Picture by 白鮫 – Source

When I asked fansubbers “Why do you fansub?” I received a very thoughtful answer by 8thSin from 8thSin Fansubs. This is his thoughts, unaltered besides having added spacing, bolded links and pictures for the sake of readability. I hope you will it as much as I did!

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8thSin: I started fansubbing to maintain my Japanese skills, but I pretty much fansub now because it’s something that I enjoy, and I like sharing anime or movies that I enjoyed with others. It’s a hobby.

There’s a common misconception that we do it for recognition, but I doubt this is true in most cases. It’s hardly worth the time invested every single week. Most fansub groups nowadays don’t list the exact staff members in actual releases, and sometimes not even in group websites, so sometimes recognition is not even possible. Personally, I hate this trend because having the staff member name stamped in their release is important for accountability.

For me, I would hope that “Translated by 8thSin” is a stamp of approval for a certain level of translation accuracy and quality, and I am to blame should there be any translation mistakes (same applies to poor grammar for editors, or an ugly sign for typesetters etc). I would think I would be less inclined to care about the quality if they didn’t list my name in group websites, and I would never trust a release unless I know exactly who worked on it, but I digress.

Back to the topic, I think the main reason for “popularity contest” is a simple math of cost(time/effort) vs benefit (contribution). If I translated 2 hours for 120 viewers, then I’m spending a minute per view (for free). If there were 60 times more, it would be 1 second per view. I would obviously work harder on the more popular project because my efforts would be worth it (4 hours would still be only 2 seconds/view).

No one likes to have their time and effort wasted, and view count is crutial motivational device that assures us that what we are doing will be appreciated by enough people to make it worth subbing. I think this has always been true for fansubbing, even in the VHS days, just that they had less competition so release time was not part of the equation. For example, I would not have translated Mawaru Penguindrum at 3AM in the night during my vacation if I didn’t know 20,000+ viewers were waiting for it.

Picture by 青蝦 – Source

As for the current fansubbing scene, making anime “accessible” is a thing of past. Series will be subbed one way or another regardless of your participation in fansubbing, and I would imagine others continue to fansub just like me: Because it’s fun and we think we can help the viewers better appreciate anime we like. Times have changed, and “everything now” mentality of Generation Y (and later) is everywhere, not just fansubbing.

Additionally, even the most polished work only takes 8 hours to release if the group is efficient. No more than 6 hours TL, 2 hours editing, 6 hours typesetting, 1.5 hours timing, 4 hours encode, 1 hour QC. Most of which can be done in parallel. Not many old timers still have this kind of efficiency or dedication (to be available when series air), and nobody would watch their work so they stop caring and disappear. On the other hand, a lot of young fansubbers who can keep up with this pace aren’t skilled enough for high quality work.

Most of us speedsubbers think there is negligible improvement in quality of speedsubs vs slowsubs anyway, provided both groups have competent staff. 4 or 5 typos or bad grammars are hardly worth 2+ days of wait, and I think audience choices for faster groups make sense. The problem is when you download groups from incompetent staff, but it’s exactly the reason I started a fansub review for translations myself so viewers can better decide on which groups to pick.

Picture by うみょんげ – Source 

Another problem is when fansubbers don’t take certain projects seriously. I’m guilty of this sometimes too, but because we do it as a hobby, sometimes we just need to have fun to have motivation to spend hours every week for no real return (I can easily earn $40/hour to translate more business documents, but it’s boring).

Although “to spread anime” is probably in the head of every fansubber, I doubt any of us have it as number one reason, because we’re all human and there’s usually not enough motivation to fansub for reasons like that today (because the fansubbing scene usually does not need any individual group to have shows subbed… Mawaru Penguindrum was an exception because we kind of killed the competitions’ motivation by making significantly better releases in about same speed, which resulted in a rapid downfall in their view counts).

