For the final part of the Anime Blog Carnival that I posted earlier this week, here are my concluding thoughts on some things I got out of the project…

After writing my post for the carnival’s topic of what makes a 10/10 anime, I read through other participants’ posts, many of which brought up points that I found intriguing:

Sam brought up the point of an anime’s age. Obviously older anime can’t be judged by the same technological standards as the anime of today. Also, one should take into account the anime’s target audience when examining its writing. Even if the genre isn’t your cup of tea, are you able to take a step back and look at it through the eyes of the target audience? (I guess this would be part of the head scoring I mentioned). Of course, not everyone would want to base their scoring systems on this, I just thought it was a good suggestion.

Marow brought up the idea that establishing exactly how a reviewer uses scoring is essential. After all, two people’s 10/10 scoring, or even 9/10, 8/10, etc., could be for very different reasons and mean very different things. He also brought up a great distinction in one’s viewing experience that could determine an anime’s rating – whether one simply watches an anime or experiences it. I’ve found that for all of my highly rated series, I did indeed experience them and was not simply entertained by them.

Nopy opted to make three criteria for determining a 10/10 anime: decent production values, likable characters, and constant attention. Like Sam mentioned, I believe it’s important to take the year the anime was produced into consideration when looking at its production values, but certainly an anime with good production values for its time is more likely to get a higher rating. If we see a lot of care put into the animation, setting design, music, etc., we’re in turn more inclined to care about what we’re watching. The constant attention criteria is interesting, as Nopy uses it to override “story” for how much the show is able to keep our attention. And with that, even slice-of-life anime that lack a story could get a high rating.

I felt that Nopy’s other criteria, likable characters, was expanded on a bit by draggle in his post. He uses the anime Simoun as an example, saying that, while he doesn’t love every character, what’s important is that he’s never indifferent to any of them. I agree that a great cast of characters brings out emotions in the audience, whether for good or bad. “Likable” to me doesn’t necessarily mean a character we’d want to be our best friend – since this is fiction we’re talking about, having a character that makes us invested in what happens with them is where the appeal comes from, not always that they’d be a worthy person in the real world.

Acerailgun mentioned that it’s rare for people to give “middle ratings” for anime, such as 4s, 5s, and 6s. Usually it’s 7-10 if they liked/loved it or 1-3 if they disliked/hated it. I do give 6s on occasion, and 5s rarely, but most of my ratings are in the 7-8 range. I’m pretty good at avoiding anime I know I won’t like, nor am I fussy with anime to begin with, hence I’ve never given a below 5 rating. Does anyone else feel that people tend to rate either in an extremely positive or an extremely negative way, rarely in between?

Hoshiko briefly mentioned how one can experience an anime differently watching it weekly as opposed to marathon-style. I can certainly agree, as I often see an anime’s 10/10 qualities better via marathon than weekly, as the story becomes one cohesive whole rather than pieces of it. However, watching weekly could have the advantage of prolonging suspense when we have to wait another week to see what happens next, and it also makes the viewing experience last longer, giving us more time to get attached to the story and characters.

Leap250 brought up the unique criteria of whether an anime ends with “open-ness” or not. Though some may feel this means the series is open in terms of being able to have additional OVAs, movies, etc., my take on that is how much the anime leaves itself open to continually existing in the viewer’s mind. For example, it leaves just enough things open-ended in its finale so that we can still forever indulge in the fates of certain characters or certain plot points that were never fully explained, but we’re otherwise satisfied with how the series ended.

—–

To sum things up, I’d say this first Anime Blog Carnival was a decent success. It’s not something I’d want to do all the time, as I don’t like having obligations and deadlines in my blogging. But if it’s a topic I’m interested in and I don’t have many other posts planned, I would do it again some other time. Thanks again to du5k for organizing the project and inviting me to join, and to everyone who commented and participated in the discussion ^_^ I’ll be back to regular posting in a few days~

I published my first post on Mainichi Anime Yume on October 1st, 2006 (a long and rather rant-filled review of a Pokemon spin-off game of all things), and officially made the blog public on October 7th, 2006. It’s certainly been a worthwhile experience running an anime blog for so long. I’d say this past year of blogging has been one of the best…

It’s hard to believe that five years ago I had just started college, got my first part-time job, and decided to start work on an anime blog since I no longer had time to do updates on the main Anime Yume site. As you can see in my early posts, I started MAY with a few game reviews, first impression posts on late ’06/early ’07 anime such as Kanon, Death Note, and Code Geass, and some amateur editorials. Back then I would be lucky if I got one or two comments on a post – nowadays, I think it’s been at least a couple of years since I’ve written a post that’s gotten less than a few comments. Looking back on my old posts, I’m glad to see that my writing skills have greatly improved since then as has my direction for the blog as far as what kinds of posts I want to focus on.

