For an update, we have passed the first round and much love to Bobbie for being a sport. I would have liked a team blog as opponent but as I have already said, seeding is not perfect so no point in talking about it. Tipping my proverbial hat to Ultimatemegax, Kansatsu, The Otaku’s blog, Hachimitsu, Sequential Ink, The G-Empire and The Check-in Station (so close!); while, congrats to Avvesione’s Anime Blog, deluscar, Heart of Manga, Maserbeamdotcom, Bokutachi no Blog, Shonen Beam and Ambivalence or is it Ambiguity? for passing to the next round. Things will get tougher with time but let’s not forget, most of us are doing this in good faith.

49. Anime Anthology

Thoughts: Welcome to Anime anthology, a team blog of ThejesterGL, Chidori3souske and Hikaru. They review anime series as a whole along with occasional podcasts. Each series review breaks down into a short summary followed by four to five paragraphs and it ends with a final statement about the writer’s thoughts on the series complete with a few screen caps and artwork from the anime in review. That said Chidori3souske seems to break it down even further into a few categories like the summary, story, characters, animation, sounds and enjoyment. I really did enjoy reading their different style of reviews along with their newish podcast.

Design wise this blog didn’t really catch my attention but the color scheme is fine and same for banners. I liked the fact they had them on a rotation showing off a few reviews, spring season and advertised their podcast. Overall not a bad looking blog as it’s very simple and free of random clutter. You can find their twitter links at the bottom just in case you want to add them.

50. Emory Anime Club

Thoughts: The Emory Anime Club is actually – you guessed it – the website for Emory University’s anime club. Most anime club sites just list the upcoming events and maybe some news, they decided to go all the way and actually blog about currently airing anime as well. Quite an impressive task for an anime club to tackle. The site looks very nice, although every now and then the tab names would subtly change and confuse me. Still, it puts my university’s anime club to shame. They even blog about Game of Thrones! Bonus points!!

The episodic posts mostly focus on the writer’s overall impression of that episode, as well as any interesting connections or revelations they thought of while watching it. I expected the writing to be sloppy, seeing as it’s just a bunch of anime fans banding together, but the quality is surprisingly high. I hope they get more traffic other than the students in the actual club.

51. The beautiful world

Thoughts: Welcome to the interesting blog Kitsuntoneko. A small team blog with the writing team of Neko and Kitsune aka Foxy Lady. Now their blog is a bit different than most blogs I tend to visit; while they don’t episodically blog anime, they do have a few interesting manga reviews and lots of interesting editorial posts like this one on Lingerie: Weapons of Seduction or sex part one. Yes a post like that does sound a bit out there for most of us, but they did a great job together and it focuses more on the anime series panty and stocking. Throughout most of their posts, you can tell both writers have a thing for yuri and yaoi themed anime; for myself personally it wasn’t my thing; however, both of them did a very good job breaking down what they are passionate about.

Design wise, I really liked the blue background of the blog and the CCS banner looks really cute; not to mention, the great choices in fanart for each and every post, minus the manga reviews of course, which uses actual panels from the manga in review. Overall I enjoyed the style of posts even if some of them are borderline NSFW and their design caught my eye. So, pay them a visit and see for yourself.

52. Shinde Iie Anime Blog

Thoughts: What’s great about Shinde Iie Anime Blog, which follows the classic episodic format, is that the author inushinde (on his own) almost always puts out a post every day. I applaud him for their dedication. The posts are mostly his own thoughts, but they also provide some quick bits of summary for people who might not have seen the episode. I really like the post length as well, usually about 5-6 paragraphs. Of the four posts I checked out, each was very enjoyable to read. I feel like his comments are also an extension of their posts because they also can be very detailed. inushinde analyzes the hell out of characters, which I love, and overall his opinion is worth the time to read.

I like the purple design of his blog and having Senjougahara on your banner gets them instant-awesome points! The blog uses a typical, neatly organized wordpress style, which works very nicely. So, do check his blog out.

53. Anime B&B

Thoughts: Marina was nominated for the Versatile Blogger award for good reason, Anime B&B has a myriad of different posts about varying subjects. On the front page alone you’ll find an editorial, product review, a ramen recipe and the usual first impressions of the new season. There’s a lot of content, but it doesn’t feel messy. Anime B&B is like your jack of all trades of blogging – Marina covers a lot of different things, and does so rather well.

Anime Bits and Bites updates very regularly, which is always an impressive feat for solo blogs. The layout is nothing special. It’s wordpress, what do you expect at this point? At the very least, it’s simple to navigate and the posts look inviting. You never just what you’re going to get until you click “continue reading.”

