Otaku Links: Hello City

Otaku Links

bbbBy the time this post goes live, I’ll be on a train to New York City, checking out whether it’s everything Blood Blockade Battlefront led me to believe. It’s John’s first visit ever, so we’ll probably stick to the tourist stuff, but if you want to recommend a geeky must-see, let me know in the comments! For now, have some fresh links:

  • Back when Gainax was a group of otaku goofing around, the studio created the comedy anime Otaku No Video. Now AnimEigo is bringing it to English speaking fans with a subtitled blu-ray, and you won’t be surprised to hear their Kickstarter has already shot way past their goal.
  • Hatoful Boyfriend, everyone’s favorite pigeon dating sim, is now getting its sequel, Holiday Star, officially translated into English. Just what everyone was asking for!
  • My Twitter friend AJ is looking for volunteer writings to contribute to his animation and graphic novel blog. If you’re a beginner who is looking for a place to get some writing experience before you go pro, here’s a place to start.
  • I like playing Magic: The Gathering, but I don’t want to spend my life’s savings on it or anything! Here’s the story of how one particular card ended up valued at five figures.* (*The article says $19,000 but the eBay page says otherwise.)
  • Filmmaker Brandon Li’s travelogue of Japan is expertly edited, and unlike any other I’ve seen before, depicting parts of Japan you might never see otherwise, including what looks like three different kinds of wedding ceremonies.
  • I finally finished Gundam 0080 AKA War in the Pocket, and it certainly deserves its cult classic status. The best part was finally being able to read Sir Noogen’s entire review of it, spoilers and all! (If you haven’t seen it, you can get a taste for why you might want to by reading until the spoiler warning.)
  • Another week, three more anime reviews from me. Whether the shows are surprisingly great, like Kyokai no Rinne, or surprisingly awful, like Gunslinger Stratos, I’m having a great time covering them. Kuroko’s Basketball, as you might expect of a 70-episode show, is just as consistent as ever.

Screencap via Blood Blockade Battlefront

Baby Steps and my Real Life Sports Anime

Anime

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In March, I started watching Baby Steps, the story of a high school student who abruptly decides to take up tennis. This weekend, I bought my first tennis racket.

I have never played tennis in my life. I didn’t even know how to hold the racket. But I have watched a lot of sports anime, so that should count for something, right?

Of course not. I could barely hit the ball. I spent more than three hours practicing tennis this weekend, and all I have to show for it is a nasty blister on my thumb. Even so, I’ll be back at it tomorrow. I owe Baby Steps for that.

I think that sometimes, in the interest of entertainment, sports anime sometimes gives us the wrong message about sports. Onoda is a nerd who’s never considered road racing—until he becomes a major challenger in Yowamushi Pedal. On Haikyuu, Kageyama is a volleyball genius. The boys of Kuroko’s Basketball each were born with innate supernatural abilities. I’ve now watched 110 episodes of the Prince of Tennis, and Ryoma has lost just once—and very recently at that. For me this says, if you’re not immediately good at something, you probably just weren’t meant to do it. It’s a comfortable mindset, and one that kept me dreading gym class for my entire school career. I only engage in my one physical activity, running, because even I can move one foot in front of the other without worrying about being bad at it.

Baby Steps is unique among sports anime because it doesn’t star a prodigy. Ei-chan has never played tennis before high school, and it shows. He loses all the time! At one point in the first season, he lost in the very first round of an important tournament, going against the standard narrative for sports anime. Ei-chan doesn’t get better overnight, either. We get tired and stressed and frustrated right along with him. Usually, the protagonist doesn’t have to practice so hard and for so long to get results. But in real life, that’s exactly what athletes have to do in order to get to the top—even if they were born with physical advantages.

One of the things I like best about sports anime is watching people who are really good at what they do show off their skills. But until Baby Steps, there wasn’t a sports anime that truly conveyed how they got to that point. I’m awful at tennis, but all I can think about is how fun it is, and how much I want to keep trying to improve.

I always figured that by the time I was pushing thirty, I’d spend my time doing things I was actually good at. Instead, here I am, stumbling through Japanese and now tennis (coincidentally both hobbies I took up thanks to anime). Baby Steps contains the not-so-subtle message “believe in yourself,” repeated every opening sequence. I guess it’s rubbing off.

On Twitter and Instagram, I am noting my forays into athleticism with the hashtag #irlsportsanime. If you’re also an anime fan with fitness goals, it’d be awesome if you used it, too.