I’ve hit a couple of big milestones since MAY’s last anniversary. As of now MAY has 527 posts since last year’s 410, which means I’ve written over a hundred posts since the last anniversary ^^ But what’s particularly interesting is that MAY currently has 7,004 comments while last year at this time it had 3,848. That means in just one year MAY received almost as many comments as it had in the previous four years combined! Of course a lot of those comments are my own replies to other comments, but a lot are not. So I want to offer my yearly thanks to all of MAY’s visitors, new and old. Having an anime blog wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable if it weren’t for the great comments and support that you guys offer. Thanks! ^__^

Unfortunately, while the blog is doing good I’m still currently unemployed and am continuing the job hunt. While I’m enjoying the time off I do hope to get out of NEET-dom before too long =/

Thanks again for making MAY one of the most long-lasting, non-episodic anime blogs for these five years! Looking forward to more years of anime discussion to come~

Well, it’s finally happened – I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with new anime-related topics to write about and I need help…

The hardest part for me about running my blog isn’t actually writing posts but coming up with ideas for topics to write about and organizing my thoughts on said topic. Since I don’t do episodic posts and I only write anime reviews once in a while when seasonal shows finish airing, I mostly rely on my ability to come up with general anime-related topics that any fan can relate to (these are my personal favorite posts to write anyway). I sometimes get inspiration from other sites and blogs, but usually topic ideas come from my own pondering about my fandom. I’m actually very surprised I’ve been able to keep summoning up post topics for such a long time. But I knew I’d run dry eventually…today is the first day where I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to come up with an anime topic to write about and it just won’t come to me.

It’s not that I believe there are no more anime editorial topics to write about that I haven’t already covered; I’ve just exhausted all the ones that I personally can come up with. Out of the now 520 posts I’ve written in my nearly five years of blogging, I’d say over half of them are general anime-related editorials. I honestly think my posts have covered just about every aspect of anime as a medium, and its fandom, that one can talk about.

But I know more ideas are out there and that’s why I’m now seeking the help of my readers! If you’re able to come up with a good anime editorial post that I haven’t already written about, or if there’s any anime related topic you’d like to hear my thoughts on, please let me know in the comments below.

Just a few things to note:

- Please make sure it’s a topic I haven’t already blogged about. If you’re not sure, you can search for keywords in the blog’s search bar or just leave a comment anyway and I’ll let you know if it’s something I’ve already covered.
- Again, I don’t do episodic posts and I only do anime reviews when a series is fresh in my mind. I’m also not very interested in overly negative topics that involve a lot of ranting, but it depends.
- As most of my long term readers know, my favorite post are editorials, essays, ramblings, etc., about anime and the fandom holistically that don’t require knowledge of any particular anime title. But if you want me to discuss a particular anime title, please make sure it’s one that I’ve seen.
- I prefer anime topics but the three other topics I’m willing to write about are Japan/Japanese, animation in general, and blogging. I’m a bit more picky about these topics though.
- I’ll try to reply to everyone’s comment and let you know if your topic is something I’d write about, and if not, why not. I can’t guarantee I’ll use everyone’s topic that I like though, so I apologize in advance.
- If I do end up using your topic, I’ll credit you in that post (unless you don’t want me to).

I’m actually going to be writing a lot of anime reviews in the coming weeks since nine seasonal shows I’m watching will be ending (most likely starting with a review of Steins;Gate next week). But once those and my first impressions of the fall ’11 anime are out of the way, I’m gonna be needing new ideas!

Well, I think that’s all I need to say for now. I look forward to seeing what good anime topics you guys can come up ^_^ Thanks for the help~

This is more of a personal post today, but I don’t mind sharing it and hopefully you’ll find it worth your while…

Thursday was my last day of work at the job I had for two years. As some of you may remember, I started working part-time for the local YMCA as an enrichment teacher in September 2009, with my subjects being Japanese and anime. After the enrichment gig was over in June 2010, I continued working for the YMCA as a childcare aid at one of their elementary school sites. I was never thrilled with the job as an aid, but it was okay and certainly better than nothing.

