Month: October 2008

WorldCat: This is Possibly Awesome

Posted by Ryan A - October 4, 08

WorldCat

I came back to WorldCat earlier this evening as I was browsing wikipedia’s info on the A Certain Magical Index light novels, which haven’t had a translation project yet. I peeped the premier and am hoping the adaptation will stimulate a translation project somewhere.

I’ve seen WC before but it still intrigues me. The organization began in 2001 I’m guessing so it is decently matured, but glancing around it is quite clean. I love it. The simple notion of synchronizing the world’s libraries so one may find almost any sort of information locally is quite stunning. If only I could find direction as such to aim melative.

Some of the interesting features include custom lists, reviews, and tagging. Sure it isn’t feature dense, but its clean, and more importantly they have indexed over 1 billion items. I’m going to think of a nice way to integrate WorldCat into melative, perhaps with the list feature. I’m not sure about reviews, but most definitely WorldCat.org will become a standard resource* for all media, just as wikipedia.org is.

The problem with hard reviews would be that WorldCat’s titles represent physical objects. Where melative, like wikipedia, represents the metaphysical residue of a title; a single title is not split into DVD volumes (ie).

Anyway, I hope the site may come of use to others in the blogosphere.

note: A “standard resource” is simple a site which indexed much of the same media form (eg MAL, AniDB, ANN, Manga Updates etc) These are used on melative as a placeholder to more complete information on a title.

Toradora! Around the Sphere

Posted by Ryan A - October 4, 08

Everyone could guess that Toradora! was going to get a mass of attention, it was intevitable for a number of reasons. Here’s an Impression Round-up:

Totali’s in love. That’s good, all is fine in the world, “LOVE POWER” saved it. On another note, Michael apparently h8s Taiga, very nice position as well. Calawain knows what’s up. Having read the novel a bit myself, I’m pleased with the display. The Fish took a massive screencap glob. I couldn’t agree with Kuro more. “TAIGA ROLL was awesome.” Maa also agrees on the ROLLING TAIGA greatness, though I like this part:

I try not making it the main reason for watching an anime, or the main topic of discussion (although, it seems pretty popular for bloggers nowadays to compare seiyuus with their older performances in this kind of uneventful first episodes of a series). Right, in the end it’ll just be an additional excuse for my lack of references about those seiyuus.

No, that’s okay, I think 90% of the posts contained some Shana or ZnT reference anyway, and we wouldn’t want to be repeating common knowledge, right? Personally, Shana and ZnT references are weak to Toradora!; Hayate the Combat Meido, now that’s a bit more relevant… take it for what it is.

Aroduc says:

She [Taiga] does get a shout-out because I too am very snotty and would wipe my nose on Ryuuji’s furniture if I could.

That little personality trait of Taiga’s is pretty fantastic to watch… miniature jaw-drops. Washi describes Taiga as “too rude and selfish” and I think that means a good thing for the premier, because that’s just her, but hopefully we’ll see some dynamics (if she changes, she changes you).

So that being said, my impression/reflection thingy is here. Also, I think it’s necessary to note, no matter how obvious, that Toradora! does not contain any magic, mystes, dragons, prodding wands, capes, fusetzu, fantasty castles, etc etc. It’s quite the typical tale of boy meets mugen-rage loli-doll.

In the translated words of Ginpachi….

It’s smoking because it’s been loli-loli’d so much.

Finish Geass R2

Posted by Ryan A - October 3, 08

This is totally for Michael, who managed 5++ consecutive Geass posts. Here’s the melativity:

I have 43 levels of anime rated. CG was on level 38 around episode 19-20. I hadn’t moved it, but checking it, and with respect to the ending I bumped it up to level 26 [of 43]. So what the hell does it mean?

Points-wise: having 43 levels I can award a maximum of 43 points to a title (if one wants to think about the points, but it’s not necessary), but because of the exponential decay, level 26 (sharing with 2 other titles) receives 8.3542 points. This is all in the algorithm so it’s not manual.

Percentage-wise: on levels 26/43 = 60.47%, on points 8.3542/43.0000 points = 19.4284%

The indicators do have differences, but there is strong protection against over and under rating when spread across many users who have rated the same title.

On a point scale, I would give R2 roughly 7.85 out of 10.0. Here is why that 60% does not equal 6/10 and shouldn’t be treated as such, and neither should the 19%. But do you really trust my x out of 10 rating, because everyone’s scales vary.

These numbers completely mean nothing, unless they were taking in the context of other titles, where we would be able to see how it compares to other titles. So yea…

I should add my little perception on Lelouche’s “death.” Many are split with this, and it’s open => subjective, but there are logical arguments based on character emotions etc (if that is possible?). So I don’t believe Lulu is dead, not in the least, and there is good argument for his immortal survival. Though, if that is the case, it does take critical points away from the rating because it is much too Sunrise. Yet, there is no way for Lulu to have survived [in the flesh] if not immortal. What I’m saying is that Lulu is possibly a Jesus reference. I won’t defend this, but in the end, I do believe C.C. has some form of contact with Lulu, and whats more…

I do believe C.C. is still immortal.

note: episode 25 reflection.

Bloglomerate Stance

Posted by Ryan A - October 2, 08

A one Mr. Mellow Bunny, posted over at mellowspace.com on the recent spring of group blogs, yet I think there’s more to the story, because group j-media blogging is not new considering the epic THAT had it’s 2 year anniversary last month (speaking of which, why when did I start this blog again…)

Particularly, I should bring attention to Oi, Hayaku! and ㊥出し. Why? Because these are evolutions from members of the otakuken. Why not mention the All Girl RR Thing? It’s a different approach, to put it shortly… bubble-gum and roller skates vs red white-collars on Wall St, and inadvertently, I did mention it.

Oi, Hayaku!

This one isn’t special because the “gatherer” of writers was kept in the dark for weeks, rather, the approach is seemingly aiming for professionalism. In terms of blog professionalism, I think it’d be good to take a glimps of well-known examples like engadget or stereogum. If you can picture an “anime” blog, not that they are purely-anime anymore, with the presence and pretty of one of these two, then the jig is up.

Oi, Hayaku! has potential already in specifically selecting authors. Point-of-fail: editors. Almost assuredly, a post coming from an engadget-level blog are checked a few times by numerous people before the post hits, because it is the professional way.

㊥出し

bj0rn’s new shibang is more like stereogum in the aspect of fun entertainment. I don’t think the overall purpose is a sheer professionalism, but in the music industry, le swag often sells. That being said, it’s okay to get the paws dirty, because it sells, and not everyone wants bad-ass, thought provoking creations, that cannot even be contained in the simplistic word, “post.” [see a|o or CAT].

The important part is summed nicely in the About section…

Let’s just say after many years of being in the anime community, we, a bunch of regular members decided to come up with this site to write about things we feel like and to share information and do discussions with others out there.

Simple + nice, where’s the money at?

General B

These are chess moves. While I’m sure others have grouped in similar fashion, just any multi-author blog isn’t going to come and play, no no no. The difference we are seeing is decisiveness, planning, scheming, and all those beautiful emotive moves one may encounter in the world of financial acquisitions (or Code Geass). Surely, I think these two are just a start…

Welcome to the rise of Bloglomerates!

Where the big picture is invisible.

…and so it begins.