Six blogs you probably aren’t reading yet
Posted by: Owen S in Omake, tags: Community, LinksSo I’ve noticed that the anime blogosphere is as incestuous as a chapter in COMIC LO. Everyone links to the same old same old, and I’m guessing you guys haven’t updated your blogrolls in ages, or can’t be arsed to get out there and look for new things to read. Which is fine and dandy with me, since I’m about to showcase a few blogs that, shockingly enough, are actually fit for the good old feedreader.
Links to follow. If you’ve got any blogs of special note that you feel I should be reading, too, don’t hesitate to link to them in the comments. I’d like to think my taste is pretty diverse, about 50 blogs in the anime folder and counting. Check my Links page above and this post before you get about to linking anything, though, and try not to overdo the linking too much, since Akismet is funny about stuff like that.
on a totally e/n note I got my long overdue Dear John letter today, which is why you’re getting a filler entry, albeit QUALITY filler. me on the right.
I’ve been a bit burnt out and exhausted as of late trying to juggle anime watching, blogging, and maintaining a healthy presence on IRC while fixing my very own SUPER SECRET PROJECT (well, not so secret since like three of you have seen it), and reading my 50-odd anime blogs daily. Hidoshi over at That’s Not Kanon does nothing to help alleviate that problem of mine as he keeps the entries coming day after day, adding on to my To Read pile like it’s going out of fashion.
With titles like “Viewing Anime through a Lens: Seeing =/= Believing”, “Lucky Star 11 - When Comedy Gets a Soul”, and “Visual Technology as Pornography”, well, need I say more? You’d expect entries of such quality to not go together with quantity, but that’s just in the past two days. When Hidoshi isn’t evangelising about Lucky Star with an intelligent, articulate fervour that outdoes even my efforts or continuing his massive mini-series about Gundam, he’s busy churning out yet another well-worded editorial. To top it all off, it appears that he’s only begun blogging recently, which is indeed impressive. Keep up the effort.
Next up on the list is a relative oldie but goldie; ConcreteBadger of The Soapbox at the End of the World fame. I heard that over there in America, people actually buy anime and manga and stuff? That’s really impressive. ConcreteBadger is a prime example of that, going where no broke otaku usually goes, spending his hard-earned cash to review series of considerable quantity, all while slipping in the occasional thought about fansubs. Darker than Black fans, represent!
It’s a bit unfortunate that there’s less intelligent discussion in blogs everywhere than I’d like to, but TSatEotW seems to be determined to put a stop to that by putting forth one apt observation after another. When he isn’t getting us to challenge the status quo in “Hayao Miyazaki: out of ideas?”, he’s waving a stick of cold, hard Reason threateningly in the direction of the Bokurano purists with “Bokurano: Hiroyuki Morita on trial”. ConcreteBadger’s blog name also happens to reference this Murakami novel, if I remember correctly, and he gets bonus points for that.
Since I did mention IRC earlier, what good would it be if I couldn’t take this chance to plug two of my homies’ blogs? Wait, I said “homie”, and I can’t believe I just did. I blame IRC for that. Anyway. These dudes are way more elitist than I am, so much so that they’ve requested that I keep their identities a secret if I ever were to link them anywhere. That time is now. The first elitist, AD2225, also known by his chatroom alter-ego as *****, runs the blog AD2225: Anime blogging for the future, whatever that means. He’s probably going to build a cryogenic freezer with his technical know-how and preserve himself when North Korea goes postal with their nukes so he can wake up and laugh at our corpses, or something.
I’m guessing it all goes together in a sort-of experimental vein when he says he’s blogging for the future, because ever since his summer break began AD2225 has been chatting less in IRC (not like he did a lot to begin with) and jotting down his thoughts on viewing anime en masse journal-style. I can’t really point out any entries that are really outstanding because they all are in their quiet, self-absorbed kind of way, but he mentions Honda Tohru and onigiri symbolism here in this entry and actually points out the science in Outlaw Star in another, so mad props to him for that.
The second elitist goes by the handle ******* on IRC, here taking on the rather everyman name Author, who, as the, um, author of ??????, (or Ani Nouto if you don’t have the Japanese skills) takes notes with a 0.7mm pencil, whatever that means too. Is it me or are the anon bloggers the ones with crazier taglines? I mean, just look at DrmChsr0, what the hell is with “Swiss Cheese Porn” anyway? While 0.7mm isn’t by any means really thick as a rule, I do prefer writing with 0.5mm pens myself (Pilot G-2s from Japan for the win), so the reference is admittedly lost on me.
