Yay! I have returned! Happy Halloween 2014!
This year is very important for several reasons – I had to come back and mention my perspective! So, what happened over these past few years? I’ll provide the details in a series of posts, outlining major news in this one!
The major milestone this year was successful passing of the doctoral comprehensive exams! It took several weeks to complete and resulted in dozens of pages of solutions! Extreme pressure, anxiety, uncertainty, sleep deprivation – it was really difficult to go through this process, working on the exam essentially every minute for several weeks in breaks between teaching classes. Basically, it was kind of like this
There were two things that saved me by providing extra energy during exams: green tea and positive anime songs! Thank you, Japan!
Then I had to defend my written solutions in an oral exam, and the committee members did have a right to ask any question they wanted. So it was kind of like this
It all went well though, making me a very happy panda ^_^
What is the next step for me? I still have to conduct research and write a dissertation. This should not be too difficult for me. Of course, it will take time and effort, but it is much easier than taking crazy classes and exams!
What about blogging? It is unlikely that I’ll do episodics, but I’ll post my anime impressions and general commentary about the industry. In the immediate future, I’ll mention some of the games I played over these few years and some anime I managed to watch.
To Do:
– Go through and respond to pending comments (about 200)
– Anime highlights over the last few years
– Game highlights
– Secret project (took more than half a year of work). No, do not expect much! It will be somewhat similar to my last major project.
Kitsune's Thoughts 
Wow, nice to hear from you. Aku no Hana was good, but I think mine is a minority opinion.
Yay! I am glad you are alive too! ^_^
As for Aku no Hana, I read some manga before the actual anime and… well… I don’t even… I saw some excerpts from the anime, and I did like that they have made bold character design choices! Maybe I’ll watch it someday, but that manga…
Hello!
Remember me? ;p
I am glad that you’ve finally returned after the long absence. I still keep tabs on your blog but yeah, haven’t seen much updates from you and it’s been a while. Good to know all is well on your end! I’ve left the anime world behind since, but I’m happy to follow your blog again regardless!
Happy Halloween (belated heh)!
– Cheri
Cheri! I am glad to hear from you! Of course I remember you! 😀
Good to hear that you’ll follow my blog, even though you “left the anime world”. I often mention other topics in addition to anime, so I am sure many people curious about the world will find something interesting here! 🙂
Congratulations for reaching a big milestone! I wish you all well with your feature endeavours!
Hang in there about answering all the comments, hehe 😛 You were quite popular after all.
You know, you’re my sempai, so there’s no way I won’t follow you again 🙂 Looking forward to more content from you.
As for the recs, do you have a MAL or something similar? It’d be helpful for future reference, but for now I’ll shoot some titles, since I don’t know what you’ve watched.
Hyouka, OreGairu, From The New World, Kyousogiga, Hunter x Hunter (2011), Kill la Kill, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Barakamon, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, Terror in Resonance (though this is quite flawed I loved it to bits), Gatchaman Crowds, Uta Koi, and from the Anime Mirai shorts: Harmonie, Wasurenagumo, and Death Billiards.
Thank you! 🙂
I am honored to be your sempai! 😀
I don’t have MAL or something similar. Perhaps, I should make an account. It will take a while to enter all the anime! haha I see what you mean though: it will be much easier to make recommendations given some baseline for a person’s preferences. Anyway, thank you for a long list! I’ll read about those anime and watch some of them! 🙂
I watched at least one from this list 😉
You can check my 12 days of xmas posts to get an idea of what most of them are about. Let me know if you like sth from my suggestions.
Kill la Kill was such a ride for me! Did you enjoy it?
P.S.: Just noticed I mispelled future as feature. Gomen OTL
Oh, I see! Thank you for mentioning that! I’ll read your 12 days of xmas post! 🙂
Kill la Kill was one of those highlights of a decade! I didn’t like Gurren Lagann, but enjoyed this one very much! Music played such a big part for me! I really don’t care how well it was animated – it was all about unpredictability for me, at least in the short-term, and a general character design. It reminded me of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei! However, Kill la Kill also evoked some strong emotional moments in addition to comedy. Great anime overall! I have not seen anything of that caliber since or at least I am not aware of others.
Sawano Hiroyuki right? Really great ost. He was behind Attack on Titan’s ost, too. I found what the animation budget quite good. There wasn’t anything totally ajar or out of place. They managed to utilize what they had the best. Mako was one reason I kept watching, action was another. And as you said there were some great emotional moments like where they all hugged naked ❤
Of that caliber and way above is Hunter x Hunter (2011) though it counts 148 eps, way more than KLK. It's by Togashi, the mangaka of Yu Yu Hakusho, in case you don't know. MADHOUSE's adaptation did such justice.
@FoxyLadyAyame (starting a new comment indent due to space becoming too limited)
Yes, that’s the composer. I have not seen many of his anime, but the music was very appropriate for Kill la Kill.
