There’s absolutely no mistaking the reference. Both Araragi and Suruga are in the exact same poses as the nearest two dudes and their expressions are nearly identical as well — just Suruga’s eyebrows seem to make her a bit more “Holy shit!” than “Hell yeah!”

I hadn’t realized just how widespread this meme apparently is though!  Hell, I didn’t know the “official name” of it until I googled around trying to find a clean version of the image. The photos apparently originated from E3 2003, so the source has at least existed for a good many years, but my first encounter with them was in a meme (contains spoilers) about all the episodes of Gurren Lagann. Was that the first occurrence? Probably not.

4chan memes come and go (and even if it didn’t actually originate on 4chan, we can probably still rightfully credit them with any meme’s viral spreading), but it’s interesting to see which ones persist throughout the years. How long did it take poor Domo-kun to vanquish his image as the kitten-killing hand of God? Or has he actually gotten rid of that image? You don’t see it around as much anymore though, and I wonder if Nickelodean and Target would still have been keen on adopting the character if the masturbation meme were still widespread. Meanwhile, Pedobear still makes regular rounds on the boards as well as conventions, and I doubt we’ll see the end of fake motivational posters any time soon. Beside them, the Reaction Guys don’t seem nearly as prominent, which I guess is also part of why I was so surprised to see it referenced.

And probably part of why it’s so freakin’ awesome. SHAFT and their cultural references indeed! Though actually, I also find it interesting that the reference was made in Bakemonogatari rather than whatever season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei we’re on now since the latter certainly has many more otaku-related jabs. Then again, I haven’t finished the second season (ZSZS) yet, so maybe they have? And the Reaction Guys probably aren’t in widespread usage solely in the anime otakusphere — after all, the image came from a gaming trade show. Who knows? This is just another reminder that on the Internet, we’re being watched. :o

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.)

More than a decade ago, when I was collecting the Pokémon TCG along with every other kid in the neighborhood, my father told me that these sorts of hobbies were just money-wasters and that Pokémon would be dead in five or ten years. The holographic Charizard that was going for $75+ on eBay wouldn’t be worth a dime then. Well, it’s been more than five or ten years later. That holographic Charizard still goes for about $10+ if you know who to sell to; all things considered, I’d say that’s damn good. It’s quite a bit more than a dime, at least. The first edition holo Charizard will still fetch you $75 at least, if not $100+. And as for Pokémon being dead? Ha! Sapporo just got a brand new Pokémon Center, and even in the US, Pokémon’s presence in stores is being expanded once again. I don’t think it’s unlikely to think that the Nintendo World in Manhattan might actually be turned back into a Pokémon Center — I mean, it isn’t like they sell much else there anyway.

Satoshi Tajiri really did have a breakthrough idea when he came out with Pocket Monsters. Considering Japan’s already rampant collector’s attitude, creating a franchise based around collecting is just… genius. To some extent, maybe collecting runs in my blood — being a huge pack rat also contributes — but I think that everyone’s got at least a little bit of collector’s urge to them. Few things are as satisfying as having a completed collection, but each little piece along the way is a great milestone too. It’s true even for things that might never be complete — stamp collections, video game, manga, and DVD collections, whatever. And so, Pokémon has become very much the same. You will likely never “catch them all,” but that doesn’t make the games any less fun. It doesn’t make you feel any less triumphant every time you hit the current monster cap.

Currently, that cap is 493. A lot of people are shocked when I tell them this because they stopped paying attention as soon as the number got bigger than 151. That’s fine. Really, there’s nothing wrong with having lost interest a long time ago, but I must say I’m a bit tired of people adamantly insisting that it should have stopped there. To them, I ask, why? Why should it have stopped?

From a business point of view, there is no reason to stop as long as the games keep selling, and they have kept selling. They have sold amazingly well again and again and again. Every successive generation of Pokémon has seen the two games at the top of sales charts for at least a month after release. The third game of each generation goes simiarly. My Gamestop manager friend told me today that Platinum was sold out by noon, not including the dozens of preorders that were also picked up. Pokémon’s appeal has proven to transcend generation as well. My seven year-old brother (there’s kind of a big age gap between us) loves Pokémon just as much as my other brother and I did ten years ago. And hell, I still love Pokémon. That’s a different kind of generation-transcention. I have just as many friends now, if not more, that still love and actively play and collect Pokémon as I did a decade ago. This may just be because I have a nerdier circle of friends, but the fact remains. Pokémon has kept selling to new and old fans alike, so why should Nintendo stop?

