While I may have said it many times before, Welcome to 2012! I look forward to delivering you all the latest news, reviews and other miscellaneous articles for everything that has to do with otaku products. I was hoping to get this out on the 31st December however when push came to shove it was pushed back in lieu of my families third annual “New Years Eve Wii Gaming Night” where we break out the Wii console with everyone in the house and play competitively until the obligatory fireworks show on television at midnight. While it is an unintended tradition, I think it is one that everyone should consider trying out with their family as even if the games console is collecting dust in the back of a cupboard or no one else in your family has so much as touched a games console in the last couple of years… give them a few test rounds and they might even give you a run for your money. But to get back on topic, I would like to look at 2011 from many angles for myself as a writer, from a gamers perspective, from the perspective of an anime and manga fan – and heck… the perspective of most people who would visit this site. Another thing to note for this is that I am writing this completely from the top of my head with no notes… I feel the only way to properly appreciate the last year is to reminisce while writing as it would no doubt result in a more interesting outline.
The Otaku’s Study
Snapshot of the homepage a moment before this post went live.
Before getting on to all the good bits about gaming and anime, I would like to take a few moments to discuss this site as it has undergone several changes over the last year. If you take a look at the Article Archive section on the top of this page, the number and quality of the posts on the site started to really increase in January 2011 with more and more articles popping up beginning in June 2011. Until last year, I was not entirely sure where I would take this site, with several occasions in 2009 and 2010 me taking extended hiatuses or even proposing the closure of the site entirely…. but in 2011 things really turned around resulting in my pushing out 200-300 posts a month off my own back. This is in part due to a lot more free time as I reduced my study load and found an ambition in various media of otaku media which I had lost prior (Until November 2010 I hadnt even watched an episode of anime for around a year).
This is also in part thanks to the many great bloggers who I have interacted with over the last couple of months – with a shout out going to Kiddtic (A fellow Aussie) from Kidd’s Anime Blog who has tirelessly worked on a number of projects in getting the community involved – such as the previously non-existence AniBloggers choice Anime Award which looked at many writers thoughts on anime to determine the Top Anime of 2011. Also in part is due to the many great people and representatives from the various gaming companies I have been in contact with - similarly to my recent “Anime Company of the Year” and “Game Company of the Year” awards, it would not be possible to reward any person specifically as all have been great to interact with!
From the monthly anime releases in Australia during the early months, the mixture of classic and recent anime and game releases in the middle of the year and all of that x10 by December, I have thoroughly enjoyed working on something that I originally started in May 2006 to “Prove to an English Teacher I could write better than at a C+ standard” and look forward to bringing you even more high quality articles and reviews this year, as I ensure you I shall be dedicating more time than ever to this site and providing more of the same and more. I believe that as it is the new year and all, I will do a couple of New Year Resolutions!
- To continue delivering a consistent and high quality stream of articles on otaku-released media titles.
- To re-open the Manga segment of the site, which was inadvertently dropped last January to make way for a more anime and gaming oriented experience.
- While I am still a student for another few months to cover even more……
Wait a minute… why limit myself to such simple resolutions when a continually improving approach will be much more suited to my style and the ever changing media environment?
Also last year in September saw the much overdue move from Animeblogger.net that graciously hosted this site for five years to private hosting and therefore allowing me more freedom to do what I want. While I would happy recommend hosting with Animeblogger.net for any small start-up site, you will be surprised how fast you may meet their newly imposed limits and going from the stats I have… my site would have been taken down less than a day every month due to the bandwidth usage and ever increasing hits. While the transfer might not have been as perfect as I would have liked, everything worked out in the end and has allowed me to have added freedom in what I post without needing to worry about paying out fees for minor increases in bandwidth.
Alongside my regular reviews, I also rebooted The Otaku’s Gaming Study, which while originally being a news compilation set that started around the time E3 2011 – has been converted into a batch review series which in December played host to my “Get Moving This Christmas” series and a number of PSP games and will be continued into the new year to cover not only games from 20XX, but also games on the older consoles which I feel may have been drowned out by the recent releases over the years. This series may be extended to anime series in the new year as well, as I have some older anime series which deserve reviewing as well.
While this may just be a wall of text in terms of this topic, I feel that last year proved to be a huge stepping stone in terms of The Otaku’s Study’s success, with a massive increase in visits and pageviews from previous years and increasing significantly as every month passes. I am always in the persuit of refining my technique but if there is ever anything you would like me to cover or just have a general query please do not hesitate to contact me through the Contact page.
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Events
As I am still a student for at least six more months, I have been faced with several challenges over the last year about balancing study with attending gaming and anime conventions that have been held around Australia and internationally. While I am still juggling my timetable to determine if E3 is out of the question or not this year (Apparently the difference between finishing and E3 is about a week and a half… UGH!), I did have the chance to make my mark on the Brisbane Supanova events and the first annual EB Games Expo event held at the Gold Coast Convention Center. Both of these events, covering two very different topics and each providing valuable incite on the market, the actual community and of course…. you got to sample lots of to be released game and anime titles!
While I will not deny that both Supanova and the EB Games Expo were held in areas which could have utilized even double of the space they held the event in, I found them both enjoyable and inciteful and was able to do rather active – if not spontaneous live blogs for both events. If you have not had a chance to check out either events, I highly recommend going to check them out this year – alongside many other anime conventions and near the end of this month – the Gamers Life Convention held at Bond University and being run by a few mates of mine… should prove to be an interesting experience if you want to instead of testing new titles, getting in on the action and winning big prizes for doing so. More information on this event can be found HERE as at the time of posting, their official website was down. Once I manage to sort out my ideal timetable, I will no doubt be posting about the events I intend on attending both in Australia and internationally.
