Weekly Highlights (4-1-09)

A week of  meaninglessness and relevance.

Anime (and Manga) Highlights

Series mentioned this week:

Bio-Meat: Nectar (spoiler-free) as of the conclusion

Kurokami as of episode 1.

Bio-Meat: Nectar Thoughts

Bio-Meat’s the only survival horror manga I’ve read through to completion, and therefore it’s the best. Terrible reasoning, would it not be for the fact that the series essentially repeats the same thing thoughout it’s run and yet manages to keep me completely engrossed through varying the context of each event to the extent it’s always fresh. The characterisation’s nothing to write home about, but all the other aspects of the manga, the unique art, the storyline and especially the antagonists, the B-M’s themselves all make-up for a great read. If you like to see people triumphing over seemingly insurmoumtable odds and lots and lots of violence, I’d recommend this for you. If the very nature of the Bio-Meat itself doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will.

Kurokami – VS Shounen Bat

Oh dear lord, this was a fantastic first episode. Sure whatshisnamethemainprotagonist is about  as charismatic as a bowl of dishwater compared to his manga counterpart (one of the reasons I said this) but the plot actually has great potential and the action scene was so well done to amazing BGM. Then again I’m an action whore, so I might not be the most reliable person, but it’s great to see a good fist fight after so much mecha madness.

Well, both videos were removed and one was only 17 seconds long

WALL-E

Yeah yeah, it’s not anime, but it’s one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen and it deserves a mention. Rarely have I seen a movie succeed in everything it sets out to do. Words cannot describe it, just watch WALL-E. Then watch BURN-E somehwere. In fact, watch BURN-E  just to get a taste of how awesome WALL-E is.

Blogging Highlights

Over 9000 Meaningless Words

ghostlightning, Pontifus, cuchlann and lelangir – (here) We Remember Love

Read this if you dare. If you do, then your masochism becomes you. It started out with lelangir bugging me about this Kannagi post he’s writing, then it turned into a 4-way-free-for-all involving Ponitfus and Cuchlann from Superfanicom. It actually has no images (but the language is graphic), 11,001 words, (Pontifus’ count) after trimming some of the private and personal parts. What’s in it? A discourse on discourse, art, meaning, and yes – Kannagi.

It shows up here just for being the longest thing I’ve ever seen in a blog post. Perhaps I shall tackle this epic someday. Someday.

2008 In Review – Slowblog.jpg

Owen S – Cruel Angel Theses

If you have a non-episodic blog, word quantity is post quality.

I was going to do a post in reply, but that would’ve ended up being long and further exemplifying Owen’s point. Then I was going to write a comment but saw that around 80% of them were just the same thing. So instead I’ll just mention it here and say that brevity and being succinct is a virtue. I’m not the same person as the blogger writing the post, so I wish to see their point of view and, through my own thoughts gain both understanding and an individual opinion on the subject rather than having every little detail placed before me to lead me to a predertermined conclusion that’s not of my own making.

The Best of the Best 2008

Aroduc – Tenka Seiha

Best Action Show:
Tenka Seiha – The Animation
Best Drama:
Tensei – Rebirth: Tenka Seiha 2

You dare to disagree with his categories. Go on. DARE.

On Team Blogging Featuring Impz and Lelangir

Impz & Lelangir – THAT Animeblog

To explain this, it is best to use an actual example by a blog that I deemed to have succeeded from scratch. Oi Hayaku would be my example here. The difference here, as Impz says, is that the blog did not start from scratch. That makes all the difference because the readership for its constituent authors already existed prior to the construction of the aesthetic container in which the BLOGGERS are housed. The key difference between an “abortion” blog (like my original lelangir.wordpress blog) and a “surrogate” blog (like OH) is that my readership did not exist. I had to forge my own, while OH comes replete with its made already.

It seems more and more frequent that great posts arise as I’m compiling this post. I’m not sure how exactly this worked; an ironic tag-team post, or just lelangir being insubordinate and viciously undercutting one of the blog’s head honchos :P? Either way, it does right to question the notion of “team” blogs. Multiple writers do NOT = team blogs, but lelangir explains it well enough. Twice. Seriously, not kidding, I PRAISE HIM <3<3<3.

Well, that’s if for this week. Maybe if enough people comment on this post, I’ll get a version of Ghost Hunt that wasn’t in French ORZ.