After last year's Haul To 200, MIQ was horrified to hear about the marathon, and told me to not do anything like that again. I mulled it over, and came up with a compromise: I had always sung the entire song, usually two and a half to three verses long--so this time, I would just do the song's first verse. In theory, that should cut the time in half...leaving room to continue to raise the goal. But what should the goal be now?

When I was interviewed for "Hi! Hey! Say!" in February, they were interested in the marathon, and asked if I had proof of having sung 200 anime songs. Proof? Heck, I'd never ask anyone to sit there and listen to me caterwaul for most of a day! But since I had no proof, they couldn't say I had done it. With that in mind, I poked around and found that if you're logged in on Joysound's Utasuki system, it keeps a record of your last 300 songs and what day you sang them. You can also enter up to 200 songs in your account, and start each with the push of a button at your karaoke place of choice; that could save further time in the marathon.

The songs would be from half to a third as long as before. Starting them would take a fraction of the time it did before. Looked like the marathon might be the easiest ever.

So I jumped the goal to 300.

And I sang 300 anime songs (302, actually--one to grow on, and one in case I'd miscounted!), and have proof of it. In that way, the marathon was a success. But this time, part of what I enjoy about doing it was missing.

Singing the entire song gives you a nice chunk of time to think about it. But doing just the first verse, there's barely time to reminisce before having to throw on the brakes. There wasn't much chance to shoehorn in memories.

That threw my focus onto the scores. With just one verse, any mistake is a bigger percentage of the whole, and you're going to be penalized anyway for stopping early. I knew going in that the scores would be lower, and didn't think it would bother me--but after a while, all those scores three points below what I'm used to seeing was getting a little depressing.

And then there are the songs themselves. I hated having to stop early on my favorites. Finally, at almost the marathon's mid-point, in the heat of "Heats" I blew off the one-verse rule and did the whole thing. From then on, if it was a favorite, I sang at least two verses.

In the past, I'd manually entered songs from the printed catalog's anime section that groups them by the series they're from. For me, singing songs that go together adds to the fun--f'rinstance, first the show's opening theme, and some insert songs if available, and then the ending theme. But this time, I had those 200 pre-entered songs, and they came up listed alphabetically...and I made the mistake of starting at the start and going in order, not skipping around to group like with like. After the pre-entered songs were done I went to the catalog, and was sorry I hadn't used it all along; pre-entering had saved time, but made for a disjointed (albeit neatly alphabetized) jumble of songs.

But just as the marathon had problems I hadn't anticipated, it also had some nice new surprises. In mid-afternoon there was a knock at the door, and a staffer entered with a birthday gift of a plate of fresh-made okonomiyaki and best wishes from the crew! There was another knock in early evening, and in came friends Mighty M and Evil Genius JO for a visit with a whopper of a birthday present: the new Medicom RAH 1/6 Kamen Rider Super-1 action doll! Kamen Rider Super-1 has been a favorite of mine ever since hearing a howlingly funny parody version of his theme song at a karaoke party hosted by the Ishinomori Manga Museum a couple years back. I'm blessed to have great friends, and the rest of the night, that darn Super-1 kept making me smile.

Drank cola the first hour, tea until the end of the pre-entered songs, and then beer for the last third of the way. Switching between vocal gears, high and low, I had enough voice to get through the 302 songs (although it was a little tricky starting up again after a half-hour evening break; the high end was clarinet-squeaky for a while), and was tickled to have enough left to sing the final eight songs full-out, in their entirety.

Am really glad to have made it to 300, with proof and all...but it really brought home that there's much more to the marathon than reaching a number. Next year, will be aiming for more fun and more time for memories as part of the goal; that's what it's about!