On the bright side, I think few are naive enough or hopelessly optimistic enough to think that they won’t be spending crazy amounts of money on merchandise while in Japan. On the down side, even those who come prepared with money to spend and a budget to spend it on can get caught up in the insane amount of stuff they encounter while they’re there. There are a few places that almost require a visit, but there are also places that you’ll happen upon almost unexpectedly. Those will get you, those unexpected places full of impulse buys. Here are the top five money-sinks for weeaboo in Tokyo from my own personal experience:

5. Akihabara

Akihabara is the most obvious place. You go there knowing full well that it’s a huge fantard paradise. You go there expecting to see stormtroopers dancing in the streets and flash mobs breaking out in “Hare Hare Yukai” in addition to the maid cafes, manga cafes, pachinko parlors, the billion electronics stores, arcades, and seven-story buildings filled basement to roof with nothing but anime merchandise. Yes, that is buildings, plural, all seven to nine stories tall. Filled with anime merchandise. Seriously. It’s like the biggest convention dealer’s room you’ve ever seen. Multiplied by some obscene number. Sure, buildings in Tokyo all tend to be tall and narrow, so one floor might not constitute as much, but once you’re climbing the stairs in your fourth or fifth building, the magnitude of it all really starts to sink in.

The novelty of Akiba will probably lead you to choose it as one of your first stops. Unfortunately, as far as wise-spending goes, it’s probably one of the worst places on the list because most of the stores here sell new merchandise at standard retail price — some places may even inflate them knowing full well the district’s notoriety in otaku circles. Though some items will be on the shelves here faster, you might be better off buying most figs and models online, even with shipping costs. But there’s so much of it here! All in such close proximity! It’s hard to go around browsing and not see something that you want right then and there.

Some stores will have discount bins with older or merchandise from less popular series, but unless you have some really obscure tastes or some really good luck, there usually isn’t much there that’s worth it. Digging through them is kind of fun though, even if the employees will look at you funny.

I wasn’t adventurous enough to check out any of the numerous maid cafes advertised on street corners by maids with ridiculously high-pitched voices, but friends of mine who were reported that the prices at the cafes were pretty insane. ¥750 for a non-refillable glass of lemonade? Really? You’re paying for the attention of your maid, certainly, but I’d rather pay for the attention of a figurine. Maybe this says something about me.

Overall, Akihabara is fun mostly for the crazy volume of stuff you’ll see in a relatively small area. There won’t be too many rare finds here, but there will be tons of general stuff to distract you. You will see tons and tons of merchandise from series you’re only casually interested in and be tempted just because they’re there, they’re pretty, and the price doesn’t seem that bad. Being that Akiba was one of the first places I visited though, I was very conservative while there, intent on scoping out all that was available before making spending choices. Yes, there were still a couple of impulse buys along the way, but looking back, I didn’t spend that much…

4. Ikebukuro

Ikebukuro, or perhaps, more specifically, Otome Road, has been billed as the Akihabara for female otaku and fujoushi. This is pretty much because there are five or six major doujinshi outlets sitting together on a street, and everyone knows that fujoushi go nuts over their doujin, right? There are a handful of general anime stores in the area, the biggest of which is eight-story animate, as well as a BOOK-OFF with your standard discounted manga, and numerous arcades, but you won’t really find anything there that you won’t find in Akiba.

I don’t really consider myself a huge, huge fan of doujinshi, partially because the overtly BL majority annoys me sometimes, but mostly because I tend to be very picky when it comes to the art. However, faced with these five or six major doujin chains, each with at least two stories of bookshelves filled end to end with books, I knew I was bound to find something I liked. And unlike a lot of more general anime merchandise, it is insanely hard to find doujinshi outside of Japan — much less doujinshi by an artist you like, with a pairing you like, from a series you like — and the prices tend to be fairly high, so I definitely wanted to pick up at least one or two titles while I was there. But just one or two. Not that many. I had no intention of starting a mini-doujin collection while I was there.

The mistake was visiting Otome Road with my friend Chewi. You see, both Chewi and I have this complex where we feel better about buying things if someone with us also buys something. We tend not to spend much when we are shopping alone or when we are with people that are being careful with their money. But when we’re together, we end up enabling each other. It was pretty bad. “I don’t know if I should get this — are you getting that?” / “I guess I’ll buy this if you buy that.” / “Oh, are you still browsing? I guess I’ll see if I like anything over here then.” / “Are you checking out? I guess I’ll go ahead and get this then.” etc.

We spent an entire afternoon in Ikebukuro. Buying doujinshi. We combed through every one of those stores and did not leave a single one without buying at least one book each. It took much longer than I would have imagined because choosing what to buy is an exhaustive affair. Everything is shrink wrapped, regardless of rating, so there’s little to judge but the cover — how do you know that the art on the inside is just as good? A majority of books, especially those from older fandoms, were ¥210. Some thicker books were ¥420. These are killer prices when you consider that a lot of doujinshi will go anywhere between $10-50 online because all doujinshi is printed in very limited runs. Even the anthologies priced at ¥3200 don’t seem that outrageous when you consider that it might be impossible to find in another year. So when you’re faced with a dozen books with pretty good covers at two bucks a pop, how do you resist buying all of them? Especially when the person next to you has a stack of similar size? Money-sink!

Chewi ended up with a lot more than me, but this was mostly because she went in knowing more of what she wanted. Being a bigger doujin fan than I, she had a better idea of which artists’ work she liked and what was rare, etc. Her fandom and pairing of choice (One Piece – SanjiZoro) was also more popular than mine (Gundam SEED – Asucaga), though I did end up buying a few Code Geass – Suzalulu books because the cover art blew me away.

You won’t be spending much in Ikebukuro if you aren’t interested in doujinshi, but if you’re even marginally interested, I would recommend either 1) not bringing an enabler friend with you, 2) budgeting your time so that you don’t spend freakin’ hours camped out in front of the bookshelves trying to decide whether to buy book A or B. Honestly though, I don’t really regret any of my purchases there. For the most part, I picked good books, and the ones I didn’t end up liking that much, I managed to resell later for a small profit. :3

3. The Pokemon Center

There were actually only a few places in Tokyo I was absolutely dead set on visiting while I was there. Predictably, the Pokemon Center was one of them. The first time, I wandered around Daimon for about an hour and half trying to find the damn place before asking a traffic cop for directions only to realize that I didn’t know the words for “left” and “right” in Japanese. Thankfully, the cop, upon realizing my supreme gaijinness, ended up pointing in one direction and declaring “Straight, then lefto!”  To be fair, the PokeCenter is tucked away in an office building and is a small portion of a single story, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for at the time.

But it was certainly worth the effort finding it.

