Of life, the universe and anime blogging : the carnival

My big boss said I should do it, and so I am. I'm listenning to my big boss way too much lately and here I am writing my modest constribution to the Blog Carnival. That was actually pretty welcome because I was a bit stuck in the swamp of writer's block. Hell, I couldn't even do my usual WonFest pictures party. Which doesn't require much writing though. Anyway.

So, Blog Carnival here I come!

Why not get to reflect on what we like to read and for what reasons?

What I like to read is simple, it's editorials. Or things that catch my attention (that can be a lot of things, trust me). They make me think, they challenge my views of anime, that's why I like them.
Episodics are great, only if they bring something more to the show that I didn't realize or notice, if someone's writing an episode review just to say "this and that happened", then it's useless and not interesting. As for reviews, I may write them myself but I only read the ones written by people whom I trust the tastes. Which is, not many people at all.

What do we do when we stumble across a new blog?


You may find this strange but I start by reading the first post. Then I look at their categories, I don't like blogs that don't have categories, or tags, or anything like that. (Actually, my favorite thing to read on Tumblr are the tags), then I look at the writer(s) Twitter and if I can find which country they're from I like that too.
By then, I usually know if the blog will interest me or not.

What must a good animanga blog have and do?

I read so little blogs that I can't even answer, I guess a good animanga blog, and a good blog in general, must have a voice, a writer, or several writers that you can instantly recognize and remember, and somehow start to know by their posts. I like a blog to have categories, and see interactions between the writer of the post and the commenters. And I like a blog that doesn't kill my eyes. And a writer who's respectful, and a decent person. (Mainly, mindless fujoshi bashing turns me off, I haven't seen it often in the anime blogosphere, if at all, but I have had bad experiences on French part of the fandom and I wasn't even a fujoshi myself at the time)

What blogging behaviors annoy us?

As I said, mindless bashing, generally disrespectful attitude. Now I think about it, it mostly has to do with the attitude of the writer than of the blogging itself. You might write the best posts ever and have a blog that's nearing perfection, if you're an ass, I won't read. 

What I have learnt from the AniBlog Tourney

For those who didn't already know about it my adventure with the AniBlog Tourney is done and over with, which was expected. As such, I wanted to congratulate the guys over at Anime Picks for getting 4 votes more than me, it really makes me happy that the battle was so close, got me excited for 48 hours. 

Before starting with the actual subject of this post I wanted to say hello to the new readers, I hope you'll enjoy your stay and won't be disappointed by what you'll find here (also, if you want to give me more feedback on what I can improve I'm all ears)


Anyway, here is what I have learnt from the Tourney. 


- My writing isn't as shitty as I thought it was. That's good news. I'm sure you wouldn't have guessed. Thing is, I have absolutely no confidence in my writing skills. I can tell you I'm much better at writing English than my neighbour, she never studied it, but I've always considered myself as one of the most awful writer of the blogosphere. 
Glad to know that not being a native doesn't make my writing totally un-readable and that it gives it a distinctive style. 

- Size doesn't matter. I was always under the impression that a large blog who's updated daily with quality posts would win almost by default. Seems not. (No really, I have like 100 views per day, most of it coming from google images so ... XD)

- This guy isn't imaginative. Here, have a piece of advice everyone, be more creative with your insults, it gives more entertainment to the insulted, all I got from my little paragraph over there is new visitors. Not that I mind, at least I got something out of it. (Thank you by the way, I hope you weren't disappointed, whatever you were looking for by coming here)
(Oh and I still persist in calling Tasogara Otome Amnesia, "My Girlfriend is a Ghost", just so you all know)

- I'll continue by thanking the people at Metanorn for convincing me about the need of an about page. It's in progress. (I almost got a heart attack when I noticed people coming from over there, because admittedly I don't know many blogs, but I did know Metanorn. Just like I knew AnimePicks.)