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Anime
I wish to look at anime from the perspective of both an Australian anime fan as well as a peruser of international anime releases from both Japan and North America. We have very few anime companies down under, with two of the major ones being Madman Entertainment and Siren Visual, both of which has supported this site tremendously over the last year with both direct news releases and review samples – and in turn I have been able to cover many of their releases during the year. While we are do not have the entire range of titles available to our North American counterparts, we are getting many of the more recent acquisitions announced and released at approximately the same time (From releases such as DuRaRaRa!! which were simulreleased with North America to other release half a month or a bit more from their US counterparts).
In 2012, Aussies will get to watch Higurashi's anime ending... the way it should be!
Special releases and acquisitions of note include Dennou Coil (Winner of my Australian Anime Release of 2011) and Welcome to Irabu’s Office, both of which to this date remain Australian exclusive releases alongside The Tatami Galaxy which remains an Australia physical release exclusive. 2011 also saw the release of Digimon Adventures by Madman Entertainment and one of the only DVD releases ever made of the series – which seemed to be a tremendous hit given feedback from various channels and may indicate a greater push for not only other seasons (Adventures 2, Tamers, Frontier) but perhaps an even bigger push for the older but still very much so high in demand series such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon which does not currently have an official English anime release available anywhere and has not for several years. It had definitely been one of the biggest years for anime in Australia so far, and this year seems to be set to equal or top it – with many acquisitions by Madman Entertainment on the table and some very in demand releases set from Siren Visual (Say… the very much in demand release of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai!).
I personally prefer DVD and Blu-ray anime releases where I can sit infront of my television and watch them on a big screen, but simulcasting anime has grown big in all anime markets – with North American companies such as Sentai Filmworks, Funimation etc openly embracing this new legal streaming methodology. Subtitled releases of Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth, Persona 4: The Animation and of course Usagi Drop all proved to be big hits in my books and I hope they will continue to embrace this technology in the new year as both giving fans their anime hit and encouraging them to purchase the English-dubbed, Higher-Quality DVD / Blu-ray releases. For a look at my top votes in terms of anime releases in 2011, please look HERE.
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Gaming
In terms of news on this site, with countless channels for news and information and an ever increasing boom from the gaming market, it is damn near impossible to keep up with all the happenings. While I openly embrace all game titles, you will no doubt be aware I have a softer spot and therefore tailor more articles towards the Japanese game releases that are made available on the English market – alongside releases that don’t feel overly western in design (For example, I am a huge fan of Ubisoft’s Rayman series, with the latest release Rayman Origins receiving third place in my Game of the Year Awards). To sit here and write paragraph after paragraph on what the game industry has provided would be overly tedious and given I am now 2,000 words into the article… I am not sure how many of you would even be reading this far in.
The release of the Nintendo 3DS console posed the question as to if it would take of – citing low sales records and a quick price reduction post-launch, but I have to admit sales seem to be strong and while the game collection isn’t as extensive as I would have hoped, the first-party releases are solid and even some of the third party titles have also captured my interest. On the other hand, while sales of the Playstation Vita were apparently less than stellar in Japan, I personally see high potential in the English market so with any luck it will surpass the rather average job the Playstation Portable did in Australia.
In terms of the game releases, with any luck we will be seeing many more titles from all companies with some interesting acquisitions from NIS America with Atelier Meruru, Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk.2 to Namco Bandai with Ni no Kuni, Tales of Graces R to Square Enix with what will hopefully be the year we see Final Fantasy Versus XIII and many more. There were many highlights to me personally in 2011 and while only one could be crowned my Game of the Year 2011 (Disgaea 4), some titles you would never have expected to see released such as Corpse Party made a showing and judging from compiling a number of reviews and public perception – came out really really well for a niche Japanese horror series for the Playstation Portable which isn’t the technological powerhouse console it used to once be. I could bicker on for hours but as this is a summary of 2011 and thoughts for 2012….
2011 was Great!
May 2012 be Better!
Another market I have been looking into, and you may have noticed me covering over the last couple of weeks is the visual novel market, with releases coming from primarily MangaGamer and Jast USA with several interesting all-ages and eroge releases last year. For example, Jast USA’s release of Deus Machina Demonbane may have had some adult content within it – but proved to be a highly satisfying game storyline-wise which is of course the main focus of the visual novel line of games.
and so….
and so we end another year.... May 2012 deliver us even more interesting titles!
My apologies for the wall of text which has been this article, however I will openly say that for each The Otaku’s Study and the fan of otaku related media, last year was great across the board and this year has to work hard to topple it, but as gaming news seems to be focusing more and more on the XBox720 and the Playstation 4… perhaps we shall be treated with brief snapshots of the new consoles. While in terms of anime, hopefully we will be treated to even more delights for both story and design alike. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing for the last year and I hope you will keep reading into this new year! Hopefully I will be able to bring you even more articles on not just anime and games, but returning the manga reviews and other culture-related articles.
Reviews will start again from today and I am bringing you some long overdue anime reviews of both Dennou Coil and one of the series on my hints list posted last week. If there is anything you would like me to review, please feel free to drop me an email at any time.
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