K-On – Lower Mid-Table

Pointless Debate #17: A Typical Year

: Genre conventions play a key role in deciding what is or isn’t controversial.

As the protagonist in Ladies versus Butlers!, Hino Akiharu is far from the most genre-defining character. He essentially goes around and gets into various sexual misadventures with the variety of girls who also happen to be both have feelings for him, and represent simply character types to attract the interest of a wider part of the niche audience that watches harem anime. Akiharu is really just a typical main character in a typical harem anime. Perhaps that was typical of 2010.

So I bring to you the story of the year in anime presented here in three acts. First is the story of one man and the variety of fates that come about as the result of one seemingly insignificant decision. The second is the story of a group of friends and the creation of memories that can be passed down to others. Finally, the story of two characters pushing boundaries in the hardest way possible.

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Pointless Debate #4: A New Character Appears

Kanejou Kyoka steps into the picture — Time for yet another strange character to be introduced.

Whilst watching the sixth episode of romantic comedy B Gata H Kei, after the introduction of bro-con Kanejou Kyoka, I came to a thought that too often series are ruined by the introduction of new characters halfway through. Kyoka is pretty similar to protagonist Yamada, but is really just a waste of time as far as I’m concerned. Yamada’s sister Chika, the most likely character to hit Yamada’s 100 sexual partner target, would be a much more interesting target, but I digress. Utilizing series set over multiple years in high school, I will try to determine if new characters between years ruin things, probably not though.

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Pointless Debate #3: Second Season Syndrome

Have you ever gotten to a stage in life where you have reached a goal and then complacency set in? There are plenty of examples of bands making second albums that are garbage or the exact same in comparison to their first, athletes playing hard on a contract year and then mailing it in once they have their money or politicians ignoring their constituents with re-election seemingly in the bag. This being an anime blog after all, there are plenty of examples from that world too. Continue reading Pointless Debate #3: Second Season Syndrome

40 Seasons in 40 Days: Spring 2009

tmohss202a — Oh no! I don't want to relive those episodes all over again!

With talk of global economic meltdowns and other complicated things that made life terrible in the year following the spring of 2008, the spring of 2009 was about cutting costs and maybe not making so many new series. While the latter was true, the former showed probably a bit too much, though one studio would forget that part. I wouldn’t say it was a spring for the ages, it was just a bit different in its own way.

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The End of a Spring Which Will Seem Fantastic in 3 Months Time

This man's transfer fee to Real Madrid was approximately 12.7 billion yen, or beyond the reach of any of the Seleçao.

So I’ve gone from weekly recaps of new stuff with occasional other posts, but since no one ever comments on those it’s now LoGH and torturing myself with absolute crap. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped watching current anime, it’s just that I can’t be bothered to write about it every week. So what have I been doing with the last 3 months in that regard…

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Fifty Posts for (Less Than) Fifty Readers: Spring Post Part 3

This seems a fitting way to mark my half century of posts.

For the first time since I attempted to follow multiple shows that were newly airing, Fall 2004 if anyone cares, I’ve managed to trim the field of series to a small group. The curious amount of fantasy series has played a large part, though. So I present a 20%-ish recap of the shows I have been watching.

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The Worst Spring Ever Part 1

The new anime season started a couple of days ago, and I haven’t really written a recap post in a couple of weeks (I just really, really suck at continuing on with shows I find boring). So I’ll see how long I can last with daily…weekly…monthly…yearly recaps of the new season. By the way, the title is ironic, or not as may be the case as the season progresses.

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