- Efforts matter. Strangely enough, reading through all the comments around on my blog (which I am taking the opportunity to thank you for again) the two things people seemed to like about it were the layout and the fact I displayed strong opinions in my posts. 
I took extra care of the layout so that the reading is clear and not disturbed by anything un-necessary. I usually just leave a website when a design hurts my eyes so I didn't want it to happen to my blog, if the content isn't to people's liking then I can't do much about it, at least I thought I could protect their eyes. 
As for the opinions, I went a long way. I've always been a bit shy in telling people about what I thought, so it's always a bit hard for me not to write a generic post with generic ideas. I'm glad I managed. At least sometimes. 
That's also why I can't really write episodic posts (despite what everyone might think I'm not running an episodic blog, unless it's a season's beginning), I admire people who write good episodic posts going beyond re-telling an episode. 
Also why I find it hard to write some reviews over at Organization ASG, it's not my blog I can't totally bash an anime, but I think I'm doing better at that too. (You should vote for us when the time comes too by the way ^^)

Why do I blog?

I was checking my emails after more than 12 hours spent away from my laptop (isn't it something to be proud of?) and I stumbled upon a post by Nopy about his reasons for blogging and thus I read, because I'm a very curious person, and when I had finished reading I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and write my own post about the reasons behind the blog Kuuki no Puraido. (One day I'll explain why the title too. Maybe.)

Reason 1 : Everyone does it. 

Let me tell you the story of my first blog, back in the days, roughly 8 years ago, when I started to discover the Internet and its magic, I made my first friends and the girls all had blogs. They told me having a blog was fun and that I should make one too. So I did and indeed it was fun and challenging.
Among that group of friends I'm the only one who still blogs and I have changed platforms a lot over the years. Even so, I'm glad they told me to do it, even though that first blog was a bunch of crap.

Reason 2 : It's not RL

I don't know anyone in real life who blogs. Not a single soul. The only thing they did was post pics on a popular pre-Facebook French blog platform and since then they just stopped. It was the kind of blogging I was interested to anyway.
That makes it completely different from RL, just like another world on my own, mostly free of obligations.
And the truth is that I never had any friend IRL with whom I could actually speak about all the things I like. To me, blogging, and not only this blog, is another way to exist, a place where I can speak freely without the fear of being judged and the fear of bothering people, because people are free to read me or not.
It's actually pretty liberating.

Reason 3 : I'm an attention-whore

Of course I am, I blog, I have a Twitter account, I am ranting weekly on LJ about all the stuff that happens to me. I love to receive comments, I love to be noticed, I love praise, who doesn't?
But blogging is a bit different, it seems different in the way that blogging is essentially creating something.
When you blog you write, you have to interest people or else they won't read you, they won't notice you.
I don't like attention-whores, I suppose they all have their reasons and that they're all valid reasons, but I don't like them anyway because I can't stand the fact they actually receive that attention for nothing.
As such I blog, so I can at least justify the attention I'm getting (when and if I'm getting any)

Reason 4 : I just love it.

I love the feeling of accomplishment when I finish typing a post.
I love the little fluttery feeling I get whenever someone comment on something I wrote, or even better, quote or link to one of my post.
I love writing on there. I love to watch anime. I love to write about what I love.

And seriously, what other reason do you need?

Happy New Year! (and 200th post o_O)

Have been waiting for everyone to be in 2012 before making my post because, obviously, timezones are a pain, but HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS! I wish you lots of happiness and good anime!

And, since the gods of timing are with me, it's also my 200th post so, let's look back?

What the hell did happen in 2011 in my anime world?

- My Durarara!! obsession died.
- It's been replaced by an anime I didn't even like at first.
- The rest of the year, my entire brain has been dominated by ... Tiger&Bunny! (Just in case you didn't notice XD)

- That being said, it makes me even more thankful for this blog because it really, REALLY helped balancing things out, since, when I start obsession over something I really go all out. Having an anime blog on the side forces me to focus on something else.
- I embraced my creepy otaku side. And I said "otaku", not "fujoshi", I've been apparently lost to the dark side for a long, looong time.
- I met lots of great people!
- Hell, one of them even asked me to write on his blog.
- There has been a lot of good shows, as busy as I was obsessing over Tiger&Bunny, even I noticed.
- Had a very good New Years Eve and New Years Day. No, really, nothing beats spending peaceful times with your family and flailing with your friends over how good your favorite show is (I'm sorry for everyone I harassed over Twitter ^^), listenning to your favorite radio show (obviously in Japanese, you have no idea how much my ears are ringing whenever I heard "chara song album") and watching the New Years special of that show you love.
- And, last but not least, even though I'm pretty sure I am forgetting something, SANDY BEACH, SANDY BEACH~

Then, what's going to change in 2012?

