It has been a minute since my last update (about five months or so), and as such, it seemed like a good a time as any to organize what has been going on with me in an easily digestible format.
My New (Old) Job
It never really occurred just how depressing unemployed life can be. Most days are spent desperately combing through job listings of any place that looks like it will actually hire. minutes, hours, spent checking my email inbox and looking down at my phone waiting for responses back. Even the ones that do answer back are positions only applied for because it felt like something to do and not one that would actually be good. Needless to say, finding a job has not been easy.
At least, that is what I had typed out originally when writing this post. However, after a week or so of consideration, I decided to go back to my old job after texting with my former manager. While it may not be exactly where I expected to be at this point, it will at least give me time to re-evaluate what it is I should do going forward.
I’m Finally Happy?
Finally is a bit dramatic, perhaps, but the sentiment is still applicable. As much as I enjoyed my time in higher education, and for as much as being unemployed for months on end was not particularly fun, there is also a bit of hesitance on my end to go back. At least for the last couple of years, college felt more like a way to escape entering the real world as much as a did a vehicle for self-improvement. As much as these should feel contradictory, I also cannot help but feel like both are true.
This contradiction leaves me unsure of what to do next. On the one hand, Academic spaces have always felt pretty comfortable, and spending days holed up in a library doing research does not sound that bad. At the same time, I worry about getting bored and my motivation fizzling out. I’ve also been grappling with the idea that progress is not linear, and that personal journeys are not always going to move in a straight line, so I guess we will have to see.
Topics Coming Up
Been finding a lot of fun manga recently. On top of that, there is also some older stuff that I am just about done with and will be doing a formal post on when through.
Blood on the Tracks (Continued)
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (possibly)
Last Gender – When We Are Nameless
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Oshi no Ko
Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s (if I’m feeling silly)
As usually, I reserve the right to ignore some of this or cover something else that peaks my interest if it happens to come up.
What have you all been up to recently? 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.
As always, special thanks to Jenn for supporting the blog on Patreon
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
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.
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!
Hey friends, hope all of you have been doing well. As many of you reading may or may not have noticed, I have been gone for about a month.
I genuinely try not to take huge unannounced breaks from blogging for a couple reasons. First, the fact that anyone is willing to read my articles makes me truly thankful, and so I usually try to stay working on something. Second, for me personally, I use this blog as a way to keep my writing skills honed, and so when I’m not writing, there is a sense of personal responsibility.
That being said, I always try and let people know ahead of time that school is going to be my primary focus when the semester begins. Given that it is currently the fall semester, and also the last semester of my undergraduate degree (assuming everything goes ok), I don’t feel as bad for the sudden departure.
Outside of the more obvious reasons, however, part of it is a bit of burnout. Writing two plus decent quality posts every week alongside my normal school assignments can be a bit much sometimes. I don’t mean to complain when I say this, because generally speaking, I enjoy writing those posts. Still, I do tend to experience a bit of mental fatigue when doing that much writing all the time.
This past summer season definitely did not help either. While I enjoyed covering some of the newer shows, keeping up with that many shows was not always easy. I wanted to do the same with the fall, considering how many fantastic series are gonna be airing, as well as the seasons to come. However, trying to do that with all of the other stuff I have going on just did not feel feasible.
As for what that means for this blog…well, mainly just a bit more irregularity. My goal is to finish up the shows from summer relatively soon and write some reviews on them. Outside of that, however, it will be a lot more sporadic. I would like to finish Utena at some point and cover that, plus I will more than likely still be watching things from fall. I just won’t be giving as frequent of updates.
As far as regular content goes, that will probably be back sometimes in December after the semester is done and graduation is over. Probably. I definitely do not want to overpromise and under-deliver, so anybody who cares about this blog at all should consider me still on hiatus for at least the next few months.
Also, I want to clear that this is not the beginning of the end. Probably. As I have highlighted in the past, writing is definitely my preferred method of expression. Still, experimenting with other formats and forms of content is also something I like to do. So, if a video or two pops out on the YouTube Channel or Tik Tok, or Solidly Liquid randomly comes back to life for a bit, that also should be taken without much surprise.
Basically, this is just an extended way of saying I’m taking it easy for a while. Still want to be involved in the community, of course, but content creation just isn’t a priority, at least for right now. That will likely change in the future, though, once I have a steady job and time to work on my passion projects, including this one.
Thank you all for understanding!
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.