There were a few reasons why I decided to quit, the main one being that the wonderful director at the site I worked for was quitting due to getting a better job, and I know the site would fall into chaos until they got a new director. Having to deal with the bedlam that would ensue, and not knowing how long it would last and whether the new director would be any good, would be more stress than I’m willing to bear. Another reason is that my already meager hours would be even less in the coming school year due to the YMCA eliminating split shifts. These and a few other reasons not worth mentioning are why I felt it was time for me to move on. But even if these things didn’t happen, I never intended to stay in the education/childcare field to begin with and eventually I need to find a job where I can earn more than just enough to pay one bill.

But rather than frantically rush into searching for a new job, I’m taking a bit of an overdue vacation. The most vacation time I’ve had in the past two years is a few 3-4 day weekends each year. Luckily I can afford to take some time off now before I’ll have to start the job hunt again. I don’t want to be a bum for too long of course, but an extended period of time where I don’t have to stress about work is what I need right now. I plan to use this vacation time not just to relax with anime and games, but to do more important things I didn’t get around to when I was working such as dieting (nothing intense but I really need to lose some pounds!), rewriting my resume, having more Japanese self-study sessions, and possibly giving up my animeyume.com domain name and moving Mainichi Anime Yume to a free server (if it’s able to be done without an exhausting amount of work). I also plan to do other self-improvements like getting a physical and going to the eye doctor (it’s been too long) and maybe taking driving lessons on the freeway since I never learned to drive on them and they’re vital in finding good jobs in the Los Angeles area.

My main concern though is exactly what kind of job I’ll be able to get when I do start looking again. I got my B.A. in East Asian studies (emphasis on Japan/Japanese) because that’s what I love. But obviously there are very few jobs, at least in my area, that require skills in such a field. I don’t know enough Japanese to be a professional translator, so that pretty much eliminates whatever jobs are available for that major. When I graduated, I thought I would be an English teacher in Japan via programs like JET or AEON. But after I didn’t get accepted into JET, I realized that I’m not ready for being on my own in a foreign country for a long period of time yet, mostly because my mom is starting to feel her age and she doesn’t have anyone besides me to help her out with things. Sometimes I feel like I should have picked a major that would be more useful even if it’s not my favorite field of study. I’m not good at jobs involving sales and a lot of customer service, nor do I have a head for finance and business. So unfortunately my options for jobs are limited.

However, I’m trying not to be pessimistic. There are some jobs I’m willing and able to do – perhaps working in an office environment where I can put my slightly above average computer skills to work. Or really, any job I’m able to do and don’t hate. My life’s in a bit of a limbo now but I know it won’t stay like this forever. Actually, so many people I know are experiencing major events and changes in their life right now. Maybe there’s been something in the stars lately?

Anyway, as for now I’m going to enjoy my self-appointed vacation and continue making new blog posts once or twice a week. If you’ve taken the time to read my personal rambling here, thank you. I’ll be back with an anime-related topic next time ;)

June 30th, 2011, marks the 9-year anniversary of my domain name, AnimeYume.com, on which Mainichi Anime Yume is hosted. Each year it becomes more surprising than the last that I’ve been able to keep up a web site for so long…

It was nine years ago, on June 30th, 2002, during my sophomore year of high school, that I created my very first pages on the web and publicly unveiled AnimeYume, my old-school anime fan site. What started off as a simple fan site with mini-shrines for various older anime like Trigun, Tenchi Muyo!, and Cardcaptor Sakura, soon grew into a large archive which now features roughly fifty different anime sections and numerous other anime related pages. And of course, the blog extension here has been my main focus for about five of those nine years.

Even though the fan site portion of AnimeYume.com has been more or less left in “time-capsule” mode since I began working on the blog in 2006 (with only sporadic updates on the main site when I feel like it), it’s still available for those interested and I may decide to do more extensive work on it in the future. But for now, I want to keep building up Mainichi Anime Yume.

I don’t know how much longer my life’s circumstances will allow me to keep up a web site/blog. But I intend to enjoy it in full while I can. The web site and blog have been very important parts of my life these nine years – they’ve helped me learn so much about anime and my own fandom, allowed me to meet some of my best friends and other great people, as well as given me a way to express myself that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I may not have become the person I am today if it wasn’t for AnimeYume! ^_^ And AnimeYume wouldn’t be what it is without the support of all my visitors. So I want to thank you all for visiting and for any comments you have left on the blog. I appreciate your interest in my work more than I can express. Here’s to more great years of anime goodness~

And yes, as the post title says, I’ll be leaving for Anime Expo early tomorrow morning. I won’t have regular, if any, Internet access until Monday evening when I return, so I won’t be able to answer e-mail, go on Twitter, or moderate/reply to comments until then. My schedule for the convention is basically the same as what I posted two weeks ago with just a few tweaks. If any of you are going and are interested in meeting me, come to one of the blogger meetups =D And for the rest of you, I’ll be back next week~! Once again, whether you’re new to AnimeYume or have been a long-time visitor, thank you so much for making these nine years so fulfilling!

