Sunday, October 23, 2016

Handling Sequels

So!
Today's post shall be a bit unusual. More and more, I'm conflicted about how I handle posting here on Evil Cat's blog. Specifically, the lack of posting. On the one hand, I have a job now, and that has made what time I do get to myself all the more valuable, it's easier to pick out what games I'm really enjoying, rather than just killing time on. On the other hand, I also am theoretically running a youtube channel (if one video a week counts as "running"). Finally, I have the posts I make here about anime that particularly catch my interest from new releases/ongoing shows.

A while back, when Evil Cat stopped in for a bit, I asked him briefly if he cared if I put up posts on sequel seasons that hadn't been featured here for their first seasons. He gave the okay, but I never really used the new allowance. Mostly, because there wasn't really a good way to make a post that didn't sound like, "Hey! Here's a show I've been watching for a long while, you should love it because I do!"
Yeah, no.

So instead, I've opted to come up with a one-size-fits-all blanket solution. When new seasons roll in, I'll make a single post pointing out the shows that are having second or greater count seasons. As always though, I'll only be pointing out ones that have caught my interest, are remarkable in some way, or have had a previous season posted about on the blog. My hope is that this will give me a quick and simple method to generate additional, but still useful, content on the blog. For instance, I don't think anyone needs a week by week update that One Piece is still running.
*quietly giggles to self*
*Ahem*

Anyway, on with the show:

Bungo Stray Dogs 2: The second season takes an interesting spin, by turning back the clock. Dazai's history was something of an in-joke bet amongst the detective agency he worked at. Even though we as the audience are given to know the what of it, the details were never explained. The shows second season begins where Dazai's time with his previous employer ends, and it is every bit as gloriously gloomy and full of humanity as the first season was. The one thing Bungo Stray Dogs constantly had going for it, and continues to have in my opinion, is a perfect hairline balance between comedy and tragedy/drama. I recommend this series, it's a wonderful balance of story and action, characters and powers. The presentation is also noteworthy, I like the artistic style.

Natsume Yuujinchou 5/go(u): The Fifth season of Natsume Yuujinchou, of course. A couple places phrased it as 'gou', more often as 'go', honestly it doesn't matter, it's the fifth season anyway so 5 is fine. Given that the previous tags on the blog used the romanji, I'll stick with it. When I saw this pop up on crunchyroll, I was immediately elated. Just absolutely out of my mind happy. I love this show so much. But then...I was suspicious. It had been so long...could it really meet expectations? I had actually forgotten about the show for a long while...after so much time had passed, could it really start back up where it left off? Continue to make me love all of its characters?
Clearly it wouldn't be on this list if this wasn't the case. Everything is as it should be, and one episode had me falling in love all over again. This show is golden. Go watch everything Natsume Yuujinchou has to offer you if you haven't already.

4 comments:

The Evil Cat said...

Zetro, thank you so much for carrying this blog forward. I sincerely appreciate everything you’ve done, especially given how it was handed over in a very rushed manner with very short notice. You did far more than I could have asked.

At this point, I've come to the realization that it's highly unlikely I'll ever return the the marathon style anime binge watching like I once did. And even if I do have time to watch anime again, it'd be highly unlikely I'll ever have time to write blogs. So it's time to finally give up the hope I'd one day return to blogging like I once did.

Having said that, however, I am not saying I'm ready to dismantle the blog site. Consider it's literally costing me next to nothing, I would keep it even just for sentimental reasons.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that by now, I’ve come to term with the fact it’s unlike to revive the blog to the state it once was. So please don’t feel pressured to continue trying to keep it active. But if you ever do feel like a sudden burst of writing something, please feel free to continue writing anything you wish. You are as much of an owner of this blog as me, and you’re always welcome to use it to post any on-topic posts (keyword, on-topic :-P). It’ll be here for you.

Thank you

Zetro said...

Absolutely, I will keep posting. Personally, I'm trying to keep a minimum of 1 post per month no matter what, or a translatable amount of posts in a single month. I think the greatest value of the blog, is that it keeps everything, and is always available for a search. When I first found it, that was how I used it. I would look at a list of new upcoming anime, or an old anime I'd found that seemed interesting, and then any that caught my interest after the first show aired, I would do a search here to see if they popped up. Any that did, I could immediately add or remove because we shared such similar strong opinions on anime.

Honestly, I don't think you ever should >have< to return the blog to its old high-stream of content. What I found out myself, was that when I was forcing myself to keep it up at 1 post per week, I was creating far less coherent or relevant posts. I was just making filler and desperately trying to make it funny. What's more, having a job and more of my own life to keep together now that I'm managing my own affairs, I'll go out on a limb and say that no one should be expecting you to either. Anything you do is appreciated as is. That's how I see it at least.

Do as I do. If something really interesting pops up, make a post. Otherwise, don't worry about it and leave it to me to keep about one per month going. I also don't have time to binge anime. As a matter of fact, I just hand pick shows (usually the ones that end up with a [New] tag here), and then save them all up to watch on my days off from work. Sometimes I don't watch any anime that week, maybe I played games instead or hung out with friends online chatting and sharing stuff.

For me, the value of this blog was always in the information and insight you offered when you posted on something. It wasn't as important to me that you covered every new release each season, only that I got a strong Yea or Nay for some shows that I could take confidence in without having to watch them for myself.

I also most graciously accept what I'm going to interpret as a promotion from Substitute author, to Co-Author on the blog. Yaaaaay~ *quietly jazz hands to self*

Zetro said...

Oh, and by all means, don't hold yourself to my posting format. I saw you make a post a while back and use it. If you did it because you like it, swell! If you were just trying to match form, don't worry about it, post as is most comfortable to you. I loved your posts just fine without them having any formatting at all, so you definitely don't have any need of my obsession with being 'Objective' and 'Professional'. It's just something I do because it comes naturally to me, and helps me order my feelings and opinions in a way that won't sound like screaming at people.

Marcos said...

Hi, guys. It's nice to know you're doing fine (considering you two took the time to write).

I found this blog around 10 years ago and really liked EvilCat's points of view. By the time you, Zetro, took over the blog I already grew tired of the same tropes, jokes, plots and allí that you already now. I'm mostly into manhwa and watch safe shows (dragon ball, your mame, etc.). Havent watched any series since three years ago.

Even so I visit the blog from time to time to see how ir is going. And I'm glad it's still alive.

Saludos desde México. Hope you're doing great.