Aims. This post locates itself within the context of anime culture research. Its main contribution to knowledge is the record of empirical material of interest, namely the archiving of taglines by Kabitzin of the Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. It also aims to contribute to analytical and theory developoment of the Mixed Up Mind theory (Ender, 2008).
Data collection. Following the non-archiving of favourite taglines such as ‘I barely Kotonoha’, ‘Hina Ichigo loves iPod nano!’, ‘Saber tooth Taiga’ (all undated), it was realized that an archive of taglines would facilitate the testing of hypotheses such as the correlation of date of tagline construction with post dates and post topics/series. Raw data was collected by daily visits to the Sea Slug Team site using the participant observation method. While non-participant observation would have been preferable to avoid introducing bias and contamination of the search sample, it was not possible as the researcher was known to the research subject.
Time series. The collected sample was 50 taglines, ranging from the period of October 2007 to March 2008. It would have been more rigorous to collect a full year of data due to possible bias arising from seasonal fluctuations in the research subject’s anime diet. However it is argued that a preliminary plausibility probe would be fairly representative at this point given that it is neither a ‘low’ period nor an overwhelming season; it would also establish if there was sufficient material for analysis as well as publication of initial data collected may spur wider interest as well as the possibility of interviewing others for recollections of previous lost taglines.
Coding Taxonomy. Content analysis has yet to be conducted. The current proposals for the coding table include coding by reference to anime series, reference to games, reference to other popular culture objects, reference to other anime blog content, pun construction style (e.g. by phonetics), the ‘orz induced’ scale. The ‘pun’ nature of most taglines implies that a tagline will necessarily have to be coded with at least two codes, the correlations and frequencies of which may be useful in producing further hypotheses from MUM theory.
Avenues for further research. Further data collection would be desirable. In addition, to move beyond statistical correlation and to establish causation, a more qualitative style of semi-structured interviewing will be invaluable in producing a thick description of the processes and relations in the anime blog tagline construction at Sea Slug anime blog.
Data collected follows:
2008-03-15: Tiera Dresses Like Mr. Rogers
2008-03-14: Diversify Your Harem Portfolio
2008-03-12: Grand Theft Gundam
2008-03-11: These Aren’t My Real Bandages, They’re Just Extensions
2008-03-09: Snow Makes Everyone Sad
2008-03-06: How Many Servings Is This Immortal?
2008-03-05: Noe Is Raigomaru
2008-03-04: Yuuji, This Is Your Only Chance To Find The Ninja Turtles
2008-03-03: We Will Sing And Make Smores Around Your Bike
2008-02-29: Dan Has An Accent That American Girls Love
2008-02-28: Bel Peol Hates Third Eye Blind
2008-02-27: I HaXX0Red Veda
2008-02-21: Some Like Deep Dish And Others Like Flatbread
2008-02-19: O RLY? YA RLY! NOE!!!
2008-02-15: Episode Summaries Are The New Black
2008-02-14: Ever Database Player?
2008-02-10: Dairy Masseuse
2008-02-07: By Day, He’s Braid Braver
2008-02-04: Another Fiery Romance Novel By W. Carmel & T. Amet
2008-01-29: Tying the Dragonaut
2008-01-25: Teen Wolf
2008-01-23: Horo vs. The Three Little Pigs
2008-01-23: I Miss Kazuki
2008-01-18: B-I-N-GIOOOOOOOO
2008-01-14: I Never Shadow Pull On The First Date
2008-01-09: Return to Castle Wolf and Spice
2008-01-07: I Sharded It Cause It Was A Blue Drop
2008-01-04: Do Reimi
2008-01-02: Wolf and Spicy!!!
2007-12-28: NEET Freak
2007-12-18: How You Pheles Doing?
2007-12-13: Yuuji, L Why? You Ain’t Got No Alibi!
2007-12-10: Whitey Whitey Christmas
2007-12-03: Heart Beam… Lockon!
2007-11-30: Banchou Flowers
2007-11-28: Good Memories Come From Good Planning
2007-11-27: Keep On Mopping, Amulet Spade
2007-11-26: Rocky Star
2007-11-21: Welcome To My Dragon Harem
2007-11-20: My Renumeration Is To Watch Anime
2007-11-13: You Need Anti-Rust Undercoating on Your Serei Den
2007-11-11: His ID Says He’s A PoE Donor
2007-11-09: I AM GUNDOWN
2007-11-08: Do Not Worship Me!
2007-11-05: That’s Aunt Abaka
2007-11-04: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em… In Bed.
2007-11-01: Do You Like Licorice?
2007-10-28: Thank You for Blogging!
2007-10-25: Under D.C., Under D.C.!
2007-10-21: What This Place Needs Is Some CG Dragons!
Whoa… I am speechless at this entry…
The funny thing is sometimes I look back and I don’t even get my own puns.
Holy crap lol!!
I have a tagline competitor!
lol wth! Someone was stalking Sea Slugs even harder than me.
Y’know, I’m not too sure what to think about having been able to place over half of them. Do you like licorice indeed.
I love the way this is written in a completely deadpan tone.
Odd, I don’t remember Kabitzin watching Darker than Black. Still, I find it amazing that I can identify more than half of those quotes despite lacking a reference point.
LOL. ‘Do you like licorice’ made the memory of that X-chara in Shugo Chara so vivid again xDD
and to rephrase what Kabitzin said, “…sometimes I look back and I don’t find it pun-ny anymore” :P
Awesome puns regardless. :P
Totali, no one stalks Sea Slugs harder than your good self; I can’t manage it when I’m in class, well, mostly because I’m teaching… -_-;;