What's writing a video for on-demand like compared to broadcast TV?

When in university, I wrote a paper about the dropping relevance of mass broadcast media (i.e. TV and radio) compared to on-demand media sources (i.e. iPlayer, MixCloud, etc) and offered potential methods to encourage watching live programming instead of watching on-demand (i.e. audience participation, gamification, etc).

But what about from a production point of view? How does developing a "TV [sic] series" intended for an on-demand service from the start vary to one intended for broadcast? Series such as "House of Cards" and the new season of "Black Mirror" are two such series. Billed as "Netflix Originals", they are created for and on-behalf of the on-demand service provider as original content designed to add additional reasoning to use their service compared to other such websites or even traditional disc-based media.

One such limitation of broadcast media is the scheduling around other programming, plus any advertising of course. Here's an example schedule for a generic "1 hour" TV programme broadcasting in the UK on a commercial channel:
11:02 Programme starts
11:14 Cut to advertisement break
11:17 Return to programme
11:29 Cut to advertisement break
11:32 Return to programme
11:44 Cut to advertisement break
11:47 Return to programme
11:58 Programme ends
12:02 Next programme

So the programme itself is actually 46 minutes long, but the adverts pad it out to a 60 minute "block". Because this amount of adverts and the timing of which is fairly standard in the UK, you can't make a 55 minute episode and expect it to be broadcast without special arrangement from the channel. Similarly, if your series is weekly, you can't make the lengths of episodes vary and expect the channel to mess with the schedule each time. You have to be consistent and roughly a standard episode length. For minor adjustments, the channel can put in some idents or trailers on top of the usual adverts to pad for time, but there's only so much they can do.

Staying on the theme of TV scheduling, you have to take into account the timings of advertisement breaks and add them into your programme yourself. You don't want the channel to cut to a break mid-sentence, do you? Scenes are often timed around the advertisement breaks if it's made for TV. They'll also be designed to keep people tuned in, as the ad breaks are when people are most likely to tune out. In other words, you want to end each part of an episode as a cliffhanger so people stay tuned in.

Also regarding time is the suitability of language and visuals for the time your programme will be broadcast. TV in the UK is well known for having a set time where content can begin to be unsuitable for children, and that's at 9pm, known as the "watershed". After this time, strong language, violence, etc is permitted, though this isn't a binary rule as the further away from the watershed it is (the later at night it is), the more appropriate said content is. You will have to make your programme taking into account the time of day it will be shown and, thus, the audience watching it. Radio doesn't have a set watershed, and instead relies on being particularly aware of the audience and whether those who would be offended are expected to be listening at the time broadcast. Side note: This makes broadcasting anything particularly strong on radio very dangerous and is why I am very keen on not having any swearing on my show, even though I could probably argue that kids won't be listening to it.


So where does this leave on-demand? Well, for the most part, premium on-demand services have no advertisements within the programmes, so there's no concern about timing scenes to finish at the right moments and taking into account the breaks, etc. This isn't true for all services, though. Were Channel 4, for example, to create programming exclusive to on-demand with no intent to broadcast them ever, the programmes will still have advertisement breaks within the episodes as that's how Channel 4 is funded. As such, there wouldn't be much change in production timing compared to broadcasting it. However, for all platforms, there's now no issue in the length of the episodes, as there's no further programming to fit in around. Episodes could vary from 50 minutes to 150 minutes for specials without needing to clear it with the channel scheduling first. This allows for a lot more creative freedom in creating programmes as there may be moments that would've been cut out to shrink the episode down to a single block, or scenes could've been dragged out to fill the full block.

What does make a difference however, regardless of on-demand platform, is the age gating of content compared to watersheds and audience estimation. On-demand services have parental controls and other settings to restrict or limit access to stronger material for those more sensitive to it. As such, knowing when your programme will be viewed isn't an issue any more, as the platform will do the protection work for you.


One last note is that, while programming may be made for on-demand in the first instance, it may still be considered for broadcasting in future as an additional revenue stream. In which case, it could regardless be formatted around hypothetical advert breaks in the event that this happened in the future. Same goes for the length of the episode. Until broadcast TV dies a death completely, I suspect this will be the way to go unless the on-demand company takes control of all rights of the series in question (Netflix Originals, for example, will almost certainly never be on another streaming service or on TV).

For a quick example of a series taking this extra freedom in its stride, take a look at Black Mirror. Originally made for Channel 4, the episodes were 44 minutes long save for the two longer specials ("Fifteen Million Merits" and "White Christmas"). At 44 minutes, that's similar to the example I made up above and covers for the advert breaks and idents/trailers. Season 3 is Netflix exclusive and so far the runtimes have been 63, 57, 52, 61, 60 and 89 minutes. A range of 11 minutes across the first five, then a movie length finale to the series. Considering each episode is self-contained, this series in paticular makes good use of the freedom to vary the length of each episode and not feel confined to television scheduling. Of course, you need a guideline length of time to aim for, which is why it's still around an hour, but it means you can adjust it to be perfect, rather than settling for what fits a TV slot.

Let's talk about letting/estate agents...

So I'm working on permanently moving out from my parents' house right now. I want a place to live in an okay area, with parking and two bedrooms. I've got my price range and all the right answers the letting agents want to hear.

1) I work full time on a permanent contract, so no guarantor needed.
2) No pets.
3) No smoking.
4) No kids.
5) I've rented once before.

I'm, basically, the perfect tenant in their eyes.

SO WHY, I ask you, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO GET VIEWINGS?

