New research indicates creativity is inversely proportional to viewer enjoyment. An article published by an undergraduate student has isolated the variables believed to be the cause of objective consumer satisfaction. To illustrate his point, he has dissected some of anime’s most popular titles from the past nine years, and what made them so successful despite being mediocre at best:

Monogatari Series

This product of Nishio Ishin’s masturbatory ejaculation has garnered a huge cult following despite its lack of humor or any semblance of a story. Its lead character, Araragi Koyomi, acts as the humble medium through whose eyes the viewers observe the events that unfold around the girls that make up his harem. To be accurate, the “story” (monogatari) is not about him, and never will be. The most accurate summation of the anime is that there are “cute girls doing things” which may or may not be important, depending on how much you actually care about the series.

Thanks to its use of brightly colored cue cards in lieu of traditional transitions between scenes, usually full of intermittent text that test our visual acuity, and the oddly erotic Popotan character designs, it is not hard to see Monogatari as a one-hit wonder that should have burned out as soon as people realized it is written by the “genius” behind Medaka Box. Yet this has yet to pass. Every new iteration of this series follows the same tiresome directing and fast-paced dialogue-heavy script, laden with esoteric references most of its fans have no way of understanding. Fortunately for the people who watch this anime for its “animation”, “creativity”, “humor” or “storytelling” there is at least one guarantee that accompanies this predictable refuse: oddly erotic Popotan fanservice.

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai

I actually enjoyed this anime; and there was nothing groundbreaking or exciting about it. If anything, its success can mostly be attributed to its solid script, and the lack of anything new or exciting that could potentially have ruined it. The heroine, Kirino, was a flour tortilla wrapped around all that is wholesome and good about anime: lesbians, incest, hot loli sister, perverted girl gamer and short pants. Essentially nothing that exists in real life. Anime is widely believed to be a method of escapism, and nothing fits the mold quite like Oreimo for this purpose.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

This is an example of history repeating itself. During the magical girl boom of the late 90’s, people were looking for new ways to define their magical girl product and merchandise to stand out from those of their competitors. Like all anime with a target demographic of “preteen girls”, most of these series end up being watched by middle-aged men. However, it was not until the turn of the millennium that people started realizing the true potential for magical girls. In the wake of the international success of magical girl series such as Sailor Moon, Saint Tail, Wedding Peach, Fancy Lala, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ojamajo Doremi, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Futari wa Pretty Cure and Mermaid Melody Pichipichi Pitch; and the ensuing onslaught of pornographic doujinshi based on them flooding the market, big business realized it was time to get rid of that ignominious subterfuge of “shoujo” branding.

While parodies have existed for a while, such as Tonde Buurin and Nurse Witch Komugi-chan, nothing signified the death of the Magical Girl sub-genre more so than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. This Seven Arcs production sported a technology-based magical system accompanied by over-the-top explosive magic and aerial battles. This was a turning point in magical girl anime, as it was no longer an option to keep things sparkly and clean. The next year, Futari wa Pretty Cure featured a magical duo actively engaged in fist to fist combat with their opponents. Moyoco Anno introduced her Sugar Sugar Rune, an innocent series about two childhood witch friends competing to win the hearts of boys, a strange narrative on society’s expectations of females. Notorious ecchi mangaka Peach-Pit soon entered with Shugo Chara!, filled with an unprecedented level of perverted jokes and fan service. It became evident the only logical course of action in the ever escalating world of magical girls was to have it explode at the apex like the festering super robot genre of the 90’s that preceded it: aka Evangelion.

This is where Urobuchi Gen stepped in with a series that he trolled on twitter would be a heartwarming series families could enjoy together… After episode three, he admitted he lied. But to anyone who grew up in the angst-filled 90’s, this series was nothing new, like the many reboots of the Batman franchise. There are many small reasons for Madoka’s success, including a generation of young fans that didn’t grow up in the 90’s, but I believe the primary reason for Madoka’s success is just a matter of timing. Madoka aired during the middle of a series of natural disasters in Japan including tsunamis and earthquakes, and any show that depicts scenes of destroyed cities is considered poor taste in the face of real life tragedies. Fortunately for studio SHAFT, misery does enjoy company, and the two month delay in airing only helped build up anticipation. It’s questionable whether Madoka would be so venerated had it followed through with its original airing time, which is to say the only evidence is the lack of evidence, but it is certainly an angle worth approaching.

Just where is the love?

It’s time for a paradigm shift. There’s just too much negative energy going around, and I think it’s about time I change my stance. I am going to stop hating anime. It’s just so easy to bash a series on pure conjectures rather than defend a worthless anime on its positive aspects. I admit I fell victim to this lazy writing style before I even realized it, and now all my posts are just so full of hate. I used to be the guy who couldn’t give an anime a thumbs down. Now I hate series based on the color of underwear I am wearing that day.

Pink with polka dots? Clearly not worth my time.

I remember a time when I was just a wee lad arguing with my friends about which Shonen Jump series was the best anime ever made. Ah, those were the times… I used to have this belief that no matter how boring or ridiculous an anime is, I would watch it to the end regardless of personal feelings or opinions. The only justification for this tremendous waste of time was to conclude that whatever I had just seen must be the greatest anime ever made. This made things complicated, because I was forced to do research and assign blame to individual members of the production staff for each minutia of detail that reduced the release from its potential perfect score. Then I compiled a list of its pros to reinforce my conviction on why it was a great anime. From there, I would head to school the next morning, armed with my wealth of useless knowledge to do battle with my potential opponents in the area behind the school reserved for the bottom rungs of high school social strata.