Having fun still is, and I don’t feel guilty messing with a few lines as long as I know we’re still providing the best subs available, above average fansub and legal sub quality, and frankly, I like translations with personality than just boring ones with stock phrasings like “it can’t be helped.” That was not what the creators had in mind, and does not catch the spirit of anime.

Picture by X布 – Source 

Personally, I am in full support of legal streaming services, and I have dropped quite a few planned projects due to legal licensing. However, I do help out my friends who want to sub licensed shows, because those subs can still be improved upon. As I said before I like sharing things I like, I would like to those series to be appreciated the way they were “meant to”, conveying as much meaning and nuance by story/script writers as possible. Hopefully, this kind of pressure would cause them to have more true simulcasts and better quality subs, though not very likely. Legal anime subs right now are far from true “professional-grade”, unlike Ghibli or other movie translation quality. Even one mistake per episode is not acceptable for a product. I know this kind of contradicts my previous statement about the “negligible improvement in quality” argument, but having a ready script completely changes the equation in “cost-benefit for motivation”.

Professional subs seem to be improving by the season. I think one day, CR/Funi/Nico subs will license everything, and their subs would not need any more tweaking. I don’t think it’ll be too long before the end of fansubbing, and we’ll just have rippers left to do the dirty work when they start providing quality releases in a timely manner, because many series already aren’t worth subbing for us. When legal anime providers do their work flawlessly in both quality and speed, we fansubbers can go back to just being fans.

Picture by 溝口ケージ – Source

As promised in my first post, I have now managed to find and ask a question to a couple of different fansubbers out there. It was one very simple, yet very broad, question I asked them:

• “Why do you fansub?”

It has been very interesting to hear their answers and talking with them about fansubbing in general. It truly feels like I learned something. If some of you readers are curious yourselves, simply visit the fansub group’s channel on IRC and ask away!

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One answer I received was very long and thoughtful, so there will be a fourth post in two days or so. Hope you will like it.

But let us get to the answers. The answers are slightly edited, such as having added a capital letter at the start of a sentence or putting two sentences together. Only minor things. They are not altered in such a way that their message is changed. Also, some fansubbers wanted to be anonymous.

Now, answers galore (and an awesome video)!

I hope no-one felt like this.

• RHExcelion from Commie Subs

“We sub because out of respect for the leechers, since we were former leechers ourselves, that if we didn’t do what we did the quality standard would be much lower.”

• A Certain Someone from a Certain Group

“1) I enjoy anime. 2) I enjoy seeing others enjoy anime. 3) I enjoy seeing others enjoy anime that I enjoy. 4) Helps me keep my English and translation capability honed.”

• Ulrezaj from Mazui

“Well I could go on about language, practice, for the greater good blah blah, but the only real reason is because I want to.”

“It’s definitely a service for others. Almost by definition since we do it for free. But if I stopped wanting to do it (subbing//Marow), no amount of epeen or philanthropy would make me do it.”

• arashi0 from Hadena

“Forgot the reason at one point, at the time, just like doing it.”

• A Certain Someone from a Certain Group

“I just wanted to. I wanted to do it and derive all of the positive effects from it. I worked on other people’s projects a lot so I wanted to have my own. To improve my Japanese, to bring people to the forums and spark up the community a little.”

“There’s a temporary feeling of satisfaction when people enjoy your work. Most of us do it because we enjoy being a part of the community, each group is a little community part of a larger community. It has almost nothing to do with the fans.”

“A lot of subbers dont idle in the general channel, don’t read the comments, don’t care about any of the publicity.”

“I don’t really have 1 reason, it’s a combination of a lot of reasons. But the biggest reason is: “I want to””.

• ChrisK from Coalgirls

“We don’t really do fansubs here, we just take them from other groups and put them on Blu-ray encodes. But the motivation for that is usually to have a release that is exactly like we want it to be. And since it’s still quite a lot of work, we might just as well share it to put it to some greater use.”

“I just want a good release, so if there isn’t one I’ll make one myself. You know, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.””

