Re-reading your favourite manga that you haven’t touched in almost 7 years is like meeting an ex-classmate, or ex-classmates of yours that you haven’t seen for twice or half that time. One part of you wonders if they’ve stayed the same, one part wonders if you’ll recognise them, one part wonders if you’ll be able to talk as casually as you did all those years back, and one part, if you’re thinking about a particular female classmate, wonders if she’s grown up from that adorable girl you had a big crush on back then. My reunion with Love Hina was like that, only with less stiflingly dapper outfit and more pleasant recollection of memories.

softly dreaming, never drunk

The problem with anime references or puns is that they usually fall apart quite miserably when you attempt to throw two or more of them together. It’s the sheer futility of making a Yoko Kanno reference in a Nanoha post title (a Venn diagram would easily illustrate the naivete behind this), or stringing together similarities between a not-so-popular mahou shoujo anime and an extremely famous shounen one (on top of a Narnia parallel) that leaves much to be desired, but I try anyway. If you manage to catch both references in the post title, well, consider yourself to have otaku street cred.

if recent episodes are anything to go by, he’s getting there

Genshiken’s relevance to the fandom has been well-noted for some time. Given the truth of its piercing observations and all, you could practically call it a sociological study (participant and non-participant observation as means of methodology, obviously) in otaku, all entertainment purposes aside. No stone’s left unturned: everyone, from gamer to erogamer, cosplayer to fujoshi, manga-ka to doujinshi group — they’re all there. In this we see glimpses of the people behind the passion and fanaticism, and we see reflections of ourselves waving back at us.

The difference between the otaku of the motherland and those of the wide internet expanse don’t go amiss, though. I’d like to think that we’re better off for lacking the very physical presence we’re wont to judge others by; what matters here isn’t how you look or dress or talk, but merely how much anime you’ve watched or manga you’ve read. In other words, it’s easier to reach out and connect with others, and forge a sense of community as a result.

This leads me to my tangential digression, of which I hope you’ll excuse this once. Having the privilege of obtaining not one but two detractors in the short span of 24 hours, I thought I’d deign a little time breaking their arguments into little pieces with the power of logic before heading into the meat of the post, so feel free to skip about two paragraphs down if you’re reading this from the comfort of your feedreader or an incoming link. For the rest of you, gory details after the cut.

The beauty’s in the little things — this is the basis for the “12 moments of the year” series. For those who watch or read for “resolution” rather than “moment”, bad endings ruin their enjoyment of a series. Those who watch them for “moment”, however, don’t bat an eyelid at an ending less than satisfactory. This is why there are those who balk at the prospect of starting on an incomplete series, and also why those who go with the flow and survive on a month-to-month or week-to-week basis come out richer as a result.

Kodomo no Jikan is one of those. I’m not sure that an ending, assuming that KnJ ends eventually, will be one of KnJ’s strengths, even though I’m convinced that Kaoru Watashiya will have it all figured out like she has her main characters. What I’ve discovered this year while reading the manga is the clarity and strength of the messages that she delivers through her art, astute observations of pathos and empathy that are inevitably overshadowed by the pervasive fanservice she employs. For those who care to look beneath the surface, however, there’s gold to be found. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

also, the anime sucks by virtue of it being censored to hell and back, so it’s recommended that you actually pick up the manga or wait for the DVD raws unless you enjoy censorbars and random animal sounds

A competitive gaming (sports, board game, etc) series will inevitably choose to major in one of two areas, both of which are crucial in determining how wide or specialised an audience it will snag: the first, drama; the second, jargon. While the second is important in tapping to a pre-existing fanbase and ensuring a dedicated following, the first is by no means unimportant — too much emphasis on jargon leaves the non-fan alienated, something no self-respecting author or animation studio would want to do.

it’s tough love, making fun of your target audience is

What I mean by “the point of adaptations” isn’t “the point where adaptations start sucking”, but more of like “what is the point of adaptations?” After all, regardless of how good or bad an adaptation will be, you’ll always have the grassroots insisting on the superiority of the original. The fanbase is fickle and insatiable, which means most, if not all of the discussions will result in a discordant clamour of “YOU NEVER SAW HOW BRILLIANT THE MANGA WAS”, or “YOU’RE BIASED BECAUSE YOU READ IT FIRST”.