Objection!

One anime changed all this: Azumanga Daioh.

Watch this by yourself in a closet.

Azumanga Daioh, in all objectiveness, is a work of art. The animation is superb for a series made up of short minimalist characters. The setting was at the time a rarity: short skits and situation comedy. The gags are original and highly cultured, setting a precedence which many series imitate to this day. The voice actors fit their individual characters to a tee. The staff was full of fresh progressive individuals full of energy and enthusiasm, bringing ideas to the table which many anime still exploit. But for the life of me, I just can’t like this anime, and I have no fucking clue why.

Unfortunately, I haven’t learned my lesson, so rather than review anime calmly and neutrally, I will begin to do the complete opposite of what I have done so far. I will treat every anime as they were meant to be treated: with absolute ardor. I intend to become a weeaboo, and love everything I watch, regardless of how much I hate it. All my articles hereon will be from the other side of the fence. Ciao.

I wanted to feign ignorance about the massive e-penis battle called Aniblog Tourney, but in three days we will be going head-to-head with some Super Care Bear blog called Dah Fook. You have to be a true fan to remember their URL by heart. They may know their way around Photoshop, but there was once a time when I was young and nubile and thought myself a graphic designer as well. Once my grand and glorious leader Jura returns from his pilgrimage to the land of beautiful little boys, we’re sure to have something up our sleeves in terms of website design… I hope. For one thing, I really want to allow nested comments.

In eager anticipation that I am absolutely correct, I have some preliminary designs already in the works:

I’ve done away with all the unimportant tagging, clouding, and other neat features that make this site look more professional and decided to go with the personalized blog look. After all, I’m the only one that matters anymore. Not only will it convey the sarcastic humor I’ve grown accustomed to in a more loving way, but it will increase the cuteness factor by about ten fold. I guess the forum module has to go, in order to make room for the massive amount of hentai I’ll be using the server to back up. Hentai is hotter when it’s streamed. I’m not paying for the bandwidth, so who cares? I’ll also be streaming random J-pop music to distract the readers from pointing out rather obvious grammatical errors and the like.

Oh, the possibilities are endless. I’m sure there’s seven portions of happiness waiting for me at Uncle Josh’s ranch!

Moral of the Day: Fuck it, fire it.

Today I was confronted with a situation straight out of hentai manga. I was at the laundromat because I’m too cheap to buy a washer and dryer when a slightly older, but attractive in certain lighting, female asked if I had a cigarette to spare. Being the kind Samaritan, I offered her a fag and we had ourselves a long conversation full of the awkward pause and silence that usually accompanies my interaction with women. As it turns out, she was in between jobs; and from the way it looked she was living out of a car. I have no idea why she was at the laundromat, since she didn’t seem to have any articles of clothing other than the five jackets, gloves and jeans she was wearing; and she wasn’t washing any of them.

Picture Unrelated

Though she never admitted to the bit about living out of a car, what else could I assume since she clearly did not have a place to stay.  It was from that conclusion the idea manifested itself in my thoughts: What if I were to invite her to stay the night at my place? I don’t live in a mansion, but I have enough floor space to house another living being, so why not a human? In my hentai-deluded fantasies this could mean hot and steamy farm sex:

Picture Unrelated

In reality, it would be more like I’d wake up to find my television, computer, microwave and silverware missing. Then later find out I have AIDS. Still, the possibility that she’d feel obligated to have sex with me was just too much of a tease to back off from. After all, it’s not completely clear that she’s homeless, or in need of shelter and food in any way. She does have a car, so she must have some money to fill it with gas, correct? Once my clothes dried, I did the only safe thing I could and walked away from the situation. Now, two hours later, this sad decision still eats away at me.

I find it strange, now that I’ve situated myself in Virginia with a stationary mobile home, and a kick-ass low-wage job; that I’m being so indecisive about buying a washer and dryer set; when without a second thought I easily fork over 850$USD for manga and a WACOM tablet. A washer and dryer is something I actually am in dire need of and can be used for years down the road; and the other is something I may never touch, much less use.

I guess it has something to do with my huge pay-cut, and the fact that clean clothes never seemed an issue to me in such cold weather. I don’t sweat so why should I care?

Oh yea, something something SOPA… but in more important news, Twinkies may disappear off the face of the earth.

Imagine how beautiful and magical it would be if all across America people took two dollars out of their wallet and marched to hostess HQ to drop it at their doorstep? We’d call it the march of Twinkies and forever immortalize hostess in the pages of history. Then the president can fly down in Air Force One and declare them a national landmark and keep it alive with tax money.

Maybe I should go back to covering real news. About… anime or something?

I moved to Virginia. I’m writing this through my Motorola Xoom tablet so I have to stop after every sentence for the buffer to catch up. So you’re probably wondering how I’ve managed to keep up with anime… Actually I haven’t. Actually, I hadn’t been keeping up with anything save History’s Strongest Disciple Ken-something-or-other, which I secretly enjoy reading. I guess the fact that I capitalized the title on a keyboard as laggy as this means I like it, or I am a neurotic perfectionist.

I’m looking for a place to live and so being a crass procrastinator I ended up watching War Horse. Those trailers were misleading, that goddamn horse is cursed. Nearly everyone who rode on its back died an untimely death. Clearly the message or moral or whatever is that horses make good glue.

So just