About
My name is Martin and this is my anime blog. I’m sure my personal details are of no relevance to you but suffice to say I’m a university graduate in his mid 20s who is in full time employment but has no professional experience in writing or web design. This blog is updated as often as I 1). have time to write something and 2). have watched enough anime to write about it. Categories are listed on the right, with individual series and sub-categories in the tag cloud. I designed the theme, Where the Light Gets In, named after the album by Sennen and based on the default Wordpress Kubrik layout with a few tweaks to extensive butchering of the code and an all-new CSS style. So if it looks bad, it’s my fault…unless you’re on 800×600 monitor resolution or something.
Most posts you will find here intentionally straddle the line between episodic commentary and editorial, since I tend to over-analyse but have long since given up on episodic blogging. I try to do overviews of batches of episodes (e.g. reviewing a show by DVD volume if it’s licenced), or occasionally throwing in a one-off movie or soundtrack post. If my views offend you it probably means that my sense of humour is a little too twisted and insular, e.g. the pic below which refers to this editorial.
The blog’s title is a reference to the Haruki Murakami novel of the same name - one of the settings of the novel was Yoshitoshi ABe’s inspiration for Haibane Renmei and more or less sums up how this place is an isolated haven for one mad bugger’s mind. It has existed in various guises since April 2006, initially jumping on the anime blog bandwagon but gaining little popularity since I was too open in stating how Mushishi > The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Actually, Mushishi > *.
Header Images
I’ve been asked about the header images for this blog, which are displayed by the Header Image Rotator plugin and are intended to change every minute or so. I get quite a few of them from Danbooru, which is a great resource for fanart, promo pics and scans…if you can put up with trawling through tasteless NSFW hentai which makes up the apparent majority of the site. Anyway, the current images are:
- cosmonaut-hillside: taken from Byousoku 5cm, specifically Cosmonaut, the second part. Found on the official site, and cropped from the image used as my current desktop background.
- cosette-in-blue: cropped from a wallpaper made for Le Portrait de Petit Cosette.
- eureka-and-renton-in-free-fall: random image from Danbooru, featuring Renton and Eureka from Eureka Seven.
- nausicaa-in-flight: screencap from the Miyazaki movie Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind.
- old-home-dark: another desktop background, this time from Haibane Renmei.
- ranka-on-the-hill: I think this is a piece of fanart, drawn to make Macross Frontier’s Ranka Lee look like Reika from RahXephon.
- streets-in-the-time-of-eve: screencap from Eve no Jikan. I wish there were higher-res images of this, but there aren’t.
- xamd-nakiami: screencap of the closing credits animation sequence from Xam’d: Lost Memories.
- butterflies-of-nijigahara-field: screencap of a manga frame from Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano.
The ABC
The ABC is a group of (at the time of writing) around thirty enthusiastic writers who indulge in anime-related discussion and occasional simultaneous posting around a pre-determined topic or theme. Additional contributors are always welcome so if you’re an anime blogger who wants to be part of a fun discussion group and get some additional healthy debate going, head over to the Google Groups site or drop one of us an e-mail.
Recent anime viewing
My top ten
It had to come up I suppose. This is alphabetical rather than in order of awesomeness since I change my mind so often.
- 5cm per Second
- Eureka Seven
- FLCL
- Gunbuster: Aim for the Top
- Gunslinger Girl
- Haibane Renmei
- His and Her Circumstances
- Macross Plus
- Millennium Actress
- Mushishi
Thanks for being awesome enough to visit and read this to the end. Link me and I’ll link you. ^_^
Last FM recent listening
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