I went to the PokeCenter three times in total and spent no less than $100 USD on each trip. I spent more here than any other place in Tokyo and had to buy an extra bag to be able to bring all of it home with me. …But I’m putting it as #3 because I realize not everyone is as fanatical as I am in this regard, even if a lot of my purchases were intended for resale at PKMNCollectors upon my return. But really, if there was ever a Pokemon fan in you, if there is even a sliver of nostalgia in you, if you have ever picked up and liked a Pokemon game, you will buy something here. There is just so much to choose from.

The thing about Pokemon in Japan is that there is a universal appeal. Sure, it’s aimed primarily towards children, but huddled around the wifi point at the Center, I saw a group of salarymen picking up the promotional Pokemon they got for visiting. They all left individually, without kids in tow. Each time I went, there were just as many, if not more, adults as there were children, and as such, the merchandise available is very varied. There are adorable plushies and shelves full of stationary, and there are also cups, mugs, towels, backpacks, figurines, board games, stamps, candies, and cookies. But there are also designer clothing and purses, delicate tea sets, jewelry, and other decidedly grown-up items.

With so many Pokemon (we’re just over 500 now, if you were wondering), there are definitely a few that are being neglected as far as merchandise goes, but also with so many Pokemon, there is bound to be one you like that’s available. Additionally, the PokeCenter almost always has some sort of limited promotion going on, and items released for the event become instantly rare and expensive after the duration. While I was there in December 2009, there were lots of HeartGold/SoulSilver limited promo stuff, as well as an Eeveelution promotion. Some of the merchandise released during these promotions have already inflated 200-300% their retail price. Pokemon collecting is serious business! But even if you aren’t a collector, I’m sure you’ll find something to bring home.

2. Nakano Broadway

You know, digging through my photos, I couldn’t find any general pictures I took at Nakano Broadway — a very unassuming four-story mall directly across from Nakano Station — this means that I was too busy freaking out over how amazing the place was the entire time I was there, all three times I was there. I took this photo off Google.

Nakano does not seem to be nearly as well-known as Akihabara, or even Ikebukuro, but one stop here could save you the trip to both. Merch-wise, there is nothing that either of the aforementioned has that Nakano doesn’t. All of Akiba’s merchandise — its figurines, its models, its cosplay, whatever — all of that is here. All of Otome Road’s doujinshi — that’s here too*. And there’s more. While the first floor has a lot of more “normal” shops for clothing and stationary and electronics and whatever else normal people buy, the second, third, and parts of the fourth floor are filled with otaku-related goods. It’s true that two or three floors here can’t possibly equal the volume of stuff that’s in Akiba, even if the floors are considerably larger, but what makes Nakano better is the fact that the shops here are more like flea market or garage sale stalls rather than normal retail chains.

While newer merchandise may take longer to show up at Nakano, there is a wealth of older stuff, making it the perfect place to hunt for rarer goods. Gashapon that are no longer in circulation find their way into dozens of stores, packaged clearly so you aren’t playing chance games at the machine, hoping you get the one fig in the series that you want. A lot of older blind box figures are also available in a similar manner. Models and figurines from decade-old series are displayed in glass cases lining the hallways. The fourth floor plays host to a half dozen shops dedicated to selling old animation cels — let the treasure hunting begin! You’ll also find a lot of other random Japanese novelty goods not necessarily anime-related. There is a Japanese equivalent to Spencer’s Gifts tucked away in the corner of the second floor, I believe.

Both Mandarake and K-Books, two major doujin chains (though Mandarake also sells a bunch of other stuff), have shops in Nakano, giving you plenty of books to choose from. *Naturally, given the limited quantities of most doujin, the selection between Nakano and Ikebukuro varies greatly, but visiting one and not the other will probably save you some money you weren’t intending to spend in the first place. (As for me, I probably spent equal amounts on doujin in both locations. Unfortunately, Chewi accompanied me on one of my trips to Nakano… so yeah.)

Nakano Broadway can kind of be considered the previous three places bundled up in a nice package. You will find tons of general anime goods a la Akihabara. You will find plenty of doujinshi to save you a trip to Ikebukuro. And inevitably, you will find a ton of Pokemon merchandise in one form or another, though in this case, it may be harder to find rarer toys because a lot of the older and more widely circulated stuff isn’t worth much.

Save your money for this place. You will probably be able to find most of what you wanted elsewhere and then some.

1. Any Place With Gashapon Machines

This is the killer, right here. Gashapon are innocent-looking things: those little machines filled with little plastic balls filled with little (usually) plastic toys. They range from ¥100-¥500 a pop and the toys are almost always of exceptional quality, so they definitely feel worth it. What’s a hundred yen here and there for a cute phone charm or figure? Nothin’ at all.

But these machines are pervasive. These machines are everywhere. The above picture was taken in Akihabara, but don’t let that fool you. There were gashapon machines outside of the temple in Asakusa. There were gashapon machines all over the place in the subways. There were gashapon in the parks, at the zoo. There were gashapon in the tourist traps and the hidden side streets. It is impossible to go a day in Tokyo without encountering a gashapon machine that contains something you wouldn’t mind owning. And those ¥100-¥500 yen goes add up. Fast.

These are the purchases you don’t expect. You aren’t heading to an anime-related destination today; you’re just going to a museum. Right outside the museum? BAM. Evangelion gashapon figures. You’re going to a shrine today. Across the street from the shrine? BAM. Pokemon gashapon figures. Sitting next to that cool-looking ramen place? BAM. One Piece gashapon phone charms. This one’s only ¥200! What else are you gonna buy today? A postcard? Oh snap, you didn’t get the one you wanted. Another go’s only ¥200, where’s the harm? Oh, this one’s pretty cool, but still not the one you wanted. Gasha-pon! There goes another ¥200.

Remember my friend Chewi? We were in the subway station on our way from Mitaka to Nakano. In the station was a bunch of gashapon machines, including one that had a bunch of Hitman Reborn! figures. Chewi had already gotten a few Reborn! figs from gashapon, but this particular series of figs she had not come across before. Being the enabler that I am, I did not dissuade her from getting one. They were only ¥300 each and were larger than a lot of other gashapon figures. Her first go is lucky — it’s a character she likes. She wants to try to get a matching figure of the character she likes him paired with. Second go does not yield this character, but she doesn’t dislike what she gets. Third go also does not yield the right one, but at least it’s not a repeat…

Fourth go is a repeat of the second. Fifth go is a different character, but still not the one she wants. (Sorry, I’m not familiar with Reborn!, so I don’t know any of their names.) At this point Chewi begins to question whether she should continue. Annnnd being the enabler that I am, I don’t start fearing for her wallet until the seventh unsuccessful gashapon. I convince her to give up for the while and we head on to Nakano. At Nakano, we find a room filled with gashapon, and once again, she sees a machine with this series of figures and sinks another ¥900 trying to get this elusive character, in addition to the money she spends on other machines. Do you see the problem here? :D

Eventually, Chewi managed to find the missing figure at a store in Nakano that was selling a them secondhand. Ironically, she bought it for less than the cost of the gashapon because apparently, it was the most common figure. The one she got four repeats of, on the other hand, was one of the rarer ones. Too bad neither of us knew enough Japanese to be able to try and sell her doubles.

