It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s funny how the strangest things can cause bloggers to appear and disappear. For many writers, the pressures of work and school build up and eventually lead to a hiatus – for others, the worst case scenario of actually having a social life proves to be the finishing blow.

Of course, I haven’t suffered anything like a finishing blow. I simply took a little reprieve, much like last year. It’s a shame since the Aniblog Tourney is currently running, but it can’t be helped (thanks for voting for me by the way – and don’t forget, my second match is coming up!)

Anyway, something interesting occurred to me while I was not writing. The first is that it’s not very relieving to take a break from writing when you know you ought to be writing anyway, which makes me glad that I didn’t do it intentionally. The second, though, is a bit more important. After all, it’s not like I’m behind in Angel Beats because I have exams or real life tasks to take care of. I’m behind because I haven’t been able to separate myself from the very subculture that I’m writing about.

And that leads me to the point of this post: the hidden benefits of not blogging.

Let’s get the straightforward stuff out of the way first. My disclaimer is that this theory works primarily for editorial bloggers whose only draw is their style and content – without the ability to attract readers by providing information or entertainment, we have nothing to rely on but ourselves. The experience (and lack thereof) of the blogger is often visible in their posts.

With that out of the way, here are the basic facts of aniblogging: to be an anime blogger, one must consume anime, or any similar media. Then, one must process this media and write about it in some way, shape or form. In order to maintain a blog for a significant amount of time, the blogger must consistently consume and process media in this cycle, regardless of their other priorities.

Now, this cycle might be perfect if a person’s sole purpose within anime fandom is to increase their MAL stats and memorize the ANN database, but for many bloggers, this isn’t the case. After all, we refer to anime fandom as a subculture for a reason. There are countless activities that we can do within our fandom – finding new singers and doujin circles to listen to, reading doujinshi, browsing fanart, translating anime, playing anime-style video games, hanging out on the internet. The list goes on and on.

The problem is that most of these activities don’t generate posts.

To me, this is the greatest dilemma of anime blogging. Managing real life is easy – life can have its ups and downs, but at least for me, my life on the internet is rarely affected by my other responsibilities for anything more than a couple weeks at a time. The real challenge is in delving through the farthest depths of the subculture while emerging twice a week with enough material to write a post. It’s an interesting dilemma because both extremes are bad – you either abandon your productive activity in favour of sheer consumption, or you continue to produce without gaining any new information. It doesn’t even need to be said that activities like blogging aren’t only good for the community, but also for each individual writer, so they can’t be given up easily.

Anyway, after giving the issue some thought and drawing from my past experience, I’ve come up with a name for my personal theory: the anime investment.

Generally speaking, good blog posts require a wealth of knowledge. There’s a reason why the oldest, most knowledgeable, and most experienced anime bloggers attract more readers than your average amateur episodic reviewer. However, it’s easy to forget to question where this wealth of knowledge came from. Some spent years of their lives fansubbing and scanlating; some created influential websites and brainstormed new ideas for their community; some spent their high school years lurking on HongFire in search of new CG packs to put to their appropriate use.

The point is that there are an incredible amount of activities that anime fans can do to immerse themselves in the subculture, and even if those activities don’t bring any momentary rewards – and certainly no momentary blog posts – they increase the writer’s own knowledge and experience, aiding future writing endeavors. The opinions that we respect and the reviews that we nod along to don’t come from an endless stream of currently airing anime – they come from currently airing anime in addition to the full breadth of the culture, from AnimeSuki debate to /a/ chatter. There’s no shortcut to experience.

That’s why I believe in making the anime investment: it can make a mess of things in the short-term, but every investment pays off eventually. Danbooru sessions can lead to a fanart post; fighting games can lead to social matches that bring you closer to your friends and peers. No matter how tangential and unrelated they may seem, every experience that the subculture has to offer will contribute to your growth as a fan in some way, even if it’s invisible – and it’s that growth that will encourage your readers to spend 1000 words of their lives listening to what you have to say.

- – -

As the title of the post implies, this is a meta post – in other words, it’s a long and pointless repetition of previously established facts that serves as a bad alternative to contributing with real content. That said, I still believe that some bloggers would benefit from making the anime investment. A high post frequency and a consistent 20+ comment count may look good to newcomers, but only experience can push your content forward and allow it to be the best that it can be – and we all know that blogging is about content.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

©2010 Memories of Eternity. All Rights Reserved.

Internet communication (as previously covered by a few of us) is something that is both very old and very new to me, ranging from miscellaneous tweets to the massive essays we get on some editorial blogs. However, whether you’re in the ‘sphere or you’re talking about mainstream shounen on a mediocre anime forum (or even not talking about anime at all), there’s one thing that follows you wherever you go, like a signature denoting your identity. That thing, which we so often take for granted, is called an internet handle, and it results in followers of the blogosphere tossing around names like DarkMirage and Impz in real life without thinking twice.