Mainichi Anime Yume recently turned four years old (on October 1st actually, though I only just remembered =P) And I’m happy to say that I think this year has been one of the blog’s best…

Though MAY is only half the age of my main AnimeYume.com web site, I’m glad that it’s become one of the older blogs that’s still active in the ‘sphere. I’ve heard that many anime blogs don’t last more than two years, and recently a number of them have died out. I intend to keep MAY going as long as I can, even if I end up not being able to post as much as I have been (which did occur during my two years at college from ’08 to mid-09 when I had to put the blog on frequent hiatuses).

I say this year has been MAY’s best because I’ve written the most number of posts this year (about 200) and have received the overall highest number of comments per post. I’ve also acquired a number of new readers this year, and I thank you all for your continued interest ^.^

Anyway, the posts I have planned for the upcoming week(s) are belated reviews of seasonal shows I recently finished watching (Occult Academy, Rainbow, K-ON!!, and Seitokai Yakuindomo), most likely all in one post, and first impressions of the fall 2010 shows I decide to watch (Tegami Bachi Reverse, Bakuman, and Ore no Imouto so far…will probably pick-up a few more). My review of Pokemon Black will be up soon, having just completed the main story portion of the game last night. And of course, I’ll have more of my general anime fandom-related posts. You can check my Twitter updates to see when I have, or plan to have, a new post or if anything comes up that prevents me from posting.

Once again, I want to thank all my readers for a wonderful fourth year! Here’s to many more~

This was me since last night

If you tried to visit my blog during the last 16 hours, you probably noticed that the pages wouldn’t load. For the first time ever, MAY went down for a significant amount of time, mostly due to my own incompetence…

For those of you wondering what exactly happened, last night I tried to install the WP Super Cache plugin for my blog in order to help it load faster. Not realizing that my Yahoo! server doesn’t allow the necessary .htaccess file, the incomplete installation of the plugin caused my entire blog and dashboard to not load. I sent messages to Yahoo! and the WordPress forum, but no one responded. I went to bed that night full of regret that I tried to install the plugin myself without fully knowing what I was doing. I was so angry at myself for making such a stupid misjudgment that was now causing me so much grief.

Later that night, my friend pkjd, who’s helped me out with site work in the past, managed to get the dashboard back, but every page on the blog except the homepage would lead to a redirecting error. Neither of us could figure out what to do. I called Yahoo! tech support (for the first time ever since buying my domain name over eight years ago), and after searching through all my files, they said they couldn’t fix it since it’s too much of a WordPress issue. And unfortunately, WordPress only has a forum to offer support, and no one was responding to my threads. That news broke my heart and I was ready to lose all hope. I can’t remember ever feeling so devastated. I’ll admit that I started crying like I’d lost a loved one (most people don’t understand the kind of attachment we have to our web sites).

Finally, I decided to ask fellow blogger chikorita157 for help (since he was the one who recommended the plugin). And…he was able to fix it!!!

So a big thank you to chikorita157 for saving the day, and of course pkjd for always helping out. I certainly learned my lesson from this incident – that is, not to mess with parts of my blog unless I really know what I’m doing.

And thanks to everyone who offered their concern during the downtime. Now that the blog is back and running, be sure to check out my latest post “What unusual anime activities do you like to do?,” which I posted only a few hours before the blog went down.

Once again, my work schedule is gonna be busy this coming week, so the next new post probably won’t be until Tues. or Fri.

In total, I got 244 responses to the survey since I first posted it. You can see the results for each of the 22 questions below, with the highest percentage for each being in bold. I also commented on some of the results, especially if they differed much from the last survey I did in 2008.

———-
In ’08, YouTube-like sites got slightly more votes than torrents. But now it looks like torrents are making a comeback.

Question:	1. What’s the main way you watch anime?
Download via torrents	42.6%
Streaming on official sites	4.1%
Streaming on unofficial sites	12.8%
Streaming on both official and unofficial sites	22.7%
DVDs	10.7%
I read manga more than watch anime	7%

———-
Not too surprising here (Sailor Moon was mine).

