The secret to being a successful anime blogger is proper planning.

I’ve got my hands full at work at the moment, so blogging will continue to be light for the next week or so. Here’s a menagerie of… stuff…

I rewatched Gunparade March for the third time recently. I have to thank Omo for turning me on to the show way back when; it’s one of the few series I’ve bought on DVD sight unseen. Despite being riddled with a lot of annoying little imperfections, it’s a perfectly enjoyable show with a strong cast of characters. It’s also structured in such a way as to be fun to watch in large doses. That combined with its relatively short length makes it an easy rewatch.

One thing that I noticed this time around that I hadn’t noticed in the past was that Kenji Kawai was responsible for the show’s score. Now I know why I always loved the background music.

On the gaming front, I see that Gust and NIS are bringing Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis across the Pacific at the end of March. Since the game looks to be the successor to Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm - which I enjoyed quite a bit - I’ll be sure to buy it.

You may remember that I was working my way through Persona 3 not too long ago. The reality is, I haven’t touched the game since before Christmas, and my desire to continue is pretty much non-existent at this point. To be honest, I don’t have time for marathon gaming sessions, and while the mission based nature of Atelier Iris was such that I could play for an hour or two on occasion and actually accomplish something, the same amount of time in Persona 3 often feels like a complete waste of effort. Persona 3 is a good game, and I’d like to finish it, but it’ll have to wait.

Changing topics, my recent foray into live action Japanese dramas has resulted in an interesting discovery. The computer I use for fansub playback is older than dirt and thus isn’t all that useful for watching h264 or 720p encodes. I’ve been putting off replacing it for some time now, as it handles standard encodes marvelously, but with h264 really catching on with fansub groups, I figure it’ll be only a year or so before I simply have to do something, whether I like it or not.

Anyway, on occasions when I’ve watched h264 or 720p encodes, I’ve found that lag issues don’t really kick until about twenty minutes into an episode. Since the average anime episode only runs a few minutes longer than that, I’ve been able to make do, but with live action drama episodes running twice as long, it becomes an issue. It was during an episode of Hotaru no Hikari, however, that it dawned on me: if the processor simply wasn’t up to the task, why would it always wait twenty minutes before giving up the ghost? Clearly, whatever the problem was, it was a function of time.

Turns out, it was a temperature issue. Monitoring the temperature of the processor while watching an episode, I found the lag would always kick in once it reached a certain level. And it would usually take about twenty minutes to reach that level. My suspicion is that the processor intentionally throttles back at that point to prevent damage. Hence, the lag. Thankfully, I found that simply pausing playback for ten minutes once per episode in order to let things cool down made all the difference in the world. I’m glad I figured that out; now I can explore potentially cheaper cooling options without throwing a bunch of money at a new computer.

Although, I’d probably be better off just replacing the computer and being done with it. After all, I can get a nice little Core 2 Duo machine for under $500.

Finally, as thanks for reading this far, here’s Nanoha getting her ass kicked.

That’s all I’ve got.

I often get questions from readers asking my opinion of shows I’ve never watched. With older anime, I can understand why some may automatically assume I’ve watched a certain show, but when it comes to newer or currently airing shows, I like to think I keep everyone updated enough on what I’m watching that there should never been any question. Yet, people often assume I watch everything under the sun.

It’s no surprise, though. A lot of serious anime fans I know do watch everything under the sun. Or damn well near it.

So, why don’t I? Lack of time is the obvious answer; I have a job that keeps me plenty busy, not to mention other hobbies I care deeply for. In reality, though, I could watch more anime if I really wanted to. The reason I don’t, however, is because I don’t want to suffer the fate of so many anime fans who throw themselves into the hobby with unbridled gusto, only to run out of energy and give up a quarter of the way out of the gate. In other words, I’m trying to avoid burnout.

Then again, I’ve been watching anime for long enough that burnout shouldn’t really be an issue. But it is. I occasionally go through periods in which my interest in anime is minimized, and while these periods are not the result of burnout, they could very well lead to it should I push myself too hard. Thankfully, these periods typically come and go without much fanfare. I’d like to keep it that way.

Fear of burning out isn’t the only reason I carefully control the amount of anime I watch, however. I was watching a couple episodes of the Magic User’s Club OAV recently, and I was reminded of how much more “magical” anime was when I first watched the show. What was so different about back then compared to now? It was in my early years as an anime fan, for one, but it was also before I started watching fansubs on a regular basis. With fansubs, watching anime is a pretty routine activity. I don’t think it’s any less pleasurable a way of watching anime than, say, marathoning series all at once or focusing on only a few shows at a time, but it is a different sort of pleasure.

