November. The month of the constellation Scorpio in the zodiac. Not a month that I particularly like indeed, for many reasons. The blog theme for the month is Negate November, which I know many of you will find strange, for how can November be negated? Indeed I had the hardest time looking for something that meant “dark” or “subdued” starting with the letter “n”, so this is the worst I could come up with. I do believe there is a “negate” (where the “e” is read the same as the “e” in “end”, so “ne-gah-tae” is the pronunciation, I was too lazy to look for the symbol), but since I am not too sure on that, I just went with what I knew. And now, we move on to some important topics.
Just as a brief overall look, I will talk about the blog theme first, before moving onto my request for writers, and then my request for song translators and the songs that I wanted to get done translating through others’ help. I will also touch on Team Blue in the last part, as a minor topic. The above image is the blue witch, I have no idea of her name, from the eroge Majodo.
In The Shadow of the Stars, art done by Greg Martin.
Blog Theme – Negate November
Since it is a rather negative theme, to reflect my subdued presence for the month, I switched back to the old color scheme. I know a lot of you are not happy with it, but this is easier on my eyes for those from the old-school times. You are all probably more familiar with bright blogs and hence why you dislike this – your eyes do not adjust well to the change in scheme color when you move from one website to another and more so if most of the sites you view are bright. However I am sorry, I will be keeping this color theme.
For the headers, I redid Shigyoku’s, brought back in the main header and Yoruichi’s, and added another 4 for the month’s theme. So that makes it a total of 7 headers for your perusal. One of them is kindly done by Konkona, who has just joined up as a writer here, the one of KOS-MOS Ver. 4 from Xenosaga Episode III. If I got the version wrong, please correct me, as I am still playing Xenosaga Episode 1. The other three headers were done by me. Two of them were of figures, both candidates for the Figure of the Month. One of them is String Bikini Girl by Solid Theater, and the other is Kokoro from DOAX2 Venus on the Beach, a limited version by Tecmo Webshop, made by Kotobukiya. I am expected to receive both this month.
The last header is just a ripped image, oops. I just took the whole image and added the theme’s words, so thanks to the artist who first provided that image, whoever it was.
Edit: And thanks to Hemisphere for identifying the girl as Takami Rin from the eroge series Lyrical Lyric, incidentally her figure is also in consideration as a Figure of the Month. <3
As I already mentioned in the monthly summary for October, I have yet to choose either the Anime Girl or Figure of the Month. For the latter, you may vote for your choice in the poll widget in the left sidebar (scroll down if you cannot see it), it is the only poll running right now. I will select my own Anime Girl of the Month, stop giving me suggestions that you know I do not like. You know who you are.
I will also be adding several songs to the Japanese playlist at the bottom of my blog, do most of you even know it exists? You can pop it out if you want it to keep playing in the background as a separate window. The playlist now has over 70 songs, and is set to random.
I will probably finish organizing my blogroll and adding annotations by the end of next week, putting the different categories into separate pages. It is the last page that I have yet to organize properly. If you are interested in a blog exchange, leave me a comment here.
Senhime from Sengoku Rance eroge series. Unfortunately you do not get to be with her even if you write for me.
A Formal Request for Writers/Authors on This Blog
Though I have mentioned it twice by now, I suppose this deserves largely its own space. I am going to be really concentrating on what I should have been doing all along – studying. In such circumstances, I am therefore looking for people to fill in the gap that I will leave as the author of this blog. That is not to say that I will stop blogging, but rather that I will be doing far less of it and hope that others who are interested in helping out, or blogging, will pick up the slack.
This is not a short-term solution; rather if you want to be a writer here, you can expect that you will be here for quite some time if you want to. I am not going to be forcing people to be writers, or to commit too much to the blog. You just have to post twice a month, on any or some or even most (if you feel like it) of the broad categories available that my blog sort of covers. Thus, you are not restricted to one category, and you also do not have to commit too much to the blog; I believe 2 posts per month is a very small requirement to ask out of anyone who wants to write.
Certainly, I am looking for people, but I hope that you are not part of a team blog beforehand. I do not mind if you have your own blog already, but the thing is, most team bloggers either already have their own blogs, or join a team blog precisely because they have no time to commit to their own blog, among other reasons of course. Thus, though I will not reject you simply because you are already on another team blog, I will ask that you kindly consider your choices and time as well as efforts. I do not want to “steal” other team blogs’ bloggers as well, as the real team blogs are established well, and you probably have a better time writing there than you would here. This is of course, entirely subjective.
