Category: Projects

It’s Otaku Mech Up Time!

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In case you were unaware Tim Maughan recently asked if anyone could do some guests posts on his blog while he is on vacation in Thailand. We answered the call with An Absolute Beginners Guide to Mecha which helps fans start to explore mecha and also doubles as a guide for mecha fans to recruit allies as well.

Mecha can be one of the most intimidating genres of anime to randomly try to wander into. There always seems to be a sizable number of anime fans that refuse to give it a chance. We made this guide to give people a gentle road map that will educate them as well as entertain them. We did not pick the best mecha shows or the most popular necessarily but instead focused on shows that are accessible to people who have no innate affinity for robots but are curious to learn. The guide gives has six different types of beginner shows (complete with a robot level ratings!), then a selection of intermediate anime, and finally a short paragraph about great mecha shows, even revered ones, that maybe be too much for just starting into the genre. The ultimate goal is probably after watching some of these selections, by the end you might not have someone who loves mecha but you will have someone who does not run away from a show the second they see a robot. If we create some new mecha fans in the process, well, that is just icing.

We also did this article a little differently than we do here on our own blog, rather than a back and forth, it was a team effort, just to spice things up!

Guest post: Rocket Punching Straight to Your Heart
An Absolute Beginners Guide to Mecha

Otaku Diaries Part 7: Finding that special person to watch Whisper of the Heart with.

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#0047
Anime factors in because I would like to be able to share things I love with a person I’ll share my life with.

We start off the new year with what everyone is really reading the otaku diaries for: dirty sex secrets.  Who is doing what to whom and if farm animals are involved. Well, actually, that is no where near what this part is about. This is mostly a look at the romantic relationships or lack thereof of the various participants. Like it or not there is a stereotype that otaku are mainly lonely, dateless losers who know more about how to win hearts in visual novels than they ever will about talking to a member of the opposite sex. But the survey found a wide variety of people answered from hardcore 2D girl proponents to those who were happily married to love em and leave em Lotharios. The only commonality most people had was that their stories were always extremely emotionally involving.

The answers in this section may be the most varied of them all. Our group of participants ran the gamut from new to the dating scene to downtrodden, rejection of dating to belief in true love, and still much more inbetween. And what resulted were answers that certainly are very personal but still they will resonate, some views more than others, but very much every type of person can be seen here. Heck, this may be the portion of the survey that goes to show most how much fandom is a mix of many different types of people.

#0015
Obviously an interest in anime would be a big plus, or even just someone who would be willing to be introduced to my interest, and in return I’d be interested in hers.

#0009
My ideal mate would be someone I would want to be friends with, not just lovers. Sexual compatibility would be necessary. I’d like a good sense of humor, too. Looks are not really important. God, that sounds so fake and self-effacing, the kind of thing you’d expect in a personal ad, but in all honesty I’d probably settle for anything with two X chromosomes and a heartbeat.

#0049
A young cute girl who’s totally accepting of all my flaws and willing to take care of me.

I was amused that no one said that they would not date another otaku. For all the posturing that some people put on their surveys I think everyone wanted someone to share their hobbies with. I think it is the clearest sign that the otaku who hate otaku idea is merely a defensive mechanism. 70 percent of the participants had a strong preference for dating someone who also liked anime and only 30 mentioned that it did not factor into who they would date but they always said that they would date another otaku if they liked other things about them. Other fans might occasionally annoy us but in the end we want to be with someone who understands that aspect of our lives.

#0079
In considering dating though I would give more weight to “long-term” versus “short-term”; perhaps I am merely naive on such matters, but I wouldn’t consider a “short-term” liaison a relationship in this sense. For various reasons, I’m far more interested in mutual respect than mutual lust.

#0014
I don’t consider “dating” at all. It is an entirely abhorrent concept and one that exists in American movies and TV shows. No one actually does that bullshit in real life, do they?

I would really have liked to see, concretely because we certainly had some more indepth answers, whether the people who listed anime fandom as unimportant had mostly dated non-fans. No one in this section seemed to be adverse to dating a fellow fan which is interesting because of some of the answers given in the section about the word “otaku.” Though there were no answers, or questions to answer, about how deep their mates love of anime should run. Perhaps some wouldn’t want to date another engrossed like themselves, just open to it. While others made it quite clear they wanted to share this passion, for good and ill, because it was such a huge part of their lives that there was no getting around it.

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Secret Santa Project Reveal

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Let us all gather around the tree and see what gifts Santa has left us. For all those who do not know we sent out the word last month that we were doing a fun little cross blog collaboration called the Secret Santa Project. Everyone in the project would secretly pick three titles for someone else in the project that they hoped the other person would enjoy. Everyone would pick from the three shows they received and review one of them during the week of Christmas. On Christmas Eve we posted all the reviews so now everyone can see who their Secret Santa was. Hopefully everyone picked shows they liked and maybe a few people discovered a show they would have normally overlooked. You may notice that a few people got recommendations from us. Life hit some of the participants hard as it is want to do so they did not get their picks in on time. We gave them picks so everyone had enough time to get up their reviews. Just click the name of the show to see what each of our fine bloggers thought of the show they got. We will continue to update this list if people finish their reviews a little late so check back often.

hisuiconI’m really surprised by the turn out and overall positive reception for the Secret Santa Project. Most everyone picked innovative shows for the people they got. I was impressed by the shows most people selected for the project. They were almost all shows I enjoyed. I hope that people enjoyed the shows they watched and maybe will try something new again after their eyes have been opened by this project. I was only expecting to see half the reviews to be completed by the 25th but I have received all but 5 by the time this was initially posted. That fills my heart with goodness and hope. Also I’d love for someone to figure out a way to do this type of project with manga. I think it would go over well.  If they do you know you can count Narutaki and I in as participants. And finally, if nothing else the project got me interested in Vertical’s release of Twin Spica and made we want to go back and finish Bartender.

narutakiI was more than happy by the response we had for this fun little project. We could also do this project evil style in which everyone tries to pick a show the other person would completely hate just to fulfill any latent (or active) sadistic desires of people. But that is for another time. As for this project, I had a good time with it, even if we were less than thrilled with our show. It really seemed to get people chatting and I even had a few people lamenting that they didn’t find out about it in time. Don’t worry folks, this will certainly be brought back for 2010! Good thinkin’ Hisui!