His writing isn’t, though. For starters, Author doesn’t waste words, unlike yours truly here. This could very well be a style thing, but I assume that that comes with writing with a small pencil. Okay, I’ll stop with the jokes here. Entries of note include the entire freaking subcategory of Rocket Girls, covering a lesser-known anime that’s on my To Watch list, and this well, ahem, noted observation on Stelvia/Vandread pilot dynamics, and their WWII counterparts. The minimalist design of his blog is a plus.
There’s the often-neglected manga side that we otakus discard in favour of its more animated, bouncier, life-like texture counterpart. jbarnett, of Mangaijin fame, gets back to the basics by, in his own words, being “Obsessed with manga! Scanlation and import book reviews, with some US manga reviews thrown in.” At least that makes more sense as a tagline, but then again he’s not an anon blogger so yeah. Psych. I joke I joke, I kid I kid.
I think I got to know about jbarnett’s blog due to it being relaunched and the relaunch being announced on Mangablog. To good effect too, since I’d have never found out about this cute, SFW, non-yaoi Harry Potter doujin without that post of his. Since then he’s gone from strength to strength covering manga of all varieties, from josei (seinen?) Hataraki Man to sports series Ookiku Furikabutte, to the cool, post-apocalyptic King of Thorn, of which I wish I owned a copy now. His reviews are that good.
Last but not least, the dark horse oddity that is Gareth and his blog, enigmatically named the last arial. But I’m one to talk about weird blog names. Where was I? Yeah. If you happen to like railways, post-rock, and anime, you’ve come to the right place. When he isn’t talking about what makes up the bulk of his entries, i.e. railways, he’s giving an account of gigs for bands like 65daysofstatic and Mono, or jotting down spot-on observations on the anime he’s watching. That lucky bastard.
From noting similarities between Darker than Black’s Guy arc and Ouran High School Host Club to pointing out what no one’s been daring to say (except for myself, lolol), that sola is indeed dull, to waxing lyrical about Dennou Coil’s profound excellence, it’s all there. A mix of balanced opinions about anime, post-rock, and railways if that’s your thing — what else could anyone ask for? Gareth presents it in a mouth-watering design which is, as far as Wordpress.com blogs go, very pleasing to the eye. You’d do well to have him subscribed.
Wow, that took longer to write than I thought, and here I was thinking that two paragraphs per person would be a cinch. Have fun checking out all six of them, and do tell me what you think if you’ve already been reading them, or have a blogger in the same vein that I could do well to read. Enjoy!
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June 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Actually, the problem with new blogs for old readers is that everyone says the same things, just in cycles.
So you newer readers out there would find some stuff new, while the older bloggers would’ve already covered them long ago. Hence a lack of interest.
Personally, the only newish blog I read is Scrumptious lol, and that’s cos it’s written by girls.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I’ve been looking at anime blogs for a while now, and I even wrote a <a href=”http://animeblogwarrior.blogspot.com/” rel=”nofollow”>paper</a> about them last year for a blogging class. I only just recently started one myself and its even more challenging than I had expected to do. Maybe because I’ve seen some of the cycles tj han talks about and I don’t want to just go over the same things.
Maybe its all an inevitable cycle–new blogs start and the writers are enthusiastic, then they start to burn out after a while and newer blogs replace them starting from scratch.
The big issue, which comes up in cycles, is how to do something interesting with anime blogs that goes beyond the usual episode-by-episode series posts. It’s a challenge!
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Probably people link to the same blogs is because a lot of us got into the blogging thing around spring of last year so a lot of us know each other and added each other to our blog rolls…I rarely add new blogs because my real set “policy” is “if you wanna be on my blog roll, link me, then just let me know and I’ll link back”. A lot of people don’t read that on my about page XD;;
My blogroll though is mostly people I already know rather than linking to every single new blog that pops out…for that we have the AB Antenna & AnimeNano.
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 am
Thanks for the kinds words…much appreciated! On the down side, you’ve given me a bunch of new, smart, excellent and totally time-destroying blogs to read (your’s included).
I try to keep my blogroll small, so I actually check/use everything that’s on there. It’s about to get a little bit bigger.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 am
*blush blush*
Duuuuude! You can’t say nice shit about me! Now I’m gonna be all girly for the next week!