One thing I’ve always liked about the whole concept of internet handles is that you can change them at will. Sure, it’s usually impossible to delete your old account, and you occasionally might have to use a fake email, but it can still be done. Better yet, you can make an alt account or two in certain forums and use them for whatever mischeivous deeds you might want to do, without having to worry about denting your reputation. It may not be the most moral thing in the world, but I’m sure it’s been done before, and there really isn’t anything out there stopping us from doing it.

This also brings to mind the topic of imageboards, where users are more or less anonymous (and in the case of 4chan, where people who try to identify themselves from the rest of the anons are usually looked down upon). The lack of usernames decreases the stress people presumably feel to be decent human beings, and probably results in a lot more trolling. Of course, one can say that about any form of internet communication: you’re not going to be arrested for saying that KyoAni sucks and that Kenshin anime > manga, so if that’s what you think, then why not say it?

However, the issue of choosing a single internet handle and using it everywhere comes into play when people start taking the internet seriously. If all you want to do is mess around without consequence, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see you use countless different accounts on every forum you go to, but if you actually want to build up a reputation – one such case being in the blogosphere – you’re probably going to want to keep your name.

And that’s where things get interesting: the act of choosing an internet handle.

Takumi’s hallucinations are usually relevant.

What kind of thought process do we go through when deciding on what to call ourselves online? What do we calculate, predict, contemplate? Or do we even contemplate at all? This is more of a question than an answer, because I can only speak from my own experience. In my case, Eternal is effectively just a shorter, easier to say, and overall evolved form of a previous handle I used to use back in elementary school because I thought it sounded cool. That’s it. Really. I’d like to say that there’s some sort of significance behind the name (especially since I spell it in all caps most everywhere), but it’s just something that evolved over time. When it came time to start blogging, I couldn’t think of any different names, and I figured that naming myself after a word was at least unique (if not a little stupid), so I decided to stop thinking and go for it. I believe DarkMirage also got his name from an MMO of some sort, but I can’t for the life of me remember where he said that.

On the same topic of internet handles, and stepping back for a moment at my choice of spelling for my name, how much effort do you generally put into maintaining a user’s original spelling, capitalization, etc. of their handle? And this can go beyond handles, too; what about the names of certain anime and games? For example, TYPE-MOON, AIR, sola, the crazy capitalization of Tsubasa Chronicles…and those are just off the top of my head. And when it comes to anibloggers, we already have a decent variety, like the all-lowercase names such as lelangir and ghostlightning, or the acronyms like CCY and OGT. Much like with anime names, the list can be endless if you want it to be.

Personally, it doesn’t bother me at all if people are too lazy to hold shift and type ETERNAL or KOTOKO, and yet, I find myself doing it anyway. Rarely do I ever write AIR without the caps, and I only started writing Clannad in lower case because I never actually use caps lock and it’s annoying to hold shift while typing all of those letters. Proper spelling isn’t particuarly important to me, and I certainly wouldn’t be offended if someone decided to omit those caps that I seem to be so fond of, but I still like playing around with grammar anyhow. Maybe it’s just because I have a personal grudge against plain names that obey the laws of grammar. Whether it’s caps, lower case, or even something as simple as the tilde-spamming that goes on in visual novel names, I always feel the need to toss in those things that really don’t make a difference, and I always seem to replecate them when I see them used in other names. I have no idea why, but ef – a fairy tale of the two and ef ~a fairy tale of the two~ feel like two completely different games to me, and even though I know it doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t be caught dead writing the latter. Even though it looks a little better.

Siscon is always relevant, right?

To sum this all up, I guess I should just clarify that I’m rambling – you did read the title, right? Ultimately, I don’t believe that there are any conclusive findings for one to report on something as trivial as the mystery of internet handles, especially since I won’t have any info unless you readers out there decide to comment and tell your own stories. From this post, we can conclude my own rather disjointed thoughts on the topic of internet aliases, but the discussion can’t be complete without hearing a little from all of you. I also posted the idea on Danny Choo where I hope to get a much wider response, but for those of you that are reading this right now, do me a favor and respond: how did you arrive at your own internet handle? What does it mean to you, if anything at all? The mystery of internet handles isn’t one that can be easily solved, but a bit of knowledge is better than none, ne?

…In retrospect, another option would be to just use your real name…
…but where’s the fun in that?

~ ETERNAL
つづく

©2010 Memories of Eternity. All Rights Reserved.

