 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
What anime and manga conventions are worth checking out in the UK? Well, Hyper Japan is certainly a fantastic one to start off with.
↓ This post will be stickied to the top for a little. Don’t forget to scroll down for your regularly scheduled content! ↓
Mou daijoubu, nazete? Watashi ga kita! For those of you who don’t know me yet, you can call me Stars. After following RandomC’s posts for years and years, I’m joining the RC crew as a shiny new writer. Since I’m going to be taking my position here very seriously, it’s important to know that I am fluent in Vine, anime, and movie references. Please feel free to converse with me in my native language at any time. It’s an honor to be here among such a talented group of people and I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of what makes RandomC so amazing.
My exposure to anime started in the 90’s with Sailor Moon, but really hit its stride with Inuyasha, Dragonball Z, and Naruto in middle school. At first I was pretty adverse to watching them, but a friend of mine had a Sesshomaru plushie in her room that stole my heart, as well as copies of Inuyasha: Affections Touching Across Time and Inuyasha: Swords of an Honorable Ruler, which combined were more than enough to set me on my current path. Later on, thanks in no small part to RC’s recommendations, I expanded from the shonen genre and magical girls to include science fiction and mysteries like Steins;Gate, or the works of Gen Urobuchi, namely Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass.
MissSimplice here, and as of this season, I’ll be joining the team of writers at RandomC. In fact, I was just telling the other writers how I have to pinch myself once in a while to remind myself that yes, this is reality. I’m going to go ahead and be cliché: words cannot describe how happy this makes me. But as the proper millennial I am, here’s a gif describing how I’ve felt since the day Stilts asked me to join the roster.
I’ve watched a horrendous amount of anime and to this day, I haven’t been able to keep track. My first memory is of sitting in my aunt’s 80’s-looking basement with my older cousins watching Sailor Moon’s colours pop and flash across the screen, which then evolved to late night Inuyasha and Dragon Ball episodes. I never knew what was going on but I loved it all the same. I specifically remember a moment when I blinked and my eyes teared bloody murder because I hadn’t blinked for some time. Keep in mind I was like…four or five.
This quick announcement is to tell you all that Gleam, the new writer we brought on for this season, is no longer a part of Random Curiosity. We didn’t have a falling out or anything. The honest truth is that he disappeared. It’s embarrassing to admit that a writer went AWOL after three posts, because we put time and effort into giving him the tools to succeed at RandomC and he just … left. No idea why. Honestly we’re worried something bad might have happened, but we have no way of knowing when we reach out but receive no reply.
The reason I made a special post to tell you this, instead of bundling it into the schedule that will appear in the few days, is partially to explain why we’ll be covering fewer shows than expected this season. We tried to cover more, after all. But it’s also to ask anyone who’s interested in writing for Random Curiosity, or anyone who’s passionate about RC, to apply. We’re in the process of revamping the site (yes, that’s still happening) to make it smoother to read and easier to interact with, but the elemental truth is that if we don’t get more writers soon, RandomC will wither on the vine. We have a good stable of writers, but more and more of us have jobs and relationships and other responsibilities tugging at us, and we can’t devote time to blogging like we used to. The last few recruitment drives have seen fewer responses, but I know there are people excited about anime reading this who would love to contribute. I encourage those people to apply.
Send an email to stilts(at)randomc(dot)net if you’re interested. Thank you.
Well hello there fellow anime enthusiasts. My name is Gleam. Not like Shinji’s dad‘s glasses—that glare of unconstrained evil—but the twinkle that fills your eye when an anime takes you somewhere you could have never imagined, and you lose the ability to do anything but be carried away on the roller coaster of its enchanting story. Isn’t that why we’re all here?
I’ve been given a lovely opportunity to do some writing here on this beloved site, and I’m pretty jazzed about it. Just consider me your driver. We’re going to have fun. We’re going to watch romances blossom as Kaiju rage, explore the geopolitics of humanity split between the stars, and the philosophical ambiguity that appears when flesh and technology begin to crystallize and overlap. And on your left you’ll see a hero—once hated by his own people—grow to become their champion, defying the very limits of his body along the way. Beneath the eaves of that small house, you’ll notice an itinerant medic smoking absentmindedly, but don’t let his country stylings dissuade you, because his knowledge needs no adornment to be a Will-o’-the-wisp apparition of the Holy Grail.
