Cruel Angel Theses

Just a bit of link blogging before I return to the normal schedule (wait, what schedule?). I’d like to think that four whole days away from the PC at camp did my hands good, but a prolonged bout of instant messaging proved otherwise. I can live with the pain, though, seeing how it serves as a good reminder to take frequent breaks and all. Workrave‘s helped a lot, too.

It’s always a joy to discover new anime blogs worth your time and effort to read. To my chagrin, ever since I started proactively looking for blogs with both quantity and quality, I’m quite embarrassed to note that my daily reading efforts have been stunted somewhat. Gone are the days of being able to skim through the list of daily entries effortlessly before breakfast, and I have these blogs to blame for adding to my “burden”, although I’m not in the least morose about it.

the concept of relevant/related pictures in my posts are practically unheard of, I know, but in the picture Haruhi’s saying “oh! this is a unique site…”

Anime apologists emanate something special through their blogging. TheBigN is one of them that I know of, who’s apparently been called “the Anne of Green Gables” by a friend of his. It’s to my delight then that CCYoshi of What is eternity doing tonight? writes in the same vein like N, always looking for the silver lining in anything he sees. He’s also happens to be a fan of stuff that I wouldn’t touch in this lifetime, which means I always think “harem apologist” whenever I see his updates.

Having an attitude of overall disapproval when it comes to sola, I can’t help but admire the amount of attention he’s paid to the show, penning down his thoughts about the subsequent aftermath not once, but twice. Different opinions are always nice to read; it allows for a well-rounded, healthy perspective on things, and while I’d rather step in front of a moving vehicle than catch Da Capo in its entirety, his review on it is nothing to scoff at, at least for a non-believer like me. When CCYoshi isn’t writing about harem and their ilk he occasionally veers into thoughtful, brooding editorials about He Who Shall Not Be Named Because Everyone Hates Him or an anime’s end, which makes him a must-read if you’re into a balanced view of things, in my opinion.

There aren’t many female bloggers in the anime blogosphere, and among those that exist, some usually gain a form of readership by virtue of their being female alone, to say nothing about their writing abilities. Xerox over at nirai kanai has no such problem — her writing’s free of all that attention-drawing fluff, in addition to being one of the more diverse, well-written blogs I’ve had the pleasure of reading in my spare time.

I’d put her posting style as being decidedly avantgarde, a mixture of both the episodic and editorial anime blogs we’re all familiar with, topped off with earnest, fresh insights into topics not commonly explored. While she’s proud to let people know she watches anime, she’s also shocked (appropriately, I might add, seeing how disastrous the Ragnarok anime was) to know that her once-favourite MMORPG is getting an anime adaptation. That’s not all she’s limited to, however, for she has an opinion on the epic Claymore 21, even if it isn’t something I’m used to, having never looked at Ligardes that way before. While she freely admits to watching anime “for the hot guys”, neither is she your typical fangirl, for a glance at her thoughts about Darker than Black prove otherwise.

Where would we be without our news blogs? Ikimashou.net is, as I’m sure you all know, one of the better places to go to for the occasional glimpse into the future. Seeing how Randall’s been slacking quite some as of late though, Anya, author of DENSETSU SHOUJO ???? fills that gap commendably. He’s currently on his three week hiatus that’s due to end on September the 2nd, if my calendar reading skills aren’t mistaken.

Any decent news blog should be concise, up to date, and quote sources if they want to stay ahead of the game. DENSETSU SHOUJO satisfies all three and more, no thanks to Anya’s very frequent and staggering amount of updates. There aren’t any particular examples that I can cite as testament to this, but a brief look at his previous updates say it all. While he’s covered well-known anime like Shakugan no Shana II and the Hidamari Sketch special due this fall, he also covers not so well-known upcoming series that have piqued my interest, to say the least, and this is where the strength of his blog lies: in the indie. You’d do well to subscribe to his blog as he, like any self-respecting anime blog, offers full RSS feeds, and I eagerly await the end of his hiatus next week.

The eccentrically named introspect of transientem is a good example of the proverb “still waters run deep”. I’ve found his blogging style to be that of an eclectic mix between AD2225′s “today I watched…” blogging and a good episode of Mushishi, which is saying something since all the episodes I’ve watched so far (5 at last count) have been good. But I digress. Reading his brief observations are like looking into a still pool sometimes; you have that reflection thing going, a glimpse of the surface, and the subsequent depth underneath.

It takes a discerning fellow to be able to call a spade a spade and name Azumanga Daioh’s evident weaknesses one by one (and not in a parody either, which is what yours truly did once). His initial discomfort with the series is something I can empathise with since we both tried to marathon it, to no avail. Kindred spirit feelings aside, introspect’s powers of observation are especially obvious when you notice how much attention he’s paying: his thoughts, be it regarding Shinkai and realism in anime, Sky Girls and the “training that wasn’t” episode, or even Utada Hikaru and her new single, are commendable feats with regards to his detail awareness.

I’d like to think that given the versatile nature of language, our usage of words change from day to day. There’s still many an uninformed person out there who doesn’t know that the word “thesis” has a plural form. Then there’s the dictionary definition of “epic”, as opposed to its more contemporary usage that ensures our progeny will never let us live it down when they discover this abuse of language. 0rion and Guff, who co-write for Epic Win Blog are just another nail in the coffin with regards to that bit of slang.

Where would we be without that sixth finger on our hand, the co-blogger? While slave drivers and conmen like Impz and TJ continue to reap the bountiful harvest of exploitation that are their fellow bloggers, Guff and 0rion here make no such mistake. It’s not a company, it’s an enterprise they’re running here. A joint union of opinion that isn’t diluted by their respective personalities, I’ve found their synchronised take on the awkward moments in Lucky Star 17 and Darker than Black 19 to be refreshing, and a great break from the monotony that comes with a single opinion on most blogs. It isn’t all multi-personality disorder and fun and games in their posts, though, as 0rion’s singular take on Washinomiya, or Lucky Star in real life isn’t something to be missed.

I’ve saved one of the more interesting bloggers for the last, and with this I bring you the irascible Marmot, who writes for no other than her very own tsuntsun: Marmot�s animu blog. Yes, it’s Yet Another Real Girl Anime Blogger�. Yes, she writes like a man. Marmot swears, curses, and applies a general attitude of wanton abandon to her posts that most girls wouldn’t adopt in their writing, but then again not every girl’s a self-proclaimed batshit insane bisexual lolicon. True story.

Her writing is as much education as it is a fascinating study into what Konata’s psyche would be like, assuming Konata was a bespectacled white American that blogged about anime and its periphery voraciously. Like her fictional namesake, she’s been consumed recently by C72 to the point of making two posts about it before giving up. She’s probably a little busy at the moment, but I don’t blame her at all for it. A jack of all trades, master of men, she’s showed us a room that belies her gender; she’s ranted about Makoto being a useless sack of flesh; she’s enlightened the masses on the mysteries of women. All this while still being jailbait. Need I say anymore?

In closing, I’m surprised that I actually enjoy doing this kind of thing. Linking 6 new blogs every 2 months isn’t that much of a deal, and I’d rather it be a lot sooner than that, but not everyone updates with some semblance of frequency while still maintaining that often sought after quality. Hopefully I’ll find another bunch of new bloggers by the next month or so, seeing how inactive some of the older ones have been of late.