54. Anipages

Thoughts: If you haven’t really been following the tourney all that closely, Anipages was a late entry after daifuuku, unfortunately, had to drop out due to technical issues that I believe are being diligently worked on by the staff. A first glance at the replacement and you’ll see Anipages has a very simple design without too much in-your-face color, but it works for them and it was easy to navigate too! My only complaint would be the SCROLLING. Lots and lots of scrolling.

This probably sounds super cliche, but I think the phrase “last but not least” fits here very well. Anipages has been around for an incredibly long time, starting back in 2004, and since then the site has grown a lot. From what I can tell of the first 5 pages Ben covers mostly classic anime (like pre-2000 stuff, but not limited to that, for instance, he’s covering Lupin III and has done Spring impressions as well). From the 4 posts I read in full detail, Anipages has some of the most professional, well-written posts I’ve ever seen. They don’t quite have the visual flair you might be used to from more recent blogs, only using 1-2 pics for each entry, but the real quality here comes from the immense amount of detail put into each post. Ben has a lot of experience, and it shows.

55. Trzr23

Thoughts: trzr23, named after the main author of the same name, didn’t really convince me at first glance. The vast expanses of white in the layout left my mind equally blank, and I couldn’t even find dates for the posts. Then I settled down and got to reading some of the posts and realized that I shouldn’t be so quick to judge a book by its cover.

Let’s be clear: I really, really like trzr23’s writing style. He’s very aware of the reader, and writes as if he’s having a conversation with you. His posts are witty, well-written, and really fun to read. It’s an incredibly entertaining blog, and…yes…that means I’ve found yet another place to lurk in.

56. Traveler on Revenge

Thoughts: Traveler on Revenge is a blog where Ahelo posts mostly reviews with a side order of editorials. He’s done a handful of episodic posts this year, but I think he’s at his best when he hones in on one particular subject, like the moment when Ano Natsu de Matteru went from good to great or how Chihayafuru did a little deconstructing of the bishounen genre. He writes good reviews, and I like his calculated scoring format, most specifically the “engagement” category. I do wish I found more stuff like his recent Sankarea post about saving 200+ Rea pics; that post and his very brief one about the rage over JC Staff adapting Little Busters were fun reads.

Ahelo’s site layout is standard. No glitz and glamour, not cluttered, etc. ToR is one of the few blogs that  doesn’t use a “Read More” option, so unless you want to comment, you don’t need to do any of that clicking around BS. He minimizes this further by including infinite scrolling on his site.

57. Super Fanicom BS-X

Thoughts: From what I can tell of Super Fanicom, for a while it had a very sporadic posting style, like once a month and sometimes longer, but recently it seems to have been brought back to life by Pontifus. In the past the blog seems to have covered a large amount of topics, like visual novels, games, etc, but now it seems as though it’ll be focused on Retro Blogging, with Cowboy Bebop already completed and Utena being covered currently. I avoided the Cowboy Bebop posts, because it’s something I haven’t seen, but plan on watching, so I went with the Utena posts instead.

Pontifus has a very unique perspective, taking things to a new level of “deep”. I love it! From just three posts I learned more about the series then I ever knew, Pontifus writes in such an intelligent way, it’s almost addictive. Seriously, you need to check his posts out. Visually Super Fanicom is nothing all that special. Simple layout. Easy navigation. Basic gray color scheme. It’s nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. Though, I do love the screencaps they use, which seem perfectly placed in each post.

58. Assorted Exploration

Thoughts: Next up we visit Assorted Explorations, an anime blog by Jay aka TCManila, a blogger you might remember from deremoe Project. I guess he has this as a backup blog? Anyway, he also has a podcast where he brings in some other writers from deremoe. So how does Jay review his anime? In small posts with several pictures with comments under them about the episode. Now this review style is very different for me and it was quite entertaining, but if you are looking for in depth style of reviews you won’t really find it here, which isn’t a bad thing. Some of the comments did make me laugh; however, this style seems more like a quick way to review anime versus walls of text and screen cap based anime blogs.

Design wise Assorted Explorations isn’t anything amazing at first glance and somewhat cluttered. Though, you can clearly read each post and the footer has all the important links as in twitter, Google+, Facebook, quick links to his podcast and episode reviews. Anyways, do check him out!

59. Temporal Vortex

Thoughts: This blog’s been here for quite a long time. Foomafoo started in 2006, but he only really separated his aniblogging stuff from his persoanl blog in 2008. Since then he’s been pumping out editorial posts every month along with the occasional review of an entire series. His writing is very simple and straight-forward, but not uninteresting to read.

