Except apparently there’s some lame blog called chaosderivative or something and it’s run by some third-rate snob who thinks it’s his place to call Amagami SS ‘crass.’ I did pick that up.

But moving on—someone somewhere said that the cafeteria scene warranted more attention than the kneepit-kissing scene. Yeah it did. Because while the kneepit-kissing scene is just a mashup for Clannad’s PE storage room (with the obligatory nod to Jason) and Kimikiss’s Mao-knee-kissing scene, the debacle in the school cafeteria is, as far as I’ve seen new territory.

From a conversation I shared with lelangir earlier,

6:59:51 PM LK: the fucking cafeteria scene shit man
7:00:06 PM LK: that’s legit one of the hottest things i’ve seen in a ¬hentai
7:00:39 PM LK: fuck that
7:00:47 PM LK: that was legit one of the hottest things i’ve seen.

When I watched the first episode of this show, I believe I meeled something like “I AM DISAPPOINT.” And here I am now, certain that Amagami SS will be my favorite this season if not this year. And why? Because I am projecting humanity upon the characters.

Maybe chaostangent is right when he says that the characters are [barely even] archetypes. Maybe all the win in this episode was unintentional. Maybe the cafeteria scene was just the Japanese being Japanese—therefore, weird. Maybe the cafeteria scene is a fluke.

But I don’t want it to be.

So I asked myself: if these were humans, real living breathing eating sleeping loving hating crying laughing humans, what would they be thinking during this (more than fairly) bold roleplay session in the school cafeteria?

Think about it.

For Morishima to play along, to acquiesce. She’s not a total idiot. She’s not just looking for an interesting meal.

For Tachibana to step up, to instigate. He’s not a total idiot. He’s not just trying to make lunchtime interesting.

Allow me to don my Captain Obvious face: there’s something more going on here!

It’s that something more that makes Haruka restlessly kick her legs as she lies on her couch thinking about lunch. It’s that something more that makes her shiver, it’s that something more that makes her giggle until she starts sobbing. This is leaps and bounds beyond the ‘deep insights into the female’s thoughts’ we see in other shows of a similar genre: usually some irrational brooding, or, less frequently, simpleminded excitement.

What I see is a feeling that can cause an upstanding and respected member of the fairly rigid Japanese high school culture to put her arms behind her back and play along with an extremely sexualized hostage spoon-feeding fantasy in the middle of her school’s cafeteria.

I might call it “thrill,” something I don’t think is realistically represented often if at all in anime.

And maybe I’m a tool of my own psyche.

But I am thrilled for Amagami SS.

I would do a retrospective like lelangir did, but it wouldn’t be too interesting—every few points would be interspersed with “then lolikit gave up aniblogging in an emo rage fit, and closed down notdotq for five months.” Not that I ever stayed away for long, but…

… I do have a habit for, shall we call them, disappearances.

Instead of a retrospective, let’s do a highlights, and without dates, because I care more about the feelings than I do the historical accuracies:

- after one year of animeblogging, notdotq is born on wordpress.com, one of the handful of “first” anime blogs to use wordpress.com, along with jp meyer’s fairy tale of love and courage.

- Jason Miao promises to put notdotq on Blogsuki.

- Jason Miao removes newcomer RIUVA from Blogsuki, refuses to put notdotq on.

- Various bedraggled anibloggers realize that Jason is a cancer.

- Hung builds AnimeNaNo, invites Jason Miao.

- I start spreading my name by creating and maintaining the AnimeNaNo IRC channel. The community is thriving. Mr. Pippers is still an aniblogger.

- Jason still doesn’t join AnimeNaNo.

- So there are no killer lolis in Higurashi, mmmkay?

- Jason says that Japanese anibloggers are better than English-speaking anibloggers. Reason: graphs.

- Beginning of holy anti-Jason crusade.

- Oh by the way Haruhi sucks balls.

- I go to France, where I finish Fate/Stay-night and die a premature death due to suck. While in France, AnimeNaNo takes off like a flock of majestic birds, Japes becomes my friend, and Haruhi 12 blows me away.

