Blog Archive

Monday, March 23, 2015

Permapost Updates for March:

Lots of permapost action recently.  A permapost is a post that's continuously updated to reflect the new realities of an ever-changing world (and subjective psyche), to be found on the right side of the screen, permanently featured on this blog as its 'premiere content'.

Let's do a rundown of these permapost updates from the top:

Anime Rankings -- I moved Dragon Ball up to #8, thanks to how good this Kai Buu arc has been recently, and the upcoming Frieza movie that's written by Akira Toriyama so doubtless it's going to be great.  As usual, I updated the number of episodes that have aired up as new shows keep airing in old series, and added + signs to shows with newly announced sequels (like Yuru Yuri), while subtracting + signs to series that have played out their full course (sadly).

The Runners-Up -- I added Sengoku Musou, Koufuku Graffiti, and Juuou Mugen no Fafnir to my 'good' list because it's become clear that I will watch all three of these series in full, all of whom are set to end shortly.  I'll refrain from guessing about the results of the coming spring season series until I have an educated guess, after which I'll just add them to the 'good' list if I think I'll watch them in full, and if I end up cutting them I'll take them back off the list again, no harm done.  This is the same as happens with my Anime Rankings list, where I'll rank something as great when I'm initially enthusiastic about it, and then just chop it right back off again when I become disillusioned later in on the series' run.

Sengoku Musou was a nice history lesson, but as a narrative it really suffers from a lack of any good characters or plot.  Koufuku Graffiti has good characters, art, and music, but a bad plot that goes nowhere.  Juuou Mugen no Fafnir falls prey to too many annoying tropes that just grate on you whenever they appear in anime, which diminishes its otherwise appealing nature.  These are just the sorts of shows that end up watchable but not must-sees, scintillating examples of what it means to be a runners-up.

Beautiful Anime Girls -- I added yet more pictures of my beloved Fairy Tail girls.  Lucy, Levi, Yukino, Wendy, Hisui, Mirajane, Lisanna, Mavis, Juvia, even Cheria is so cute.  Whether Lucy or Wendy takes the crown for 'Miss Fairy Tail' is still up in the air it seems, as they both have a trillion pictures to their name so far.  There's also some cute pictures of Chiyo Sakura and Yona-hime that have been recently added amidst the Fairy Tail deluge.

Anime Voices -- I added in some prominent roles some of my beloved Seiyuu had played but hadn't been mentioned yet, like Aoi Yuuki playing Yuuki Aoi, or Kaori Mizuhashi playing Michiru Matsushima.

Anime Voices + Rankings -- I updated Shirobako's seiyuu list due to all the new episodes involving yet more great seiyuu playing the new roles.  Takahiro Sakurai made for a great Nogame-sensei in the climactic episode 23.

Eagerly Awaited Releases -- This post is always being updated.  Most recently I changed the number of blu-ray Hanayamata episodes we're waiting on from 7-12 to just 9-12 due to SallySubs's latest release.  The 2nd Strike Witches ova was recently made available and then came out, thus disappearing from my eagerly awaited list as well.  What a great episode it was, too.

Good Manga -- This post has gotten a massive overhaul.  I added in the 'unique standout feature' description to the manga series just like I had the anime rankings.  This is especially important for the good manga series that don't have a great anime equivalent.

Good Anime/Manga Situation Report -- The most important update for this post was moving Nanoha Vivid from the 'abandoned' manga section to the 'sporadically translated' manga section, since a new chapter was finally translated a couple days ago.  In the next couple weeks this post will change a lot to compensate for the end of the winter anime schedule and the beginning of the spring.

Bleach Situational Report -- This post is changing every week alongside the weekly releases of the manga.  Ichigo has fallen off a cliff, Aizen's chatting with Shunsui, etc.

Good Visual Novels -- Some subtle changes to this post.  Majikoi has been added as an English translated novel ready for reading.  Hanasaki Work Spring has been added as a good visual novel I wish were translated.  The anime rankings of Fate/Stay and the like were adjusted downward to reflect Dragon Ball's promotion to 8th place, etc.

Good Books -- Huge changes here.  I went from 30 authors from each of three zones (fiction, non-fiction, and Japanese light novels) to 33 from each zone, adding 9 more authors in all to a grand total of 99 authors.  I had a few more authors I wanted to praise and I figured the closer to 100 the better.  For non-fiction authors, they got Homer, Sun Tzu and Immanuel Kant.  Fiction writers got Terry Goodkind, Kate Elliott, George Eliot, J.K. Rowling, and Jennifer Roberson.  (They lost C.S. Lewis and Homer to keep the numbers even).  Light novel authors got Takeru Kasukabe, Natsumi Iwasake and Okina Kamino.  In addition, because it's difficult for English speakers to remember Japanese names, I added in the context people needed to know to understand who these authors are and why they are so good, by including in parenthesis their famous works that I'm praising them for.  In the case of the latest three authors, for instance, they're the authors of Noucome, Moshidora, and Asobi ni Iku Yo! respectively.  I also changed the respective rankings in all three fields.

Good Movies/TV Shows -- I dropped Back to the Future in favor of Last of the Mohicans, my new 20th place live action movie franchise.

This isn't even an exhaustive list of all the changes I've made.  The point is there's been lots of new information added to all sorts of places, so this blog's permapost experience is always improving to higher heights in both quantity and quality of detail.

Fairy Tail's new manga arc has been fantastic, so I hope someday it will be animated.  Right now we're looking at a Fairy Tail anime which will be diving straight into the Tartarus storyline right after the Sun Village arc with no time wasted in filler.  This means the anime is going to pretty much catch up with the manga in half a year.  What the anime will do then is a very frightening question.  But as for the manga, wow is it good.

Meanwhile, the Sweet 16 have been decided.  Some classic games have been played in what feels like a record-breaking tourney for close games and upsets.  We only get a short time to catch our breaths before the Madness resumes.

The Hobbit part 3 comes out in blu ray in just one day~

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