Okay, so suddenly, Jason removed Star Crossed from BlogSuki. Why? I have no idea. He gave two reasons in his little post, about the criteria of blogs to be removed. The first one is that you make make too many off-topic posts. Well I don’t recall having made absolutely any offtopic posts at all, or maybe my entry about my exams, back in december suffices, though I doubt Blogsuki ever existed at that time, so that can’t be it. The second reason he gave, was that you do not get enough readership.

So far, in the month May, Star Crossed gained an average of about 500 unique visists a day. This number has been rising ever since I set up this blog (November: 55 pageviews, December: 1233 pageviews, January: 1808, February: 2795, March: 6369, April: 13811, judge yourself). In my opinion, this is a pretty large number, though it makes me wonder what number will be good enough. In fact, I’m wondering what is even defined with enough readership. Let’s take a look at the stats for this month, shall we? What are the two pages with the most people viewing it? Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 04 and 05. Ironically, the anime with one of the most people blogging it is still way ahead of the anime I’m the only one blogging (say, Popolocrois). I just know, that if I started to blog Haruhi, Mai Otome, Fate/Stay Night and Magikano, that these would also have the same amount of readership. Does that mean that I have to start blogging just the popular shows now? Or did Jason mean something different by readership?

To be clear, this post is definately not intended to bash Jason in any possible way. After all, it’s his site, he can do what he want with it. I do admit that I’m not pleased with him kicking me just out like that, without any message whatsoever. Though I realize that it was me who sent him an e-mail in the first place, not the other way around, so I’m the one to blame in this part, it was my own responsibility. Anyway, this post is more meant as a bit of self-reflection. What am I doing wrong? (I’m obviously doing something wrong) And what can I do to improve it?

I believe that the biggest problem people have with this blog is the writing-style. Yes, I’m friggin’ Dutch. Of course my writing-style couldn’t par any of the native guys and girls out there. Just add this to the fact that I haven’t had any interest in writing until about a year ago, and you have an even more horrifying writing-style. I’ve aquired most of the writing experience I have right now in that year. One of the reasons I started this blog was also to learn more about writing, and it definately provided enough material for me to write about. I’m also finding that I’m not the best comment whore out there. And yes, indeed. I should be commenting other blogs a lot more often, though that’s just my nature. I’m horribly shy in real life. On the internet, this is significantly less, though I still find myself unable to write giant-length comments about just anything. I’m still amazed about how people like kawai are able to write such behemoths of comments, they must have some kinds of superpowers…

Then there’s the issue that passed about a week ago on Blogsuki. About the content of blogs, and how bloggers should not only post summaries, but also some in-depth articles. And indeed, all about I’ve ever done is make posts about individual episodes, write series reviews and posting previews of the upcoming seasons (heh, I’m probably the blogger who posts the earliest first impressions of all the other bloggers out there ^^;). I have some ideas about articles, though. For example a rant against people bashing RPG-based games, or a little opinion about the Naruto-fillers. (Note to self: write these articles once you have a lot of free time on your hands) I indeed hate it how lazy I am concerning these things. Another thing I’m lazy about is keeping up my blogroll. I’ve been wanting to update it for a long while now, as there are so many new interesting blogs which caught my eye.

When I look back to my earliest posts, I can see a lot of differences. At May 22nd, I’ll be celebrating the half-year aniversary of this blog, and since November, a lot has changed. First of all, my writing style was even more horrible than it is now. I think that that’s the worst thing about my posts back then. Another thing is that it really surprises me how short my posts were at that time. Most of them were as big as my individual quick first impressions right now. If you compare this with my recent posts that average about 500 words, alongside some entries which even manage to get as far as 1500, it really is interesting to notice. Though, I do have to say that I had something back when this blog was just fresh, and which I don’t have right now: my fanboyism. In the past, I used to get all giddly about some episodes, while currently, I’ve taken a way more objective look at things. Though, I’m not even good enough to say objective. I’m too happy with almost each episode I watch. Every episode is good in my standards, with only Bleach being a healthy change. I especially noted this when comparing my own entries of Ayakashi to Hopeless Sensei’s. I just had the same opinion I always have. And still, I seem to have lost my inner-fanboy. This makes me wonder whether I should pick up a show like Gintama… Anyway, I’ll try to find ways to counter this.

