Furu Anime Panikku

Here are 5 reasons why I’ve geared out of the clockwork.

1. Too many movies that are rehashed versions of anime

I’ve given up on counting the number of announcements for movies that are adapted from anime. Hold on, I shouldn’t even be using the word adapted here. The appropriate word here should be rehashed. Look at the Macross Frontier movie that has been announced. Do we really need the release of a movie that is but a rehash of whatever has been aired on TV, with just some changes and maybe a slightly different ending? Look at Canaan. The anime for it just began, but there’s already news of 3 movies for it to be released. I thought that was awesome, until I realised that the 3 movies would be the rehashed versions of the currently airing anime. The 2 movies mentioned above are just the tip of the iceburg. WTF, why do they even bother doing that? Of course, it’s all about the ka-ching!

When I hear of a movie version of an anime, I’m expecting at least 75% originality and not scenes that are ripped out directly from the anime with some tiny changes made. I’m talking about stuff like the Major movie. In terms of originality, it did a great job covering the gap between the time after Goro’s Little League experience and before middle school. There might have been flashbacks, but those were used in a appropriate way unlike that where the producers just got lazy.

2.  Rising prices

When I first began buying otaku-related stuff, I thought that some of the prices were a little too steep, but still acceptable. Normal, decent looking 1/8 figurines used to cost around 4000-5000 yen. Then the price rose. And rose. And rose even more. Now, a 1/8 figurine can cost up to 7000-8000 yen.

In the past, there used to be only DVDs. But now that Bluray is a common sight in the anime market, companies play on the weakness of the otaku who has the inbuilt urge for completeness by releasing the DVD and Bluray versions, each with separate goodies. It’s obvious that the Bluray versions would sell at a higher price, so one would expect the price of the DVD versions to decrease. Sadly, they are remain nearly the same.

With prices rising, if someone like me who has no income attempts making any purchases now, it would be as good as urging my wallet to commit suicide. The solution? Stay away from the product release news. If I don’t know what’s going to be out, I wouldn’t be buying anything, hence sparing my wallet from the fate of banishment to financial hell.

3. Lack of input

The Equivalent Exchange concept stands. If I don’t have input, I can’t produce any output. The concept should pretty much explain why this site has been a desert. I’ve not been watching anime for more than 2 weeks now, not because I’ve purposely kept myself away from it. Rather, I stayed away from anime unknowingly. The days seem to pass exceedingly fast now that school work’s a bitch.

I would probably have gone on not knowing that I’ve been off anime watching if someone didn’t ask me what anime I was watching for this season. In case you were wondering, my answer to that is “What do you recommend? I’m really clueless.” Not exactly the kind of answer the person would expect.

I’m still reading manga though, since I can do it comfortably during lectures. There’s this bat-shit crazy old bitchy lecturer for one module who always tries to stir up crap for everyone in the class. Usually, I would have some form of respect for my lecturers by paying some attention in class, but this one’s an exception. Her lessons are time slots which are specially dedicated to reading manga.

I doubt you would want me to blog about manga though. I could do the episodic style by blogging chapter by chapter, and I’ll have regular posts up in no time. But think about it, do you really want myself and yourself to be bored to death reading those?

4. Repetitive news/News overload

Animenano used to be a good source for getting news about otaku stuff. The keyword is used to. Now, it’s flooded with news that has been posted by one blog and again by another. Do people really enjoy posting news that has been days old and all over the interwebs? Don’t they get bored doing that for every single piece of news, no matter how minute, even if all they have to say are mere 1 or 2 liner thoughts?

Besides news posts on various blogs, there’s also news posted on channels such as merchandise news on Amiami, which I used to check frequently. Trying to keep up with floods of news gets hard after a while and I’ve grown tired of wading through all that. That’s why I’m not even trying to do so anymore. I’ve given up. It saves the wallet too anyway.

5. Change in perception

It’s amusing when the world through one’s eyes changes. What used to be colourful pretty girls moulded out of PVC now appears to be plastic pieces that collect dust on shelves. I used to clean my shelves regularly, but it soon became a time consuming job which got really boring after awhile, so I just leave it as it is now. Once, when tjhan came over, he commented about how I would have a nice sum of money if I sold my figurines. I think I could probably pay for half a trip a Japan if I conduct a sale like he did, but for now, the lasses on my shelves will remain as room decoration. And half the reason’s because I’m a lazy bum.

And there you have it. The 5 reasons.

I really should be catching up on Cross Game now, but I can’t remember which episode I stopped at.