This post has its roots firmly planted (pun unintended) in this category; present-day incarnations include this recent article by The Anime Almanac, which pushed me to write this post as a result. It’s not like I’m singling the two of them out through my writing of this, — well, alright, maybe I do pick on lolikit a lot, but that’s just due to how far he’s gone — since their opinions are unfailingly pedestrian in their nature that you could pick an otaku, any otaku who thinks that they’re the most intelligent/unique/erudite critic on the internet since Yahtzee or Maddox, and get the same type of reasoned opinion out of them.

Before all of that, however, have a colour bar (click for larger version).

This was a real exchange between Jeff Lawson and J. Valdez:

Jeff Lawson: I watch a lot of slice-and-life shows.
Jeff Lawson: And by “slice-and-life”, I mean “slice-of-life”.
J. Valdez: Do you mind if I start calling shows like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and School Days, “Slice-and-Life?”

Fun times. I reserved the slice of life shows for the last because I had a nagging feeling I was going to like them regardless of when and how I saw them, to say nothing of how viewable subs for Minami-ke were only made available some time back. The wait was worth it, in any case, since I can’t remember the last time I laughed till my chest hurt.

As I write this I’ve just finished viewing the last few episodes of Lucky Star. a.f.k. has been good and all, but unreliable and temperamental (you know it’s getting dumb when they delay subs due to “it being licensed”… twice) when it came to the last stretch. Props to Guerrand for giving us that final lap, and Moogy for mirroring the downloads on his server.

Lucky Star, in my opinion, exceeded all expectations. Paradoxically, this would only work if you had no expectations to begin with, because it was that type of anime that could only work under a lack of preconceptions. Of all the posts I’ve read about, the most appreciative ones were those who didn’t stuff LS into a box and still expect it to work its magic, namely because LS was something that just couldn’t operate under those conditions.

I’ll be honest upfront and say that this review’s one of those largely starry-eyed types. I found no problems with it whatsoever, but that might have been due to my approach to it, and how I chose to not let what the community at large perceived as problems interfere with my assessment of it. I say this in confidence, surely, for I know that LS will be one of those anime that I’ll be able to re-watch a year from now.

I forgot to comment on Claymore 06’s shounen character development (those two terms in the same sentence, wow), when it aired, so here’s a little something to make up for it. No, that wasn’t taken out of context at all, I don’t know what you’re talking about, really.

years after Claymore is dead and buried under the avalanche of new anime this picture will persist, and someone will get the idea that it was about kinky exhibitionist lesbian paedophile knights during medieval times, and find out they were only half-wrong.

this screencap is justice, like Light

So after watching the entire season, let’s talk about what I think of Azumanga Daioh. It didn’t improve after the first episode, but considering the pathetic waste of time that was most of the series, I guess that was to be expected.

Azumanga Daioh is, at best, an average show. At worst, it’s like Charlie Chaplin trying to cheer up a little girl post-rape with his legendary slapstick humour, which is technically funny, but really sad when you look at the bigger picture.

1,000 hits in 12 days! Definitely wasn’t expecting this. Thanks once more for all the relentless support. Past few days have been a bit tiring and my PC’s power supply unit was force-fed the red pill the night before, which sucked. That makes it the third PSU in like 6 months, but at least the warranties cover it. I had Sociology again today, and you know what that means — I was bored and started scribbling stuff on my notepad. I was able to multi task this time so despite sitting right in front of the lecturer it appeared like I was taking notes.

the characters don’t fit at all, I’d use Fuuka and Fumika, followed by Evangeline and Patch- I mean, Yue for extra damage.

So I was sitting through my 3 hour Sociology class today, and it was a drag. A drag not because of the subject itself, which is really quite interesting by nature, but because my lecturer sucks. Not in the traditional sense that means “incompetent failure” but more of the “can’t stop going off on a tangent” sense. She’ll get off-topic because she’s trying to give us practical examples (seeing how we’re doing Crime and Deviance I don’t think really I need that, thanks).

And when I get bored I generally look out the window, play with my pen, scribble on my notepad. Today was pretty different though — she printed out the powerpoint slides for the day’s notes, and while I was reading ahead of the class as she was bringing up E/N Story #971 I stumbled upon Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory”. Seeing how this is pre-university stuff I hope it isn’t too hard to follow — Merton basically tries to explain why certain people deviate, and the different types of deviance that follows. The study was done on young working class males in the USA, 1940.

There are opinions, and there are opinions about other people’s opinions. This is one of the latter, and if you’re the type who ignores the message as a whole in favour of focusing on one sentence/paragraph, you should give this a pass. Newsflash — this post is not, I repeat, not an attack on your liberty to have an opinion or an attack on your person. This is meant to facilitate discussion, and I hope the responses I get, if any, will focus on my opinion too.

So this is Another Post About Lucky Star�. In an attempt to find it unfunny I watched the speed sub, the quality sub, and was this close to watching the joke sub, if it wasn’t for all that talk about smegma, ass cheese, and “that’s not mud” during the food scene. Funny != disgusting, and I didn’t feel like sitting through 20 minutes of memes masquerading as humour. I still laughed the second time round, in any case.

I know this seems like a terribly opportunistic time to start my blog given the topic of the moment, but I guess it’s better than nothing. So everyone’s got an opinion about Lucky Star, with the lovers going “MOAR” and the haters going “NO MOAR”, and while I found the list of reasons for not liking it to be pretty acceptable, lolikitsune’s post left an awful taste in my mouth and I thought a more positive take on the whole thing would be appropriate.

I know coloured hair’s there for character differentiation, but…