Happy New Year 2012!

A brand new year is upon us, and for some unknown reason, I’m posting an image of some chestnut shells I ate on New Years Eve. I haven’t been blogging a lot lately, there’s a lot of posts I want to make, but I’m half finished writing some I wanted to post first. Maybe next year I should just write the new posts and leave the half-finished ones alone and see if I return to them. I’m going to go through each category I claim to blog about (well, they are in the top menu bar anyways) and tell you about my thoughts on them in 2011 and what I plan for them in 2012.

Music

I thought 2010 was bad for new music releases, however, there has been nothing truly inspiring released this year. Maybe because I simply pick up each new release from my favourite old bands and the names in instrumental music I keep up with. There has been some new albums from those old bands, but of course, they are never as good as when they  were in their prime. And those instrumental acts are getting similar too. I haven’t been seeking out any new music, and even though I still attend quite a lot of gigs, I normally just take on someone else’s suggestion. I’ve also been getting more into Japanese music. I’ve been a AKB48 fan since early 2010 but ever since my 2nd Japan trip, I’ve been utterly obsessed with them – on forums constantly and watching a performance by them almost every day. It’s taken over my other hobbies recently and doesn’t look likely to stop for a while. The only thing I know in music other than AKB48 in 2012 is the return of The Stone Roses – I’ll need to get myself a ticket to one of their gigs. Oh, and Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel) should hopefully return to curate the delayed ATP.

Videogames

This year I’ve practically stopped playing games apart from in one genre – shoot-em-ups. And then, just by one developer – Cave. I’m still not very good at them, although have a few 1CCs notched now (which I haven’t blogged about). I still haven’t kept up with all their console releases, despite buying an Asian 4GB Xbox 360 Slim to play more of them on, despite owning a PAL Xbox. I also purchased a PSP this year (behind the times) which has been great fun. And recently, I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to a 4S so have been checking out some of the games there. In 2012 I’m seriously tempted to get a Nintendo 3DS (now that its cheap and some decent games are out), and also a PlayStation Vita when that becomes cheap and there are some games I want. Also, I’m hoping for an Xbox 360 port of Mushihime-sama version1.5.

Photos

I’ve been a bit slack on taking and sorting photos. Now I have a decent phone camera again I might take some whilst out and about – I need to explore new places recently. I’ve got loads of holiday snaps to sort out too.

Figures

This past year I’ve bought loads of scaled figures and nendos, culminating in a huge bunch of purchases during my 2nd Japan Trip. However, the more I have, the less I appreciate them. And I’m running out of room to display them nicely. I don’t even change the poses of my nendos any more. Still, there’s a few nendos coming out early 2012 that I’ll buy but maybe I should put scaled figure purchases on hold until I sort out a nice display solution.

Anime

This year I’ve been watching more series weekly as they air (although only half the amount of series that I like the look of from the previews) rather than marathoning through old series. As a result, I’ve only watched about the same number of series as last year, despite watching anime for twice as many months! I got really into Evangelion this year (behind the times again) and my favourite series from 2011 was definitely Usagi Drop. So many real human emotions. I’ll post a list soon of all the anime series I’ve completed in 2011 with thoughts. I haven’t finished the Fall 2011 series that I’m watching yet so will post thoughts on those in due course too. As for 2012, I’ve only got two series on my eye for the spring season. But I have lots of series from 2011 and some box sets to catch up on. Also, this year I’ve started reading manga. I have a huge shelf full now – I’ve been planning to blog about that for a while now, but the shelf keeps getting bigger, and I’m not finishing off enough series.

Japan

This year was strong – I made my 2nd Japan Trip! I spend a lot of time in Akihabara but also visited loads of other places. Tokyo (Roppongi, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku), Osaka, Kyoto, Toyosato (for the K-ON! school), Tsukuba, Kawaguchi-ko (for Fuji-san and Evangelion World), Nikko. There’s still loads of places in Japan I want to visit, even in Tokyo itself (like Odaiba for instance) and I need to make some pilgrimages like my Shenmue one to Yokosuka that has been on the cards for 10 years! I don’t think I’ll make my 3rd trip next year but hopefully in 2013. I should post more themed pictures here, but honestly, I find posting a large amount of photos a pain in the arse using WordPress.