Thoughts on Hidamari Sketch x365 Episode 6: Say

By TheBigN(ot my best stuff here…)

Communication between people is never 100% accurate, though we try our damndest to maximize it as much as we can. The sender and the receiver aren’t one and the same, so the message will always be interpreted a little bit differently to all of the participants. So in that sense, it’s interesting to see how much words have an impact on how we go about our lives, making and breaking our days, and our lives if we let them (Sticks and stones and all that jazz…). But you could make an argument that the worst words “said” are often the ones not said at all, but held in, for both parties involved. As someone who’s had his moments where he leaves things as they are because of words kept because of apathy, fear, selfishness, and other things like that, it’s frustrating to look back and see opportunities missed to change the situation for the better, or just opportunities to change how things are done. So I tend not to have too much sympathy for characters that tend to do the same thing, I was a little peeved this episode, which tends to be unusual. Perhaps it’s because Chika’s involved, and I’ve probably been corrupted. 😛

Frankly, this is never too hard to cause.

Thoughts on Hidamari Sketch x365 Episode 5: Homecoming

By TheBigN(o U)

It doesn’t hurt being the second oldest out of seven siblings, where you have loads of responsibility but not as much as the oldest one, but you still have a little leeway to get away with some things as the younger siblings do. At least that’s the situation that I found myself in, and still sort of till today. But of course, experiences differ in that case. One thing I didn’t necessarily like about things set themselves up (because who can control when they are born, other than the powers that be?) is the fact that my social identity can still be defined based on my relationship to my fellow siblings. Now that I’m in med school while my other siblings are still doing their thing, it’s not too much of a problem. But the fact that I can still run into people who say, “oh it’s X’s younger brother/Y’s older brother” can get annoying. Naturally, this reaction is a bit over the top when considering who people are more familiar with and so on, but sometimes I feel like I’m weighed down by any comparisons made about us, as I want to be regarded as my own person.

Can we keep her?

Impressions on Otakon 2008: Can’t Wait Till Next Year

By TheBigN(o Border)

Three posts in 24 hours on this blog is unheard of. But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? 😛

I decided to take a lazy approach to this (at the moment) last post about this year’s Otakon, which only ended a week and some days ago even though it already seems to be last year’s news the way people most bloggers stopped talking about it. But it’s okay! I want to believe I’m fashionably late with this (also why you’ll be seeing Hidamari x365 episode 5/6 thoughts “soon”), so I’ll go straight ahead with this. I had wrote a little list about the good things and the not-so-good things about my Otakon experience about a week ago, and so basically this post will be some sort of expansion on that. In my opinion, these last couple of posts haven’t quite been my best stuff for this blog, but thanks for taking a look at these impressions. Hopefully they have been entertaining. And once again, this is a long, long post, so be prepared.

It is awesome how being taken from a cell phone camera heightens the effectiveness.

Money and Art

By Nomad(TWIST AWAY THE GATES OF STEEL)Otto

There’s art, and then there’s the buisness of art. Art is about truth, beauty and associated Bull. Buisness is about making as much money as possible. There’s a fundamental tension between the two ends, and it’s this tension, which exists in the commercial arts, like hollywood film or romance novels, which causes many people to consider them to be a step below the fine arts, like painting. In fact, some people feel that commericial arts aren’t really art at all, but this group of people probably aren’t going to read this blog. A lot of people feel that the commercial aspect of art is in competition with the creative aspect, and that until art is free from commercial concerns, we’ll never have the quality of art that we could have otherwise. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but what I do know is that if there’s an art form which is not commercially successful, it doesn’t tend to get a lot of exposure. Therefore, it’s in everyone’s interest (or, at least, everyone who wants more folks to know about some artform) to ensure that art is successful. Today, I’m going to talk about visual novels, which have a sizable market overseas, and no market here in the states. After that, Otakon!

Get to the Goddamn Point already!

An anime-obsessive visits Paris

Hello from a new contributor to Drastic My Anime Blog, and thank you to TBN for inviting me to make a fool of myself here — dm.

Wish I'd been there in time to catch this exhibit.

I admit that looking for anime in Paris is a little silly: there’s so much else to see — much of it timeless treasure — why spend one’s time in Paris chasing after Japanese cartoons and comic books?  And anime and manga are a global phenomenon — what can one hope to find in Paris that one won’t find in the US?  While it’s true there are probably more manga titles published in France, if you aren’t familiar with the titles that aren’t available in the US, it’s easy to overlook them.

Thoughts on Otakon 2008 Day 3: All FUN Things Come To Those Who End

By TheBigN(ever thought I’d do four posts in a week.)

If the title didn’t make sense, it’s not supposed to. Just letting you know. 😛

As I woke up this day, I was exhausted from the day beforehand and coupling that with the fact that I had to pack up and “check out” of the hotel room I stayed in, the resulting post-it notes I wrote myself also suffered a little bit as well. But the fact that there was still some con to go to was enough to keep me going till the end. Or so I thought…

Sounds like a great setup for a comedy. Sorta like *The Adventures of BigN and Little Beefy* does too.

Thoughts on Otakon 2008 Day 2 Part 2: Games! Panels! Karaoke! EPIC!

When I stopped last time, I had just gotten some keychains from the Kadokawa panel, which wasn’t too bad time spent. And my day goes on…

Thoughts on Otakon 2008 Day 2 Part 1: Wish I Was There From Day 0

By TheBigN(egima!?)

So I had preregged for the convention and everything, but I was still kinda worried about if I was able to actually go or not. This is usually caused by a combination of bad timing and irrational fear, but since nothing was really going on in medical school for that upcoming week (expect a quiz of epic proportions), the latter made most of the impact. Even though I’m technically an adult and have shown to be responsible and perfectly able to take care of myself, it was still strange to tell others that “I’m going to an anime convention” and not expect to hear a “no” for an answer.

Maybe it’s because I’m still not comfortable enough with publicly saying that I’m and anime fan, and it doesn’t help that I can get very passive aggressive about these things if you know me. But again, rational thoughts prevailed, and I let myself go to the con. Due to some travel logistics (coming to Baltimore after classes would be messy at best), I made my trek on Saturday morning, thus missing the epic JAM Project concert that I would have liked to go to, as well as the Not So Epic Touhou panel that I wanted to see. Still I went, and I made timed notes along the way (Post-it Notes “Twitters”, one might say) that will be posted down and expanded on, but it’s still sort of a Stream of Consciousness sort of thing. I do wish I had a camera to capture some of the magical moments there though, so sadly, no pictures from me here.

Also, now that I think about it, long post is long, so I’m breaking this up into two entries. Have fun with that. :3