Gift ideas for anime fans, 2016 edition

November 28, 20163 comments

Welcome back to the fourth year running of Otaku Journalist’s holiday gift guide! Every holiday season I say the same thing: by now every anime fan knows where to get anime, whether streaming through Crunchyroll or on DVD via Right Stuf, so it’s better to think outside the box (set). Still, it can be tough to figure out which anime-related gifts to get. That’s where this guide comes in!

These are my 2016 picks that I think any anime fan would be thrilled to receive—all for $50 or less. As always, Amazon links are affiliate links.

Books and Stationary

1. Anime: A History by Jonathan Clements. The closest thing we have to a total English-language timeline of anime. An educational book for sure, but not too dense to really get into. $27, amazon.

2. Campus Notes. Write in the same notebooks that feature in so many different anime that take place in high school. The dots make them perfect for use as a Bullet Journal. $10, amazon.

3. Cool Japan Guide by Abby Denson. Full of colorful comics and handwritten tips, this graphic-novel guide is perfect for anybody planning on making their first trip to Japan. $10, amazon.

Clothing and Accessories

4. Luna crop top. Anime merchandise has gotten a lot nicer since the days of custom printing your own fan tees. This Sailor Moon tribute is practically high fashion. $17, Hot Topic.

5. Hime-chan Christmas Sweater. Now you can wear Crunchyroll Hime to an ugly sweater party with this orange top that can only be described as a “statement piece.” $34, Crunchyroll.

6. Spirited Away Socks. This No Face number is just one of four Studio Ghibli sock designs you can choose. They’re all next-day shipping with Amazon Prime. $11.50, amazon.

DIY Ita Bag

This next section requires some explanation because all three of these gifts go together! I recently learned about ita bags, which roughly translates to “painful bags” in English. Basically, you display your geeky passions in the forms of pins and keychains through the bag’s clear panel, putting your obsession on full display. When I looked over the summer I couldn’t find a way to buy ita bags in North America, but the wait is apparently over!

7. Fuji enamel pin. If you don’t want to go full trash, you can still subtly show your Japanophile interests with this kawaii Mt. Fuji pin. $9, askingfortrouble on Etsy.

8. Heart ita bag. Show your geeky passions through this paneled bag in turquoise, pink, lavender, mint, black or white. $20, amazon.

9. Hunter x Hunter pins. Probably what I’d pick for my own ita bag since I’m not over this show yet. Cute fan art by two indie artists. $9, HideAwayMelon on Etsy.

Figures and Toys

10. Zelda Nenderoid. Going to need to buy this as a companion to my Wind Waker Link Nenderoid. Cool details, sweet faces, and an impressive bow and arrow accessory. $50, amazon.

11. Bulbasaur Planter. This 3D printed planter comes in a rainbow of color choices. I would swap out different plants to change Bulbasaur’s “look” throughout the year. $7, Edgehill3D on Etsy.

12. Petit Panda. If this cutie doesn’t convince you why I have a Gunpla obsession, nothing will. Petit Beargguys are the easiest type of Gunpla to build, great for beginners. $7.50, amazon.

See also:

I don’t like your favorite anime. So what?

October 24, 20161 comment

I remember the first time I realized that not everyone, or even most people, liked my favorite anime.

I was in my college anime club. Every fall and spring, we chose four anime to watch for the rest of the semester, and we did this after viewing clips of about 25 different shows that club members provided. I brought my favorite at the time, a comedy musical called Nerima Daikon Brothers. I remember being so thrilled when people started laughing, and then crushed when I realized that they were laughing at it, not with it. And then confused. What?

This was in the late ’00s, and anime was going through a change. In that there was a lot more of it now, and we could all afford to be choosier.

Before college, I had such limited access to anime. I either had to save up money from my job at Coldstone Creamery—at the time, minimum wage was $5.15 an hour—or pirate shows using a service like Limewire. It took weeks to acquire either way. If you’re past a certain age you might also remember starting your .mov downloads before school and coming home to find them not even half complete. (This is not a defense of piracy. I feel awful about my old piracy days and have since purchased every title I ever pirated on DVD or Blu-ray.)

In the “good old days,” our anime selection was like the music selection you’ll find on a classic rock radio station. Since there weren’t resources (or interest) in bringing everything over from Japan, companies only localized shows they thought would sell well. The greatest hits of anime from the ‘80s and ‘90s, if you will. The Slayers, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ramna ½, His and Her Circumstances—these were the titles of my adolescence. So in high school, it was easy to find people who had the same taste in anime as I did. First of all, there wasn’t much out there. Secondly, we thought all anime was good because it was. I mean, it’s all subject to taste but generally speaking, only the cream of the crop came to the US.