Another good aspect which I did have back in the old days, but don’t have right now is a simple one: Mahou Shoujotai. This is simply the best anime ever. No discussion possible. It was also one of my biggest sources of fanboyism, and one of the reasons I started up this blog in the first place. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve ever since been searching for an anime which would be able to call Mahou Shoujotai its equal. I haven’t succeeded yet. I’ve seen a lot of amazing series, though, but they’re all just a bit below the awesomeness Mahou Shoujotai managed to create.

Though, when I look at my recieved comments, I indeed realize that this is one of the lesser sites out there. My maximum number of comments on one post remains six, while other people somehow manage to bring in fifteen comments for each one of their posts. Even if it was something as simple as a visit to the bathroom, they will be swarmed with at least ten comments, while I have to hope to get any comments at all. The comments I do get, however, are greatly inspiring. I especially love Hopeless Sensei, along with lolikitsune, Anga and Mina. I’m also incredibly glad with the people who keep pointing out mistakes I made in some of my posts, even though I don’t always show it. Believe me, I might be making the most mistakes of anyone in the blogging community.

The final flawed aspect of this blog that I can think of right now is the fact that I’m a post whore. At times, I really make four or five posts a day, because of the fact that I reserve one post per episode. When you have a day at which five episodes come in, the numbers pile up. I also keep thinking that I’m blogging way too many series at the moment. There are fourteen of them at the moment, which will soon be twelve when Noein and Jigoku Shoujo have their final episodes subbed. Then again, it will be thirteen again when Mushishi comes back into action, which could be any moment now. It’ll be most likely to come sooner than Noein and Jigoku Shoujo can finish, so I’ll eventually end up with fifteen blogged series at one moment. I might be experimenting with multi-episode posts in the future, though for organizational purposes, that would be horrible again. Still, I have been worse at times in the past. For the last couple of months, my maximum number of posts per day has been at april 1st and 2nd, after the combination of my exams and a sudden tidal-wave of new Jigoku-Shoujo and Utena-episodes coming in caused me to fall behind, and forcing me to catch up an incredible lot. Though, when you look at my christmas update, there appear to be even more posts made in one day (12, to be exact, in comparison to the 10 of april 1st).

Ah well, this event certainly won’t be keeping me away from blogging. It’s not like I needed Blogsuki anyway. Yeah, ok. It’s good and convienient for bringing in visitors, though I managed to survive for more than three months without it anyway. Also: if you’ve got a suggestion, or if you’ve got some critizism for this site, by all means, do not be afraid to post about it. I read all my comments. I’m an active member in a game-design community, so I KNOW that constructive critizism is extremely valuable. And for anyone actually bothering to get to this point of finishing the article: thanks for actually reading this little rant of mine. ^_^

It’s a shame that you never hear anyone talking about Popolocrois. This anime’s brilliant! I guess that people are turned off because of the strange character-designs and the fact that it’s based on an RPG. Well, guess what? These people are making a HUGE mistake. Just because Final Fantasy Unlimited sucked, it suddenly is common knowledge that every anime based on an RPG sucks, is just like saying that Tekken was horrible, so that must mean that every anime which involves fights is horrible as well. HUGE mistake.

This episode was one of the best yet, even if you consider the already high standards Popolocrois set. After last time’s intermezzo, we now get to see Gamigami actually carry out his plans to try and steal the Crown of Wisdom. It was in one word brilliant.

We start with the night before it all happens. Both parties prepare themselves. Pietoro swears that he’ll protect the crown, and Narcia decides to help him. The two of them looked so cute at that time. Anyway, the king’s advisor is getting more nervous by the minute, though the king uses as argument that if he can’t protect the crown, he’s not fit as a ruler. Gamigami, meanwhile, completed his newest invention, which he shows to Ston and Sanda. Hyuu, meanwhile still is in doubts.

