2011 has been a really riveting renaissance year for anime, as we’ve seen anime Blu-Ray sales stunningly soar, and strong new offerings in the magical girl and sci-fi genres, both of which had badly needed some scintillating sparks to move them forward again. Perhaps no lone person has played a bigger role in this year of recovery for the anime world than Gen Urobuchi, and in this blog post, I will explore why he’s been received so well and been rather effective.

For many people, Puella Magi Madoka Magica will be their top anime show of the year, and that will almost certainly be the case for me as well. For others, so impressed that they are unconcerned that the 2nd half of it doesn’t come until 2012, it will be Fate/Zero. What do these two shows share in common? Well, aside from both having  a masterfully melodic musical score from Yuji Kajura that could compete with the likes of blockbuster Hollywood movie OSTs, the similarity between the two is that they are both the babies of Gen Urobuchi. You could think of PMMM as his hopeful yet troubled teenage daughter, while you could think of Fate/Zero as his brooding and morose adult son.

In both cases, though, I think what we see is something that you don’t see everyday in the world of anime. And this something is what is actually Gen’s greatest strength within the context of that anime world.

What is that strength?

Why, it’s simply sincere storytelling.

About a year ago, on my old blog “Assessing the Anime”, I wrote the following about what I felt was the greatest weakness in modern anime: Pavlovian Entertainment.

I would encourage Rabbit Poets readers who have never read my old blog to check that link out to get the full scope of what I’m referring to there, but to sum it up in nutshell, pavlovian entertainment is entertainment that operates on the level of classical conditioning. Often in anime, you don’t watch a story unfold so much as you watch a mechanical assemblages of parts in which each part is meant to be an arousing stimulus, appealing to one emotionally or humorously or sexually. So the experience is often less like reading a book, or watching a serious TV drama, than it is like touring an amusement park.

Now, it’s fine for some anime shows to be like that, but back in 2009 and 2010 I felt that there was an overabundance of them, making it very hard to unearth anime shows that were aiming to be compelling stories at least as much as it was aiming to amuse.

And then, as though on cue, this arrived.

By the power of Gen's skull, we have the POWER!!!

Now, don’t worry those who consider Touhou characters to be the masters of the anime fandom universe, I’m only focusing on Madoka Magica here.

Madoka Magica arrived at the perfect time for me, as I was growing increasingly tried with the tropes of anime at the time, and thinking that maybe they needed a little bit of deconstructing you could say.

But contrary to popular belief, Gen does more than simply deconstruct. Rather, he has helped to breath new life into a niche entertainment medium that too often takes the easy way out.

Gen doesn’t take the easy way out, and I think that’s why he’s gained a passionate cult following of sorts, as well as been much of the brains behind two of the very best anime shows to air in 2011.

In spite of having a cast loaded with nubile teenage girls, Gen had no beach episode and no hot springs episode. There was no pantsu, and no steamy bath or shower scenes. Mami’s mammaries managed to avoid molestation, and Sayaka was never literally raped by Kyouko.  Gen, my friends, is the anti-Pavlov.

Nowhere is this more clear than in a certain critically acclaimed sausage-fest by the name of Fate/Zero.

7 Masters, 7 Servants, and at least 11 of them are male. The remaining 3 are the perpetually rage-induced Berserker, the effectively gender-less Assassin, and a gender-bent King Arthur. Not a whole lot here for male otakus looking for cute girls doing cute things.

But then, perhaps that’s the point. Gen does anything but pander to his audience. And that may be why it’s easier to take his stories seriously, and become elaborately excitedly engrossed by them.

Gen, you see, takes his chosen craft seriously. And that is what storytelling is, a craft. Great stories display good craftsmanship. They call for attention to detail, for taking the time to properly develop characters, to present plots with enough meat to sink your teeth into and find it rewarding. And they also call for a certain integrity, I would argue.

It’s Ok for even the most serious of stories to have moments of comedic relief, to embellish a few elements to entertain the audience, and even to give out the odd Easter egg.  But if you do too much of this, the overarching story loses focus, and can even fall apart at the seams a bit.

Ah, but that’s the key to Gen’s approach. He seamlessly incorporates many of the elements that otakus like, without letting them impact on the integrity or seriousness of the story.

Madoka Magica has its yuri subtext, its attractive magical girl aesthetics, some popular anime archetypes, and moments of melodrama. But these all serve to merely frame and polish the work, rather than to be the work itself.

Instead of an otaku painting that few non-otakus could like, we get an otaku frame around a story that almost anybody could appreciate. Now, that doesn’t mean that Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero are going to be absolutely huge (in a mainstream entertainment sense) in North America, or Europe, or Australia. But it does mean that you can appreciate these shows at a different level than you would many (if not most) other anime shows.

To be fair, other anime shows do have good overarching plots worth caring about. But often they are frequently shunted into the background for lengthy periods of time, allowing frequent fanservice filler to take center stage once more. Hanasaku Iroha, Kamisama Dolls, and Kamisama Memochou, though all good anime shows in my view, are nonetheless good examples of what I’m referring to here. Each and every one has compelling stories in them, but those stories often disappear for entire episodes at a time, even if those episodes are not your standard beach and hot springs episodes.

With Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, though, the story remains a key focus from episode to episode to episode. Everything feels interconnected, everything feels whole. A series identity is allowed to take hold and flourish, drawing in viewers looking for something deeper and more intellectually rich than your run of the mill harem comedy or ecchi adventure.

Those harem comedies and ecchi shows have their place in the anime world, but I don’t think that they should define the anime world.

Thankfully, due in large part to Gen Urobuchi, they’re not defining the anime world this year.

This is the year when serious sincere storytelling makes a comeback, thanks in large part to Gen, but also thanks to some degree to Mari Okada’s Anohana.

Now Gen’s works are not without their flaws. Some may find them too dialogue-driven. Others may find them too dark. But these flaws are usually minor ones, occasionally making the work have a stronger or thicker taste than what you would like. But at least the taste is rich and satisfying precisely because it avoids needless fluff.

Gen doesn’t muck around in his works.

He continually gets things done, and pushes things forward. The plot may occasionally seem slow and methodical, but at least it doesn’t take detours to spend a night at the Kissuio Inn in order to let an inner Jiromaru take over for awhile as you forget the plot direction prior to the detour.

Such forgetfulness is not in Gen’s works, creating tight plots and hence captivating stories.

Gen Urobuchi, and to lesser extent Mari Okada, has shown that not only do narratives of this sort have an audience within the ranks of the modern otaku, but that there is a passionate audience that is longing for this material, as sales success clearly demonstrates. And that’s why I hope and think we will get more stories like Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, and Anohana in the near future.

The world of anime has indeed recovered from a relatively week 2009 and 2010, but let’s not forget why it’s recovered.

And in this post, I honor the man who has played a huge role in pushing that recovery forward. Perhaps Gen Urobuchi is a healing writer, after all.

Well…not really my “first” con, but at least in North America it is.

LET'S PARTY~

Okay, this con actually happened at the very end of July, but I didn’t have the time to write on this con nor did I have the internet to do so, thus I finally decided to “pick up my shit” and pump out this article.