I went to all the letting agents in Crewe the other day on Saturday morning to mid-afternoon. Here are the following responses I got, from great to reasonable to really stupid.

- "Great, shall we head over now to take a look?"
- "Sure, we've got an opening this afternoon in a few hours."
- "Sorry, we're fully booked all day. How about next Saturday?"
- "We only do viewings in the mornings on Saturdays, so we can book you in next Saturday?"
- "We don't do viewings on evenings or weekends."
- [shop isn't open at weekends]

Is it expected that people with full time jobs book holidays to view properties? Or just plain will pick anything from the fuzzy photos online? How can these agents that are either not open or literally don't open on Saturdays at all get any business? Side note by the way: these shops also close at 5pm during the week. You *have* to book a day off work to do this, which is unreasonable! Don't open during the week for a few days and open at weekends, and boom you get loads more business.

Incidentally, I have half a day's holiday left for the rest of the year. I'm not wasting that on property viewings for companies that are oblivious to the world. I've found plenty of nice places from the other companies that are accomodating, especially the one who took me straight there.

I'll hopefully be moving out by the end of the year.

Let's talk about sci-fi

As some of you may be aware, I have a card that lets me watch films in a certain major cinema chain as much as I want for a monthly fee and a minimum 12 month contract. As such, I am seeing most of the latest big films as they come out, or a little later to avoid the big rush. There's something that's been bothering me for a long time, and I'm reminded of it more than ever lately with seeing lots of examples in the cinema:

Cinema's view on robots and aliens.

Okay so hear me out on this. A huge number of films out there, particularly the more famous ones, are all about how either A) aliens want to invade and/or wipe out/enslave the human race/etc, or B) same as above but with robots, or C) both (wait, has that actually happened? I dunno, but probably). The big thing is for films to have something threaten humans, then the humans destroy it and we all live happily ever after. Occasionally, the film will throw in a "aww but we need to feel sorry for some of them", but it's usually like 1 or 2?

Imagine, if you will, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) receives a transmission of a video of some aliens killing humans. You'd panic and think they're coming to kill you, when it's actually just a fictional product and a form of entertainment. Works the other way around. The way aliens are almost exclusively portrayed as "the baddies" would certainly put me off visiting the planet. Of course, I'm pretty sure that the world's governments would want to weaponize anything they could get their hands on if an alien actually turned up, so they probably wouldn't want to turn up for that too (and that would be a real issue, not a movie issue).

I don't think we'll ever get to meet aliens if we keep portraying them in this way. I also worry for how people would react if one turned up. If your only experiences with aliens was through fictional media, and then you met one, you'd panic, maybe even attack it, etc. Certainly if films are anything to go by, most governments will just attack aliens without considering any peaceful methods.

While I don't "know" there's aliens out there, there's a moment in the film Contact where the main character played by Jodie Foster is asked if there's aliens out there in space. The response is a line I will always stand by: "if it's really just us, it seems like an awful waste of space". Incidentally, Contact is probably one of my favourite films of all time and also one that treats aliens far more appropriately than most big films do.

Let's talk about robots.

For similar reasons as aliens, we seem to have a fear of artificial intelligence taking over from us or killing all humans as we're inferior, etc. While, yes, humans are definitely inferior to robots in countless ways, we do seem to obsess over it and think that's a reason for robots to kill us. As long as we don't pose a threat, they won't really care. But similarly, if we want to get along with robots with advanced AI, then we have to treat them right. I highly recommend watching the two episodes of The Animatrix called "The Second Renaissance" which revolves around humans using robots with AI as slaves and then steadily destroying themselves as they refuse to treat the robots properly.

When you make a robot more human, the robot is not a robot, it is an electrical human. Treat electrical humans like biological humans.

Cinema has started getting better with robots, much more than aliens. There are two types of robots shown in films, though. The ones with robots indistinguishable from humans (such as Time of Eve, AI Artificial Intelligence, Terminator) and the ones that are visually non-human, but are often mentally very human (such as Chappie, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Wall-E). Whether there's a disconnect between the viewer and the character is a very important thing depending on what you end up doing with them. I've found that movies with humanoid characters are more likely to make you feel bad for the robot as part of the film than those without, though that's not to say films don't try. Chappie and Wall-E both make the audience feel for their respective robots and draw hatred towards the humans instead, though Chappie is a little more balanced with you feeling for some of the humans too.

As part of my cinema going shenanigans for the past few months, I went to see 2001: A Space Odyssey presented in the original theatrical format, complete with 10 minute intermission. It wasn't my first time seeing the film, but it had been quite a few years. Now, for the majority of viewers, I don't think anyone would really be feeling sorry for HAL, but I genuinely felt the slow "death" of HAL to be heart-wrenching. I do still blame the humans somewhat for jumping straight to considering turning off HAL as a solution for one mistake, so HAL acting in self-defence was fairly justified.

Oh would you look at that? It's past 2am. I should probably sleep. Anyway, basically I want to cuddle robots and aliens and we can be friends. More movies about cuddly robots and aliens please.

Let’s talk about cinemas, ticket pricing and also Scotland Loves Anime

I love going to the cinema. If I get the chance to go see a film I love on the big screen, even if I’ve already seen it before at home, I’ll try to do it. It’s a shame that it’s getting particularly money-grabby and pricing it way out of the pockets of some. But anyway, let’s talk.

