Spring Break 2015: J-Dramas

Well hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? To be perfectly honest, I've been working on a post for quite a while, but just haven't been able to get my motivation up enough to finish it, so it's just kind of sitting there. But don't worry! It's Spring Break, so you know what that means: 5 posts over the next 5 days! I think that I shouldn't have any problems with posting this year, so I should get the full 5 out, hopefully on time. No promises, but that's the goal.

In previous years, I've covered video games, anime, and movies. So what's the topic this year? Television, in the form of J-Dramas! Yay! As a side note, this isn't actually the topic that I failed to cover last year and said I'd cover this year (or sooner). I still haven't finished the "research" for that one, and the earliest I'll be able to do so now seems to be this Fall, so don't expect it anytime soon. I also keep changing my plans for it, which hasn't helped it get done. Back to this year, for anyone who isn't familiar with what a J-drama is, it stands for "Japanese Drama," and refers to live action television shows produced in Japan. You may have heard of K-dramas, which are the equivalent for shows made in South Korea. I've seen a few of those too, but not as many, and I figured that I would focus on J-dramas this time around. It's actually kind of odd that I've seen more J-dramas, since there are so many more K-dramas available. South Korea has been very good about exporting their dramas to North America, but Japan has only started making it possible in recent years, and mostly through Crunchyroll, which is where I first bumped into them. Anime has had a very large presence for a while now, but dramas are just starting to really come onto the scene.

I guess if I had to explain what I enjoy about J-dramas, one of my major points would be the same as why I like anime: most shows (at least, most available here) don't run forever. Unlike American shows like CSI or Supernatural, all of the J-dramas that I've seen or heard about are tightly plotted shows that run for a season or two (sometimes nearly a decade apart) before ultimately resolving. On American tv, the goal for almost every show is to keep on the air for as long as possible, and just continue to pump out episodes each season until the show is finally canceled. All the J-dramas that I've seen take a different approach, where they try to tell a story (usually adapted from something), and once the story is over, the show is too. If you know me, you know that I love the plot being the focus, so these are right up my alley.

I'll be focusing on one J-drama each day this week. The order that I cover them will be more or less the order that I watched them in, not that it matters. I won't actually be covering the very first J-drama that I watched, which was the live action Death Note movies. I did really like them (I even think they had a better ending than the anime), but I decided not to cover them because they're movies and I wanted to cover tv shows, and also because it's been a while since I watched them, so my memory is kind of hazy anyways. I hope you enjoy this topic and maybe even find a show that you want to watch.

Full Series

Intro: J-Dramas

Day 1: Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo

Day 2: GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

Day 3: Galileo

Day 4: Liar Game

Day 5: Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files

Spring Break 2013: Anime

Last Spring Break, I decided to do some writing and give my personal top 10 list of video games from the year before. This year, I can't really do that, because I haven't played all that many new games. If you really want to know, I would probably choose The Walking Dead, Journey, Spec Ops: The Line, and a couple of others as my best games from last year, but I haven't even played Journey or Spec Ops yet, so who knows. (Actually, now I have played some of them, and I've written up an analysis of both The Walking Dead and Spec Ops: The Line.)

No, this year I figured that I'd tackle a different form of geeky media: anime. I watch a fair amount of anime in my spare time, and I've covered several shows in the past year. Actually, that's one of the reasons I love the anime genre so much: the shows are usually short. They're planned to run for only a season (13 episodes) or two, and then they wrap up nicely. An entire story, planned from start to end, can be started and finished within a week! Of course, there are some like Naruto or One Piece that never end, but that's a whole different animal.

So, over the course of this week, I will be posting my thoughts on different anime that I have watched this year. I'm also going to try and talk about the less watched, more interesting shows that I've seen, so not Gintama or Steins;Gate or the like. These won't all be shows that I would recommend or would watch again, but they all are interesting, I can guarantee that.

Right, so, starting tomorrow, one post per day for five days. I did it last year, so I can do it again, right?

p.s. Watch Steins;Gate. Please.

Full Series

Intro: Anime

Day 1: Slice of Life

Day 2: Folklore Anthology

Day 3: Action

Day 4: Existential

Day 5: Science Fiction

Best Games of 2011: Intro

Okay, so here's the plan. It's March Break, and that means that I don't have any school to do. So I once again turn my attention to this blog. I'm going to once again try to update this thing on a consistent basis.

Monday through Friday, each night I will post the next game in my "Best Games of 2011" ranking. We'll start with Honourable Mention, and move up from there.

Now, I know what you're saying: "Bacon, it's March already! 2011 is long over, why even bother?"

Well... Yeah. You're right.
But, I've been meaning to do this for a while and I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Priorities. And I wanted to finish all of the games (which I haven't, but I'm close enough).

So, anyways, check back tomorrow night, and the night after, and the night after, and the night after, and the night after to see my thought of what the best games of 2011 were.

p.s. There will be a substantial bit of bias here, because almost all of the games that I am going to mention will be Xbox games, because that is what I use, almost exclusively. So don't expect to see Uncharted 3, or Minecraft, or any of those other heavy hitters that I can't play on my Xbox.

Full Series

Intro: Best Games of 2011

Day 1: Honourable Mention

Day 2: Number Four

Day 3: Number Three

Day 4: Number Two

Day 5: Number One

England Trip

Right, so I'm off on a trip to England with my dad, and I've decided that I'm going to try to post about it here.
I may even tell people that I'm doing this!

Anyhow, I'll try to update this blog at the end of every day (London time, aka. GMT) with a post about what we did, and I'll try to include some pictures and whatnot. I'm not sure that I'll have an internet connection everyday, so if I don't, there won't be an update. It almost makes sense.

So yeah, that's what's up.

New stories starting on Wednesday night GMT.

Full Series

Intro: England Trip

Day 1: Airports and Gardens

Day 2: Howth and Oliver!

Day 3: Howth and Manchester

Day 4: Manchester United and London

Day 5: New Year's Parade and Sherlock

Day 6: Doctor Who and Arsenal

Day 7: BBC Studios and the British Museum

Day 8: The Tower of London and Piccadilly Circus

Day 9: Return and Philadelphia

Starting Out

So, this is my very first blog post.
 I don't really have anything worth saying at this point, so I'll ramble for a bit, OK?

It's Christmas morning! Strange time to start a blog, but that's fine by me. I should get to sleep, so I can open presents sooner, but I'll just say a few more things.

First off: video game recommendations.
If you have not played either Alan Wake or Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, (which you haven't, because I'm seen the number of copies in bargain bins), do yourself a favour and get them. Also, do the developers a favour and get them. They are both fantastic games, and both were way underrated. Or at least underplayed.
If you are going to get either of them, you should probably get Alan Wake, because Team Ninja has announced that there will be no sequel for Enslaved due to it's poor sales, while Remedy is putting out a follow up to Alan Wake this coming spring. So if you have to choose, support the one that will continue.
But please get both of them if you can. Alan Wake is only available for Xbox, so if you're a PS3 owner, get Enslaved. If you're a PC gamer, good news! Remedy recently announced that Alan Wake is coming to PC this spring, so you should get that one. (UPDATE: Alan Wake's American Nightmare came out for XBLA and PC, but the franchise is now on hold. Sad day.)

Secondly: I'm going to bed. There is no second point.