Question:	2. What was the first anime you ever watched? (if none of these are your very first one, pick one that’s among your firsts)
Sailor Moon	19.7%
Pokemon	24.6%
One of the Dragon Ball series	9.8%
Robotech	2.9%
Voltron	6.1%
One of the Macross series	1.2%
Cowboy Bebop	1.6%
Inuyasha	2%
Tenchi Muyo!	1.2%
One of the Gundam series	0.8%
A Studio Ghibli movie	4.5%
Naruto	0.8%
Bleach	0.4%
Evangelion	0.8%
Digimon	2.9%
Ranma 1/2	0.8%
Yu-Gi-Oh!	3.7%
Cardcaptor Sakura	4.1%
Fullmetal Alchemist	0.4%
Rurouni Kenshin	2.5%
None of these were among my firsts	9%

———-
Nice to see that most people are not totally anti-dub.

Question:	3. Do you like to watch anime dubbed or subbed?
Either way, I don’t really care	11.9%
Definitely subs (I hate dubs!)	29.6%
I prefer subs but I have nothing against good dubs	50.2%
I prefer dubs unless the dubs are bad	3.7%
Definitely dubs (I don’t like reading subtitles!)	2.9%
Neither, I watch anime in raw Japanese	1.6%

———-
My answer got the most responses, though I’m kind of surprised at how many people rarely or never buy DVDs.

Question:	4. How often do you buy official DVDs of anime you’ve watched via streaming or fansubs?
Just about all the time	2.9%
As often as I can	9.5%
Only if its an anime I really like	38.7%
Rarely	19.8%
Never	29.2%

Question:	5. How do you feel about manga?
I like manga just as much as I like anime	39.8%
I like manga more than anime	12.3%
I only read manga from a few series	13.5%
I like reading manga sometimes but I prefer watching anime	24.2%
I rarely or never read manga	10.2%

———-
Guess I’m one of the few who watches between 15 and 20 series at a time.

Question:	6. On average, how many anime series do you watch at one time? (meaning you watch at least one episode of the series every week)
Less than 5	49.4%
Between 5 and 10	39.8%
Between 10 and 15	6.2%
Between 15 and 20	3.3%
Between 20 and 25	0.4%
Between 25 and 30	0%
More than 30	0.8%

———-
This year FMA got almost as many votes as Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note did combined in ’08. Obviously Brotherhood has a lot to do with its popularity this year.

Question:	7. Which of the following shonen series do you like the best?
Bleach	3.4%
Naruto	7.2%
Dragon Ball	4.6%
One Piece	8%
Inuyasha	4.2%
Yu-Gi-Oh!	0.8%
Rurouni Kenshin	3.8%
Yu Yu Hakusho	3%
Hikaru no Go	1.3%
D-Gray Man	1.3%
Konjiki no Gash Bell!!	0.4%
Fullmetal Alchemist	32.5%
Death Note	11%
Soul Eater	6.3%
Claymore	4.6%
Shaman King	0%
Detective Conan	1.7%
Gintama	3%
Tsubasa Chronicle	2.5%
Fairy Tail	0.4%

———-
Not too different from ’08. Ouran scores high once again. And nice to see that Sakura still has fans :3

Question:	8. Which of the following shojo series do you like the best? (a few josei and mahou shojo included)
Fruits Basket	8%
Sailor Moon	7.1%
Cardcaptor Sakura	16.4%
Fushigi Yuugi	2.1%
Kimi ni Todoke	6.7%
Lovely Complex	3.4%
Itazurana Kiss	0.4%
Nana	2.9%
Ouran High School Host Club	17.2%
Paradise Kiss	0.8%
Gakuen Alice	0.4%
Nodame Cantabile	8%
Vampire Knight	4.6%
Full Moon wo Sagashite	1.3%
Shugo Chara!	3.8%
Revolutionary Girl Utena	8%
Pretty Cure	2.1%
Magic Knight Rayearth	0.8%
Kare Kano	5.9%

———-
Code Geass love is still going strong.

Question:	9. Which of the following mecha series do you like the best?
Evangelion	20.5%
RahXephon	4.4%
Gundam Wing	3.9%
Gundam Seed	4.8%
Eureka 7	8.7%
Code Geass	27.1%
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann	13.1%
Full Metal Panic!	11.4%
Macross	6.1%

———-
AzuDai and Lucky Star love still going strong, too.