Then I went to college. I started attending anime conventions. If you waited until Sunday, you could get anime on DVD cheap in the Dealer’s Room. I discovered Nerima Daikon Brothers after swapping for it with a friend. I fell in love with it, especially the dub. It’s cheap but silly, catchy, and fun. Today its considerable social commentary—on such figures as Michael Jackson and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi—is extremely dated, but I still put it on when I’m feeling down. It never doesn’t make me bust out laughing. (I remember once, in 2013 while I was planning my wedding, I ran into a crisis that seemed huge at the time, but now I don’t even remember. John came home to me sobbing and smiling and singing at the TV.)

What I’m trying to say is Nerima Daikon Brothers is a quirky show that makes me supremely happy, but is far from a masterpiece that has something for everybody in it.

Today, very few shows have widespread appeal. With such a big selection, they don’t need to! We used to recommend anime by saying that a show “has something for everyone” in it; today we recommend anime as a genre by instead saying there’s a show out there for each person. Nerima Daikon Brothers resonated with me, but certainly not the rest of my anime club. I recall that year having an extremely eclectic selection when all was said and done, including a tearjerker, Haibane Renmei, dark comedy Welcome to the NHK, and all-out action Gurren Lagann. The flipside was that because we all had to compromise, I ended up discovering a lot of shows that I wouldn’t have necessarily watched otherwise, and widely expanded my tastes. I started attending to watch Ouran High School Host Club and Death Note; I ended up with a taste for (at the time) brand new airing shows like Last Exile. I probably would never have become an anime reviewer if not for being a part of my college anime club.

That’s awesome, but it’s jarring how much this shift has changed the way I watch anime with my friends. Not being able to decide on an anime for club was one thing. Coming home on breaks and discovering that my eight closest friends all preferred different shows was another. Most recently, a friend I’ve been watching anime with since we were 12 told me she was surprised to see my Anime News Network essay on Cheer Boys!! being my worst show of the season. It had been her favorite. “What happened to us?” I exclaimed, remembering how as middle schoolers, there was no question that we had similar feelings about every anime we watched.

Having been friends with the same eight people for more than a decade now, our diverging tastes have become even more obvious. At first, I took it personally, like my friends and I were growing apart and didn’t like the same things anymore. It felt like rejection, the same way bringing Nerima Daikon Brothers into anime club felt like rejection.

When anime was hard to get, sharing my love of anime already made me a loner. Back then, revealing I even liked anime felt like a compromising confession, so I guess I tied a lot of my identity to the shows I liked. I see this among anime fans of my generation, who remember those early times. We tie our anime preferences to our identities. Saying “I don’t like your favorite anime” sounds a lot like, “wow, your taste is bad.” It sounds a lot like “I don’t like you.”

But I think that’s changing. Today, discovering a new anime is hardly different from discovering any other new show—they’re all on Netflix. The next generation of anime fans is massive because the selection is way bigger than I ever could have imagined. And that’s the most magical part: even with so many shows to choose from, there are still going to be a select few who pick Nerima Daikon Brothers—not because it’s one of the four VHS tapes our friend group has access to, but because something inside this goofy show resonates somehow.

I have so much to choose from that these days it’s hard to pick a favorite, though lately I’ve been partial to Natsume’s Book of Friends. Instead, it’s become far, far easier to differentiate the things I like from the things I don’t and, as a reviewer, be very vocal about it. I might even say I don’t like your favorite show. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like you.

Six lessons from 2 years of professional anime reviews

September 26, 20162 comments

Two years ago this month, I had just started my position as an episodic streamer at Anime News Network. In the months ahead, I would write several thousand words a week on shows like Denki Gai, Yowamushi Pedal, Free! Eternal Summer, Ace Attorney, Ushio & Tora, and Gundam Build Fighters TRY. I would also go on to also review DVD and Blu-Ray releases and branch out into editorials, tutorials, and interviews.

After all this time I’ve only slowed down a little (by downsizing from three to two episodic reviews a week) and showing no signs of stopping. I’m in the middle of a couple review-related assignments right now and I was sort of dreading adding even more writing, my Monday Otaku Journalist post, to that pile. That is, until a cool Twitter follower asked me to write about my review process. Has it really been two years since I last brought up this topic? It’s definitely overdue. After all, I already had a blog post’s worth of lessons after three months of professional anime reviewing.

It’s an example of my embarrassing former self principle that I thought I knew what I was doing back then. Because while the foundations are the same, my level of self-consciousness and belief in my own authority have swapped places. Here’s how I got more confident in my process.