So first of all, as I said at the start, I love going to the cinema. The number one reason I go, apart from the improved picture and audio quality and size, is the fact that you can share the experience of watching the film with other people who, most notably, are typically there because they want to watch the film too. While there are of course exceptions where people have been dragged along by their mates and end up talking through the film, or spend most of it on their phone because they have nothing better to do, the vast majority are there because they want to see the film in the best possible way. I have witnessed occasions where people have been ejected from the cinema by other audience members for messing on their phone or talking a lot, so there’s definitely some passionate people out there. But the number one moment for me was going to see the Love Live movie in Scotland. People came from all over the UK and beyond to see that film and filled out the cinema. Throughout the film, everyone reacted in a variety of different ways to scenes in the film, but they all meshed together to create an incredible atmosphere that I don’t think will ever be recreated for that film again, especially not at home on a TV.

I also get to concentrate on the film, without getting distracted by Twitter, etc. I can’t begin to explain how often I start watching an episode of a TV series, let alone a film, and it takes me an hour or two to watch one 24 minute episode because I keep pausing it, flicking over to Twitter with a thought or a screenshot, etc.

For both of these, I make the yearly trip to the “Scotland Loves Anime” festival in either Glasgow or Edinburgh to watch a bunch of films with people who are into anime and want to experience films that they’re interested in seeing too. I typically see upwards of 6 films, though I have been for the whole week before now and seen 10 or so across the week.

A complaint I heard about the films at “Scotland Loves Anime” I have heard is that the films all have advert and trailer reels at the start, and that other film festivals they have been to didn’t have them. Well, I don’t know what film festivals they’ve been to, but the tickets at SLA are fairly cheap for cinema tickets, plus discounts for buying multiple in the festival. Then you have the fact that these films probably cost a fair amount to get from Japan for theatrical release at all, and I can’t really blame them for wanting to subsidize the cost somewhat. To be quite honest with you, the adverts at SLA have become somewhat of a running joke with the people I talk to. As we see the same ones so often across multiple films, we make jokes about some of the particularly bad ones, and even got a standing ovation for the final screening of one particular advert one year (looking at you Kevin Bacon) because we were so glad to never see it again.

One complaint I will accept about SLA is the timing of the films. If you are watching almost everything like I usually do, and I know some others do too, you don’t really have much time in-between films in the evening to have a meal. I have known people to bring in a pizza into the film screening before now!

So I mentioned pricing. Let me talk to you about the price structure at major cinemas.

I went to see Deadpool on the weekend of release, on a Saturday, at the Liverpool One Odeon. Here’s the price breakdown:
Base ticket price for an adult at peak time: £10
IMAX: £5
“Premier Seat” (aka not awful seat and good view): £1.80
BLOCKBUSTER PRICE (charged because they feel like it): £1
Total: £17.80

Most important to note here is the fact that there’s an extra charge for wanting to see a film near release. This was applied all week. The seats at Odeon are particularly bad, so paying extra for a good seat, plus wanting a good view, means you have to drop that £1.80 as well to be honest.

When you add on a drink or a snack (unless you manage to sneak in some of your own stuff, which I highly recommend doing by the way) it gets north of £20. So here’s where Odeon’s pricing gets even more complicated:

We paid £25.75 each for our tickets to Deadpool.

So Odeon have a thing called “The Gallery” at some of their cinemas. Base ticket price for this is £20.25 at peak times, plus £5 for IMAX plus 50p because I don’t know (maybe a discounted blockbuster ticket? I have genuinely no idea where that 50p comes from). This gets you access to a lounge with unlimited soft drinks, nachos and popcorn (all self-serve, so grab whatever you want), a bar where you can buy alcoholic drinks and massive seats with a direct view of the screen and a little table on the armrest to put your popcorn/nachos/etc. For the IMAX screen, you were on a balcony above everyone else facing dead-centre of the screen. For an extra £8, it’s only really worth it if all of the above matter to you. If you don’t eat lunch and really like nachos and popcorn, well this will probably work out for you haha! I wouldn’t bother doing this for any films, but if it’s a super long one, then it will probably help to have access to the drinks and comfy seats, plus there’s also a toilet right outside the doors to the screens, so you can be in and out without missing much of the film at all.

Back to the point I originally wanted to make in that it’s really complicated buying tickets for films. It’s like RyanAir, charging for everything they can get away with. If you didn’t go IMAX, for example, there’s D-Box (the chair moves and vibrates, etc for £3.55), 3D film (+£2) and 3D glasses (+£1).

Odeon just launched a pay monthly and watch unlimited 2D films package nationwide. Still have to pay extra for premier seats, IMAX and The Lounge, but it makes things a lot easier. Cineworld have had an unlimited card for years and gets you a discount on food and drink, but Odeon have way more cinemas to choose from. Will have to see how things pan out, as both require a 12 month minimum contract.

This has been a very rambly blog post. Apart from cinema ticket pricing being super complicated, I don't think I really had a point to make haha! See ya.

Let's talk about the rumoured Aikatsu reboot

So there's rumours and crazy theories flying around about the potential killing off of the current Aikatsu universe and its characters, maybe popping in on occasion in a new series, maybe not, maybe a new art style, maybe not, etc. While I try not to concern myself with rumours until they are confirmed, let me talk about my number one concern: Akari.

Unlike most other characters, we've been following Akari for longer than any other character from this season. From her audition with Ichigo judging, through to going on tour. During that time, the appearances of Ichigo have gradually reduced, allowing a good transition from Ichigo to Akari as the main protagonist. There was no moment where I felt they straight up cut Ichigo out of the picture.