First off, if this post gets a tad bit hectic to read, please bear with me as this is my very first article on a convention that I’ve been to (Oh noes, my con posting virginity *kyaa*). Secondly, since this is my first con that I’ve attended in North America, I was literally what I liked to call neophytes: a “noob”. No, not a boob, but I sure stuck out like one because of my lack of a proper cosplay, but a noob because I hadn’t had the slightest clue of what was going on and what I was supposed to do. Finally, since I pointed out that I’m a “noob”, I didn’t take very good pictures. Or at least, even a decent amount of photos like I should have. Therefore, in retrospect to my somewhat of a failure of a first con, I will make amends when the next con comes along!

Let’s get started shall we?

So the local con in (Amegakure) that I attended was aptly named Cos & Effect. Usually in Amegakure, the con that happens at that time of the year is called Anime Evolution, but it was somehow cancelled. Thus, Cos & Effect became the substitute. Being that this is my first event, I didn’t know just how “grand” Anime Evolution was in comparison, but from the looks of it, it was a lot bigger than Cos & Effect.

At Cos & Effect, the ticket was $28 for the entrance fee. Wait, what? $28 CAD? You nuts? Yeah, this is like 6X what I paid for in a Manga Expo in Taiwan. They even had Kadokawa and other publishers of all sorts. This was just a con with randomvendors! Jeez! Anyways, with $28, you get entrance, a rubber arm band thingy you saw in the top picture, a brochure (which is actually entirely free). In terms of “entrance”, it was literally open to everyone. There were even people who didn’t buy the entrance ticket that could walk right into the convention building and save the $28 on merchandise. I felt kind of ripped off, not just by the extravagant ticket price, but by the fact that there was a dearth of security and exclusivity.

Vendor Area 1F

Anyways, already having a bad taste in my mouth, I walked into the vendor area which…as you can see…is pretty small. Obviously there’s more than one floor, but this is mainly where most of the serious stuff can be bought. In terms of goods, you could get steampunk sculptures, Gachapon, Nendroids, Figmas, handmade merchandise, used DVDs & manga, Gundam kits, Visual Kei accessories, posters, and etc.

In terms of quality of the merchandise, other than the non-handmade items, it wasn’t actually all that bad. However, I did notice that some of the merchandise vendors were selling their goods for an absurd price. I mean come on! A panda-eared toque with an angry vein pin costed $25 CAD! Outrageous! I can get that for less than 80% of that price in ANY expo or con in Asia. Perhaps that’s just North American con pricing that I never knew about. Regardless of which, it still didn’t stop me from buying it. I was in desperate need of something that made me feel more otaku.

Excellent artist booth~

While I was still on the first floor, a particular booth caught my attention the most. Not only did it capture my attention, as you can see, there’s also a crowd of people there too! The artist was selling some quality posters and portraits for a reasonable price. Instead of only selling posters, she also did some commission work for people such as drawing chibi cards, black & white portraits, and full-colour portraits. I was so sold by her drawing style that I bought a chibi card and bought a poster for a combined “deal” of $40.  Although if you put it in terms of her pricing, it is a deal, but to me, a pure Asian, those prices were pretty high for me. Ugh, the sacrifices I must make to get a chibi portrait of myself.

Oh, before I show y’all my chibi card, I’ll let you guys know that the artist’s name is Lisha Lee and she’s an artist that travels around to cons. Although she doesn’t do online commissions, I do suggest you guys go look out for her if she goes to your local con. Check out the rest of her work here: http://cutemew.deviantart.com/

Ta-Da! Pretty accurate depiction if you ask me~

So after my first floor shopping spree, I headed up to the second floor. At the second floor, it was mainly an artist-feature area where the said artists would be selling posters, tiny accessories, bookmarks, and all that jazz. While I’m a fan of fanmade art, I can’t really bring myself to pay $15 for a bookmark. Now that’s just simply crazy.

2nd floor gallery

Well, that pretty much concludes the “merchandise” portion of my first con. I’ll post a later picture of loot, but for now, the show must go on.

To me, the true purpose of coming to this con was not to buy merchandise, not to get writing materials (actually partially yes), not to look at cosplayers (I lied), not to take photos, not to cosplay, but to go to the cosplay cafe.

While “they” called it the Cosplay Cafe, I would like to accurately refer to it as a M*E*I*D*O Cafe. No, it’s not an acronym, just emphasis on pronunciation. So, being the happy little boy I was, I went to go line up for the “Cosplay Cafe”…and…there was a huge line. Also, I found out they actually had a system. It wasn’t like that of a standard restaurant, but rather they handled customers in batches of 20 or so people and with these people, they entertained them for blocks of 45 minutes each, and rotated shifts & customers accordingly. While I could have chosen a later time to visit, I was ardent on making the 1:3- PM shift because that’s the exact shift when a renowned cosplayer would be a there to serve. Too bad I didn’t get her as my maid, but I certainly got to meet her friend, who was equally stunning.

First thought was: WTF?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention another thing. The pricing for the Cosplay Cafe was $5. Wait what? Everything had been so expensive at the con, so why was the cafe so cheap? Who CARES?! I GET TO SEE MAIDS FOR $5 AND EAT NOMS FOR 45 MINUTES? AND THE $5 IS DONATED TO A HOSPITAL?! OH DEAR LORD THIS IS WHAT I CAME FOR!!!!!!

Precisely explains reaction ^

Oh yes. I love you too~

So what did I have at the Cosplay Cafe? Well, I had a chocolate donut, which was actually damn good, or at least the pretty maids made it taste better, and a can of coke to drink it all down.

Not bad for $5.

What did I do with my Maid-sama? Well, we played Uno for a bit and then we played that “moe moe cosplay cafe jun-ken jun-ken-pon!” (Rock paper scissors a la moe-style) game. Wait that’s it? Correct. Being the shy guy I am, I later felt like I was being a tad bit TOO courteous to the maid and I didn’t use her to the abusive extent I should have. Dang, missed the chance to do all those things I dreamed about doing such as a “fella…” Oops. Let my mind slip there.

Continuing on…

Well, that concludes all I did at Cos & Effect. Usually I would like to stay for later-night events and perhaps try to get into the 18+ events, but being the good Asian boy I am, I had an exam to study for. BOOOO.

But, before a conclusion paragraph…here’s some photos of loot & battle gear:

C-Day Battle Gear (Fail rotate)

Loot~

So let’s do a summary of events shall we?

1. Arrival @ 11AM and bought ticket
2. Toured first floor and bought goodies
3. Toured second floor and didn’t buy goodies
4.  Wait in line for 45 minutes for Cosplay Cafe
5. Finished with cafe and shopped a bit more
6. Bought more goodies on first floor
7. Went home at 4:00 PM

Bad lighting, but the maids are saying goodbye~

And some other funky photos…

...and this picture helps explain why.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Read through the first post on that anime thread carefully. Take particular note of Nichijou’s DVD sales figures. And let it sink in that these sub-1000 sales is for a Kyoto Animation anime.

Kyoto Animation pulling down fewer than a thousand DVD sales from Nichijou is truly a clamorously careering collapse for what previously seemed like the ultimate brand name in the industry. But due to that collapse, and the meteoric Madoka Magica rise, I would argue that SHAFT has now overtaken Kyoto Animation as the biggest and strongest name in the anime industry. In this blog, I will go on to explain how we’ve come to this point, and what it means for Kyoto Animation, SHAFT, and the anime industry as a whole. First of all, my intention here is not to bash Nichijou. I respect that it has some passionate fans, and that it does have an uniquely surrealist comedy that may appeal to people in ways that few other anime shows do.

