2011: My Fourth Quarter in Anime

With the year almost over, one part of taking a look back at all of it is thinking back over just the past three months and the anime I watched in that period. I seem to have adapted my viewing habits back to working a regular schedule, and one other thing that happened was that I bought an HDTV and a Blu-Ray player at last. It may well be that my anime-heavy viewing habits made me add that "at last," though; from the particular message boards I read, I might have formed a casual (and perhaps even now unfair) opinion of North American Blu-Ray releases of anime having intrinsic, inevitable flaws and disappointments, just as I had wondered a bit over a decade ago whether it seemed possible to make an acceptable DVD at all given the complaints of some people. Of course, the people who complain seem swift to hold up Japanese Blu-Ray discs; the problem for me there is that "official" subtitles with Japanese releases seem occasional occurrences for pricy box sets. As much as I drifted into preferring anime over domestic animation or live action TV series, it just doesn't seem to connect to the conviction it's "worth" rather a lot more (as much as the old "supply and demand" comments might be brought up), and while there does of course seem (unfortunate) proof to me that with the right equipment, software, and expertise it's possible to import a Blu-Ray from Japan and crack the subtitles out of a "fansub" to sync up with it, it still seems a complicated and expensive way to achieve moral superiority. Still, a few of the releases I've already bought have been dual-format, so there's at least a possibility already there.
( Starting off and continuing: Sound of the Sky and Fullmetal Alchemist )

( Digging in: Spice and Wolf, Clannad, and Aria the Natural )

( Delving back: Gasaraki )

( Up to the minute: Gundam Age, Guilty Crown, Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing, and Squid Girl )

( Finishing things up: Kimagure Orange Road and Macross Frontier the Wings of Goodbye )

2011: Journal in Review

I wondered a bit about my end-of-year habit of going back to the first sentence of the first post for each month in my journal given how I had just taken advantage of the chance to get a free account with Dreamwidth, if for no more involved reason than because I could, and managed to import everything I had posted to it. However, when I started collecting the sentences I went back to my old journal, and in any case I still have every intention of continuing to crosspost to it (and to keep my friends list there intact) for as long as I can.
( A year in twelve sentences... )

See you in the new year!