I say “of sorts” because, from the reading I’ve been doing around the ‘sphere, my introspection has already been done. No, it’s not like I wrote the post in advance – I have a bad habit of leaving blog posts until I actually need to write them – it’s just that someone else already transcribed my story as an anime fan for me. That person is usagijen of Scrumptious, and after reading her post on her growth as an anime fan through the medium of blogging, I realized that I had experienced quite the same thing. And with a new year beginning in less than twelve hours, I think I’m ready to take my next step forward.

I always hate leaving blanks in my own posts because someone else already covered the topic, but really, if you check out the two parts of usagijen’s introspection I can assure you it’ll all make sense. Just replace bishies with…actually, I guess you could keep the bishies, and just replace hot with cool. That was pretty much my taste in anime a few years back, and when I finally “grew” out of that and started watching all of the rabu-rabu-moe-moe stuff, my ability to watch intelligently still didn’t improve much. The whole “Osaka mode” thing described me quite well a few years back – I hesitate to say even a single year back – and while I did watch anime in high quantities, I didn’t get much out of it. It was fun, I wanted to cry at the end of AIR, and Honey and Clover still remains as one of the most beautiful things a human being can experience, but all in all, there were a lot of things that I didn’t understand. In some cases, those things involved the intricacies of the shows I was watching – I’m looking at you, ef memories – but more often than not, they involved my understanding of the medium as a person.

And that’s where usagijen’s point really hit home with me: the way us bloggers grow as people through our work, even though our casual readers would never notice. It’s easy to think of blogging as a way to make money, with your hit counter almost like your experience bar in an MMO – and opposite to that, it’s also easy to think of it as a pointless hobby where you write a diary that the world can see – but the reality of the matter, from what I’ve experienced, is simply that blogging is a medium. And because it’s a medium involving non-fiction work as opposed to fiction, it relies heavily on communication with other bloggers (aka human beings), and thus, it’s something that helps expand your mind as a person. It may not have happened to everyone, but I know for a fact that it happened to me. Before long, I went from knowing only the names of Adun and DarkMirage to commenting around the ‘sphere every couple days, and as I began to communicate more and more, even through the barrier of comments, my knowledge expanded tremendously. I feel as if I’ve grown as a person over the last four months, but I know for a fact that I’ve grown as an anime fan.

And don’t forget, all of this was done through reading and commenting on other anime blogs. What will happen when I get more involved and start participating in the community’s discussion? I’m not sure, but I’d certainly like to find out.

And at the end of the day, that’s where 2008 leaves me: an ending, of sorts, to my “buy cool merchandise and talk about it” days, and a much more important beginning to what I hope and expect to be a truly memorable experience. With the hit counter taking a back seat to my interactions with fellow bloggers and otaku, I’m finally ready to take the next step forward into the community and learn more about this seemingly shallow subculture that we’ve all somehow found ourselves in. It’ll be a time consuming journey, but it’ll also be a fun journey, and I’m looking forward to spending even more time with all of you in the future.

So with that said, may the new year bless us with moar Key and less mediocre harem, and keep us safe from the horrors of otaku burnout. Enjoy the remainder of the holidays, everyone, but don’t forget to come back to the ‘sphere once you’re done!

~ ETERNAL
つづく

©2010 Memories of Eternity. All Rights Reserved.

Before you say it, allow me: obvious filler post is obvious. However, it’s the start of my personal favourite season of the year, and it also should mark a time of (minor) change for this blog. Whether or not it does, however, allow me to take a few minutes to talk about stuff you probably won’t care about, but ought to read anyhow.

And since I’m too lazy to provide more pictures, just search “snow” at Konachan or one of the usual places; you’d be surprised at how common a tag it is.

All right, first order of business: I apologize for the relative lack of original content lately. I had (and still have) no intent of becoming an episodic blogger, and while I do enjoy analyzing rambling about ef every week, I plan on doing more than that. I’ve been taking as many notes as I could about the blogosphere lately, and brainstorming some ideas about how to continue blogging in the future. …Not that any of this is really relevant, because I’d probably be too lazy to blog anything more than two shows at a time anyhow.

I suppose the first thing that crossed my mind was the fact that this site is now three months old. I don’t know about you, but if you ask me, that’s a lot of months. It’s a quarter of a year, a complete season of anime; that’s how long I’ve been in the blogosphere, typing up a few ordinary thoughts every couple days. There will be many more months for me and this site in the future, of course, but I certainly don’t want to stagnate – and that’s where the brainstorming comes in.

In terms of my specific plans for the future, I’d rather keep those secret. Why? Because my posts and writing style ought to speak for themselves; this is one case in which I don’t want to have to spell things out for people. However, with the completion really, really close to complete manuscript for The Ebon Pocket Watch, I should be able to free up quite a bit of time for the upcoming holidays, and my first goal is to get serious about blogging.

