the blog and I, take 2: Liebster Award nomination

Last month, pantasticpanda, a fellow yaoi-lover, nominated my blog for the Liebster Award. The Liebster’s goal is to bring a bit of extra attention to new blogs, and I thank pantasticpanda for liking my blog enough to want to help me share it with others.

If you aren’t already familiar with this process, accepting the nomination involves: 1) providing eleven bits of random information about yourself; 2) answering eleven questions from the blogger who nominated you; and 3) posing eleven questions to those you intend to nominate. You can find the details about the Liebster Award at the bottom of this post.

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So let’s get started…

11 random (mostly yaoi-related) facts about nyankoto

1. My username more or less means “with kitty cat” in Japanese (“nyanko” is child’s language for kitty or kitty cat, and “to” indicates that I’m with the nyanko).

2. When I discovered I could load yaoi anime onto a USB stick and watch them on my new big screen TV, I almost died of happiness (it’s so much more reliable than Samsung’s YouTube app).

3. When I traveled to Japan, I treated the trip like a scavenger hunt, seeking out all the things I’d seen in anime and manga. Alas, I never did find a host club, and I guess I should be relieved I didn’t actually run into any yakuza bosses. But I did keep an eye out for Feilong, just in case he was visiting from Hong Kong.

4. I was born in the 70’s, and I remember the world before personal computers, so I worship at the altar of the Internet.

5. I am fortunate enough have a friend in real life who is willing to watch yaoi anime with me and then discuss it in detail (gods bless her).

6. I spent more than a decade of my life in college/grad school, and I use the fruits of my education more when I read yaoi than in my work (I don’t work in a field related to any of my degrees).

7. My favorite non-yaoi genres are science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. Thus, my absolute favorite stories are sci-fi yaoi, fantasy yaoi, and detective yaoi. 😀

8. These days, I frequently sleep with my iPad on the bed, so I can just reach out, flip it open, and start reading manga or watching anime when I wake up in the morning (get the day started right!).

9. I typically listen to BL drama CD’s when I shower, usually Calorie because it takes awhile to get to the grunting and moaning — it still keeps my showers fairly short, though, because I have to make it out to turn down the volume before the first sex scene does start (I live in fear of my neighbors hearing that).

10. I’m very fond of sake (nihonshu) and shochu (which is hard to find where I live), but recently I’ve been on a red wine kick.

11. My purpose in life is to open cat food cans and clean the litter box, or so my noisy Siamese tells me.

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 pantasticpanda’s 11 questions

1. Why did you start your blog and what motivates you to write?

Hmmm… I ended up writing quite a bit about this in the blog and I, but what it boils down to is that I’d been obsessing about yaoi for years but didn’t know many people who were interested in it. I decided that rather than continuing to torture my (patient) non-fujoshi friends with my thoughts and observations on yaoi, I’d start writing them down and putting them out there online instead.

2. Do you have a favorite post on your blog? (If so, which one is it?)

I have a lot of favorites, because I’ve been so happy writing about what I love. I think right now it’s probably a tie between gender rebels – when uke and seme switch: yaoi’s top 10 reversi manga (because I really do love reversi and resent that there isn’t more of it) and my most recent post, my favorite yaoi lies (because I had fun cracking myself up).

3. Do you know a foreign language? (If so, which one? If not, which language would you like to learn?)

I speak Spanish, fujoshi, and pig-Latin, and I’m working to learn Japanese.

4. What’s your biggest dream in life?

At the moment, to be able to learn enough Japanese and kanji to read yaoi light novels in the original.

5. Who is your favorite artist? (They can be from any field of art.)

Dalí. One of the craziest, most twisted artistic minds ever.

6. Do you have a favorite traveling experience? (If so, how did it go?)

My trip to Japan a couple of years ago. It was one of those trips where everything went better than I ever could have asked for. In fact, the plum blossoms bloomed late and the cherry blossoms bloomed early, so I got to see both, even though I shouldn’t have gotten to see either.

7. If not, where would you like to travel to and why?

I’d love to return to Japan when I can actually read what’s around me. Knowing almost no kanji when I was there was terribly frustrating. Now I know what it feels like to be functionally illiterate (and it sucks).

8. Who is your favorite character ever and why? (It’s okay if you have more than one favorite. 🙂 )

Pretty much the lead in whatever yaoi I’m currently obsessed with. Recently I’ve been repeatedly watching the new Sekaiichi Hatsukoi OVA — the Case of Yokozawa Takafumi — so today it’s Kirishima Zen. He’s hot, smart, successful, confident, a doting dad, good at reading people, great at being smug, and he takes good care of the one he loves (largely by bullying him into shape). Did I mention he’s hot? 

9. What’s your favorite type of food and why?

It’ll come as no shock that I like Japanese food, right? Although I’m a wimp about fishy flavors, so my repertoire is a bit limited. Still, it’s winter, so I’ll say nabe.

10. What are your hobbies?

Wahahaha! Reading, watching, and listening to yaoi, obviously! 😀

11. How do you feel after completing these questions?

It’s been fun, so I’m feeling pretty cheerful. ❤

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my questions for the next victims nominees

1. Have you ever read yaoi manga or watched yaoi anime? If so, what did you think? If not, what’s stopping you?

2. If you could adopt a fictional or fantasy animal, what would it be and why?

3. What’s your all time favorite anime? If you don’t watch anime, you can give a movie or tv show, I guess (or, even better, go out and watch some anime before coming back to answer this question 🙂 )

4. If you could have your superpower of choice, what would you pick?

5. What family member are you closest to, and why?

6. Are you working towards a goal that’s important to you? What is it? If not, do you have one in mind that you have plans for in the future?

7. What do you like about blogging?

8. What do you dislike about blogging?

9. What is your favorite type of post to write (you can reference a specific post or two as examples, if ya like)?

10. If you could pick one person in the world to read and enjoy your blog, who would it be?

11. What’s the most important thing to you?

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my nominees

1. It’s only a minefield
2.  Araka 13
3. Seattlekifujin
4. Suzy’s Book and Manga Blog
5. Fantasy and Anime
6. 3 Episode Test
7. Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Anime

I hope that you will enjoy sharing a bit more about yourselves and your blogs!

Everything you need to know about what to do next:

Liebester Award Nomination Rules:
More Details can be found -> {here} ❤

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.
3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.
5. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers.
6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
7. List these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:
8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)