Separate “work” anime viewing from “fun” anime viewing.

People sometimes ask me how I can still enjoy anime now that I get paid to review it. Especially when it’s a show for which my reviews aren’t exactly complimentary!

However, watching anime is still a hobby for me. That’s because I very clearly separate the ways I watch anime for work and for fun. I watch anime for fun on my tablet or TV while lying on the couch. I watch anime for review while sitting up straight at my laptop, notepad app open. Being cognizant of my posture especially flicks a switch in my mind to remind me that while this is usually an activity I do for fun, now it’s time to focus.

Don’t watch twice. Just take good notes.

When I started reviewing, I watched every episode twice before I started writing to make sure I got all the details. That was unsustainable and frankly kind of boring.

Now I watch every episode once, but make sure to take meticulous notes. Sometimes, my list of notes is longer than the final article! Here’s some notes I took for Cheer Boys episode 7, which eventually turned into this episodic review:

0:30 these faces are unfortunate

Sho’s awful drawings don’t look that bad next to the characters themselves

4:47 “uniquely masculine cheerleading”

Hisashi is a real wet blanket

cracks are starting to show in the teamwork

everyone is just freaking out whenever Hisashi gets mad

“every time Hisashi opens his mouth, my heart stops” – Haru

So many stills to the point where it looks unnatural – one guy will be talking in the foreground while everyone is completely rigid

why is Wataru in a skirt? he is so weird he will always be my fav, a dose of personality in a sea of blandness

This goes on for 300 more words, but you get the picture. This is kind of embarrassing to show because it’s really stream of conscious, and nothing at all like the finished product I turn in after getting my thoughts in order. I write down my immediate impressions while I’m watching with as little editing as possible. I try to copy down quotes I want to use exactly, along with who said it (you’d be surprised how much I forget that last part). If there’s a clip I might want to watch again for more clarity, I write down the timestamp.

What do the fans think?

In my post two years ago, I was reviewing Nobunaga Concerto, which remains one of the absolute worst anime I’ve ever seen. I hated the jerky, experimental animation, the casually forgotten plot points, and what I thought was a total disregard for logic. And yet! A lot of people really love that show, including anime reviewers I respect.

It really bothered me that every time I put out a new Nobunaga Concerto episode review, there would be commenters complaining I just didn’t get it or appreciate history or whatever. It was like we were watching two different shows. For future reviews, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t as completely removed from the fan perspective, so I decided to frequent r/anime.

Reddit’s anime community isn’t exactly a microcosm of the total fan perspective, but it’s extremely reliable. Whenever a new anime episode comes out, a bot posts a comment thread where people can record their impressions. Usually I take a cursory glance at this thread before I start writing. Even when I’m watching a show I’m not all that into, seeing its biggest fans gush about it helps me to consider other perspectives

Of course, I can’t fall into the mindset of thinking “diehard fans are right and I’m wrong.” This bit me in the butt recently when I was reviewing an episode of DAYS. The r/anime commenters were piling on about how the episode depicted a particular foul in the game. And unfortunately, I took that at face value and noted an offside interference in my review, too.

Luckily, I happened to mention this to Grant, a friend of mine who regularly plays soccer (you might remember him as the guy who wrote this) right before publication. He disagreed about the call and I was able to ask my editor to swap the “offside” working as an “interference in play.” That night, Grant and I watched the episode carefully, pausing at possible fouls and concluded that the interference was too brief to indicate what really happened. That makes sense—this is an anime about friendship and teamwork and technical soccer details come second. Since then I’ve been extra wary about taking commenters’ opinions as fact.

I know not everyone agrees with my reviews, but I hope this anecdote at least shows how seriously I take them. I will watch and rewatch a 30-second clip as many times as it takes.

Don’t obsess over the comments.

For me, this means not reading the Anime News Network comments on my reviews at all, since I have learned from experience that I can’t just casually interact with them.

When I started out, I made sure to participate actively in the comments on each of my reviews. Things have gotten toxic in 2016, but in previous journalism gigs I have been contractually obligated to “interact with readers in the comments.” I’m not sure if news sites still make journalists do this—most of the ones I know have removed their comment sections!

But what I have had to gradually learn is that reviewing is not journalism. Journalism is about dispersing the facts as accurately as possible. If somebody can dispute your article, that means something is likely wrong with it! But reviewing is about expressing your opinion, and if somebody disagrees, it’s not the same as somebody disputing a source or a fact.