Maybe this is my promise to you, or maybe it’s just a way for me to force myself to act on my word, but either way, my goal is to move upward in this community, not downward. My writing may not be the greatest and my analytical skills might only be amateur at best, but I do have the dilligence to keep up with all of this – both the anime blogosphere and the otaku community as a whole – so you have my guarantee that by the start of the holidays I’ll be pouring everything I have into this site.

And yes, I do see the irony in talking so openly about my goals – the real “pros” never seem to reveal their thoughts too often – but I also believe strongly in the power of honesty in blogging, and I believe that with honesty, even the most seemingly bland topic can be saturated with opinion, thus making it interesting.

However, enough about me; let’s talk about Christmas! I don’t know about you, but as a fan of everything romance – be it KimiKiss or Honey and Clover – and as an equal fan of everything moe and Key (or any combination of the two), Christmas and snow and snowy Christmas Eves always get me thinking about one thing. I’m not quite sure what I’ll write about yet, but I do recall seeing some enlightening posts on Mega Megane Moe at some point in time discussing the nature of the appeal of moe, and I also chanced upon a certain essay which I always mean to read but never get around to, and I’ve spent at least a bit of time thinking about the concept of escapism to say the least. Like I said, while I’m not making any promises yet, I’m expecting the weeks leading up to Christmas to give me more ideas, and whenever inspiration strikes, I’ll write. Just don’t expect any manliness.

With that said, I suppose I should let you go on with your adventures on the interwebs. Once more, I’m left at the end of many of the things I wanted to accomplish, but better yet, the beginning of many more things that I intend on doing. Sepia Tears and Ephemeral Wings will still more than likely need a character designer and/or graphic artist, but otherwise to that, everything is set to progress smoothly. I’ve got my keyboard with me – I always do, actually, since it’s attached to my laptop – and I’m ready to write.

So enjoy the holiday season, folks. May the snow – or sun, wherever you live – treat you to a pleasant December, and hopefully by the start of the new year I’ll be able to make this place just a bit more interesting than a humble beginner’s blog. After all, time waits for no one, and in a world without Blick Winkel and gods that create time travelers, we’ve got no choice but to plough onward.

But I digress: this is an anime blog, not a place where I toss my self-motivation. So get out there and tell everyone you meet tomorrow to have a happy December, and ignore all of the confused looks you’ll probably get.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

©2010 Memories of Eternity. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t we all know it? But wait! That picture up above! Could it be…is it from a tournament that isn’t being held on 2ch!?

So, I was scrolling through my bookmarks one day, thinking of where to go to kill a few minutes, and I noticed a link that I hadn’t clicked on in a while. “International Saimoe League”. Sound familiar? After the tiara battles concluded, ISML took a break until the end of September to begin the real tournament; thankfully, I remembered only a few days after it started. However, that was when it hit me.

Did anyone actually notice that they came back?

Okay, so we all know that the real SaiMoe – the one in which the winner will go down in history – is being held in Japan’s 2ch, and that the tournament is well underway. Anyone who frequents the blogosphere should have noticed this by now, and I would assume the members of other otaku communities have also been at least following the tournament, if not voting. After all, all of the information can be found around AnimeSuki, so there really isn’t any excuse for not knowing about any of this.

However, there’s another tournament running right now, with considerably less votes and coverage, that seems to be doing an astonishingly good job.

If you haven’t checked out ISML’s site yet, go there now (but come back here right after because I have more to say).

…

So, what did you see? Anything interesting? Personally, I found that the people behind ISML have done an excellent job setting everything up and running the tournament, even if there were more than a few errors and miscounts in the votes earlier on. No tournament is without flaw, of course, and a newcomer in a world dominated by Japan’s and even Korea’s tournament would naturally have a lot to compete with. However, if you overlook their mistakes here and there (because like I said, what kind of fan-run event doesn’t have mistakes?), you’ll probably see that they’re worth a fair bit more attention than they’re getting.

I guess you could say that I simply made this post to raise awareness…not that my posting about them will really get them any new voters. The point is, though, that ISML has done something that the otaku community has always needed. It’s an international moe tournament available in several languages, the site is well-designed and accessible to allow for easy browsing and voting (unlike these complex instructions), and they have a promo video. Yeah, you heard me. A promo video. How awesome is that?

At the moment, voting has resumed over at ISML, and this time the real tournament is beginning. Who will come out on top? I’m not sure, but if you believe like I do that moe truly is SRS BSNS, then you’ll keep in touch with our easy to access English tournament as well the one that every other aniblogger is talking about. Epic match descriptions FTW!

~ ETERNAL
つづく

©2010 Memories of Eternity. All Rights Reserved.