Contradictions by a Brow

Avant-garde art and experimental films one day
Indie BritWres matches the next
Anime after that
Historical documentaries the day after
Sprinkling some nonfiction books in between
Before delving in manga pages
After writing haikus and fiction concepts in a notebook

Why am I a walking contradiction with these hobbies?

Hold up! Wait a minute! Put a little liebe in it! (A Liebster Award post)

Bonus points to anyone who got the reference in the blog title! Anyways, I received another award and it’s the Liebster Award. It’s awesome. I would like to thank Bloom Reviews for nominating me. Bloom Reviews covers anime, manga, and comic reviews that deal with romantic elements. I first discovered Bloom after finding out they reviewed The Place Promised In Our Early Days (which is a movie you all should check out). Feel free to check out this blog and my other ones at Autumn Peal Media (photography/videography), C. M. B. Bell (fiction), and Iridium Eye Reviews (indie movies/documentaries/anime/world cinema/short film reviews).

Here are the rules for this award:

-Share the link of the blogger who has shown love to you by nominating you
-Answer the 11 questions they ask
-Nominate 11 bloggers for the same award in the spirit of sharing love and solidarity with our blogging family.
-Ask them 11 questions that you are dying for the answers to!

Alright. Now I’m going to answer Bloom’s questions related to this nomination. I know the stuff in the questions pertain more to one of my other blogs, but I’ll still answer them here.

1. What was your most overhyped anime of 2017?

It’s tough for me since I haven’t been watching a lot of anime in 2017, let alone this decade so far. One 2017 anime that I recently finished was ID-0.

2. If you had to recommend one manga or comic what would it be?

I haven’t been as big of a comic or manga reader as I used to, but I’d say Persepolis. Yup. I read both the comics and saw the movie.

3. What’s your favorite animated film so far?

This choice will make me look like a more depressed person than I am, but my favorite animated film is Grave of the Fireflies. There aren’t many animated or even live-action films with as much emotional gravitas, strong writing, and great characterization. It’s one of those movies that really stands out in animation as a pure art form and something you can take seriously. I’ve yet to see any mainstream animated film have this much depth, substance, and great writing even though Grave of the Fireflies is VERY tragic.

4. What’s the longest running manga you’ve ever kept up with?

Here comes my old-school anime fan self here. The longest manga I’ve read from beginning to end was Whistle!. Yes, I’m talking about the soccer manga that’s 24 volumes long. It was actually the first manga I bought when I was in my teens and I’m not even that much into soccer.

5. Who’s your least favorite anime character?

This question was a tough one because I kind of wanted to forget any characters that I hate. Haha! It’s too easy mentioning villains, but people are supposed to dislike them. After thinking about it, I’d say Kimiko from Debutante Detective Corps. She’s no hero at all. What kind of a heroine goes around exploiting cops, act lazy, faking a kidnapping plot, allows innocent people to be killed, manipulates her friends, doesn’t take responsibility for her actions, and is able to buy her way out of not going to jail? This is hardcore Protagonist Centered Morality to the highest degree.

6. If you had to pick one guilty pleasure anime, what would it be?

Guilty pleasures are so hard for me to think about. Well, after referencing Family Force 5 in the title, I guess I have to have some kind of answer. From the top of my head, I’d say Night Warriors: Darkstalker’s Revenge. For an anime series based on a video game, I didn’t think it was that bad.

7. What are you most excited for this year (anime or otherwise)?

I am so out of the loop when it comes to all the newest and latest things to be brutally honest.

The selfish answer could be me doing something new musically and of the literary persuasion.

8. What’s one recommendation you would give to new bloggers?

Good question. I’m going to cheat and mention one recommendation per media since I cover so many topics across several blogs.

Music: The Old-Timers

Live-Action Movies: Mother of Mine

Anime: Haibane Renmei

Western Animation: Wrinkles

Documentary: Hate Crimes In The Heartland

Books: The Third Reconstruction by William J. Barber II

9. What was the toughest thing you had to deal with in starting your blog?

In any and all my blogs, it would be finding some kind of audience. I had a fear of failure that no one would like or care about my stuff.

10. Who’s one blogger or writer you would recommend everyone read or follow?

It would be my friend Jeannette Jonic. She’s a very talented writer, reviewer, and a very supportive person.

11. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not blogging?

I enjoy coming up with new story and character concepts for my fiction projects. I also like reading, a tiny bit of graphic design (I’m such a neophyte though), video editing, creating acousmatic soundscapes, playing the ukulele, and learning about several cultures.

