only do even more if we’re together in person. As a matter of fact, I’ve opened a new Tumblr, Digiboy’s Travel Diary, wherein I’ll be posting daily recounts of my adventures for anyone interested to follow (most especially my family).

This journey is going to mark an important turning point in my life. You see, ghostlightning has been a close and important mentor to me for the past three years, and I don’t even know where nor whom I’d be today were it not for his guidance. This trip was my dad’s suggestion since he felt—as did I—that I was stagnating as I fumbled my way through college, and that it was time for me to “get out of the house” for a while. Ghostlightning thought this was a brilliant idea—as did I—so it became a plan.

I’m considering this a sort of intensive Mountain Training. It’s my power-up arc; my Snake Road; my lessons from Pai Mei. This trip will require me to use everything I’ve learned and all the skills that I’ve acquired over the course of my life, and it will also teach me a whole new wealth of things. It’s all lead up to this journey, and maybe it’ll even be my Coming of Age tale. My bike ride to the Northernmost point of Japan; my Fight With A Bear. I’m going to be Taking A Level In Badass, and things will never be the same!

It might sound like I’m exaggerating, but really I’m not. This is seriously big because everything about it is new and I’ll have to knock down a lot of the walls I’ve been putting around myself. Not to mention ghosty has been laughing maniacally in the shadows as he plots sinister-sounding happenings for me, so I know there’s no way he’s going to let me slip into my comfort zone.

So, wish me luck. I hope you’ll see change in me through my writing.

By the Way, This Site Is Now Four Damn Years Old!

Art by Buuta

I intended to do a flashy fourth anniversary post; I failed my first attempt, had an idea for another one, and then didn’t manage to finish it by the actual anniversary (May 14/15th), which I forgot was approaching until the 19th. But it feels wrong not to mention it at all, so here’s a mind-blowing summary of my thoughts on the site’s fourth birthday:

This August, I turn 20 years old.

This blog is now four years old.

I’ve been running this site for a fifth of my entire life.

Is it a coincidence that D-Boy's birthday is the same as this blog's anniversary?

[For the record, I can’t remember if this blog was made on the 14th (the day before the first post), or the 15th (the day of the first post), especially because the post was made early in the day. I’d know were it not for the fact that this isn’t the original site and only dates back to last November. Hence, the first image is the 14th and D-Boy’s b-day is the 15th.]

Summer 2011 Anime Preview in One Minute

Alternate title: Summer 2011 Preview That Took Me Less Than 30 Mins To Write. I’m saying it in hopes it actually happens.

Here’s your chart:

Hourou Musuko Abruptly Cut Short!

UPDATE: So it looks like there *will* be an eleventh episode of Hourou Musuko on TV, but it will be episode 12. 10 and 11 were fused together so there’d be room for this episode. Good news I guess!

Read about it here.

Ouch. It didn’t hurt me as much when Madoka Magica’s last two episodes were cancelled because I was behind on that show—and now it seems they’re finding their way back on the air anyway.

Hourou Musuko suffers a worse fate in that episodes ten and eleven have been cropped together to round out the season, so we can’t enjoy the full versions of the episodes until their BD releases, which will be in August and September. At least we’ll get a bonus twelfth episode as well.

What confuses me about all this is that Hourou Musuko wasn’t even skipped at all for the earthquake—episode nine aired as scheduled. Why do they need to cut it short?

There still seems to be a lot of confusion about this so I hope there will be further announcements to clear that up.

Dull Sword 4.44 and the Fate of the Acadime Awards

Maybe on my 4th anniversary I’ll post this site’s “version history” lol. (Yes, the numbers actually mean something.) And somehow I keep doing status posts even though I claim to hate them, but I guess it’s always been that way.

 

Art by zero

You’ve probably noticed how this site has been moving farther and farther in an obscure direction, which is a good thing because that’s what I’ve wanted it to do for a long time. (Maybe I’ll finally fulfill my dream of becoming anime kritik.) You guys have made it clear that you support whatever decision I decide to make with this site, so I’m very happy to know that I can make changes without feeling like I’m disappointing someone. Those changes will continue.

