First off, thanks to the Medieval Otaku Blog for nominating us for the Sunshine Award 2019. If it wasn’t for this nomination, we wouldn’t have found your blog which is a pretty interesting perspective to come at anime with, so thank you for that as well!

We hadn’t received one of these before, so we weren’t sure how to handle it at first, but we appreciate the nomination and hope that you enjoy the content that’s on our blog! You guys as readers are definitely one of the reasons that we continue to write and make content, so thank you so much.

Anyway, we’re giving it a go, so we’re gonna get the formalities out of the way and post the rules for those who are unfamiliar with this can follow what’s going on in the rest of the post.

Here are the rules:

• Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their blog so that other people can visit them
• Answer the 11 questions put to you by the nominator
• Nominate 11 bloggers of your choosing and provide them with a new set of 11 questions to answer
• Notify the nominees by commenting on one of their blog posts
• List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award logo within your post or on your blog site.

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And now, to answer all the questions received from Medieval Otaku’s post. We decided to answer each question individually, so we hope you all enjoy our variety of answers to these questions!

1. Are you fluent in a second language or studied enough to understand basic conversations in one or more?

Tofu: No, but I do have a basic understanding of Hiragana and Katakana. I can only read them phonetically, though, haha.

Mythos:  I knew Spanish really well but I don’t anymore.  Makes it real awkward when I visit my step-mom’s family in Costa Rica and only know the word “Gringo”. XD

Owningmatt: I studied Spanish back in high-school, but I honestly don’t think I could even recall enough to get by. Besides that, I know some basic Hiragana, enough to maybe vaguely understand a tweet or something. How uncultured, I know, sorry 😦

2. What is your favorite American comic strip?

Tofu: Calvin and Hobbes, hands down. Bill Watterson is a genius. I loved this comic strip as a six-year-old, and I still love it now. It’s hilarious in pretty much all stages of life – the fact that I could laugh about Hobbes answering a multiplication question with the name of a city (I can’t find the strip for the life of me and I’m dying) as a child but now as an adult find myself laugh-crying about cracks his dad makes about taxes and such is a pretty good indicator to me that readers of all kinds can love and find this strip hilarious.

Mythos: I was gonna say Calvin and Hobbes as well but that’s been taken. 😛 outside of the typical well-known ones, I read a lot of comics but I’d say recently, it’s been Sunstone, which I did a post about a while back.

Owningmatt: All these copycats stealing my favorite comic strip series. I hate these guys (not really though). But really, I used to read Calvin and Hobbes all the way back in elementary school, and even bonded with some of my parents’ friends over the comic series in my college years. So good.

3. If you had to live the rest of your life in another country, which would you choose?

Tofu: Honestly, anywhere with healthcare better than the USA (I genuinely think somewhere like Sweden would be rad, though). Admittedly, part of me would really love to live in Japan, but given that my line of work is teaching English at a collegiate level, it doesn’t seem like the most feasible idea.

Mythos: I’d probably say Sweden as well, or one of the other Scandinavian countries who have their shit figured out, for the most part.  That said, I really like Ireland both culturally and historically. Also, the accents… *drools*

Owningmatt: I dunno, probably somewhere warmer (maybe Australia?) and definitely not in the USA, because it’s kind of a mess honestly. Not that I could really complain about being in the USA forever, but some aspects are just sucky at times. I’m indecisive though and haven’t been to many places, but I guess maybe some of the European nations could be cool too.

4. What is your favorite city?  Or do you hate/love metropolitan areas so much that you can’t choose one?

Tofu: Not to sound cheesy, but I’ve really fallen in love with my hometown city of Huntington, WV in the last few years. The place has seen a lot of issues, and it’s still struggling in a lot of ways, but the people of the city are doing their best to get it back on its feet. (Also, oh my god, this place has such a good food scene, it’s ridiculous.)

Mythos: I’d say Austin as that’s where I live now but I’ve always had a deep-seated place in my heart for my hometown Huntington.  It’s where we all met! (Also, I haven’t been but Seattle seems exactly my aesthetic.)

Owningmatt: I just moved to the largest city that I’ve ever been to, Dallas, TX, and I’m enjoying my time here thus far (and I’d probably call it my favorite right now). I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy some parts of living in my hometown with The Boys™ (Huntington, WV), but everything is so new and interesting where I’m at now. I’ve always loved larger cities though, even though some of the quirks are inconvenient at times.

5. What is your favorite manga?

Tofu: Ah heck, a hard one. I don’t know if I would say that I have a favorite, per se, but I have a few that I absolutely adore. The Emperor and I is definitely my go-to comfy/fun manga about a girl, her family, and their emperor penguin that they found in their freezer. I’m having a ton of fun currently reading Beast Children in Shonen Jump, and it just gets me hyped every week to see my dumb rugby kids do rugby things. I absolutely have to recommend 7 Billion Needles, though, as it’s one manga I absolutely adore and have never heard anyone mention ever. It’s so, so, so good. Killer sci-fi stuff.

Mythos: I hate picking between children. 😦 I’ll say this, one of (if not the first) manga I ever owned was Juvenile Orion.  I actually still have it on my shelf now, though I haven’t read it since Middle School.  It’s one of the leading reasons for my fascination with angel mythology. Outside of my first, I’d say one of my all-time favorites is Yotsuba!  I would take a bullet for that author and that amazing work.  My current favorite, though, is The Girl From the Other Side.  It’s a perfect blend of the old-style feel of dark folklore and modern story-telling.  It’s hauntingly beautiful while also being amazingly heartfelt.

Owningmatt: Unlike the others, this is a much easier choice for me. I am so partial to rom-coms that I have to plug one of my favorites, Masamune-kun’s Revenge. Sure, it’s not the pinnacle of manga or life-changing, but it was the first time I had read a manga that gave me such a wide array of feelings at a given time and I always wanted to know what happened next. The story and artwork combination was phenomenal and is a reading experience that I’ll never forget. I’d recommend it to any rom-com fans, despite how you might perceive the series on first-glance.

6. What manga or light novel are you reading currently?  Or, what novel are you reading now if you’re reading neither of those two?

Tofu: I’m keeping up with a few series in Shonen Jump, but in terms of series that I’m really invested in, I’d have to say Beast Children and Vinland Saga. I did just finish reading All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1), however, and it’s maybe one of the best pieces of genre fiction that I’ve read in a very, very long time.

Mythos:  I’m literally reading, like, 16 different books right now and about 50 manga.  That’s a toughie. I’d probably recommend the autobiographical manga The Bride was a Boy about a transgender girl finding out who she was and her family and partner loving her no matter what.  It’s very sweet and is able to deal with tough questions. That and The Girl From the Other Side.  Like, legit.  Go read it.

Owningmatt: Two light novels that I’ve been trying to keep up with are pretty different. I’ve still been reading I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, but also have been trying to read volumes of Accel World for a while as well. I just massively enjoy stories like Slimes for being over-the-top ridiculous and yet so fun and enjoyable, but I also enjoy the sort of chemistry between the two main characters in Accel World. 

7. If you could have any book or movie remade into an anime, which would it be?

Tofu: There’s a lot of cool series I’d love to see get some screen-time, but I think V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic would be perfectly suited to getting an anime adaptation. Great characters, super cool systems of magic, and just a rad overall sense of style. Make it happen.

That, or a version of Pride and Prejudice that gets the same weird, future-psychedelic adaptation style that The Count of Monte Cristo got via Gankutsuou. I would watch the hell out of that.

Mythos:  If we’re not just talking Eastern influences, I think it’d be interesting to have an adaptation of The Godfather as a series going over the life of Vito and Michael Corleone a la a similar style to maybe Baccano!  Also might be interesting to see an anime adaptation of Letters from Iwo Jima, showing a deeper perspective.  Also, an anime of Mad Max would be fucking siiiiiick, especially if they pull from Fury Road.

Owningmatt: I can’t really vouch for anything because I’m honestly not well-versed in a ton of books or movies in “Western” culture. I’m sure there are plenty of cool Japanese novels though that could be made into an anime and be super good. Like The Great Passage, for example (if you haven’t seen it, go watch it). We need more anime like that.

8. Is a zombie or vampire apocalypse more frightening to you?

Tofu: I guess a zombie apocalypse, because at the very least, one might be able to reason with vampires? Or at least get turned into one? It’s not the best scenario, but it’s better than being people jerky.

Mythos:  Honestly, probably vampires.  Like, sunlight could help but their entire existence is to prey on humans and be more dangerous and more powerful than us.  Zombies, especially if they’re the slow version, could be dealt with relatively in comparison.

Owningmatt: So this is one of those “funny” questions, considering that this is a question that is somewhat related to the plot of an anime that I’ve been watching recently, Shiki. Zombie/Vampire stories have never really been my thing, but that aside, I think vampires are honestly more terrifying than zombies because of their intelligence. In both cases though, there is definitely a lot of non-ideal things that are happening, but I’d rather fight a horde of zombies than a horde of vampires.

9. What counts as your most controversial post?

Tofu: I…guess my post about why you shouldn’t watch W’z? I can’t imagine that people would be all that upset over posts about food and longing for home.

Mythos:  The first that comes to mind is the first post I ever wrote about, Kill la Kill.  Even I have issues with it and that’s why I made a follow-up post.  However, I’d probably also say my opinion piece I did about Fanservice that was made at the time I was a little upset about some opinions on “who should be allowed to write about fanservice” in our community.

Owningmatt: Well, it’s sort of complicated, because I feel that a lot of my pieces are about taking an idea or opinion and looking at it from a different angle, like my piece about Ghibli films or my piece speaking against the “Show, don’t Tell” approach in anime. But honestly, if we’re talking most controversial, I think we can agree that the post that we all wrote about “Moe” in anime is probably the biggest controversial piece that we’ve had on this blog. That post was the best of times and the worst of times, simultaneously.

10. Do you ever write a draft of a post with pen and paper before typing it up on the computer?

Tofu: A few years ago, I worked at a call center that would let you read or do pretty much whatever else between calls, so I took that time occasionally to work on post drafts. It never really stuck with me as a practice, though.

Mythos:  Genuinely never.  The reason is that since I was a small child, I never really learned how to write well.  My handwriting is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen and I write so slow that I just can’t keep up with the thoughts in my brain.  So if I ever have any thought, I usually immediately go to a keyboard. And if I can’t make it to one of those, I’ll settle for the slower touch screen.  Still faster than pen and paper for me, sadly. I own really pretty journals that never see ink. T_T

Owningmatt: I’ve done it before. Fun fact: I used to work at the same call center Tofu did and I ended up drafting a few of my posts this way, but honestly it was because I was bored and wanted to efficiently use time rather than something that I felt like I needed to do. Sometimes I’ll hand-write an outline or major points of a post I’m writing, but that’s about it. I’ve also done all of the above on a computer and had no complaints, and it’s my preferred way at this point.

11. Are you more of a tea or coffee person–or neither one?

Tofu: At this point in time, I drink more coffee than tea, but in my heart of hearts, I am a ride-or-die tea boi. Keep it basic with some Constant Comment, or get a little fancy and experimental with some weird loose-leaf teas. The best tea I ever had in my life was some weird allergy relief blend I bought Ohio Renaissance Festival, and not only did it most definitely clear up my sinuses, but god, it tasted so good. I miss it dearly.

Mythos:  Hands down coffee.  Been drinking it since I was five (probably not great for my developmental health, either).  However, recently, I’ve tried more and more tea and really enjoyed them for quiet and calm nights of reading and such.

Owningmatt: If I had to choose, coffee. I absolutely hate tea and despite every one I’ve tried. Warm, iced, whatever. I want to enjoy tea so much, but my taste-buds are not my “buds” in this case and have decided they hate tea forever. Also, I need a caffeine fix somehow so that’s my poison, in this case.

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We apparently had to nominate 11 people, but we decided to go with only 8 for now. Of course, no pressure to those that don’t do these or don’t feel the need to participate. We also just… enjoy these blog’s content in general, so we wanted to give them a shout-out as well. No hard feelings or anything to those that want to opt out. It’s all in good fun for us, so we just want to make sure everyone’s having a good time and not feel like they have to do something they don’t want to do.

Anyway, here’s our list of “nominees”.

Our Nominees

• Irina of 100 Word Anime
• The Afictionado
• PunishedHag
• Rai’s Anime Blog 
• Seasonal Prattle
• Therefore It Is
• The Zodiac Room
• Atelier Emily

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And of course, the 11 questions for those nominated and want to participate in this are below, including a special Backloggers-styled bonus question! 🙂 

Our Questions:

1. What is an anime or manga that you love that you don’t think gets enough attention?
2. What was your favorite book from childhood, and why?
3. Do you have a favorite snack, junk food or otherwise?
4. What character from an anime or manga do you most identify with, and why?
5. Think of a weird animal. What is the first one that popped into your head?
6. Have you ever watched an anime that was out of your comfort zone and ended up enjoying? If so, what show?
7. What is a Western series or movie that you think would be a great anime/manga?
8. What uncommon animation style would you love to see an anime made with? (Stop-motion, clay-mation, roto-scoping, flip-book, etc.)
9. What culture would you love to see an anime about?  From what country?
10. Are there any real life locations that you’d love to see featured in an anime (landmarks, natural land features, ect.)?
11. Would you make a contract to become a magical girl with a certain cute* animal?
12. Ghost Question: What’s your general opinion on Ghost Banri? (If you don’t know what that is, then that’s probably for the better.)

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Thanks to all the readers that have enjoyed this blog and kept reading our stuff, even if the text posts have been a bit sparse recently. We appreciate you guys, and hope that you guys enjoyed this fun award nomination post.