New Theme Month - Anie-May

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all safe and healthy. 

I might have mentioned once or twice here on this blog that I am a fan of Anime. In case you don't know or need a refresher, Anime is animated media from Japan, which accommodates a wide variety of genres and stories. While I consider myself a fan of the medium, I would not call myself an Otaku, which is basically a term for obsession. Even so, as a proud nerd and cinephile, I feel compelled to spend a little bit of my spare time to talk a bit of this beautiful art form.

A huge part of why I wanted to start this new theme month is personal. Usually, every Memorial Day Weekend, there is a massive convention in San Jose known as Fanime. It is an annual event where nerds of all kinds get together and have fun. We get to show off our cosplays, talk about our favorite nerdy things, play video games, and generally have a blast together. Sadly, due to the COVD-19 pandemic, Fanime was canceled and diverted to next year. Given the gravity of the situation, I realize that the loss of Fanime this year is not the worst thing that has happened so far. There are indeed many more important things to worry about and take care of, which I am. Even thus, I do not deny that I am pained by the loss of one of my favorite annual events. Though I take comfort that it will be twice as much fun next year.

Therefore, in honor of this proud tradition, I have decided to dedicate the entire month of May to watching and reviewing all things Anime. As you saw in the title for this blog entry, I shall dub it "Anie-May."

Now, allow me to lay down a few ground rules.

1.
All Anime I shall review here will be ones I have in my personal collection or those which can be found on Netflix and/or Amazon Prime Video.

2.
While I will mostly be looking at Anime movies, I will occasionally check out an episodic series. When doing so, I will judge the series on a "Three Episode Basis." If I am still hooked into the series after three episodes, I will continue watching it and provide my thoughts on it ASAP. If it fails to grab me within three chapters, I will report why.

3.
My beautiful readers are welcome to submit suggestions of Anime for me to check if they would like. However, just know that I cannot guarantee that I will get to all requests.

Special note: I will be watching all Anime's dubbed. While I am a huge advocate for enjoying foreign language films with subtitles, I tend to prefer the dub when it comes to Anime.

With that, I hope you will join me on this journey, as I spend part of May bringing my own take on one of the most gorgeous artistic mediums out there. I look forward to seeing what I find.

Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm, thank you all for reading, and I hope you will join me for Anie-May.