Nonetheless, its poor DVD sales are a reflection of the possible Kyoto Animation/Nichijou mismatch that I first noted back in April.

I think that Nichijou would have worked better as a comedy if given a less visually dramatized approach, which KyoAni has unfortunately consistently applied to it. As is, however, the comedy is very hit-and-miss because the punchlines are very hit and miss. And given that the comedy aspect of Nichijou is hit-and-miss, and the show has virtually no plot to speak of (not even episodic ones), then the anime’s marketplace reception would have to depend on moe appeal.

However, Kyoto Animation is shockingly being beat at their own game by SHAFT. Specifically, by the most insanely moe show I’ve ever seen…

Denpa Onna, for its part, is pulling down respectable sales figures of 5,267 Blu-Ray sales and 1,361 DVD sales. Perhaps more importantly, though, Denpa Onna proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that SHAFT has mastered the art of moe appeal. This was the art that Kyoto Animation revolutionized and popularized. From 2006 through 2010, Kyoto Animation would have to be considered an animation company of unparalleled success (on a per anime basis, at least), and this was on the backs of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On, and Key adaptations, all brought to animated life with a dauntlessly delectable dash of moe.

So why has Kyoto Animation, once an unassailable force in the anime industry, fallen on hard times with Nichijou? I think the that these woes began with a certain endless recursion of time…

Haruhi 2009 was a sure symbolic sign that Kyoto Animation had developed an unhealthy degree of hubris. They had become overly fixated on cheap gimmickry, at the expense of doing simple solid work. Even before a certain infamous anime arc of 2009 became the main anime controversy of a summer of discontent, we could see a hint of such gimmickry in how Haruhi 2009 began as a stealth airing from out of nowhere, bucking standard marketing and promotional approaches for the anime industry as a whole.

Kyoto Animation basically felt it could do whatever the hell it wanted to do, and the customer would lap it all up regardless. But with Haruhi 2009 selling significantly worse than its 2006 predecessor, the first chinks in Kyoto Animation’s armor were displayed.

Thankfully for them, though, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie was a rousing commercial success, as was K-On!! Back in 2010, these two helped to reassert Kyoto Animation’s dominance.

One key about Disappearance and K-On!!, though, is that you could tell that KyoAni was sincerely putting some real effort in with these two, and lovingly crafted them to be appealing to their core consumer base.

The animation was made to fit the material, rather than the material being made to fit the animation.

What I mean by that is that Kyoto Animation’s artistic and animation approach to both Disappearance and K-On!! was to have it play to the inherent strengths of the source material for each, while doing what could be done to negate their inherent weaknesses. In Haruhi 2009′s case, though, the material was made to fit the animation – specifically by stretching out the Endless Eight story to ridiculous extremes while giving Kyoto Animation’s various animation teams an excuse to play around and experiment with their artistic styles in one E8 iteration after the next after the next after the next.

Much the same is now happening with Nichijou, I believe. Kyoto Animation is pulling out all the stops, animation-wise, for Nichijou, and is once again experimenting artistically. The problem is that this is being done, I think, with little respect to what would serve the source material best. Nichijou is nowhere near as suspenseful as Disappearance is, and so while a flair for the dramatic makes perfect sense for Disappearance, it often doesn’t make sense for Nichijou. I would argue that it’s causing the comedy value of Nichijou to suffer, and this is not good since Nichijou is first and foremost a surrealist comedy.

But Kyoto Animation’s hubris is not merely impacting their basic animation work. I would argue that it’s also having a negative impact on what projects they choose to do.

Prior to Nichijou airing, I don’t recall there being a great fan push to get it animated ASAP. On the other hand, I know that Haruhi and Full Metal Panic fans have grown increasingly impatient with Kyoto Animation over the years, wondering why it takes the studio so long to do more of one or the other or both. In FMP’s case, I know sales have struggled, but on what basis does Nichijou get greenlit for two cours over Haruhi getting more adaptation work done when there are seven Haruhi novels left out there to adapt?

This choice on Kyoto Animation’s part shows how out of touch it is with its own fanbase. Many Kyoto Animation fans are longing for more Haruhi, while relatively few were crying out for Nichijou before it was slated for an anime. Now, in an ideal world, Kyoto Animation would do more than just two or three projects a year, but given those limitations, choosing to adapt Nichijou instead of adapting more Haruhi was a mistake, in my opinion.

While Kyoto Animation has grown out of touch with its fanbase, SHAFT has unquestionably learned how to appeal to anime fans in general.

As of this writing, two of the three best selling TV anime shows of all-time belong to SHAFT, and you can see both of them in the picture above.

What Shinbo has effectively done is adapt his quirky and unique style to be one that still has a distinctively avant-garde feel, but is also an alluringly accessible one. It hence feels different, but not too different. SHAFT has also wisely, and consistently, made its animation fit the material, rather than making the material fit its animation. This is why Bakemonogatari looks much different than Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and why both looks much different than Denpa Onna.

SHAFT is showing admirably astute ambition, in that it is slowly but surely eating one slice of the anime pie after another after another.

With Bake, it conquered harem anime in general, and made an excellent foray into Light Novel adaptations.

With Madoka, it now is competing with Nanoha for dominace in the Mahou Shoujo sphere, while showing how well it can handle one cour anime originals.

And now with Denpa Onna, it is making an impressive play on moe fans in general.

They key for SHAFT is to simply keep doing what it has been doing since Summer 2009 (while also taking more care to budget properly for later episodes, admittedly).

SHAFT can learn much from Kyoto Animation’s recent disappointments. From them, SHAFT can learn how an animation studio needs to be very in touch with the anime fanbase, and responsive to its current anime wants, in order to be successful.

And for Kyoto Animation to pull a comeback, that is what it will have to do. It will need to learn from its mistakes, cut out the gimmickry, and get back to basics. Hopefully, we’ll see more Haruhi work soon.

But Kyoto Animation will need to act quick. SHAFT is not its only major competitor that’s on the rise.  A-1 Pictures and PA Works are also posing serious challenges to the once seemingly invincible Kyoto Animation.

A-1 Pictures has shown an uncanny ability to appeal to otakus with its great success in Anohana (according to what I read on that, it will sell well in excess of 20,000 DVDs/Blu-Rays), while PA Works has demonstrated animation quality (and commercial success) to rival Kyoto Animation in anime shows like Angel Beats! and Hanasaku Iroha.

These two animation studios also have their finger on the pulse of the modern anime fandom. And if Kyoto Animation doesn’t soon get their finger back on that pulse, they may find that their own pulse might start to be weak…

I hope it won’t come to that, as Kyoto Animation’s talents are great, and work marvelously when applied wisely and seriously.

2006 through 2010 will likely be remembered as the KyoAni era in anime. But whether that continues further into this decade remains to seen. At the moment, you could say that KyoAni is getting SHAFTed.

What do you think, good reader?

Saw this on Kotaku via Forever Geek, but the Japan Anime Map! courtesy of the Japan National Tourism Organization. Dammit, where was this when I went to Japan two months ago!?