Question:	10. Which of the following slice-of-life/comedy series do you like the best?
Azumanga Daioh	24.8%
Ichigo Mashimaro	2.7%
K-ON!	18.6%
Lucky Star	22.6%
Hayate no Gotoku!	7.5%
Hidamari Sketch	4%
Minami-ke	5.3%
School Rumble	14.6%

Question:	11. Which original anime motion picture do you like the best?
My Neighbor Totoro	5.6%
Princess Mononoke	10.4%
Akira	2.2%
5 Centimeters Per Second	10.8%
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time	17.7%
Spirited Away	16%
Nausicaa	3.9%
Summer Wars	5.6%
Blood: the Last Vampire	1.7%
Perfect Blue	1.7%
Tokyo Godfather	3.9%
Grave of the Fireflies	3%
The Sky Crawlers	0.4%
Steamboy	0.9%
The Place Promised in Our Early Days	1.3%
Howl’s Moving Castle	13.4%
Ponyo on the Cliff	1.3%

Question:	12. Besides watching anime or reading manga, what other aspects of the fandom do you take part in?
Working on an anime blog or web site	4.8%
Fan art	4.5%
Fan fiction	4.3%
Doujinshi	2.7%
Video games	8.8%
Trading cards	1.9%
Figures or other collectibles	5%
Cosplay	2.6%
Japanese language and culture	9.4%
Web comics	3%
Anime conventions	6.1%
AMVs	4.8%
Japanese music	13.1%
Japanse live-action TV shows or movies	4.9%
Fantasy books, TV shows, or movies	6.6%
Online gaming	4.1%
Online discussions (forums, IRC, podcasts)	8.3%
Other non-Japanese animation	5%

Question:	13. Which of the following Japanese video game series do you like the best?
Pokemon	22.8%
Final Fantasy	20.5%
Sonic the Hedgehog	2.2%
Mario	10.3%
Zelda	10.3%
Disgaea	4.9%
Kingdom Hearts	11.2%
Harvest Moon	4%
Games based on anime that I like	3.1%
Otaku games (dating sims, visual novels, gal games, etc)	10.7%

Question:	14. When you’re talking with people who don’t like or are ignorant about anime, how do you act?
Keep quiet so as not to make the fact that you like anime obvious	5.4%
If you’re asked, pretend you don’t like anime	2.5%
If you’re asked, say you like anime but don’t go into detail	40.1%
Passionately proclaim your interest in anime no matter what	12.8%
Try to avoid the topic, but if it comes up, you won’t lie about your interest and will just be honest	39.3%

———-
I’m one of the fewer fans who has a very consistent anime watching schedule.

Question:	15. On average, about how much time do you spend watching anime?
2 or more hours a day	18.9%
2 or more hours every few days	18.1%
2 or more hours every week	8.6%
An hour or less every day	11.9%
An hour or less every few days	5.8%
It varies all the time	36.6%

———-
Watching a variety of series is probably better than just the new stuff – I should try it someday.

Question:	16. The anime you’re currently watching is MOSTLY…
Seasonal shows, as they’re airing in Japan	38%
Recently aired shows that are available online	7.4%
Anime that’s recently available on official English streams or DVD	3.7%
Old series I’m trying to catch up on	6.6%
A mix of series from various time periods	44.2%

———-
Didn’t expect these results. Slice-of-life series have certainly gained popularity in the West over the years.

Question:	17. Out of the following, what would be your preferred genre of anime?
Shonen	11.9%
Shojo	8.5%
Mecha	3.8%
Drama/Romance	6.4%
Drama/Comedy	5.5%
Slice-of-Life/Comedy	24.6%
Sci-fi	10.6%
Fantasy	6.4%
Horror	3.4%
Action/Adventure	8.9%
Drama/Mystery	10.2%

———-
Aya and Jun tie for this one, though Aya won with 20% in ’08 (and sad to see lack of Hayashibara love). With the recent news about Aya, I wonder how her popularity will hold out.

