Timewaster's Guide Archive

For those who don't know:
Shōnen anime is anime for boys under 18.
Shōjo anime is anime for girls under 18.
Either genre has a huge target range, and some titles classified as one of these are R-rated content. Shōjo not so much, but it's possible for either. I'll give equivalent ratings for Americans for each show as I go along. These ratings are my own and just an estimation of where I think the MPAA would likely rate these shows.

Over the last week (Starting and ending on Monday) I have watched well over 48 hours of anime. Apart from revealing my stupidity, I'm unsure as to what this says about me. Blood type: O+. Astrological sign: Taurus. Zodiac sign: Dragon. Height: 5'10".  All of these are important things, OK? Also, this post is resembling a bad personals ad more and more. Moving on... the shows I (will admit to having) watched are BLEACH, Welcome to the NHK!, and uhh... _{Skip Beat!}.

BLEACH (PG-13 for violence, blood, partial nudity, and some sexual themes) (Season 1 is borderline PG) was pretty awesome. For the first season. Then they took Rukia the Awesome away from me and I watched the next 2 ¹/₂ seasons waiting for her to come back and make the show cool again. That never happened, and the show descended into a Naruto or Dragonball-like power escalation thing (There's probably a term for it, but I don't know what it is because it's dumb.) which I am told never stopped. Basically, the producers said after season 1, "Oh, we've gotten all of that useless 'character' 'development'. Now we can get to the stupid typical shōnen fare." The series is ongoing, and they haven't stopped that stupid powerup crap. Apparently.

Verdict for BLEACH: Watch the first season because it is awesome, then never ever even think about looking at the rest of the series. (Then again, if they do stop doing the idiotic flexing-mah-muscles stuff, it may be worth it to start watching again.)

Welcome to the NHK! (R for nudity, drug content, and thematic elements), also classified as shōnen (though thankfully devoid of fighting for the sake of fighting), was an incredible show. Excellent soundtrack, realistic take on life including very human characters, and a talking appliance every now and then. The female lead was the highlight of the show for me, as she's always so nice and patient with the jerk of a main character. I'll admit to crying several times during the show.

Verdict for Welcome to the NHK!: It's worth watching. You may not like it much, but it's certainly different from most shōnen. I liked it quite a bit. (The animation is bad at times, but nothing anyone who sat through The Hobbit can't handle.)

Skip Beat! (PG for because it's really tame, but there may be something I can't remember so I'm being safe and not giving it a G) is shōjo. It is hilarious, though I'm unsure of how funny it's really supposed to be. Character development is pretty good, as it's for girls (most girls care about that more than boys). The plot is different from what I'm used to, the main character is a girl, and some moments feel a little strange for me.  The acting-based action is weird. It's treated the same as a fight would be in a shōnen. But all of this is beside the point. For reasons I find hard to express, I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this anime. (My brother admitted to liking it as well, so it is possible that other dudes will like this. My other brother and sister are kinda meh about the series, so apparently YMMV.)

Verdict for Skip Beat!: Basically the best show ever. Seriously. (Easily my favorite anime of all time. Perhaps because I am an idiot. Discuss.)

Ah, okay. My brothers are the ones who suggested The Dark Elf Trilogy, but I will follow your advice. I do not trust my relatives, especially since one tried to get me to read *gulp* Twilight.

Slightly less than heinous thread resurrection:

I answered "Yes" based on the fact that you are a person on the internet.

I grew up on the wrong side of Usenet.
"But sir," you ask, "which side is that?"
The inside.

A friend lent me Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks. My friend raved about the series for several months before I let him lend me a book. Maybe it's because of that that I haven't enjoyed the book at all, but I really can't get into it. It feels just like LoTR, only the hobbits are humans and the elves have been nerfed.

So, my questions are: Am I crazy? Am I reading the wrong Terry Brooks book? I've heard quite a bit of good buzz about Terry Brooks, but I am finding his writing excruciating. What is the deal?

• Characters don't feel like they are different people. Everyone has the same vocabulary, thought patterns, facial expressions, etc. It's a world inside someone's head put on paper, but I shouldn't feel like every character is the author with different makeup on. It's like watching an Eddie Murphy film.
• The descriptions are so overdone, sometimes I feel like I'm reading Fitzgerald*. Some people know how to make their prose flow and evoke emotion like poetry. Some people do not.
• Again, the feeling of sameness with Tolkien. I'm not a huge fan of Tolkien's writing, but he did know how to create a believable world through sheer depth. With Brooks I feel like I'm watching nothing more than a middle school theater production of LoTR. I know that "tree" is a stack of chairs with brown paper towels from the bathroom taped on it.

I certainly have gotten more picky since 6th grade. I reread Zelazny's Amber series recently and didn't like it as much as this time around, though it still ranks somewhere in my top 10. Probably.

*Fitzgerald's writing isn't horrible. I just can't imagine anyone reading it when they could be reading Faulkner or Hemingway.

So, my book takes place in the WoT universe literally. Hope nobody's offended. It takes place in the Second Age though, so no  existing characters are used*.

I've given plotting a lot of thought. It seems to me that to have a good plot, you need to first have good locations. Locations are key because if you don't describe them well, your readers are lost no matter what's going on otherwise. I make sure to write at least 6 paragraphs of setting in any scene before any action happens so I can refer to the setting descriptions I already gave without confusing anyone. Needless to say, my locations are far superior to any other writer's locations I have seen. Some test readers go so far as to call my works "novels for architects"! I hope we have some text-based architecture fans out there. Personally, I get quite a thrill from a well-turned phrase about a beautiful column in a grassy courtyard (Thought I was going to give away my next novel's plot, did you? Well, that exact description is in the book and it's central to the plot, but that's not even the best part.). I think that you will all feel quite relieved after reading my book, the setting is THAT GOOD!

*(Except for some cameos!!1!!!!!eleven!!!)

I haven't posted reviews of the last ~40 submissions...

And this is my firs post since early December.

Oh Leader Kibo, make our interwebs fixed, our stories beautiful, and our time limitless. Amen.

Also the faux english accent was just really annoying 

I thought that that was the point of it.

The story moves refreshingly quickly. At times too quickly though. The repetition of the conversation with The Stranger in such close proximity to the original bugged me. The prose early on is a little too florid for me. But now I'm just getting super picky.

The discussion did get a little heavy to me. Syntax got a bit confusing at times as well. Minor inconsistencies in descriptions throughout.

You're describing the viewpoint character rather objectively. I want to know what he thinks of himself, and get clues as to his true nature by his actions. Telling the reader that he was going to try kindness makes him seem insincere. Generally, show me that the guy is kind if he really is. If he isn't nice, then you've done that part perfectly already.

I felt that there was too much world building going on for me to care what was happening in the chamber. The references to historical events are a nice touch, but I would like to have less info said. Instead of telling me details right away, have the characters make references that the reader won't understand and have the characters muse over the details that made those comments interesting in moments with less going on. Set stuff up way in advance and pay it off later.

Show me that the Legate needs to convert the priest. Show, show, show!
And stay in the moment as much as is humanly possible.