From a fan and gamer’s point of view, things are a little different, but the bottom line is mostly the same: the fans keep buying it. Obviously, this means they still want to play. I remember when all the rumors of the 2nd generation — Gold and Silver — were fresh on the Internet. (Oh, I love remembering the Internet of the 90′s.) It was a huge. There were fake screenshots and outrageous speculations abound, but everyone was excited for it. Sites like PsyPoke and Pokémon Village were teeming with information and some of the most active fan communities on the web (is it sad that I remember these sites’ names?). I don’t think there was a single fan of the original game that wasn’t piss-their-pants excited for G/S.

G/S did not disappoint, but there was a slightly longer lag between the 2nd and 3rd generation, as well as a platform jump. To be honest, I was excited for Ruby/Sapphire also and really wanted Sapphire for months and months after its launch. There were upgrades and updates that hadn’t made it into the 2nd generation, and I was eager for more. I had just filled my Pokédex with the 251 (with some help from Gameshark for that Serebii), but I was eager for more. Unfortunately, as my parents were unwilling to invest in a new game system and as I was unable to get it on my own at the time, I lost interest in Pokémon for a few years. In that time, I suppose I got a little bitter towards the franchise — I also thought a lot of the new additions to the lineup were retarded-looking. The games should just end because I can’t play them anymore! But that was just me. Meanwhile, everyone up was eating it up all over again, game magazines and the ilk included. They all said that it was essentially the same game with fancier features, but dammit, it was still fun!

When FireRed/LeafGreen released, because I wasn’t really paying attention anymore, I perceived it as a pure business greed. They’re out of ideas, I thought, now they’re just re-releasing old games! (Though money was probably indeed part of the equation, there is also the very logical explanation of wanting to have a way of getting first, and some second, generation Pokémon on the new Advance generation platform since R/S wasn’t backwards-compatible.) When Diamond/Pearl released in 2007, I didn’t have much of an idea what was going on anymore, but even then, whenever I heard about it in passing, I wanted to play it.

Long story short, I bought Pokémon Pearl that September and borrowed my friend’s DS to play it on. For two weeks, I spent 3-6 hours a day playing it until I finished the active storyline and beat the Elite Four. It is still an amazingly fun game. Yes, a lot of the newer Pokémon designs are silly, but hey, there were a lot of stupid designs in the original if you think about it. (Seriously, Mr. Mime? Jynx? Racist Pokémon of the century! Golem? Muk? Exeggcute?) Some designs are just rehashed ideas, and I think that’s my only quip with Pokémon at this point — there are thousands and thousands of animal species in the world to base Pokémon off of, we do not need another Pikachu or Pidgey clone! Nevertheless, there are still a few gems: Rotom, especially Lawnmower!Rotom, is probably the coolest thing ever. XD

The interaction-centered gameplay is charming enough on its own, really, and a lot of people don’t even pay attention to the “gotta collect ‘em all” mantra, but those that do, like myself, really have fun with it. I felt good passing the 100 Pokémon caught mark; I felt good catching 200 of them. I felt good catching 300. Currently, I am just short of 400, but I’ll probably feel good passing that too. It doesn’t get old. I don’t really know why. I suppose a lot of collectors lose interest after a while, no matter what they’re collecting. But adding a hundred new targets every few years somehow does manage to keep Pokémon interesting. It’s very simple. It’s like the post office doing special releases of stamps every few months. It is the simplest tactic ever, but it works.

Pokémon isn’t confined by its games either. There is an amazing among of Pokémon merchandise out there, especially in Japan, where they are still very much in love with their little critters. I really find it interesting just how much that country obsesses over all of its pop culture icons, not just Pokémon. Doraemon, Detective Conan, Hello Kitty, Gundam – so many things retain worship-worthy statuses within their culture decade after decade. If there’s only Japan to consider, it’s easy to say that Pokémon will last forever, but that its still got International momentum, that’s even more amazing.

