I finally finished a formal post, now I should explain why it took so long to do so.
I just finished my very first year in college. I had a lot going on, it was midway through my first semester that I started this blog as I became more serious about my love for animation. Since school is my high priority in life I have not been able to learn about animation, more so write about it. Still, I made sure to write as much as I could as well as read other blogs while I am at it. Now that finals are over, I hope to have more time to do what I love as well as cool down from school. I started to become very stressed as I tried balancing a few clubs with classes, social life, and the occasional blogging. This last semester, I cut down the amount of classes I took, and blogging started ceasing writing for a bit. I was still stressed throughout finals and prepping for it, as family issues popped up, and all the different kinds of pressure that came down on me. Once I got home, I had to do a lot of helping my family move. This meant I was without internet for the few days after I got back from school. Now that that’s over, I hope I will be in a better state to consume mass amounts of animation/anime knowledge, and write more about it.
In terms of my near-future, I will be working over summer to save up for my next year in school, as well as taking care of family, and giving myself time to enjoy a few (hopefully) stress-free months via socializing and relaxing. I have never felt more like I want some relaxation time after school, and I want to recover from it. Because of this, I can’t promise how much activity will be going to this blog. However, I have a lot of ideas and aspirations I would love to talk about. This is hopefully what you can expect from me as time moves forward
I want to be more active: Not just blogging, but world animation and general research. I haven’t been active enough with the rest of the world and learning about it. I have watching a lot of anime, which I love (and highly doubt I will be stopping) but I want to balance more animation into it, which reminds me..
I want to provide more/different content: I have some variety in my posts, but I would still love to expand. Here is what I want to do, and hope with all my heart I can pull off..
- Shorts. I want to do some more short-animation discussions/reviews. Whether it’s me reviewing singular episodes of an anime/animated series like when my Wolf Girl review, or talking about short films/OVA’s/Internet animation. Not everyone has time to go watch everything I want to recommend, so I want to make sure I can tell people about animation that takes little time to consume.
- Discussion/Analysis. I also want to do more concept discussion posts. Something were I talk, not about a particular series, but core concepts in animation. The kind of thing I’m talking about is a kind of Dub vs. Sub discussion post that I have partially drafted, or posts detailing nostalgia factors in animation.
- Animator posts. I am greatly interesting in talking about the people behind our favorite works, and am hoping to learn enough about them to do animator posts. Something along the lines of when I brought up Nina Paley, except with more information and more discussion. Eventually, I am hoping to discuss Junichi Yamamoto, Travis Knight (sometime before Kubo and the Two Strings come out), and Bill Plympton again. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if my next post was my Don Hertzfeldt filmography overview.
- Comparison posts. You know the one’s, we take two partially related things and compare aspects of them that may be interesting. Something like Angel Beats! vs Charlotte, or if Haruhi Fujioka is better than Haruhi Suzumiya.
- More OverReviews. It’s an overview, and a review! These are the one’s I’d do on a full animated series, or feature films. I have exactly one under my belt so far, and I want to expand that eventually (partially because it’s not the best review I could give).
- Youtube video’s. This is a “the stars align” dream. I would like to make videos eventually, and they would be integrated into the blog. I have a draft for the series finale of Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusion Heart Throb that I was going to do, but then I realized that I couldn’t really communicate my thoughts in blog form. If I can get a hold of a good microphone, than you can expect more vocal content (when I’m not using it to record myself beatboxing).
That’s the important stuff I want to talk about. Virtually everything else is me just talking about the animation I have been with recently. Now I’ll just talk about what I have been watching, and what I want to see soon.
Random Stuff I want to watch:
The summer anime season is coming up, and I am not familiar with some of the hyped up sequels coming out (like Berserk or Food Wars) so I don’t think I’ll be following those. However I plan on at least watching Re:Life and Orange. I will pick up more as I hear about them, depending on how much catch-up I have to play. I have about 60 or so shows on my To Finish list, and probably 3x the amount on my plan-to-watch or queued up on Crunchyroll (the film Garakowa is a great example of this). Kimi no Na Wa may come to me this year (which would be great), but I really need to catch a screening or DVD copy of Anthem of the Heart.
In terms of theatrical films, I know I’m going to see Kubo, though I don’t know if I’m going to see anything else (because I will not watch Angry Birds, or Secret Life of Pets). I think Sausage Party and Nerdland are coming fairly soon though, which I hope to see. The Little Prince is coming to Netflix soonish or eventually, which I will be watching as soon as it happens (since Paramount dropped it out of nowhere). I hope the Project Itoh films get distributed somewhere fairly close in Oregon, because I don’t want to miss them (though distribution in Oregon sucks where I live). I know that around the end of the year I finally get to see Disney’s Moana, which I am more excited for than I was for Zootopia (which I loved by the way).
I have had a tab for the Persistance of Vision open on my desktop for a few months now as a reminder that I really need to watch this film (and the original Thief and the Cobbler too, hopefully not that Miramax trash). Bill Plympton’s blog, which I talked about breifly before brought my attention to a film called The Brainwashing of my Dad, which seems to be a politically charged indie animation. I hope to check it out soon. There isn’t anywhere I know I can legally watch A Town Called Panic, so I hope to buy it soon because French + stop motion combo intrigues me in a way that would make me sound like a film snob.
Stuff I am watching/have watched:
I’m in the process of watching Kill la Kill right now . I like it so far, nice over-the-top style to match with its substance. When I’m done with that, the next new thing is going to be the Eva franchise. Neon Genesis first, then the End of Evangelion. Everyones opinion on it seems to be different, so I don’t know what I should expect in terms of how much I like it. The other Spring anime I am watching are Space Patrol Luluco and Flying Witch, I haven’t been able to catch up on anything else.
I watched the Tatami Galaxy recently, and it came at a great time for me. As a first year college student pondering life choices and my current direction, the show was a great analysis about rose-colored life. Fantastic show by the guy who made me really uncomfortable the first time I watched Cat Soup. My last post was about my very immediate first impressions on Ouran High School Host Club, whose anime and manga I have now finished. To keep it brief, it’s my 3rd favorite anime of all-time which I would rank in my God-Tier anime as of now. I loved it. I always find myself rewatching episodes, or finding clips everywhere because it’s become a Haruhi Suzumiya or Ah! My Goddess like obsession for me.
April and the Extraordinary World was released in theaters at the beginning of April. I talked about this one too when I brought up Kubo in my anticipation post. It lived up too it’s expectations. Great story and expression, cool cast, interesting art style. I don’t know if it’s still in any theaters, if so (and if it’s close to you) you really need to watch it. Support this kind of stuff more often when you have the chance. I finaly saw Jin-Roh, and didn’t understand it all. It was fine, I just wasn’t super attached to it.
That kind of sums it up!
This post has been more ramble-y than usual, but it’s a reflection of where I am. Thanks to everyone for your patience and I hope you’ll enjoy some more frequent content from me soon.
This has been Animated Monologues, selecting my slice of animation in every post. Thanks for your time, and have an animated day!
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