As always, special thanks to Jenn for the support on Patreon.
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
It would appear I have been nominated for an award…a blogging award that is. I am nonetheless grateful to have been tagged by the amazingly wonderful Moya of The Moyatorium for the Liebster Award. It has been a while since I have done one of these, but I sometimes like answering oddly specific questions about myself. So, the Rules:
Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
Answer 11 questions given to you by the blogger.
Nominate 11 more bloggers.
Ask your nominees 11 questions too.
Notify the selected nominees you chose after uploading your post, like commenting on their post.
Moya has provided such a list of oddly specific questions, and so I will try my best at the end to do the same. With that being said, here they are:
1. What is your best tip for a good night’s sleep
I’ll start by saying that (obviously) I am not a sleep expert, so I can only speak from experience. Usually, the best nights of sleep I get are after a long day of either work or studying, and going to bed immediately without scrolling social media or looking at my phone at all. Lots of devices emit a certain kind of light which can reduce melatonin, the thing that helps regulate sleep. So yeah, at the risk of sounding like a boomer, get off your phone.
2. if you get to own three plants that magically never have to be watered and always thrive on their own, which three plants would you choose?
The answer to this question probably depends on my living situation tbh, but right now I would probably say Rose, Hydrangea, and Daffodil since they all look very nice.
3. What’s your opinion on the true crime genre
I don’t really have anything against it, it is just not for me. Personally, if I am going to listen to a podcast I would rather it be something a bit more immediately entertaining like 2-4 people just talking about random stuff and making jokes or something more politically informative.
4. if you had to doodle a sun, how many rays would you typically give it?
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…3
5. Do you like chocolates with caramel inside (why would anyone like those)?
eh, If they are the only thing around and I am craving something sweet they will do the job, but generally not the first thing I go to. I would rather eat ice cream of some kind or a Mound bar if we are talking chocolate still.
6. Do you like Blueberries?
I suppose so, rarely if ever eat them though outside of being baked into a muffin.
7. What Diet Trend can you never imagine yourself trying?
Keto, without a doubt. Had a lot of IRL friends and coworkers try it and they almost never looked happy.
8. What’s the worst nickname you’ve heard someone call their significant other?
I do not think I have a good answer for this. I use to think people calling each other Bae was kind of cringe, but then I grew up and stopped caring.
9. Tie or Bowtie
Ideally neither, since I think most of them look tacky. If I am picking one though, probably Tie.
10. Are you a good liar?
oh yeah, totally, pffttt…*yawns literally every time I lie*
11. What Kind of cake should I bake for your birthday?
tbh, idk how inconvenient it would be to ship a cake to the States, but I do really like a good coconut cake every once in a while.
Thanks again Moya for the tag and the questions. I did a number of these in the past, and the people I would typically tag are probably busy, so I’ll try tagging some bloggers I’ve found in the last year or so. If they are so inclined, they can use this to introduce/reintroduce themselves, but obviously, it’s no big deal if they don’t feel like it.
Highest number of sodas you’ve mixed together and drunk?
What day-to-day task would you consider relaxing?
You are making a list of your 10 favorite anime. What show gets close, but doesn’t make the cut?
What is manga/comic series you would not like to see adapted into movie/television?
How many pieces of media would you say have significantly altered the trajectory of your life?
If you could pick any job, but you had to give up retirement before 75 no matter what, would you pick a new job?
Where do you see yourself next month?
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.
As always, special thanks to Jenn for supporting us on Patreon
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
By the time this post is released, there will likely only be a few weeks left until the start of my final undergraduate semester. Seeing as how I have no immediate plans to pursue graduate-level work, it is also going to be my last semester of college for a while.
I definitely have some conflicting feelings. After all, I have met a lot of important friends in college, especially after the last year and a half to two years, and leaving them behind, even if it is only temporarily, is going to sting. Still, I am excited for what the future has in store, which hopefully includes being able to pursue my interests, even if it is just in my free time.
As far as how that affects the blog, well, I say this every time, but hopefully, it will not, though I cannot make any promises as far as post volume. Still, two of my total four classes are online, so hopefully, this one will be a bit calmer.
Website Re-design
I feel like re-designing the website is more or less an annual occurrence at this point, but I have never been fully satisfied with how it looks after any given re-work. I will skip the whole “Guess I’m just a perfectionist bit,” because I do not necessarily think that is true, but I do feel like my tastes change has something to do with it.
