A Year in Review, Aniblog Tourney, and Nostalgic Anime

The infamous aniblog tourney makes a return this year, and funny enough, the Emory Anime Club blog somehow got into this circlejerk of a competition 😉

Anyways, joking aside, I find it kind of funny how this blog’s debut into the tourney coincides with this blog’s 2nd anniversary (well, almost. 4/20 as opposed to 4/21… who’s counting?). As usual for my non-episodic posts, I plan on trying to deviate from my normal writing style a bit and try something a little different.

For all you aniblog judges who want to see my usual writing style, just ignore this post and scroll down to see my ginormously lengthy, wordy, and sometimes very grammatically incorrect posts. They can be a dry read (or so some say).

Or you could just comment on this post, giving full honest feedback on whatever you want. Insults, praises, requests, whatever you want; it should be a rather fun experience. Perhaps I’m sounding a bit sadistic here? :3

As for you long-time visitors of this blog, I figured I could celebrate this 2nd year anniversary by talking a bit more about my history with anime. All I’ve posted on this site are reviews of currently airing anime, but I’ve never really had a chance to explain my own history and experience with this wondrous medium that we all share a common interest in.

If you’ve made it this far, you might as well finish the post and continue reading. Or, you could go vote for the Emory Anime Club on the aniblog tourney by clicking (here). Yes, you should definitely check out my opponent and give a fair, unbiased assessment of who should win this round. I’d like to hope it’s me 😉

And finally, I would like to thank all my current readers and commenters for making it possible for this blog to have come this far. Blogging is truly a lonely experience when you first start off on your own, but it becomes a genuinely enjoyable hobby once readers start trickling in. It’s been a fun two years, and I hope to continue such for as long as I continue blogging.

Anyways, continue onwards for my history with anime. I apologize in advance for the rather lengthy post 😡

My History with Anime

My experience with anime, like for many other American anime fans of my age, actually started off with not knowing that “anime” was Japanese at all. I mean, who the heck knew that the likes of Pokemon and Digimon were from Japan, right?

Nadia, Secret of the Blue Water (ふしぎの海のナディア)

Well, before the Pokemon and Digimon phases of my life, I was actually introduced to anime for the first time in a peculiar manner; my uncle, the anime fan that he was, lent me some VHS tapes of Nadia, Secret of the Blue Water. I remember that he only had episodes 34-37 on VHS, so I was extremely pissed when I couldn’t watch the rest of the series. Seriously, I was a little six-year old back then, and went nuts when I learned I was only two or so episodes away from the conclusion. I did end up finishing the series several years later, but I still remember the frustration of not being able to finish the show.

And then Pokemon and Digimon took the world by storm. I was an ignorant little elementary schooler back when the Pokemon craze took over, and it never did quite hit me that anime was Japanese. I guess you need to give some credit to 4kids for that, with their heavy levels of censorship and English localization. But yea, back in the day I was an obsessed little pokemon fanboy. Pokemon video games, pokemon movies, pokemon cards, pokemon everything; I remember begging my poor mother for a larger allowance so that I could save my pennies and buy a Gameboy Color and Pokemon version Red. Dang were those fun times (FYI, Pokemon video games are still pretty awesome).

Digimon Adventure (デジモンアドベンチャー)

Then there was, of course, the Digimon craze that followed up after Pokemon died down a bit. Digimon wasn’t nearly as popular as Pokemon, but heck did it tell a great story (or at least, one that my 8-year-old self thought was fantastic). Pokemon would always spout some feel-good moral-oriented story, which got boring after a while. Digimon, on the other hand, told an epic little adventure of a bunch of kids out to survive with their digital friends on the interwebs. The 1st two seasons of that show were seriously badass in my little immature eyes, especially with digimon like Wargreymon and Omnimon spouting epic attack names like “Terra Force!” or “Supreme Cannon!”.

After the Pokemon and Digimon phase of my life, well, I kind of forgot about anime for a good 5-8 years. Sure, I played the occassional Japanese video game such as Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem, but anime never really popped back up into my life. I blame my parents and their avid fear of the “corrupt ways” of cable TV, and thus never let me watch it (in retrospect, I now actually somewhat agree with them).

