Well, it would seem that in my rush to not update the blog with something in over a month due to a bout of post-Love Live malaise, I managed to completely miss the fact that the ninth anniversary of me staking a claim over this particular corner of the internet passed yesterday. Whoops. Oh, well, at least it’s not an important anniversary like the tenth or something!

I’d like to pretend that I’m really busy – and in fairness, I did take a couple of weeks out in the US in order to make a return visit to Otakon (Altima were great – Motsu is pretty baller – and Saori Hayami was adorable, though I’m still pretty frustrated at having to skip the panel to even stand a chance of getting her autograph) – but since I’ve gotten back… there’s simply not been anything I’ve felt it necessary to write about. Admittedly, the unceasing onslaught of LLSIF events eat up time, and the Midway event in KanColle (yes, I’m still playing) certainly did too, but it’s not like I’m not watching and enjoying cartoons or anything. I suppose I should probably get around to writing something about iM@S OfA, though. It’s not like I’ve not clocked-up the best part of seventy hours in that thing at this point.

Those Vita Love Live games, on the other hand… not so much. They’re kinda bad!

This is the point where I realise, point out, and apologise for that fact that I’ve not updated in a smidgen over a month now. I’ve done what I was fearing might happen, and fallen into that KanColle hole for some inexplicable reason – I mean, I’m not really engaging with it in much beyond the core game. I’m not reading any of the fan comics, and even as far as the ingame content goes, I’m mostly just scanning the translated character dialogue for the particularly cute shipgirls on the Wikia. I figure it’ll lead to less disappointment when the anime inevitably doesn’t capture the characters personality in the same fashion as [insert fanwork-or-tie-in-manga here].
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For the fourth year running, I’m going to have to confess that I’ve still not watched Gundam Unicorn. Yes, I have all, what is it, six episodes that they’ve released thus far sitting on my bookcase, but that this point, I may as well wait until the last episode is released rather than struggle, as I did with the second episode of Code Geass Akito a couple of days back, to remember what happened in the previous instalment once the long wait for the finale is over.

As for how the rest of the year ended up panning out, at least anime-wise, I feel it’s gone pretty well. Maybe it’s just a warm afterglow of this last season of the year, with shows like Kill la Kill, Kyousougiga, Build Fighters and Yozakura Quartet, it’s been a really strong last quarter in terms of the kind of cartoons I enjoy watching, even if the New Years episode of Sword Art I’m subjecting myself to whilst trying to finalise this post leaves a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

Anyway, on with the usual Token End of Year Post format. Just bear in mind that this is in no-way an Anime of the Year post, more just a bunch of things I feel like writing about – otherwise this’d be a whole mess of words about Yamato 2199 or Gatchaman Crowds (looking forward to that BD-version final episode) or some other show that isn’t about Attacking Titans that I don’t really mention. There’s plenty of others out there expounding the virtues of their version of the best of the year if that’s what you really want to know.
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Have a pleasant festive period and a happy new year, folks, and remember that the new check-in period on iM@S Channel starts today!

And… that’s pretty much it.

Just to see how completely different things are these days, right?

This is the first issue of UK anime magazine Manga Max, originally published at the back end of 1998 (this is the December issue, which I guess means it came out in November). The reason I have it with me, well, I brought it to accost former-editor (and usual SLA guest announcer) Jonathan Clements with – that’s his autograph you see on the front there.

Manga Max probably has something of a storied history which isn’t really worth getting into in any real depth for the sake of this post – it sprang out of Manga Mania, originally a combination anime magazine and manga anthology published by Dark Horse (as a release vector for the Akira manga, amongst other things), which eventually went through three or four different publishers before landing (back with) Titan. This manga-free relaunch under a different moniker had something to do with trying to expand it’s market outside of the UK.
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