• A Certain Someone from a Certain Group

“I started fansubbing because I wanted to improve the quality of fansubs. Now that I’ve been fansubbing awhile, I feel as if it’s an obligation to the leechers for me to continue to provide that service and quality.”

“That does mean I don’t always enjoy it, though. It’s not an obligation as in it’s a chore, but like… I’m expected to continue at the same quality type thing. People are counting on me. That sort of obligation.”

• Dys from Doki Fansubs

“My reasons have been varied since I started fansubbing. In the scheme of things I didn’t start subbing all that long ago. I’m only just coming up on a year.”

“When I started it was purely because I wanted to give something back to the people who had been providing me the service for so long. As time went on it also became because I enjoy it. It’s good fun working as part of a team, as long as that team actually, you know, functions.”

“Now I do it because I like to make sure things keep happening. In this group especially, people have been doing a great job of vanishing lately, so my greatest desire is pretty much to make sure, along with ixlone primarily, that Doki doesn’t die.”

• Dark_Sage from Whinesubs

The Internet, a magical place where anything can happen. When it comes to anime, we now got the luxury of having basically any anime we want in our hands in the blink of an eye. But despite there being legal ways to watch anime, people still fansub.

In my first post I, very simplified, brought up some possible reasons as for why people still fansub. Whether they hold true or not is not up to me to decide, because I have no insight into fansubbing. But anyhow, let us play with the idea that we are going to fansub an anime, whichever we would like. It could be Haruhi, Bakemonogatari or something completely else, it does not matter. Now, the question is: what would you focus on when fansubbing?

I would say quality.

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What I mean by “quality” is quite simple, even if it may sound a bit vague to some of you. To explain, it is the result of putting a lot of effort into creating something truly amazing, something to be proud of. Well, this is slightly exaggerated, but you understand what I mean. My point here is that if I am going to fansub something that otherwise would never escape the Japanese borders, I would do my outmost. I would never release something half-heartedly.

I sometimes wonder if fansubbers also feel that way or if I am only a naïve fool.

Whenever I have the bad luck of encountering poor fansubs, or only am reading about them, I have this awkward feeling telling me: “just why do people fansub?”. As I said in part one, the (original) reason for fansubbing is spreading unlicensed anime. So if people want to spread anime, why should they not do a proper job?

Today, almost everything about fansubbing is about being as fast as possible, because the fans want the episodes now. If you are slow, another group will release the episode faster and you will be forgotten. As a result, we have a lot of simple errors such as spelling mistakes, odd sentences, lack of opening and ending song translations and more, simply because it needs to be released as soon as possible. Now, wait a minute, am I the only who that finds this… wrong?

Why would it be necessary to release episodes fast, but not in perfect shape, to ensure that people download your fansubs? Is fansubbing a popularity contest all of a sudden? A way to become famous on the Internet? Come again?

I cannot follow this kind of thinking. I thought the most important thing was to spread unlicensed anime? As in providing us with high quality? And if there are a couple of other groups fansubbing the same series, why not slow down and take a few days extra to guarantee a high quality release, especially if there is a legal alternative available? I just do not get it.

• Come on, people are fansubbing for free, stop whining already.

Yes, I understand that and I love them for doing so. But exactly why should they fansub, if their goal is not to do a good job, but instead to gain Internet fame? Fame which they also would gain by creating great fansubs? I doubt, and to some degree do not hope, I am the only one who would focus on quality instead of speed. There are groups out there so bad, I cannot help but wonder why they continue to fansub. It is as if they do not care about fansubbing in the slightest. At least try to improve, guys!

• Fansubbing is a great way to help me develop my language skills.

Cool, I totally agree! But that is not an excuse for horrible fansubs. You have to check your translation a couple of times and you have editors to point out the mistakes. If you are all learning Japanese, make it clear from the get-go so people do not get tricked.

In the end, I really want fansubbers to improve. I cannot come up with any reason for them not to.

How do you feel about this? Should we start questioning fansubbers or do you disagree with my line of thinking? Share your thoughts!