- Hung, Japes, and Hinano–later, Japes’ girlfriend, now, his wife–start the AnimeNaNo podcast. Pips and I parody: podcast.dotq.org.

- wait, this is turning into a chronological recounting. SHIT.

Okay. Deep breath.

Here are my top ten moments in animeblogging.

#10. The founding of AnimeNaNo. Shit was so cash.

#9. Blogging Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora, Sola, and Aria the Origination with Shirukii.

#8. That time a newbie added me to her initial blogroll along with the big names–Jason, Jeff, Japes, Omo, etc.

#7. Baka-Raptor informed me that I was the king of trolls. (Or maybe it was ‘trolling king,’ either way.)

#6. Konoe and I enjoy many philosophical discourses over AIM, I publish these discourses (“on disagreement,” etc.), ghostlightning realizes that love needs explanation just the same as hate, various anibloggers begin defending their stances more rigorously, “lolikitean” invented.

#5. Kyousora.com is registered and built. My first exercise in hilarious satirical porn stories, perhaps the genesis of my visual novel project.

#4. Graphs. So fucking many of them. Everywhere. All the fucking time.

#3. When Jason stopped posting for three months. Hell yes. This was also when lots of people (ghostlightning, lolikappa, lelangir) were posting on notdotq. I was being extremely productive and the ‘sphere was looking happy.

#2. Miao on My Mind.

#1. So, CCY-senpai, I herd u were maiking a gaem?

I’m going to stop the nostalgia train here because I’m not being very coherent or classy. This was really just a poor excuse to post more.

Love and peace and rock my song,
-Dr. lolikitsune

Yet these hands will never know KIRA~☆

Kaioshin Sama of internet infamy (mostly due to his trollish appearance, which in turn is mostly due to the fact that he has taste and a brain) has issued a challenge to me in the comments of one of RABURI RABURI ghostlightning-chan’s suteki My Hometown-style hippie anti-war pro-love posts. **I move away from the mic to breathe in** The post had been about how people shouldn’t mindlessly hate things, and I had sort of “derailed” (har har) the comments by my introducing my belief that love should be justified just as much as hatred, and that people should always be able to back up their evaluations of shows (and studios).

While we were on the topic of thinking and challenging oneself to be more critical, Kaioshin said:

And if you are looking for a challenge I have one for you. Find me something good that Jason Miao did in terms of blogging……..ever. I have a feeling that I’ve sent you on a wild goose chase, but this could prove interesting nonetheless.

I could point at the sky walls of this blog and yell “Who the hell do you think I am?!” but, as some shrewd observers might observe, the Jason Miao love evident on this site is merely high-level mendacity in its most convoluted form. I have no love for Jason Miao. I am not his biggest fanboy. I cannot point at his forced memes and say “BEHOLD!” while crushing Kaioshin’s challenge in his face.

Two drills, of hand and tail combined—the unison of Vindication, Loli-Kitsu!!

Well, I could. But shouldn’t there be some limit to how sarcastic I can be?

Having decided to take Kaioshin’s challenge seriously, I shall now present unto the aniblogosphere the two and a half good things Jason Miao has done “in terms of blogging,” which I take to mean both “behavior helpful to anibloggers” and “spectacularly legendary blog posts that stimulate the ‘sphere.”

2.5 – Jason Miao liberated Sixten

Were it not for Jason Miao, aniblogosphere illustrator-commenter extraordinaire Sixten would not be the appreciable source of lulz he currently is. Yes, in order to unleash Sixten’s Miao Diary upon the world Jason first had to indenture the poor guy and give him one hell of a complex. Check out this quote:

I am not taking commissions right now, except from family members or Jason Miao (who can always get work from me for free if they ask nicely). – Sixten, Artists are cheap

My interpretation? This guy is whipped.

In any event, it is fact that Sixten was bound to Jason and it is fact that Jason set him free. This is perhaps the best thing Jason has done character-wise; it reflects well on him. I wouldn’t say it’s the best thing he’s done in terms of blogging (hence this point only being ranked #2.5), but it’s pretty good. The Sixten we know today is breaking people everywhere while producing and sharing enjoyable artwork. He’s a positive force in the aniblogosphere, using his art to comment on developments in the community.

