After doing a bit of looking around the blogs I follow, I discovered that HippieFreak had actually nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award. Several weeks ago. NO idea how I missed that when it came out. Thanks for the nomination, and also thank you to Starsamaria for the nomination she gave in a similar award. Not sure why there are two kinds of awards, but I’m still happy with it.

As far as I can tell, this award is meant to highlight the lesser known bloggers out there. Upon receiving a nomination, the courteous procedure is to nominate five blogs of your own that you read on a regular basis. The only requirement is that these blogs need to have less than 200 followers. It took a bit of thinking to decide exactly which blogs to give nominations to, so I ended up going with those who have both been supportive and who I feel should receive support as well. I had trouble deciding exactly which five to nominate, but just know that all of you still have a place in my heart and my blogroll.

Writing these, I’ve quickly started to realize how difficult a time I have writing about other people when I know they’ll be reading it. I have no problem yelling at Hiro Mashima because I know he doesn’t speak English, and probably wouldn’t read my blog if he could. Even when I’m being nice to people, it’s still very nerve-wracking deciding the exact word choice to get across what to say. I’m sure it’s all good in the end, though.

1. Anime Viking

I think the first time I really felt like a blogger was seeing another site just start up. Marow’s posts have been interesting to read, and he clearly puts a lot of work into them. In particular, I like the larger variety of topics he’s managed to discuss, since it means his posts are unlikely to get old.

2. Lemmas and Submodalities

It was difficult to decide whether to include Snippet on this list, since I think she’s the most popular of the five here and for all I know, she might not qualify for the award. But I don’t think it would have been complete without her, because it was through her that I found most of the other blogs I frequent. Reading through her posts, I really feel like I better understand some of the shows I’ve been watching.

3. ShonenBeam

Definitely the most obscure site on this list, I recently discovered ShonenBeam through AnimeNano. I was surprised to see other manga bloggers like myself, but what was truly interesting was just how much content they manage to produce. Both the individual chapter posts and the podcasts offer good analysis on some of the most popular series currently running.

4. World of Yamaguchi Hoshiko

Of all the bloggers I know, Hoshiko may be the one whose tastes are closest to my own. Considering the lineup on ShonenBeam, that’s saying something. Her posts have been a pleasure to read, she’s been fun to talk to on Twitter, and she has a love for Kimi ni Todoke that is rivaled only by my own.

5. Ephemeral Dreams

As a writer, there are certain things I’m envious of. The ability to plan and do research, for example. Dreamer’s posts combine a lot of what I enjoy about anime bloggers, with in-depth posts about a variety of different subjects. Thank you for all the good posts, Dreamer, and sorry if I ever called your website “Ethereal Dreams”. You can blame Star Ocean for that.