Updates & Personal Reflections

To all the people here on the WordPress community, I sincerely apologise for not being on here for what it actually seems ages to me. (I am sure that to some on here, a few months of absence isn’t that long, but o’well) I have been living a relatively busy school-term semester, but I admit I wasn’t actually so busy as to completely have absolutely no time to blog about anything. I am still watching anime and manga and playing games as per normal, so I really can’t say that I don’t have free time at all.

In fact, I deliberately refrained myself from coming up here to write a post worthy of publication. Almost every night, at those final moments before I fall into a deep slumber, my brain produces many topics, words, phrases about anime, manga or entertainment that I want to write about, and then it goes into a hyper-frenzied mode. There are just so many things I want to write about, and yet I never had the courage or the discipline to follow through it. 

Why so? I felt like I reached a point that I felt that whatever I wrote could not add value to my own blog. As of now, there are more than a few completed drafts sitting in this very WordPress account – be it reviews, personal thoughts, musings & whatnot – but I felt they weren’t good enough. My content was either not unique enough or too plain, or my vocabulary was too limited and ineffective in expressing what I wanted to say, or my tone of writing was too conversational and stood out in awkward contrast to some of my other posts. I felt that I had set a bar too high for myself in posts like my musings posts and certain anime commentaries that I felt that a mere review post was too beneath the standards I have set for myself.

That was when, I thought, I should just take a break from writing. So I did. I continued with all my anime-watching, and when that writer’s block phase had passed, I found myself too undisciplined to get back to writing. My free time was limited, and after a cost-benefit analysis that yielded the same results, my ultimate choice was always the same: watch a few episodes of anime, read another shoujo manga, continue reading the long chinese novel started on a whim, or drown in the depths of J-RPG addiction or the fangirly giggly pink world of otome games. It was just never ‘write a blogpost on WordPress’.

But I still found myself wondering at night, getting my brain excited on the many blog post ideas I had and then losing out a few hours of sleep, only to forget all about it in the morning and go about my daily routine of wake up – school – study – anime/manga/story time – sleep. I reveled in the quirky, smart-ass remarks I had to make and delighted in the fact that my tunnel-like, humourless brain could produce such wonders, only to disregard their existence and deem real ‘relaxation’ time as important.

So it came to a point where I decided that I must put those ideas into action – I mean, publication – when the time came. And the time has come, and I am writing this immediately after my last paper for the semester.

The doom and gloom of directionless self-introspection aside, I do actually have many personal updates to share with the readers on this site – I can even make a list out of everything that is going on (and I daresay relevant to yours and my interests ;))

My Winter Japan Trip

Yes people, in precisely 5 days, I will be hopping on a flight to Tokyo with my family! It’s gonna be my 4th trip to Japan, but since my last trip was way back in 2007 and I have been holding back because of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011, I decided to #YOLO and disregard the terror of yet-to-seen effects of nuclear radiation on my long-term health by convincing myself that my 24 hours exposure to my laptop at all times has effects on my body that are way worse. This had actually been decided way back in early September, but the excitement has only really caught up with me when its final exams’ revision time. I admit that I haven’t done any planning at all due to studying so its my family who has been doing it. I am just gonna do some last minute cram revision of subway lines and googling of directions and travel blogs within these 5 days, as well as get winter clothing & necessities. I haven’t decided whether I’d want to blog about the trip, seeing that this is not a life or travel blog, but in any case I need to be fresh and not exhausted to do that.

I am also particularly excited because Japan is my favourite country out of the 9 countries and more-than-20-cities-cause-I-can’t-count (Hokkaido clinches the gold medal for cities) that I have been to, and it has good reason to remain at the top spot 😉

My Tumblr site

Last month, I decided to set up a Tumblr site because I decided that in any case, WordPress was not a place for fangirling, spoiler-ful rants and just rambles in general. Tumblr serves mainly as a place for me to reblog stuff I like. I also taught myself to make anime gifs, which have been the content of most of my posts on there, and I do hope to learn more on making myself Photoshop-adept so that I can actually produce original artwork!

Do check my Tumblr out for more frequent and spontaneous updates on what I am watching, reading or gaming at the moment! I also write more conversationally (or in a more idgaf way), and behold some rants full of spoilers, incoherent fangirling – and don’t be shocked if I sound like a completely different person because my WordPress is reserved for more serious-sounding, intellectual and introspective posts, while Tumblr is like my ranting place for basically everything else 😀

Check it out at: http://www.hanayunime.tumblr.com

 

My Otome Game Journey

I have recently re-picked up Japanese otome games. I have never really talked about this on my blog because I have never been a very big fan of it – but that was until I picked up Brothers Conflict’ Passion Pink (WHICH IS THE BEST GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED & to read more about my cray fangirling please visit my Tumblr :D). As such, I am on a mission to cater to my inner desire as an otome game hoarder and have continuously amassed in a slightly-insane speed all the games I can get my hands on.

My love for otome games have also propelled my desire to learn Japanese so that I can actually play the games in their own language. I am currently a girl on a mission to learn more Japanese aside from the extreme basics which I covered over the course of one school term so that this dream can hopefully become a reality in less-than-three months 😀

To enlarge the otome game community in the English-speaking world, I have also attempted some rough translations in my fangirling posts. I am currently in the midst of both writing & publishing these posts on my Tumblr for the characters I have played so far and my favourite-est scenes – and I am welcome to doing more of those if they are well-received by whoever reads them 😀 After all, its a pity that the reverse harem anime are so loved but we are all language-barred from accessing the source material – such wasted fangirling opportunities /smh

Anime / Blogging related goals

Before you start wondering whether this still is Shiroyuni’s space on anime analysis & commentaries anyway, there are a few – albeit daunting – goals I have set for blogging and anime-watching. I know I haven’t really kept up with certain blogging promises in the past, so I decided to term these as ‘goals’ instead. I also know at these point that I possibly can’t fulfill all of them, but I’d like to list them down to see if there’s any response to any of them:

• Clearing my award debt – I actually still have a ton of nominations I have not responded to, and I do still remember them! Also, quote challenges and topic-based award posts (like the Free Spirit Award) which I will finish.
• The Award Ceremony for 2015 Anime – as this year comes to an end, I would like to list out the best and worst and most memorable sights and anime experiences of 2015 anime, though to actually write this post I have to finish watching at least 50% of just-aired anime *crosses fingers*
• Episodic Themed Posts – basically picking an anime to analyse its themes and content in an episodic style. My choices are either Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Shinsekai Yori as of now.
• Academic analytical posts on anime & otakuness – as one who oscillates between fangirlism and the intellectual, I still have many ideas for this. I just haven’t narrowed down what exactly each post would focus on.
• Reflections on Anime Themes – to give myself more flexibility, it is possible that I may merely pick a theme that is touched on in the anime I am watching to elaborate on it and give my personal take on the issue. It may be a one-off theme or something recurring in the anime.

Okay I admit, that whole list is pretty impossible for what must be only three weeks of holidays excluding my Japan trip. Nevertheless, it does involve all possible permutations of plans for my blog, so that it doesn’t catch people by surprise.

Yep, so that’s about it! No promises that I will be able to finish or do everything on this list, but I’ll try my best! That’s all, hope you enjoyed reading this & feel free to like and/or comment on anything! 😀