It’s good to have the present-day Sixten, and for that, I thank Jason Miao.

1.5 – Jason Miao ran Blogsuki horribly

Because Jason was an elitist prick and Blogsuki was nothing more than Jason Miao’s personal feed reader masquerading as a service to the aniblogocircle, there was room for Hung to come on stage, create Animeなの, and weave a basket from the lonely reeds.

Had Jason run Blogsuki well, the aniblogosphere would have evolved very differently. It’s a good thing he fucked up.

What? “How did he fuck up,” you ask?

Well, riddle me this. Can you load Blogsuki? Fuck off.

It’s good to have the present-day ‘sphere, and for that, I thank Jason Miao.

0.5 – Jason Miao is the aniblogosphere’s Virgin Mary

I always pin my genesis as an aniblogger on Fred Gallagher, because one of his Megatokyo rants got me to watch AIR, and that was around the time I was a regular poster on the AnimeSuki forums, through which I encountered Lovely Kitsune. And this is with good reason, for were it not for Lovely Kitsune I would have no idea what anime blogs are. He was also the one to introduce me to blogrolls (I remember he hated bluemist for placing him on his blogroll) and AIM blocks (I hero-worshipped him because I didn’t know better).

From my first post regarding the 2008 Anime Blog Awards:

Lovely Kitsune blogged epic on AIR, and it’s arguable that without him I would not have started anime blogging, and that without that, ANO’s IRC channel would have never been created, and that without that, the ANO community might never have come together, and well… the possibilities run wild from there. But basically, Jason Miao would still run the aniblogosphere.

But all that said, Lovely Kitsune merely gave me awareness. The one who propelled me into creating “notdotq, seriously!” and the lolikitsune persona was none other than Jason Miao. Thanks to his hard work creating this post, singularity was avoided and the present we know is the true and correct present.

I’ll have you notice a few things about this post of his: first, it’s tongue-in-cheek, second, it’s funny, and third, it’s mostly useful. Unbelievable, right? I mean, this is Jason Miao we’re talking about!

… it’s high time I check my quality rating again.

But I digress! Back on the topic of hand, that post got me to begin blogging anime. Now, I ask that you look around you. Were it not for me, would Animeなの’s community have developed as it did? Take a moment to chew on that one. Would Dr. Japes and Hinano be getting married? Would Os have cycled through four team blogs or would he have given up when his friends in KonOSono bailed on him? Would Owen have ever begun blogging? Would he have formed the ABC? Would I have met Author and Sixten? Would I be making a crappy visual novel?

THAT would not have been formed.
Riex would not have joined THAT.
Riex would not have been unhappy with THAT.
Riex would not have launched Oi, Hayaku!
ghostlightning would not have started his blog.

All these “what ifs” build on each other’s shoulders. Really, it’s a circle jerk of hypotheticals, and I could ramble in Aozora Loops about the possibilities, but I think that there are some fairly simple chains of events leading from that one post of Jason’s in early 2006 to the aniblogosphere we frolic around in daily as 2008 comes to a close.

I’m not trying to say that I’m the central pillar of the EL aniblogging community (though I might if I were being less serious). I’m just pointing at the fact that Jason Miao set great things in motion, albeit unintentionally.

So I’d like to be the Raigyo to Jason’s white-haired children, and say this:

“Look at the seed you planted in me. Look how well I took care of it.”

I like the baby monsters given birth to by AoMM’s Echidna, and for that, I thank Jason Miao. Awwww yeah, I just went Greek mythology on your asses. What? You want the good ol’ Bible Bitchslap? Fine. Fuckin’ “monotheists.” Well, buckle up and brace for impact because I’m about to e-jaculate all over your keyboards:

Jason Miao is the Virgin Mary to my Jesus Christ, and for that, I thank him.

Hopefully, the above picture and the one right before it help illustrate the differences between Christianity and Greek mythology: Christianity got rid of the furries and taught people to be ego-centric. Who the fuck needs siblings? Not Jesus Christ.