Picture by 嘉志 – Source

This is it. For each little step I take, I go deeper into the dark, scary and unknown territory. All alone, only accompanied by hundreds of distant glances from lurking monsters that are waiting for me to do a mistake and trip over. I wish them no harm, not at all; I only want to ask some humble questions. Will you please listen to them?

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With the poorly dramatically written beginning of this post thankfully over, let me get to the point. This is what you could call a very delicate matter and I believe many might feel annoyed or maybe even offended (though I wonder about that), so please, you should know that I am merely curious. There will be different questions and I will speculate about them on my own. This is not hate or anything. Just simple questions.

Now, why do people even fansub?

Back in the good old days I never experienced, fansubbing was pretty much the only way you could watch anime without knowing Japanese. It was a time full of joy, happiness and VHS, or so people claim.

Now fast-forward to the present and look where we stand today. Goodbye to the VHS and enter the Internet. Now anime is everywhere, even legally! This has raised the question whether fansubs are needed, as their main reason used to be translating unlicensed series. Noticed that I said: “used to be”. Even though a series is legally available, sometimes even streamed for free, people still fansub. Now, why is that? This will be my first question (this is the time I wished I had a blogging partner).

Aria makes every post happy. Calm down and relax.

Why do people continue to fansub, even if a series is legally available?

First off, what I mean here is series that are actually available outside Japan in English and all that. Not Hyouge Mono which most likely will never see Western release and where fansubs are the only choice. Instead, I mean stuff like Natsume Yuujinchou or anything else available on legal sites such as Crunchyroll. Now we have anime legally and for free! What could possibly be the reason for fansubs?

Here comes the tricky part: I do not know, I can only speculate. Here are some thoughts:

• Fansubs have better visuals.

You are restricted to SD-quality on Crunchyroll as a free viewer, that is true. If you want higher quality you have to pay 7 dollars/month. Though, as a fansubber, should you not be happy about it being licensed? Some say no, some say yes.

• Fansubs are faster.

Correct me if I am wrong, but are there not a lot of simulcasts today? On Crunchyroll, however, you have to wait one week after the episode first aired unless you pay, which at least I feel is a bit lame. We live in an era in which we want it now. So, you fansub to release episodes to the fans faster?

• Fansubs are free.

Most of the streams are free. But let us get to the next question.

• Fansubs provide better translation.

I do not know Japanese, not in the slightest. I cannot tell which translation is better than the other. But what I do know is that I rarely have any problems with, for example, Crunchyroll-subs when it comes to understanding the message. I have as much problems with fansubs as I do with legal subs, to be honest.

• Fansubs are available in the whole world.

Now we have, what I would call, a valid reason to fansub that is not nitpicking. You see, a lot of series are still not available worldwide due to dumb region locks (read a related post HERE). This means I, who live outside USA, have no choice but to watch Nisemogatari by other means than legally on Crunchyroll. If fansubs did not exist, I would not be able to watch it. This reason to fansub goes hand in hand with what fansubbing was originally about: spreading anime.

So when it comes down to it, are region locks the reason people still fansub? I find it to be a good reason, if it really is why. But who knows? I do not. And what about series that are available worldwide (are there even any?)? What are the reasons then?

I will try to ask some fansubbers after I have finished the second post on this matter. It will focus more on the fansubs themselves. In the meantime, how do you feel about fansubs? I am very curious!

AND DON’T KILL ME ALRIGHT

No, seriously, it does not need another season. Not a one-cour. Not even an OVA. Just, simply, nothing at all. The series is finished. Accept it and move on.

Every once in a while, there happens to pop up discussions about whether a show needed more episodes or not. Scamp touched upon this particular topic in one of his posts. These discussions also tend to bring up the question about unnecessary sequels. Are they needed, or is it simply milking the franchise? Some honorably proclaim that only true anime fans wants sequels, no matter how needed they are. Everyone else is just false fans. Other people argue that a sequel would be worthless, as the story is already finished.  These two sides clash and as always on the Internet, it ends with each side badmouthing the other.

