The Anime Music Tournament 2013 Bracket Hanyuu – Round 1 – Polls 1-8 “Analysis”

By TheBigN

Innocent Starter, guys? Really? Innocent Starter?!? Hau hau indeed (though I hate that catchphrase)…

Every bracket so far has had interesting results (by “interesting”, I mean results that make me shake my head when I read them again and again). Let’s see what’s cooking in the two polls in this group.

Unfulfilled Expectations or a Drastic My Anime Blog 2008 Primer

By TheBigN

So according to others, I was apparently supposed to be part of the “12 Days of Christmas” craze that’s sweeping the blogosphere, and I’m kinda confused on how that impression came to be. I’m planning on doing what I did last year with the “Impressions on a Year 2008” coming soon after Christmas, but nothing of the sort was happening before the holiday. At the same time, I feel guilty when I see links from other blogs saying that I’m participating in it when I’m not, so I figured that I should go and do something about it. And from the outset be lazy and selfish about it. So, instead of covering my thoughts on the year of anime that I saw, I decided to write about what I thought were the best posts on DMAB this year, even though December isn’t over yet. Of course there’s bias involved here (yay self-horn tooting!), so if you have different favorites than I do, please feel free to say so. Nor is this post itself going to be the pinnacle of good writing (as I’m tired and lazy right now), but I feel that this helps people who haven’t bothered to check out the blog before, and at least it gives me some time to reflect on things.

A mix-up almost as bad as this one?

TheBigN’s Crappy One/Two-Liner 2008 Fall Preview

As I’ve stated before, I haven’t done these things before because for most of the shows, I don’t know jack about them, so I thought there was no point. Well, I still think there’s no point in the matter, but because I can’t really think of anything else to post about for the moment (and the Hidamari Sketch x365 posts come when subs come, though I’ve already finished the series *tear*), I figured why not show-off my lack of knowledge and not-so-great humor? If you want actual valuable information, see the many other blogs that have the reviews for this season. Otherwise, here are my “brief” thoughts, with a few unrelated pictures because I’m lazy. Yes, it’s that crappy. 😛

Waiting for the upcoming Season 3.

Impressions on a Year 2007: Happy Action Fun Time

Written by TheBigN

This installment contains SPOILERS. I repeat, SPOILERS, so read at your own risk. This is also hella long, so again, read at your own risk. :3

With that being said, these are the episodes or moments in series this year that made an impact on me; the “definable” stuff.  I guess, in a way, you could say that as an extension, these are the memorable series for me for the year. Not all of them are my favorites for the year, and all of my favorites aren’t on this list, but these are the ones that stick in the mind long after the show’s over. 😛  

Impressions on a Year 2007: Awesome Soundtracks I Haven’t Covered Yet

Written by TheBigN

By now, you should know what my standards of “awesome” are, but let’s move on, shall we? 😛

When I’m talking about a soundtrack, I think about all of the music that a show entails, including the OP/ED. So what was the point of having all of those tracks standalone in the first place? Because they usually arestandalone from the rest of the soundtrack; Unless you care about what you listen to while watching anime, you only tend focus on those pieces of music because they’re the intro/outro of the show. So I figured they needed something by themselves, but all of the show’s music needs a chance to shine as well.  Usual criteria for this: Liking more than half of what I listened to overall which is harder than it seems. This is probably why Senrei no Moribito‘s, Byousoku no 5cm‘s,Hayate the Combat Butler‘s (yeah really) and Heroic Age‘s OSTs aren’t on here: They we’re good consistent stuff, but they just didn’t work with me as well as these ones here did. And because ef‘s kickass soundtrack won’t be out till next year apparently (as short as that time is now), I’m not including it here. 😛

Thankful for Anime, 2007

Written by TheBigN

Granted, this will be bit earlier than usual for some, but why not get that head start in anyways? 😀

Reflections on Nodame Cantabile: The Sound of Gyabo

Watching Nodame Cantabile re-kindled my love for music, I could say. Granted, I’ve always loved listening to the art form, but I’ve forgotten how enjoyable the process of making music is. I’ve been removed from playing viola regularly for about 5 years now, and I’ve never really wondered about what if I was still paying regularly. I had decent talent, and I probably just needed a bit more motivation/coaching to get to that next level, like Nodame did throughout the series. I enjoy playing, but I never really had the zeal to perform to my potential, and I still don’t (though watching this helped with that). But I can at least admire people that do such as those in the show, especially when they make performing so hotblooded.

The Afro in Anime: Rebirth of Cool (Slick Like Dat)

A short sentence from this post got me started on this hopefully fun topic. In terms of real life, the afro as a normal hairstyle seems to have been out of commission for a while, and is usually played to comedic effect nowadays. It seems silly/sad when someone has one because it’s a relic of times past were things like disco reigned supreme (and who wants to remember that that they ever participated in something like that. :P), and despite some people’s best efforts to bring afro back, it hasn’t taken so far. Is anime the next big hope? One would think so, as the hairstyle has seen a resurgence of some sorts in many shows.