Otaku Links: Deus Ex Machina

Otaku Links

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  • Finally, one of these lists that makes sense! Zac’s reasonable guide to making the most of your time at an anime convention. I especially like his tip about not playing sardines—in college, I shared an Otakon hotel room with my six closest friends in the world and even THAT was a strain.
  • Kudos to Anime Planet for setting up their new LGBTQ-friendly policy. This will be especially helpful to fans looking for anime with gay and transgender characters and themes.
  • Don’t like podcasts? I did ANOTHER interview about my book with Justin of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, and he transcribed it for your reading pleasure. It is extremely candid, and I pretty much just go into my business plan and writing career with no filter, if you’re curious about that stuff.
  • I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody reading this post is watching Gunslinger Stratos. In my episode 8 review, I air my grievances and speculate whether this anime will or won’t be able to save itself. Also: my reviews of the far more reliable and consistent Kyokai no Rinne and Kuroko’s Basketball.

As always, put any links I missed this week in the comments. I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

Screenshot via Gunslinger Stratos, but don’t ask me what’s happening here.

What happens when you stop updating your blog

Uncategorized

In the book I published this month, I emphasized the importance of regular blog updates.

And then… I took an unexpected hiatus. Blame a combination of health problems and trouble at work. I don’t want to get into the details, but when I was feeling down it was way easier to look at anime as a solace than as source material.

However, taking time off really turned a lot of what I’ve always believed about the necessity of regular updates on its head. Here is how it went for me.

Traffic levels out

I assumed that when I stopped blogging for the better part of a month, I could expect my daily visits to plummet to zero. I checked every couple of days, but that never happened.

Instead, traffic has simply leveled out. Gone are the MWF traffic spikes I grew to expect following regular updates on those same days. I’ve been pretty vocal about not updating, so regular readers aren’t checking. What remains is search traffic for terms like “my little monster,” “romantic anime,” and “anime is dead,” to name three of the top 10 this month. As long as I have a relevant archive, that traffic will never die.

The ideas come back after you stop worrying

At first, I felt extremely guilty about not blogging. My schedule hadn’t exactly been accurate when I was writing Build Your Anime Blog, but now it was nonexistent. I panicked and tried to think of things I could write, but that just made me more resistant to the idea of writing at all.

Finally, after days of finding anything and everything to procrastinate on blog writing, I decided to end the madness. I blog for fun, and if blogging wasn’t fun anymore, I just would stop. I spent some time doing other stuff… and found myself continuously jotting down ideas for future blog posts. When I stopped treating blogging like a job and more like a hobby again, I knew I was ready to go back. Now instead of feeling reluctant about writing, I’m excited to share all the ideas I’ve thought of while I’ve been away.

But really, nothing happens

So I broke my updating streak. So I lost some regular readers. The world didn’t end. My blog is still here where I left it.

This is really good news for bloggers, I think. If you need that hiatus, take it. A few weeks off doesn’t spell the end of everything.

My experience taught me that the biggest enemy to a productive blog was my own feeling of inadequacy and guilt. Nothing else held me back so much. So let me make that mistake for you. In an age of distraction, falling off course sometimes is inevitable. It just means that any time you decide to post in spite of everything is itself a success.

Otaku Links: Podcast hour

Otaku Links

stagbeetle

Bet you didn’t expect to see any Otaku Links this week.

  • I was on CrunchyCast with @SailorBee and @VamptVo talking about Yowamushi Pedal, lyrics for a Death Note musical, and my book. Join scores of listeners in saying, “Her voice does NOT sound how she looks.”
  • I was ALSO on The Cockpit, talking about Gundam Build Fighters Try and its strengths and weaknesses and seriously meeting my match in terms of GBFT love. And also talking about my book.
  • Did I mention my book yet? Honestly I am so proud of this thing. It’s about an extremely niche topic, but it’s still sold almost 100 copies in less than a month. This is the kind of response that convinces a girl to write more books.
  • I don’t know of anyone but Guardian Enzo who is reviewing Baby Steps right now, and I really recommend his reviews. Baby Steps is very different from other sports anime because it focuses on the individual and the fundamentals of the game, but still does so in a very entertaining way.
  • Now that we’re more than halfway through the season, what’s still worth watching? Dee from Josei Next Door has the right idea.
  • Much to the CrunchyRoll staff’s dismay, I really do love discovering new memes. Right now, I am cracking up about British lad culture, especially the “cheeky Nandos” variety.

Happy long weekend, fellow Americans, and happy weekend to all. I look forward to sharing the results of my blogging hiatus when we get back.

Screenshot via Assassination Classroom.