I am scared, nay, /terrified/ that Aikatsu will end suddenly and not transition out Akari like they did with Ichigo. I want her departure to be natural, and not "I'm going away, bye", which I get the impression was the plan for Ichigo's departure for America in episode 50 but only came back 2 weeks later in the real world after a one year timeskip in-universe.

That being said, the second movie is coming, and I suspect this will be used (if the rumours are true) as the true send-off for the characters from the current generation. So here's what I am asking, Namco Bandai, I want two things:

One: Please leave us with happy memories (you've managed this one so far, so don't ruin it in the movie).
Two: Please let Akari and friends be happy in whatever they do next.

Do that, and I think I'll be fine with whatever you do next.

Yours Sincerely,

Peter Shillito
Dirty Foreigner

Peter Shillito’s 2015 Aikatsu Awards

It’s that time once again. I give out completely unnecessary awards to bits of Aikatsu! that really stood out to me (or didn’t, as the case may be). 2015 has come to a close, so it’s time to wrap up the year. We’ve got the return of some previous awards, and a few new ones. Nobody’s probably gonna read this, so let’s get to it!

(Side note: While the first movie came out in 2014, I didn’t see it until it got translated in 2015, so I’m going to include this in my review of the year.)

The 'My How They've Grown' Award for Best Character Development
2014 winner: Akari

2015 saw the departure of most of the idols we grew to know from previous series. Most of the Starlight Academy idols pop in occasionally, but it’s a rare cameo if anything. Dream Academy are not as dead as in 2014, they had speaking cameo roles in episode 38 and in 47 where they also perform a song. They also feature as an advertisement on the side of a truck in the opening sequence of season 4, but no in-episode role yet. There has also been the introduction of several new characters, who have all had some sort of development over the year. To be honest with you, nobody has really stood out as getting serious development in quite the same way Akari did last year. Everyone is introduced as being already quite good at what they do, almost to the point of being unrealistic (see: Nono and Risa who were literally farmers then became idols in what seemed like a week or two, I dunno time didn’t make a lot of sense).

You know who got character development who I wasn’t expecting? Johnny Bepp.

The introduction of Rin, who grew up with street dancing, etc, provided the show with a character who would know Johnny Bepp from before his idol training days. From the moment Rin was introduced to Bepp, we got background knowledge on a character who was just some goofy teacher who occasionally had some good advice or helped out with things. There was even an episode or so almost dedicated to finding out about Johnny Bepp’s past while Rin seeks out Dance Fusion’s top designer (an old friend of Bepp). Add on the fact that with the increasing number of male characters in Aikatsu!, Bepp has been seen outside of work with these people, showing himself, not as a teacher, but as a regular person. We also find out about his family in a hilarious marriage confusion episode.

I’m gonna call it right here.

Johnny Bepp wins the 'My How They've Grown' Award for Best Character Development
Honourable mention to Naoto Suzukawa who got promoted from groundskeeper to a teacher in the second half of season 3, though this was never really followed up with much information. I feel this is quite appropriate considering how insightful and helpful he was to Ichigo and friends from the very start, and also provides a cool, calm contrast to Johnny Bepp. Further to that, he has experience as lead singer of More Than True (from episode 11 of season 1).


The “Deus Ex Machidol” award for being useful to everyone but themselves
New award for 2015

As with many shows, there’s a lot of “what a coincidence” moments that allow the show to do stuff it wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Sometimes, someone’s talking about “oh I wish I could do X” and then the head teacher comes in and is all “there’s an audition to do X” and you have to have a certain suspension of disbelief when this happens. It’s a kids show, shut up. However, what’s quite interesting is that there’s a certain character who has been around since episode 77 who seems to have this role permanently. Hattori Yuu.

Yuu was previously Akari’s roommate until her room started leaking and they moved into separate rooms. Further on in the series, Yuu goes on an exchange programme TWICE, each time bringing a different idol from the other school into Starlight. More recently, Yuu shows off jewellery to Akari and friends and prompt them to audition for a jewellery advert. Yuu then hitches a ride to Kyoto and get the others to join her in a halloween TV special.

You never see Yuu perform. Ever.

Yuu wins the Deus Ex Machidol award for being useful to everyone but themselves.


The “Who?” award for character lost in the gap between seasons
2014 winner: Literally everyone from Dream Academy

In the run up to and previews for season 4, it seemed like the Luminas Japan Tour would be the main focus, meaning that you’d have the three girls from Luminas and any new people they meet on the way, losing everyone else in Starlight (most notably Rin and Juri). Fortunately, this was not the case, and they keep returning to Starlight between visits to places around Japan.

So did we lose anyone between 3 and 4? Well, at only 14 episodes into season 4, it’s difficult to say for sure. We’ve only seen the main trio from the original series so far (Ichigo, Aoi and Ran) but everyone appears in the opening credits, so it’s hard to say. However, everyone also had an appearance in the “best giant robot anime ever” episode, so they’re definitely not forgotten.

Hikari is still forgotten though, so that’s good.

I feel like I should mention Shion as someone who has been forgotten, but her involvement with the show has been rather unfortunate in general. Shion first appeared way back in episode 14 of season 1, but it took until episode 148 (episode 47 of season 3) to get a singing debut, as her role as an actor meant she was always too busy to be on stage. When she said “Everyone in the audience, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting” in episode 148, this felt not only as part of the plot for that episode where she was running late in the episode, but also to the fans who have been hoping to see her perform. I suspect we have another pile of episodes to go before we see her again.

Nobody really has been forgotten, so no winner this year.

