AngryJellogation – 5 Questions

Over the past few days I’ve seen quite a few of these Aniblogger Interrogation posts on the blogs I frequent, and tonight I finally had the honour of being tagged in one myself by Caraniel (whose blog I so nearly beat in that tourney a few months ago :razz:). For anyone who hasn’t come across this latest chain game yet, or who is simply confused by my post title, here are the rules:

Each person is supposed to follow the rule of fives.You are allowed to ask 5 questions, after which you can tag up to 5 bloggers by hyper-linking to their blog; 5 questions because it’s not too many to flood another blogger and occupy too much of his/her time, but yet a large enough number to ask your most important questions, and 5 bloggers to avoid spamming. Hence, prioritize your questions, and who you wish to ask!

Those tagged are obliged to answer the questions in a blog post, and after which, they are entitled to create their own 5 questions and tag 5 other bloggers, so on and so fourth. You should answer your own 5 questions as well. You are allowed to tag the person that tagged you in the first place. Also, copy and paste this section on your blog so others can understand how the game goes.

In the case where a blogger strongly refuses to answer a question, he/she must instead post a nice anime image, wallpaper or cosplay picture, et cetera in response to that question.

To make things interesting, a blogger can include wildcards in his/her 5 questions by placing an asterisk, (*), after which those tagged are obliged to reveal something interesting about themselves that others did not previously know. There is no limit to the number of asterisks one can place (which means there can be up to 5 wildcard questions).

Anyone can feel free to start the game; you don’t necessarily need someone to tag you. Just create your 5 questions and tag your 5 people of choice. However, the catch is that you must answer your own 5 questions as well.

To potentially prevent an endless game, this round of games will end on the 8th September 2012, 12pm JST (GMT +9). After which, no more bloggers can tag others to answer their questions.

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So, just what has Cara asked me…

 

1. What kind of show makes it into your all time favourites?

That’s a difficult one. I definitely have a preference for sci-fi and fantasy, so any show featuring elves, or space, or elves in space is off to a good start. But I’ve seen plenty of bad anime from those genres, and also count many comedy and romance series among my all time favorites.

I’d say a show would need a good storyline and interesting characters, and if it makes me laugh, even better! (e.g. Steins;Gate, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Baccano!). For a comedy series, the ability to generate laughter is compulsory, and it has to be loud and side-splitting, but plot is optional (e.g. Nichijou TV, Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, Azumanga Daioh). If anyone is interested, my Top 50 anime of all time can be viewed here (just the first page of shows I’ve rated a full 5 stars). 🙂

 

2. If you had to move to any anime world which would you choose & why?

You know, for all that I hated the show by the end, I could see the appeal of living on the bread loving island of Shining Hearts: Shiawase no Pan. Life seems so simple there, with all that delicious bread, and apples, and ice cream… and catgirls… even lizard men invasions can be defeated in under 5 minutes with no (human) casualties! So long as I fake amnesia (and let’s face it, I WOULD be pretty disorientated if I suddenly became two dimensional), I’d be guaranteed a house and training as a baker!

Close runners up in terms of interesting anime worlds to live in would be Kino no Tabi (definitely as a traveler and observer like the protagonist, life would never be boring), Iblard Jikan (because that world is just SO PRETTY!) or Tears to Tiara (since that is pretty much Wales: The Anime).

 

3. Guilty Pleasures – do you have any?

Every season, at least one. For the best part of this year Phi Brain (both seasons) has been the one that stands out, but others include the likes of Rinne no Lagrange, Upotte!!, Senki Zesshou Symphogear, Seikon no Qwaser and the (inexplicably) fantastic Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. A lot of the series that got me into anime would probably fall into the guilty pleasure category if I watched them now! (Oh DearS).

These series are all far from perfect, but for all their obvious flaws I did still enjoy them. To be honest, if every anime every season was perfect, it’d be boring. A bit of cheese here and a bit of fanservice there is perfectly harmless, ideal for when I’m too tired to focus on anything with a plot, and may even make me appreciate truly great series all the more by comparing them. 🙂

 

4. When looking at new shows, is there anything that instantly makes you go “MUST WATCH NOW!”?

If a series is in some way related to a show I’ve seen before and liked, it will almost certainly top my must watch list. Sequels, prequels, spinoffs, adaptations of works by the same manga-ka, series which have the same director, that are produced by the same studio etc. etc. They’re usually safe bets. As for shows that are completely new to me, my aforementioned preference for sci-fi and fantasy means they’ll be high priority, but I’m also always on the lookout for something I’ve never seen done in anime before – something that’s new in every sense of the word.

Taking the upcoming Autumn season as an example (and excluding sequels), I feel as though I must see at least the first episodes of Robotics;Notes, Magi and Code:Breaker.

 

5. How long have you been an anime fan? Do you think the interest will ever fade?

As Caraniel probably already knows from previous discussions on The Student Room forums, and as anyone who has read the ‘Jelly-Who?’ section of my blog should also know, I bought my first manga volume in 2005 on my 17th birthday, which makes calculating how long I’ve been a fan that much easier – just under 2597 days (or just over 7 years. And now you all know how old I am :razz:).