I didn’t end up with nearly as many gashapon as Chewi, who probably had 30-40 total. She wouldn’t let me take a picture of them though because she was ashamed. :D

Hopefully, you’ll manage a little better, but honestly, I’m not sure that Chewi has any real regrets.

Art by Kiriska; I drew this. Yeah, yeah, yeah~.

I don’t really use fanart here. Almost everything I use is official art and the occasional screenshot, and hell, most of my earliest posts had no images at all. Official art and screenshots, regardless of artist, generally belong to the series’ company, which is easy to look up, so I don’t particularly feel the need for accreditation there. The fact that official art is usually purposed for mass distribution is also a good argument. Fanart, on the other hand, is always tricky business, even outside of the aniblogosphere (or perhaps, especially outside of the aniblogosphere?). Legality aside, it’s a question of common courtesy and manners. Regardless of your thoughts concerning your own work, be it your own fanart, writing, quotes, coding, or whatever, there’s no point in pushing your ideologies onto others. Just because you don’t care about being credited for your creations doesn’t mean other people can’t be touchy about their stuff. It’s their right to be touchy if they want to be.

A lot of people have been railing on the Online Fanarts Protection (OFP) union. There’s no point in getting into a cultural, racial, or xenophobic debate over it; whether the Japanese are being unfair towards foreign bloggers isn’t really the issue at hand. The OFP offers a clear message: artists that display the OFP button on their website don’t want you using their work without asking first. If you know the artist of a certain work and you know they back the idea of the OFP, then who are you to ignore the request to ask? Prompted with that, bloggers have pointed out that many Japanese artists don’t sign their work and with the propogation of image boards and collective archives, it can become very difficult to figure out the artist of any given work. I started out agreeing that “artist unknown” was a good enough compromise as I’ve done that in the past, but then I changed my mind. Accreditation is only part of the issue.

Many bloggers write their posts and find appropriate images all in one sitting; even if they know the artist, having to seek permission from anyone becomes a huge hassle because it significantly slows down that groove and routine. In addition to the hassle though, I think one of the biggest reasons people don’t want to ask if they can use something is the possibility that their request might be denied. Just think, you’ve written a brilliant post and you’ve got the perfect piece of fanart to go with it. You’re good and courteous and take the pains to email a foreign artist for permission to use their art on your post. They reply back with a curt “no.” What do you do then? Feign ignorance and hope slapping on a credit will be good enough? Or maybe they just never replied? That’s a better excuse to just slap on a credit.

Credit is a great thing. People deserve to be recognized for their work, and it’s nice for readers to be able to find the home galleries of an artist they’ve stumbled upon from a blog. I agree that more [Japanese] artists should consider signatures or watermarks to make it easier for people to contact them, but it’s easy to forget that some people just don’t want their work used in any way. Rather than attributing the lack of signatures to humility, I rather think many Japanese artists favor anonymity, just like the rest of their culture. They put their art up on display, but they really don’t want it to be associated with any blogger’s commentary or whatever else. Even if you don’t agree with that mindset, it’s fair enough, isn’t it?

Even before this topic erupted on the aniblogosphere, I’ve heard over and over again the argument that if someone doesn’t want their stuff used, then they shouldn’t put it online in the first place. But while I do think that it’s kind of naive for artists to expect people to abide by their wishes, I don’t think it’s wrong to wish it anyway. What ever happened to the “look, but don’t touch” ideaology? An artist’s gallery is like a museum. You are there to look. They want you to look. You don’t take the art home with you. On the Internet, you can save images onto your harddrive; this makes them tempting for later use, but consider this: many museums let you take photos of their exhibitions, but if you’re from the press, come in with your fancy DSLR and tripod, and look like you’ll be publishing your photos somewhere later, they’ll probably ask you to run it by management first. I don’t want to get into a debate comparing journalism with blogging, but I think the analogy works well enough.

It would be probably be ideal for most artists if their works were never displayed anywhere without their expressed permission, regardless of credit. But with the language barrier and the fact that most English-speaking bloggers are using foreign fanart, that’s probably unrealistic. (I don’t necessarily think it’s too much to ask, but it’s still unrealistic.) I’m not sure that “accreditation when possible and ‘artist unknown’ otherwise” is a good enough compromise since there’s no one here to represent the foreign artists (especially those associated with the OFP, who are explicitly against “artist unknown” accreditations), but I guess it does offer more bloggers peace of mind, and it will probably piss less artists off should they chance upon their artwork somewhere it isn’t supposed to be.

What?! He dies? Noooo!!

Spoiler warnings should never really expire either. It doesn’t matter how long something has been out. There is someone that hasn’t seen or read it. Most online communities have spoiler policies lasting several weeks or several months after a release, and that works fine for an contained group where it isn’t completely unreasonable to assume that most members have seen or read something. But for the general populace, it’s not good to assume anything. Case in point: Death Note is a huge franchise and many, many anime/manga fans have experienced it in one form or another by now. I watched the dub with several friends when it aired on [adultswim]. At the beginning of episode 25, one friend commented, “Oh, is this the episode where ******* ****?” Without thinking, she just gave away the biggest spoiler in the entire series ’cause she figured everyone already knew, right? Oh, snap, another friend had not followed Death Note prior to the dub’s broadcast. Experience thwarted! And apologies don’t erase that newfound, unwelcomed knowledge.

Especially with stories that are retold in a variety of medias, it’s impossible to guess who has read or seen what based on the fact that they’re a fan of such and such. The last Harry Potter book came out two years ago. Two years is a sufficient spoiler buffer for people who consider themselves fans, right? The book’s already been released in a majority of other languages too, so there’s no using that as an excuse either, right? No. There are still a ton of fans that only follow the movies (the misguided fools! The books are infinitely better, but movie fans are fans all the same), and the sixth movie doesn’t come out until next month. I can already hear the assholes driving by and yelling the popular spoiler at unsuspecting kids at midnight openings. Some people only read books or manga; some people only watch anime or movies. Don’t spoil something for someone by assuming they read and watch the same version of the series you did.

More recently, I was considering anibloggers who use Twitter to tweet briefly and semi-episodically about series they’re currently following, including myself. The tweets usually consist of vague exclamations in reaction to something that’s happening — presumably nothing spoileristic, but is what you think is a spoiler the same as what everyone else thinks is a spoiler? As noted, I’m currently rewatching Gundam Wing and I’m tweeting about it. Most are relatively harmless no matter how you look at them, but some of them, upon further reflection, could probably be taken as spoilers. Incredibly minor spoilers, but spoilers all the same.