We then switch to the next day. We’ve got a happy middle-aged woman, coming from the country and carrying a whole bunch of apples who tries to enter the castle. It then appears to be Gamigami is his new invention: a robot, capable of just about anything, including a middle-aged woman disguise. He manages to get inside the castle, and rushes to the king’s chamber. His plan is to shoot the crown right off the king’s head, though right at the moment he wants to shoot, Pietoro runs into him. It was hilarious to see Gamigami talk himself out of that situation. Then he finds another quiet spot, and Narcia runs into him. Again, the same scene of Gamigami talking himself hilariously out of the situation occurs. Then, the knight runs into him. This time, though, Gamigami’s moustache gets a bit stuck in his robot, which gives a strange moustache to the disguise.

Anyway, Gamigami begins to see that things aren’t going too well, so he decides to wait until dark. He presses a button, and what once was a woman, suddenly turned into a large cubical shelter, complete with bathroom and television. It’s a surprise nobody actually noticed it during the day. ^^;

We switch to the night. Ston and Sanda head to the castle on their own, as they have no idea what Gamigami was up to. Pietoro, meanwhile is tired, so the knight offers to take his place, so he can get some sleep. Gamigami, meanwhile, reveals his latest plan: an invisible, wall-crawling, mechanical spider. He takes a little detour, mistaking the king’s advisor’s room for the king’s, though in the end, he manages to find the right window. He enters the room, and instead of just grabbing the damned crown like Ston and Sanda (who just arrived) suggest, he reveals another one of his inventions: a crane game. This, of course, doesn’t work at all. I do love Gamigami, though. He takes simple concepts, and somehow manages to solve turn these into incredibly creative, though unneeded behemoths of concepts. Though, I guess that that’s the reason he’s brilliant.

Sanda meanwhile found an apple, dropped by Gamigami’s invention, while Gamigami begins to get a bit tired of his failures. So what does he do? He takes out even more cranes. This seems to work. They manage to hold the king down, so Gamigami has a good aim. Though, then Pietoro manages to rush in at the last possible moment, warned by Sanda and the apple he managed to find. This was probably the weakest moment of the episode. Still, I enjoyed it. And Gamigami afterwards totally makes up for this, by resorting to the thing he should’ve done in the first place: he grabs the crown and runs off. ^^;

Then we get to see a brilliant chase. Gamigami’s trying to get out of the castle, and of course, the different members of the cast try to stop him. The knight come in first, by cutting off the mechanical spider’s legs, only to reveal a couple of wheels afterwards. Then Pietoro gets a bit of help from Kai in flying mode, but Gamigami literally drives into a building to avoid the two of them. When he reaches the end of the building, he crashes though a wall, and seems to fall, only to reveal that his invention also flies. He then takes off, though Pietoro finally manages to get the crown, simply by throwing himself on Gamigami. He leaves along with Kai, and Gamigami smiles.

Popolocrois castle rejoices, Pietoro gets praised, though Gamigami isn’t done with his plans. He grabs a large speaker, takes his time in testing it, and then declares that the crown that Pietoro took back was a fake, and puts on the real one to prove it. Pablo gets angry, and throws his crown away, only to reveal that Gamigami lied about him having the real crown, which means that Pablo just threw the real crown away. Gamigami grabs the real crown of wisdom, and his mission has succeeded. Pablo admits his defeat.

Pietoro is destroyed by this moment, and breaks down. After all, he vowed to not let anyone have it, and for the second time, he couldn’t protect something important. It was just too sad to see him like that, and it also gives great potential for coming episodes. I’m beginning to like Pietoro more and more. Okay, he’s impulsive, and he wants to make as much people as possible happy. Though there’s a difference with him and all other main characters out there: he acts genuine. That’s something only girls seem to be doing in anime nowadays, though it works perfectly.