Writing About Fiction With Purpose

Writing is important to me. It frames the way I think and in turn that frames the way I speak. The way I think influences the way I act. All that is obvious to some degree. It’s obvious, but I want to take a moment and reflect on it anyway.

When I first started writing I had a clear goal. I wanted to improve my capacity to communicate. It’s something I was awful at. The goal was to become good at expressing myself. It’s hard to explain why that’s important to me beyond the obvious. There is a beyond the obvious.

Less obvious than words are pictures and images. I value words because I need them to communicate. The value in what they communicate comes from somewhere deeper. Value coming from somewhere deeper doesn’t mean my understanding of an image isn’t abstract. I get the feeling that sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. I don’t have a good way to make a distinction other than to say there is one.

The relationship between imagery and the abstract is interesting to me. Some things that people know come from a place deep inside the subconscious. They don’t need intentional education to comprehend that imagery. The imagery and its purpose is already there. I don’t know if it’s known inherently, learned automatically, or taught instinctively. It seems to me all three of those things play a role.

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Reading Pretenses: – 01 Momoiro Closet

I’ve decided to start up a new blogging series for writing about visual novels and light novels. I picked Frontwing’s Momoiro Closet as my first victim. I picked it expecting something tame. I know it was crowdfunded and assumed that meant toned down for the western audience that helped fund it. Surely it must be something tame enough for western sensibilities! A perfect first choice to get back into the swing of blogging. I was naive…

Momoiro Closet is an adorable romance between an otaku couple. It tells the tale of how they meet and bond over their shared hobby. I say that even while needing to acknowledge something about our heroine Alice. She has a sex drive so high it could confuse the studliest of studly rabbits. Plus she has a vivid imagination to back it up. The later is the clear focus of this adventure as it progresses. Looking at Frontwing’s site I see lines about kids anime and cosplay nymphomania. The website makes things a lot more obvious, but well, I went in blind! Time to own up and write. This post might be a bit awkward…

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Collection Update

I moved about 3 months ago and it’s taken about that long to get settled into my new place. I finished decorating this weekend and I feel like showing off my nerdy living space.

This is the type of post that really doesn’t need much text so I’ll shut up now and let the photos say the rest. Take a look and let me know what you think!

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When I started collecting otaku stuff I had the rough idea that I wanted being in my room to be something like going into another world. It hasn’t turned me into a light novel protagonist yet, but collecting it all has been a lot of fun.

Character Take-Away: 01 – Akane Minagawa

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I love analyzing anime. More specifically I love analyzing interesting characters and trying to take their perspective back with me after I finish their story. For the last few years I’ve been trying to think up a good means for writing about that experience. It’s kinda creepy getting inside the head of a character, especially when that character is an antagonist and those are usually the more interesting characters. It’s also a lot of fun and so I’ve decided to stop theory crafting and just go for it. Thank you everyone who encouraged me to blog more. This is your fault! ❤

Blogging like this is an experiment for me. I will attempt to get into the psyche of a character, but ultimately I’m limited by myself. The character I will be able to present is the character as it resonates with me. I’d love to hear from you and how your views on a character are different from mine. I’d also like to hear ideas on how to spin a character and come up with interesting perspective. Don’t expect posts like this too frequently. As fun as this is I don’t know what I’m doing and they are a lot of work.

I picked Akane from Scum’s Wish for this first post because of comments on various sites by fans confused how anyone could act or become like Akane and I think I can help explain what makes her tick, plus it’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about in my free time for the last few weeks anyway. Getting inside her head isn’t too hard for me. I have a harder time analyzing a character like Ecchan, who friends seem to relate with, than I do Akane.(They don’t relate with her, they just think she is hot. >_>)

Originally I planned to write up a single post when Scum’s Wish ends, but I’ve decided it will be more fun to split my impressions in half and have something to add to the conversation now. Feel free to join in on that conversation! The one thing I ask is you don’t share manga spoilers with me. I’m curious about the manga, but intend to finish the anime first. Fair warning before we start… I don’t hate Akane nearly as much as I feel like the story intends.

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Lifesong’s 2015 Anime Guide

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2015 was a good year for anime. It was a year of tragedy and sexually charged antics, or at least that is what I found myself drawn to watch. That said, I think 2015 had something for everyone. My list is shorter than last year and there are many more anime I wanted to include that I simply didn’t have time for. I think I’ll do some sort of backlog list next year. That will be good motivation to keep me watching 2015 anime.

My categories are the same as last year. My ratings are based off what I get out of a show versus what an anime led me to expect. An unambitious show that delivers gets a higher category than an ambitious show that fails to deliver. Otherwise the lists within each category are simply my favorites listed in order based off what I enjoyed the most. Enjoy! Let me know your favorites in the comments below.

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The Waifus and Manly Men of 2015

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One of my buddies suggested I write a blog post to honor our favorite anime character from this last year. I collected nominations and here we are!

The original thought was to highlight the anime men of the year, but I know how much the anime fandom loves its waifus and I hate to disappoint. Enjoy! Let me know who you would add to the list. Warning! Spoilers ahead.

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A Year of AMVs 2015

I love AMVs. As the year comes to a close I usually find myself playing my favorite AMVs from the recent past as I work on my anime guide. This year I’ve decided to share them. Some of these AMVs are a bit older than 2015. This is my 2015 playlist primary pulled from youtube’s watch it again feed.

These 10 videos are the AMVs I found myself watching repeatedly shared for no better reason than because I can. It’s not a best of list or anything like that, but they are all videos I’ve enjoyed this past year. In no particularly order here they are. Merry Christmas!

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Lifesong’s 2014 Anime Guide

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This has been a rough year for me. I left my old blogging home behind and I’ve lost some friends. Because of that I felt it was important to start things off at my new blog with something fun. When I first started blogging I made anime guides in the community section of japanator.com, that is where I got started. I originally thought it would be fun to make a list for my friends who ask for my anime recommendations. Years later most of those friends still ask me directly instead of reading my guides, but I have fun making them so here I am at it again. I didn’t have as much time to work on this as I had hoped so please excuse any typos or spelling errors.

First a few disclaimers: For one, I can’t actually watch everything. If your favorite show isn’t on my list that doesn’t mean I hate it. I might, but the odds are high I just didn’t have time for it. I also don’t put much effort into being objective with quality. I do break everything I watch into three categories which I will explain bellow, but that is the full extent of objectivity you can expect to find here. This isn’t a best of anime list, it’s a favorites anime list. These are the shows of 2014 that got me going. Instead of telling you why they are so much more awesome than everything else I hope to tell you what they meant to me and share my perspective on them.

Everything on this list is on it because there was something about it I enjoyed. The few shows I finished and thought were truly garbage won’t be mentioned here. With that here are my categories. I hope you will have as much fun reading this as I did writing it!

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