Question:	18. Out of the following popular seiyuu, who is your favorite?
Megumi Hayashibara	7.4%
Maaya Sakamoto	8.3%
Aya Hirano	9.7%
Mamiko Noto	3.2%
Mamoru Miyano	4.6%
Kappei Yamaguchi	0.5%
Akira Ishida	1.4%
Takahiro Sakurai	1.8%
Jun Fukuyama	9.7%
Rie Kugimiya	6.5%
Nana Mizuki	7.8%
Tomokazu Sugita	2.8%
Yui Horie	4.1%
Romi Paku	6%
Tomokazu Seki	1.8%
Miyuki Sawashiro	3.7%
Kana Hanazawa	2.8%
Rie Tanaka	5.5%
Norio Wakamoto	6.9%
Daisuke Ono	3.7%
Shinichiro Miki	1.8%

———-
Didn’t know Asian Kung-Fu Generation was still popular (UVERworld won in ’08).

Question:	19. Out of the following Japanese singers/bands who have performed in anime, who do you like the best?
Megumi Hayashibara	2.3%
L’ Arc-en ‘Ciel	7.7%
FLOW	8.2%
Shoko Nakagawa	2.3%
Aya Hirano	9.5%
May’n	2.3%
Megumi Nakajima	0.5%
UVERworld	4.5%
Asian Kung-Fu Generation	10.5%
Nana Mizuki	6.4%
YUI	7.7%
Angela	1.8%
ALI Project	2.3%
Lia	5%
Mayaa Sakamoto	5.5%
abingdon boys school	5.9%
Hikaru Utada	7.7%
Do As Infinity	1.8%
Steropony	3.2%
KOTOKO	4.1%
MELL	0.9%

———-
Because manga is (relatively) cheap?

Question:	20. When it comes time to spend money on anime, what do you usually buy…
DVDs	16.1%
Figures	7.8%
Posters	7.3%
Manga	18.3%
Art or other anime books	8.3%
Pencil boards	0.9%
Cosplay and accessories	2.5%
Plushies	4.9%
T-shirts or other apparel	4.6%
Trading cards	1.3%
Video or computer games	7.2%
CDs	5.2%
Miscellaneous character goods (keychains, pins, pens, etc)	8.6%
I rarely or never buy anime products	7%

———-
Most people not having my level of obsession is probably a good thing.

Question:	21. How would you rate yourself as an anime fan?
Total anime fan; I eat, sleep, and breathe anime 24/7	14%
I’m a pretty big fan but not totally obssessed	56.4%
I like anime but it’s not my main interest	20.6%
Some anime is okay but I’m not a fan at all	0.4%
There’s only a few anime that I like	2.5%
I’m new to anime so I’m not sure yet	0.8%
I used to like anime more but my interest has been diminishing	5.3%

———-
Can’t believe Haruhi beat FMA this year, especially considering Brotherhood vs Endless Eight. Perhaps the Haruhi movie was enough to squeeze out the win.

Question:	22. And just for fun, out of the following popular series, which do you like the best?
Death Note	4.2%
Bleach	1.7%
Code Geass	7.1%
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya	13.3%
Naruto	5%
Bakemonogatari	4.2%
K-ON!	2.5%
One Piece	4.6%
Evangelion	2.9%
Fullmetal Alchemist	11.7%
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann	0.8%
Lucky Star	1.7%
Azumanga Daioh	1.7%
Toradora!	2.9%
Eden of the East	1.3%
Clannad	6.3%
Elfen Lied	1.3%
Ouran High School Host Club	7.9%
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni	4.2%
Inuyasha	1.3%
Cowboy Bebop	5%
Eureka 7	4.2%
Hetalia	2.1%
Monster	2.5%

———-
These results pleased me ^^

Question:	*BONUS* How often do you read Mainichi Anime Yume?
Whenever there’s a new post	33.3%
Only posts that interest me	24.8%
Once in a while	20.1%
Rarely	21.8%

———-

Once again, I want to thank everyone who participated~! Hope you’ll also take part in the next one…whenever that will be =P

When I first started this blog in late ’06, I didn’t even know about the concept of adding tags to posts. Did blogs even have that feature then? – perhaps they did, but I didn’t think it was important. I don’t recall seeing many tags on blogs back then (at least, not as much as now) so I figured organizing posts into dates and categories was enough. But only within the past couple of years, I’ve noticed an abundance of tags on nearly every post of every blog…

I don’t remember exactly when I started noticing how commonplace tags became on blogs. Maybe they’ve always been commonplace and I just didn’t notice because I didn’t visit as many blogs back then as I do nowadays. But whatever the reason, even when I started taking note of tags, and noticing that I did have the option to add them on my blog too, I chose not to use them. I wasn’t about to go back to the nearly 300 posts I had written and add appropriate tags to all of them. I also never found tags on other blogs useful to me – if the blog categories were too broad, the search bar would be my first tool to look for specific content.