And then Toonami and Adult Swim were introduced into my life. For those that are unaware of what these two are, Toonami and Adult Swim were anime-oriented TV segments on Cartoon network. Aside from all the anime, Toonami had some really awesome promo videos that I still miss to this day. But yea, it was from these two that I met the bulk of the shows that got me into these so called “Japanese cartoons”.

Toonami – Broken Dreams

It was in Toonami where I was introduced to Rurouni Kenshin, with it’s mind-blowingly awesome Kyoto arc. Then there was .hack//sign, which was a mindfuck of a series to my then 12 year old self (and was my first introduction to Yuki Kajiura’s amazing music). There was the batshit wackiness of Fooly Cooly, the crazy and depressing Evangelion, and the fun-to-watch Dragonball and DBZ. Toonami was where I first saw Miyazaki films such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, and Adult Swim introduced me to the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Cyborg 009, Eureka Seven, Detective Conan, and Inuyasha.

Welcome to the NHK (N・H・Kにようこそ！)

And as if to reinforce my sudden interest in anime, internet connections were starting to get decent download speeds, and thus, I started exploring anime on the world wide web. Back then Crunchyroll was filled with a crap ton of illegally uploaded anime, so heck, I watched a ton of anime through the service. The most memorable of the series I watched on Crunchyroll was Welcome to the NHK (which reminds me, I should rewatch the show sometime). Youtube was also still in it’s infancy days, and it was there that I watched all of the original Full Metal Alchemist and Elfen Lied. Youtube back then had a strict 10-minute cap on videos, so I remember having to load up a ridiculous amount of “part 1 out of 3” videos.

Chobits (ちょびっツ)

I hold a particularly large amount of nostalgia for a few other series I watched during this time period, such as Gundam Seed, Chobits, Fate/stay Night, Martian Successor Nadesico, and Wolf’s Rain. They weren’t by all means great shows, but they still appealed to me somehow, and I do have fond memories of these shows.

As for the rest of my history, it should be one familiar to most people who were around during the golden anime years of 2006-2007. I began following currently airing shows after discovering Omni’s Random Curiosity and Psgel’s Star Crossed Anime blogs. I watched hit series like Code Geass, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Gurren Lagann, Death Note, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni as they aired. This was also the time period when I became familiar with shows like Mononoke, Claymore, Seirei no Moribito, Towards the Terra, and Baccano; all series I wouldn’t fully appreciate until years later.

And then there’s the start of this blog, which I began seriously writing for in the latter half of my first year in college. I think I began blogging not too long after Omni announced his retirement from anime blogging, an event that marked the end of my younger years of anime watching.

Towards the Terra (地球へ…)

From here on my history should be familiar to many long-time visitors of this site. I wrote about series such as Angel Beats, Kaichou wa Maid Sama, Amagami SS, and High School of the Dead. I chronicled my experiences with Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Shiki, Star Driver, and Gosick. More recent memorable anime series include the likes of Mahou Shoujo Madoka, Fractale, Usagi Drop, Steins;Gate, Anohana, [C], Guilty Crown, and Nisemonogatari (note, “memorable” doesn’t necessarily mean “good”).

And so here I am, the somewhat judgmental anime blogger that writes an unhealthy amount of anime reviews. Curiously enough, I noticed while writing this post that I actually didn’t mention many comedy series, which could be a clue as to why I prefer plot-oriented series as opposed to comedies. I should also note that I’ve only mentioned the series that came to the top of my head while writing, and that there are a ton of other series that I’ve watched over the years.

Tsukihime (月姫)

All in all, hopefully all of this gives you long-time readers a more intimate understanding of the anime blogger who goes by the name Tsuki. As for the name “Tsuki”, I think I decided upon the name on a whim after rewatching the Tsukihime anime and reading it’s VN counterpart. In retrospect, I kind of wish I thought out my name a bit more, but whatever; what’s done is done, and life goes on.