The next step for this site is to generalize its anime culture content more. As of now, I post almost solely on anime—before, I covered a broader field, but I tried to narrow it down to just anime last year. This year, I’m broadening it back out again. The trouble with doing that is that I have an established audience who doesn’t care as much about those other things, but I’ve gotten used to posts that no one reads and don’t mind it anymore.

So, I’ll talk a lot more about anime-related light/novels, continue my ongoing seiyuu-fanboying stint, maybe talk about some video games if I ever actually play them, bring manga back, etc. What I’m also considering is integrating the posts from some of my inactive side-blogs into this one so that I can finally shut those ones down. I’ll definitely be doing so for my “secret” manga blog, Is That You, Moatilliatta. Once I import the posts, depending on whether they show up in my feed or not, I’ll make a post linking to them so that you can check them out, since they’ll probably sort themselves out by original date of publication.

UPDATE: Looks like the posts all showed up in my feed LOL

 

Art by yuuki keisuke

While I’m talking about version updates, let me take this opportunity to once again welcome my co-blogger Thoughtcannon whom I’m not entirely sure everyone knows is writing here now lol. He’s already published some great posts here, which I’ve linked to below.

Ai-Pon and Spectrums of Cute

Freezing: Ender’s Game With Tits

Feels Good Man: Spring 2011 (assist)

For those who like to be able to keep up with everything I write (typing that sentence feels surreal knowing that some of you do exist, and I love you guys), here is a list of all the places you can find me right now and what you’ll get there (this site excluded).

Shameful Otaku Secret – I’ve been quite active on Otou-san’s site, where I’ve been posting about current shows, some episodically.

Scarlet Monochrome – Since I’m pushing all anime-related content, no matter how small, to either this site or SOS, Scarmono should become a site entirely for either personal stuff with no connection to anime, or music.

Cirno and Purple Steve – This is a web serial I’ve been posting twice weekly for the past three weeks. I like the way it’s been turning out so far, so if you’re interested in reading some silly experimental short fiction, then by all means give it a go.

Modal Hsoul Productions – Despite existing for about two months, this site is just now becoming active. I’m considering it my main operations hub for all creative works. Currently I’ve been posting short stories there, but it will eventually be linked to all of my future projects, so if you want to follow my writing career, follow this site.

Lately I’ve been focusing mostly on my fiction writing, but it clearly hasn’t detracted all that much from my anime blogging, so no matter what I say, don’t expect this site to go anywhere soon. As for social media outlets, I’m still on indefinite twitter sabbatical and with any luck, I’m never coming back. A lot of people are still contacting me on twitter, so I’m still checking it regularly, but if possible it’d be great if you could contact me through one of the ways mentioned on my about page instead.

 

Art by yukaman

Now, the thing you’re all wondering about: what the fuck is up with the Acadime Awards? Last I mentioned, I promised they were still running, and that was over a month ago and the second post never came out. Well, I did work on a few posts and nearly finished them, but never did finish them, so they never came out. I kept assuring myself I’d get around to it because I don’t want the work of all the contributors to go to waste, but clearly I have no real desire to continue working on the series.

So, instead of doing it properly, I’m just going to post the winners of each category and put up the write-ups from the contributors, and maybe add some other comments of my own in some cases. I apologize again for my being such a huge flake and promise I won’t let something like this happen again.

To those who have not yet completed their write-up or didn’t start because they weren’t sure of the fate of the program, I leave it entirely up to you to decide if you want to still finish. I’m just going to post the completed ones that I’ve received one at a time until I run out, and then I’ll post any others I receive after the fact. The posts can be expected to begin as early as tomorrow.

And, that’s all for now. Once again, I’d like to thank everyone who’s still reading me through this period of relative obscurity, and will be happy to see some of you follow the many other writing projects I’ve got going on as well.