Now that 2018 is officially over, it’s time for our yearly foray into annoying everyone with our questionable opinions, the Best of Anime 2018 post. As with last year, this year’s iteration will continue being written by one writer. Through a complete hiatus from blogging and other real-life obligations that made this year my busiest yet, I still managed to watch approximately ~80 series this year, and while I won’t guarantee total objectivity (like such a thing exists), I’d say I’m generally well-informed about whatever I’m wrong about. That said, I will be attempting to take a multitude of picks across the spectrum for each category to make up for the lack of a second opinion. What this means is that you may not see as many repeat winners this time around as you would otherwise, so mileage may vary here more than previous years.
Continuing from last year, there are numerous categories in the following areas: Production, Miscellaneous, Genre, and Notable Others. Due to lack of series candidates, the lack of involvement of specific writers that specialized in certain categories, and/or the belief that I may not have watched enough shows to make an informed decision about specific genres however, some categories have been omitted from previous years. This includes the Soundtrack, Plot Twist, Underappreciated, and Exceeded Expectations categories. Added back to this year’s post are the Animation (tweaked to include overall visuals) and Disappointment categories.
Encoding and videos for the OP/ED/Song categories were done by Xumbra, who will be retiring from encoding following his many contributions over the last decade. So here’s a shout out (thanks!) for him and everything he does for the site behind the scenes, especially in regards to not only this post, but the PVs that you found in each of the seasonal previews as well. It goes without saying that Xumbra will be missed, as will all the cage jokes that came with him. Included at the end are the final results of the Reader’s Choice Poll.
Disclaimer: As always, disclaimers abound. Please keep in mind that “best” is subjective. What’s best for us isn’t necessarily best for you, and that’s perfectly fine. This list shouldn’t be taken as some kind of inviolable truth, but rather the opinions of a guy who had too much time on his hands and spent it conjuring up a list of picks based on all the anime they watched. Naturally, my choices will be influenced by my own tastes, experiences, and personal impressions, and these are just recommendations, nothing more and nothing less. Before you go bashing one of my choices, please make sure you’ve at least given the series a chance so you may know where we’re coming from. Aside from that, we ask that you respect our opinions and the opinions of others in the comments, just like we respect yours. Thank you.
Disclaimer #2: The choices in this post are not reflective of the opinions of all Random Curiosity writers. They are solely the opinions of myself (Zephyr), save for where otherwise noted. Thank you for your understanding.
**This will be up top for the next few days, so don’t forget to scroll past for new posts!
 |
 |
 |
The end of the year is here and it’s time for the 13th Annual Reader’s Choice poll. Do you have a favorite series you’d like to see win? Are you just curious to see what everyone else enjoyed this year? There’s no electoral college here. The anime with the most votes wins!
Note: To give viewers more time to vote, the polls will close this year at 3:00 PM PST on January 3rd, giving you the most time possible before the Best of Anime post comes out with the results. This means the 3:00 PM in the afternoon in PST or 11:00 PM GMT on the 3rd.
So I got to thinking – we’ve never really (not since the podcasts anyway, and those were usually only a couple of us) given our readers a sense of how we’re feeling as a group. That’s where “Up to Snuff” comes in.
 |
|
So much to do, so little time. |
Edit 9/27: We have selected a tech wizard and are working with them on the site revamp now. Thank you so much to everyone who offered to help! If anyone is still interested in becoming an audio master, video guru, or a writer, feel free to email us. We’ll be moving forward with those once the revamp is underway. Thank you!
It’s been a year and a half since our last recruitment thread, and this one is a little different. While we wouldn’t mind bringing on a writer or two while we’re at it, our main focus is something else entirely.
 |
|
We’re working on it. |
As you may have noticed, Random Curiosity was down for about a week. For those who don’t follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or join us on Discord, here’s the long and short: we had server troubles that took longer than expected to resolve. Sorry about that! We’re back up and running now, and we don’t plan to go anywhere.
Important caveat to the thing I just said! While we were getting the site back online, we took the opportunity to update some back end systems that we’ve been (frankly) lax on the upkeep with, and that’s broken a few things. As I write this, the comment system is currently a bit broken, which we’re working on fixing as well. So we might have some downtime over the next few days as we smack down any bugs and do some needed updates. Hopefully it’ll be short or nonexistent, but if you try to visit and we’re down again, that’s why. The good news is that soon we’ll be up and running even stronger than before! We’re also contemplating a few changes that might make the site even better going forward.
For now though, please enjoy the onslaught of posts we’ve been writing but unable to publish for the past week. Even if the comment system is being screwy, we felt it was important to at least let you read the posts as soon as we can. Thank you for bearing with us, and all of your understanding. Y’all rock!