Which brings me to two shows, both brilliant manga in their own domains: Bokurano and Claymore. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to review the anime for both seeing how they’re both based off a manga; furthermore, I’ve only read the manga for Claymore, and only saw the anime adaptation of Bokurano. So I have two questions:

What can be really constituted as perception bias? How should an adaptation from its source material, be it a visual novel, manga, or light novel, be truly judged? I find these questions to be of utmost relevance especially in this Autumn season for the top-tier, or at least what I perceive as the fandom perceiving as top-tier anime, i.e. Clannad and Shana II, happen to be adaptations too.

Going through a period of chronic exhaustion while forcing myself to write this post hasn’t exactly been pleasant thanks to my lack of knowledge about Claymore itself — but that all fell away when I finally decided to read all 12 volumes of the manga yesterday morning. Fun times.

I came away from the aftermath shaken, not stirred. The clock said 6:00AM. Do I have any regrets about “spoiling” the story now that I know what’s going to happen in the anime? Maybe just a little. As far as I’m concerned, though, it’s all for the best, as it was an enjoyable experience, to say nothing of how it won’t be as hard to write about it from now on. Largely spoiler-free.

not a coincidence, really (click for full size)

I read 19 volumes of it yesterday. It’s nice to revisit what I’ve been proclaiming (to anyone who’ll listen) as the “best shounen series ever”, and by “shounen series” I mean of the fighting type. I went off on a tangent on BATESZI’s poll in his blog about it until I realised he was talking about anime specifically, and I’ve only read the manga for that.

Also, some insight into Darker than Black 09 and 10 after the cut. Questions raised include “is sudo better than Shinsen in subbing?” (protip: the answer is No for quality, a half-hearted Yes for speed), and “what is Hei’s obeisance, anyway?” (the answer might be more obvious than previously thought).

hey guys, I think Lucky Star isn’t that great, yet I’m going to make deadpan posts week after week detailing how funny or unfunny this week’s episode was! and I’m cool that way! I’m also constantly sleep-deprived, and WUI- wait, wrong blog.

If rational, level-headed opinions (and sarcasm) offend your conservative, illogical sensibilities, you can still turn back. You don’t have to read beyond this. No one’s forcing you to do anything, no sirree. Exit’s that way.

It’s easy to spin anything. Bet you didn’t know that. The witch-hunting, pitchfork-waving mob gets their kicks from taking things out of context. I blame the rise of a post-modernist society. Because, you know, things should be taken at face value and all that. The importance of looking at something from a structured perspective, or in context, is antiquated fundamentalist bullshit; the new way to go about things is to analyse things on the surface level. Nevermind differing cultural norms, I mean, since it’s being published in my country I must be able to hold it to my own set of personal values, and say things like “I’m fully aware this isn’t part of my culture, but the PERVERTS! How DARE they!”

That’s brilliant reasoning there, if I say so myself.

As some of you might now know (if you didn’t already), I’m a Darker than Black fanboy. It’s all about Hei and the extent of adoration that heterosexual males like myself can profess without veering into dangerous territory, which means that I think that posts like these are lame. I prefer rational discussions rather than brilliant diatribes myself, though (for an example of the latter, check out Randall’s posts here and here regarding the fiasco surrounding Kodomo no Jikan), so here’s my case on why I vehemently disagree.

By the way, TJ Han showed me something he wrote almost a year ago that’s similar in subject and invited me to link to and laugh at it, but the only thing I found hilarious were the mismatched pictures, and I wish he could write like that more often, because it was awesome surreal humour that’s so unlike the more reserved tone he’s been taking on recently, and would also resemble Kyoya acting like Tamaki all of a sudden.

My first ever Manga post is about lolicon. Awesome.

This is in response to a recent Mr Answerman column (scroll down) where Zac Bertschy, the writer, basically goes off on a tangent about Kodomo no Jikan because of the presumably pseudo-paedophile vibes the manga gives off which his perfectly normal, non-fetishist heterosexual nature can’t endorse. Nevermind how the manga isn’t even released yet.

It so happens I’ve got volumes 1-3 raw, and having read them before I’d seen the column, not to mention how Google actually fails for once at providing proper information in English about it, this would be a great opportunity to explain what KnJ’s really all about. Some spoilers after the cut.