This is going to be one of my goals before things get busy again, and so I figured it would be better to at least let everyone know before that happens. At the very least my logo could use some serious updating. After all, if I am being completely honest, I have never felt like it looks particularly inviting.
Flaking on my Writing
This may sound weird considering this blog has been going strong all summer, but I don’t feel like I have lived up to my goals. I really wanted to work on a collection, be it a full collection or even just a chapbook. However, three months since the end of last semester and I barely worked on a single poem all break.
I did make some progress on a short story/potential novel, but that still does not feel like enough. It is difficult to not be hard on myself considering the amount of free time I had, but most of it just amounted to playing video games. No time like the present, though, so I’ll be trying to get back into the grove soon, alongside trying to update Solidly Liquid as well.
What I’m Watching
Arakawa Under the Bridge
Wolf’s Rain (I haven’t finished it since the last update) 🙂
Attack on Titan (Now waiting on the last part)
Various Summer Seasonals
What I’m Reading
My Alcoholic Escape from Reality
My Wandering Warrior Existence
Blue Box (officially caught up)
Blood on the Tracks
Chainsaw Man Pt. 2 (officially caught up)
How are you all doing recently? Have any more questions for me? 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.
As always, special thanks to Jenn for supporting the blog.
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
College is officially done, and hopefully, that means more consistent content coming your way. After got to endlessly feed the algorithm…yay.
In all seriousness, I am happy to be back, and now that I have time to write and watch/read new series, I will be able to focus on delivering some articles on a regular basis. With that being said, there are just a few things I thought would be worth touching on briefly.
Update: The Animated Observation’s Rating System
At the beginning of the year this year, I implemented a rating system for the series I review in depth. There were a number of reasons behind the change, which are outlined here. Looking back on it over the last few months, I am happy with the change. It gives me as a writer and the reader a way of quantifying my feelings without necessarily taking anything away from the review itself. As such, it will probably continue to be here for the time being. It may get a visual tweak along the way, but the primary system itself will remain intact.
Taking Part in K’s Tik Tok Battle Royale
Anyone not familiar with K at the Movies should change that very quickly. He’s a great personality who makes excellent content, and over the course of the next month or so, I’ll be taking part in one of his awesome challenges. I don’t know how much he wants to be revealed at this point, so I’ll keep my mouth shut for now, but be on the lookout for more on that soon.
Working on a Chapbook?
This is not as much related to Animated Observations but I did want to talk about it for just a bit. In addition to focusing more on writing here, I want to put some serious focus on my poetry. My basic timeline for this is to have some sort of complete chapbook/potentially complete collection by the end of summer, and then start considering my options for release once the new semester begins. I will also hopefully be documenting this journey over on Solidly Liquid, so those who have yet to do so, be sure to give it a follow.
What I’ll Be Covering
It has been a while since I did this, but I figured it would be fun to let my lovely readers in on what I’ll be covering in the upcoming weeks. This is not definitive by any means, and there is always the outside chance that I get distracted by some new shiny object, but I am hoping to get through these at least by the end of next month:
Attack on Titan (OADs and Season 4)
Arakawa: Under the Bridge
King’s Game
Wolf’s Rain
Kaguya-Sama (seasonal)
Spy x Family (seasonal)
This should hopefully give me enough to chew on for a bit before another seasonal rotation hits and the summer comes to an end.
What are you all up to? Let me know in the comments below.
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.
Thanks as always to Jenn for being an amazing Patron.
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
Well, unfortunately, I do not have anyone else to blame but myself here, so yeah…
For those wondering what this post is about, at the beginning of this year I set some goals for myself in a post that was about wrapping up 2021. One of those goals was to put out at least one video on my YouTube Channel for every month of the year. I figured it would be at least a few months in before managing to fail that, but I am very good about outdoing my own expectations.
So, in order to keep me motivated to write and create things, I thought “why not give myself a punishment?” then after thinking about it for a little longer, it became “why not let everyone else come up with a punishment for me?” Since it is primarily the people who consume what I make that I am accountable to, it only makes sense to invite some democracy into the process of torturing myself.
Thus, I’m leaving this up to my readers: Give me an anime/manga/movie/tv series/etc that you hate, some truly awful garbage, and I will commit to finishing it all the way through and writing about it when I am done.
I mentioned in my more recent update how my new rating system will likely have a more positive bend to it considering I don’t usually seek out bad media, but maybe we can test those limits a bit, yeah?
