12 Days of Anime 2019 – Ty Gets Motherly

Many of you already know this, but for the benefit of the few of you who don’t, I’ve been an anime fan for a long time. An entire decade, to be precise. And while my love for anime hasn’t wavered in the slightest, a lot of other things have changed in that time. I’m not just talking about my taste in shows, but my life circumstances and how these have influenced the way I relate to what I’m watching… 

When I first started watching anime I was but a 15-year-old girl. Chronically unpopular at school, I found myself drawn to shows that featured large casts of characters, shows that made me feel like part of something. I was also desperate for love, for my first “proper” boyfriend (who just had to be tall, dark, and mysterious. Hey, I grew up during that awful Twilight craze!). This meant that when I chanced upon an anime character who met these criteria, I would fall head over heels for the guy and spend hours wishing I could meet somebody just like them… 

Thankfully, I’ve grown up a little since then! I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never be Little Miss Popular and I’ve been married for nearly three years now. My husband’s not the tall, dark, mysterious vampire that I longed for in my youth, but I’m still pretty keen on him! Now that I’m older, wiser, more mature and just starting to settle down and start a family of my own, I no longer look at anime characters, particularly boys, with heart-shaped eyes. No, I now view them in a way that is far more motherly. This has never been truer than during this year, when a great number of anime characters have sent my motherly instincts into overdrive… 

The End of Classic Anime…?

The following question has played on my mind for quite some time now: is there no longer such a thing as classic anime? Admittedly, this is a kind of broad, kind of vague question, one which I’m probably not qualified to answer, but in the following post I’ll attempt to do just that, as succinctly and as eloquently as three cups of coffee allow me to be. But before I can dig into the meat of the question, I must first unpack what I mean by the term “classic anime”. 

Ty’s Pirate Crew

This week I was nominated twice over to participate in the “My Pirate Crew” tag. Thanks to both Karandi and Winter Reverie for considering little ol’ me! Whilst a fun tag, the idea of being stuck on a boat indefinitely is not my idea of a good time. I’m not the strongest of swimmers and, to be honest with you, the ocean freaks me out (did you know that we’ve explored more of space than we have our own oceans? Who knows what kind of horrors lurk in the deepest depths?). I’d much rather stick to exploring land, thank-you very much! That said, that wouldn’t be in keeping with the “My Pirate Crew” tag, so, to make up for being stuck on a boat, I’ll pick the most fun shipmates there ever was!

The Rules:

1. Display the My Pirate Crew logo and add ‘My Pirate Crew’ as a tag.
2. Thank the blogger who nominated you and post a link to their blog.
3. Link back to the original post here (so I can compare your crews to mine).
4. Select seven anime characters and give them a position on the crew. These are the positions you can to fill. Warrior, sniper, chef, doctor, scientist, navigator, strategist, mechanic, entertainer.
5. Nominate 5-10 bloggers.
6. Set sail and rule the seas!

Without any further ado, here’s my crew!

30 Days of Anime Challenge – #27 My Favourite Scene in Which a Character Acts like a Complete and Utter Badass

#27 What Is My Favourite Scene in Which a Character Acts like a Complete and Utter Badass?

Deku Saves Kacchan from the Slime Villain – My Hero Academia 1st Season

This may seem like a bizarre choice for my favourite scene in which a character acts like a complete and utter badass. Deku’s probably not the first character who comes to mind when considering all-out badassery. Maybe you think of a character like Guts, capable of taking on armies of one hundred or more soldiers single-handedly, one of JoJo’s many meatheads, or somebody like Sasuke, who’s as cool as a cucumber and always has a snappy clapback tucked away in his long, billowing sleeves. But I’d like to argue that Deku is just as badass (if not even more so) than these characters. And nothing exemplifies that better than the scene when, during My Hero Academia’s first episode, he rescued Kacchan from the Slime Villain. This was the scene that first won me over to the franchise and catapulted Deku straight into my Top 10 Favourite Characters, so it holds a special place in my heart!

Ty’s Year in Review (2018)

This has been the first year (since 2012, and, boy, does that feel like an age ago now) that I’ve made a conscious effort to watch a good percentage of seasonal anime. I do feel that, as an aniblogger, it’s important to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the anime world and that keeping up with seasonal shows is a good way to do that. But, blogging aside, it’s also so much fun to be part of the conversation and to share memes, news, and theories with other anime fans. That’s difficult to do if you’re only watching the most ancient and/or obscure shows out there!

Anyway… I managed to watch 30 of this year’s anime. I know that that’s a pretty paltry figure to some, but I’m not in the habit of dropping shows, so I prefer to only pick a handful per season that I know beforehand that I’m likely to enjoy. In the following post I attempt to collate what I loved (or loathed) about the 30 shows that I watched this year.

Author’s note: if you feel that an anime has been unduly underrepresented, chances are, I didn’t see it. See the bottom of this post for a list of the shows that I did see this year. If you’re looking for something a bit more comprehensive, check out The First Ever WordPress Anime Awards. This features an impressive collection of categories and nominations put together by a team of brilliant bloggers (including yours truly)!