2011: My Second Quarter in Anime

When I decided it might be fun not just to go on another cruise but to go on one starting in Japan, I was aware I wouldn't be spending that much time in the country but could still hope it might do something to broaden my awareness of it; I wouldn't say I see it just as "that place anime and manga comes from," but there does seem something to "a more balanced perspective," even if just on general principles. However, a series of unfortunate events made the cruise line cut out all the en-route stops in Japan, and it took me just a little while to come to terms with the thought "well, at least I can still say I was there."

In my one jet-lagged and perhaps briefer than it could have been foray off the ship while it was moored in Kobe, though, I did happen into an electronics store with floors of anime-related models above the televisions, computers, and appliances, and that stroke of luck might have at once made the abbreviated hours-long visit "pay off" in some strange way even if it might not have counted as "broadening." Visiting South Korea, too, gave me a feeling of similarities to what I'd seen of Japan, a neat rejoinder to the too-easy impressions of the island nation as somehow "unique" and "non-threatening yet amusingly strange." As for the rest of the cruise, though, even on the sea days I seemed busy enough to treat it as not just a vacation from work but from watching anime. That puts a gap in the middle of this every-three-months look back at what I've seen, but I was occupied enough watching on either side of it.
( Forums on the move )

( Fansub follies, at length )

( DVDs too )