Blog in Review: Eternity is having dinner out?

Introduction



Now there are blogs that do short recaps about what is going on in the industry. There are blogs that do episode summaries. There are even blogs that have funny dialogue between the various members of the blogs. There are even blogs that disect every series with the seriousness of an academic paper.

But I can count on one hand the amount of blogs that I've found that take on harem and magical girl shows the way that CCY's "What is eternity doing tonight?" does. In fact, just taking a look through his participation in the Anime Blogging Collective's 12 (or 18 in this case) days of Christmas, we get a look at Kanon, Da Capo, Tsukihime and Shuga Chara.

So let's take a look through Cameron's eyes about What eternity is doing tonight?

(In the effort of full disclosure, I do suscribe and read this blog frequently).



Content



So what's so appealing about a blog that pretty much solely focuses on magical girl shows and visual novel adaptations? The answer is a whole lot. Now I'll admit, I don't really watch the same kind of shows CCY does. The whole thought of a love tetrahedron sends me into hives. And the what passes as comedy in harem shows makes me shudder. But CCY usually can pick a topic and disect it down to the core.

In fact, let's take one of my favorite posts of his, "The Survival of the Moest". Now this post tracks about about 1,000 words, which is pretty average for one of CCYs posts. In comparison, this is generally on the long side at most sites. We start with a pretty general introduction about Marmalade Boy, leading into a discussion of genre. What's astounding about this post is the fact that he leads in with a thread, takes a turn in the discussion to talk about the shoujo genre in general and closes on that topic.

That general structure holds true for most of the posts. They start with general (seemingly unrelated) statement connect it with the real point he's trying to make and then fleshes out that point. What's amazing is that most of the time that thread holds.

The problem is that it doesn't always hold. CCY's strength is that he can take a thread and expound a good point from it. Where his posts start to dip is when he loses that focus. For example, his 12th day of Christmas post about Myself;Yourself weaves in and out, but doesn't have a solid point. Now some of this might be an expectation that the reader has seen the episode he's refering to and some of it might be that he's trying not to spoil it for the reader, but in a lot of ways it doesn't stick together.



But in all honesty, it's pretty rare for his posts.



The other thing is he does focus on magical girl and harem shows pretty much exclusively. Which isn't neccesarily a bad thing. I'm all about a blogger blogging about what he or she wants to blog about, but it can limit the enjoyment of some of his jokes. Which for blog posts like his physics related, Schrodinger's cat post, can be a bit of a killer. But if you keep up with the same shows that he does, you will be fine.



Format



To be honest, I was going to complain that he didn't have access to his archives on the front page of the site, but he's got it now. Although mostly, it's through tags. I'm still a little unsure about the usefulness of tags myself when it comes to blogs, but I would like a date archive. That's just me though.



As far as the readability of the site, it's pretty much black and white, no frills. Which in all honesty is a good thing. He does incorporate a good deal of visuals, which in some cases is helpful if they're related to the text. But in some cases they do slow down my browser enough when I'm scrolling through to be a little bit annoying. So I would say that's a wash.



What I really like are the changing banners. Again, these are somewhat in-jokes, but they do give the page some personality, and it's pretty easy to distinguish what the blog is all about right from the get go.



Conclusion



Somebody else, who runs a better blog than this, said about What is eternity doing tonight, "I don't know what it is about this blog, but CCY can take apart a harem show like no other." And I think that's the best way to sum it up. While you may not get all the references, even if you don't care about the shows, it's an interesting blog to read anyway.



The only people who might not like it are people who actively hate the shows CCY pulls apart. In fact, those are the people that may want to stay away from this blog. But other than that, I'd say Whatever eternity is doing, it's sure doing it right.



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Agree or disagree? Leave a comment or email iniksbane@gmail.com