For this, I’ll take the 2 most liked comments under this article, as well as under the tweet linked below. Feel free to submit under both to double your chances of increasing my suffering.
Alright, might as well torture myself some more. as punishment for not having a video out last month, I want what my readers consider the worst media possible. can be an anime/manga/video game/movie/tv series/etc just as long as getting ahold of it is not too expensive
— T3 | UTK Jack Scheibelein (Storytella) (@JScheibelein) February 4, 2022
Well, happy submitting!
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!
Well, another year has passed and man…it was not a good one. I will skip rehashing what I said in my last update, but this year is going to hopefully be a year of growth for Animated Observations. I have a lot planned for this blog, and I hope you’ll be excited about it as well. But first, the boring stuff.
College…
“Two semesters left until I finish my Bachelor’s degree” is a sentence that, at least subconsciously, I knew I was probably going to have to write at some point but never actually thought about, and yet, here I am. Those who have followed me for a while now will probably know that the start of a new semester usually leaves me at least a little bit busy. I generally try to prepare content ahead of time, but occasionally, such as last semester, it does not work out.
By the time this update sees the light of day, I will probably have already started school. However, for this semester one of my classes is entirely online, and I only go to campus 3 days a week. This will hopefully give me more time to focus on both writing articles, creating content, and also the small, unimportant task of looking for a job 🙂
Tik Tok
While I still very much enjoy blogging and my normal format of sharing my terrible anime/manga/game opinions, I do still want to branch out creatively, and so I have decided to be hip with the kids and make a Tik Tok for Animated Observations. I’m literally 22 years old and writing that last sentence has aged me at least 40 years.
“What kind of content are you putting out on Tik Tok?” a reasonable person might ask. To which the answer is: Idk, probably a bunch of memes, but in all seriousness, I am hoping I will have time to do shorter form reviews and maybe practice some editing along the way. It will be a major work in progress, so I will not blame anyone who decides that it is not for them.
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Introducing the Animated Observations Rating System!
Now, I have been writing and talking about anime and various other things on this blog under various names for the better part of four years, and while in some of those reviews I may have conceded some sort of numerical score, I have never used them consistently.
The reason I am introducing one now is to give people a more straightforward idea of how I feel about a particular piece of media. “The Observation Deck,” the format I have more or less settled on for reviews, is necessarily more chaotic and less structured than a typical review, bouncing between different topics that seem important to discuss. These categories/scores will be an attempt at giving a more direct answer of “is this a good piece of art” or “does it at least have some value.”
I also want to say upfront that nothing about the inclusion of these scores is going to fundamentally change the way I do my reviews, it will simply be an addition on top of all the things I talk about. As well, at least for the time being, this scoring system will only be used in longer form reviews and will stay out of essays and other reaction-based stuff such as “Initial Results.”
In favor of keeping this update relatively brief, I will quickly go over the categories, associated scores, and general philosophy behind each one. I have chosen to use a 0-100 scale and seven associated categories. The overall theme revolves around going from below the earth into outer space, with scores getting better in proportion with the metaphorical altitude. Without further ado, here they are.
0-15/100
30 Miles Deep
This is a category reserved only for the worst of the worst. A piece of media in this category has little to no redeeming qualities and is genuinely offensive to watch, read, or playthrough. It can burn under the pressure of the earth for all I care.
16-30/100
Crusty
A piece of media in this category is also extremely bad. However, unlike in 30 Miles Deep, there are maybe one or two ideas worth salvaging that are just executed very poorly.
31-45/100
Lost in the Ocean
While I may not like it that much myself, I can at least understand why someone who likes something in this range would enjoy it themselves. There is enough good or interesting here that I at least have to concede that. Something like Beastars, which I do genuinely dislike, would end up in this category.
46-60/100
Surface Level
While the phrase itself has taken on a number of distinct meanings in art discourse, the category of Surface Level in the context of my reviews simply means any show that has roughly as many positive qualities as it does negative, or at least could be argued as such. It is solid (all pun intended), but not much more than that.
61-75/100
Achieves Lift Off
This is the range at which I would say a piece of media generally starts consistently being more positive than negative. A show that Achieves Lift Off has a solid foundation but maybe does not do as much as it could in developing its story, characters, writing, gameplay, etc.
76-90/100
Space Bound
A piece of media that is Space Bound has built upon its positives even further. It achieves a lot, and may even be innovative in some spaces, but just barely misses the mark for being, in my eyes, perfect or near perfect.