Hi, I'm just here to see Kagamin

I’ve been to Akihabara a few times (overrated, IMO). This past spring, I got to see Nakano Broadway (smaller than Akiba, but nice! and some bargains to be found) and Nipponbashi Otaku Road in Osaka (eh, just ok). I’d heard of Ikebukuro’s Otome Road, although I haven’t been there. But I wasn’t aware of the shops in Kanagawa, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. The guide also features some concept cafes, although to be frank, I don’t care how much English they claim to speak, they are probably terrible. I think it would be awkward and frustrating if not completely unfulfilling to visit without a.) conversational skills in Japanese or b.) a friend that speaks Japanese well.

What’s more interesting though is the backside of the map which shows where some famed real life areas like the Lucky Star Shrine are… looks like they missed out on some places though:

• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni in Shirakawa-go (how could they leave this out!?)
• Might want to add the Hansaku Iroha hot spring to the list
• I’d be curious to see the Ano Hana town/bridge (although that bridge looks much less impressive in that picture)
• The Shiratani Unsuikyo rainforest which served as inspiration for the setting of Princess Mononoke
• And if someone recreated Neo-Venezia, I would be resident #1.

While the map is nice and gives you a good starting point, it’s light on details so you’ll need to do the detailed legwork on your own. Someone needs to create a Japan-Guide.com specific to anime travel.

I have a ridiculously short memory, where else would you want to visit?

My first con experience. Was it a success or a total lame-o?

Massive success!

As this random guy in a suit of something that I don’t know would attest.

The juicy details?

• Got to meet Blindability and 7thwraith and walk around the con with them (thanks to Misaki for playing matchmaker). They were really cool and totally not your awkward otaku stereotype… gee, that sounds terribly disingenuous when I write it out. But I’m being serious.
• Got to meet and take a picture with “Kawaii Ambassador” Yu Kimura
• Dealers room was pretty awesome. Even though a lot of the stuff was overpriced, it was just cool to see figures and merch you wouldn’t see anywhere else
• A heck of a lot of cosplayers. Way more than I thought there would be. I thought maybe 10-15% would dress up, but actually it was more like 30-40%. And there were some really good costumes too.
• Just overall cool atmosphere. I wasn’t sure what the heck I was walking into. Worst case scenario, I thought there’d be a shitload of teenagers running around, screaming “OVER 9000!” and random crap, but it wasn’t like that at all. I’d guess that 80% of the con members were over 18, and a good 40-50% over 21. I sort of lol’d when I was in a panel listening to convention stories and there were stories of people getting piss drunk and passing out and stuff… or basically the college student experience. I was like, “wut? these are not your parent’s otaku hikikomori”
• Location was nice. Ok, Somerset, NJ is out in the middle of nowhere. But the benefit of that is that there’s not much local traffic and lots of free parking. I can only imagine the vehicular hell a con would wreak when in the middle of a major city.
• Non-stop schedule. To be honest, I didn’t make the best use of time. Nor was I an early bird or late owl, but it was really cool to know that something was going on basically around the clock. You know, just in case I did want to play tabletop games at 4am (I didn’t).

For next time

• I sort of wish I took more photos. I was shy about taking them this time, even though there was no reason to be. I guess I was just overwhelmed by the number of actual cosplayers there were
• I will read the map as soon as I get there. First time, I walked through, saw the main room, went into the Artist’s Alley, Dealer’s room and then I was like, “that’s it?” It took me half a day to realize that there was a whole ‘nother building where the actual panels were happening. And another day for me to realize there was even a 2nd floor where additional panels were happening.

All in all, the con was a blast. More fun than I would’ve imagined. The time flew by, I was sad to see it end.

Or how the Biggie-Tupac feud really started.

So it’s not exactly Anime Expo, which I think is perhaps the most popular anime con in the US. But AnimeNext, the east coast’s answer to Anime Expo (I have no idea if that’s true, but let’s go with it). Either way, this will be my first con. I’m not sure what to expect – did somebody say… WEABOOS!? OTAKUS!? Hmm… maybe I should rethink this.

I kid, I kid.

I don’t have anything in particular I’m looking forward to. I think it’d be pretty cool to see some cosplayers (or rather, good cosplayers). What’s the picture taking etiquette with them? Do you ask for permission, or is that assumed, being that you’re dressing up and all.

I also wouldn’t mind if there were some opportunities to buy some swag… cheaply. But from what I’ve heard, the words: “cheap” and “con” don’t seem to go together often. Otherwise, consider me a blank canvas, tell me what to see, what I should keep a lookout for.

Also, if any other anibloggers are attending A-Next and want to meet up for lunch, dinner, drinks or just cosplayer ogling, tweet me up. I’m already meeting up with Bokutachi no Blog’s blindability, so the more the merrier.

Image from Boing Boing, which has had some really interesting coverage today.

There’s something that hits a little home with George Takai’s hashtag #WeAreAllJapanese. Whether or not you have any intention of visiting Japan or learning the language, there’s no denying the fact that if you’ve been a reader of this blog, you probably have an unnatural amount of interest in those cartoons that Japan creates and that are so infused with their cultural qualities. So it’s… funny. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but while the world be “Japanese” today… you, me, and all those anime fans out there, it hits a slightly closer to “home”, because hey, we were all a tiny bit “Japanese” even before the Sendai Earthquake. So when I hear of firsthand accounts and see the tweets from fellow bloggers located in Japan, the picture they paint is a picture I can clearly see inside my head.

So with that said, how can you help Japan? The quickest, and realistically, most useful way is to donate to those organizations that are supporting the rescue and recovery efforts. Every little bit helps. Sounds cliché, but it is true. Because the small donations add up quickly.

• I instinctively donated to the American Red Cross out of habit. You can donate to them by visiting their web site, or to donate a quick $10, text REDCROSS to 90999
• Global Giving is another reputable organization, which other bloggers like Executive Otaku and Shinmaru. Again, you can either visit their web site and donate whatever amount that you want or you can text JAPAN to 50555 to quickly donate $10.

On a non-giving front, if you’re looking or helping others looking for people in Japan, try Google’s Person Finder, which is really an amazing bit of technology.

And beyond that, it’s just praying and hoping that the injured recover and the missing are found alive, that the aftershocks end soon and without much more damage, and that Japan can go back on the mend as quickly as possible.

UPDATE – just a quick update here, but donating directly to an organization with an existing base of operations in Japan might be the most efficient way to donate. A couple good ones are:

• Second Harvest Japan which is distributing food to affected areas
• You can also donate directly to the Japanese Red Cross through Google

Meaningful red herring screenshot

Consider this to be an addendum or a side post to Scamp’s fascinating post on the life-and-death of an aniblog.

The decline of the anime blog

My RSS list is heavily weighted towards older blogs. Blogs that have been around at least a year. That’s partly due to when I started writing and paying more attention. And partly due to the ranking exercise I undertook for the aniblog tourney. But one of the things I do occasionally is troll around on Anime Nano to check up on some of the newer blogs that have entered the fray. When you have 100+ blogs on your list, it makes it harder for new voices to stand out, but a couple of the younger blogs that I like are Visual Violence, an episodic blog that seems heavily influenced by RandomC, but is well written, and Seanver, which is what I guess I’d call a moe/ecchi-appreciation blog, and is unique in that it also summarizes games and books.