Well, I’d say I’ve thanked Jason Miao enough. *retches*

Now I’d like to thank Kaioshin Sama for giving me the opportunity to give thanks where thanks were due. I can now return to hating Jason Miao to my Heart’s Content!

P.S. YES I AM THE MOTHER-FUCKING ANIBLOG MESSIAH.

P.P.S.

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was U Jason
Tell the TRUTH Jason
Miao knocked down the towers
Tell the TRUTH Jason
Miao knocked down the towers

P.P.P.S. IN B4 “TOO SOON”

Fuck.

Well that’s just fabulous. So what I thought I’d do was, I’d stop my “Rage Against The Jason” long enough to pull some kind of “hahaha just kidding!!” gag. Figured it’d be funny. Figured it’d be hiiiiilarious. The plan was simple: I’d rename notdotq “Miao on My Mind,” I’d float my layout down a river of jasonisms, and then I’d ride on the wave of my readers’ cum.

The plan was, as stated, simple. And so I executed it flawlessly.

I renamed notdotq “Miao on My Mind.”

I floated my layout down a river of jasonisms.

But.

I guess that there was a hidden “???” step I missed out on, though, because my plan has gone horribly wrong. I’m not profiting. If anything, my coffers are being depleted. Rapidly. If this goes on much longer, I will lose all means of waging war against the monster. I will lose… everything.

As we speak, I’m rowing and rowing against the river of jasonisms I myself caused to spring forth from the metaphorical spring. It’s like my month’s work has become an oppressive power, and I find myself forced by my morals and learning to fight it.

Fuck.

This is my “remorse” face pose.

I know what I did wrong. It’s the inside jokes. I left them open to interpretation, to those of you who weren’t familiar with them. You might not have understood that my use of “oh geass no” in a recent post was my attempt at lampooning Jason for his idiocy. In fact, you didn’t. You thought that my alleged “love” for Jason was true, that it was real. You probably thought you could reach out and touch it, and you probably did reach out, and you probably touched something.

The truth is that I have, in my attempts at satire, in my attempts at parody, in my attempts at destruction, legitimized idol-worship of Jason Miao.

This is Jason raping me and, by extension, the entire EL aniblogosphere.

I will never forgive myself.

Look at Oi, Hayaku! It’s this shit-awful team aniblog that sprung up a little over a month ago. Its pretentious-as-all-fuck prima donna ringleader, Riex, has promised us an “aniblogging revolution.” He promised us a new era, and above that he promised us awesome. He assembled a kick-ass score of gifted writers. Unfortunately, all but one of these were aware of how much Jason Miao blows.

I can only guess that, being the enlightened individuals they are, Riex’s bitches took it upon themselves to read my blog when researching the ‘sphere. It’s a beacon of intelligence, after all, right? Fuck.

And what did they take away? They took away that Jason Miao is the end-all, be-all of anibloggerality and that his method is a method that will pierce the drivel of the modern aniblogging scene. Oh, how wrong. Oh, how misled. Jason Miao’s methods won’t call in a new era. Jason Miao’s methods won’t change anything for the better. Jason Miao is a staple of the old-age aniblogosphere, the one-time tyrant of Blogsuki, the desecrator of good shows and proponent of filth. Jason Miao is a demon, and following in his footsteps is like being the confessor to his Zange-chan. Using his forced memes is like being the art club to his Nagi-sama.

This is what’s happening, and it’s not even behind the scenes.

I’m not trying to say anything bad about Oi, Hayaku. They’re good people. I know that the harsh logorrhea is flowing, but that’s just my mood.

I’m not trying to say that Oi, Hayaku has nothing to offer to the ‘sphere. As I said, it’s more full of good writers than your mom’s vagina is of flutes.

Oi, Hayaku could indeed be great.

But not like this.

And I’m a nice guy. Like Akari, I’m wishing for your happiness. I want Oi, Hayaku to succeed. I want it to revolutionize the aniblogosphere. I want it to rock hard. So I’ll give the fellows over there a piece of advice: it’s not too late. You can still turn back.

beanbrew. Maggeh. However many others of you think that jasonisms are all the rage.

Fuck, I don’t care who you are.

Don’t feed the monster.