The 'Kanzaki Mizuki' Award for Worst Character Other than Mizuki
2014 winner: Otome

As Otome’s appearance frequency has dwindled drastically in season 3 and 4, I cannot give her this award. Heck, even Mizuki hasn’t appeared much. I have to actually think this time.

So the people who come to mind as being annoying and within the past year are Madoka, Kokone and Nina. Let’s review these:

Madoka is known for being very honest to the point of being somewhat insulting, which everyone writes off with an “oh you” sorta thing. It’s a bit weird to be honest that people put up with her like that. That being said, it’s not often she does that, so it might be that people put up with her occasional lack of tact for the rest of her, as she’s not an all-round bad person.

Kokone has the catchphrase “The Center of the World is Kokone!”. I’ve never really understood why this was a thing. It’s a really self-centered thing, yet everyone seems to go along with it and humour her. Maybe the catchphrase thing is what bugs me, as Otome’s “love you” was particularly bad, though that wasn’t helped by her voice. Kokone’s intro episode is based around her realising that the world actually isn’t centered around her (because she did actually believe that, because everyone around her back in Kobe knew her and humoured her catchphrase) and, from what I understand, she reverts to thinking that at the end because everyone starts humouring her at Starlight too.

Nina’s just a bit weird tbh, but she’s a comedy idol I guess…

I got angriest writing about Kokone, so…

Kokone wins the “Kanzaki Mizuki” award for worst character other than Mizuki.


The “It sucks to be a fat foreigner in a little Japanese girl world” award for Aikatsu! thing I’ll never be able to experience (previously known as the “It sucks to be a fat foreigner in a little Japanese girl world” award for Aikatsu! merchandise I’ll never be able to obtain and/or use)
2014 winner: Aikatsu! glasses frames

So a couple of weeks before the Christmas break off work, someone decided to crash into my car on the way to work. They confirmed that it was their fault, accepted all responsibility, etc. You’d think I wouldn’t be out of pocket, right? That their insurance would cover everything right? Well, no. My car has been written off and I have a courtesy car until the other person’s insurance sends me the settlement cheque, but even then I won’t have enough money to get a similar car without putting an amount of my own savings down as well. Plus, cars have gone up in price since I got mine, even the same model, so I can’t get the same again without spending more per month AND a deposit down. Basically, a car accident that wasn’t my fault has fucked up my new year, soon to be eating into the savings I had for going on holiday to Japan again and, as such, probably won’t be able to see the new Aikatsu! movie in the cinemas like I hoped I would. My year is ruined and we’ve only just reached January. Add onto that the plan to move closer to where I work (possibly even close enough to take public transport sometimes *gasp*) and that’s something else I’m gonna have to delay probably until next year.

Fact is, unless I find a way to save up a lot of money quite quickly, watching the new Aikatsu! movie in cinemas is likely to be the winner of this award.

“Watching the new Aikatsu! movie in the cinema in Japan” wins the “It sucks to be a fat foreigner in a little Japanese girl world” award for Aikatsu! thing I’ll never be able to experience (may be retracted if I can work something out with money).

The “damn son, where’d you find this?” award for best overall Aikatsu! song in 2015
New award for 2015
2015, and season 3 in general, brought major changes to the Aikatsu! lineup of idols, both in the series and in the real world. As you may or may not be aware, each character in the series has both a speaking voice actor and a corresponding real-world idol for their singing. In the original series, everyone had an idol (or two, looking at you Yurika) from STAR☆ANIS. Akari is voiced by Ruka for singing, for example. With season 3, STAR☆ANIS started taking a back seat role with AIKATSU☆STARS taking the baton instead. Ruka and Mona are in both groups, which makes things complicated tbh. Anyway…the first opening theme to season 3 is "Du-Du-Wa DO IT!!" by Ruka, Mona, and Miki from AIKATSU☆STARS! with Waka from STAR☆ANIS. Waka is the singer for Ichigo, furthering the as mentioned handing over of the baton from Ichigo to Akari, or from Waka to Ruka.

Songs eligible:
Du-Du-Wa DO IT!! (S3 OP1)
Good morning my dream (S3 ED1)
Lovely Party Collection (S3 OP2)
Tutu Ballerina (S3 ED2)
START DASH SENSATION (S4 OP1)
lucky train! (S4 ED1)
Etude of Radiance (movie insert)
Tarte・Tatin
Passion flower
Hello! Winter Love♪
Pretty Pretty
Blooming♡Blooming
MY SHOW TIME!
Lovely☆Bomb
Love Like Caramelize
Poppin' Bubbles
Enchanted Party
Hello New World
Hey! little girl
Chica×Chica
Summer☆Magic
Light Pink Day Tripper
Sweet Heart Restaurant
Emerald Magic
Little beat, Little wing♪

Gosh that’s way more tracks than I realised. I’m slowly narrowing the list down. Lovely Party Collection and Start Dash Sensation are nice, but nothing special. Almost forgettable. lucky train is catchy and fun, but doesn’t really go anywhere. Got an ace dance by everyone’s favourite farmer idols though! hashtag potato katsu. Tarte・Tatin was very different to any other Aikatsu! track out there, but it doesn’t seem to know what sort of track it wants to be. It bounces between genres, etc. It works well in the show as it’s only one section, but the full length song doesn’t flow quite the same. Pretty Pretty is an interesting one for having both the singer AND the voice actor for Akari in the song. The only song to feature *any* of the speaking actors in addition to the singers. MY SHOW TIME! was part of the introduction for a new character (Rin), who I’m particularly fond of, and used to showcase the upgraded CG engine with some incredible lighting effects. This was furthered by Tutu Ballerina, also featuring Rin, which is incredible in both the anime and performed live. Good morning my dream has an incredible introduction and verses, with very cool uses of alarm and clock noises throughout. This track made a lasting impression on me and it’s one I’ll never forget, though the chorus isn’t anything special sadly.