But one of the things I noticed as I’d check up on the list of new blogs is that it seemed like there were less and less new blogs showing up on Anime Nano. So I went back and did a count by month, and lo and behold, my suspicions were confirmed – 2010 was the worst year for new anime blogs since Nano started.

After the initial aniblog gold rush in the 2006 and pre-2006 era (Nano only came to being in the middle of 2006), 2007 was a bit of a dud, but then came a second gold rush of aniblogs in 2008 and 2009, before interest dropped off a cliff in 2010. Admittedly, Nano isn’t the perfect arbiter of blog birthdates, since they’ve usually been around for at least a couple months before joining, but I think it’s a good measure of the level of activity that’s going on out there.

And the trend isn’t just on Nano, because we see a similar drop in search activity for “anime blog” on Google Trends, down over a 1/3 since it peaked in 2008 and 2009. This is interesting, because a lot of those 2008 and 2009 blogs are right in the thick of the 2-3 year death mark that Scamp wrote about.

A year of deaths

Many of those 2008 and 2009 blogs have already met their demise. Some like Grand Punk Railroad, Low on Hit Points, Epic Win, Exce7ion and heck even Chartfag suffered slow, drawn-out deaths. Others like Hontou ni died unexpectedly (although Zyl moved to Sea Slugs). Ha Neul Seom pulled a Subculture right at the two year mark. While others like Mikotoism actually did die, before being reborn (proving that sometimes you can’t walk away). And there are still others are just a hiatus explanation/”I’m not dead!” post away from sticking a fork in themselves.

What if this is the real normal?

What if 2007 and 2010 were the norms and 2008 and 2009 were the aberrations? Maybe the better question would be what drove the spikes in 2008 and 2009? Was it the shows? 2008 was the last hurrah of the mecha era apparently, with Code Geass R2, Gundam 00 and Macross Frontier all taking their turns leveling up mechas. Spice and Wolf, Aria the Origination, Soul Eater, Toradora, Clannad Afterstory and DMC rounded a pretty solid year. In 2009, we had the return of Haruhi, the revamp of Brotherhood, and the original K-ON leading the way, while shows like Bakemonogatari, Eden of the East, and Umineko provided a surprising level of diversity. Not nearly as strong as the 2008 lineup, but a good number of genre busters, and a surprisingly trollish year, with Endless Eight pissing off Hitler, the anti-moe crusade waging war against K-ON, Senjougahara Fascination and Ryukishi trolling errbody in sight.

Meanwhile, 2010 can only be considered a disaster in comparison. K-ON 2, Nodame Finale, Angel Beats, Arakawa are probably the only shows that received critical and popular acclaim, and none of them were as big as the 2008/2009 shows. Shiki, Kuragehime and the Tatami Galaxy were all good, but too niche to gain much broad popularity. None of the 2010 hits carried the imagination like the hits from 2008 and 2009. And I don’t think any of the winter 2011 shows, nor the spring shows will reverse the tide. So barren times will probably continue.

What if the next Aniblog gold rush is… Twitter or Tumblr?

Maybe anime blogging just isn’t sexy anymore. It’s not like people have stopped talking about anime. On the contrary, the discussion has moved to other places. To Twitter and to Tumblr largely. This has its plusses and its minuses.

Twitter is about as close as you can get to liveblogging a show with a roomful of geeks (except for those Skype folks, who actually are in a chatroom together). It’s instant gratification. And when you’re tweeting back and forth with a bunch of people about something that happened on a show, it’s a really cool experience. But the downside of Twitter is that it’s insular, and it’s transient. It’s insular, because you have to be a.) a member and b.) really active on it to get much out of it. It’s only slightly more open than a chat room or an online forum. Unlike reading a blog post, it’s harder to enjoy Twitter passively, because each tweet has so little information. If you only spend a few minutes a day checking it out, it’s like hearing a snippet of a conversation. Or just watching the promo scenes of an anime. You only get so much out of it. Twitter is just too transient. A shelf-life of a blog post is about 3-4 days. That’s when most of the visits and comments come in. But there’s a long tail of readers that will read posts that are years old and occasionally even leave comments on it. In contrast, the shelf life of a Tweet is 3-4 hours. A string of conversations might last an hour. And after 24 hours, consider it all dead and gone, never to be seen by anyone again, except maybe you in your loneliest moments.

But while I see value in Twitter, to me, Tumblr is a wasteland of wannabe anime-themed LOLCATS. Tumblr, in a strictly technological sense, is set up to be more enduring than Twitter. It’s not as full-featured as say WordPress, but there’s a lot of stuff you can do with Tumblr. Unfortunately its turned out to be the most unstructured discussion platforms of them all. It’s become an imageboard home for anime memes, random screenshots and fan art. It’s like if 4chan had user accounts. There are some really amusing Tumblr’s, the bad anime subs tumblr is the funniest blog/twitter/tumblr/thing you’ll ever read and even though it’s not exactly Tumblr, I love all the seiyuu soup.io miniblogs like Cowboybibimbop, Seiyuup and watermelon soup.  But they’re rare. For one good Tumble, there’s 500 Tumbles of utter garbage. And unlike Twitter, Tumblr isn’t ideal for conversation chains. There’s only so many ICanHasAnimeCheezburgers this world can handle. If anyone has good Tumblr examples that are different from the typical aniblog style, and aren’t just imageboards, I’d love to hear about it.

But not every anime blog dies

But even if the number of new anime blogs doesn’t pick up this year, we probably won’t have any shortage of blogs anytime soon. The elder blogs Scamp highlighted: Star Crossed, Kur­ogane, Sea Slugs THAT, Blog­suki, Omonomono, Baka-Raptor, Karm­aburn, Batezi, Anime Diet, Hashi­hime, are all still going strong, and I would dare say are better now than ever before. Ran­dom Curi­os­ity nearly died, but was saved in the last second by a white knight and even though Omni’s gone, I think Divine and his crew haven’t missed a beat.

And of the 2008 blogs, some of the blogs that successfully crossed the two year threshold and into red alert territory recently include Mono no Aware (edit: 4+ years and in the free and clear if you count its previous incarnation. Thanks to gl and iknight below for the info)  We Remember Love, Eye Sedso and Scamp himself (and I guess myself too).

But there’s hope for those in red alert state. Looking back at the aniblog tourney list I had, there were 22 blogs between 2-3 years old when 2010 started. And over the past year, only 3 of them died, with another 3 I’d classify as dying. Which means more than 70% have successfully escaped red alert territory. Who were some of the blogs that escaped the state of red alert and crossed the threshold into 3+ year land, where boys become cherry boys, girls become fanservice fodder, and anime blogs become immortal? Hanners, Canime, Listless Ink, The Null Set are some of the recent ones. And Baka Raptor’s a month from reaching immortality.

So maybe the 2 year mark isn’t as bad a death knell as I might have thought. I still think it’ll be interesting to see if the number of new aniblogs rebounds this year, but give credit to modern medicine, not only is it extending our lives, it’s extending the lives of anime blogs. Or something like that.

Rob Lucci would make a fitting representative for Funimation.