I am also looking for people who wish to blog but have no time to commit to their own blogs, people who are interested in writing articles and posts of interest. No personal posts will be allowed, though relating otaku culture or otaku-related stuff to personal life is fine. I believe such essays, editorials, and articles will also assist others in thinking more. Even if you have no experience in this, or rather, because you may have no experience, I urge you to come forth and give it a try.
Likewise I will not reject anyone who is interested (unless I know you to be an idiot, asshole, or moron, and etc.) even if you already are part of a team blog, or own a well-known personal blog. All I will ask is that you consider your choices first and your priorities.
I look forward to seeing people get back to me regarding this. My email is pantherrh -at- gmail -dot- com, or you may also leave a comment here and I will get back to you ASAP.
There is only one other writer in this blog at the moment, she has kindly agreed to write for me, as I mentioned earlier. Konkona will be doing her introduction post tomorrow or sometime soon, so I will leave it up to her to tell you who she is and what she will blog about.
Ripped off 4Chan /w/. I have no idea who she is.
November Songs of the Week Help Request
I know I talked about this before, but since no one bothered to actually take the initiative to help me I am now forced to push them till November. This time round I am actively asking people to help me, but if you are interested in helping me translate the following four songs, send your translations to my email (see above). What I will do is combine, in the best way I can in English, all your translations as close to and as colorful as the meaning in the original lyrics, coming up with a good translation that I feel will bring out the song’s lyrics in full. Full credits will definitely be given to those who send in their translations of course. Here are the four songs in no particular order.
Title: Ai no Tame ni
Artist: Sakakibara Yui
Series: Nagasarete Airantou
Album: Nagasarete Airantou Character Image Album – Kiichatte Shima no Oto Sono ni (Insert Song)
Lyrics: Scan (Kanji only; requires romanization and translation)
Listen to the song: Ai no Tame ni by Sakakibara Yui
Title: Gen’ei
Artist: Inoue Kikuko
Series: Claymore
Album: Claymore Intimate Persona ~Character Song Shuu~
Lyrics: Kanji, AnimeLyrics (Romanji only)
Listen to the song: Gen’ei by Inoue Kikuko (Miria)
Title: sad rain
Artist: Misato Aki
Series: Blassreiter
Album: sad rain single
Lyrics: Gendou (Kanji), Gendou (Romanji), Gendou (below average English translation)
Listen to the song: sad rain by Misato Aki
Title: Kotoba wa Iranai
Artists: Atari Kousuke & Han Xue
Series: None
Album: Tane wo Maku Hibi single (Atari Kousuke)
Lyrics: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Kanji only, requires romanization and translation)
Listen to the song: Kotoba wa Iranai by Atari Kousuke & Han Xue
Notes: This is the first ever scan/picture I have seen of the lyrics. If you require the original image file, it is over 5 MB, ask me for it. Note that this song is in both Japanese and Chinese. I will be translating the Chinese parts so just translate the Japanese parts (which are Atari’s lyrics).
Omamori Himari, I have no idea from what series she may be from.
Team Blue
I will also be taking a break from Team Blue’s activites except for AFA ‘08 when we are expected to be going in quite the group. If you are interested in joining us then, please watch our team blog for further updates. Also, if you are still interested in joining Team Blue, we are always open, just look to our blog’s About page on how to join and stuff. Do watch our feed/space there!
And that rounds up this post, I guess. If you have further queries and feedback, leave your comments here, I am fine with people commenting and I encourage people to do so. Cheers!
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Topspin on 
This gives me the idea to make a theme every month too. :D
starting to miss the purple.
is there a blue witch figure?
@Kairu Ishimaru -
It is a lot of work if you are going to be doing it on a full basis, but go ahead. It can be refreshing for readers if done right. I do not have the skillz to do so though, so I only make do with banners and headers.
@k -
Lol. Unfortunately no, I never even heard of Majodo until I saw it on 4Chan recently. But yes, IIRC she is the USA counterpart of the Majodo, and I would get a figure of her too if done well.
2 posts a month? sounds very reasonable for a lazy person like me… XD
Hm wonder if I should join in as a writer, I like to write and express myself sometimes, but not all the time ^^;
@YuKi -
Expression of self for personal reasons you should own your blog for that, but I do not mind giving you a try at this. Expression of self for stuff like articles and essays, that could be a good starting point for you too. At least, you do not have to worry about technical stuff if you do not own your own blog, but write in someone else’s.
@Panther: Yea that sounds good ^^… Wait till I come back to Singapore on Nov 9 so I can further discuss on this
Well lets see a word meaning dark that starts with the letter N…
How about Noir, thou that may not give the feeling you were going for.
@TheGeek -
It was one of the first words I thought of but I could hardly make it fit or rhyme anywhere with variations of “November”.