My opinion on this falls into the latter kind of people, the ones who believe that finished means finished. For me, this is actually rather simple and not that difficult to understand. When a show is finished, it has done what it wanted to. The main characters grew, they saved the world and they became lovers or something else. You get it. In a show where the main characters saved the world, there is nothing to continue with. Develop the relationships, the mythology or other nonsense? What would be the point of that, when the story is over? It would not hold as a reason for a new season. What about introducing a new enemy, meaning it would be a mindless rehash of the first season? Come on.

I am not completely opposed to the idea of releasing some bonus episodes directed to the fans though. If the directors really want to, let them create some bonus episodes of fan service (not that kind of fan service) or something like that. It will be pure feel-good enjoyment for the fans. I am one of the persons who sure enjoyed an OVA like that. It was the new Toradora episode bundled with the Blu-ray release of the series, an episode I had been longing for ever since I first heard of it (in the end, it was very well-handled!). Toradora means so much to me that I would not mind a second season of nonsense; I just want to see the characters move again.

See, I can understand people who crave for sequels to finished anime. But when it comes down to it, I would say no to a sequel to Toradora. It would most likely ruin what is already near perfect; it would drag on beyond its natural length. And truth be told, it would probably not even be fun to watch. If anything, go with an OVA or two, but nothing more. Creating a new, big, story… why? Try to justify and convince me that a sequel is needed for a show you like.

In April this year, we have the upcoming sequel to Eureka Seven called Eureka Seven Ao. So far, not much is known about it. But what piqued my interested in the synopsis was the following:

“A mysterious entity called “Secret” suddenly appears and launches an attack on the Scub Coral lifeform on the island. Ao launches a certain military FP called “Nirvash” aboard a Japanese military transport in his fervent desire to protect the island.”

So, here we have Scub Coral and Nirvash once again. But oh, what is this? A mysterious entity called “Secret” shows up and does bad stuff? Is this not the exact same thing as the first series already? Why do we need a sequel? Answer: milking a well-known franchise. It is always easier to use big names instead of starting from scratch.

Before I completely wander off into the territory of not making any sense at all (doubt I made any so far, though), I want to ask you about your thoughts on this matter. How do you feel about sequels? I find it simple to explain to me, finished is finished, but harder to others. It is such a vague topic.

“> trying to determine the worth of television entertainment by “necessity”

lolwhat.

It’s as “necessary” as any other television show is. If you’re not interested, don’t watch.”

People like you annoy me.

Originally, I planned to create a huge roundup post, delving into and discussing each participant’s posts in this Blog Carnival. Since I am bringing this up, you might have already guessed that I will not do so. Instead, there will be some short thoughts about the project itself.

Roundup posts by participants – 14

Ace Railgun by AceRailgun
Anime B&B by Marina
Anime Viking by Marow
Draggle’s Anime Blog by Draggle
Ephemeral Dreams by Ephemeral Dreamer
Hachimitsu by Mira
Leap250’s Blog by Leap250
Lemmas and Submodalities by SnippetTee
Listless Ink by Yi
Mainichi Anime Yume by Yumeka
Nopy’s Blog by Nopy
One Minute of Dusk by du5k
The Otaku’s Study by Sam
World of Yamaguchi Hoshiko by hoshiko

Roundup posts by guests – 6

Ambivalence, or is it ambiguity? by @fkeroge
Ambivalence, or is it ambiguity? by Valence
Blue Wave Network by Schultzz
deluscar by Kai
Flomu’s Blog by flomu
The G-Empire by Overlord-G

First things first: I LOVE these kinds of events and it really shows the cooperative side of anime blogging (read tsurugiarashix post over at KaminariAnime!). It really surprised me that it all went so smoothly and in the end everyone managed to get their posts up. What is even more surprising is that we even had some uninvited guests! There may be even more than the five I have found. You can find all the participants HERE. UPDATE! Do not miss Schultzz post over at Blue Wave Network! It is the sixth guest post!

