Sunshine Blogger Award!

You are a ray of sunshine! And you, are a ray of sunshine! Each and every one of you is a ray of sunshine! It’s funny how in a crisis, when all the hopes gradually fade away, and the darkness of despair engulfs every positive thoughts there is, we will only notice a small and weak ray of sunshine at the corner. The darker everything is, the brighter it shines, and the stronger it becomes. Like a smile, that can save a million hearts.

 

So, I’d like to thank Pinkie from Pinkie’s Paradise (anime, games, movies, pokemon..) and Keiko from Keiko’s Anime Blog (anime reviews, essays, top 5s..) for nominating me for this meaningful award. And at the same time, I’d like to apologise for dragging this for at least a month. Now, without further ado, the

Rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their blog so that other people can visit them.
2. Answer the 11 questions put to you by the nominator.
3. Nominate 11 bloggers of your choosing and provide them with a new set of 11 questions to answer.
4. Notify the nominees by commenting on one of their blog posts.
5. List the rules and display ‘The Sunshine Blogger Award’ logo within your post or on your blog site.

 

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Answering Pinkie’s Questions:

1. Are there any bloggers you consider as actual friends?

Unfortunately.. no.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy interacting with all of you especially when you wholeheartedly leave your thoughts and share your stories. It gives me a sense of warmth that I’m actually doing something here, instead of rambling nonsense and I really appreciate it. But I think actual friends are more practical if we’ve met at least once and/or know each other more than the surface. Plus, I’m the passive one here so I couldn’t really blame others.

 

2. Are you in a relationship? And how does that affect you blogging?

Yes. Three of them, as a matter of fact; family relationship, friendship and acquaintanceships. All of which will sometimes help me get through my writer’s block, inspire a new idea or annoy me so much that I couldn’t focus on writing another word.

 

3. Can you cook? What is your favorite dish to make?

Yes I can, though it is only some simple dishes. My favorite dish to make would probably be ramen with some eggs, seaweeds and tofu (which is a surprisingly good combination).

 

4. What is the next milestone you have in mind for your blog? What do you want to reach?

100 followers, 5k blog views. I’m trying to reach out to more readers out there, regardless of whether they have interest in anime or not. The goal that I’ve set in my mind since I started the blog has only been one—to inspire, and to be inspired.

 

5. Do you have any pets?

Yeah, a pet dog. It was adopted as a puppy, and is about two years old now. It can reach my waist with its paws when it stands, and has quite a loud bark (mostly all bark and no bite though). But upon knowing that most dogs can only survive 10-15 years (from one of my research for Kakushigoto’s review), I’ve come to appreciate it more everytime I watch it sleeps soundly. Except when it barks on rainy days, which takes a lot of effort to calm it down.

 

6. Do you have any other creative outlets other than blogging?

I enjoy creating a music video of anime (AMV) based on the song that can fit the story and the feelings of the characters. It’s something of a hobby to give a proper closure for it so their story will remain somewhere in the Internet.

I’m also a part of MAL Rewrite team, where we the writers would rewrite synopses for anime which will then go through two editors before it is finalised by a coordinator and labelled ‘[Written by MAL Rewrite]‘. Most of the time, we would start from scratch and abide to certain guidelines, but still, there are a lot of ways to write a synopsis that can draw attention and do some foreshadowing inside.

 

7. Name something you’d really like to talk about, that doesn’t really fit your blog…and feel free to talk about it.

I’d like to recommend one Korean movie, one Hollywood movie, an animation and a Korean tv series. They are Fabricated City, Hacksaw Ridge, Coco and Guardian: The Lonely and Great God respectively.

 

8. Do your real life friends and family follow your blog? Mine don’t .. do you think that is weird?

Nope, though my family are aware of it but that’s pretty much it. Some university friends of mine also know of this blog’s existence but they are not really into this type of stuff. I don’t find this weird at all, as people have their own interests and ways of reaching out to others. I do, share a bit about blogging to them, occasionally.

 

9. Do you have any non geeky hobbies?

Most of my hobbies are considered geeky by Google, so I guess that just leave some sports that I do when I have free time. I’d go jogging on weekends with a couple of friends/my brother and before this pandemic actually started, I was getting into playing volleyball with a few coursemates. The lessons that I realised was, Haikyuu!!’s volleyball is on another level and ball-setting is a lot tougher than how Kageyama made it seems to be.

 

10. Describe the room you are writing this blog from!

Yes, with a pinterest picture! My blogging room is actually just a flippable table similar to the picture above so that I could flip it whenever I’m frustrated of which on the upper layer, I placed a small calendar, a small voyage ship named ‘CONFECTION’, a small Statue of Liberty, a metal pen holder with a metal stickman holding a saxaphone beside… A headset is hanged on the wall, as well as a few pictures, with one of them being this.

 

11. Free space, feel free to promote, post pictures, link to other blogs or go wild! Show us you on a plate… but not a real plate.

Go.. wild?

 

Continuing with Keiko’s Questions:

12. If you could create your own anime, what would it be about?

Hmmm.. nah.

