This series is my occasional countdown to Anime Weekend Atlanta. I’ve done it two or three times with varying levels of success, and I am once again embarking on a quest to spend 100 days writing 100 posts about anime, manga, animation, comics, film, and conventions. We’ll see what happens.
100 Days of Anime 2026
Day 014/100
ED of the Day: “Real Folk Blues” by Mai Yamane from Cowboy Bebop (1998)
Currently Watching: Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd Gig
We’re two weeks in, and I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying to come up with something to keep this challenge rolling for another 86 days. I don’t want to do a bunch of reviews, and I don’t have a ton of time to do the research I think is necessary for quality deep dives on any given subject.
What I can do, though, is play a game. I am still working out the rules, but I do have a concept cooking.
As I’ve discussed previously, I’ve toyed around with designing my own hypothetical television blocks, but the end goal of those was usually to try to watch them. That just feels like a silly thing to do knowing that I’m not going to have time to reliably watch two to four hours of cartoons in a single sitting.
But designing those blocks can be fun, and I think there’s a way to do it that might even be interesting and fun for other people to follow along on.
- I’m going to design a whole anime-adjacent network, plan out a whole 24/7, 365 operation.
- That’s going to include things like (amateur-ish) logos, bumps, advertising, and of course multiple blocks.
- I’m going to gamify how I develop the programming for those blocks.
It’s late, and I’m still hashing out some of those rules so tomorrow might be a cheat day where I publish the rules of my little pen-and-paper TV simulator.
So far I know that I’m not actually trying to simulate the reality of running a cable TV channel. I want a challenge that makes this a little more complicated than picking the best shows from MAL’s top 100 and looping them, but I’m not trying to wargame my way into out-programming [adult swim].
I also want something with the potential for interactivity, something that other folks could pick up and play with, and something that makes for a quick blog post on my busiest days.
For tonight, this’ll do. Back with the rules tomorrow. Until next time.
chasetriesagain.com 