Glasses on a girl are not always a plus.
But they are never a minus.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of reputation I have around the otakusphere. The taste for harem shows that I developed early in my anime-viewing career, starting with Key’s crying shows and fluff-drama pieces like Shuffle and Da Capo, has become what appears to be my defining feature of sorts, as “that guy who likes to deconstruct harem shows”.

And that’s probably not too far off the truth, because although I pride myself on also being a GARmbler (see: Kaiji, Akagi, One Outs, Liar Game), as well as a far of pretentious crack (insert Shaft here) and random slice-of-romance shows, my basis remains grounded in the simple formula 5girls1guy + a lot of moe = a good time. And with the right show, a very wordy, passion-filled, tl;dr time.
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Although my post title may be anything but serious, the combination of these three posts, plus their comments (or rather, one main post, two side posts, a few comments, and a stuffed bear, omoichikaeri!) induced some more of my periodic reflections on rating systems and of one’s Golden Age of anime.

After all, with so many bloggers burning out, or at least engaging Emergency Measure #34 in order to prevent burning out, the lack of anime that sit upon my stack of 9s and 10s on the MAL does worry me.

I’ve a strange tradition after all of pretty much having no 10s, ever; it represents a symbol of perfection, something that trancends the space of just a mere work of fiction. It’s not just the anime, but the circumstances; therefore, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsukihime (the visual novel), Kanon 2006, my three gateways to the anime fandom, are the only ones to brandish such a number. It probably fits with coburn’s definition, that a 10 must not just be perfect, but also be resonant.

So in a sense, I end up on the same pedestal as coburn, with just 3 favorites, as opposed to Author’s 4 or Cameron’s 8, and I have to wonder. Even the nines, replacing what might be a conventional ten on the scale – although the standard scale is anything but – are becoming scare. Probably Higurashi is the only one to reach such a status in the last few months.

The seasonal outcry of how anime has gone to hell and we’re all going to die (shortly before being arrested by lawyers of Odex or your ‘favorite’ company of choice) becomes that much more worrysome; although I don’t really believe it, one has to wonder whether there is a slow build-up of tolerance to anime.

It’s somewhat like, fittingly, anime is my waifu; I watched the Kanons, the Kaijis, and I was smitten. I couldn’t stop thinking, and gushing, nonstop. I was absolutely head-over-heels, forcing my family with absolutely no anime experience to go through the same emotions that I did, watching Shiori at the fountain.

But, just like how marraiges cool off after a few years, I wonder, will I be stirred like that ever again? Certainly, I am still happy to wake up in the morning, next to a new Toradora or One Outs episode. I am definitely glad I’m here.

But I fought hard just to convince myself to give the brilliantly nonstandard Higurashi a 9. How will I retrieve the magic from the days when I was so incredibly soul-rocked by mere VN conversions as H2O and Kimikiss (which I haven’t found the ability to rewatch), I gave them the same star status?

That’s what I wonder, to bring it back from the realms explored off of an errant twit by lolikitsune, and to the posts in question. Can you force yourself to find a 10/10? Force yourself to find number 4? In a sense, force yourself to find love? I just don’t think it’s possible.

I’ve had cycles in the past, where I’ve had anime re-find me. Where I thought I was doomed to a list full of 6s and 7s, of generics like Akasaka, and a shining prince (or visual novel conversion) comes out of the rain and shelters me with an umbrella made of pure awesome. (as you will see in the upcoming 12 Moments of Anime 2008 special)

Perhaps the people on hiatus, are doing the right thing, by not looking, not pushing anymore?

Certainly, a bit of exploration won’t hurt; that’s exactly what I’m doing here by taking these posts and flying completely off-topic into my own personal tl;dr land. But, I don’t think you can intentionally find a 10/10 anime any more than you could intentionally find your soulmate.

-CCY
(And now for something completely irrelevant, I’ve gone on such a Patchy bender over the last few weeks that I wonder if I need to rename my blog. Mega Murasaki Moe? There are a lot of cute purple- or purple-tone hair girls in anime…)

Or at least the first half anyway. I can’t speak for the latter, I’m a prude. That innuendo on the way, it’s been rather quiet here on the home front recently.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been too busy fighting the war over at MAL, being one of the many front- (or second-) line reporters from the character battlefield that is SaiMoe.

Maybe I’ve been busy riding the anime rollercoaster, at times watching things that are horribly dull and not worth writing about, to watching things that are simply so mindblowing I can’t even put words together, and everywhere in between. This will be the 9th draft of a post in the last 3 weeks, and hopefully you’ll be able to read this sentence and shake your head, because that’ll mean I finally managed to get back on the writing track.

Or maybe, it’s that occasional thing called ‘real life’ that snuck up on me with a bat, a bat made of Nerf guns, video games, and sometimes homework, that beaned me over the head, straight in the ‘pretentious writing complex’.

But in any case, an absence, or at least a slowing in posting, can be a good thing. For one, you become much cooler when everyone thinks you’re gone, and then, out of the fire and flames, you carry on you powerwalk towards the camera in slow motion, rock music playing and your hair billowing as your … sorry, got a bit carried away there.

But at least, I know that I smile when I hear from someone that I haven’t seen around in a while, so here’s to hoping you can do the same.

But anyway … It’s that time again, where the democratic process shows its great merit once more as millions of airheads, loudmouths, conspiracy theorists, closed-minded fools, and occasionally an intelligent person go to vote on the one person to rule the world …

… It’s time for SaiMoe 2008.

Although perhaps it’s not quite of the same magnitude as the U.S. Election, there still are a lot of comparisons to be made, little be how fans tend to “change” characters to what “they can believe in”, or how there will be “100 more years” of Zero no Tsukaima (or any J.C. Staff show really), or how there tend to be the strangest running mates chosen (Miku Hatsune with Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei? Really?), or perhaps, more matter-of-factly, the fact that things just tend not to make sense.
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