91-100/100
Stellar
The category of stellar is reserved for media that does everything or virtually everything right. Since I usually do not go out of my way to watch things that I know people have said are bad, on top of my generally more positive bias, there will probably be a decent number of properties that end up in this tier. However, that should not at all diminish their quality, as I would still consider them the best of the best.
Of course, no rating system is perfect. These categories and number ranges are completely arbitrary. One show that is Surface Level and another that Achieves Lift Off might only be 2-3 points away. The categorical distinctions are more for portraying my general feelings while the numbers are there as a more absolute metric. Overall, I hope this new system will help to create a little more clarity in my reviews.
Have any questions about the new system or what I’m doing? Wanna let me know what you’ve been up to? Feel free to drop a comment down below.
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.
As always, thank you to our Patron Jenn, they are incredible!
If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!
Another depressing year has passed as far as current events and politics, with COVID still as threatening as ever Democracy is on the verge of collapse…but, it was also a great year for entertainment, specifically anime and manga. Even more than that, it has been a great year on this site, and I want to open up this post by just saying thank you all to everyone who dropped a follow and who read anything from me this year. The growth, while small on an absolute scale, has been relatively enormous.
In order to commemorate such an awesome year for Animated Observations, I wanted to go through and talk about some of the developments that happened this year. Additionally, I want to talk about my plans for the future and what it will mean for the site. A “Spotify Wrapped” for Animated Observations, if you will 🙂
The Stats
Like I alluded to before, Animated Observations went through Some pretty big growth relative to how it was last year, so I thought I would share some of that with everyone here (All of these are as of the writing of this post and will likely change by the actual end of the year).
So yeah, an absolutely amazing year for the site, and it has definitely felt rewarding even during the times when I was feeling burnt out or not in the mood to watch anything.
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What I am Most Proud of This Year
I put out quite a few posts this year, to say the least. Maybe not as much as some of my other fellow bloggers, but definitely a good amount. Additionally, I got the opportunity to collaborate with a bunch of people on some great projects. So I wanted to share a few of the posts I really enjoyed making this year.
This year was my first time hosting Jon’s Creator Showcase, and it turned out much better than expected. I can genuinely say that I enjoyed every post that was submitted, and even found some things that were added to my never-ending list of media to consume. Actually going through and organizing something like this gave me some insight on just how hard it is to be a community leader, and so I definitely have a lot more appreciation for all of the work Jon does for the community.
Probably the most in-depth I got with a series this year was writing about Princess Jellyfish, a show that, when I first watched it, was definitely good, but didn’t grip me with its opening episodes in the same way. Upon re-watching it however, I found that Princess Jellyfish is both deeply emotional and incredibly socially aware for its time. Mixed with some of my own revelations about gender identity, this quickly became one of my favorite series of all time.
I am joking a little bit, but in all honesty, I have seen quite a few short films on YouTube, and none of them can really claim to bring the same visual experience that Puparia does, outside of maybe a few. Analyzing this film as well as watching the documentary about Tamagawa’s process was honestly some of the most fun I have had doing research for an article this year. Whatever he ends up doing next, rest assured I will be there to talk about it.
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Blog Goals for 2022
I would love to capitalize on the success of this year and continue strong into the next, so here are some goals that I hope to works towards over the course of 2022. I guess you could also call these my New Year’s Resolutions as well.
Hitting 1000 followers on WordPress
1000 is definitely a big number for where Animated Observations is right now, and If I am being completely honest, I do not expect to hit it even by the end of next year. However, a big part of all these goals is to be more optimistic about my own abilities and the content I make here. So, whether or not I actually get there, I am making it my goal.
Hitting 500 followers across the social media platforms
In line with the previous goal, a reality creating things on the internet is having a strong presence on social media, and so I hope to do just that. Again, I am not realistically expecting this to happen, but having a strong goal to work towards gives me more motivation.
Making More YouTube Videos
This is the one I feel most strongly about considering how much I have utterly failed at it in the past. Thus, I am going to try and commit myself to make at least one video a month so that there is at least some consistency on the channel. Thus, if I fail in goal, there will be some sort of punishment, which I have yet to work out, but that will be posted publicly. So yeah, even more motivation.