Temporal Vortex has really nice post formatting, with magical (they’re not really magical, just humour me) images that pop up on the left side as you scroll down. You wanna know what else pops up? Ads. Random words are highlighted as links, and they reveal ads when you hover over them. Seeing as this isn’t a wordpress blog, they need to pay the bills SOMEHOW, but it is a bit uncomfortable to be offered iPads when I’m just trying to read about good old Japanese cartoons.

60. Love the Machine

Thoughts: There’s no About page, but I can gather that it’s only Utilsabound blogging. His/Her last post was on March 14th, so it’s been over a month which leaves me to wonder if they know they’re involved in this tournament. U’s musings are related to anime, but can be quite random. Not many of us talk about how moving can affect our anime collections or the difference between owning body pillows and pets. They are unusual takes and some might not see eye-to-eye with those thougts or even relate, but if Utilsabound kept writing more of that stuff, I’d pay attention and maybe drop a comment.

Site design is very ordinary, though old-timey art photo of a family watching lolis on TV is funny.

61. Whiners.Pro

Thoughts: With that kind of name, you would think the site is full of whiners. Pro whiners ;_;? Lol. A lot of anibloggers are steaming with anger on Sage just because he is trashing their sites for his aniblog commentary. You can say, an almost opposite of what we are doing with these highlights but hey, different colours and writing style for different people, right? Whatever rocks his boat.

Random articles on conventions, season reviews and weaboo moments aside, Sage is srs bsns about fansubbing with his crew, who are not as regular in updating as he is. I specifically found his commentary on what Commie did wrong for Nisemonogatari subbing interesting. He must have lots of time in hand to dish out posts on regular basis and he does break it down screen by screen of what he dis/liked in a subbing of a certain group. Design wise, the site is clean and easily navigable. The random character popping up with the header is interesting but hey, who can hate on Pikachu with his pika-pika, right? This is not a site for the easily offended but give some time and you would surprisingly like some of their detailed posts.

62. Angry Anime Bitches

Thoughts: Dem angry bitches be bloggin’! There are girls and guys blogging for the site, and they cover a nice-sized list of shows episodically. One thing I really like about them is their up-to-date “Who’s Blogging What?” list. Summaries are contained to a paragraph, 10 rows worth of 6 images each usually, and the impressions fluctuate in terms of presentation. I’m a fan of the ones where they insert smaller images and have the text wrap around it, and they’ll also find/stitch panning shots together which is always fun. In terms of written content, they aren’t super-informative but do touch on the key points of an episode and speculate. Their fangirling sneaks out just a bit from time to time, which is fine by me. We all fangirled when Excalibur happened.

The site looks decent, but I think it deserves better. It has the makings of a great-looking aniblog site, and I think only a little bit of extra effort is needed. Little things like making separator text such as “Impressions” or a tag partner’s name stand out more with font size and color, and I do think they should switch all of the gray text to black.

63. Kidd’s Anime Blog

Thoughts: My final blog in review brings us to Kidds’ anime blog with the solo writer Kiddtic who writes posts on anime, but each post has plenty text about the episode in review with a very few shots from the episode. The DVD reviews for Kiddtic breaks down the positives and all of the negatives about the DVD followed by a rating system and then wrapped up with a short paragraph with a final verdict if you should actually buy the DVD or not. I really enjoyed the editing and use of music for the final released podcasts; however I have only listened to one of his episodes.

Site design, I really enjoyed the Durarara!! background and it uses lots of black on black for the color scheme, but most of the information is stuck on the right hand side the usual links like a blogroll, top posts and then several links to other anime podcasts. The overall look however is a bit cluttered. Anyways, this is your stop, if you are ever curious to see if you should buy a certain DVD or not, anime review and podcast.

64. AniRec’s Anime Blog

Thoughts: There isn’t an About page though I think it’s mostly Facade with some posting by The Droid doing reviews about anime. They have some interesting series of posts like “Short run series” or Fanservice Alert. If you look at their first page along, you might notice that they spend more time on older anime than recent ones, which is fine since the thoughts they express are all interesting. Give their most recent post about Misa Amane a read.

Site design is nice. Nice banner and featured section that auto rotates, also uses a “You May Also Like” section, which is good for keeping people like me sticking around to read another post or two. They should probably add a couple more links on their navigation bar at the top since there’s plenty of real estate left open up there. An about page would be nice too.