This post is part of a Team Blue’s first Round Robin, in which members try to post something regarding the given topic.

I’m also doing this to ease my mind after so much coding. ~_~

The collaboration of a group of individuals, the size of which may vary from 2 to any (reasonable) amount, in order to post and maintain a single blog. That’s team blogging in a nutshell.

Team blogging has become quite common in the anime “blogosphere”, with popular ones like Riuva. Panther’s own blog is also another example, though it’s more of a oh-I’m-looking-for-co-writers-for-my-blog rather than let’s-form-a-team thing. In the case of the latter, a group of (otaku) friends gather to create a blog dedicated to their ramblings about anime/otaku culture in general.

That brings me to my next point. Why form a team blog? Some form one (typically) to share the cost (or to mooch off the richer ones) of hosting a customised blog, complete with domain names and such. Others form up to alleviate the “weight” of keeping the blog active, e.g. posting regularly. Distributing the “load” among several people can bring about the illusion of constant activity.

In other words, they’re too lazy/busy to handle it themselves.

There are also other advantages to consider. Consider a team otaku-themed blog with 3 members. One person could focus on anime, another on games, and the last on figurines. The blog could then proudly claim that it’s covering 3 aspects of otaku culture, thus attracting more visitors, etc. Also, the more members you have in your team, the greater your coverage can be. Behold the power of diversity.

Then there are the risks behind forming a team blog. Let’s face it, it’s not easy finding a team of people able enough (as in free and not so damn lazy) to post. The majority of the members of a team blog have to be active contributers, otherwise the blog will either revert into an individual point (which defeats the purpose), or die away completely. :/

Image source: Pixiv by つむつむ

Take for instance, a certain blog B, which is made up of writers C, D, E, and F, with C heing the leader.  Let’s say F enters National Service, and therefore cannot post. E goes into depression due to work issues (e.g. overdue assignments), and therefore cannot post either. D goes into an indefinite hiatus for no apparent reason (e.g. can’t be arsed), and eventually C gets sick of being all alone, and leaves, and the others follow suit.

Result: Completely dead team blog.

There are, however, many examples of team blogs that are still alive and kicking now. As I’ve mentioned before lot of people are following the trend of forming team blogs, especially since most people now are much more disciplined (and yet somehow too damn lazy to start blogs of their own). There’s somehow so much future behind forming a team blog than “roughing it out” and taking on the responsibility alone.

But then again, Kyouran Kyōdai is (technically) a team blog. Fariz and I joined up for a special reason: We’re brothers with very similar interests. We blogged about the same things before the merger, and it felt kinda silly posting about the same thing on two different blogs. Of course, I’m now the less active of the two here, though I have been contributing behind the scenes. I provide a lot of material for Fariz to post, and he (somehow) manages to post every single day/night.

Special case, I know, but it just proves a point: It’s just so CONVENIENT. And it is because of this conveniece that team blogging will be the future of anime blogging (or at least become really popular and common). Maybe it’ll reach the point where we look at individual bloggers and go “Wow I wonder how he/she managed that himself/herself”.

Well, that’s the end of my RR. Granted, it’s not the best essay I’ve written, since I’m exhausted from staying up late last night (apparently that can have a delayed effect on you), and I hoped you enjoyed it (as if).

*yawns*

Well, then, back to normal life.

Forgive me for the lack of imagination in the post title.

It’s going to get a bit personal here tho, so go to the end of this post for Project DIVA information (yes, there’s more).

Oh yeah, warning: Screenshot spam.

My Job Ends

Finally, I’ve completed my two week regime job for the school, shooting some Vietnamese training course/conference. Initially I didn’t plan on taking every single day (excluding Fridays), but then something caught my eye:

Yes, for the first time in my life I am buying figurines, and a pair at one go to boot. These are the figma figurines of the Kagamine twins, Rin and Len. My brother’s already acquiring his Miku figma soon to join his Miku Nendoroid, so I thought I’d get these two to match her. It’s likely that these may be the only figurines I’ll be buying, except for maybe the Kagamine Rin and Len Nendoroids, which are unlikely to be re-released. T_T

Team Blue

I’ve been a member of Team Blue for quite some time now, though I never found time to post the news, or update the blogroll.

Yes, the (only) banner you see at the side under “Team Blue Members” is Panther, the leader/Banchou of this group of insane bloggers/IRC lurkers/blog commenters. Fariz is one of the Core members, and I’ve already gone out with them to the Singapore Toy & Comic Convention.

Recruitment drive’s still open though, and you can apply by joining our IRC channel in irc://irc.rizon.net/, #teamblue, or by commenting in the recruitment post.

Blog Merger

I’d like to announce that this blog will be defunct eventually, since I’ll be teaming up with my brother to form a new duo blog.

However, this won’t happen anytime soon, since we still have yet to decide on a few things, namely:

• the name of the blog,
• the host of the blog (hopefull cheap or free, since we’re only looking to host a WordPress blog, and all media will be hosted externally),
• whether we’re getting a full domain or a sub-domain.

Till then, I’ll keep posting my own news (especially Vocaloid-ism, since after merger it’ll be pretty useless).

Project DIVA PSP demo “leeked”

Apparently the PSP demo for the game has already been leaked in Japan months prior to the demo’s release in a few months, and a pal of mine in Japan has already played it. There are some features which I doubt has been released, such as:

• being able to download song packs and add-ons for the game for free. This feature was found in the demo as a “Download” button, but selecting it causes a “Wait for full release” message to pop-up, so wait we shall. XD
• a VS. play mode, enabling you to challenge anyone else over WiFi (the only way you can connect anyway lol). Basically all participants just play a song at the same time and compare scores at the end, there aren’t a lot of details about this.

I’ll bring you a video of the game (from the same pal) as soon as I get it from her. Till then, enjoy these screenshots as appetizers, courtesy of bonobono.

Thanks for the info, Soruken!