Sorry for taking so long at putting up my first RabbitPoets blog, but I hope that I can make it worth the wait!

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of the thunderously triumphant topic of discussion, let me set some historical context in order for people to better understand what’s going on right now.

For roughly a decade, this was more or less “the system” for heavy internet using anime fans outside of Japan:

Fansubs were there in order to watch anime shows as quickly as possible, and to sample them before putting money down on DVDs or Blu-Rays.

DVDs or Blu-Rays would then ideally be bought by fansub viewers based on the shows that they saw *and* liked. This is how anime fans would support the anime industry.

Now, that’s an admittedly somewhat idealistic take on things, as some fans don’t buy anything, but it was still an approach that many anime fans took.

And on the whole, I felt that it was a good approach.

Fansubs are, as the term suggests, produced by fans and for fans. They hence are made by people with strong ties to the anime fandom. They tend to have their finger on the pulse of the anime fandom, and know what we want in the animes that we watch. So, fansubs are often tailor-made to be as exceptionally entertainingly enjoyable as possible.

They are also, generally speaking, not put out for profit, but rather for reasons such as…

1. Contributing to the online anime fanbase
2. Promoting specific animes by getting them to as many fans as possible
3. Gaining some degree of appreciation, if not fame, from fellow fans

This means that fansub producers have a vested interest in making the highest quality fansubs possible. There’s generally no staff to be paid to produce the fansubs, so financial concerns are not major ones. There’s no need to cut corners in order to lower costs, in other words.

So, the internet was like this pioneering land of fantastically frolicking freedom and awesomely anticipated adventuring. For anime fans, the world was their oyster when they ventured on the internet, with loads of different options for where and when and how to acquire digital copies of all the animes that they wanted to see.

Then, after these fansubs were watched, the anime fan could choose to go out and give back to the industry by buying the DVDs or Blu-Rays.

All-in-all, it was  a pretty good set-up, I thought. Granted, fansubs are technically illegal, but it’s the sort of illegality that is rarely enforced, and which companies tend to not care about as long as their bottom lines look as impressive as the Grand Line of One Piece.

However, a lot of anime fans didn’t want to support the anime industry through buying DVDs or Blu-Rays, but they did want to help the anime industry in some fashion at least. And so, there was a big push put on for the anime industry to engage more and more in digital distribution. And so, we now have Crunchy Roll and Funimation.

And so, we now have unintended consequences.

At least they were unintended from the fans’ perspective.

Those consequences are Funimation (after getting into some hot water with the Fractale Production Committee due to online piracy of Fractale) going after the pirates of an anime based on pirates.

And those consequences might also include VIZ media now trying to take control of Narutofan.com.

(If anybody wants more info on that, just ask in a comment reply – I’m still getting used to this new blog format, so I’m not going to try linking to other sites directly yet).

Much of the anime fandom wanted the anime industry to engage us more online. To offer a legal digital distribution method for all of its shows. To become more in touch with the vast online anime fandom.

But one of the main questions that I want to pose here is the following:

Do we really want that?

When it comes to the internet, fans rarely get to set the terms of contact and transaction between them and the businesses that seek to sell to them.

A good example of this is the video game industry, where DLC (downloadable content) has sadly become little more than a way for the video game industry to gouge their customers by selling digital content that probably should have been on the game to begin with.

It’s important to keep in mind that unlike fansubbers, the anime industry is in this primarily to make a profit.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. People do have to earn a living after all.

But still, once a profit motive is factored in, that means that some of what you like as a fan might be factored out, in order to serve that profit motive.

In the case of video games, what is often factored out is getting a truly complete game at the first point of sale.

And in the case of anime, what is often factored out is video quality, the option to download to save, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to have an online fan community organized by fans and for fans.

Because VIZ Media is threatening that by trying to take over Narutofan.com

And if Funimation is successful in its case against 1337 One Piece pirates, then you might eventually see a far less free-wheeling exchange of communication and content between fans from across the various corners of the globe.

Once you have corporations running sites for fans, and holding a virtual monopoly over digital distribution, you get people at the very top that are not really in touch with your average fan. So fan concerns can often get sidelined, if not unnoticed entirely.

I don’t really blame Funimation for doing what it’s doing. And while what VIZ Media is doing is probably not ethical, I can definitely understand their motives in doing it.

But we as fans should probably take a step back, and take a good hard look at the bigger picture.

I think that we should ask ourselves “What do we want the online world to be like for each of us as anime fans, and for the online anime community as a whole?”

Before making suggestions, try to keep in mind possible unintended consequences.

Now, in the interim, I would actually encourage fans living in America to check out any available Funi stream for an anime show that they like. It is one small way of helping an industry going through tough times to stay afloat.

At the same time, though, if you’re comfortable and content with just fansubs for the shows that Funi or Crunchy Roll don’t yet have, then make that known. If you want the old “fansub for sampling, DVDs/Blu-Rays to help the industry” system to stay in place as much as possible, then make that known. If there’s internet sites that you think should be ran by fans and for fans, then make that known.

I think that the online anime fandom is nearing a crossroads. More and more we see anime companies getting interested on the internet side of things. This is also what Yamakan, of Haruhi and Kannagi fame, has pushed for. From his perspective, it’s an intuitively intelligent innovation. From the fan’s perspective, though, is it for the best?

Well, it can be very good in some ways, but it can also have unwelcome undesirable unintended consequences.

Speaking personally, I don’t want the anime industry to take over the online side of things like the video game industry has done. I think that there needs to be some sort of buffer between fans and the industry that serves us, in order to ensure that we anime fans don’t get taken advantage of like many video game fans unfortunately have.

What do you, good reader, think?

Please let me know.

And please let me know what you thought of this, my first blog post at Rabbit Poets.

Apparently, I’ve had an Anime Planet account since December of 2009. At least that’s what my import history tells me. But it’s only with the recently unbearable MyAnimeList slowdowns that I decided to give AP a fair chance. I thought I’d take more time writing this post, but for whatever reason, it came together pretty quick.

I’m going to take a deeper dive into AP and outline things that stand out to me. The nitpicking will outnumber the compliments, but that’s more a function of my having been a pretty heavy MAL user for the past few years. Comparing AP to MAL’s featureset (vs. the vice versa) just comes more naturally to me. But I tried to back up my “want list” with reasons where possible, so this didn’t read like I was being a petulant brat. But these are all my opinions of course. Obviously, what’s important to me isn’t necessarily important to everyone else. (note: I used an adblocker to save space for screencapping purposes. Both MAL and AP have advertising, but the advertising is a lot less intrusive on AP. I don’t mind the ads on AP.)

The Intro Page

Welcome to Anime Planet

I use MyAnimeList for two main reasons: to track what I watch and for information. Accordingly, there’s three things I think MAL does really well:

• its list
• the anime info pages
• the user panel

On MAL, the user panel is particularly useful, because it’s the first page you see when you log in. On that page, three things stand out to me: the quick link to your list, the recent friend updates, and your last list updates.