Back to the merchandise though, the market for various Pokégoods is pretty incredible. According to Gin, its main maintainer, tens of thousands of dollars change hands on the Pokémon Collectors community on Livejournal every month. Collectors are from all over the world and the general mood is obsessive. Very obsessive. Most collectors like to focus on a few specific Pokémon. More ambitious ones will go after certain types. Since most Pokémon merch is sold only in Japan, and since many items are promo-only or otherwise retardedly hard to find online, its common for deputy services to be used. Collectors of Eeveelutions in particular face daunting prices for some very sought-after items. Says Gin, “[T]he person using brianjapan just paid about 220-240$ (after fees) for a one centimeter long [U]mbreon.” Collecting Pokémon is SERIOUS BUSINESS, for real.

Collectors are crazy. I know because I’m one too. And that is why I also know that Pokémon is not going to die. Sure, there are collectors for almost every franchise in existence, but are they as widespread as they are for Pokémon? How many collectors of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles do you know? Of Evangelion? And what other franchise has the sheer volume of things to collect? It’s hard to collect if there are only a few items available. But with almost five hundred Pokémon and at least a dozen pieces of merch for each of them (even the random, unpopular ones. I’m not kidding!), Pokémon will not die. Not as long as people are willing to catch them all over and over again and to shell out some thirty thousand yen for a tiny figurine. I don’t mind anymore. As long as it’s still fun, Nintendo can keep at it as long as they damn well please and it’ll be all right with me. ♥ I, for one, would really love to see an Advance generation remake of Gold/Silver to go along with FireRed/LeafGreen.

In closing, I’ll leave you with some of my collection, though honestly, it’s very modest compared to most I know.

The bulk of my Lapras collection. I am missing a lot of plush releases of Lapras, but I’m working on it. :3

Below is every TCG card of Lapras except one (Misty’s Lapras, Japanese-only card), including three versions of the card from the Fossil expansion (holo, first-edition holo, and first-edition non-holo). Also, some miscellaneous stuff likethat Lorelei card? Dunno, lol.

And here’s where the collection actually sits on my shelf, along with my even more modest collections of the Totodile/Croconaw/Feraligatr evolution line and Ivysaur. Also: random other figures and crap I have.

Honestly, aside from the money issue, the only reason I don’t have more toys right now is because of lack of shelf space. Poor Knuckles has to sit on the lower shelf along with that random Agumon and my DS.

And for good measure, here are my keys. Haha.

And awesomely enough? Just as I was wrapping up this post, my roommate walks in and hands me a copy of Pokémon Platinum, which I hadn’t planned on getting because of time/money deficiency. I love my friends.

1) The hiding of the score breakdown for every review. Previously, every review on MAL showed not only the overall score, but the individual scores for story, character, animation, sound, and enjoyment. Reviews can still fill in the subscores… there’s just no way for readers to see them. (Later, Xinil conceeded and re-added the subscores, though users have to go through an extra click to get to them.)

2) The removal of BBCode support for all reviews. Reviews can no longer contain any kind of BBCode, including basic things like bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough.

3) The relocation of reviews on profile pages. Reviews are now to be accessed at the top of each user’s profile instead of from the side. Users can choose to favorite reviewers so that their newest reviews appear under a tab in their own profile.

A handful of people expressed their disapproval of change #3, but most of the dissenters were more concerned with changes #1 and #2, and I was among those ranks.

Xinil did not really provide an argument in favor of #1, but eventually conceded to user complaint and re-added the subscores. Honestly, in retrospect, I think the main reason I was upset at the removal of the subscores was just that they had always been there before. Updates to a site should not take away features that were there previously, especially if no one had ever had anything bad to say about them. Users didn’t have to use the subscores, but they were there. Despite that Xinil had little to say on the matter though, there was a lot of debate over the feature between both reviewers and readers alike.

A lot of people seemed to believe that numbers were too impartial and that the less numbers a review had, the better. No numbers would encourage readers to actually read through the entire review to get the writer’s opinion rather than only taking a quick glance at the provided numbers (and rating a review “helpful” or “not helpful” based solely on those numbers). Some readers said that they liked the numbers because it allowed them to quickly assess a writer’s opinion — writer’s said that this just made them lazy. Other writers claimed that the numbers encouraged readers to read through the actual review if the numbers intrigued them — for example, if the reviewer scored all aspects of a series high except for animation.