I was very close to giving the award to Tutu Ballerina at this point, but then as I started comparing songs against each other, there was one track I couldn’t remove from the list. One that is superior to even Tutu Ballerina: Chica×Chica. With a Spanish feel for the character of Juri, and the incredible sword dance performance in the anime, this is a stand-out track unlike any other used in Aikatsu! except perhaps Passion flower, but much more “passionate”. Chica×Chica is one song I never skip, along with Signalize right back from season 1.

Chica×Chica wins the “damn son, where’d you find this?” award for best overall Aikatsu! song in 2015
Honourable mention: Tutu Ballerina. You should see AIKATSU☆STARS perform this like, they’re really quite incredible.

———
This is the part where I would start saying who my favourite Aikatsu! character is, the “Mai Waifu” award, to be exact. The easy way out would be to just say Yurika again and call it a day, but is that truly what I think? Let’s take a step back for a moment.

Season 3 of Aikatsu! started in October 2014. Between then and January 2015, the transition between Soleil (Ichigo, Aoi and Ran) and the new trio Luminas (Akari, Sumire and Hinaki) was in full force to the point where the original cast were present in fewer and fewer episodes. As April 2015 arrived, further new characters were introduced to fill in the roles of the side characters such as Yurika, Otome, Sakura, etc, leaving even less room for the original characters to appear.

Yurika will always have a place in my heart, but I feel like it’s time for a change in this award I’ve only ever awarded once. Calling it the “mai waifu” award for best Aikatsu! character doesn’t feel appropriate any more. So, I am proud to announce:

The “Toudou Yurika” award for this year’s most stand-out Aikatsu! idol
That’s better.

So, for this award I am actively discounting idols who weren’t regularly featured prominently in the 2015 episodes of Aikatsu! This means I’m looking at Akari, Sumire, Hinaki, Juri, Rin, Madoka, Nono, Risa, Miyabi, Kokone and Nina. I would be tempted to include Ichigo as well, and maybe Aoi, but then I’m gonna start arguing with myself about where I draw the line.

Following on from last year’s 'My How They've Grown' award, I’d be very temped to go with Akari who, as the main protagonist, is the default choice. I do feel like she deserves a lot of respect, more so than Ichigo to be honest. Ichigo had a lot of flukes as the series got off the ground, while Akari is genuinely a hard working and fantastic idol.

Rin is also high on the list for me at the moment for having a visually attractive style, an incredible dancer and being almost like another Johnny Bepp, but we’ve not really had much fleshing out for her, so I can’t really justify giving her this award.

I feel like giving Sumire the award might be most appropriate. As has been made even more clear in recent episodes, but has been present since the start, Sumire is dead set on prioritising her singing over anything else. Partnering with dance expert Rin to form Dancing Diva was a fantastic idea as while Rin has the dance moves to show off to the song, Sumire can sing to her heart’s content without needing to dance as well. She’s regularly releasing CDs solo and is my favourite to be the next Starlight Queen currently, pending any events between now and then. She’s the most independent of all of the group and typically pushes a lot of the typical idol stuff to the side in order to prioritise singing events and performances. I can respect that.

The 2015 “Toudou Yurika” award for this year’s most stand-out Aikatsu! idol goes to Sumire Hikami.

THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT

Let's talk about the anime "Magic Kaito 1412" and magic tricks

An anime that I didn't hear many people talking about while it was airing was Magic Kaito 1412. I'm still catching up with the show at the moment, but I want to mention a few things about it.

First off, Magic Kaito is a manga series by Gosho Aoyama, who also wrote Detective Conan and, indeed, Magic Kaito is set in the same universe. Occasionally in both the manga and the anime, characters from Detective Conan appear in Magic Kaito and (I believe) the other way round too. A few years back, there were some animated TV specials that were marketed as "Detective Conan Special" even the ones that didn't have any connection to the Detective Conan characters at all. The new series (with the 1412 suffix) has Conan and co appear every so many episodes, so this is not lost at all.

"Kaito Kid" is a phantom thief and, most importantly, a magician (I'm not going to go into the story, you've got Wikipedia for that). Rather than concentrating on the phantom thief elements like other shows might, Magic Kaito concentrates on the use of magic tricks, illusions, etc. As someone who spent a few years of their childhood learning magic tricks from people such as Dominic Wood along with various books, there's a certain attention to detail Magic Kaito 1412 has that I can really appreciate.

At the start of every episode, there's a stage with panning spotlights as Kaito introduces the episode with an (often cryptic) message about the heist/performance coming up. Not explaining what they're going to do, but a little thing to think about as the episode begins (a clue, perhaps). You're then usually introduced to the characters of the episode who typically have a jewel that Kaito is going to steal.

At some point in the first half of the episode, there's a discussion between Kaito and his uncle regarding how the plan will take place. Feasible entrances/exits, security systems, etc. This part is very carefully directed so that some things are either not mentioned out loud and instead shown on a computer screen directed away from the camera (I know it's anime, it's still a camera shut up) or are whispered so you can't hear it. So you have a vague idea on what they're planning, but not necessarily how they will do it. This is Stage Magic 101: let the audience know roughly what you're going to do, to build hype, interest and intrigue, but not everything about the trick because they will know A) what to expect, and B) where to look to try and figure out the trick. So you'd say "I'm going to make this elephant disappear" not "I'm going to make this elephant disappear behind this curtain with a spotlight behind it so you can see the elephant behind the curtain". There are some magicians/illusionists (there is debate about which word is appropriate) who are completely silent throughout a trick or routine and instead rely on gestures, props and music to create more of a visual spectacle.