Reading everyone’s thoughts have been very interesting and I suggest you to do the same if you have not done so already. It is far better than me trying to summarize, as it would not do the posts justice. But in general, it seems that we all agree on that enjoyment is one of the more important, if not the most important, factor in scoring anime. If you do not like the show, then how would you be able to give it a high score?

It has been very fun seeing how each of us tackled the subject differently, even if our posts are somewhat similar in content. Personally, I would like to see some broader topics in the future, something that would make all of us go wild and result in very different posts. Do not get me wrong here, I love the concept and I have read all the posts. But, and this is a very big but, it became slightly tiresome in the end. It also felt like I had nothing more to say after writing a few comments on some blogs, as the content were similar. You might have noticed that I did not discuss very much on the other blogs. This is why I believe a broader topic would make it even better!

I wonder if this post will come off as negative. Hopefully not, as I adored this Blog Carnival and these are just some short thoughts on how to improve it till next time. I would gladly participate again. But for this time, the carnival is over. And it was a success.

Thanks to du5k for creating the Blog Carnival!

Time for some new anime blogger community fun! As a start, we try to find out what makes a perfect score anime.

What is this this “Blog Carnival”?

The Blog Carnival is a project created by du5k from the blog One Minute of Dusk. The purpose is to create discussions around some specific topics and to do this a couple of bloggers have decided to participate (see below). But most of all, I believe it is to have fun and do something together. Hopefully it turns out well!

It starts with all of us participants creating our own post about the common topic we have been given and continues with us discussing it on each other’s blogs. On the 15^th of January this project will come to an end with each of us doing our own roundup post, in which we do some kind of summary.

UPDATE! See my roundup post HERE.

So in short: be given a topic>write a post>discuss>roundup post. Simple.

List of participants – 14

Ace Railgun by AceRailgun
Anime B&B by Marina
Anime Viking by Marow
Draggle’s Anime Blog by Draggle
Ephemeral Dreams  by Ephemeral Dreamer
Hachimitsu by Mira
Leap250’s Blog by Leap250
Lemmas and Submodalities by SnippetTee
Listless Ink by Yi
Mainichi Anime Yume by Yumeka
Nopy’s Blog by Nopy
One Minute of Dusk by du5k
The Otaku’s Study by Sam
World of Yamaguchi Hoshiko by hoshiko

We also decided to participate – 6

Ambivalence, or is it ambiguity? by @fkeroge
Ambivalence, or is it ambiguity? by Valence
Blue Wave Network by Schultzz
deluscar by Kai  
Flomu’s Blog by flomu
The G-Empire by Overlord-G

What Makes a Perfect Score Anime?

For starters, see how I slightly tweaked the title? There is a big reason to that which concerns the topic itself. You see, people tend to use a whole load of different scoring systems, which tends to create a mess of confusion. It could be letters, numbers, “avoid, you choose, great” or something completely else. The most common ones are the five- and ten-point scales, but even using them, the usage of scales is not crystal clear. Everyone will interpret them differently, some never using the lower half of a ten-point scale and so on. And while we are at it, how do you translate a 4/5 score to a ten-point scale?

As you can see, it is downright impossible to handle the scales alone in a universally accepted and fully understood way. This is why I brought this up, because it is the very basis of how you rate anime. To understand what makes a perfect score anime for someone, you first have to understand the scale that person is using. But more importantly, you have to understand how that person uses it.

My point is that even if both you and I rate a show 10/10, it will never be by the same reasons. You may rate solely on enjoyment or story, while I rate it as a whole. Which brings me to my next point: the perfect score anime is only based on your personal opinion. Yes, perhaps you try to stay objective, but in the end, it is unavoidable to let some of your own tastes affect the score. What you find to be enjoyable will be thrash to someone else! There is nothing that could be called a “completely perfect masterpiece” that should be given the highest possible score by everyone who has watched it. It is only a matter of personal taste.