I write reviews. I write a lot of reviews, and I only occasionally read others’ reviews. Still, I argued in favor of the numbers and the subscores. My reasoning was that there are some things that are just easier to emphasize with numbers. For example, I loved the animation and sound in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, but I abhored the character development and story. I expressed this in words, but it’s probably just as effective for a reader to take a quick glance at my subscores and garner that information for himself: Story — 5, Character — 5, Animation — 10, Sound — 10. I will be the first to admit that I tend to write excruciatingly long reviews. Sure, it’s nice if you actually read the whole thing, but I won’t be offended if you’re just looking for a quick, numerical summary.

A few readers also pointed out that they were afraid that reviews might contain spoilers, and thus it was safer to just glance over the scoring. With my own flaming hatred of spoilers, I make a point to never write spoilers in my reviews for MAL (except in the cases of sequel series, wherein I’ll occasionally have spoilers for the parent series). I think most other reviews do the same, or at the very least, carefully mark where a spoiler might be. Still, it’s not hard to sympathize with the cautious reader; it’s true after all, numbers can’t spoil the story for you, even if they might turn you off from it or get you overexcited.

So yes. I like my numbers, and I’m glad the subscores did eventually make it back. Now that the fight’s over though, I come to realize this: I don’t really use numbers for the reviews I write outside of MAL. For the live action movie and comic reviews that I write for this blog (because MAL is anime and manga only), I provide no numbers, only words. Lots and lots of words. I almost had numbers. I distinctly remember scoring the first NANA movie when I was reviewing it, but I ended up not posting them. I can’t remember why, but because I’m obsessive compulsive and need to keep everything in the same format, every subsequent movie review was missing numbers.

So I guess I don’t think numbers are so essential after all. I only ever assigned those numbers because the option was there. If it had never been there to begin with, it would have never bothered me. Reading a review, you get a pretty decent idea of someone’s opinion, regardless of whether or not numbers are there to accompany the words. Numbers aren’t essential, though they might be a cheating, kind of time saver for some. Besides, everyone’s numbers seem to be different. It isn’t uncommon for reviewers to have a page dedicated to explaining just what their numbers mean, especially in relation to one another. One person’s 10 is not the same as another person’s 10 because one person might give out 10′s more frequently than others, lessening its “value.” Of my reviews on MAL thus far, I’ve only given an overall score of 10 to two series (the Death Note manga and the Gurren Lagann anime). Most other people are less reserved with their praises, but that doesn’t mean they’re any more or less superior as a reviewer. We’re just different people, and we review things differently.

And with subscores, the difference is even greater. Some reviewers average their subscores to create the overall score. Other reviewers, like me, assign an overall score independently of the other scores. For some series, I just feel as if some categories carry more weight than others. Sometimes, the enjoyment and charisma of a series just overrides the fact that it had shoddy animation and a cliche storyline. So I guess for readers who read reviews by a wide range of reviewers, numbers can mean very little. If you’re unfamiliar with the particular reviewer, it can be hard to compare their scores with someone else’s. Everyone’s using a different scale, and that can’t be very helpful at all.

In retrospect, I guess #1 wasn’t really that big of a deal. I still like that we were able to compromise, and I still like that I can assign both an overall score and multiple subscores, but it wouldn’t have been all that hard to just add those in myself at the end of every review if I really felt like it. It would have been annoying, but much more workable than #2…

Unfortunately, Xinil was much more adamant about keeping BBCode out of reviews. His position on the issue was:

I’m still set against bringing bbcode back. Newspapers, magazines, news websites…none of them use bold/italics. We don’t need it.

I kind of find this to be bullshit. No one uses bold and italics? Are you serious? Font creation standards all but dictate the inclusion of a bold, italicized, and bold-italicized version of standard fonts. That is an obvious indication of their widespread use. In addition to that, newspapers and magazines have plenty of formatting via headers and margins, as well as images, to help break up the text. The tl;dr syndrome has only gotten worse with the age of the Internet, and thus, there is a need to minimalize giant walls of plaintext. If you want someone to read what you’ve written, you need to make it easy for them. This is why paragraphs were invented.

I’ve never seen anyone on MAL really abuse the use of BBCode in their reviews. Some people get a bit fancy with their tiered, multi-colored, and bullet point reviews, but all of those shenanigans are in an effort to make their opinions easier to understand — organization isn’t a crime. Myself, I like my bold and italics. They do their job: they emphasize things without having to result to CAPSLOCK, which is still “yelling” on the Internet. I’m also fond of the [url] tag because it allows me to link related reviews. It is beneficial to both me and the reader for me to link my review of the Death Note manga from my review of the Death Note anime. Similarly, I link reviews for spin-off series like SEED Supernova to their parent series because some aspects of the series, such as animation and sound, are shared between them. All right, so the linking isn’t really kosher or necessary, but it’s useful. At the very least, basic font formating like bold and italics should be left useable.