Speaking of visual spectacles (other than the ones on my face, ba dum tschh), Magic Kaito continues its episode, usually finding out more about the characters who will have their gem stolen, etc. Eventually, the night of the heist arrives and Kaito makes a point of making a show out of them stealing the precious item, rather than taking it and leaving, because where's the fun in that? This is the natural combination of magicians and phantom thieves (occasionally referred to as "gentleman/lady thieves", e.g. Carmen Sandiego, Arsène Lupin, etc). There's usually something that goes wrong with Kaito's plan for whatever reason, occasionally caused by the interference of the aforementioned Detective Conan or accidentally by the bumbling police officers. It of course seems like Kaito's going to get caught or be forced to give up the heist, but he then surprises everyone, including the audience (us) with a backup plan (either thought of in advance or thought of there and then) that is often very clever and catches you off guard. There's never been a single episode where I've said "I saw that coming" when it comes to the main heist, and especially the backup plans.

The only downside is that Kaito has a tendancy to be quite childish when in school, particularly with the typical anime "girl who is childhood friend sits next to protag in school and blushes 24/7" thing going on (it is still an anime at the end of the day).

Oh, and there's occasional moments when a witch (in protag's class, obviously) uses real magic against Kaito's magic tricks and there's a whole real magic vs stage magic sub-plot going on occasionally, but that's really just cos the witch (Akako) is a fun character anyway and hella tsundere (even voiced by Eri Kitamura).

Perhaps I'm just getting nostalgia from my days of magic tricks as a kid, but this show is good fun and worth checking out.

I didn't like bits of Undertale

I think it goes without saying that this post will have crazy spoilers for all routes of the game. Only if you are done with the game and ready to embrace all spoilers should you read any further, not that I recommend reading further anyway because you're probably gonna disagree and get angry, but you're still reading so I'm screwed anyway. Welp!


So Undertale happened. A game that has taken the Internet by storm for its take on morality in games, music and overall good story and characters. I agree with many that it's a very good game and one that will be remembered for quite some time, comparable with (if not surpassing) many big name games. I've finished the true pacifist [sic] route twice, with a full reset in the middle, the second play through trying other options and seeing more things I may have missed the first time round. On my other computer, I've been playing the genocide [sic] route to get a bit more context for a few things and out of pure curiosity. After playing the game so much, I could write a lot about what I really like about the game, but that would just be repeating what the rest of the Internet is saying. Instead, I think I will talk about the bits I didn't like, or at least came away from it with a sour taste in my mouth.

First off, there were a few parts of the game where it seems unnecessarily obtuse in imparting information that you need in order to do something, or making it clear that something was even possible in the first place. The most notable example of this was the battle with Toriel. I wonder how many people were convinced that they had no other choice but to kill them to continue? I sure was. I killed them on my first run through. I also personally know of at least one other person who is convinced that there is a way, but they can't find it. I get the message though. "Determination" and all that shit. "You must be determined to hammer an option in the game that isn't the first thing you select in almost any other encounter in order to spare this person". Toriel's name isn't yellow/pink, so the game has taught you that this monster can't be spared yet, so do something else. Maybe to other people it's super obvious and I just need to "get good". Either way, it felt like an oversight in a game where everything is super intentional and, thus, out of place. Honestly, if Toriel's and Asgore's fights were reversed, where Toriel would destroy the "mercy" button until you got their health low, while Asgore kept the "mercy" option, but did what Toriel did, it would be way more obvious because the "mercy" button remained intact, and you would have to survive the attacks until you hit the button enough times. I'm not sure if people would agree with that one (probably not) but that's one thing I didn't like much.

Okay, next up is the ending to the neutral [sic] run, or rather the bit with Flowey. Flowey gives you a hint on how to get the "true" pacifist ending if you spare them. If you don't spare them, you don't get the hint and, thus, no clue on how to progress to the true pacifist, or even that there was one in the first place. Obviously, the Internet exists, but "after leaving the core, backtrack until you get a phone call from Undyne" seems, much like sparing Toriel, completely non-obvious unless you get that hint. I can only assume that someone going through the entire game again, but this time being as pacifist as possible, getting the Flowey message and then going to find Alphys is what is expected, and probably what I would've done if the Internet didn't exist and I found out about it through osmosis.

The big thing that negatively affects the game for me was the ending to true pacifist [sic]. Once you've beat neutral once and probably gone through the entire game again because you killed Toriel and then finished with the Asriel fights, you then find out that the name you typed in at the start was not the name of the character you were playing. Once you trawl through all the game's text and piece it together, it turns out you were actually naming the first human who fell down a long time ago and was adopted by Toriel and Asgore. The character you were playing as is actually called "Frisk".

Now bear with me a second here while I get psychological on you.

Imagine you are playing through a role playing game. You name the character you're playing as after yourself. You style them after yourself. You play as them. That character is you. Then imagine that, in the game, you got killed and replaced by someone else with a different name, only they look like your character did.

They are the ones everyone is happy to see.
They are the ones attributed to saving the world.
They took the happiness that should've been mine.

In Undertale, just as you think you've saved the world, it takes that glory away from you and gives it to "Frisk" instead.

I felt cheated out of my happy ending.
I was no longer a part of this story.
I became a simple bystander as "Frisk" was praised by everyone.