And it’s because I often crave that sort of magic that I strategically pass on watching certain new shows that nonetheless grab my interest. After all, if I pass on a show in the present, I’ll have the opportunity to “discover” it at some point in the future. It sounds strange, I know, but I’ve had a lot of success with this approach to picking and choosing anime, and it’s led to my finishing a lot of great shows I might have otherwise not been able to keep up with had I tried watching them on a weekly basis as they aired. I enjoy discovering “new” anime.

That’s also why slow anime seasons such as the current one don’t discourage me all that much. There’s always new anime to watch. I have a list of unwatched shows a mile long. And, of course, there’s value in taking a step back from anime on occasion to focus on something different and new. That’s why I’ve been watching more live action Japanese drama this past week than I have anime. And it’s why I’ve been thinking of taking up mountain climbing this Summer. It’s why I take work so seriously. I don’t want to look back thirty years from now and say, “I should’ve lived a more interesting life.”

And it’s was for that very reason that I allowed myself to get hooked on anime in the first place.

So I did something a little different than usual and watched a J-drama this weekend. And now I’m downloading another one. And making a list.

This does not bode well.

I don’t want to dig too deep into this episodic blogging vs. editorial blogging debate, but since I’m often held up as an example of a blogger who transitioned from one approach to another, I do want to offer a few thoughts.

For what it’s worth, I rarely read episodic or summary posts on anime blogs, with a few exceptions. And when I do, I typically skip straight to the personal opinion portion of the post (should it exist), as that’s where my interests truly lie. Of course, if the personal opinion portion of the post consists of little more than, “This was a good episode,” I probably won’t be bookmarking the blog or visiting all that often in the future.

Yet, if I take a look at the posts I wrote when I first started anime blogging back in the dark ages, most consist of little more than, “This was a good episode,” at least in distilled form. There’s a world of difference between what I was doing then and what I’m doing now, and while I get a lot more personal enjoyment out of my current approach to anime blogging, the old approach was plenty enjoyable in its own right.

However, it required that I be pathologically diligent in keeping up with shows, taking screenshots, and making new posts, and eventually morphed into a part time job that sucked up a lot more of my time and energy than there was time and energy to be had. It was a high cost, low benefit sort of thing, and it was so negatively impacting my anime viewing experience that I had to stop. Had I kept up for much longer, I fear I would have flamed out entirely, and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this today.

But, there are anime bloggers out there who are still putting the time and effort into summary and episodic blogging. And I can only assume they still enjoy what they’re doing and will continue to enjoy what they’re doing for a long time to come. When I look at the anime blogging landscape, I see a lot of summary and episodic blogs. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, I’d like to see more anime blogs come online, editorial and episodic both, as it would inevitably make for a more robust and more diverse anime blogging community. That’s a good thing.

Every blogger has their own reasons for walking the path they’ve chosen, and even if you decide not join them on their journey because you have a different route or destination in mind, it doesn’t mean they’re lost. I like discovering new anime blogs, especially when they’re written by interesting people who have interesting things to say. If someone can say something interesting in four screenshots and a couple of sentences, more power to them.

Fundamentally, it’s not the format that matters. It’s the content.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It took twenty-nine years, but I finally woke up to a White Christmas. Unfortunately, it’s more like a blizzard, so I fear I might not make it home today as planned.

I think I’ll go back to bed.

After finishing Kanon earlier this year, I made a pledge to rewatch it come Winter. Except, when ADV announced its licensing of the show and set the release date for the first DVD in January, I decided it might be better to just wait. I originally wanted to both marathon and watch it in the proper season, however, so… well, I pulled out my fansubs and started watching last night. I’ll be purchasing the DVDs, obviously, but I figure there’s no harm in rewatching the show now.

So, aside from paying a short visit to my parents tomorrow, that’s how I’ll be spending my holiday weekend. It sounds pathetic, I know, but with the cold and the snow, I’d rather just stay inside where it’s warm. Home is where the heat is.

Speaking of which, while discussing televisions last week, a certain ghost of anime blogging past asked if I was planning to follow up on this post, seeing as I moved to a new place over half a year ago. People always seem to find this sort of thing interesting, so I suppose I should. Hence, I present to you the new and improved Hop Step Jump nerve center, now with more display space.

Clearly, a shiny new TV would look nice in there, and I were feeling impatient, I’d take advantage of Black Friday and pick something up for a cheap, but… well, what’s the weather forecast look like for that morning?

“Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow. Lows around 10F.”

I think I’ll just stay in bed.