But finally, sometime last year, I succumbed. I just couldn’t ignore the “Post Tags” option whenever I wrote a new post any longer, so I decided to add a few tags to a newly written post. And since then, I’ve been adding tags to all the new posts I’ve written and, when I have the time, I’ve been slowly going back to old posts and adding tags to them as well.

Out of the 384 posts I’ve written so far, I still have 100 some left to add tags to. I’m not in any hurry, since I still don’t find tags that useful even though I’ve started using them myself. Their main function, at least for me and I’m not sure if it’s different for everyone, is to organize posts into smaller sub-categories that wouldn’t be big enough to be categories of their own. For example, whenever I write about a specific anime series, I’ll make a tag for it. Major ongoing favorites of mine that I write frequently about, like Haruhi and Pokemon, are large enough to warrant their own categories, while a lesser favorite like Bleach or a shorter seasonal series that I’ll only write a few posts about and probably never write about again, like Nyan Koi!, will have tags only. As you can see on the “Tag Cloud” on the sidebar, I mostly use tags for specific anime titles, yearly series, and anything else I don’t feel is big enough to have its own category.

And that leads to one of a few issues I have with tags. How do you know when a tag you use becomes big enough to have its own category? Should you give a tag the same name as a category? Another thing is that, while I try to keep the number of tags per post relatively small, I’ve seen other blogs with nearly a paragraph’s length of tags on any one post, often with tags so specific (and probably about something they’ll never write about again), I can’t imagine that tag being any more useful then using the search tool. Sometime they’ll give a post a tag when it actually has no content for that topic. For example, I mentioned Nyan Koi! in the paragraph above, but I’m not going to include a tag for it in this post because there’s nothing about it here other than a quick mention as an example. Does having so many specific tags make your blog more organized? Do visitors really want to look through so many tags rather than use the search tool? I’m totally not trying to deride any blog that uses a lot of tags – I’m asking these questions because I don’t understand tags very well and I want to understand.

Another potential problem with having a lot of tags is that you have to remember which ones you’ve used before and not be redundant. For example, let’s say I wrote a post about K-ON! and gave it a tag “K-ON!.” Then, later on I wrote another post about K-ON!, but unwittingly gave it a tag “K-ON” (without the exclamation mark). Your blog would think these are two different tags (mine does at least), thus ruining your intent of organizing these posts into one related tag. Similarity, let’s say years ago I wrote a post about some anime stuff I bought and gave it a tag “anime merchandise,” or “stuff I bought” for more casual writers. Then, years later, I wrote another post about anime stuff I bought, but not remembering I had made a tag for that a long time ago, I create the new tag “anime products” or “stuff I purchased.” The potential redundancy of having too many tags to keep track of can’t really help your blog’s organization.

For my fellow bloggers or blog visitors out there, what’s your take on tags? Have they always been around since the dawn of blogs, or is it only recently that they’ve started to become so common? Do you feel tags are useful and I’m just not understanding their usefulness, or are they just another pointless means of making us feel like we’re giving ourselves more organization when in reality we’re just making things more complicated?

And wow, I can’t believe I just wrote over 900 words about something as trifling as tags in blog posts.

The fourth installment of an anime survey I’ve been conducting since 2006…

The Anime Preference Survey is a survey about your general preferences in different aspects of the fandom, particularly your favorites among certain titles and categories, or other anime-related tastes you have.

So far, I’ve posted this survey three other times, from 2006 to 2008, adding new questions and updating old questions. I received around 200 participants each time, which of course is not nearly enough to make any grand generalizations about the fandom, but it definitely offers some worthwhile statistics. I didn’t get around to making a 2009 edition since I was busy with school for the first half of that year, and reviving my blog from its hiatus in the second half. So I figured its time for a 2010 version =)

Click here to take the survey.

UPDATE 08/12/10:

The survey has been deactivated and the results are in. You can see the results here. Thanks for participating! I’ll consider everyone’s suggestions for the next survey!

There are 22 questions (plus a bonus one), but I don’t require you to answer all of them (I would like it if you did, though). The survey shouldn’t take more than ten minutes, especially if you know your tastes in anime real well.

As usual, I’m always looking to improve the survey for next year. If you find any errors, or if you have suggestions for new questions or additional answers to current questions, please leave a comment =) You can also see the results of the past surveys here.

I’ll post the results of this survey within a month. I’m hoping to get more participants this year. Enjoy~