Is this the actual motivation behind doing a genocide run? Putting that ending aside, there's no real motivation behind doing a genocide run because all the characters are lovely. You wouldn't want to harm them after a true pacifist run. But then the Frisk thing happens and I'm left thinking "but I did this. I helped everyone. Frisk isn't me." In the genocide run, everyone refers to you by the name you put in. It's definitely you who is the cold blooded murderer, not Frisk. So the game has you remembered as being a murderer, or someone else entirely. To actually leave your mark in the game world, kill everything.

To try and shoehorn yourself back in, you can assume that the physical human that you are moving about the underworld is called Frisk, but you are possessing the human as a spirit or "soul" as the first fallen human to either make up for what you did when you first fell down or to finish what you started and kill everything. It's not exactly ideal though, as you can't claim credit for something when you're a ghost.

Honestly, the first two things are minor niggles that were a little frustrating at the time, but it's not that big a deal. The final one though is why, despite massively enjoying Undertale, it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Regardless of that though, I'll certainly be interested in whatever Toby Fox does next.

Regarding Aikatsu!, the big slump of 2015 and basically me oversharing

Before the big slump of 2015 (more on that later), I had a routine. For every anime season, I would review the massive JPEGs of doom to see what shows are coming up, shortlist the shows that sound like they could be good and prepare my streaming, torrents, etc accordingly. I had been doing this routinely since roughly 2008-2009 when Toradora was airing (the first anime I watched weekly as it came out with the fansubs). 

Fast forward to 2012, specifically the Autumn or "Fall" season. This season was home to a few big names: Chuunibyou season 1, Hidamari Sketch x honeycomb and Girls und Panzer to name a few. Now, generally speaking, each anime had a description, cast, hashtag, etc to give you a rough idea and it was this that I would base whether to watch a series or not. Sometimes I'd pick something up from recommendations too I should add. So generally, you'd get something like this:

-moetron.com, 2012

But there was one show that just plain didn't have anything written about it. One show that stood out as a "who cares". One show that made me think "sounds stupid, like YuGiOh but with idols. I'll watch one episode as a laugh."

-moetron.com, 2012

So, first things first. Yes, I watched the first episode of Aikatsu! completely on a whim and expecting to drop it. As part of writing this blog post, I just this second finished watching episode 1 again to see if I can remind myself what made me continue watching. It has been quite a while since I last watched it, so it might be nostalgia talking, but the characters, the music, the genuine fun the show seems to have is still there, even if the CG was super wonky back then. Truth be told, I often skipped the song in old episodes of Aikatsu! as they often repeated the same songs every week for a while and the CG was super wonky.

Fast forward to today and we're approaching 3 whole years since the first episode. I've watched every single one and I've seen the first movie too. Lately, they've got a much bigger variety of songs to choose from, and the CG looks fantastic! Click here to see a comparison of just how far the CG has come over the first 54 episodes, not to mention the newest ones look even better!

So what is "the big slump"? Well, in 2014 I got a significant other who encouraged me to watch shows I wouldn't normally be interested in because I watch "too many little girl shows" and not enough of what they liked. So I figured I'd try and expand my horizons a bit and watch some other shows. This lead to me trying to watch a bit of everything and not really having the time to do it. This person became particularly toxic towards the anime, music, and basically everything I enjoyed and, eventually, me as a whole. I was watching less and less anime to the point where I hardly watched anything. I finally left that relationship at the start of 2015. That person is long behind me now and I want nothing to do with them ever again. This left me with an issue: I had many series in my backlog that I couldn't bring up the enthusiasm to attempt to catch up on. Despite parting ways with this individual, I was still, what I consider, quite broken. I just couldn't get the enthusiasm to watch most anime. I can't watch something if I'm not in the mood for it, and the mood only happened a couple of times a week at most. The biggest issue for me was starting new series, not knowing what you're in for. I also blame part of this on Madoka Magica, a series which I utterly despise, probably not because it's a bad show, but because I forced myself to watch it all and became completely depressed as a result. It's not a show I enjoyed, but I watched the whole thing because everyone else was and I didn't want to feel left out, but I feel worse off as a result so thanks everyone. Any sequels or continuing shows I was fine with, I'd still be watching these every week. Most notable of these is Aikatsu! of course. This slump continued until mid-2015 where I got myself into another relationship of sorts, but one that basically had an agreement that neither of us were super sure about whether it would work out for various reasons. I was very happy with this relationship and, although it has since ended, I feel like a better person because of it as I'm starting to understand just who I am, what I am and what I enjoy and be way happier with it. It also seems to have reset my anime watching-ness...that's a word, as I'm now marching through my backlog with a few episodes a day, rather than a couple of episodes a week. I basically consider this relationship-like thing I had to have basically rebooted me and I'm on the way to getting to how I want to be.

Let's go back to Aikatsu! again. I'm still watching this show every week and I have been doing for almost 3 years (minus 2.5 weeks at time of writing). I can't explain quite how happy this show makes me. I have so much fun seeing what the characters are up to, hearing the new songs, buying the CDs and, hell, I even managed to meet Ruka, Mona and Miki from Aikatsu Stars while I was in Japan last month (they seemed pretty psyched that someone from the UK came to see them, and I can gloat that I was the only westerner there). I just have so much fun with this whole franchise every week! I'm going to do my best to get to Japan to see the third film (second story-based film) next summer, as that's my new number 1 goal after I completed my "just get to Japan, doesn't matter what happens while you're there, just get there" goal in July.