This is my place.

I’ve been nominated by Misaka of the 9tailedkitsune blog for the Real Neat Blog Award. Misaka is pretty neat herself. You should visit her blog!

The Rules

1. Display the logo.

2. Thank the bloggers for the award.

3. Answer the questions from the one who nominated you.

4. Nominate 7 to 10 bloggers.

5. Ask them 7 questions.

Thank you Misaka!

I think I’m really a boring person. I’m retired and currently in NEET status, so I guess that also makes me a NEET blogger. I’m an old fart and the anime community is youngish so much of what I say may not be stylish today. I also blog about things other than anime so maybe that makes me less interesting to the anime community.

Still, I will do my best…

1. Is piracy killing or helping the anime industry?

In the past, I’d say it hurt the industry but I would never say it was killing it. More like it was an inevitable drag or a burden.

The anime “industry” seems to be doing just fine today despite piracy. Large and powerful distributors (Sony, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney) have the ability to crush piracy in a way that Crunchyroll or Funimation does not.

Sony and Disney are especially ferocious about it. Send out the AI bots to do battle! (Just like the RIAA was able to reduce music piracy.)

Some big distributors have also taken aim at legitimate review channels on Youtube. There is no penalty for making a false claim of copyright infringement there and it is all up to you to fight your way back on line. Misty Chronexia was taken down for a fair part of December because of it.

There are still torrents out there for pirated goods but most viewers will never go there. It requires a bit of sophistication that most viewers don’t have. They’ll go wherever the search engine suggests.

Piracy has its biggest price for the consumer. They make some money by popping up noxious advertising but the big source of revenue is installing malware on your system. Stuff that changes your search engine and home page, tracks your every mouseclick or keystroke, installs worms and Trojans, mines your passwords and credit card numbers. Very bad juju, that. No security program can protect you if you click to proceed.

I don’t see the large profit margins of the major streaming services trickling down to the creative staff in the studios. That’s not good – but also to be expected. Many more people want – and are qualified for – production positions than there are openings available. Unionization (or at least its threat) may be their only hope.

There is some anime you can’t legally stream at all (must buy DVD) or is unavailable due to international licensing issues. High prices and unavailability make it more likely piracy will happen.

2. What anime are you planning to watch in 2020?

The rest of Chihayafuru S3, Heya Camp, Yuru Camp S2, Asteroid in Love, Isekai Quartet S2, Violet Evergarden Movie, Demon Slayer Movie, Re Zero S2, AOT S4, The rest of MHA S4 and MHA S5, Madoka Magika Record, Evangelion 3+1, Made in Abyss movies. Not all of them are winter season.

Plus I’m rewatching Evangelion for the umpteenth time (and End of Evangelion) trying to figure out WTF was going on in Ano’s frayed and decaying consciousness when he wrote that ending. I understand he read a couple of books on psychology and was trying to shoehorn Freud and Jung into it. Rewatching Princess Jellyfish. I have downloaded the movie Color Full and the series Hero is Overpowered but Cautious for later viewing.

Nope. Not from a pirate site. I have a little piece of software called Snagit. I set the show up to play, run Snagit to capture my screen & audio and go off and do something else until it is done. Then I stop the capture and save the MP4 file to view when I’m not busy. I can now FFWD, slow FWD and reverse, advance frame by frame, do screengrabs, snip out short clips, and a minimal bit of editing in another piece of software called VLC Media Player.

And there’s a monthly series of anime at the local theaters by GKIDS through Fathom Events. Their next offering is Shinkai’s Weathering for You on January 17. I am still kicking myself for missing The Night is Young Walk on Girl when it showed in theaters.

3. What is your favorite anime quote and why?

It keeps me going on when I encounter true ugliness. Beauty is relative and has no meaning if it does not have something to contrast with. Ugly is necessary for beauty to exist. Kino, in her wanderlust, is my spiritual sibling.

4. Who is your favorite anime couple?

Oh, there are lots of couples I enjoy.  Mikiya Kokutou and Ryougi Shiki from The Garden of Sinners are an amazing couple and likely the most interesting.

5. What is your favorite video game?

I don’t play video games. At all. Not even a little. The last game I played was The Last Half of Darkness. It was still DOS-based. That rather dates it – and me. A few months ago I got curious and discovered it could not be played on Win10 because they’d discontinued support for 16-bit applications.

6. If you could meet only 3 anime characters IRL (in real life) who would they be?

Kino of Kino – The Beautiful World for the reasons mentioned above. My spiritual sister.

Sakurako of Beautiful Bones – She is the perfect embodiment of wisdom, beauty, and intelligence. I weep that they did not give it another season.

Gray Fullbuster of Fairy Tail – He is probably the only character in all of anime more prone to abandoning their clothing in public more than me. If I were younger and into cosplay, it would be him. (Juvia is pretty hot, too.)

7. Do you recall the 3 worst anime you have ever seen?

I have selective amnesia regarding bad anime. Fist of the Northstar would be one of them.

As for nominating 7 more people and asking questions… I’ll skip that for now. I’m not good at that sort of thing. But anyone who feels like it can take up the nomination and go for it!