j1m0ne’s blog

Oh noes, not another post on the Anime Blog Awards! Fear not, I ain’t gonna bore you with another rant on why the ABA is a good/bad idea (not really anyway).

First off, I think it’s a good idea for the ‘community’ in general - I’m certainly enjoying the fact that I’m getting extra hits off it in the process. Though it’s hard to tell whether I consider myself part of the ‘community’ given that this isn’t really an anime blog (approximately 15% of my posts are about some sort of anime, 20% about anime music and misc rubbish, and the rest is about seiyuu).

I both love and loathe the idea of separate categories - love it for the fact that it allows somebody obscure like me to actually get nominated, in an obscure category that few people care about. Loathe it because I don’t like pigeonholing certain blogs with certain descriptions that I certainly don’t comprehend. I was basically sitting there thinking WTF is satire? That word flies over the head of someone dumb like me!

So I ended up nominating a bunch of blogs that I occasionally read when time allows, but mostly for those whose blog names I actually remember :- Besides, I rarely read blogs about doujin or games or figures cos I don’t give a toss about those things, just like most people won’t give a toss about seiyuu )=

I was thinking of listing all my nominated blogs and saying why I nominated them, but that’s boring (for that, you can just go to the individual categories on the ABA site, hit CTRL + F and type j1m0ne). Rather, I’m gonna pay homage to the blogs that most influenced me and my writing both in the past and present (and show off what a l33tard I am because I only read blogs that stupid old farts who look down on people who started watching anime in the last 2 years read).

The Past:
Momotato Daioh
It’s the blog that anyone who started watching anime before the year 2005 will have religiously followed, and who most still aspire to be more like. I am truly humbled that the great Momotato links to my blog for reasons I have yet to comprehend (I actually get quite a lot of hits off it), it makes me want to slap a MOMOTATO READS ME BLOG! BANZAI!!! badge on my chest and proudly stroll around the stratosphere. Well, not really but you get my drift.

(’mo) Lunar Scribbles
This was my first stop for manga, light novel, drama CDs and J-music reviews, especially the weekly whizz through Shonen Magazine - I was really into shonen stuff a few years ago. Lunarscribbles also provided me my first encounter with Sayonara Zetsubo-sensei, and for that I am eternally grateful.

JASCII
Yeah, everyone namechecks JASCII to sound cool eventhough it isn’t actually even a blog. But back when raws were as hard to come by non-existant pots of gold at the end of rainbows, JASCII was the first port of call for new series reviews. I believe he’s the reason why I watched, and ended up loving Dokkoida.

Matthew’s Anime Blog
After Momotato’s post count started dwindling, Matthew’s was where I migrated to get some good ‘ol episode summaries. Sadly, updates are sporadic nowadays :/ But never mind, I started to teach myself Japanese and no longer read episode summary blogs these days unless the dialogue is in Pororokkan.

Natsume Goushin Ryu Dojo
The blog was my stream source for obscure anime news about 5 years ago, but that sadly dried up over time. It helped that I was heavily into Tenjou Tenge and the Seikai no XXX series back then, and the site I used to refer to as simply ‘Natsume Maya’ had nice little doodles of the two series’ various characters in the background.

The Present:
Cinnamon Ass
The reason I started reading BluWacky’s blog was simple - he was from the UK. It might seem crazy, but I was based in Wellington, Somerset, UK in 2004 when I discovered CA and back then I could barely find anybody else within a 600-mile radius who watched anime. So it was comforting to find a blog that spelt the word humour humour and not humor - donmai me, it’s just the incessant drilling I received when I was a kid emphasising the proper Queen’s English spelling and all that crap. I still visit CA to read the first episode impressions but like I said, I’m pretty much past reading episodic blogs these days (I would’ve put this in ‘The Past’ category except that it’s very active and NOT in the past).

Canned Dogs
My first stop for anime-related news in English, for when I can’t be bothered to switch on the READ KANJI button in my brain.

seiyuu3
seiyuu3 is still the blog I go to for better insights into the seiyuu world - they get to see/do things that I can only dream of. These guys are also partly responsible for cultivating my interest in seiyuu, thanks to the Seiyuu Directory they used to maintain - one of the sites that taught me that the word ‘Seiyu‘ does not necessarily refer to departmental stores.

Ex-fansubber ひとり言
For the dorama coverage, and for the little face blobs . I like blobs.

Riuva
Simply cos I need a laugh once in a while. Unfortunately, half the posts on Riuva get blocked by my office’s IT department, presumably for containing the words p3n1s or tr1peman or l0lfangtan.

Honorary Mentions
Studio Neko-Han-Ten Anime Manga/CD Guide - Not a blog per se, but still one of my regular stops for anime music reviews. Run by nonchan, a Nihonjin who writes in perfect English that puts mine to shame.
Usagi Doi’s Seiyuu Database - The essential seiyuu database before Anime News Network came along.
Ryu’s Seiyuu Info - Another seiyuu database I used to frequent - those seiyuu quizzes on there were awesome.
Watch! Seiyuu-san (Japanese) - Source for most of my pointless seiyuu news.
Saishin Anime Joho (Japanese) - Source for all sorts of news, I mostly read this for the latest anime radio listings.

So thanks to all these blogs and sites I’ve mentioned, for inspiring me to take up my virtual pen and spew forth words of rubbish onto the unsuspecting netizens. And thank you for reading.

PS Vote for me.

*If anyone really has no idea what the heck that image up there is, it’s A.B.A. from Guilty Gear.

Posted on April 15th, 2008 under misc • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback