The Thinking Blogger Award

I can't claim to be much of a writer, but I began Nihon Musings to give myself an outlet for anime and other Japan-related thoughts that stir in my mind at a frequency that to some might be considered unhealthy. Yet today Andrew decided to mention my small section of the internet in a post in his contribution of a meme that is going around. That being said, here are the rules of this meme.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

I don't follow many blogs at all, but there are a few that I try and read when I can.

1) Cinevistaramascope
Andrew's film comments and thoughts. From short thoughts in "The Trim Bin" to longer essasy with a lot of thought put into them all the way posts that are simply interesting title card from various films, the blog is a great chronicle of film. Seeing Andrew's work here is what got me interested in creating my own blog, so I owe him a lot of inspiration credit. One of the things that truly makes visiting Cinevistaramascope enjoyable is that even if I don't know nearly as much about the films being discussed, I'm not lost while going through the content. Perhaps what makes the blog even more interesting to read is that Andrew enjoys adding his own personal experiences to the contents as well, making it less robotic, and giving a small reminder that it's not a textbook or random article from a periodical, but rather a real person who just likes talking about film. Andrew and his wife Jess recently brought their daughter Luna into this world. I envy Luna a lot, she's going to be raised in a home that will bombard her with amazing films. Being able to grow up immersed is going to be an amazing childhood.

2) Gunota Headlines
Taking its title from the horrible Hong Kong bootleg version of "Gundam", Gunota Headlines is one of the best sources for new Gundam information as it comes out. RGZ and Neo-Era do an impressive job of covering not only Japanese, and American Gundam news, but plenty of other countries too, including stuff from other Asian nations. They welcome others to pass along stories to them as well (Yours truly was credited with informing them about Imagawa Yasuhiro's accepetence as a guest for Anime Boston 2007). I probably would have only learned about the Zeta Gundam films' coming to the Chicago International Film Festival along with Tomino Yoshiyuki as an after thought if not for Gunota. From DVD releases, to new model kits, Gunota's been a great source for just seeing where things are going for an anime title that is quickly approaching its 30th year.

3) BoingBoing
A self proclaimed "Directory of Wonderful things", BoingBoing gets a great amount of just random neat links of fun things to check out online. Sometimes BB will toss out some political thoughts, sometimes it's just "Hey check out this neat sculpture someone made, it's a steampunk computer monitor!"

4) Con Chowder
No, that's not a typo. That's Anime Boston's new (for 2007) blog that posted various updates, and summaries during the convention and following it. I've gotten to know the head contributer and organizer, Rick Healey, through my time at AB, and he's just a fun guy, he takes his fun personality and puts it into the blog entries, not making things too seriously, but yet at the same time, he gets the right details mentioned, and writes things in way that gives you the right feeling for what it's like to be immearesed in an anime convention.

5) Sorry, I don't have a fifth one, so I'm just going to plug Cinevistaramascope again because frankly, it really is the blog I read that gets me thinking the most. This past weekend I went to go see Paprika (more on the film later) and saw copies of El Topo for sale. Right away, my mind went to Andrew's blog. I kicked myself later for not grabbing a copy on my way out. I have yet to experience a time where I've regretted watching something suggested by Andrew. He taught me more about what to look for when I want to declare a film "good" than any film professor at MCLA ever could.