Comments stress me out because years in journalism have led to me treating everything like a “correction.” If somebody thinks something is wrong in the article, I want to fix it! When I started, my poor editor, Jacob, was getting constant requests from me to go back into the review and clarify something because it seemed like a commenter was taking something the wrong way. But reviews are based on opinion, not fact, so they can’t really be “wrong.”

Today, I don’t read the Anime News Network forum threads on my reviews at all. I haven’t demonstrated to myself that I can interact without looking for things to change in every review. I figure that if I actually got something serious wrong, I will find out—my editor will tell me, or somebody will reach out to me here or on Twitter.

Full-series reviews require consistency and focus.

I’m in the middle of reviewing an anime series right now so this is very much on my mind. My process for full series is different than episodic reviews.

Usually, my deadline is 7 days from the date my editor gives me the assignment. So I’ll watch anywhere from 20 to 40 episodes in a week.

First, before I even start watching, I do my homework. I look up the director, the animation studio, and the soundtrack composer. I note the show’s reception and popularity. No show exists in a vacuum and it’s important to me not to go in blind.

Then I proceed to watch the entire thing, even if I’ve watched it before. Many of the shows I’ve reviewed for Anime News Network are re-releases of Gundam shows, so I’ve seen them before but not recently. It’s vital to me to re-watch the whole thing, this time with an analytical eye.

Instead of taking notes every episode, I do a note dump every four or five. Otherwise I’d have way too many notes to be helpful. You saw how many I had just for Cheer Boys!! For me it’s most important to take notes at the show’s halfway point and after its conclusion.

Full-series reviews are a little like running a 10k race (I’d probably say a marathon if I’d ever run one). You need to be spend a lot of time with one show, around 2+ hours a day, for a week. It’s important to stay focused on the show until the moment you turn in the review.

Grades are the freaking worst.

Especially when it comes to my full-series reviews. I stand by a lot of things I’ve said about anime over the years, but I wish I could just change all the grades to “it has good parts and bad parts, I dunno, just read the review.”

For me, the issue is grade creep. This is my usual internal narrative: “If I gave this episode a B, then this other episode that’s a little worse is a C+. But it doesn’t feel that bad. If only I could go back and give the first episode an A, so this one could be a B.”

I think it all started with one of my first reviews, Mobile Suit Gundam on Blu-Ray. If only I had given this a higher grade! It’s a classic. Now I find myself using that as the benchmark by which I set all other grades, which is crap. “Is this better or worse than Gundam?” is a pretty nerve-wracking question to be asking myself even once a month.

It’s tough. I love anime. I want to be consistent, but I don’t want to give something I liked a bad grade because I’m trying to stay true to a system I set up in 2015. On the other hand, not everyone has time to read the entire review, and a grade is an ideal shortcut.

I wrote about this last year in My Biggest Weakness: Grading Reviews. My opinion hasn’t changed. But in a two year career of growing increasingly confident about every other aspect of my reviewing process, I think it’s OK that I still need to work on one thing.

I had a lot to say about my review process today because when it comes down to it, anime reviews are deeply personal. Unlike with journalism, I can’t say I was simply stating the facts. This is about me—why I like something, this is how I feel about it, and there is nothing out there that can change that. (Just try convincing somebody their favorite anime sucks and see how that goes.) It’s tough because while sarcasm and apathy are the norm in so many parts of Internet interactions, reviews are one place we remain genuine and exposed. It can be scary to share this much, but it can also be exhilarating.

Related posts:

See you at Otakon 2016!

August 10, 20161 comment

About a decade ago, Otakon was the first convention I ever attended. On Thursday, I’m going back for what must be the seventh or eighth time.

If you’re looking for me at Otakon, I will being wearing the shirt in the photo one of the days. (Probably my other self-made Gunpla shirt another day, too.)

I will also be presenting on two panels:

Friday, 2 PM — Anime News Network Q&A

I’m on this panel because I am an ANN reviewer, and also I asked nicely on Twitter. I’ll let organizer Christophe Macdonald do the driving, but I’ll be ready to answer questions about writing about anime.

Sunday, 10:15 AM — 37 Years of Gundam Anime

This is John’s and my first panel together. Well, first one since we led a Hanafuda workshop at our college anime con back in 2009! We had a ton of fun building a massive slideshow that covers all the highlights (and lowlights) of Gundam shows over the last four decades.

I will also be distributing the 500-odd flyers I had made to advertise my latest business venture, the same one I hinted at on Monday. I, John, and our amazing developer, Crimm, have been working since February on an August launch, and it looks like we might just make it. Can’t wait to share more, soon!

