Anyway, here’s some stuff I have plans for that I will hopefully follow through on this time:

1. A review of Mardock Scramble: The First Compression. I’m fairly certain I can get this done considering I already wrote like 1/4 of the review. In November. Pretty sure I’ll have to watch it again to finish the review.
2. A post about Skyward Sword. Not actually a review, because I don’t see the point of reviewing it. It’s pretty much just like every other Zelda game so it’s not hard to figure out if you’ll like it or not. The post will basically just be a list of things that annoyed the hell out of me while playing it.
3. A super top secret post that involves a lot of stat gathering and analyzing. Though it’s not really a secret. I’m basically just looking at the sales of anime DVD/BDs in Japan from 2000 – 2010 and tallying how many series flopped, broke even, had moderate success, and had great success, and then a bunch of hypothesizing and whatnot based on that info. I started this in November and then got distracted by university related stuff.
4. Try to cover more than like one show during the First Impressions. In my defense I only cover a few because most of the shows leave me completely meh. And it’s hard to write about something that’s just meh. Also I’m setting myself up for failure because the Winter season is next and it looks kind of dire. There’s one show I’m vaguely interested in and a bunch of crap I couldn’t care about if I tried.
5. Try to write a review more than once every three months. Because that’s just terrible really.

I should also probably put something about making a half-assed attempt to comment on other people’s blogs and engage in the community or whatever but that’s too much work. I’ll just continue sitting in my corner thank you very much.

Here’s an excerpt:

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 68,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

First, you can expect to see more reviews from me next year.  While my next review is up to the fans for me to do, I have two other shows that I plan to review for January.  I also plan on doing more reviews for longer running shows instead of always just doing 12 and 13 episode shows all the time.  Now that I own a Roku I do intend to review shows that are streaming on sites such as Hulu and CrunchyRoll.

Second, since I have many opinions I would like to do more opinion articles on anime fandom and topics in anime in general.

Third, I have some ideas for articles that I will attempt to try next year in order to do something different.  I have a few ideas in my head but I need plan them out and get some prototypes worked out before I upload them to the site.

So everyone have a great New Years and see you next year.

I’m still looking for writers. Well, I’m never not looking for writers, but I’m now looking for writers for a few new things. Obviously these are all unpaid positions because no one makes money blogging, but you’ll at least have my appreciation. If you’re interested in writing about any of the following topics, email me at antzthegreat[at]gmail.com with writing samples.

• Manga reviews: This is something I personally can’t write about at all because I barely read manga. I’m following a total of 2 ongoing series, and I’m about 20 volumes behind on one of them. So I’m going to need a writer or two to do manga reviews. If you like manga and happen to be a decent writer you should email me.

• Visual novel reviews: Again, this is something I can’t write about because I don’t read visual novels. But if you do and you’re also a decent writer you should really email me.

• Figure reviews: You’ve probably figured out that I’m looking for writers to cover topics I can’t write about. If you like collecting figures, and from what I understand about anime fandom you probably do, and would like to write about them you should email me.

Those are the three main topics I’m looking for people to cover, but I’m not opposed to getting more people to write about anime and video games as well. Again, if you’d like to write about any of those topics email me at the above mentioned address with writing samples.

• First and foremost, I can’t pay you. I’m kind of a broke college student.
• Just like it did when Janai ran things, this blog will focus on anime and manga licensed in North America, so reviews should mostly be about North American DVD/Blu-Ray/manga releases
• The blog will also feature video game reviews.
• Reviews can also be about shows being streamed or simulcast on Crunchyroll, Hulu, or sites like that.
• For series being simulcast, I am NOT looking for episodic blogging. I’m looking for actual reviews of a group of episodes. (6 or 7 episodes for a 13 episode series, and 13 episodes for a 26 episode series)
• If you have a compelling reason you will be allowed to write about a series only available fansubbed.
• I can’t supply anyone with any review material because, again, I’m kind of a broke college student.

So if you want to apply, or have any questions, send an email to antzthegreat[at]gmail.com, with the subject line “JanaiBlog Writer Position.” In the email you should specify what you want to write about (anime, manga, video games, whatever else) and include samples of your writing. Samples can can be links to posts on your own blog, or text files if you don’t have a blog. I probably won’t be announcing any new writers for a couple weeks, because school stuff is going to keep me busy for a bit.