Thankies. ^^
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 am
[...] I need to thank Owen for his really, really kind words over at Cruel Angel Theses. I’m just doin’ what I love man, so thank you very kindly. [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 2:09 am
Ah, nice to know… well, I think reading Antenna and Animenano is enough to get to know newer blogs. Personally I read everything when the title sounds interesting, no matter which blog it comes from. The worst is when they actually aren’t on Antenna or Ano. So thank you for these hints, they actually are good!
Anyways, ConcreteBadger is actually incredibly old; also he doesn’t seem to participate much in the blog community, so it appears as if nobody knows him. However, he has a few people he seems to be close with (Bateszi and Hige, for example). I used to like that blog for the great series it covered, but then it kind of got boring for me. Especially since the author doesn’t really seem to react (or it’s only my comments that were too boring). Maybe I’m all wrong, oh well.
Oh, and I nearly only have people on my blogroll who link me too. Aside from that, I’m all open for link exchanges too. And I agree with Hinano that there actually really has been a “generation” last spring (only that my blog is actually older *cough*)
June 23rd, 2007 at 2:35 am
Sasa> I actually had a “prototype” anime blog similar to JASCII’s site in 2003 but I quit that after like 4-5 months XD But when I saw that anime blogging was the rage last year I figured I’d get back into it. So while my blog is about a year old the habit itself dates back to the time right when I quit fansubbing (and wanted to spread the love of raws in a different sort of way)
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:10 am
tj han, DS: Considering how there’s a new season every 3 months I really doubt that’s the case, but I’d have to say it depends on the type of stuff you write. Only so much to say about the structure, if you ask me.
Hinano: Which shows how little everyone’s been interacting! Well, again, it depends on the type of blog you have, like yours for instance: being of the episodic type means you don’t get the chance to link to other people in your posts that often. I see what you mean about the blogroll, although I personally remove those who become inactive or <del>bore me</del> post nothing worth reading.
mangaijin, Hidoshi: Hey, no problem at all. (: My pleasure.
Sasa: You read everything on both feeds, for real? Wow. That’s quite impressive. I’m sure not everyone does that though. Just saying.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 am
I added That’s Not Kanon on my link page just yesterday. Weird.
As far as blogs go… I just read whoever has the most interesting entries, as even the most boring blogs will have their spotlight entry once a blue moon. That’s what aggregators do best. I think the only blogs I pay attention to is HSJ and Canned Dogs, but that’s because I sort of know them.
But I really like That’s Not Kanon. I hope whoever runs it keeps it up over the years….if that’s even possible.
And as much as AD2225 is a cool fan, if you can’t write microcontent on a blog, you fail at blogging 101.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 am
Also I made a mistake: I didn’t add That’s Not Kanon on my link page yesterday. Still good for reading.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:52 am
You read everything in the aggregators too? Nutjob. I have trouble keeping up with roughly 100 blog feeds per day as it is. AD2225 is refreshing for its novelty factor if you ask me. The diary-like “So today I watched…” approach isn’t all that bad.
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:18 am
I’ll probably die off for a bit when school starts up again. It’s my final year in college so it’s bound to be tough. Nonetheless, I’m sure I’ll keep up with my posts as time goes on. ^^
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 am
Owen: I don’t read everything. I do read every “heading” and a lot of the excerpts. They are there for a reason, and as much as AD2225 is amusing it doesn’t work with an aggregator in that fashion.
Which is just too bad. All it takes is just two or three key words in addition.
June 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
Hey Owen, cheers for the nice things you said about the last arial. I’ve just had an enjoyable half an hour reading back through some of your posts - lot’s of great stuff, you even make Nanoha StrikerS sound palatable.
I do try and balance out the posts kind of like a quartered cake - music, anime, railways and random stuff - but fail miserably. Urk, anyway, I’d better be off and write today’s entry… maybe I’ll write about why the blog is called TLA?
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 am
This is a great post, a great idea for a post, too! I checked out a few of those mentioned, and I most likely wouldn’t have discovered them had you not pointed them out.
It’s refreshing reading new material (blogs I haven’t seen), many bloggers are such talented writers.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
Owen, thanks for the plug, much appreciated. Of course now I see that I have to explain what brought the Stellvia/Vandread to the front, otherwise it’s completely nonsensual.
But thanks for the other links too. I immediately added a couple to the feedlist.
Linking to someone new is something a few people make a point at doing, I saw Shamus Young doing it (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=517 — but actually it’s whole series), Steven Den Beste has a rotating blogroll for this purpose, and so on.
TJ made me realize that I forgot the link to those 4 girls on a yellow background who were announced at AB three days ago. Bummer.
