With the way 2020 has been going, I figured now was a great time to bring some super happy energy to Blerdy Otome!! So, I’m tackling the Super Happy Love Award! I was nominated for this super fun award by TheRandomEditor a phenomenal blogger and artist! I fell in love with their Bara essays and posts, which are both entertaining and educational—go read those ASAP—but, they also write some great anime analysis essays and reviews that are definitely worth checking out!
I have quite a few award nominations that have piled up, but this one is definitely the most unique AND it was created by the absolutely delightful Pinkie from Pinkie’s Paradise! She created this tag as a way to promote positive vibes in a time when there’s a whole heck of a lot of negativity floating around.
“The ones we love , even when fictional, are oftenly only human after all. With this blog tag I want to spread love for all the fandoms and united fans in positivity again! No longer will we shake our heads and say “this isn’t the <insert fandom> that we used to know.. they destroyed our beloved. NO! We stand together and join forces and turn this into “Remember the time that <insert fandom> did this amazing thing! I LOVE IT!”
Making the Internet a Happier Place : The Super Happy Love Award – Pinkie
The Rules
- Thank the one who tagged you and if at all please tag the original post as well. This is my first blog tag and a bit of a passion project so I would like to see where it spreads! Oh and use Super-Happy-Love as a tag!
- Display the Super Happy Love Logo in your post Share the rules!
- Choose a minimum of 2 out of these 6 prompts to answer in this blog! More is always allowed! These six prompts are as follows!
– Tell about a person you love, this can be a friend, partner but also a celebrity or even YouTuber who means a lot to you. As long as they once took breath on this earthly realm you are allowed to pick them… Tell us why you love them.
– Write something about a fandom or franchise you love. It can be your favorite game series or about just about anything that is bigger than just a single product! Tell us why you love this so much!
– Tell us something about a character that you love. Do you have a Waifu, a Husbando, maybe a mentor, or someone who taught you a valuable lesson. Tell us why you love them.
– Tell us something about a piece of music that you love. Does an anime intro mean a lot to you? Did you have a special memory to a pop song, like your first dance at your wedding? Maybe a piece of video game music? If you love it, you should tell us why!
– Show us why you love a piece of media so much! A Book, A Game, A Anime, A Movie maybe even a random piece of fan art, you are free to pick as long as you can show us why you love it.
– Write something about yourself that you love! For those who like a challenge, there is a hard mode in this blog prompt as well. Tell us why you love a certain aspect of yourself - Put on your rose-tinted glasses. For once you are allowed to gush about the things that you love without having to balance it out with negatives so that you seem objective. In fact, you are actively encouraged not to bring negativity into this tag. So no “Nowadays.. <topic> is poopoo but back in my days.. .it was great. Just say it was great! Love is blind after all!
- Tag 6 bloggers you love so they can take on this challenge as well.
- Everyone who comments something lovely about your post ALSO gets nominated. (Should they so choose)
Write something about a fandom or franchise you love.
This is definitely a no brainer for me, Pokemon is the one franchise that has stood the test of time for me. I watched the anime religiously as a kid and Pokemon Crystal was my first ever video game and even now as an adult I snagged a copy of Pokemon Sword. I’ve written at length about by love of the franchise—Hit me right in the Childhood: An Ode to Pokemon, I herd u liek…Hoenn: An Ode to Pokemon II, and We All Live in a Pokemon World: An Ode to Pokemon III—I highly recommend reading those posts.
As cheesy as it sounds, growing up I wanted to be a Pokemon master like Ash. I wanted to go on my own Pokemon journey and explore all the various regions and discover every Pokemon species… and through the games I could! The Pokemon franchise sparked my sense of adventure and wonder and even now I have fond memories of traveling the Johto region with my Cyndaquil by my side. The Pokemon franchise will always hold a special place in my heart.
Show us why you love a piece of media so much!
It was hard to pick just one piece of media that I love, because my interests are all over the place—but after much deliberation, I decided to go with Banana Fish. Yeah, you read that right, Banana Fish. I read the manga when I was in undergrad and it was so different from anything else I had ever read and it left a HUGE impact on me. So, the series is technically a shoujo series, but it’s as far removed from the usual romance and flowers of “traditional” shoujo series—I mean it’s about gangsters in New York! I guess that’s what appealed to me back then, I was looking for something darker and edgier and Banana Fish more than provided.
