Don’t look at me with those puppy dog eyes T_T

So I’ve decided to take a break from blogging, one which I’m pretty sure will last more than one week XD Then again, AniAri is in no way comparable to randomc, which boasts a hit counter over 500x that of ours >_<

Now above all, I’d like to make it clear that I am NOT quitting blogging nor am I abandoning this blog. I will definitely return in full force when I feel I’m ready to do so.

With university bearing down on me and finals fast approaching, I’m simply not in a position to post with any sort of competence at the moment.

Lately I’ve been forcing myself to do weekly episode summaries and thoughts, and to be honest, it began to feel more like an obligation than anything else. That’s not the reason I started blogging, I started because I felt that it would be fun to jump into the community, to express and share my thoughts on all things anime. Somewhere in these past few months that meaning has been lost and I ended up as a drone pumping out episode summary after episode summary. With that in mind and the inevitability of school consuming most of my time anyways, it felt like a natural decision to take a break.

I’m still going to be watching anime, nothing will ever stop me from doing that. However, with the mass influx of new bloggers and various time constraints, my resolution to post has been weakened. So until I feel that I can offer something different to the scene, It would be better for me to step down.

My current plan is to remain on hiatus until winter break, which for me starts on December 18th, about a month from now. At that point I will decide whether I am ready to return to the scene. If not, I will delay my return until the start of the next (winter) season. If I’m not back by then, Soda will send an armed task force to my house to torture me until I agree to come back.

In either case, what is certain is that I will change my style of blogging when I start posting again. Having started with detailed episode summaries, I realize that they’re not for me. With the mass amount of other blogs already providing the same thing, there’s simply no point in overflowing the community with more of the same.

I’m not sure exactly what alternatives I have…but I’ll probably do episode posts where I summarize the main idea of the episode within a sentence or two, then dedicate the rest of the entry to thoughts and speculation. Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of employing a ranking chart whereby I rank various series episode by episode on a scale of 10, and analyze the results at the end of the season statistically.

That coupled with more randomness/editorial type posts sums up what I’m aiming for upon my return.

Until then, Soda will still be here, posting on his seemingly bi-weekly schedule. I know he’s busy as well and I don’t want to put any burden on him to post more in my absence, so anything from him is a bonus ^^.

Should I feel really bored or if I stumble upon something really interesting (more Haruhi cosplay anyone =D?), you might still see the occasional post from me. But my weekly installments on Death Note, Tokimeki, YoakeYori and Negima!? are no more.

So to all those few readers out there, I apologize. However, I will be back! I won’t let this blog fall into the category of those who faded out within months of creation, I suspect Soda will fight against that fate as well. But in the end, blogging is something that you should have fun doing, not feel like it’s a chore. Until that feeling returns to me, I don’t think it would be fair to myself or to any readers out there to force my writing.

So until then, ja matta ne!

~ Shirukii ~