The rest of this post contains minor spoilers of varying degree for Death Note, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Code Geass, and Gundam Wing, though as is the topic of discussion, some of them are debatable in their status as spoilers at all.

Are there universal guidelines for what is to be considered a spoiler? For Death Note, anyone who’s seen or read the series in its entirety can pretty much agree on what the one major spoiler is aside from the ending itself. It’s similar for the Half-Blood Prince. Both cases involve a death, but does that mean all deaths should count as spoilers? (Incidentally, is the fact that I’ve revealed that both cases involve deaths a spoiler in itself?)

Lelouch kills Clovis in the third episode of Code Geass. Clovis is an extremely minor character partially because he dies so early, but his death reveals very little to either Lelouch or the audience. Should Clovis’s death count as a spoiler? Honestly, the very premise of the series can imply Clovis’s death at Lelouch’s hands. Of course Clovis isn’t important enough to be mentioned in general summaries, but if you came into the series knowing that Lelouch intends to destroy Britannia, then you can pretty much guess that Clovis will be a target from the moment he’s introduced in the first episode. So if Clovis’s death isn’t a spoiler then, is it because the event takes place so close to the beginning of the series? Though Clovis is a much less important character, is his death like Yusuke’s death at the beginning of Yu Yu Hakusho or Goku’s death at the beginning of Dragonball Z?

But “close to the beginning” is also a tricky line to draw. Episode 8 of Gurren Lagann is highly spoileristic — is 8 of 27 not close enough to the beginning? Or does it count as a spoiler just because you can’t really see it coming like you could have for Clovis? Perhaps that’s what should define a spoiler then, something that you can’t see coming? In one of my GW tweets, I mention that in episode 7, Treize stages a huge coup de’tat . 7 of 49 is a bit better than 8 of 27 in terms of closeness to the beginning, but I can’t decide if the coup de’tat is something that you can “see coming,” especially considering how haphazardly paced the first dozen episodes in the series are. It’s also debatable as to whether the coup de’tat has a lot of lasting significance since the political factions of the series are also so turbulent.

There’s also the idea that spoilers don’t need to be confined to singular events — should character development and personality details be counted as spoilers too? Sure, if something in a character’s past is a big reveal (if you can’t see if coming), then it should count, but what about things like… the fact that Lady Une has a split personality? In the series, there is no “big reveal,” and even though you may not expect it, it isn’t very surprising. But still, should it count? It isn’t obvious until maybe episode 10, but I already can’t remember since I don’t find it to be that big a deal. Then again, if I hadn’t already seen all of GW, I might consider that a spoiler — I’m usually pretty high-strung about this kind of stuff.

Ahh! It's a spoiler! Run!

There are many degrees of spoilers, and I’m sure that what one person considers a spoiler might not be for someone else. For my paranoid self, I tend to avoid contact with anything discussing a series I’m interested in and haven’t seen yet. If I inadvertently take a look, I’m the master of skimming things quickly and not picking up more than I need, if anything at all. You can’t be too careful, after all. You only need to be spoiled once.

Note: You can use spoiler tags in the comments with <spoiler></spoiler>. Just kidding! o_O Beware spoilers in the comments! Woo!

(And for the record, this post is actually about 1200 words long. Darn.)

Undoubtedly, that’s why a lot of younger fans will insert bits and pieces of what they know into their speech or text online. It’s like a secret language, something esoteric to share between friends, and everybody likes thinking they’re special. Like Pig Latin though, the language is actually not so secret, or at the very least, the popular tidbits of the language that young fans like to parrot are not so secret, and they tend to annoy everybody over a certain age. Ostracized and mocked by the rest of the community, the young fans reach a point where they stop tacking -chan and -kun after all their friends’ names. There is a brief “maturing” period. And then they decide that they’re going to knuckle down and learn Japanese… for real this time.

I imagine that most people will take a few shots at memorizing their kana and then give up. They’ll retain all the romaji vocabulary and phrases they know, and maybe they’ll still use it now and again in a mocking or less-than-serious manner, but that’s about it. Some will succeed in memorizing their kana and master some grammar, but kanji stops them dead in their tracks. The last handful plow right on through, kick the JLPT’s ass, and then run off to Japan to teach English because that’s your stereotypical otaku dream. I wonder, are there any fans that listen to the language on a regular basis, but who have never had any interest whatsoever in learning it? Or is it just innate to want to understand something you find yourself so submerged in? The latter makes sense to me, but it’d be interesting to hear the answers to the contrary.

Being Chinese, I’ve always felt this persistent guilt for wanting to learn Japanese more than I wanted to re-learn Mandarin and Cantonese since I pretty much lost my fluency in both by the time I was eight. That guilt, for the most part, has kept me from seriously pursuing Japanese fluency. Now, it seems that I have a good chance of being able to go to Japan for two weeks in December as part of a college trip. I guess that’s as good an excuse as any to get a move on, right?

So I got my hands on My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS because it was easy and convenient. It’s far from the most sophisticated learning device in the world, but hey, I still don’t know how serious I want to be about this. The game opens with a placement test, which aims to start you off in the right chapter based on your existing knowledge. I found that to be kind of iffy though. Since all the questions are multiple choice, lucky guesses will end up opting you out of lessons you might need. Yeah, I know a bunch of pronouns and the colors, but I didn’t know any of the days of the week and I got out of that chapter with some lucky guesses. Not cool. I need to learn this stuff, man. (Still, you can go back and do the skipped lessons, so it’s not a huge deal.)

Playing through it, the set-up of the game leaves a lot to be desired. Each lesson is fairly short and will either cover one new concept, like months, days of the week, colors, or a certain verb, or two sets of kana (I’m not that far in the game yet, but undoubtedly, later chapters will expand to include sets of five to ten kanji per lesson). The game won’t let you progress to the next lesson until you’ve “mastered” all the new vocabulary or kana introduced in that lesson. You gain mastery points by playing through games. It sounds decent enough, but I found most of the games to be absurdly easy, thus making it way, way too easy to “master” things.

You can unlock new games as you progress through various lessons, but seriously, out of the seven or eight games I have so far, I only really like one of them, and that’s the one that gives you a word or kana and makes you write it. It’s useful for forcing you to memorize your kana, but it’s pretty annoying for writing actual words (in kana) since you have to write each character one at a time. Longish words like げつようび (getsuyoubi, Monday) or じゅいちがつ (juichigatsu, November) really make me wish the kanji lessons would come up faster. The game also isn’t all that great at recognizing mistakes in your characters. As long as you have the right number of strokes and the shape is kinda right, it’ll count it correct. It bothers me immensely that it doesn’t take stroke order into consideration even though it does mention its importance at some point. The other games are okay as far as drilling in meaning associations, but among other things, having to play the whack-a-mole game makes me feel like an idiot.

