So apparently Banana Mizuki and Yui Horie both revamped their blogs and in so doing eliminated their RSS/Atom feeds.

Eh, they'll be back. Besides, with Aya Hirano updating in the double digits each day, it's already hard enough to keep pace with Wakusei.

Kawasumi Ayako.

Origins of the Ayako Doctrine: Circa 2002, with J.C. Staff riding its recent successes of Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar and the Azumanga Daioh anime, members of the Something Awful anime forum developed the J.C. Staff Clause (i.e., an anime produced by J.C. Staff should be watched), and invoked it when speculating about the quality of unreleased shows.

Ginban Kaleidoscope.

As an aside, "J.C. Staff Clause" itself likely benefited from its name's similarity to the "J.C. Crew," a band of Internet miscreants with ties to Something Awful's forums. But I digress.

Princess Nine.

Later (likely 2003) a member (probably ricequeen) of the channel #raspberryheaven or its offshoots applied the J.C. Staff Clause reasoning (an anime by J.C. Staff will be good) to his fervent devotion to the seiyuu Kawasumi Ayako, bringing the "Ayako Clause" to the #raspberryheaven vernacular (and effectively adding the clause itself to the Raspberry Heaven common law).

Piano.

In 2004, a participant in #marimite, Evirus (yes, that's right), unilaterally determined that the principles defined by the existing variants of the Ayako Clause, as practiced, constituted dogma: THE AYAKO DOCTRINE.

Kannazuki no Miko.

The Ayako Doctrine simply dictates the following axiom:

Any anime featuring Kawasumi Ayako should be watched.

Note that the Ayako Doctrine does not claim every anime featuring Ayako Kawasumi will be good, nor does it dictate that these anime must be watched to completion. The Ayako Doctrine merely compels the viewer's consideration, reasoning that her presence can only be positive. Ergo, ceteris paribus, Ayako anime should be prioritized over other shows.

Samurai Champloo.

So ordered.

This is not a Danbooru breast-comparison chart.

I'm re-watching Azumanga Daioh again. This time I'm leaving my ADV DVDs on the shelf, and just watching the Triad fansubs—partially because of ADV's "MISS SAKAKI" faggotry, but also because I find it entirely too inconvenient at the moment to swap DVDs and cycle through pointless menus, etc.

Tomo, Yomi, and Chiyo.

E/N Warning: I originally watched Azumanga Daioh during an especially demanding time. I didn't really have time for, well, anything...but I sacrificed sleep to watch episodes of Azumanga Daioh because the show always made me laugh my ass off.

Sayaka from Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo.

As an aside, those of you who really enjoy the music in Azumanga Daioh are encouraged to give another J.C. Staff series a try: Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo. It's a vastly underrated series, which suffers because it didn't capture the attention of a better-known fansubbing group, and because its initial episodes are a little overt with the fan service levels. Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo is no Azumanga Daioh to be sure, but it is amusing enough, and the background music is very similar.

Osaka, Chiyo, and Sakaki.

Actually, I ended up marathoning Azumanga Daioh before I finished writing this entry. My original review still stands. I don't think I even have much to add, except perhaps this:

In light of this year's fervor over Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, it is important to remember the tremendous fanbase devoted to Azumanga Daioh during its prime. That Bandai enjoyed great success with its The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya launch compared to ADV's Azumanga Daioh failure is at least partially attributable to the degree to which ADV fucked it up.

Haruhi.

Certainly the timing of the sales and the expansion in the market itself over the years contributed to the differences in the two North American releases, but it should be obvious to fans of both shows that ADV's stumbles marketing Azumanga Daioh coupled with the MISS SAKAKI-type curiosities seriously cost ADV a tremendous opportunity. I'm not going to break down the differences point by point, but a large one to consider is Bandai's (at least tacit) willingness to embrace (and market directly to) fans of the show who had already seen it via downloading fansubs or streaming YouTube—a sharp contrast to ADV's doctrines.

Yukari and Nyamo.

Think of it as the triumph of Web 2.0 mumbo jumbo versus the old and busted obstinate way of doing things. ADV, like everyone else, knows fansub-watchers buy DVDs. Think of it this way: Every series offered with a "collector's box" edition of the set's first DVD is obviously geared towards people who have already watched and enjoyed the show. Who else would buy the collector's box edition of a show they had never seen? Wouldn't it make more sense to offer the collector's box with the last DVD? And yet, although ADV will grudgingly acknowledge the inspired-by-fansubs market exists, it won't (or at least didn't) embrace it.

Tsuruya.

Osaka is actually a genius. I swear.

For neophyte anime fans who are only still reading this because I mentioned The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, you should also watch Azumanga Daioh because Tsuruya's seiyuu, the megas-talented Matsuoka Yuki, also voiced (the vastly different) Osaka.

This is really a picture of Asuka.

I sort of hope Miyamura Yuko has been working on her German in preparation for the new Evangelion movies.

So, Wakusei keeps breaking. As far as I can tell, something in the chain doesn't like the character set of one of the feeds. Most of the time I can fix it by deleting the cache.

What I ought to be doing instead of blogging about it is adding something to my crontab to delete the cache preemptively, or find out if I can disable it all together. In fact, I should probably be doing that right now....

But I'm not, so random posts will continue to break Planet until I get around to fixing it. For now, we can all just blame these problems on Hirano Aya (even though it's really Kadowaki Mai's fault nearly every time).

Damn you, Hirano Aya! Why must you torment us!

Futakoi Alternative mugs.

As spotted on Koshimizu Ami's blog. So much nicer than my own Futakoi Alternative mugs.

[Edit: Pity Kadowaki Mai didn't cross-post the picture on her own blog.]

Back away from Kanzaki Urumi.

Zyl is correct to celebrate the work of Mitsuishi Kotono. I'd like to add that she's also amazing as the Great Trouble Kanzaki in Great Teacher Onizuka.

She is displeased.

I'm not a big fan of Kugimiya Rie's school of one-note, bitchy tsundere characters, but Mitsuishi Kotono's enthusiastic tsundere-before-it-was-cool Kanzaki is a joy. Mitsuishi Kotono > Kugimiya Rie. (This is the part where I figure out if I remembered to set Irssi to auto-rejoin. Kugimiya Rie fanboy channel ops are a petulant lot.)

This list needs more Hataraki Man.

Ha ha. Chobits.