I read the scans, but I still made my best effort to buy the print copies of the series, which was made much easier with the reprint thanks to the anime release in 2018. This is my favorite manga series, hands down and when the anime was announced I followed the announcements religiously! I was writing for MANGA.TOKYO at the time and I remember sending this long email to my editor begging to cover the series for the site (which he totally agreed to). I go hard for Banana Fish, the story, these characters… that ending…
Posts I wrote about Banana Fish:
- Fangirl Moment: Banana Fish
- [OWLS Blog Tour] Live Fast, Die Young: The Limitations of Change in Banana Fish
- Manga Review: Banana Fish
- Banana Fish Seasonal Anime Reviews
Tell us something about a character that you love.
Tsukishima Kei from Haikyuu is one of my favorite anime characters and I’m going to be honest, I HAAAAAATED him at first. He’s such a jerk in the first season, constantly throwing shade and snarking on his teammates and worst of all, he’s not even serious about VOLLEYBALL… the horror! I wondered what the hell was his deal, I mean why play volleyball if you don’t actually LIKE it in the first place. But, then we get that backstory with his brother and suddenly he wasn’t just an asshole… he was a kid genuinely loved volleyball and idolized his brother only to have his hopes and dreams CRUSHED! I felt his pain, baby Tsukki’s heart breaking was almost too much, and from that point on I was all aboard the TSUKKI Express!
Then there was the training camp arc where you see the rest of the Karasuno team coming into their own and developing their skills and the ever cynical Tsukishima starts to realize that he wants to grow too! What follows is one of the best redemption stories ever! Tsukishima KILLS it in season 3, really coming into his own as a player and as a strategist… and when he blocks Ushijima’s spike… I cried y’all, because he was finally just like everyone else—a volleyball idiot.
Nominations!!
- Yon Nyan – BiblioNyan
- Solarayo -Ace Asunder
- Steph – Two Happy Cats
- MangaOtakuu – MangaOtakuu
- Meghan – Meghan Plays Games
- Kitty-chlo – Otome Kitten
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Love your answers! And I was not expecting Banana Fish. Yet, it makes sense considering how it’s able to be so consistently dark in a demographic seemingly light on any subject matter. No other shoujo series would dare to try reaching that extent. The ending made it so debatable since it can be interpreted one way or another.
Speaking of Pokemon, I actually started with the Hoenn region. My starter? I liek Mudkipz. My original Gameboy was dead until I got a trip back memory lane with Omega Ruby. Though I wasn’t able to get the latest games (Sword or Shield) because personally it never felt different from past games. I still love the spinoffs (Mystery Dungeon is still alive!) and I could go back to the main series when another game that could pique my interest comes.
Thank you for the nomination!!
Your experience with Tsukki’s character is exactly the same as mine – I hated him in S1, he was such a brat, even though it was good comedy. When we got more into his backstory, and he started to develop beyond just the two-dimensional bully, I grew to like him more and more. When he starts asking Coach Ukai questions about blocking strategies and Ukai starts bawling and fangirling – that was basically my reaction to Tsukki’s growth. The actual hypest moment in S3 is that block on Ushiwaka (I literally screamed) but also when he got injured and had to leave for a bit – I was totally panicking, and the relief that I felt when he ran back onto the court was IMMENSE. That’s when I knew I loved him!
Aww those were some nice answers! Thank you for doing the tag! So happy to see it is still going!
Happy so see some Pokémon Love, and of course a great dose of positivity!
Thank you very much for the tag! 😁 I wanted to be a Pokemon master like Ash too when I was a kid so you’ll get no judgement from me, haha
Congrats & love your answers. ^ ^)/
Thank you for the tag! I absolutely adore Pokémon too! At my old work I had my whole desk decked out in Pokémon stuff like a pikachu mug and some small figurines. How did you find Pokémon Sword? I’ve got Shield if you ever want to trade exclusives!