What I want the next generation of anime fans to know

May 23, 201610 comments

To state the obvious, I haven’t been blogging lately. Trouble at work, too many projects, and a nasty cough have all contributed. But an experience I had on Sunday reminded me one of the reasons I make my voice heard in our community.

Yesterday, I spent three hours with a local meetup group called Quirkster Kids, a group of “quirky, unique individuals” from age 7-16 and their parents. A lot of the kids are interested in anime and manga, so the organizer invited me to present on the many ways I’ve tied my passion for anime to my career—a topic I am super enthusiastic about.

I spent three hours with the group during which we discussed the kids’ favorite anime, the creative and interpersonal skills they are picking up by participating in anime fandom, and watched and reviewed two anime clips as a group (I asked Twitter for help but ended up picking five-minute snippets from Saturday’s Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto and Flying Witch. I had no idea which shows the kids had already watched, and I wanted to show them new stuff). I was really impressed to discover that the kids were already benefiting hugely from anime—from drawing their own fanart and writing fanfiction to founding anime clubs at school.

When I came home, I knew I needed to return to Otaku Journalist.

As a young anime fan, I benefited hugely from older role models. At twelve, I idolized my best friend’s older sister, who was hugely confident in her anime fan identity the way I wasn’t. In college, I was able to feel safe at anime conventions because of the older fans who volunteered to organize and run them. Now that I’m an established, even professional anime fan, I’m in a position to help younger fans the way older fans helped me.

During my visit, these were the main takeaways that I realized I want younger fans to experience in anime fandom today.

Anime helps “outsider” kids belong

If you’re an anime fan, that probably means that on some level, American shows on TV didn’t resonate with you. Just like Justin observed in his Why do people love anime? post, anime helps people express their individuality when they don’t feel like they belong anywhere else.

It didn’t surprise me that the Quirkster Kids group, which is designed for kids who are a little different, whether gifted or shy or on the spectrum, had a lot of love for anime. Not only is anime supremely different from anything else out there to watch, but it’s also a great community for people who march to their own beat. Since it’s a fairly niche interest, fans are accepting of each other’s differences while embracing that one commonality.

Anime can be a unifying force. Cartoons are considered stuff for kids, but the complex stories and detailed art styles of many anime are definitely aimed at older kids, teens and adults. It was fantastic to be in a room full of so many different people of all ages who all had this one thing in common. Even if you’re one of the few people at school/work who likes anime, it’s hard not to feel like you belong in a room full of passionate fans.

Parents encouraged

The primary reason I enthusiastically agreed to give this presentation was because I was told the kids’ parents would be there, and said parents were a little confused about their children’s passion for anime. I was almost more enthused to talk to the parents!

I wish there had been someone like me to talk to my parents when I was a kid. My parents were sometimes confused, sometimes a little terrified by my spiraling anime obsession. I think they were worried I was going to become a social pariah. Anime conventions were absolutely forbidden for being too dangerous, so I didn’t attend one until college.

It was immensely satisfying to be able to dispel these myths. No, your anime fan kid won’t be a loner or a weirdo. In fact, they might make lifelong friends (I’m still close with my anime fan friends from high school) or learn valuable professional skills that help them in their careers later on! And, with a chaperone, anime conventions are perfectly age appropriate.

No gatekeepers

Of course, you might cut my parents some slack if you knew just what an awkward young anime fan I was. I wanted to tell everyone about my passions, whether they were interested or not. And in my own way, I wanted to be “cool,” by showing people I only read subtitled anime, and absolutely never watched dubs—effectively putting down the many people who watch dubs for any number of reasons, including being dyslexic or blind.

So when I talked to the group, I wanted to save them from this kind of behavior before it began. During a particularly heated discussion about whether Yokai Watch and Digimon are just cheap rip-offs of Pokémon, we ended up entering the territory of which anime is “bad” and “good,” and even which anime is legitimate or fake, like for example, American shows that mimic anime style, like Legend of Korra, but definitely aren’t made in Japan.

“I think it’s fantastic that American shows are acknowledging and borrowing from anime,” I said. I pointed out that people who like shows similar to the ones we like basically like the same things we do, and instead of snubbing them we should welcome them as fellow fans.

Our anime community is always growing. There have always been anime fans old enough to be my parents, but now (it’s hard to admit!) there are fans young enough to be my children, too. In a time when the Internet can be toxic and other subcultures (gaming, especially) can be unsavory, it’s always relevant to think about how we can keep anime fandom a welcoming place for everybody. I’ll do my part by teaching, speaking, and blogging as helpfully as I can.

Category: Anime