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

By TheBigN

Given the nature of the Pokemon, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a sleep-inducing bracket on initial glance. Thankfully, this is not the case, as the two polls here keep things lively in a good way.

Musical Impressions on 19 Colors by Natsumi Kiyoura

I first started paying attention to Natsuki Kiyoura after hearing her sing the OP to Sketchbook, and I haven’t gotten tired of her voice since then. Maybe because of that song itself, I like to think of her singing as soothing, regardless of how she’s been using it since, for power, for fun, or for awesome. That quality is something that I don’t usually hear in people who perform OP/EDs for anime, so it was captivating for me, especially after hearing the OP from Spice and Wolf for the first time.

I also haven’t met a song of hers that I haven’t liked in some capacity from the singles that she’s released. So after hearing from omo that she recently released her first album which also happened to contain a lot of her singles from anime, I jumped at the chance, bought the album, and decided to write about it (or at least my fanboying of her). I also know that the people that composed or produced some of the songs were a big part of what made them special. But her voice was what got me more than anything else. It was definitely at least 40-something bucks worth my time.

Not the best cover picture, but hey. Colors.

καλλίστῃ — for the most beautiful

by dm00

With that headline, it should be a golden apple, I suppose

With apologies to SHAFT and Ume Aoki.

Another contribution to the campaigning in the Megatokyo Anime Grand Prix, where Horo is currently a candidate.

Impressions on a Year 2008: Awesome OPs/EDs

By TheBigN

Part 1: Interesting People

This year was insane with the amount of anime openings and endings that I liked, and it was hard to narrow down the amount to a “reasonable” number… so I didn’t really attempt to. But these ones here (coupled with Youtube videos) are the ones that stick in my mind the most over the year visually, aurally, or both. That being said, there is a list of Honorable Mentions at the end of the post to include OP/EDs that were also good, but stuff I could easily leave as well. I’m much more critical of music than I am of anime, but doesn’t mean that I have standards. 😛

Impressions on a Year 2008: Beginning With Interesting People

By TheBigN

I don’t know if I can do this next year, what with how the end of second year and the beginning of third year of med school (if I make it that far) goes. But more than about actually being able to see plenty of anime in 2009 is I’ll be motivated enough to keep track of stuff that grabbed my attention over this next year like I did this year. It’s been tiring and annoying to set this list up. But even most importantly, it’s been fun to try and do it again, especially when I’ve seen a lot more stuff in 2008 than 2007.  As always, my opinion is not the be all and end all, so feel free to comment and criticize about my picks. If I forgot someone, let me know. If you don’t agree with any of my choices, let me know (hopefully with more than “X character”>*, though :P). Hopefully this will be an enjoyable experience for you as well.:3

To begin with, for 2008 there are still several people that I like enough over the year to write about, but these are the ones that stick most in my mind, even though things might change over time. It was great knowing them, and hopefully I can get to know more characters that I liked from this year as well.

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?

Thankful for Anime, 2008

By TheBigN

When I did this last year, I thought I was a little unique for setting it up the way I did. Turns out that this same format (and the title even), had been done for years past by one Jason Miao. Goes to show you how originality is hard to come by (orz). But it still is a good time to be thankful for yet another fun year in new anime series.

An Impression Double Deuce on Spice and Wolf and Hatenkou Yugi: The Odd Groupings Are the Best Ones

Written by TheBigN

As stated before and probably forever till the end of time, we all have our preferences in terms of what we want to do, which includes watching anime for example. And as a result of these preferences, you could say that all we need are certain elements that fit them in order to keep up watching and enjoying a show where most other things that the program should have “going for it”, well, aren’t. You might have noticed that one of things that work for me consists of how the characters interact with each other in a series, and if I’m entertained in that way, it doesn’t matter how bad things can get for me. Luckily, both Spice and Wolf and Hatenkou Yugi aren’t bad shows at all and have much going for them besides that aspect, though they still have their problems. But the relationships between the main characters in these pieces more than make up for the rest of what I saw as shortcomings that both had in other aspects.