12 Months of Blogging!

I can’t believe that it’s been 12 months since I started this blog. I decided to start writing after I had the suggestion of a friend that it would be an activity that would be fun, boost my writing skills, and work on self-expression. I wasn’t really sure how long I’d be writing for and if I’d take to the activity, but after a year, I’m still here!

Updating the Anime Tracker Comparison

Earlier this year, I created a blog post comparing a number of different anime tracking websites. I was surprised that this wasn’t a resource available elsewhere, so I put it together myself! In order to try and keep the comparison relevant, I’ve made some updates to the original post. This post just briefly talks about some of the changes which I’ve made.

Finding A Tasty Adventure in The Snack World

I’ve been enjoying watching The Snack World recently. It’s a show made for children which ties in with Level-5’s (makers of Yokai Watch) latest franchise for Japan. It’s not been licensed by anyone for an English-speaking market, and I don’t believe that there are any plans to do so at present. This is the sort of series I enjoy and so I was watching without subtitles. It has recently been picked up by a fansub group though, and at the time of writing, there are subs for 2 episodes. As it’s now available to a larger audience, I thought I may give a bit of an overview of the series.

Pasta-chan Check! Anime Fashions of Summer 2017

This name of this blog feature was inspired by my husband, the lovely @nth_sheep on Twitter. While there are many blog posts which give you first impressions on shows in general, this post will give you some impressions of the anime fashions which I have seen in this Summer season. I’ve only highlighted shows I’ve checked out where the clothing is interesting, this is not complete coverage of all series I have sampled. It’s time for the Pasta-chan Check!

Thoughts on Kemono Friends Comic Anthology: Japari Bun Collection

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Kinokuniya store in central Sydney while I was visiting my sister. For my fellow Aussie bloggers in the area, it’s absolutely worth a visit for their huge collection of manga (and their books in general). I was specifically looking for something which I could read in Japanese as I’ve been working hard enough on my studies that I wanted something to try out in the Japanese language, as drills will only go so far. Kinokuniya has heaps of untranslated manga (and also plenty of Japanese books in general, ranging from children’s books to novels), their 日本語 collection is actually bigger than their English manga collection. You can of course order online, but I think that browsing a bookshop can be quite enjoyable and help you spot things you may not have otherwise looked at.

I got a few things, but the first which I’ve had a chance to try out is けものフレンズこっみこあんそろじーじゃぱりまん編 (Kemono Friends Comic Anthology: Japari Bun Collection).

10 Anime I Most Enjoyed

I think that there’s something really special about discussing the things that you like. While I do not find that I always agree with people’s favourites when it comes to anime or other media, there’s something enjoyable about seeing people’s passion when it comes to the things they love. Positivity is such a fantastic force! For some time I found it really difficult to decide on things which I liked the most. Perhaps I felt that by naming something as ‘more enjoyable’ or ‘better’ that I was locked into that decision. I know that there’s other bloggers who have expressed their difficulties in this regard. Still, as I’ve grown to enjoy seeing others share their enthusiasm, I thought I’d share a little of mine regarding the things I like.

Series Review – Kochinpa!

Kochinpa! is possibly one of the more unusual ‘anime’ I have watched owing to its exceedingly short episode length. It’s a series of 15 second episode shorts which has now had 2 seasons. The two seasons are pretty similar, so I’ll be talking about both seasons together. It’s hard to give a detailed analysis of something like this, but I thought that I’d still highlight this show as I found it quirky and fun.

Firstly, here’s my review of the series typed in 15 seconds for you.

Kochinpa is very short and while it is ostensibly about idols it is really advertising slot machines.

Experiments With Deinterlacing PAL Anime DVDs For Linux

I imagine that this topic is probably a bit technical and oddly specific for most of my readers, but I was frustrated at the lack of information available on the topic when I faced the issue, so I’m attempting to document my problems and findings. I do try and write and subjects which interest me and I enjoy, so I thought that I’d share what I found out in the hopes that perhaps there may be someone else who may be able to stumble across the information when they need it.

I recently decided that I’d like to watch some of my older anime DVDs on my computer (notably Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), a personal favourite of mine), and I discovered that the visuals were unwatchable owing to the fact that they were in an interlaced format.

This is definitely not easy on the eyes – interlaced video without any alterations

Series Review – Dance With Devils

Firstly my apologies to my readers. My health continues to be poor, and the most important thing for me is to keep my stress levels low by not placing high expectations on myself regarding things like writing blog posts, but I do still plan to post when I am able, I just have no idea what sort of frequency that will be.

Dance With Devils is a series which follows the experiences of Tachibana Ritsuka, whose life is thrown into disarray when supernatural beings, both devils and vampires start pursuing her as they believe she has knowledge of a powerful magical tool, the forbidden grimoire. As a reverse harem story, incidentally all the supernatural beings pursuing her are attractive males. The thing which makes this series unique from others of its genre is the fact that it is a musical, with each episode having one or two musical numbers which contribute to the storytelling. While there are musical stage shows of certain anime, this is the first anime series which I have encountered which is a musical (if there are others, I’d love to know).

I heard this series mentioned by Shoujo Thoughts as a series with musical elements which was unintentionally funny. If there’s something which I love almost as much as a good musical, it’s a bad musical, which was my motivation for checking out the series. In this regard, it didn’t disappoint.

I was not Maid for Dragons

I make no secret of the fact on my blog that two of my favourite genres of anime are slice-of-life and comedy, and I tend to like them even better when I get the two together. Everyday occurrences with a dash of humour sprinkled in seems like a surefire way of getting me to enjoy an anime. Except for when they’re not.