I tried the balancing act which Mr. Last Arial is trying, and it never worked for me in the past. Specifically, the wide syndication at thematic aggregators was always in conflict with it. Omo is not the only one who uses aggregators, trust me on this. In fact, traffic from Antenna at ani-nouto is greater than 50%, and that with feed readers hitting at regular intervals. One way or ther other, I had to spin off blogs a few times. I have 4 blogs now, which I update more or less regularly, each with a different set of readers.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Always good to give a nod to blogs most people haven’t heard of before, and good of you to list them here. :)
I’ll take a look at them when I have moar time. :P
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 pm
> I tried the balancing act which Mr. Last Arial is trying, and it never worked for me in the past. Specifically, the wide syndication at thematic aggregators was always in conflict with it.
Yeah, I’m sure this may have cost me readers, but I would find it hard to keep on top of three different blogs. To counter this I have considered spinning the trains off to one of my other websites, and I may still do… thing is, there is a bloody minded part of me that kind of likes the big mish mash of topics.
Because of this, and my frequent tangents into other areas, I don’t think my blog complies with the terms of most anime aggregators. I’m not too worried, I’m not doing this for the ego boost of the rapidly turning over hit counter, I’m just penning down stuff I find interesting and all the while trying to improve my writing.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:50 pm
“I’m not too worried, I’m not doing this for the ego boost of the rapidly turning over hit counter, I’m just penning down stuff I find interesting and all the while trying to improve my writing.”
That’s really what it should all be about, and that’s what I try to do. For me, it’s damn hard to write stuff without thinking that it sucks, and I don’t even like to write in the first place. :P
In terms of blogging cycles, has a new one started this year? A lot of new blogs I’ve seen pop up in the last couple-o’-months, like yours~
June 24th, 2007 at 5:19 am
lastarial: Glad you made it over here! No problem at all. I’ve always admired the way you go about things, so I thought it’d be appropriate to put that in words this time. No trouble, really, and thanks for the compliment.
Author: As always. Happy to be of service.
TheBigN: Heh, it’s my community service, I guess. You back for good yet?
June 24th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Wow, it’s an honour to be given a mention! I went through a period of episode-only reviews for a while after the big hiatus during my house move so I’ve only recently re-discovered how fun one-off editorials can be. Rule 41 strikes me as a new kid on the block but your enthusiasm for ‘doing different’ stands out a bit, which grabbed my interest (congrats on spotting the Murakami reference too).
It’s funny but I don’t consider myself to be an oldie - I guess two years is a long time in internet terms! I used to read the now-abandoned Mangaminx’s Lair and Hopeless Sensei, two excellent blogs whose owners seem to have become preoccupied with other things these days. KT+Anime is another old stalwart who I revisit regularly - partly down to his excellent writing style and partly because his taste often mirrors my own! Similarly I regularly check out Bateszi, who incidentally is the guy I write for on Anime UK News.
@Sasa: “Especially since the author doesn’t really seem to react (or it’s only my comments that were too boring)”
My apologies! I was under the impression that many visitors leave a message and forget about it afterwards - coupled with the lack of free time I seem to have, I don’t get around to replying as often as I ought to. Point taken though, I’ll try to be more interactive in future and acknowledge my gratitude for the feedback! :)
June 24th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I’ll still be posting on the blog AFAIK (not constantly, but I never really did :P), but it will still be a couple of weeks before I reappear on IRC, I believe. :3
June 25th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Just added all six to my blogroll, though I doubt I’ll be able to check every single one everyday; I don’t use a feed aggregator, so I view every single blog one by one. On my list, just about 46, and counting…
And I personally prefer a 0.7mm mechanical pencil. The 0.5’s just keep snapping on me too often. 0.7’s are a good deal tougher than them and they’re easy to find, unlike 0.9mm pencils and lead.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
@Martin: You are right to assume that a lot of people do not come back. However, I have the impression that most of my readers are those who do come back and then pop in with a comment every 10 posts or so. I’m sure it must be similar with yours.
Personally, I go back to the comments I’ve posted with a regularity like other people do with their vocabulary: I check back after one day, three days and then about two weeks, and then I don’t care about it anymore.
@Owen: No, I don’t read every blog. But I look at all the titles on both aggregators - and as soon as a good blog appears there, it most likely will catch my attention. So it’s difficult to get to know about blogs that aren’t on aggregators for me.
Aside from that, you should receive an award for the “most ambitious new blogger” of the season. You remind me a lot of impz back then - and you know where THAT stands today *g*
July 7th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Sasa:
Awww, you’re too kind, really. Thanks.