@B0bduh

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How did you first get noticed when you started writing?

I started out by posting long pieces on reddit. I built a reputation there, and then when I made my blog, I started interacting with other anime writers on twitter. Consistency and getting involved in the writing community both helped me find a larger audience.

Did you know that there's people who actually take Mayoiga seriously? Here's a quote from a MAL post: "All the people writing this off as laughable are probably just pricks who have easy lives and arent even the slightest bit sympathetic towards others." Why do you think people take it seriously?

It's actually interesting how clearly The Lost Village is revealing some of the more awkward elements of fandom discourse, from how humor is perceived to how people parse shows altogether. You wouldn't think the show would offer such unique craft reflections, but since it's a show whose goals basically exist outside of traditional narrative expectations, it's pretty much the perfect illustration of how fan expectations can be really, really limited.
I often rag on anime comedies for pointing out or explaining their own jokes, which I consider something that almost always deflates the gag. But with The Lost Village, it kind of seems that people are actually taking it seriously because they are not being told where to laugh. Most of The Lost Village's "jokes" are based in structural reversals of expectations - anyone can see the humor in a moment like the giant boob, but most of The Lost Village's actual best material requires a willingness to find humor in the unstated distance between established genre expectations and the show's actual choices. And this is actually a problem for the show!
The Lost Village also kinda speaks to how fan discourse never really gets beyond "the things that happen in a show." The Lost Village's premise and vague narrative beats match the horror-thriller genre, and so people are evaluating it as a horror-thriller, and getting angry at it. Of course, basically every /tonal/ element of The Lost Village, along with the ways it plays with genre expectations, scream that it's actually a comedy - but engaging with anything that's subtextual generally doesn't come up in fan discussions, much less stuff about structural expectations. So anything that doesn't conform to the initial genre expectations the show created is "bad" or a "failure" of the work, even if it actually works in service of what the show is doing successfully. Fans often correlate a show's entire value with the pacing and tonal rightness of its overt plot beats, meaning shows that satisfy their narrative expectations quickly and with polish are considered "good," while those that either betray or are not interested in those expectations are boring or bad.
As for why people are /able/ to take The Lost Village seriously, that seems pretty simple to me. People take all manner of bad stories very seriously - The Lost Village is only unique in that it succeeds as a comedy in spite of being a very bad story.

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Liked by: Star Overlord (aka Abigail) Kori (Jonas) Sunshine Marmot Another Bystander BlueEyesWhitePrivilege Eelz Rm Christos Anastos Aluido fuero

Do you actually like Shounen series? You seem to enjoy BnHA and One Piece. If you ever finish One Piece, consider watching Naruto.

I've read a ton of Naruto. It was pretty good for a while there.
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Liked by: Colton King Robert Hopper

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Is there any particular reason you chose black & white instead of colored for One Piece?

Abel Toy
Is the colored art official? Because I really love black and white manga art, so I'm not exactly eager to switch. Managing black and white space is such a beautiful thing.
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Liked by: DIGITAL@MUGI Eelz

Bobduh! Are you going to check out Overwatch while its free for the open beta right now?

Shinzenn
Just checked it out! It's very well-designed, but for some reason I didn't feel really grabbed by it. Not sure why. Will clearly have to investigate further.
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Liked by: Eelz

Are you a big into souls games lore? seems to me like the 3rd was lacking in this departement, (well those primordial serpents statues in Lothric certainly were intriguing) maybe keeping most stuff for DLCs or sumthing.

Not particularly. I found the way the first game gave you evocative snippets of lore compelling, but I haven't really deeply explored it myself.

Thematically-speaking Urobuchi is starting to become something of a broken record. Yeah, utilitarianism isn't great, thanks, we get it.

I like that Randoman sent this in right as I'm finishing up a series covering the half-dozen or so themes of Madoka. A convincing counterargument!
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Liked by: Sunshine Marmot Another Bystander

Would you rate Dark Souls 3 an 8.5?

Maybe? I guess on my own scale, but it's still one of the best games I've played. The Souls franchise is really, really good.
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Liked by: polpardo

What do you think of the argument that a writing about a certain niche from someone outside of that niche has little value?

Seems like a pretty weak argument by itself. Some specific piece of writing might be good or bad, but as a general rule, it's a good idea to embrace writing from all perspectives. Being outside some given niche may mean a writer lacks the context to insightfully engage with something, but it could also give that writer a compelling, less slanted perspective on it. Their writing should be approached on its own merits, not dismissed simply because they're an outsider.
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Liked by: Alejandro Colon Sunshine Marmot Aluido Eelz Jick Johnson Patrick Duggin Another Bystander DIGITAL@MUGI

I find your opinion on Dark Souls 3 very interesting, since the major consensus seems to be thats its far superior than Dark Souls 2, and some even go as far as calling it the best in the trilogy. I personally found it very redundant and by the numbers, but could you go a bit deeper?

