Must-read Monthly Monday (June 2018 ed.)

Another great month in the aniblogging community just happened. Let’s see what we’ve got…

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 21st of May 2018 to today (25th June 2018).

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Other People’s Reads

It wouldn’t be a round-up post without them. However, since I scour people’s archives on a regular basis, these may not even be from the right time period…

• Arthifis’ Classroom: Getting More Google Hits! – First Class (do I really have to tell you who wrote this???) – For those of you who worry over blog stats, this post could help you. Even if that doesn’t matter to you though, there are still some ways to really make your blog stand out…it turns out I’ve been following some of them unconsciously myself…
• Beautiful But Ugly| This Ugly But Beautiful World by Lita Kino – Just talking about KonoMini (also known as This Ugly Yet Beautiful World) is enough to bring back nostalgia, so even though I passed on this post in May I ended up coming right back to it for June. I did mention my familiarity with this anime briefly in the clickbait collab, after all…
• Filler Post: Sometimes, It’s Okay to Be the Underdog… from D & A Anime Blog – It’s not really anime-relevant, but rather a life lesson you can apply anime to. Sometimes you need someone else to tell you that even though you’re going through a hard time, it’s not bad to have the chips stacked against you. Now that midyear blues are setting in (where has the year gone…?), it seems like the right time to get ourselves back up for whatever the next half year will bring.
• Why I Hate Dubs (Which I Love, by the Way!) by tcrow (Terrance Crow) at Crow’s World of Anime – That very confusing title is also very tempting to click on, eh? As much as I’m not familiar with the shows being discussed, a lot of my own sentiments on dubs are echoed here and Terrance does a good job of explaining the scenes.
• Welcome to the Hero Association…or Not! [OWLS 2018 May “Movement” Blog Tour] by Shokamoka from Anime Wonders – As much as I like to try and flood him in as many awards as I can (I think everyone knows Irina started it, though), the guy is part of OWLS, meaning he does put out some formidable posts every now and again. As to what’s actually in the post, it’s on the philosophy in the corporate world and inside the bald head of One Punch Man.
• The Unforgivable Weakness of Chika by Irina – Speaking of Irina, here’s one of her posts. In the past I’ve had mostly complaints for Mahoutsukai no Yome, but Irina’s analysis of the characterisation of Chise’s mother reminded me that there were times where I enjoyed and appreciated this show’s presence as well. If you’ve finished the show, it’s definitely something worth checking out; if not, it’s worth a dodge until you’re done with the show.
• Friday’s Feature: Why Syaoran Beats Tuxedo Mask as a Male Character in a Magical Girl Anime by Karandi – I think one thing that gets misunderstood about gender equality is what’s right there in the name, which got lost now that people place a lot more emphasis on women’s rights. Since I’m getting through Cardcaptor Sakura as I’m typing this, it’s interesting to think about what Karandi poses about the imbalance between magical girl shows’ protagonists and their male characters…
• In-between Generations of Fandoms and Loving It by Scott from Mechanical Anime Reviews – I don’t think what Scott describes here is restricted to just him, as the comments prove – it’s because a lot of anime fandom is in a certain age bracket where both technology and the demand for anime was on the rise internationally. This post isn’t just an exploration of the pros of being a balanced anime watcher, it’s relatable and that’s why it works.
• Idolish7 – Can these bishonens please stop making me cry? by Ahoge Girl – The anime of Idolish7 finally came to a close, so…now’s a good time to start flinging around reviews of it to convince people to watch it! (Haha…) This review is more for those who have gripes with previous otome game and idol mobile game adaptions, but it’s still fairly accessible for those who have no interest in that.
• My Hero Academia Season 1, Anime TV series (2016) by Raistlin – Raistlin’s back from his hiatus and getting around to some of those promised anime reviews. Seeing as Baccano! decided to disappear on me before I got around to it, I’m not going to peep in on that review because spoilers, so here’s the other review he did.
• The Three Episode Test is a Horrible Waste of Time, Here’s the Right Way to Use It by Plebby – Truth be told, I kind of understand the mindset behind the 3 episode rule now that I’ve done the light novel project, but I still don’t get how people can follow it so religiously…so here’s Plebby to preach some similar thoughts and share his experiences with some of his drops along the way. (…Is it just me, or am I mostly featuring bloggers whose names are in the blog titles this month?)
• BloTs: Bingeing vs. Consistency – As a Reader by Tetrax4berium at Life is Ani-Movie – Tetrax has been around the Spellbook for a while and even helped out for the half-year point, but due to his hiatus I haven’t really had the chance to feature his work yet. The particularly scientific way he goes about the topic of how to read posts is quite memorable as well as being engaging, so definitely check it out.
• [Feature] Cardia Wears the Pants: Fashion and agency in Code: Realize from Anime Feminist – Code:Realise is one of those shows that kind of flails in place genre-wise, but does do some things spectacularly which makes it stand out. I didn’t really do it justice when it aired – I was planning to do a post on it around the time of the 12 Days of Anime, but that fell through – so hopefully if you’ve seen the show by now, this’ll make up for it and if you haven’t seen it yet, then this may be an incentive to watch it (because the post has spoilers for the ending).
• 5 Anime Blogging Tips to Keep You Motivated! by Steph of Two Happy Cats – It was pretty surprising to find out someone thought the aniblogging community was dying, because I sure didn’t think that way. Regardless of whether it is or not though, I think people will get some use out of these tips anyway so here they are.
• #180 – Hinamatsuri Interview Vols. 1 & 2 – Tanaka Takako, Nakajima Yoshiki, Honda Kaede from Seiyuu Plus (originally from Web Newtype) –  Hinamatsuri‘s finished its runtime in Japan, so this is the first of a series of interviews giving insight into the show’s recording process. Of course, the more you read these interviews, the higher the chance of spoilers for the series itself…but heck, they’re actually kind of addicting in that “I’m gaining useless knowledge” sort of way, haha.