• The quick link to your list is useful for obvious reasons
• The recent friend updates, for me, is useful because it’s one of the main ways I get reminded about new episodes of currently running shows. It’s also a great way to randomly come across an interesting show that someone I ‘m friends with is watching
• And my list updates are useful, because seeing a recent history of what I’ve watched also helps me to remember other shows on my list that I’d been meaning to catch up on

Good to see I've been on a dropping spree

When you first log into Anime Planet, you’ll see a link to your list on the top right. However the list lacks any sort of sequential display of the last episodes and shows you or anyone else has watched. At least, I can’t seem to find it anywhere on the site.

AP also has a panel for user activity, but it’s for all users, not your friends.

There’s a few points I want to make here:

• I’d rather see the friends panel there, because I’m ambivalent to what other users on the site are doing. On MAL, my eyes tend to gloss over the latest reviews and recommendations sections, because I feel like it’s too broad, and not relevant to me. Whereas I have pretty good confidence that the people I’m friends with have either better tastes or tastes closer to mine
• From a design standpoint, MAL’s friend update list is a lot easier to scan than AP’s user activity panel. Better spacing and recognizable images outweighs text links and icons. There’s almost too much info on the AP activity panel, it’s hard to focus on any one thing
• The other limitation with AP’s user panel is that you don’t see sequential episodic updates in the user activity panel. Ostensibly because the site may not keep track of this. So all you see are changes in show status (watching, dropped, hold, etc.), reviews, ratings and recos. This might be one reason why the user activity panel is on the home page vs. the friends activity panel, simply because updates tend to come fewer and further between

Good scannability here

Ideally, the activity panel would be laid out similar to how AP handles the recommendations panel, which makes use of a lot more white space and better layout.  Although…

• I’d love for the read reason button to ajax open the text vs. relying on rollovers
• The add vote is also a little confusing, because I thought I was voting up a recommendation, but instead it took me to the add a recommendation page

The browse by tags doesn’t seem to work from the intro page (it takes me to an empty page), but works well from the anime pages. It’s a pretty cool feature actually.

The List

Ah the most important part.

First things first, the Import List

Import quality has improved over the past year

This is MAL’s bread and butter, and AP knows this, including a handy “import anime list” that allows you to take your export file from MAL and import it into AP. It worked well for the most part, the ones it missed were all the Kara no Kyoukai movies (it’s bundled series listing), any picture dramas, Shakugan no Shana 3 (probably because it hasn’t been announced yet), and Shina Dark (no excuse here).

It imports your watch status, progress, and your ratings.

What it doesn’t import are:

• Rewatch stats
• Start and end dates
• Any sort of tags (not that MAL was doing anything with them any way)

I don’t mind the missing rewatch stats so much (and apparently it may or may not ever be added according to the Frequently denied requests thread), but missing the start and end dates is a crucial missing piece for me. It’s something I look back on, and will use often to sort my list. One nice feature, simply for data portability’s sake (and fairness to MAL and aniDB), would be an export feature of its own. Apparently it’s in the works, but very low priority, so I wouldn’t count on it anytime soon.

Sticky filters, or the lack thereof

Lack of sticky filters means extra steps on each list visit

One point of annoyance is that unlike MAL, where you can set your default view, there doesn’t seem to be a similar setting in AP. So anytime you click your list, you have to then click the appropriate filter and then apply it. It’s not hard, but it adds an extra step or two. A sticky filter is a necessity, especially for those with larger lists.

AP’s filtering works much better than MAL’s advanced search, but one thing I’d probably change is the visible filter buttons. Currently, you see:

• watching
• want to watch
• my fav genres

The problem with “my fav genres” is that the genre category is so broad, it’s not the most helpful of filters. And while my fav genres might be useful when you’re searching or browsing for animes in general, if you’re in your list view, you’re probably going to want more filters that are more contextual to your experience. Which, for example, would probably be:

• watching
• want to watch
• dropped
• stalled

Updating your list and episode specific forums

No episodic posts on AP

Updating your list is as simple as clicking a drop down and clicking an episode ahead. Unlike recent MAL, it works, it’s functional, it’s fast. But one big missing feature in AP is anime episode specific forums. I think this is a killer feature on MAL, that you can update your list and then be asked to read the Mushishi, episode 14 forums. It encourages discussion, and even though I don’t post much, I almost always read the forums to see what other people thought of the episode. AP has show specific forum posts, but that tends to scatter the episodic discussions and breaks the flow. It also makes it harder to post about random show topics like “why is Mashiro such a bitch?” or “is there ever going to be a third season of Natsume Yuujinchou?”

AP’s also missing the sequential cataloguing of episodes and shows you watched, but I’ve already mentioned that.

Anime and Character Information Pages

AP requires all ”original” content, and they have admins that do their job enforcing this (unlike MAL which is like the wild, wild west). On the plus side, it means you’re not going to click around reading character profiles and accidentally spoil yourself by reading something like Yagami Light is a mind-controlling alien, because some jackass copy pasta’d the whole wikipedia entry and a lazy admin let it through. On the down side, you’re going to find a lot of pages and profiles with little-to-no info.

Typical shows

Basic information page

All the basic info is available, show name, synopsis, episode length, studio.

• On the plus side, I like that they include the season (Fall 2010) with the anime
• On the downside, I prefer how MAL includes exact dates of airing and ending. I also like that MAL will include the episode length for the series. It’s good info to know. AP tends to only list up to the number that’s aired
• Also on the downside, I like how MAL displays the numerical rating. You can see the numerical rating on AP by scrolling over the stars, but at first glance 4.0 will like 4.45, even though there’s a big difference in the scores. I’m ok with the stars from an individual rating standpoint, but when aggregating, I would much rather see the numerical rating.

New and upcoming shows

One oddity of the editorial control on AP is that they only post synopses or screenshots after 3-4 episodes have aired. This is where I think the editorial control might need to be relaxed somewhat, because if you were just passing through you’d assume that the page is undone. It’s a bit discouraging to look at it at first glance, because it gives me the impression that people aren’t submitting much info, which may or may not be the case. It also makes AP useless if you’re trying to get info on a show that’s just aired, or is planned to air in a future season.

A synopsis is a synopsis. I can understand asking users to do better than some of the nonsense that’s on MAL, but the synopsis doesn’t change whether the anime is just getting started or has been running for 200 episodes. Similarly, I’d consider at least displaying a placeholder image for the show, and then replacing it with more original images once the show’s been ongoing for a few episodes.

Looking lonely here

Characters and Staff Panel

There’s an unnecessary horizontal scroll bar that seems to show up in the subpanels when using Chrome 9.

But more importantly, I think the characters panel either needs to be broken out of there and placed in a separate location, or needs to link to a separate characters page that allows you to see all the characters without scrolling as much. It’s harder to navigate and find what you need when you can only see 3 characters at a time.

Too much scrolling required

The information in the staff panel is light right now, but it’s a new feature, so I assume it’ll fill out eventually. What would be really nice would be if AP partnered with AniDB to bring that data over. These anime sites really should collaborate more, when possible.

Reviews, Lists and Blogs Panel

There’s nothing wrong with how AP presents reviews, but I think MAL highlights the reviews a little better by giving you snippets to read. Again, it’s the idea of having scannable info vs. a pile of links. I also think AP should include forum post links in this section, since it’s called “reviews & discussion”.

Lists are a fun little feature, I don’t know if I’d ever use it, as it seems more noise than anything useful, but it’s fun and quirky.