I was honestly expecting to like it more than I did - this one featured the principle director, after all. But I also felt Bloodborne was the worst entry in the "franchise" to date, and that one also seemed highly praised, so I dunno.
Both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 felt somewhat limited in their scope relative to both of the prior Dark Souls games - as opposed to exploring an entire world, it felt like I was exploring the districts of a neighborhood. And neither of them refined the games' core mechanics in ways I felt was meaningful - in fact, Bloodborne's removal of magic actually carried over into magic being basically useless in 3. 3 also seemed to be largely just echoing the original's story and environments, something I felt was more cute than appealing - I'd much rather be visiting new, unknown places than getting tips of the hat to places I've been before.
I appreciated that 3 somewhat restored the original's interlocking environments, but not only did it not connect in a way that matched 1's mapping perfection, that also seemed to force the game into basically taking place mostly in one visually similar area. And I also really appreciated 2's heavier emphasis on bosses - yeah, some of them were somewhat similar, but so are 3's, even though there are far fewer of them. 3 also features a number of bosses that are just "find the trick, now he's dead," which almost always feel like an anticlimax. And replacing the visually compelling nexus areas of 1 and 2 with a completely world-removed and visually bland area reflective of the Demon's Souls hub just seemed like a bad call all around.
It's still a very good game, but there are plenty of issues here and there that make me feel less enamored with it than the previous games.

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Just starting watching Macross Delta last night. Isn't it cool how even fifty-odd years in the future, Takane is still working as an idol?

The only career for a moon princess.

Is Dark Souls 3 good?

It's solid. I think it's a bit worse than the second one, which was already a fair step down from the first, but it's still a well-constructed Souls game - probably on the level of Bloodborne. If you enjoy that style of gameplay/worldbuilding, there's still nothing else like it.

Not a question, but your article about Monogatari being a magnificent disaster convinced me to give it another try. It's fascinating, infuriating, moving, and gross, and I'm glad I'm seeing it through. So thank you very much!

Haha, it worked! Very happy to hear you "enjoyed" your second try at the show. It's definitely a very strange thing!
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Liked by: Sunshine Marmot Eelz

Trump or Clinton. One of these people will have their finger over the button. And I know which one I would trust.

Yeah, it's not at all a question at this point. It's unfortunate, because a Trump candidacy would likely have ensured a Bernie presidency if he'd gotten the nomination, but now it's Hillary or the apocalypse.
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Liked by: Sunshine Marmot Another Bystander Nathan Raatz Patrick Duggin

Hey, Bob. I just today took the AP English Literature test, and wanted to thank you for your writing teaching me to read books and write about them more analytically. If I do well, a lot of that performance will have been thanks to reading your work.

You're very welcome! I hope you do well on your test!
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Liked by: Eelz

You might want to try Civil War, it seems to have the charm of superheroes that you like, even if rather simplified or hollywood-esque.

I'm hoping to watch it! I just need to watch the first two Captain America movies first.

Wondering if I missed something with you and Joker Game. Last I saw, you said in your week 3 review that it was entertaining and avoiding the drop cutoff, but it hasn't been in your Week in Review articles since. Just fall behind on it? Something turn you off? Forgot to include it? What's been up?

Just don't have any interest in continuing. It was basically just a standard genre thing in a genre that doesn't thrill me, and its structure inherently pulls against developing fully-fledged characters, so it's not really for me.

That previous question makes me think why My Hero Academia is so good. Midoriya's pure enthusiasm and kindness (and also his friends) is really becoming a rarity in a seemingly growing trend of antihero or apathetic/unwilling shonen leads (like in this season's Big Order and Twin Star Exorcists).

Yeeep. It's one of the reasons every chapter and episode of MHA is so dang refreshing.
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Liked by: Aluido DIGITAL@MUGI jeanklemouse Eelz Kittykatstar Shahzeb Mangi

Mundane struggles of Monogatari?

Monogatari has fantastical elements, but those are fantastical illustrations of very grounded human problems - "I feel like people won't like me outside of the persona I've created," "my troubled childhood has made it hard for me to value myself," "I partition my feelings to avoid actively dealing with them," etc.
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Liked by: Aluido DIGITAL@MUGI

I feel lately even ostensibly good characters are often not portrayed as purely kind. There's a tendency to show some sort of "catch" behind his/her kindness. Genuine kindness is often portrayed as naive. I read your last essay and I think there's a similar thread here. What do you think?

Agreed 100%. I think this is a pretty lousy trend that's reflective of something I was talking about on twitter a little while ago, a general tendency to assume cynicism or grittiness are more "realistic" than optimism or positivity. I find this trend itself kind of childish, and often feel that shows that are actually aimed at children are more "mature" than those for older audiences, because they don't feel obligated to give everyone a tortured backstory or nefarious motivation. I'll be having another essay coming out relatively soon that tackles this issue from the opposite direction!
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Liked by: Alejandro Colon Namhur Aluido jeanklemouse Arjuna Chatrathi Sunshine Marmot fgfdfh Patrick Duggin Shahzeb Mangi Colton King

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