The long answer:

First and foremost, anime has just been less interesting for me lately. I don’t think the quality of the shows coming out lately has decreased, but rather my standards have increased. Also, I’ve become more focused on video games, which I have always enjoyed more than anime. In fact, I just finished playing Mass Effect (which was amazing) and am starting the sequel very soon.

Personal life is also a factor. I need to focus more on work and social life, rather than talk on Twitter all day and blog about the latest controversy. This is also the reason I recently left the Otaku in Review Podcast, now co-hosted by Michael Camacho of The OtakuGamer. If you haven’t listened to this awesome show, you should definitely check it out.

The final factor in all this is the drama. I never realized what I was going into when I started blogging about anime. The amount of drama in the online anime fan community is just unbelievable. So many petty arguments (and I admit, I’m one to talk). I’d rather not be involved in all of that, as it’s just way too time-consuming. Time can be better spent on things other than arguing over whether or not moe is the cancer killing anime.

The time I spent in the anime fan community wasn’t all for naught though. I don’t regret the time I spent talking with fellow anime fans, even if sometimes it made me want to pull my hair out. It was definitely a learning experience. I even made some great new friends in the process, and I especially thank those people.

I don’t know if I’ll ever post on this blog again, but I will still remain on Twitter (@FattyJanai), albeit being much less active than before. You can contact me there.

The reason for all this? Several reasons, actually. For one thing, life sucks and I haven’t had time to blog much lately. I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon, so there’s going to be an indefinite slowdown in the number of posts from me on this site.

Money’s also an issue. The hosting was costing well over $100 per year, which is a bit too much. Had to cut down on the cost.

Now for the changes. As you have noticed, the theme has changed. The theme is not permanent and may be changing soon, I still have to decide on that.

The Otaku in Review podcasts will continue and I’ll continue to post them on here. However, I don’t think the embed player works anymore, so I’ll instead be linking to Scott’s site and you can listen there.

Other than that, there are several issues with this “new” site – mainly with categories, broken links, and various other issues. Let’s just say when I imported the WordPress XML to this site, not everything got imported. If you notice anything wonky on the site, chances are I already know about it, but you can let me know by commenting below or emailing me at janaiblog@gmail.com. It’s going to take some time to iron out all these issues, so sit tight. Thanks for reading!

Such a happy bunch, don't you think?

In all the time that I’ve been an anime fan, nothing has entertained me quite as much as the psychological horror-fest series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, also known as When They Cry or simply Higurashi. For some strange reason, JanaiBlog has been pretty light on Higurashi-related content, with only a few mentions here and there. That just has to be fixed.

Throughout the month of October, a series of Higurashi-related articles will be posted. Gina has put a ton of work into writing a separate review for each of the first three arcs of the Higurashi manga series, distributed by Yen Press.

Hopefully, that won’t be all. I am looking for a guest reviewer to review the Higurashi visual novels, distributed by MangaGamer. If you have played all or some of the games and would like to review them, send an email to janaiblog@gmail.com along with some examples of stuff you’ve written in the past (anything anime/otaku related is fine).

Gina’s first review will be posted on October 4th. Look out for it! And also look out for psychotic yanderes with knives.

Fortunately, Anthony Moores (known as “Antz”) has expressed interest in writing for the site, and he will be added to the team. Expect to see some posts from him coming soon. Here’s a quick bio he provided:

Anthony was first exposed to anime back in the days of Dragon Ball Z. Through the years he kept watching whatever showed up on TV in Canada, which wasn’t very much, and only recently got into collecting DVDs. Nowadays he compulsively buys crap that he’ll probably never get around to watching while writing his own blog that no one actually reads. He mostly reviews anime and manga, and sometimes games when he gets around to playing them.

Check out Anthony’s blog at Antz’ Anime Reviews

This new column also gives me a chance to better express my opinions about anime and the industry as a whole, which isn’t something I do too often on this blog (but do quite often on Twitter).

My first foray into the world of Formspring involved some questions about myself and my anime-related interests. Here’s what I answered…

I’ve added some additional notes in italics that aren’t part of my original answer.

Check out my Formspring page for more questions and answers not mentioned here.

Naturally, I got a lot of questions on the subject of moe and “waifus.” Next “Ask Janai” post will feature those. Try not to be creeped out.