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Showing posts from September, 2015

A Guide to Anime Images

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Whether you are a fan or a blogger, or somewhere in between, anime images tend to fascinate a good amount of the population. However, unless someone is extremely computer savvy or knowledgeable about search engines, many anime-image websites may be hard to find. Even if you can find them, their reason for existence may not be clear. So if you're having trouble finding the images you need, please take a look at this post. As a Graphic Designer and Blogger, I can definitely provide you with some of the best resources. There's more to images than a pretty picture, and there's a lot to look out for when it comes to using and finding anime imagery. Brief Explanation If you already know about the basics of image types, searching, and other tools, feel free to skip over this brief explanation. If not please read this section! When it comes to searching for anime-related images, the most important thing is to understand what your goal is. If you're just an

Anime and Life: Old and New

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Hello, and apologies for the lack of blog posts again. Before I begin this post, I would like to give a shout-out to Albert at his blog A Sound Upgrade , for providing me with this post idea through Shooting Star Dreamer's suggestion box. If you want to see something else on my blog or want to spotlight a certain anime or individual, please take advantage of this new feature! It can be located under Suggestions in my blog header. Moving on, let us begin! Before I began writing and creating Shooting Star Dreamer, anime used to not matter much to me. When I got into anime for the first time, which was around middle school, I mostly relied on others thoughts and opinions. One of the first anime I watched was Vampire Knight , which is a shoujo series. I mainly got into this anime because my friends were always talking about it, which led to my curiosity.  Anime and Life: The Old Anime just felt like a party to me, that I could attend whenever I wanted. However, I only saw

Unique and Unusual: Anime Openings and Endings

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Contrary to yesterday's post, today's will be a more lighter topic. The subject of focus is anime openings and endings that stand out from the rest, or are just exceptionally good. I think an opening is very important for an anime, and can either put off the audience or attract them. Many people do end up skipping both the opening and endings, but likewise, many of those people will watch them at least once. From the view of the producer, creating an opening that has good music and animations is hard. What's even harder is creating one that is good enough to snag viewers upon their first hearing, while not becoming dull upon further replays. So with all that in mind its pretty easy to see that anime openings and endings take a lot of work. How about we move on to a few that, in my opinion, stand out from a few of the rest? For those who can't see the posted videos, I have include the song name and anime in hopes that you can find them at your own leisure!

The Power of Body Swapping in Anime

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Although not always brought into the spotlight, the term body swap,  (along with gender-bender and gender swap) has been present in anime for the longest time. Body swap involves an exchange between two people, typically a male and a female, in which they inhabit the other's body for a period of time. These anime may be seen as weird and unusual, but are there hidden meanings behind these series? In a way, body swap can be seen as a curse or a power. There are instances of it appearing as both, but for the sake of this post we will only be examining the positive. For one, body swap does something that's usually not seen in a real life situation, at least in the same shape or form. Swapping with someone allows you to experience their version of the world, contrary to experiencing your own most of the time. Of course, such an experience opens many opportunities for both sides. Unfortunately, I do not have much experience with anime that feature these activities, so I won&#