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Spellbook Offerings

Carried over from last month:

• 25 Days Anime Male Challenge – This collab got extended for another 10 boys, so expect more hot boys on Saturday afternoons (my time). These posts definitely drop a lot of the uptight, almost-academic air I’ve got in my other posts, so if you’d like to fangirl over anime guys with me, feel free to.
• Spellbooks and Horoscopes – Talking about magical girls would’ve been fine and dandy if they weren’t behind paywalls for me, so here’s me teaming up with AstralGemini to discuss magical boys for the rest of the season, with posts set for Sunday afternoons (my time). Due to the French Open, Astral’s side (Boueibu Happy Kiss) is lagging one more week than it should be…

New this month:

• The Wonder of Aria the Animation – Kicking back and revisiting old anime isn’t something I get to do every day, so here’s some things that Aria is unique in its genre space for and then some things that allowed it to be the flagship for an entire genre.
• Why Don’t Subtitlers Always Translate Anime Song Lyrics? – There seems to now be a trend on Crunchyroll to translate more songs, typoes be damned, and yet they passed on subtitling songs for Anisong Station, which sounds kind of weird when that’s the entire reason for existence of that show…so I pondered some of the reasons why lyrics don’t get translated, and why they’re getting translated now.
• Breaking Pedestals in Bungou Stray Dogs – Crunchyroll’s acquisitions of the Code: Realise and Bungou Stray Dogs OVAs got me back into the older show spirit, so here’s an examination of the latter in how breaking a character’s ideals builds their characterisation.
• Tricky Terminology – This is an idea that’s been sitting on the backburner since December of last year, which should explain why it’s encompassing a topic that seems to be more for a rookie rather than a seasoned anime fan – I hadn’t quite figured out my audience at the time, and ended up with a compromise of a topic. However, it seems because of its explanatory nature, it’s won a few fans…
• The Scare Factor in Girls’ Last Tour – Another idea originally conceived in December of last year rears its head. I just have to vouch for my odd feelings in regards to this show, no matter how old they are…
• The Cover Art’s Half the Fun! – Spinning ideas from other bloggers’ ideas into your own posts is one surefire way to keep the content coming, and so I nick an idea born in the comment section of an Anime Q and A post for this post on the little things that make cover art unique, like having different characters on each volume’s front cover.
• Great Gals From the Anime World – Just to turn the tables on all the anime boys, here’s a post with some of my favourite female characters.
• The Importance of Nene in New Game! (TBR/W Post)  – It’s the tag’s standard routine as you know it, but with the argumentative/analytical spin you’ve come to know and love from the Spellbook.

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Coming up next…

• You might have noticed I added “(Aria)” to the end of my username recently. That’s based on the overwhelming support for the name from this post, although I still have no idea how the brackets are a legal input for a WordPress name…so if it makes life easier, feel free to call me “Aria”.
• My summer pre-season predictions post will be out tomorrow and the spring wrap-up post will be a week and a day after that. The odd scheduling is because Rokuhoudou finishes up on the day of the wrap-up post and Boueibu Happy Kiss finishes the week after, so putting the posts out later than what they’re set to be would mean delaying all the summer stuff…
• It’s break season until next month’s Must-read Monthly Monday! I’m catching up on that backlog right now, so I’m doing my best to get through Cardcaptor Sakura. I should be able to shove some more of that TBR/W tag out of the way…once I beat the clock on Shiki…(i.e. As it stands right now, Shiki is top priority, then TBR/W shows, then CCS.)

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