Thanks for reading! I hereby nominate the following…

1. Haiku out of Africa
2. Hikeminded
3. Little Fears
4. Chizurue
5. James Edgar Skye
6. Madekesiworld
7. Keiko’s Anime Blog
8. Rebel Guy
9. Harotian Essentials
10. Fueled by Smiling
11. African Book Addict

I have 11 questions for those who I nominated.

1. What was the watershed moment that made you enjoy blogging?
2. What are your fears as a blogger/content creator?
3. Which languages would you like to learn the most that you don’t already know?
4. How would you best describe your blog’s identity?
5. Who inspired you to blog?
6. What are your strengths as a blogger?
7. What are your weaknesses as a blogger?
8. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
9. If you can have one wish to improve the world, what would it be and why?
10. Which movie, musician, series or book that’s unknown to most that you like and wish more people knew it?
11. Has blogging been therapeutic for you? How so and why?

I guess versatility pays off? I’m a recipient of the Versatile Blogger Award!

This has been a positive few days for me. Just recently, I was awarded the Versatile Blogger Award from Raistlin0903. Thank you so much, Raistlin! It’s good to know that I’m a quality blogger and versatile in different subjects whether on this blog or my other ones.

Here are the rules for this particular award:

-Display award
-Thank the person who gave this award (and include a link to their blog)
-Share seven things about yourself
-Nominate bloggers of your choice

Without further ado, let’s get this started!

1. Poetry/Lyrics: Since I’m on the main Ospreyshire blog, I might as well talk about it. I’ve been writing poems and lyrics since I was 11. I didn’t actually write “real” songs until I was older. With my current project, I thought it would be an awesome vehicle to get this artform out there but with an avant-garde edge.

2. Multi-Instrumentalist, but what instrument is missing? I’ve been training to be adept at multiple instruments when it comes to songwriting and performing. Interestingly enough, I have never used a guitar for Ospreyshire. This was on purpose. I don’t hate guitars since it’s one of my better instruments, but I wanted to see what I can create without one of the most common instruments out there.

3. Cinema in multiple languages. Yes, some of you know about my film review blog Iridium Eye. I’ve covered movies from six different continents and dozens of countries around the world. It is a fusion of my love for geography and movies as I wanted to escape the Hollywood doldrums. I’ll spare you a list of every country that’s been covered by Iridium Eye so far, but here’s a list of languages that have been spoken in the movies I’ve reviewed so far. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Persian/Farsi, German, Dutch, Amharic, Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Serbian, Afrikaans, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hindi, Hebrew, Italian, Gaelic, Korean, and Danish. That’s not even counting stuff I haven’t reviewed.

4. Reading (whenever I can). I do enjoy a good book. Interesting fact, I’ve been able to read since I was 1 1/2 years old and I’ve enjoyed reading whenever I could. Granted with work, I haven’t been able to as much. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been reading a ton of non-fiction especially in regards to social issues, geography, lesser-known parts about history, and race relations especially with the African-American and Native American experience. It was fascinating learning about all these subjects and I certainly become more “woke” as the cool people say these days.

5. People think I’m extroverted. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The thing is I do work with a lot of people and I’ve had previous experience with public relations and customer service. I do like being around my friends whenever I can, but I’m really introverted. After dealing with a lot of people, I have to decompress whenever I go home. Even then, I just get on my grind by working on various creative projects like music or fiction or coming up with new content for any of my 4 blogs.

6. My first (real) start at fiction was microfiction. I tried writing stories when I was younger, but I am quite disappointed in the concepts I came up with. When I heard about microfiction (stories under 1000 words) a few years ago, I gave it a try. Some of them are on my writing blog such as this one about an invincible superhero having a bad day, a futuristic story involving people looking at social media accounts from the present, or a story involving a snarky dragoness dealing with a delusional knight. It’s a fun form of writing, and I encourage people to give it a try. If you have the TaleHunt app, you can find me @tocsinchronicle. Just sayin’.

7. I used to be a hardcore gamer, especially fighting games. This was actually a thing going on in my life. To be honest, I haven’t been into current games due to other interests taking precedence, but there was a time I was big into video games. Shoot, I still own a Dreamcast to this day. I was into different genres, but my favorite genre was fighting games. Back in my younger days, I could beat people in games like the first two Marvel Vs. Capcom games, Virtua Fighter, some of the Tekken games, King of Fighters, Power Stone, Project Justice (AKA Rival Schools 2), and various Street Fighter games (SFIII: Third Strike was my favorite and the most underrated game in the franchise). That was my jam back then.

Now that I got this out of the way, I hereby nominate the following bloggers…

Moyatorium
Travel Itineraries
The Drabble
Anime Q & A
Bipolar Online Blog
Medieval Otaku
Karandi
AfroSapiophile
Irina
Lunarian Thoughts

Thank you!