I don't have an outline for this post, and I don't have a greater point I want to make. I don't have an introductory paragraph where I ramble about some personal memory or broad idea about anime fandom or storytelling in general. I don't have some weak joke or controversial statement or lame attempt at being coy about what I'm talking about. All I have is an apology. I promised weekly essays about anime on a broader scale as well as the weekly roundup, and I simply haven't been delivering that.
For the last few months I've been missing deadlines and failing to make ideas coalesce into something workable. Even though I know that not a lot of people read this stuff, I still want to make this the best possible blog/column/whatever you want to call it that I can, and I don't think I've been living up to it. The fact of the matter is that I'm rather limited in what I can do. When I started working on this blog, I didn't even know how to take screenshots. I relied entirely on Google image searches and screenshots posted on Reddit, which forced a lot of awkward compromises in my choice of image that I'm not proud of. I don't have any knowledge of animation, music composition, direction, cinematography, or any of the other technical disciplines in anime production, leaving me wholly unequipped for any sort of serious analysis. All I do have is a small amount of experience in acting and writing and a limited amount of experience in watching anime in general. And, for better or worse, I've leaned into that quite a bit. I'm not saying that all my posts suck, because I don't think they do, but I know that I'm not a very knowledgeable critic, frequently lapsing into describing how I feel rather than what's actually there because I have little else. I know I can be better, but I don't know how to be better.
It doesn't help that I'm getting into analysis, commentary, and discussion very late in the game. I never intended to become popular or famous when I started this, and I certainly didn't hold any delusions about making a living off of writing about anime. I mean, people don't really read anymore, and as much as I would love to, I don't have the technical knowledge, capital, or stage presence to make a podcast or a YouTube channel, nor do I have the connections to people who do. I started this blog because I needed a creative outlet to help me get out of a depressive rut, and I was getting back into anime in a big way and really wanted to talk about it. It became the only thing that kept me sane as I went through a breakup with someone I thought I was going to marry, changing careers, and being forced by circumstances to move back home and live in my parents' basement. I felt like a prisoner in my own house, trapped without a car in a country where cars are practically mandatory for adult life, forced to rely on rides from my younger siblings to and from work and stuck at home with no human interaction for several hours at a time. Anime became my only escape, and the blog kept me feeling productive while still getting to watch cartoons all day.
But like I said before, a lot of very talented people have been talking about anime in a public forum for several years before I even started this. And while the works of such people have no doubt inspired me, it leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. What else is there to say? So many of my favorite anime I have absolutely refused to touch because I don't just want to say what everyone else is saying about them. Obviously Death Note, Kuroko's Basketball, Fullmetal Alchemist, Yu Yu Hakusho, A Place Further than the Universe, Gurren Lagann, My Hero Academia, Psycho-Pass, Mob Psycho 100, and the rest are all great shows that deserve to get the same level of attention that I've given to One Piece and Code Geass, but it seems like they've all been picked apart by personalities more talented and insightful than me. I've never purposefully plagiarized anyone since that goes against the whole reason I started this, but there are only so many ways to interpret a work. You can't talk about Death Note without talking about the relationship between justice and the law. You can't talk about Kuroko without talking about the nature of talent and teamwork. You can't talk about Fullmetal Alchemist without talking about Equivalent Exchange. Do you see the problem here?
I think this is why most anime personalities focus on currently airing seasonal anime. The shows are fresh in everyone's mind and completely untouched, creating opportunities to leave a unique stamp on the conversation and get all the views. This was one of the reasons I decided to start the roundup, after all, though the main reason was because I thought it would be fun and I was sad that TeamFourStar had cancelled AnimeFMK. And while I love working on the roundup, it leaves me incredibly overwhelmed. Trying to put my emotional reactions to the episodes into words and then explain why I feel the way I do is difficult enough to do once, but to do that 10+ times on a weekly basis constantly leaves me scrambling to finish in time for Sunday. And honestly, that's just plain exhausting. It's gotten to the point where I left working on this week's roundup until the last minute, forcing me to watch 7 episodes all at once today, leaving me with a bit of a migraine.
Let me be clear: I have no plans on stopping this blog anytime soon. The fact of the matter is that I'm still having fun whenever I actually work on this, and I have quite a few ideas that I still want to work on. I just need to get this off my chest and announce a slight change in my format. The weekly roundup is going to be my primary focus, as that is easier for me to do consistently as I edge my way to being a more independent and socially competent adult. The bigger essays aren't going away, but instead of trying to churn out general discussions week after week (especially since I've gone through most of my favorite topics already), I'm going to take my time with a few of them. In addition, I feel like I need to get out of only watching current anime, so I've started chipping away at my backlog and I plan to pepper in some general reactions and "reviews" to these older shows every now and then to break up the roundups.
And just to make up for this wall of emotional text with no pictures, I'm going to announce my plans for those future sub-series. For general discussion, I plan on tackling Black Clover to discuss how Asta has grown from just a Naruto clone to his own unique character. As for my reactions to older shows, I started watching Blood Blockade Battlefront's dub, and will probably have a first impressions post for it in only a week or so. So, you know, look forward to that.
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