Hmm, my steadily dropping page impression stats are essentially informing me that I’ve made not a single post in the last month. Whoops.

It’s not like I’ve not been watching anything – contrary to my expectations coming into this anime season, I’ve actually been watching a fair bit. It’s more that none of the shows I’ve been watching have hit that sweet spot between dumb and entertaining that I find amusing to write about – not even Valvrave, which is certainly dumb, and is certainly entertaining, but it wears it so much on it’s sleeve that there’s little to say about it other than, well, “This is duuuuuuuuumb“.

Unfortunately, this has left me in somewhat of a quandary in regards to posting blog content, in so much as there’s really not been much else going on that’s been worthy of lengthy comment. I suppose there’s plenty worthy of shorter commentary, though…
(more…)

Because I’ve not done one of these for a while – infact, I seem to have forgotten to click the “publish” version on the last one of these posts – and I figure I should at least strive to maintain a two-post-a-week minimum. Not that I really have much to discuss to pad out a full one of these posts with.
(more…)

Now that this is the third year that I’m doing this, I guess it actually is becoming the Token End of Year Post. Well, more traditional than Token, where I to be pedantic, but given that I’ve not really posted much this year gone, I suppose I need to make up for that somewhat by spamming a few thousand words about cartoons.

Not that I’d actually managed to watch as much as I’d have liked over the last year. Not to moan too much, but the ol’ bad back did put paid to me watching great chunks of anime through the middle third of the year, and resulted in me not finishing off a bunch of shows that I probably should have (I’ve still not got around to seeing the conclusion of Kids on the Slope, for example). TV re-runs of Star Trek:TGN and Futurama ended up consuming way more of my evening media viewing than I should probably have let them, too – and I didn’t even get around to making a blog post about Star Treks Ambojistu either (tl;dr – there’s lots of old anime references in the arena in which it takes place).

In terms of post-related house-keeping, I’m going to have to confess that, for the third year running, I’ve still not gotten around to starting on those Gundam Unicorn BDs I’ve been collecting. I’m sure the punchline to this is that I’m going to absolutely loathe it, but at this point, waiting until the whole series is done and watching it in bulk is looking increasingly preferable.

Okay, so on to the usual specifics with the Beta-Waffle Entirely-Pointless Awards for 2012 Anime Existence, AKA me making up reasons to write about things I want to write about.
(more…)

Girls und Santa
Well, OK, we’re still about an hour or so out based on Blighty time, but, hey, it’s close enough, and it’s been Christmas Day in Japan for a good few hours now. Also, I kind of want to go to bed. Sleep and all that.

Anyway, have yourselves a Merry Christmas and an Acceptably Amusing New Years. I might actually try and update the blog a few times this week with content of… well, it’ll probably not be anything exciting, but it’ll be something. Maybe.

(P.S. It was nice to get another episode of Saki to watch today, but can it please be March already so we can have more Girls und Panzer? Thanks).

Oh my, doesn’t time fly when you.. aren’t updating much. I mean, by gum, this was the first time I’ve drawn anything vaguely-proper in about five months (apologies for any cack-handedness and lack of ambition as a result of that). I suppose I should really force myself back into some kind of regular update pattern.

But probably not drawing, because throwing this together just reminded me that it’s still murder on my spine. Not the same degree as murder as it was a few months ago, thankfully, but, alas, I’m still not up to putting up with that three times a week. It’s better excuse than last years explanation for not having updated regularly, which is that I’d just been playing Xenoblade for an indecent number of hours (a lot more fun that suffering a back injury, let me tell you!).

Anyway, that’s probably enough for the token seventh anniversary update. I’ll try and update more frequently going forward – honest!

(P.S. For the readers residing in Blighty, Scotland Loves Anime tickets for both this years Glasgow and Edinburgh events went on sale this week. As per usual, I’ll be dragging myself to both events to see all of the weekend films at least, even those which I’ll end up seeing twice. Also, the full schedule for the London Film Festival was released today, and includes three screenings of Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children mid-October. Clashes with Glasgow SLA, unfortunately, so I’m going to have to wait a whole additional week until Edinburgh for that one!)