 

12. Please answer the question above.

It’s so tough to decide on just one story setting when there are so many possibilities. I would probably go with something tagged with shounen, (a bit) comedy, adventure, fantasy and action like:

“ In a distant future, Ao wakes up to a post-apocalyptic world where the cities are engulfed by nature, and dominated by wild animals. Unable to speak or shout, he frantically runs into the city hoping to search for some clues to as to what had happened. Incidentally, he encountered a gang of survivors that is savaging a convenience store. And their name instantly pops into his mind.

Kuro, is the black-eyed boy that is drinking vinegar; Midori, is the girl with green hoodie and wearing earphones; Shiro, is the white-haired boy that is blindfolded and Aka, is the girl with robotic arms, wearing a red scarf. All of them, including him have a ring with the same color to their name, and the time display is counting down from 24 hours.  

Having no recollections of their past, with dangerous mutated beasts wandering around the city, toxic plants that could seemingly crawl, ticking time and extreme weathers, what can they do to survive this madness? But most importantly—what the heck is happening? ”

[Written by Anime as a Cup of Tea]

 

13. What is your current favourite way to pass time other than anime?

Other than.. anime? Excluding my non-geeky ones, my geeky ones would be surfing Popcorn Time to choose movies to watch, play some RPG games or just spending some time to watch tv with my family. Every once in a while, I’d take up some new tasks that interest me like playing Mitsuha’s theme on the piano (which is actually online piano keyboard) or learning Japanese (now memorising Katakana).

 

14. What type of characters are your favourite in anime?

I enjoy characters that can do their hardest to pull off something whenever they are needed to, yet has a fun and playful side to them. Like Ranpo, from Bungou Stray Dogs.

 

15. What is your go to drink?

Green tea on rainy seasons, iced lemon tea for refreshing purposes, bottled Oolong tea when I’m outside travelling and pretty much any carbonated beverages when I’m exhausted.

 

16. Is there a genre of anime you have yet to try?

I’ve tried out all the major anime genres (action, adventure, fantasy..) but for the subgenres, I have yet to try cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic and martial arts. There are also yaoi and yuri which I do not really intend to try, unless you can convince me to.

 

17. What is your favourite dessert?  

Chocolates, of any kind.

 

18. What anime food do you really want to try?

There are plenty of Japanese restaurants here that serve the typical foods we see in anime. So, if I have a chance and some time, I’d like to make a homemade bento because although it’s simple but something about it makes it seems really, really appealing.

 

19. What was the last anime you watched?

Yona of the Dawn. It surpassed my expectation and reminded me of Fruits Basket’s approach to the male characters inside. The plot is interesting, and it’s fun with the serious tone and comic relief changing in between. It also has beautiful and breathtaking Eastern instrumental music to set up the mood. I’d recommend this to you if you enjoyed Fruits Basket. It’s a pity that it doesn’t have a second season yet.

 

20. What’s your favourite song right now?

Right now would be ‘Lost Game’ by nulbarich, which is one of the theme songs from an anime movie (Hello World) and it prompted me to create an AMV for it.

 

21. Do you think you’ll ever stop watching anime, even for a short time?

I think I will, for a few months/weeks during my degree’s final year. Or, when I run out of anime to watch, which is more likely to force me to rewatch some of my favorites than not watching anything at all.

 

22. Is there an anime that inspires you?

Your Name was the anime that inspired me to start this almost-2-year-blogging-journey, Violet Evergarden was the anime that showed me what anime can achieve, and A Place Further Than The Universe was the anime that helped me to take my first step engaging in many events I’ve never had to chance to. Like a musical concert in my universitry, a Bon Odori dance held in a stadium, two anime conventions, and a 4-days-3-nights road trip with the some university friends.

 

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Nominations:

• Lynn Sheridan from The Otaku Author
• tcrow from Crow’s World of Anime
• 7mononoke from Anime Rants
• Al’s Manga Blog
• Yomu from Umai Yomu Anime Blog

 

The 11 Questions:

1. Umbrella, or no umbrella on a sunny day with pouring rain?
2. Remember any perfect day in your life?
3. A fictional character (anime, manga, movies.. ) that you’d like to hug?
4. Sunny, rainy, foggy, windy.. which weather do you prefer, why?
5. Ugly characters with beautiful stories, or beautiful characters with moderate stories?
6. Name the anime/manga that you’re watching/reading now.
7. Some ficitional characters that you’d like to slap?
8. Horror-genre movies/anime/manga, what would be your top 3 picks?
9. If you could travel to only one country in your lifetime, what would it be?
10. Naivety in characters, what are your thoughts on it?
11. Eleven words that you like to use?

 

The Sunshine Blogger Award is given to those who are creative, positive, and inspiring, while spreading sunshine to the blogging community.

In the spirit of this award, I’d like to end in a positive note. My exact words to you are already written and hidden inside the 11 questions. Although it’s a cheap trick, but I’ll see if you can figure it out. Well.. this was fun. Thanks for reading, and for being a part of the sunshine in this blogging community!