In the arguments for BBCode, there arose a discussion about the need to format reviews by blocking off sections for each subcategory. For this, citing professional news and review sources is actually applicable because it’s true — most reviews are just solid essays without any kind of partitions. Generally, for good reviews, all the subcategories would be covered at some point in the text anyway. Still, writing a review in sections appeals greatly to my OCD. If all the information is there regardless, does it really matter? Is there really such a huge difference between transitional phrases like “As for the characters…” and a header that declares “Characters”? The latter is easier to identify and read. Sectioning things off might make it easier for those that only want to know about a certain aspect of something. It also helps keep me, the writer, organized as well. Without those sections, it’d be much, much easier for me to ramble off in an incomprehensible mess… as if my writing wasn’t rambly enough.

So here’s to still wanting that BBCode back, at least in part. Unfortunately, now that the thread seems to be both hidden from the site and unusable anyway, there’s no good platform on which to argue with Xinil. I’m not sure how much good logic would do him anyway; despite having asked for suggestions, he didn’t seem very receptive to them. (Consider also that a majority of the legitimate threads in the Suggestions forum seem to never get a reply from him.) I dunno. Maybe it’s not worth the drama.

For a little while after all the changes were made, I considered no longer using MAL as my review platform if compromises weren’t made. That seemed needlessly dramatic though. I like MAL. I don’t like these changes, but I still like MAL. It would be a lot of trouble for me to mirror all of my existing reviews on this blog too. I started and finished Antique Bakery on a random whim a few weeks ago, and it’s sitting around on my backlog waiting to be reviewed. It’ll be hard trying to find a way to emphasize things in my writing without italics, and I hate that my section headers no longer stand out for lack of bold, but… what can ya do? Oftentimes, I think I fret over this nonsense way, way too much.

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.

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

I’m finding myself compulsively filling in the missing pieces that are all over AnimeVice currently, but I’m pulling almost all of my information from ANN and Wikipedia. Summaries will need to be reworded, sure, but all those stats and kanji names and static information like that? Copy, paste, baby. The site is still in its infancy, and I’m sure that eventually, it’ll start garnering information that ANN/Wikipedia’s collective encyclopedias won’t have, but there I pose the question again — why not just all that new information to one of the aforementioned sources to begin with? Why do we need this all new place for it? Why split up the contributing population more? (As a side note, I really hate how the AV’s encyclopedia is organized right now, but I’ll give it a few more weeks to develop and straighten out before passing final judgment.)

Of course, there are other merits to Anime Vice other than its information. The news portion I don’t consider to be a direct competitor to ANN since it’s only half news while the other half is more blog-like, and the news that it does catch tends to break sooner than ANN. The trivia section is retardedly addicting (says me, who’s written more than sixty questions for it already). The battle system is interesting, but I got bored of it pretty fast. I don’t like the cosplay section since it encourages people to submit cosplays that aren’t their own, which makes it difficult to trace photos back to their source. (And once again, I don’t see the point in “competing” with Cosplay.com.) The fanfiction section I can see being pretty interesting since the main place for anime fanfiction these days is Livejournal, which I don’t think is ideal. Fanfiction.net is still pretty prominent, but the more regulations it adds, the more I think that fanfiction is definitely a niche that needs to be filled in better.

The last thing is the reviews. I don’t know how much Anime Vice is catering to the review readers/writers considering there isn’t a tab for reviews on the main menu and considering how ridiculously difficult it is to actually figure out how to submit a review at the moment, but it seems like it could have potential. This probably bugs me the most because I want to keep my reviews in as few places as possible, but I also want them to get as much exposure as possible. I like how MAL works, and I like that it doesn’t really have a lot of features that put it in competition with other sites (except AniDB, but I like MAL’s layout/organization better, so there). But AV’s looking to have a pretty nice community already, so what to do, what to do? Should I leave my reviews “exclusive” to MAL, or should I crosspost to AV? Am I just an idiot for caring about questions like these? Or are there others that share my dilemma?