Currently, I’m just about done “mastering” hiragana, but honestly, I still don’t feel very confident in it. Kanji, in all its apparent complication, makes a helluva lot more sense to me because of my Chinese background, but hiragana doesn’t seem to follow any discernable pattern as far as I can tell. I mean, き(ki) and さ(sa) are completely different sounds, but their characters are so similar. ら(ra), ろ(ro), and る(ru) make slightly more sense. Kind of, except that れ(re) and り(ri) don’t follow. Incidentally, Mandarin has a pronunciation aid system similar to furigana, but I never learned it, only pinying, which is comparable to romaji. My father says that both hiragana and katakana characters are based off kanji words that start with the sound they represent, but that doesn’t really help me if I don’t know those kanji words.

My Japanese Coach is an okay aid. It’s easy enough to pick up on a daily basis, but you have to play back through old lessons pretty frequently to actually memorize things since you can “master” them so quickly. It’s just as well though — after all, you have to work at any language to learn it. No tool is going to just hand the knowledge to you. I might come back and write about the game some more when I’ve progressed further into it. At present, I don’t plan on getting much else in the way of language learning tools because I’m poor and don’t have a lot of time anyway. I would love to learn Japanese, but it’s still not a real, hardcore serious goal yet. I really think I need to reattain some level of fluency in Chinese before that can happen.

In the meantime, it’s back to the hiragana charts!

As far as the branding goes, my favorites list kind of makes me laugh. The only real point of unity is mecha, which I didn’t realize was something I cared for as much as I do until I compiled the list in the first place. What kind of person do I come across with such a list? Gurren Lagann is almost a cop out because there are very few people that don’t care for it; perhaps having it there makes me ordinary. Code Geass is something that might start some polarizing debates on the aniblogosphere, but the first season is almost universally accepted to be more worthy than the second. So maybe that makes me oridinary also. Gundam SEED seems to be hated on a grand scale and many Gundam fans seem to associate liking it with being ignorant. Stand Alone Complex is another title that faces little criticism, but a few dislike it for its rampant politics. So maybe having it there makes me look smart.

So, what does this list say about me on the whole? I am mostly an ordinary mecha fan that enjoys both testosterone-filled gar and intelligent political drama, but is ignorant towards the Gundam franchise. Not really sure if that’s the exact branding I would choose for myself, but I wouldn’t say the description is wildly inaccurate either.

Self-branding is an interesting thing, particularly when it’s of a social consequence and not a commercial one. Sites like MAL allow for the traditional judging that used to take place when you took a look at the books on someone’s shelf or what they’re reading on the bus. It might be bad to judge based on negative stereotypes, but the judging that takes place when you glance over someone’s favorites list is something that I’d consider to be nearly always useful. Whether comparing lists comes up with more similarities or differences is largely irrelevant as long as you aren’t derisively writing someone off completely for holding whatever series in high regard (that would be negatively stereotyping). There’s a difference between thinking, “Oh, this person likes mostly sappy shoujo titles, I guess we don’t have much in common,” and thinking, “lol, this idiot only likes mainstream shounen, what a useless newb.”

If there are only differences, well, no loss, and you’ve saved everyone time by not pursuing a conversation that would have likely led no where. If there are only similarities, then perhaps you’ve found a fangasm buddy with which you can merrily spout fanboyish or fangirlish nonsense with. The best list comparisons come up with both similarities and differences; they are the things that prompt conversations like, “I see you like such and such also, but also that you enjoyed so and so — what was it about so and so that you liked? I didn’t find it very satisfying.” And lovely discussions (or interesting debates) ensue and friendship, rivalry, and comraderie spreads across the Internet! Hurray! Judging is built into our social structure for a reason; it’d be a shame to cast it off completely.

It does make the self-conscious even more self-conscious though. Even online, you have an appearance. Picking the series that go on your favorites list is like picking a fashion to wear. And you have to find something that both satisfy you and your desire to be presentable to the public. Luckily, I’ve never been too bothered by the latter, so I’m fine with people thinking I’m an ignorant Gundam fan for having SEED as my favorite. When I commented on his aforementioned related post, ghostlightning mentioned that all the titles on my list are fairly recent, which might indicate that I’m a newer fan. I’m not, really, but oddly enough, the nostalgia factor hasn’t been that big for me. My old favorites include Gundam Wing, Yu Yu Hakusho, BECK, Dragonball Z, Cowboy Bebop (you know, the Toonami golden days!), and My Neighbor Totoro, but I can see that my love for them is mostly because of nostalgia and not because they’re actually better series than what’s on the list now. It might be unconventional to consider the new better on all aspects than the old, so maybe I’ll seem even more like an ignorant newbie, but hey, whatever, man.

My only problem is deciding what my “real” favorites are and correctly representing them on this damned list.

Back to my dilemma, huh? That favorites list needs updating. Who gets the empty fifth slot? And is there anyone already on the list that needs to be ousted? Here are the new contenders: Ouran High School Host Club, Nodame Cantabile, Mushishi, Planetes, and maybe even Lovely Complex. Score-wise, all of those series I’ve reviewed and scored with a 9 overall, except Love*Com, which has an 8. All of the series currently on the list are also 9′s, except for TTGL, which is the only anime I’ve scored with a 10. Sometimes I wonder about that 10, but if anything else, TTGL is the only series thus far mentioned that I watched three times consecutively in a month. I guess it still deserves that top spot.

Since Love*Com is the lone 8 here, maybe it should be dropped from consideration (especially since there are a lot of other series I’ve scored with 9′s that aren’t up for consideration here), but even though both its technical merits and story/character merits are lower than the competition, it’s a series that I’ve been rewatching random episodes from a lot lately — what does that count for? Perhaps it’s just a weird mood I’ve been in; after all, I don’t usually take so readily to standard shoujo. Should a favorites list represent a more stable subset of favorites, or should it be more flexible? Should Love*Com be represented above the others just because I’ve really taken to it lately? Should it change and drop off as soon as I get out of this phase? That begs the question of, just how often should a favorites list be updated? Is there really anyone e-stalkerish enough to check that often? Or is it more for your own satisfaction?

Personally, I think I prefer the more stable route. It’s too much trouble to constantly update something based on recent whims. Besides, the list is a better branding tool if it has series that stand up to the test of time, right? So Love*Com, as much as I love it, is out. That leaves four other series. What’s the next factor to consider? Mushishi and Ouran probably have the highest rewatch value out of those four. Both series are fairly episodic and allow for better casual watching. Planetes and Nodame are both wonderful, but even though Nodame is largely slice of life, it does have a linear story, which hurts its rewatch potential to some extent since it’s harder to jump in the middle. Planetes’s first dozen episodes are also pretty episodic, but the latter half gets very character-involved and plot-heavy. How important do I want rewatch value to be?