Will the interest fade? I find it hard to imagine I’ll ever give it up at this point in time. Anime and manga is just such a huge part of who I am these days! If I gave it up, I wouldn’t know what to talk about, what to spend my money on, or what to do with my free time. I must have done SOMETHING before I discovered anime, but I honestly can’t remember what!

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And now it’s my turn… thinking of five people to tag is actually even harder than thinking of questions to ask, as many of the blogs I’m following have been inactive/on hiatus recently, or have already taken part (I know I don’t have to choose five people, but failing to do would make me look unpopular :(). Therefore, I’m just going to tag the first five bloggers to spring to mind. Feel free to not respond if you don’t have time, or feel this kind of post wouldn’t suit your blog, but if so I’ll take the ‘nice anime image’ the rules say you’re obliged to provide instead. Make it a catgirl, please. (Actually, screw the rules, you don’t have to do that either if you don’t want to).

I CHOOSE YOU! GoodbyeNavi (Black Strawberry), Medieval Otaku, Errant Princess, Myst (Through the Frozen Glass) and Caraniel (Caraniel’s Ramblings – just because the rules say I can! :razz:). Apologies if you don’t get pinged, or get pinged lots of times, as I’ve been having trouble sending them…

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My 5 questions (along with my own answers) are as follows:

 

1. Which anime protagonists (if any) do you feel you’d be able to do a better job than if you were in their situation?

Is that question even grammatically correct? Anyway rather than simply imagining yourself in an anime world, imagine yourself in the protagonist’s shoes. I was quite proud of this question until I realized I had to answer it myself, and that I have few qualities that would make for a good main character! I’d probably be just as whiny as Shinji if I had to pilot an Eva and fight Angels.

I guess I could at least out-do most generic male leads from harem series… not because I don’t fall into the usual tropes (I’m not particularly good looking, physically weak, am nerdy and have glasses – a perfect 10), but hey, at least I’d be faithful to one of the cast. Or ignore them all and leave in search of characters with more personality. Though having said that, my actions would probably make for the most boring series ever created. Have fun with this one!

 

2. Which popular anime series do you not like, or find overrated?

This is sort of the opposite of Cara’s guilty pleasure question – shows I almost feel guilty for NOT finding pleasurable! I’m not going to pick on shows that I haven’t watched, or shows that clearly weren’t aimed at me in the first place (Junjou Romantica and the like), but there are a lot of series out there that seem ridiculously popular, but that I just didn’t ‘get’. I’m not talking about series like K-ON! either, where there seems to be at least one hater for every devout fan.

I’m talking Bakemonogatari (every episode bored me to death), Eden of the East (everything about the premise should have appealed to me, but somehow didn’t), Tiger and Bunny (was good, but not THAT good) and Clannad After Story (the first half with the side character arcs was DIRE, and the ending was a cop-out). I could go on, but these alone should attract enough angry comments. 😛

 

3. What manga or anime series would you like to see fansubbed/scanlated in your language, or licensed in your country?

I added the option for licensing in case anyone was completely against fansubbing or scanlations, and in an ideal world all shows would be easily available legally in all languages… but I’ll be honest, most of the anime I have in mind won’t have any hopes of a UK license in the near future. As virtually everything new does get subbed one way or another these days, I’d love to see some older series such as Magical Idol Pastel Yumi, Hikari no Densetsu or Jurassic Tripper (because how many other anime featuring dinosaurs can you think of? Anime needs more dinosaurs)!

Manga-wise, since I prefer books to scanlations, I’m looking mostly at series that were once licensed but then dropped – would love it if someone rescued the licenses for Maria Holic or Sgt. Frog.

 

4. What series would you recommend to someone who has never watched any anime?

The perfect anime for a beginner. Nothing too heavy on the anime or Japanese culture references, and nothing that will scare them away from the medium for life. The big debate that goes on in my head is, do I recommend the best of the new season, a highly rated classic, or do I risk trying one of those ‘Overlooked and Underrated‘ shows nobody else has heard of on the poor victim? 😛

Of course it depends a lot on the tastes of the person in question, but as general recommendations I’d probably suggest the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Eve no Jikan, Chrono Crusade, Outlaw Star or Record of Lodoss War. I didn’t even try to make that list sci-fi and fantasy-themed, it just occurred naturally.

 

5. Do you have any weird anime watching habits?

This has the potential to be a waste of a question if all you do is pick a show and watch it on your own on your PC/TV whenever you feel like it. It could be a good time for that catgirl pic. I, however, have had some VERY weird watching habits over the years, largely stemming from my OCD. At one point, I could only start watching an episode on the hour, on the half hour, or within five minutes after those times. So I could start an episode at 1:00 PM, or 1:02 PM, or 1:05 PM… but if it was 1:06 PM, well, I’d just have to find something else to do for the next 24 minutes. Yeah… don’t ask. I can’t explain it logically, it was just an obsessive compulsion. It didn’t apply to UK TV programs, or if I was watching anime with a friend, or with the university society. And then one day, I just decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore, so now I watch anime whenever I like.

*slightly* less weird examples would be always following exactly 18 ongoing series at once (a large number comes in handy for weekly rankings, at least), and always having one ‘short’ (~12 – ~26 episode) and one ‘long’ (anything with more episodes than that) older series on the go at once as well (which makes for a nice balance).

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And finally, that’s me done. I started at just after 10 PM, and it is now 3:20 AM. I’m going to bed.