100 Shades of Grey + Site Discussion

Had to make a reference to 50 Shades of Grey at some point.

I couldn’t find anything suitable, so I just pulled the first image I could find.

Wow, 100 posts already. I was hoping I would reach this landmark before a year was up, and it turned out I had quite a bit of time to spare. Technically, my 100th post was the Toriko review, but I was never going to make this post the actual hundredth because I wanted to surprise myself with what it would turn out to be. Since my very first post was a review of a Shonen Jump manga, having Toriko be the hundredth feels appropriate. I’ve had some great posts in these last 10-11 months, but I was never one to go on and on about that stuff. The main reason I’m writing this is because there are a few other things I felt I should bring up.

I wanted to talk about the rather unfortunate hit to my update schedule as of late. I’ve been trying to get posts up a little more regularly since exams ended a few months ago, but somehow I haven’t been able to keep up the rate I used to. This is due to a combination of things, I think. First the tests took up most of my time, then the computer and monitor issues I was having. There’s also been a number of ongoing series that have had more and more sporadic updates, like Nisekoi switching to every two weeks for some reason, so finding stuff to write about has been trickier. I know One Piece, TWGOK and Toriko have had big stuff happening in the last chapters, but they’re all currently in the “big events that will be explained later” group, so it’s hard to write about them now. Maybe next week.

Status Update / Aniblog Tourney

Don't follow Eiko's example: put schoolwork first!

Well, it’s that time of year again. In a few weeks I’ll have to write my finals. It’s been a rather annoying semester, and I really need to put some work into some of the remaining assignments I have before then. Lab writeups suck.

What does this mean for the website? It’s hard to say, since I’ve grown into a habit of doing schoolwork during the day and working on posts at night. Aside from the actual week of finals, it’s entirely possible the amount of posts might go relatively unchanged. I’m not sure if that says more about my overall productivity or my regular update schedule.

10,000 Page Views! Most Views in One Day!

Don’t ask me how it happened, but the website suddenly hit two milestones at once! I was waiting for the site to reach 10,000 views, and it was by chance that the Negima finale post came out when it did. Actually, that post didn’t have as many hits as I might have thought, so the large traffic that day was still mildly confusing. Not that I’m complaining, since it’s always good to see people viewing my old work.

Six Month Anniversary (and more random pictures)

It’s been getting more and more difficult to think of what to write for these milestone posts. I remember feal87 saying that once I’m six months old, I’m past the zone where new blogs stop updating prematurely. At the time, six months felt like a long way away. Well now that I’m here, the question remains as to how I still feel about blogging. The truth is that I think it’s gotten much more interesting as I’ve started talking to other bloggers. I wonder if part of the reason some people have trouble starting up blogs is because they can’t imagine anyone who would read their posts, because as I’ve gotten closer to people through Skype and the SCCSAV, it has been easier to write what I think.

Just A Quick Update

Well, exams are finally finished. I’ve got a small amount of work to do for one class still, but otherwise I’ve started to get back on track. Manga updates should resume whenever interesting chapters start being released. Not sure when exactly that will be, but I know for certain that I’ll have a post for next week’s Liar Game, since it’s about something I thought would happen in the current chapter.

There’s also something I decided I would do since partway through exams. I wasn’t able to get my 12 Days of Anime/Manga up due to my busy schedule, but I still wanted to do something for the end of the year. That’s why I’m announcing two posts that will hopefully be out before the 31st. First is my Current Manga Ranking, which is the list of all the series I’m caught up ranked from least favourite to most favourite. All THIRTY of them! Yes, I was surprised by the number too. This also has the good side effect that I can talk about manga I haven’t been able to in the past.

Second, I wanted to eventually talk about the anime that came out this year, since I’m also a big anime fan. The problem is that not only have others been more expressive about them than me, but I’ve ended up missing a lot of the big names from this year. I do intend to watch Mirai Nikki, Mawaru Penguindrum, Usagi Drop and maaaaaybe Steins Gate. Of course this makes any top 10 list difficult, but I had another idea: the 2011 Anime Awards, where I only-slighly-seriously give out awards to the shows I watched this year and discuss how I felt about them. For example, I’ve got awards for “Best Assets”, “Best Use of Engrish” and “Best Show I Totally Forgot I Watched”. I don’t talk about anime a lot here, but I’d still like to get my word out there.

Glad to be finished finals, and I’m hoping I can go back to my schedule as soon as I can. Not that I really had a schedule before, but at least I still got posts out.