Miscellaneous

Old Site Finally Shuts Down

 

It’s mid-April and without any additional notice, the old site at http://randomc.animeblogger.net finally went down today. Despite having the new Random Curiosity running here, it’s still a bit sad to see the old URL not load anymore with the Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière banner you see above. It also felt pretty weird deleting it from my bookmarks toolbar just now, as it was almost like I was laying the old site to rest. Gone, without a trace, except maybe in Google searches that won’t load anymore, but never forgotten. :'(
 

Miscellaneous

Final Fantasy XIII: Linear… ?


Vanille’s name is pronounced “Vaneel” in English and not “Vanilla“ 「ヴァニラ」. o_O
 

I’m sure anyone who’s bothered to look up some initial reactions to this game will know that (vocal) Japanese gamers have criticized it for being too linear and not playing like an RPG. Somehow, promoting that thought quickly became the “cool thing” to do by people who haven’t even played the game themselves. Well I wasn’t the least bit fazed by those concerns and was intent on finding out first-hand if it’s even a problem.

More “editorial-like” discussion after the jump… ** No Spoilers **

Miscellaneous

Final Fantasy XIII: Overall Thoughts


Lightning strikes much more than twice.
 

Introduction

Had my shipment arrived during the Christmas break like I was hoping, I would’ve probably blogged Final Fantasy XIII from start to finish like any other anime series here. I was ready to shell out $250 for an HD PVR just to do so too. Ever since the NES days, Final Fantasy has been about the story first and foremost to me, with improvements to the gameplay mechanics and graphics just adding to the overall experience. For that reason, it seems like it would’ve been a worthwhile blogging venture, especially when a lot of people imported the game with little-to-no understanding of Japanese.

When I was younger, I played a lot of Japanese games with much less understanding of the language than I have now, and found that a lot of the experience/enjoyment was simply lost in translation. As such, I thought I’d supplement what I didn’t have during the pre-Internet era, but the opportunity slipped by since I was late arriving to the FFXIII party. In lieu of chapter-by-chapter coverage, I figured some spoiler-free hands-on impressions would suffice, or at least, that’s what our resident site owner has been insisting that I do ever since I told him I preordered it.

More after the jump…

Best of Anime / Miscellaneous

The Best of Anime 2009


Now that 2009 is over, here’s a look back at some of the best series the year had to offer. Due to the subjective nature of it all and the fact that we’re constrained to what we’ve seen, we won’t be trying to pick series that everyone finds agreeable this year. Instead, we’re here to convey our personal favorites for 2009, after which you’re more than welcome to chime in with your respective choices. To make things more interesting, we’ve increased the number of categories and separated them into corresponding areas — namely Production, Miscellaneous (fun stuff), Genre, and Notable Others. Also included at the end are the final results to the Reader’s Choice Poll.

New as well this year are my picks as a standalone opinion alongside Omni’s. Previously, I helped him pick a comedy series but the rest of the choices were solely his. This time around, you get both sides of the coin. Under each category, I’ve provided a brief description of what our criteria are. Immediately below that are Omni’s picks along with his comments followed by my own.

 

Disclaimer:
These are purely our personal opinions based on the shows that we’ve seen in the past year. For a show to even qualify for consideration, it had to have met the requirements outlined in the Reader’s Choice Poll. For OVAs/ONAs/movies, the additional requirement is that it’s been either released on DVD/Blu-ray or online so that viewers outside of Japan have had a chance to watch it. This means that series like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Summer Wars (not officially released) are not up for awards this year; they’ll be saved for 2010.

Miscellaneous / Poll

Reader’s Choice – Favorite Anime 2009 Poll

It’s time for the Fourth Annual Reader’s Choice Poll!

This year, we’re changing the poll in a few key ways:

  • There are now two polls. One poll is for all regularly broadcast series and the other is for OVAs, ONAs, and movies.
  • You now get three votes for the regularly broadcast series poll and one vote for the OVA/ONA/movie poll. This lets you choose your top three for the year instead of just top one, which in past years has skewed the poll towards certain shows.
  • You can write-in your favorite show or OVA/ONA/movie if it’s not on the list. However, if you choose to write-in a title that doesn’t qualify (see below), then that’s basically wasting a vote.

    • The criteria for a series being included on the regularly broadcast series list is that it had to have been a complete TV series that ended in 2009. The general idea here is that you can’t really judge a series until it’s over, and that means that fans of shows like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood will have to wait until next year’s poll. The criteria for a series being included on the OVA/ONA/movie list is just that it has to have been released in 2009 on DVD or online. This means that Summer Wars does not qualify this year. Still, if there’s anything you think that deserves to be put as an option on either list that isn’t already there, then feel free to email me, and I’ll add it.

    These polls will close on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at approximately 08:00 AM GMT.
    I’ve extended voting 24 hours. These polls will now close on Saturday, January 2nd 2010 at approximately 08:00 AM GMT.

    The poll is now closed. The results will be announced soon!

    Miscellaneous

    Site Improvements / Blogging Status Update

    As some of you may already have noticed, we’ve made a couple of improvements to the site over the past week. First up is the addition of the Site Map page to replace the horrendously long Categories and Archives tabs at the top. With the number of entries we have, navigating down to the bottom of those lists wasn’t practical at all, not to mention that the drop-down actually appeared behind flash videos. In addition to categories and archives, we also included direct links to the Season Previews for easier access.

    Beside each of the category links are post counts. They should help provide a quick glimpse as to which sections have a fair bit of content. For some categories, you’ll also notice a downwards arrow. Clicking on it will provide you with direct links to all the posts under that category. This was done for popular ones with a relatively large number of entries, where your only alternative before was to go to its category page and click on “Next Page” a bunch of times to find what you’re looking for. Overall, this static page should make it easier to jump around the site, especially if you’re on a notebook/netbook and limited to a touchpad.

    …More improvements and an update after the jump.

    Anime News / Miscellaneous

    More On The Anime Industry’s Turmoils

     

    The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting article along with the video above about the current state of the anime industry. I’m sure everyone’s heard of the decline in sales for the past few years, but they also discuss the low wages of animators and competition from China and South Korea. There was a big online discussion a few of years ago about the unglamorous life of animators and seiyuus (which Riuva did a nice job summing up), so the ridiculously low paying wages and long working hours were really no surprise to me. Regardless, it’s still a worthwhile read, especially if you aren’t aware of how poorly things are going on the other side of your weekly anime fixes. The video also gives you a good idea of what Akihabara and the inside of a studio are like.

    Note: If the video doesn’t start for you, try pausing it and pressing play again.