I hate joining new social networking websites for reasons of simplicity. The fewer websites I’m obligated to check, the better. This is why I hadn’t planned on joining AV to begin with. I don’t know why I change my mind (oh, wait, yes, I do. I changed my mind because I needed an account to comment on this news item). I also hate that all these social networking sites also have blogging platforms. Come on, why you gotta make this so hard for me? Blogging is great and I’d love the exposure, but I don’t want to crosspost my content all over the goddamn Internet! It was bad enough with journal features on every damn art site I use, I don’t need this to happen to my anime sites too! (I’m dreading the day ANN finally catches up with the Internet and implements a blogging platform of its own. Oh, woe.)

I’ll get off my soapbox now. I have reviews coming up for Gundam Wing; Episode Zero and 5 Centimeters per Second. Look for ‘um. :3

But this is a new high bar for the absurdity that happens over there. Japan, you’re wacky and hilarious and I love you, but really. What the fuck?

It’s so ridiculously I’m still about 70% sure they aren’t serious, but that 30% of me is just repeating WTF over and over again. It’s worse than the people that want to marry their pets because at least pets are alive and tangible and have emotions and feelings even though they couldn’t very well give their consent or understanding of legal binding. The petition to allow for marriage to a 2D character bewilders me mostly because I can’t understand why anyone would want to do it. I could understand wanting to marry a robot more than I could understand wanting to marry a flat character because at least you could feasibly have sex with a robot. Hell, you could feasibly have sex with your pet. -_- But a fictional character? Not even hentai really counts.

That isn’t to say that sex is the only basis of marriage, but it isn’t like you could get anything else out of a relationship with something that lacks a brain, emotions, or any other kind of interactive… anything. What would be the benefit of being married to a character? So you could call yourself Mrs. Edward Elric? So you could wear a ring on your finger and when people ask, you’d say that your wife is Haruhi Suzumiya? So you could claim one character once and for all and laugh in all the faces of the other fanboys and girls who used to dare contest you on your claim? Seriously! Why!? Why would any one want to marry a fictional character?

And how would they consent to that anyway? Would their creators, as their “parents,” have to give permission? I can just imagine a horde of fanboys breaking down poor Nagaru Tanigawa’s door and begging for Mikuru’s hand in marriage. I’m sure there are a lot of delusional otaku that think they’re married anyway and hide away in the privacy of their own homes having sex with blow-up dolls of their favorite characters — fine, whatever, I don’t really care about what people do behind closed doors, but to try and pass a law that would sanction a marriage? That’s just silly. And rather pointless, since you could do all your dirty little deeds without a piece of paper saying you’re batshit crazy.

This has gotta be a joke. People have come down a long and crazy road, and there are plenty of people that believe in some craaaaaaaazy stuff, but this… this takes the cake. What the fuck, Japan, just what the fuck!?

But even though these instances are always highly amusing and full of lulz, and even though I usually participate myself, I kind of wonder about the effects of it all. Poll-sabotaging seems innocent enough, especially when compared to the sometimes very questionable activities of neighboring /b/, but polls are usually highly informative. There’s always a general public interest in the popularity rankings of characters, but I also can’t help but think that the companies that put out these polls intend to use their results for something. The BANDAI poll, for example, I wonder if they had wanted to use the results to decide what sort of merchandise to put out? Or what kind of character-centric extras to include with DVD releases? The Japanese poll could have had similar goals, though theirs might also expand to include possible characters to have in future voice actor radio shows and drama CD releases.

Do we really want merchandise with Clovis on it? Or of “NANI, MAI HANI” Miya? (That’s largely a rhetorical question.) Of course, I don’t think the companies behind the polls are stupid enough to think that Clovis or Miya are actually the most popular Code Geass characters — a quick glance around the Internet can easily pick out the real winners — but what’s the point of polling at all if all their attempts are thwarted by /a/tards’ quest for the lulz? There are still magazine polls, I guess, and it’d be much harder to coordinate a sabotage of those since they require much more effort to respond to. (That said, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it happened.)

We’ve clearly demonstrated the power of the swarm. We’ve done it over and over again. /b/ organizes DDOS attacks. /a/ breaks anime polls. We’ve gotten plenty of lulz. The series themselves provide us with plenty of lulz. Now what?

I dunno. I don’t really think I’m against the poll-sabotage (like I said, I often participate myself), but I guess sometimes, I’m actually really curious about real poll results, at least for the real rankings of characters that don’t make up the top five.