It must be important if it’s one of the reasons TTGL has the top spot, and even though it’s not the second season that’s on the list, Code Geass R2 is the only series I’ve followed as it aired that I watched three times per episode… one for every sub release (Chihiro/Nightspeed, gg, and Eclipse) because I was just that much of a fantard. And dammit if each rewatch wasn’t still fun. I’ve also seen the second half of Gundam SEED an obscene number of times… SAC I like to catch sometimes when it reruns, but since I stopped watching TV altogether, that doesn’t happen much anymore. Maybe SAC is the candidate for removal then…? If I swap out SAC, then I could add both Mushishi and Ouran, but there’s gotta be other factors, right? And even if I do do that, which of the new listees should be ranked higher?

I always gravitate towards character-driven series, so maybe series with characters I like better should have preference. All the series on the current list have strong characters that I love, though it might be worth noting that there are no TTGL characters on my top ten favorite characters list (then again, I also have problems with the items on that list; that can be another discussion altogether, though it would probably be very redundant). Mushishi would be out if it’s a question of character, not because Ginko is a weak character, but just because he’s very simple and doesn’t go through a lot of changes. It’s a hard fight between Ouran, Planetes, and Nodame, but I’d probably also drop Ouran there. Great, so the series with the greater rewatch value are exactly opposite those with the stronger characters. Woe!

This entry has gone on long enough; I’ll spare you the rest of my inner debate. But you understand my problem, right? I obviously haven’t updated my favorites list yet. I really don’t know when I’ll be able to figure it out. Picking favorites really sucks; I love all of these series! But I can’t very well not have any, can I? What would you think of me then??

Instead, I think the issue should be more about how so many people use these styles as a crutch and how and why it hinders their development as artists. If you’re only drawing as an unimportant hobby, and if you have no real desire to improve, then I guess it doesn’t really matter. But if drawing means something to you, and if you really want to get better, then it’s really imperative that you work on the fundamentals: it’s imperative that you draw real things, that you draw what you actually see.

Most professionals are able to draw in a realistic manner, regardless of what their actual commercial work is like. Mickey Mouse doesn’t really look anything like a mouse, but I’m sure Walt Disney drew plenty of real mice in his sketchbooks. Sometimes, I’m really not sure what the hell CLAMP is thinking in terms of anatomy, but I’d like to think that they are actually perfectly capable of drawing realistic humans and that their anatomical exaggerations are done completely on purpose. Honestly, I think it’s embarrassing otherwise. Take Rob Liefeld for example; the man is notoriously inept at rendering believable anatomy, especially in women, and even though his style sold comic books in the 90′s, there has been rampant criticism of his obvious weaknesses. I get the feeling this is because all he did growing up was copy comic books without understanding any of the hows and whys; thus, because he never studied real anatomy or real people, everything he draws is wildly off. The sad thing is that he still doesn’t seem to have realized this, and much of his recent work is still filled with inconsistent flaws.

It’s fine if you start off copying anime you like, styles you like. My first foray into drawing humans was basically copying and fanarting Sailor Moon (before that, I mostly drew animals). Ridiculously long legs and big eyes galore! I got more “serious” about drawing humans when I got into Dragonball Z. Hello spikey hair and gigantic muscles! You have to realize after a while though; Akira Toriyama draws eyebrows attached to eyeballs and it’s kind of creepy… and also, half of those muscles probably don’t exist. But I also believe that Toriyama has done drawing studies of real people with real anatomy, and that he could draw a realistic person if he wanted. Drawing off of someone else’s style is okay for a start, but eventually, you need to stop taking their word for it. The world isn’t actually how so and so draws them.

Take a look at the real world. (Highest definition graphics! No lag!) Take a look at real people. Draw it. Draw them. Look at real fingers and real faces and real arms and muscles and body structures. You shouldn’t be able to break the rules without knowing what they are first. You can’t draw a highly-stylized caricature without first knowing what the person actually looks like. It’s easier to make things up when you know how they actually are. You can’t make up convincing folds in imaginary clothing without having first drawn dozens of real folds from observation.

“When I was in college my art teacher yelled at me for drawing anime facial features instead of realistic ones…but I was like sorry I can’t suddenly draw realism when I’ve been drawing anime style for 4 years.”

Quotes like that really strike me. It’s true — you can’t suddenly draw realistically if all you’ve been doing for years after years is focus on someone else’s style. Or even if you’ve cobbled together several other people’s styles and have forged something for yourself out of the chaos, if you don’t understand why you draw things the way you draw them, then you own nothing. Why are arms shaped this way? What are all of the subtle curves and bumps in the contour? If you mimic a style, but don’t understand the underlying structures, it’s hard to fabricate different poses and pictures for which you don’t have a reference. If you don’t understand what’s under the drawing, you can’t do as much on your own — at least not convincingly.

But if you understand realism, then you can make anything out of it. If you know that ears are the same height as the distance from your brow to your nose, you won’t have proportion issues no matter what angle your head is turned to, no matter why style you’re drawing in. If you know that the distance between your eyes is one eye length, you can apply that knowledge to any style and it won’t look weird. If you know that your foot is roughly the same length as the distance between your elbow and your wrist, you can exaggerate accordingly if you want someone to have bigger-than-normal feet or smaller-than normal feet. If you understand the real structure of the face, then you can exaggerate certain portions of it to your desired effect. Bigger eyes and mouths portray more emotion, and smaller noses are a side effect of that. If you don’t know any of these things, and if you’re only drawing based on someone else’s drawing, then what are you going to do when things don’t look right? Will you realize what you’ve done wrong? And if you don’t, how can you improve?

Like I said, if you have no real desire to improve, then that’s your own business, but especially for those that entertain the idea of doing art for a living — drawing your own comic, among other fantasies popular in the community — drawing from life and studying realism is an invaluable fundamental. This is not to discourage you from drawing in a style — I mean, come on, my art is predominantly “anime-styled” — but your stylized drawings look so much better when you actually have a grasp of what’s real. So I can definitely understand why art teachers and professors across the planet are inclined to frown when all you want to draw is anime. It isn’t that anime is uncreative or unoriginal so much as the style becomes a crutch. If you don’t want to draw realism, then you won’t improve.

Don’t be so indignant. It’s for your own good. Once you prove you can draw for realz, I’m sure they will have no problem letting you draw your silly animu and mango.

