Could this be tradition?

At the risk of starting a tradition, New Year's Day once again seems like a good time to reflect upon the state of the blog. I find that as I'm rapidly closing in on one and a half years of blogging I'm pretty happy with how this blog has turned out. I'm pleased to see that for my first full calender year of blogging I've hit my target average of four posts per month exactly (if I factor my five months of blogging from 2006 my average drops to 3.9 posts a month which is still pretty darn good). I had three very prolific months: January (7), February (10), and September (7). On the flip side I had four bad months as well: March (2), May (0), October (1), and November (2). I'm a little curious about just why I got so distracted by other things during October and November in both 2006 and 2007, but trying to break that trend gives me a little goal for the new year.

I'm glad to see the question of what direction I was going to take this blog has been more or less answered (perhaps it would be more accurate to say I've become more comfortable with the direction I have been taking basically since the beginning of this experiment). First and foremost I write this blog for my own amusement and edification, but of nearly equal importance I use this blog to communicate select details and interests of mine to the small group of my friends who regularly read it. I am quite happy with the result of the intersection of those two aims. Unlike last January I have no evolutionary dead ends to reflect upon - no commentary on celebrity deaths, nor pointless enumeration of the songs in my iTunes for me this year. I find I am, in general, quite satisfied with the topics I'm writing about. I still occasionally feel like I'm only mentioning some anime in passing, or end up feeling bad that too many of my comments about various anime I've watched can be summed up as "I watched this, and it was good/bad." I'm not sure that is necessarily a bad thing however, obviously I want to be saying more about my topic than just it was good/bad, but at no point have I ever set out to write a full blown review of anime (or anything for that matter) such as you would find on a website like Anime Academy. I do think it is a little odd that despite never having wanted to make this blog all about reviewing anime, I end up feeling bad about not writing actual reviews of the anime I feel like talking about.

As for going forward I'd like to see me write a few more posts about the books I'm reading, and the movies I'm watching. A few of my most recent posts have touched on those very topics, so that is a trend I hope to continue. I'd like to improve upon the reporting of what I've been up to. I'm pretty good about chronicling the basics of my role playing hobby, and I think I devote as much column inches as I care to regarding the time I spend on MMORPGs like WoW, but I made it down to the cities a number of times this last year for various different things and those trips saw little to no representation here. I'd also like to try and branch out every now and then and experiment a bit with the sort of posts I make. I've pondered a number of different things I might try: including a stream of consciousness post (I actually started writing one once, but ended up deleting it), posting the odd short story (that would actually require me to write a short story which is something I haven't done with any regularity since high school), and having a bad poetry day.

I think that meets my quota of introspection, time to talk a little anime.

Yesterday I finished watching Night Wizard. It is a thirteen episode action adventure anime based on a Japanese role playing game. The characters are interesting enough, I'd have preferred a few of them be just a little more fleshed out, but none of them were terribly two-dimensional. The plot is solid, nothing really cutting edge, your basic urban fantasy setting with demons attacking the Earth and a secret group of wizards charged with defending it. Add to that a quest to gather seven magic jewels, and a plot twist towards the end of the series that was adequately foreshadowed and follows the internal logic of the anime and I'd say it was worth my time watching.

There are a number of different ongoing anime series I've been following of late. Two of which have me extremely excited, but naturally I'm going to start off talking briefly about a third series I recently started. Taking advantage of the lapse of a North American license I started watching Futari wa Pretty Cure in December. I've made it through 32 of the 49 episodes. It is enjoyable magical girl fun. No real innovations going on, it is pretty much like watching Sailor Moon, but with much better animation, less annoying characters, and a better sense of continuity from episode to episode (although it is still pretty much a monster of the week show). If you like the magical girl genre, then you could do far worse than watch Pretty Cure. If you are interested in checking out some magical girl anime, then Pretty Cure would be an excellent start (although Card Captor Sakura would be better still).

Moving on to the two new series that really have me excited. The first of which is Shion no Ō. The series starts off introducing the eponymous character Yasuoka Shion an eleven year old girl on the cusp of becoming a professional shogi player. We quickly learn that when Shion was four she witnessed the brutal murder of her parents, the killer was never caught, and Shion hasn't spoken a word since that tragic night. The murder mystery is played against the backdrop of Shion's life as a professional shogi player, and I find the interplay between and the gradual revelation of connection between these two seemingly disparate things extremely fascinating. The characters are first rate - gloriously complex with numerous layers and facets. The episodes have been an interesting and enjoyable mix of unfolding mystery and suspense with each leaving me more anxious for the release of the next.

The other anime that has really caught my attention is Clannad. The anime is based on a visual novel developed by Key, and adapted for animation by Kyoto Animation (the studio also produced The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, so count me among their fans). Key and Kyoto Animation are also responsible for Kanon (Key the visual novel, and Kyoto Animation the anime) about which I had plenty of nice things to say back in April. The characters are the main draw for me here - I find them to be incredibly likable - the more I watch them, the more I want to learn about them. Thus far Clannad has be a bit lighter in tone than Kanon, a little less melodramatic, but the emotional impact of the developing plot has been every bit Kanon's equal. With few exceptions the episodes leave me feeling peaceful and content, juxtaposed with a growing desire to watch the next episode.

On a final note, much like last year, I started the new year off with a bit of browsing on Engrish.com. That I find this picture so amusing is proof that my time spent as a guild member of KotW on Dark Iron has corrupted me.