With that said, let us get going to what makes a perfect score anime for me, which actually is a hard nut to crack. Out of currently 182 completed shows on MyAnimeList, I have only given 10/10 to eleven of them (see the list HERE). If it instead were a five-point scale they used, there would be a lot of more shows that would be given the ”perfect score”. What I mean by saying this, is that I will never save the highest score for the “omgsupermegalegendmasterpiece” anime like some elitist. I rate out of enjoyment and as a whole, with the former weighting a little bit more than the latter.

When I say “as a whole”, it is actually more like the question: “am I disturbed by anything?”. Let us take Aria the Natural as an example to easier explain what I mean. For me, Aria the Natural is an amazing show, something I would not hesitate to call one of my personal masterpieces. The setting is lovely, the atmosphere is on top, the characters are enjoyable and the music is nothing short of fantastic. I enjoyed, no, experienced it. But despite all this, there was one part it could manage as good as the others; namely the art. There were occasional times every now and then when the characters could really look off model. But, I asked myself, did this bother or detract from the overall experience? Not in the slightest, was the answer. The sometimes wonky art did not disturb my journey with Aria the Natural at all. You could say that as a whole, it was good enough so those little mistakes could be overlooked. Only an elitist would be annoyed by them.

In the same way, I try to take the purpose of the show into consideration. The characters of Aria the Natural may be very far from underdeveloped, but they are nothing you could call deep. But then again, does this matter in this show? Is it trying to be deep? No, it is trying to make you feel harmonic, something it gracefully succeeds with.

In the end, my perfect score anime is a mixture of my overall enjoyment and the whole. It is something so gripping that I cannot stop watching and at the same time something I am not bothered with. Everything simply works. Usually, if it manages to create a special feeling inside of me, saying that this was damn good, it is considered a plus. But how I explain that feeling beats me. You will most likely understand it yourselves, if you know what I mean!

What makes your perfect score anime?

After a month of no new post at all, it is finally time to bring this year’s “Christmas Calendar” to an end. It has been a bit of a bumpy ride, with not a lot of posts (due to “12 Days”) and my own lack of imagination for topics. While this year might have been slightly lackluster, it has been a good experience and I now know how to improve it till next year. I hope you have all enjoyed it!

But what is that you say? Christmas is already over? No worries, because Twelfth Night is tomorrow!

As many of you might already know, Toradora holds a very special place in my heart. There is nothing really like it out there. Behind the facade of a lighthearted romantic comedy is a very subtle show with a lot of thought behind it. People who claim it to be a typical show in its genre must have looked at a completely different show than I did, because that is not how I feel at all.

Toradora reminds me that a winter sports anime would be cool.

The problem of how you perceive Toradora lies in its aforementioned subtlety and hidden thoughts. There are a lot of things that tend to suffer from this problem: books, movies and more. And this is precisely one of the reasons I love Toradora: every person’s journey will be different. Some may take the talk about ghosts and the likes at face value, while others try to understand what it truly means. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the characters.

This is why Toradora was such an experience for me when I first watched on a low quality streaming site two years ago. With its fleshed out characters, well thought out story and such, I was stunned and could not stop watching. It was something more than a lighthearted romantic comedy. It was about family, true love and hardships in life. I could delve deeper into each of these three subjects, but for the sake of keeping this post spoiler-free I will not do so.

Well, this is a Christmas post.

It is all thanks to Toradora that I stand where I am today when it comes to anime. It is what I consider to be my first step towards watching anime for real. Before it, the number was perhaps only about five shows per year. In 2011, it was not far from one hundred.

And now, I have once again finished watching Toradora. And it is still just as good as I remember it to be. And that feeling of emptiness and happiness at the same, which always occurs to me when something extraordinary is finished, was still there. Toradora is what defines me as an anime watcher.

It is, what you could call, Toradorable.

Above you can see the chart with all the shows airing and over at Random Curiosity you can, as always, see a very informative post about each and every of them. This means I will not go through every little show, but instead focus on the ones I find interesting.