Case in point, I love Kingdom Hearts — okay, it’s not an anime or manga, but I think it’s a good example because the fans are notoriously obnoxious. I think the first three games were excellent (I am sad that so many people forget about Chain of Memories), and I love the ending to KH2. I like almost all of the characters and enjoy what we do see of their in-game relationships. Does it annoy me that fangirls seem to like slashing every single male character in the entire fandom? (Regardless of whether they ever actually officially interact? lol@AxelxDemyx?) It used to a little, but really, I am a huge proponent of the “to each his own” ideal. I may not like what you like, but I will support to the death your right to like it. And since I’m active on deviantART and people like to bitch about various fandoms always getting frontpage attention: I may not like what you draw, but I will support to the death your right to draw it. And if it’s popular? Good for you!

I don’t really understand when people get disappointed that “overhyped” series aren’t as good as one may come to expect. It’s more of that giving power to the masses, which is kind of hilarious when you consider that most people would say that they don’t trust the masses. And it’s true — don’t trust them. Put your trust in people you actually know, then you can be legitimately disappointed when things aren’t as good as they’ve been described to you. I didn’t watch Haruhi Suzumiya because of its popularity; I watched it because several people whose opinions I care about recommended it to me. I was disappointed for those same reasons. Similarly, I didn’t start Naruto until two years after its debut and only because several bothersome friends kept suggesting it. I didn’t stop reading it last summer as any consequence of annoying fans; I stopped because I was tired of waiting for something to happen.

I also refuse to stop liking something because it’s popular or to be ashamed of getting into something because it got popular first. It annoys me to no end when people rag on Naruto for being popular or for its general fanbase being young and silly. Getting offended at kids being kids is stupid. Saying that they’re bringing down the image of anime in general is blaming them for the ignorance of the rest of the population (regardless of what is in the mainstream, people will use what’s popular as a stereotype for the rest of the community; I don’t really think anyone would be happier if the populace’s general impression of anime was crazy kids fighting giant robots in other giant robots or bounty hunters in space).

The moral of this post is to think for yourself! Who cares what everyone else thinks and does? If you like it, then like it. No shame, kids. No shame.

Unfortunately, at the end of that year and a half period, I found that I was developing a weird rash on my neck about where the necklace was hanging. I ignored it for a while, but it only got worse. I didn’t want to think it was the necklace’s fault, but it was kind of hard to deny. So I took it off. In about two weeks, the rash was gone. I put the necklace back on. The rash was back in another week. Damn.

I puzzled over it for a while, but then I googled around and found out about nickel allergy. I had never heard of it before, but I had never been a big jewelry person either. Up until this stupid Flamel’s cross, I had pretty much never worn necklaces. After reading about it though, I was sure that this was what it is. It’s stupid. Completely stupid. You can develop this allergy at any time in your life even if you’ve never had it before. And after that, you’ll be allergic forever. There is no cure! Now doesn’t that just bloody suck.

I was all kinds of pissed when I realized I pretty much couldn’t wear the necklace again without getting a rash, not to mention the small collection of other fandom-centric jewelry I’d gathered by that point. I think I have two or three KH-related necklaces, several random rings, and a Death Note bracelet, though that’s not all metal. Most of the normal jewelry I have is probably still okay. The birthstone necklace some relative gave me ten years ago is still okay because it’s surgical-grade stainless steel, but I never wore that anyway. It’s not fair.

Do they make fandom jewelry that’s hypoallergenic? I doubt it. There are a lot of fandom necklaces floating around the market, and a good portion of that is made up of bootleg designs. It’s pretty easy to tell that a lot of the stuff is made of piss-poor quality materials, but I imagine that most people, for the sake of their fandom, would be willing to overlook it if the design is accurate enough. I guess it was stupid of me to have left the necklace on at all times, but it would have been annoying to have to take the thing on and off all the time, and after a while, I would have just left weird not wearing it. I don’t think that I’m the only person to have fallen victim to this either. At the very least, I know of plenty of other people that wear the same damn fandom necklace all the time.

So what becomes of us? After we come down with this horrible, irreversible nickel allergy, what then? These days, my Flamel’s cross sits deep in one of my drawers, never seeing the light of day. I am sad for it. I want to wear it, but I can’t. I’ve thought about buying a hypoallergenic chain and just transferring the cross onto the new chain, but then the colors wouldn’t match at all, and if the cross itself touched my skin, it would still cause rashes. And every time another necklace comes out with a design I like, I’d need to buy a chain to go with it.

I think they should just make hypoallergenic fandom jewelry. It’s probably a generalization, but I think it’d make sense that people would be more likely to wear fandom-related jewelry for long periods of time, subjecting them to the nickel allergy. But at the same time, the people most likely to buy fandom-related jewelry probably include a lot of folks that don’t care as much for quality or health issues. They’ll snatch up the pretty design first and then suffer the consequences later. Like me! So where’s the incentive for these manufacturers to swap out their cheap, nickel-infested metals for the nickel-free stuff? There’s none.

So, to all you weeaboos out there who have yet to come down with this allergy, I’d suggest taking off your Squall Leonhart gunblade necklace now and again. It’s a sad, sad day when you discover that rash on your neck.

It’s probably because I watched more anime in December than I ever have in a month. I had the entire month off from school, was stupid and didn’t get a job in that time, and wasn’t particularly motivated to do anything even vaguely relevant to my career. So I watched cartoons. Lots and lots of cartoons. Specifically, I ended up starting and finishing six whole series (Mushishi, Nodame Cantabile, Nodame Cantabile Paris-hen, Gundam 00 S1, Planetes, Ouran High School Host Club) and three movies/OAVs (Ghost in the Shell, 5 Centimeters per Second, GSD C.E. 73: Stargazer), all of which I’ve already reviewed except Host Club. I also started a half dozen other series that I’ve either put on hold or dropped: Ghost Hound (hold@1), Toshokan Sensou (drop@2), Seto no Hanayome (drop@3), Higurashi no Naka Koro ni (hold@7), Infinite Ryvius (hold@4), and Darker than BLACK (hold@5). I reread all of my Gundam Wing manga before I sold it, and I reread all of DOGS and Bullets and Carnage, not to mention keeping up with current episodes/chapters of Soul Eater, Gundam 00 S2, and Bakuman.

It’s probably not impressive as some people’s monthly consumption, but it’s a lot for me, especially compared to the amount I watch when classes are in session or when I’m working in the summers (it took me a month to finish Spice and Wolf, a thirteen episode series, during school; it took me three days to catch up with thirty-five episodes of Gundam 00 during break). I’ve had too much anime on my brain, and that dream probably isn’t the worst of it.

Is it bad that a lot of simple responses to every day situations come to me in Japanese first and I then have to translate it back into English before I respond? Is it bad that sometimes when I’m staring out the window and pondering random things, there seems to be a wave of Japanese gibberish chattering in the back of my head? It’s not even just the Japanese thing. Usually, I feel pretty secure in my blatant otakuism and weeabooism. I don’t really care what people think about my hobbies and don’t mind bringing it up in conversations with friends as most of them are also fans of one degree or another. But sometimes it’s hard not to wonder if you’re becoming that kind of fan. Even the most confident of losers don’t really want to be that guy, y’know?