- I already have more things planned for 2012 when it has just started than in the entirety of 2011, so, probably less time to blog and watch anime.
- The bi-weekly "Kuuki's crazy anime watchlist corner" is out. Because it's boring to write and makes me lazy. Instead you'll get a weekly highlight kind of thing. Maybe.
- Nothing else is going to change, I'll keep up what I've been doing and hope to make many more friends in the process!

Lastly and once again, happy New Year! It's technically a Christmas picture but Yamaguchi Hoshiko said she wanted to see what kind of photograph I make so ...

The end-of-season blues

I don't know for you but I always, always, hate the end of an anime season. It doesn't even need to be a good season but for some reason I always find it really depressing and, even if I'm not doing episodic reviews, I find it hard to write. 

You see Mio? That's my state currently, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone because the whole blogosphere (or at least the blogs I subscribe to) are in the same state. 

I'm positive most people are busy with hollidays and such and that's why a lot of people are silent but, I, I do nothing for Christmas, for me it's just a day like any other. 

I wanted to use the opportunity to have a few articles ready in case I'm hit by a writer's block, but nope, all I did on Christmas Eve is play an online otoge my anime date kindly provided so I wouldn't feel lonely (first time ever I'm playing an otoge, it's so ridiculous it becomes interesting) and write ... fanfics. 

I can't even watch anime, all I painfully manage is to watch one or two episodes per day, when I know I won't have this much free time in a long time. 

All I want now is for the next season to start, so I can feel excited about something. And hopefully find more inspiration to write. 

12 Days of Christmas - Merry Christmas!

I have successfully completed the challenge! *applauses*

That being said, it was indeed challenging but, even if some posts were really short, also a good lesson that I am still able to find a different subject to talk about everyday.

In the end, it's still a bit early but we're mostly celebratin Christmas Eve at my place (and it's already the 25 in some countries anyway, yeah, I love timezones only when it's convenient) I wanted to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Have cute mascots to celebrate! (I admit the second has nothing to do with anime but I find these ads hilarious. And French.)

12 days of Christmas - This blog's holliday spirit

While Wordpress snows, Blogger doesn't (not that I mind since, after all, most of the time you don't even see the snow on Wordpress blogs since most of them are white)
That being said, changing banners is something one should do from time to time. Coincidentally, I like doing that, which is why, I thought I should change it in the course of these 12 days of Christmas thing, it's supposed to accompany us on the way to Christmas right? Changing a blog theme to fit the hollidays does accompany you to Christmas right? So, what's better than a Christmas themed anime banner?

Right, nothing.

As such, say hello to Sky High and "John"! (Original drawing by That Japanese fanartist)

12 Days of Christmas - The Blogging World

I am jumping on the bandwagon and thought I'd be doing this kind of meme thing named 12 Days of Christmas, in which I'm basically listing 12 thing pertaining to anime that I want to remember.

The first one definitely have to be YOU. Yes, YOU, YOU who're reading this lame corner of the internet (not that you're very numerous but that makes you all the more precious to me)

And even if you're not reading this I love you anyway. Because even if we're all different and have different tastes when it comes to specifcs we all love the same thing in the end. We all enjoy talking about it. We all enjoy reading about it and discussing about it and a lot of different and wide subjects more or less related to anime.

This year has been quite important for me in terms of blogging as I have finally found readers (I say it everytime I touch on the topic but I suck so bad at promoting it's not even funny) and the kind of blog I want to have, as well as blogs I like to read and other authors I like to interact with.
It has felt like a new beginning, in more ways than one, in real life too, when I'm asked to reflect on the year spent I realize that, for me, nothing big happened, just an accumulation of small steps and I think that it makes it, as a whole, even more amazing.

So yeah thanks for being awesome everyone! Thanks for taking the time to read, thanks for taking the time to comment and thanks for keeping on updating your blogs, please continue!