New Affiliated Blog!

If you don't pay particularly close attention to the main page (I'm guessing that would be most of my readers) you may have missed the new link we added to our list of affiliated sites recently. Brainstorm! is the anime review blog of Christina Soe, who eschews the more common format of episodic commentary for frequent full-series reviews - how she finds the time to watch so many series to completion is truly a mystery to me, but very admirable.

She includes a good selection of screencaps with each of her reviews, and employs a rating system based on how much she would recommend a series to others.

So go ahead and check her blog out at Brainstorm! and be sure to leave her some comments if you like what you see.

All Stopped-Up

So a few things have happened lately that have affected the timeliness of the reviews on the main site. Some of them are out of my hands and some of them are clearly my own issues and I figured I would outline some of them.

As far as the stuff that's out of my control, the main thing would be the review updates. There are some Summer series reviews that still haven't appeared. This can be attributed to Boris' laptop needing work and then an illness and what I assume is busy-ness with school (the time-consuming combination of work+school is something I definitely don't miss). It's also not his top priority, nor should it be, since it's mainly a repository for my own content and perhaps what one might call a vanity project, since I make no illusions of writing academic-level material here.

On my end, the fact that Summer has been left hanging has made my motivation to watch and write about the Fall season almost non-existent. That doesn't mean I haven't done any work; there are enough reviews finished to last for a few decent updates, but where I could normally crank out quite a few on an unoccupied weekend such as this, I've been very unable to focus and get enthusiastic about it. That doesn't mean I'm in an anime slump or anything; I've been watching plenty of shows and there are quite a few that I can enjoy, it's just getting to that next level and wanting to put words down that's getting to me. It's very frustrating.

Another issue that I've come across is that my obsessive following of the ANN Fall Preview Guide has left me feeling like I already know what to expect from most of the Fall's series, and when you already have an inkling that something's going to be pretty terrible, it's very tough to make yourself watch it. I think that reading other reviews is valuable in that you get a taste of other opinions and ways of approaching a particular subject, but I think from now on I'll try to keep my distance until more of my own work is completed.

In the meantime, I've been sort-of trying to keep this blog updated at least once a week with things, mostly links to AMVs but at least it's something. I don't honestly know how many visitors I have or how many people give a crap, but I like to believe that there are a few people who enjoy this stuff.