Neat Blogger Award

     Neat Blogger. Nice. I certainly hope that doesn’t imply any association with being a NEET. Not that I qualify for that.

     So yeah, thanks, Arthifis! Appreciate the nomination and wish best of luck in changing the gears of your blogging-car (though you’re already driving with a pretty high one). (Well, the metaphor certainly sounded better in my mind but oh well.)

The rules:

• Display the award logo
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and post a link to their blog
• Answer the questions of the one who nominated you
• Nominate 5-10 bloggers
• Ask them 7 questions

The questions (and the answers, obviously):

     1) Go to your very first post you have written! Tell us what is it about, share the link and tell us if you think you have developed your writing by a lot or is it yet the same?

     Oh no, I don’t want to do that. In my anniversary (and 100 follower) celebration post I wrote that I don’t want to return to it at this point. Oh well, I guess I can’t run away all the time, can I? So yeah, it was a review of Suisei no Gargantia.

    Ok, I did it, I read the thing.  So, now a review of a review? To be frank, I expected something more terrible. Or does that mean that I haven’t improved much? Well, considering how much time I spent on that review (probably the most I ever spent on a post – countless times rereading and editing) it was my absolute best at the time. How does it look now? Well, it definitely feels like my own writing and I do think some passages turned out rather well. Apart from that, some sentences are horribly long and exhausting (yeah, that’s also my writing). The structure looks more wooden than it should. I seemed to be more earnest to cover everything than to make important points. So yeah, I guess it wasn’t as bad as I expected after all, good for me. I don’t know how much I have improved since then but I hope I have. Writing in a more elegant and less clumsily awkward manner has always been my wish since the very start. The same goes for improving the structure. I guess the fact that I do feel that now I could do better is somewhat reassuring. Hopefully some day I’ll be able to say similar things about my writing of this period.

     2) What was your last post about?

Another review, that about Shigurui. Probably couldn’t be less far from the general atmosphere of Suisei no Gargantia. Hopefully I managed to show that Shigurui despite on the first glance being very dark and uninviting has some very appealing aspects.

     3) What is your favorite post you have written so far?

     I guess it would be my largest post yet – a 3-parter about Inio Asano and stuff. At the time I thought it could’ve gathered more views but thinking logically, nobody has time to flounder through endless meanderings right and left. I don’t think I’ve mastered the structure to write something as massive even now, and certainly not then. Oh well,  I thought I did my best and did it passionately.

     4) What are your 3 favorite characters from all time? It can be from everywhere!

     I guess it’s still better to choose anime characters, simply because of the nature of this blog. I could say that I for example admire Fëanor from the legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien but that would mean little to the majority of the viewers, wouldn’t it? Even with constrains the task isn’t that easy as I usually don’t try to classify the characters in my head. Still, after some consideration I think the Top 3 at this moment would be Shiki Ryougi from Kara no Kyoukai (yeah, I can’t leave out my favorite anime, can I?), Revy from Black Lagoon and probably Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou.

     5) What is a place you would love to travel? Either Real or Fantasy!

     I’m pretty happy about the place I’m living right now. I’ve no immediate plans to travel far so many possible destinations (Japan included, obviously) are on a similar level of “well, if there’s a very good opportunity, then, maybe…”. I think the only place that stands out a bit more is New Zealand. I’ve formed an opinion that the nature there is very diverse in fairly limited space so gorgeous landscapes and stuff in New Zealand should be plentiful. Other than that? I don’t k now really. Probably any place has enough merits to be worth visiting, it’s just a matter of your mindset.

     Speaking about an anime location (why not?) I think I’d like to experience the surreal world of Mushishi. Of course, that would mean not only visiting it but also possessing the ability to see mushi. I wouldn’t want to travel to the world of, say, Attack on Titan ever because I’d easily become a simple breakfast snack. More peaceful locations usually are used in more realistic anime so it’s hard to stand out but Mushishi feels particularly nostalgic and appealing.

     6) If you had to drop out one of your hobbies entirely what would you choose and why?

     Again not the most easy of questions because I can’t say I have a strictly defined number of hobbies. I do like playing video games (as anybody does) but I don’t do it so often that I would name it as a serious hobby. Well, out of all the stuff that I have been doing lately I guess modular origami might be the one hobby to drop. It started mainly as a way to give my hands some sort of work while listening to some podcasts and it turned out to be quite addictive. I definitely wouldn’t count origami as anything major but I do find it soothing, but not to the level of not being able to live without it.

     7) Favourite Game/Anime? Depending on what your Blog is about 🙂 (or you can just say both Anime and Game xD)     

     I already spilled the beans – it’s Kara no Kyoukai. Nostalgic feelings definitely contributed to that as it was one of my first watched anime but even then rewatches proved that I’m still strongly attached to it. The essence of it – people that are solitary but not lonely – resonates with me very much. Add some supernatural and philosophical stuff in the envelope of astounding production of ufotable and you have me completely sold.

     Game? I don’t think I have one that I prefer that much over others. Some visual novels like Saya no Uta or Katawa Shoujo might qualify, and apart from that I quite like Total War series for example.

The nominees:

Cactus Matt

KimchiSama

Keiko

Moyatori

The Spooky Redhead

The questions (again, though without answers this time):

• How and when do you usually watch anime?
• How many people know about anime being your hobby? How do they react to it?
• Which two anime series you would choose to make a crossover of?
• Which anime portrays food in the tastiest way?
• What’s the tastiest vegetable?
• What’s the tallest place you’ve ever been at?
• You find yourself in a middle of a desert with a lion, a jaguar, a puma and a tiger surrounding you from all the sides. Which way do you go?

     Thanks again, Arthifis. Your questions turned out to be quite something – not the sort that you can answer without thinking (like “what is your eye color?”), and that’s great.

     So yeah. I leave you with an incredibly random cameo of Sakamoto-san and remind you that even artificial smiling increases the chances of actually feeling happy.

Posted by Aldael on May 15, 2018

https://aldael.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/neat-blogger-award/