The Eximius Blog Award

I don’t think I’ve seen this award before Terrance Crow tagged me…

Meta note: I started this post, mostly finished it…and then left it for a while to finish other stuff, including putting out a 1st impressions post on Paripi Koumei which makes this post seem out-of-sync in retrospect.

(Source: Crow’s post, linked above)

Rules

1. Use the official logo/graphic of the award and display it on your blog post.
2. List the rules.
3. Tag the original creator: Riddhi @Whispering Stories and the person who nominated you!
4. Mention the most exceptional thing about you and your blog (one about you and one about your blog).
5. Mention one thing you find exceptional about the blogger who nominated you (to show love for the blogging community!)
6. Answer the three questions posed by the person who nominated you.
7. Share your favourite blog post that you’ve written.
8. Tag 7 people! (Because 7 is such a magical number!)

Exceptional Things

I praised my ability to recall things and my ability to be prompt in the past, but as time went on, both of those got disproven (I don’t yet remember everything for my job just yet and I’ve been late twice, for example, although in the latter case, “more than 5 minutes late” is enough to make my employer call me for tardiness and the cases in question were roughly 2 minutes late and 10 minutes late, so I’ve only been called once).

So…I’ll pick something else: my ability to speed-read. Much like bingewatching anime, it’s only a skill that’s only useful in certain circumstances, but this is one of them: I have this pile of library books which, these days, is constantly approaching or outright maxed out, thanks to the loss of time due to uni, work, commutes for both (my public transport commute to work unfortunately happens to clock in at over an hour at worst, while on-campus classes for uni also currently consume an hour if I go straight there) and sometimes just taking a break from reading – even at post-grad level, there’s a lot of readings to do, as well as all the reading I do for translation.

Lately, this pile of books is starting to stress me out because several of the books’ due dates are coming up, so I’ve been reading even while at work and on commutes (when I would normally save commutes for readings or saved webpages I didn’t have time for at the time of discovery). I might continue to bring books to work, in fact, because sometimes there are just hours of standing around, twiddling thumbs, and I have a different pile of books in case of another lockdown.

At my fastest (such as when I was reading Nightshade last year), I tend to sacrifice comprehension for speed, but luckily, I haven’t yet had to do that for these books.

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…to be fair, I don’t think there’s anything particularly exceptional about my blog, aside from how long I kept the schedule up. I suppose the fact I try not to be boxed into any old topic is a positive, at least.

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Crow likes to “celebrate amazing moments in anime” (his words, not mine), but I think his best achievement is celebrating those who talk about anime. His Other Posts to Crow About section is a delight to read every time, even when he’s talking about an anime I’ve never heard of or haven’t caught up with yet.

Questions?

• Why is your favorite anime genre?

What…? “Why is your favorite anime genre?” (sic)

If it’s “What is your favorite anime genre?”, I’ll hop on to AniList and rattle off that it’s comedy.

If it’s “Why is your favourite anime genre what it is?” (as in, why is it your favourite), then it’s because it’s broad enough to encompass a range of works without killing the mood of other genres – for instance, Mieruko-chan showed us there could be horror-comedy, although the effectiveness of that, when you also consider the leery shots, is up to interpretation.

• If you had to add a new regular feature to your blog, what would it be?

I have no solid plans in mind for a new feature, but with the advent of adding Kofi, I suppose I could make Patreon-style “locked behind a paywall” on-demand posts.

• My last question has two parts, and they’re integral to each other, so I don’t feel guilty for apparently cheating!
  • What question would you most like me (or anyone else) to ask you about anime?
  • How would you answer that question?

I realised this while at my anime club’s barbeque about a month ago, but a question I won’t get a lot in the future – assuming I finish my degree on time by the end of this year – is, “What anime are you watching right now?”

It’s a tricky question for some people, sure, but it’ll at least get me to think about what I’m watching, which is a bit of a feat when I’ve been trying to binge a bunch and get this spreadsheet under 100 episodes for a few years now (I keep failing, because 1) I keep thinking I’m ready to add more, 2) I get over 100 episodes again, 3) I get demotivated/fall behind on the simulcasts, 4) rinse and repeat, 5) ???? and 6) profit, haha…).

For now, my focus is on Fruits Basket the Final while I try to clear my spreadsheet in time for Paripi Koumei‘s debut in a few days.

My Questions

I’m going to be more general with these questions, because this doesn’t seem to be a post originally from this neck of the woods.

1. What was the first anime-related craze you remember witnessing? (It can be a “hot topic” anime or it can be something more tangential, like hearing the crowd at an anime movie premiere.)
2. What sort of blog/video content do you wish people would produce more of? (Even if there’s already a lot of it.)
3. What’s one thing you wish people would value more?

My Favourite Blog Post

I think for the moment, my favourite post – even though it was a bit awkward to write, because I was facing my old demons – was this Platinum End post, for its raw honesty about a stigmatised topic.

Nominations

I’m going to pass this post on to everyone I can think of (within nomination limits)!

• Shoka, because one must.
• Irina.
• Karandi.
• Scott.
• Jacob, who’s newer around these parts but I’ve been in awe of his writing since day 1 of encountering it.
• Yu Alexius.
• Art of Anime, as thanks for doing a great job on the JCS.