Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

The votes are in…and by votes I mean my free time, which is now quite plentiful. So, rather than bore everyone reading with an extended introduction, why not just talk about what has happened.

I Graduated from da School

It took what felt like a decade, but after 3-1/2 years at my city’s university, I managed to get my funny little piece of paper. In all seriousness though, keeping the motivation to finish school in a timely manner, especially through covid and a number of other personal things was kind of hard. There were a lot of times I felt like giving up and just never going back.

Thankfully, though, I managed to avoid giving into my less…macro-oriented desires and finished with a Bachelor’s in English. Part of me does want to go back to school eventually, but as for right now, I am happy to be done. So, what is next?

Looking for a Job

Aside from the occasional scrolling of job boards and looking at random fields I would be interested in, unfortunately, I have yet to do much in the way of job hunting (at least as of the writing of this post). Most of my free time was spent practicing smash, playing some other game, or stressing about schoolwork to the point that I do not get anything done.

However, since school is over, it would be hard to justify using that as an excuse. My dream field, if it can be called that, would probably be somewhere in publishing, or as a copy editor or technical writer, something along those lines. At this point, though, anything that pays in real U.S. dollars that is not food service is pretty much cool with me.

2023 Resolutions/Goals

Last year I set a lot of pretty ambitious goals, most of which I did not hit, for that reason. However, rather than focusing on numbers (which I inevitably will still focus on) I would like to try and put stuff out more consistently and write stuff I can be proud of.

Another goal I have is to read more, not just in terms of manga or novels, but non-fiction as well: keeping up with new and public events, as well as educating myself on more topics related to politics, sociology, etc. While I sometimes pay attention to random YouTube videos, I would like to get back to a place of feeling confident talking about important events, such as the massive spike in anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans legislation, and relating it to the anime and manga I discuss. The hardest part has always been the daunting task of actually starting to read something, and then momentum usually carries me through.

Lastly, I would like to lose weight. Of course, by including anything related to New Years, I have now inevitably cursed myself into staying roughly the same weight or getting heavier. Despite wishing the same thing last year, I actually ended up gaining about 20 pounds, and at this point, it is just exacerbating other problems as well. Oh well, maybe forgetting to cancel my gym membership will be a blessing in disguise.

Shameless Plug for my Website

In place of Solidly Liquid, I am now going to be publishing various pieces of poetry, short fiction, and other project teasers on my own personal website so as to better help myself build a brand…or something like that. Since Animated Observations is usually where I publish reviews and stuff about the media I enjoy, my own website will also likely be used to talk about opinions that do not specifically relate to the media I am consuming. I already have a piece coming out later this week, so stay tuned for that.

Topics Coming Up

Though I haven’t been writing, I have certainly been watching and reading, and oh boy has there been a lot to talk about. 2022 was one of the most stacked years of anime, like, ever? Yeah, that feels fair to say. There were also a lot of summer shows I never ended up finishing because my workload just got that overwhelming. So, here is the stuff I will (probably) talk about over the coming month or so:

• Monster (Since it got added to Netflix recently)
• Romantic Killer
• Bocchi the Rock
• Blood on the Tracks and Welcome Back, Alice (Been wanting to get back into Oshimi).
• Chainsaw Man
• Potential 2022 Lists

Queue the usual I reserve the right to cover whatever random bs comes up in the meantime statement. But yeah, the above titles are the plan, anyway.

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What are your 2023 plans? Let me know down in the comments.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!