Others and I worked our fingers to the bone breaking his hegemony in June 2006. Hung of BasuGasuBakuhatsu and AnimeNaNo is the main star to thank, what with making Blogsuki useless. But there are dozens. Drm and tj han, who stood up to the abuse they and others received. Corydorf, who encouraged me to wage my all-out war against the then-Anime on My Mind. Everyone who made fun of Jason in IRC. Everyone. Everyone worked together, as a team, to defeat the beast.

tj han fields tripeman against jason

And we succeeded. The community thrived outside of Jason’s grasp. We made a world where new anibloggers could set up their sites without knowing about Jason.

And now, more than two years later, those new anibloggers, in their ignorance, are about to be the Hebrews to my God—they’re going to ignore my warnings, my words of wisdom, and they’re going to worship false idols. The message of this paragraph is not that anyone should worship me. It just seems like it is. Seriously. I’m almost writing stream of consciousness here. Why all the punctuation? Shit, man. I think in punctuation.

Anyway.

Don’t do this. You don’t need to. You can find your own funny, and you can use it to power a new generation in the aniblogosphere. You don’t need Jason. He’s a blighting influence. Purge him from your systems. (I’m mixing metaphors so fast you’d think this was an alchemist’s NASCAR track!)

How do trains resemble race cars? Let me count the ways…

But. I can’t talk of myself as if I were a saint, or the chemo, or what have you. Oi, Hayaku’s writers beanbrew and Maggeh drew to my attention my most grievous mistake: I took my satire too far. I obfuscated my sarcasm. People took me seriously. They thought I loved Jason. They interpreted my parroting as adulation. Have they not watched the Colbert Report? But I cant blame them for a lack of insightfulness. I can only blame myself for failing to communicate.

I can only blame myself, and ask that the ‘sphere reconsider. That Oi, Hayaku reconsider.

I repeat: it’s not too late.

You can still turn back.

Mid-post Breaking News!
This just in: Otou-san divulges the fact that Oi, Hayaku’s shittiness is all a ploy to put me out of business.

I was going to add, at the end of this post, that I was at least touched that Maggeh imitated me ( Exhibit A :: a recent graph of mine | Exhibit B :: a more recent graph of Maggeh’s ). But now I see. This whole thing was merely a plot to steal my crown? Fuck that shit. Oi, Hayaku must not receive Best Satire or Funniest at ABA 2009. I’m donning my “fuck these shits” outfit.

This is my “fuck these shits” face.

How can anyone read this guy? His postings are rife with grammatical errors in every other sentence, an obnoxiously obstinate insistence on misspelling transliterated Japanese words instead of correctly spelling those same words translated into English, unimaginative alliteration, the repeated mistake of referring to perfectly sane characters in anime as some variation on insane (we had “killer lolis” with Higurashi, and now we have “crazy chix0rz” with ChäoS;HEAd? Come on, big boy, you can do this! Comprehend that the lens we’re seeing them through is what’s insane!), tired forced memes (“oh geass no?” He doesn’t even put emphasis into these things anymore), acronyms without the <acronym> tag, abbreviations without the <abbr> tag, initialisms without the <abbr> tag, text-transform:uppercase lulz, lyrics from some dancing animu, the list goes on…

In one post alone he has managed to touch bases with all ten of his bad habits, several of them upwards of three times. This guy is a genius like Rock Lee—a genius of failure.

Couple thoughts… one, I’m sure that the fansubbers know what "hooking up" means… and it’s perfect is Tomoya was serious about him and Mei-chan being alone without any regard for their future. Though I just can’t picture that from Tomoya who passed up a Kyou buffet and can barely hold Nagisa’s hand. We’re to expect that he’s, uh, more of man with Mei?

Totally incomprehensible.

And to make things worse? This guy is watching Clannad. Now that I really didn’t need—or want—to know.

I apologize for this post, and so should Jason. It wasn’t what I wanted to spend the first thirty minutes of my Tuesday doing. It wasn’t on any to-do lists, and it didn’t advance any of my agendas. It was a very spur-of-the-moment, Zaitcev-level reactionary type thing, and it just had to happen; moreover, the toilet seat cover.