I flew to New Orleans on Friday and was spending the night at my roommate’s (parent’s) place before we drove back to Savannah on Saturday. Every turn of the conversation seemed like the prime opportunity to talk about some anime I’d seen over break. It was ridiculous. There was some on and off storming when we were heading out to dinner. We saw a rainbow, and I wanted to mention that one episode of Mushishi (ep. 7). Later on, we were talking about classical music or something, and I wanted to recommend Nodame Cantabile. At the mention of dreams becoming reality, I wanted to relay that other episode of Mushishi (ep. 4). Sure, roomie’s a fan too, but she has a dial-up connection at home and thus can’t watch nearly as much as me (of course, I offered to transfer a few series to her before break, but it never happened :|), and even I would get annoyed after a while if someone talked continuously about anime to me. It always did bug me when some people related everything to anime (especially when it wasn’t really related).

Maybe I get paranoid sometimes. I can’t seem to find too many fans like myself in real life. People around me are either very casual fans or very annoying fantards. Where’s the happy middle? I’d like to think that I’m a happy middle excepting those occasional ventures into fantard land, and it’s in those moments that I get self-conscious and feel like a hypocrite. It’s probably reasonable to allow for those occasional fantard moments, but it’s a fuzzy line to draw. How much fantarding is too much fantarding? When you start dreaming in a language you only understand a few phrases in? When your every reaction to everyday conversation is in relation to some series you saw recently? When the itch to write fanfiction hits again?

It probably doesn’t matter. Classes start tomorrow, and there shall be no more series binging for a while probably. Ports are blocked here, so there’ll be no torrenting either until we get around to getting a router hooked up. Until then, I’ll keep up with my weekly series by having my brother send them to me over AIM or making due with YouTube/Veoh. The only new series I’m picking up for this season is Kurokami, which, as I expected, never got news of an official stream. I wonder if anyone’s actually lucky enough to catch it on TV? Going back to this reduced consumption will likely take a lot of the Japanese out of my head, but it might take a bit longer for the impulse to share other series I’ve seen recently to go away. Sharing is caring, and I care too damn much about these things.

I’m not particularly worried about this blog though. I’ll still be keeping up with news and the aniblogosphere and such. I still have that review for Host Club to finish up and random other editorial-type topics in my head. I’ll probably do some photoshoots of miscellaneous figures I have too, now that I’m reunited with my collection. I haven’t really gotten around to taking many pictures with my shiny Canon Rebel after all. Feraligatr and the Zaku want more action! v_vV

Of course, this is hardly saying that every fanfic is good or that there isn’t tons and tons of shitty fanfiction out there. Indeed, I would venture to say that there’s probably one good story for every horrible ten. Maybe even twenty. The trick is finding the ones that don’t suck.

There are a lot of self-indulgent authors out there that drag the name of fanfiction down for everyone else. Everyone’s entitled to write what they want, but when it’s a Mary Sue fic that’s obviously written for your own self-gratification, what’s the point in even sharing that with the rest of the world? You don’t masturbate in public, do you? It’s fanfiction. Use what’s provided and don’t try to mix and match with your own crazy creations. No one cares about or wants to read about your OC protagonists. Especially in a romantic context. There are exceptions, naturally, and so maybe once in blue moon when the planets are in alignment, there will be a story involving an OC that doesn’t make readers want to gauge their eyes out. Maybe.

And then there’s the ever riot-worthy topic of slash. I get so sick of seeing people whine and bitch about slash. Or hell, any pairing they don’t agree with, be it yaoi, yuri, incest, lolicon, shota, or whathaveyou. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. It’s not that hard. Now a lot of people might consider those controversial sorts of pairings as falling under the previous category of “self-gratifying” fanfiction. Certainly this is true to some extent, and really, pretty much all fanfiction authors are guilty of some degree of self-indulgence. The difference here is that no matter how obscure, random, or downright offensive the pairing is, there will always be some number of fans that endorse it, thus, an audience. If you aren’t a part of that audience, don’t read it. See? Not hard.

Another big, universal gripe about the controversial romances is the lack of realism, but I see that as more as a matter of skill than anything else. If an author is good, s/he can make ANY pairing work, and I do mean any. Somehow, some way, they will be able to bend characters to their will and make situations work, all while pumping out perfectly believably circumstance and characterization. Their words will flow so well that by the end of it all, you would swear that the pairing, whatever it is, is totally canon. And that’s really one of the darndest things about fanfiction. It’s impressive, really. And certainly this would contribute to the experience of something new and different.

I find that the best fanfiction don’t really have ideas that are all too outrageous. They’re more modest, simple works. Perhaps they detail a familiar scene from a different perspective, or they’re taking an AU route about what could have been or what will be. Changing up too much and it becomes hard to recognize what the original was. The most important thing of all though, is characterization. No matter what the story’s about, regardless of genre or setting or a thousand other little components that go into a story, if the characterization sucks, then all the other efforts will be for naught. A story can be well-written with perfect pacing and spotless grammar, but if the main character is completely different from how he was in the series, then why should your fan-filled audience care? If he isn’t the character he’s supposed to be, then why should a fan want to read about him? May as well change his name, tweak some settings and bill it as an original work.

Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to tell how well characters are written from just a story’s tagline or an author’s summary. My trick is usually to skim the dialogue of a story — it’s fairly simple to judge if dialogue is out of character since verbal cues are so much easier to latch onto than body language or reactionary development in anime and manga. Sadly, for introspective stories, where characterization is even more crucial than usual, there usually isn’t too much dialogue, and you’ll just have to wing it. Or judge based on other things, such as spelling and grammar, but you should be doing that anyway.

For a fan that’s finished everything officially available and left unsatisfied, fanfiction is a simple answer. It can serve as a substitute while you wait for next week’s episode or chapter, and it can potentially fill you with the same silly fangirl/boy glee. Just avoid what you know you won’t like (probably more than half of all fanfiction available for your chosen fandom, though it might be good to try new things sometimes), filter out the poorly-written dribble (another quarter) and crappy storylines (maybe another 10-15%), and hunt down those few gold nuggets at the bottom of the pile. If you look hard enough, there’s usually something down there that’s worth your while. Oh. Don’t forget to try out some crack fiction now and again. It’s good to be ridiculous sometimes.

So yeah, that’s me on reading fanfiction. Writing fanfiction can probably be another post entirely.

You know what? I should have named this blog tl;dr. In fact, I want a shirt that says that. It’s entirely too true for virtually everything I write. Bummer.