Ah… Attack on Titan… I heard that it is a great Indian film 😛
Omg, Mako! I love Mako! That enthusiasm and optimism! And those priceless hallelujah moments! haha
Sounds like I should consider Hunter x Hunter (2011)! It seems long, but that is not necessarily a bad thing! Thank you for recommending it! 🙂
hahaha Attack on Titan has a very interesting premise and fascinating characters, but the way they handled the pace of the story wasn’t that good. I think that having the series split into two films might give a better tighter visual result. When the films come out and watch them I’ll let you know if they’re worth it. Then we might fangasm over Erwin-sama (the Chris Evan look-alike gorgeous thin-eyebrowed captain) together.
Hunter x Hunter (2011) is the best shounen alongside FMA: Brotherhood. Easily the best anime of the decade -no exaggeration. Epic in every sense. Just supply yourself with handkerchiefs. Remember “you can smiiiiiiiiile again~~~” Thank me afterwards for having your heart broken and then repaired 😛
@Foxy Lady Ayame
Yes, the characters are awesome!
haha I look forward to hearing your impression about the films. Speaking of films vs series, “Do You Remember Love?” turned out just wonderful!
Oh, wow! Hunter x Hunter sounds very impressive! Oh noes! Those emotional roller-coasters! We’ll see!
Great to hear from you again! It’s been far too long, mate. (^_^)
Sounds like you’ve been very busy. I wish I had a few choice titles to recommend – unfortunately I’ve been a little out of touch with Japanese pop culture myself (not due to lack of interest, though!). I’d suggest looking into “Tonari no Seki-kun” . . . light hilarity in small doses, perfect for relaxing in-between classes or research work.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=15587
I liked it so much, I even bought one copy of every available volume of the original “Tonari no Seki-kun” manga during my most recent trip to Japan (figured they’ll come in handy for kanji reading practice).
On the side, I’ve recently started up a travel blog – I still update my original anime blog from time to time but I’m more active on the travel blog these days. Feel free to drop by . . . lots of Japan goodness and more.
http://withinstrikingdistance.wordpress.com/
All the best on your future endeavours, anime-related and otherwise.
Cheers and looking forward to your next update.
“Because ten billion years’ time is so fragile, so ephemeral… it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness.”
Yes, hilarity in small dozes is exactly what I need! Thank you for recommending “Tonari no Seki-kun”! A quick youtube search yielded this wonderful ED haha
Ah, a traveling blog! Are you traveling to Nagasaki? 😛
Or, perhaps, on a pilgrimage?
One thing is certain – there will be castles! 🙂
Thank you for your good wishes 🙂
It’s so great to see that you’ve come back. I’ve been feeling rather lousy of late; everything from the dropping leaves and the idea of another miserable, cold, dreary winter to world events is dragging me down but this seriously made my month.
I’ll have to give some thought as to what to recommend from the last three years of anime but Tonari no Seki-kun is not a bad place to start.
I never pulled the trigger on starting a Twitter or Facebook account but I found having a MyAnimeList profile to be useful though it took forever (~40 hours) to track down all the anime I’d watch. There’s been a couple newer platforms spring up that basically do the same thing as MAL and I’ve kinda wanted to try them out – they promise the ability to automatically generate the list based on one’s MAL list of shows.
Yay! Thank you for stopping by!
I am sorry to hear that things are somewhat negative on your side. I hope it will improve!
I dislike cold too, and days without sun can become depressing. It is kind of strange because I like snow. The best case is a sunny day in winter, but only slightly cold, enough to keep the snow on the ground, and without wind!
Oh, new platforms you say? I’d be interested to learn about them!
If the MAL-like platforms you mentioned are Hummingbird and AniList, they do not automatically generate your anime list from MAL data. One needs to export MAL list (in xml file), then upload to these platforms. I’ve tried using them, so I am pretty sure of that.
I see, thank you for mentioning these new platforms! 🙂
You’re welcome~
As for recommendations it’s gotta be these since Ayame mentioned a lot already:
Kyousogiga, Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, Sakurasou na Pet na Kanojo, Suisei no Gargantia, and Shingeki no Kyojin (?? This must be somewhere in the list),
Thank you for the recommendations! One thing is certain: there is no way I am watching Attack on Titan!
And this is why there’s the “?? … ” beside it, haha.
haha Good call! 🙂 It will take a while to read about all these anime, but I’ll go through it all and will watch at least some that catch my interest!
Congratulations!!!!!! I am so behind on everything, I only just watched Psycho Pass the other week.
Thank you!!!
Well, you are further than me! haha We’ll catch up eventually! 🙂
I am glad you have returned! And I see that you have fully recharged.
(I and my blog have been struggling quite a lot for the past 1,000 years but things will be better next year, hopefully)
Yay! Canne! It’s been a while! Good to hear from you!
Sounds like this year is difficult for you. I hope things will improve next year!
Welcome back and congratulations on your real life achievements! Though I never really knew you from the start because I’ve just recently started blogging and actually new to animeblogosphere, I really appreciate from the bottom of my heart your reaching out to a newbie like me!
Looking forward to your future posts (while I do some back-reading here) and our future discussions!
Thank you! 🙂
I am glad that I found your blog, and I am sure that I’ll find some new interesting music as well as anime and manga among those you mention! 🙂
Awww. Thank you!! I’m really glad that my posts are somehow of use to my readers! I hope that the animanga and music that I will mention here will be to your liking.