What I already had the bad luck of watching

Kyousogiga – A random mess which at least looked cool. Supposedly created to sell merchandise.

Hidan no Aria Special – Just avoid it, okay?

What I will watch

Daily Lives of High School Boys – If Scamp’s post or the short previews of it have not convinced you already, hopefully me mentioning it will do so. If you did not like Kimi to Boku because of guys not acting like guys, perhaps this is for you! If you also like wacky comedy, that is.

Another – Oh, look, it is another anime by P.A. “we can animate” Works! While they have yet to prove they can create a good story, they still win me over thanks to their magnificent animation. And now they are doing horror with character designs by Ito Noizoi, the artist from Haruhi? I am in for another anime by P.A. Works.

Kill Me Baby –

Nisemonogatari – Shaft. Shaft. Shaft. Oh, and a sequel to Bakemonogatari. But mostly Shaft.

Ano Natsu de Matteru – J.C. Staff is creating an anime original? During a season they will air not one, not two, but six different shows simultaneously? That is taking a huge risk, especially when you consider that J.C. Staff tend to dip in quality from time to time. But an anime original by them sounds way to interesting to skip, as the fellow J.C. Staff fan I am.

And that is it, this is all I will watch during the winter 2011 season. If I had to choose some more, it would probably be Area no Kishi since I have not watched a sports anime in a while and Rinne no Lagrange for the same reason (well, mechas instead of sports). Five shows are not much considering I usually follow around eight, but this will also allow me to watch some older anime. But then again, things can change.

As for what I will blog, it is still undecided. It might depend on what Crunchyroll picks up in the end, and so far they have not done an announcement regarding their airing it seems. But perhaps Ano Natsu? Any special show you readers want me to cover?

Also, I almost forgot. There actually are two more additional shows I am going to watch this season, but that is when they have finished airing. These are two sequels: Natsume Yuujinchou Shi and Amagami SS+ Plus. Some shows are simply better when watched as a marathon. Perhaps Black★Rock Shooter too, but the OVA is still unwatched. It looks like style over substance.

And besides, there are some sweet OVAs and Specials too. Usagi Drop, Toradora, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei… holy mother of God, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is back!? BEST SEASON EVER

“The gentle wind brushing against my cheeks…

While rocking to the sound of the waves,

I can feel my body relaxing.

I close my eyes, and can see…

The direction the wind is taking.

Now let’s row, towards the shining waves.

A smile is immediately brought to my face.

Hey, tell me…

Can this yearning be healed by the wind…

As the undine takes me to your side?”

Undine by Yui Makino

Yes, yes it can be healed!

Aria follows the story of a young gondolier named Akari who, together with her friends Aika and Alice, strives to become an Undine, gondoliers who guide visitors around the city. It takes place on the planet Aqua, former Mars, and in a city called Neo-Venezia, a replica of Venezia.

I finished this wonderful series in the end of summer.

Aria the Animation
Aria the Natural
Aria the Natural Special
Aria the OVA: Arietta
Aria the Origination
Aria the Origination Special
Aria the Origination Picture Drama

62 episodes later.

I still cry.

Aria is not like every other Slice of Life out there. It is unique. It is harmony. It the true masterpiece of the anime industry.

You do not agree with my last statement?

Then watch it.

Aria is definitely not for everyone. The setting is a utopia where everyone is happy and the relaxing atmosphere is so thick that you will not be able to cut through it with a knife. People who demands action or cannot enjoy the beautiful will find nothing of worth here. And it makes me feel genuinely sad. I wish everyone had the chance to enjoy Aria.

When you watch Aria, you become one with the world. It is not only Akari’s journey. It is yours too. Neo-Venezia is such a wonderful place that I actually wish it existed. I would move there any day. The city itself becomes one of the main characters. And I now want to visit Venezia.

Aria is the hope of the anime industry.

It is a life-changing experience.

Euforia.

Make sure to read Inushinde’s post about Aria too!