The blogs section is actually very cool, and integrates it into the site and community way better than how MAL uses “blogs”. Doesn’t look like anyone’s blogging Bakuman on an episodic basis, but maybe it’s because everyone was smart enough to cut bait while they could.

What’s missing compared to MAL?

Basically everything below. Links to news, links to forum discussions, recently watched, related clubs. Most of these are understandable omissions. AP is not a news site, so I understand why there’s no news links. AP also doesn’t have clubs, so that’s an obvious omission as well. The recently watched feature in MAL is relatively useless. And forum discussions, as I’ve mentioned, probably should be linked to within the reviews & discussion section.

Would love to see OP/ED info included on AP.

But one crucial missing piece is the fansub groups info. I’ve found this info to be incredibly useful, especially if I’m going back to an older series and want to see who’s subbed it and subbed it well. No other site does this as well as MAL.

OP/ED info would be nice. Fansub info: crucial.

Character Pages

Notice how Haruhi’s description is spoiler-free. +1 for editorial control.

I really like the tags functionality. It enables this similar characters feature which is sort of hit or miss, but fun to play with. I also really like the love/hate option for characters and peoples. Top lists are great on MAL, but hate lists are plenty fun too. I have Suzaku, Misa, Miho, Light and Taiga on my hate list, because they all are terrible characters (except Light. I just hate him because he was a magnificent bastard).

Spoiler-free character pages

User Profiles

User profile page

AP’s user profile page is pretty solid. You have the standard avatar, about me, stats and favorites. The only thing I’d want is a URL field. But this is purely a blogger-specific request.

I like the Anime Ratings distribution chart. I had a pretty good idea that my rating system was a big bell curve, but it’s pretty cool to be able to see that on your page as well as other users’ pages.

The one knock on the love/hate lists is that I don’t know if there’s a way to see a friend’s list past the top 5. You can add as many as you want, which is nice, because I stopped using MAL’s favorite lists since it caps at 5 shows and 10 characters/peoples. But I couldn’t find any way to view a friend’s full list of top characters (except by taking my full URL and replacing my user name with anothers. Here’s chii’s favorite characters btw). It’d be nice to have a few links there to the user’s full list of love/hate.

There’s a couple cool things unique to AP. One is the badges. Badges reward you for doing various things on the site. It’s nothing absolutely essential, but it’s a fun feature. The second is your twitter feed. I don’t know that people will discover each other on Twitter much from it, because it’s so low on the page, but it’s the kind of thing you’ll never see on MAL.

Similar to the user panel, the friend panel isn't very scannable

To save some vertical space, I’d consider moving the lists and twitter to the right sidebar to bring up the friends panel. Then again, you could always replace the user activity panel on the home page with the friends panel, if you’re logged in and have friends. Anyway, here’s the friends panel, I can see that Caraniel’s watching Freezing. I know there’s only one episode out so far, but it’d be nice to know if she which episode she watched. Plus, I won’t see Freezing on her list again until she either rates it, finishes it, stalls it or drops it.

The comments section works well. I never really use this functionality much, but the one thing that annoys me is the CAPTCHA forms. I’m not sure if this is necessary since you have to be logged in to write a comment. I’ve never seen wall spam to be a problem on MAL, so I can’t imagine the bots would tamper AP any moreso. One thing to note is that the comments field didn’t work on my Android browser. It was the only thing on the site that I noticed didn’t play well with a mobile browser.

Forums

AP’s forum software seems to be separate from it’s main site compared to MAL which is tightly integrated with its forum software. So, I think you have to register a forum account separately from your AP account. I could be wrong. I just logged in using my AP username/password, but I might’ve created a forum account ages ago.

The forum uses vbulletin software, so it’s actually more powerful than MAL’s forum software, it’s just not as tightly integrated, so you don’t see too much crossover. My biggest qualms have to do with the lack of show-specific forums and episode-specific posts, more of a content issue than anything.

Clubs

I always thought they were a waste of time, but I know Clubs are beloved on MAL. There are none on AP, however. So if you can’t live without Clubs, you’ll have to stay with MAL (unless they end up cutting it all anyway).

Anime Page

Clearly much better than MAL's version

The Anime page is well organized. Much better than MAL’s anime page. And unlike MAL’s completely useless tags, AP’s tags work well here and are quite useful. The one thing I’d love to see is a Top Anime button. You can access this by clicking on browse anime by title and then sorting by score… but again, it’s the idea of minimizing the number of clicks for important info.

Multiple show names is messy

Advanced search works well and you’ll be surprised at the number of tags you can filter/search by. I searched for mermaids, 4+ rating, and I got Seto no Hanayome. Damn straight. Unfortunately, you’ll see this often, but all the name variations show up in this list view. If you click on either show it takes you to the same page, but this should be cleaned up.

Characters and People Pages

They’re set up similarly, where you can search/browse by tags, and see favorite characters today, this week and all time, as well as their hated counterparts. It’s nicely done, and better than anything comparative on MAL. The only knock as I mentioned is that many of the characters pages don’t have much info filled out (one of the downsides of relying on original content). One thing I like about the individual characters page is that you can leave comments about a specific character on their info page. It’s something I wished always existed on MAL.

The ratings

The ratings are 5 stars with half star intervals. It’s basically the same as MAL. But between a 10 point scale, or a 5 point scale (with intervals in between), I’d prefer the 10. And if I had my way, I’d rather have a 10 point scale with 1/2 point fractions, so I can rate something an 8.5. But either works fine for me. The only thing as I’ve already mentioned, is I’d want to see the actual numbers pretty much anywhere where the ratings are averaged.

Final decision

I’ve always liked Anime Planet’s design, I just found myself never having a good reason to use it, because:

• MAL’s listkeeping functionality was better
• MAL and AniDB were better sources of information
• MAL’s individual episode forums were more informative and engaging

To be perfectly honest, if MyAnimeList wasn’t dying a painful death, I would’ve been fine with its stagnant functionality and dated design (the site is unusable on a mobile browser because of all the layers and rollovers it uses)… as long as it did its bread and butter well. Unfortunately, now it’s screwing that up too.

Although I had quite a few criticisms of Anime Planet, there’s a lot to like about it. The more I used AP, the more I liked it. It’s fresh, it’s fast, it has a lot of cool features, the founder does a great job connecting with her users and trying to address questions and concerns (the bloggers have been keeping her busy lately, lol), and the site seems to be updated often with new features (whereas MAL seems to be updated sporadically, not with new features, but fixes to try to get the site working.).

If the listkeeper functions were at parity, it’d be a no-brainer for me to switch over to AP as my main listkeeping site and use MAL similar to how I use ANN and AniDB – mostly for informational searches. BUT the missing list features and the general lack of content compared to MAL means that I’ll probably be using both sides concurrently for the near future.

If you’re not a stickler for list details, or you’re just beginning your list, then I think you’d be more than thrilled with AP. It’s a great site. But if the details matter, or if you have a very large list that you’re particular about, you’ll probably end up in the same boat as me. Somewhere between here nor there.

Addendum

I’m a blind idiot about the sticky filter/my watching list link. Thanks to fangzhao for pointing it out. But there’s a big honking “my watching list” button right under your profile image, when you click to go to your list. I still think the filter option should be a persistent preference, but the button saves a click.