Doing More of What You Want
Since I am nearing the end of this post, I want to say thank you again, since it definitely cannot be said enough. Having any amount of people wanting to read the things I write, let alone 400, is crazy, so it is greatly appreciated. As such, while I will continue making stuff I like, I also want to incorporate more of what you, my readers, want to see. I plan on releasing a sort of survey in the coming week asking those kinds of questions. For example, while I do not enjoy doing seasonal episode reviews as much as other forms of content, if that is what people want to read/watch, then I have no problem committing myself to that.
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Personal Goals for 2022
As much as I want to see Animated Observations grow, I do also have a life outside of making content, and so here are few things that I personally would like to achieve.
Losing Weight
It feels like a big part of my lack of motivation sometimes comes from my lack of energy, which is only further egg-on by my size. While of course I want to look my best, and I don’t shame anyone who is my size, being a bigger person definitely comes with some downsides. I have not weighed myself in a while, but usually my weight sits somewhere between 250-260. Thus, I’m hoping to drop at least 10-20 pounds come this time next year.
Getting Published
Whether it be self-publishing my work or going through an established outlet, I really want to get some of poetry published in 2022. Some of you who follow both this blog and Solidly Liquid will probably have noticed that my other blog has not been productive for most of this year. This is because, while I have been writing stuff, I feel as though my creative direction was not firmly established. However, that problem has since been solved, and thus I know exactly where I want to go with my work. After that, I am hoping to work on some short stories as well, and potentially get back to writing my novel that has been on the backburner for two and half years.
Conclusion
It feels hard to say that 2022 will be a good year overall, but given how far Animated Observations has come already, I can confidently say that 2022 should be a good year for us, at least.
I’m sure it is annoying by now, but just wanted to throw in one final thank you and say that I hope you all have a great Holiday season.
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!
Listen, listen, inconsistency is my brand, ok? If I actually did a blog update every month, who would I even be at that point?
COVID
Seriously though, the last couple years of my life have wizzed by, so much so that it still barely feels real. I’m sure that is something that a lot of people who end up reading this will be able to relate to, as COVID response in the English speaking world varied pretty wildly, and as is the case in the U.S. was absolute garbage. Even as my neck of the woods has almost fully reopened, I still have yet to mentally process a lot of what happened.
I also do not mean to imply that it is in anyway over, because it is not. The country is still averaging hundreds of deaths a day, meanwhile our leaders have still done little to nothing in terms of dealing with the crisis. In addition, as was predicted by many, there are now new strains that are developing and quickly becoming the dominant form. These strains are not only more infectious, but also have worse effects on health. It has been truly terrifying to see this level of genuine apathy from both politicians and members of the public.
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Otaku Warriors for Liberty and Self-Respect (OWLS)
Those who are present in the ani-blog sphere may have noticed the lack of OWLS posts over the last year or so. Well, back in September, the group decided it was finally time to take a break after nearly three and half years of being active. As someone who has been only been with the group for about half of that time, I can attest to the insane amount of work that goes into making it function. Organizing and putting out that much content consistently took a lot of work on the part of everyone involved.
Even moreso than any individual member, what I admire most about the group is what it stands for. While generally speaking, there has been a good amount of social progress made when it comes to human rights and injustice, the tide of history does not just move on its own. While I definitely will not claim to have the same importance as frontline advocates, bringing attention to important economic and culture issues through writing about and analyzing media can be good work as well.
Now, those not in the loop might be wondering “what is going on?” Even though I am a member of the group, I do not claim to speak on behalf of everyone. However, given that most of the the groups initial members are inactive, it does not appear that the group is likely to return in any official capacity anytime soon. So, what does that mean for me?
Well, if the group does become active again, chances are I will probably return. However, I have also found an awesome group of creators in the form of #TheJCO, so that is where my main priorities are right now. Additionally, while they may not be OWLS posts officially, I still plan on covering social and political themes where it is relevant just as much as before. Where that type of content is housed in the future may change, but it will still be coming.
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Priorities
Doing anything consistently is pretty hard, especially writing and posting content. Given that it is really hard for me to focus on one passion, I have taken up a lot of different ones over my time since the beginning of COVID. Streaming, poetry writing, and of course continuing my reviews and such on this blog.
Part of me wants to think that I will be here, sitting at my desk writing until I find my death bed, but in truth, I have no idea what direction I am going in. In truth, I cannot sit here and promise anything. I know I said inconsistency is my brand, but it is a little bit frightening to think that one day I might not be doing something that I really enjoy right now. At this point, the only thing I can say for sure is that I want to continue improving what I put out.
Thank you all, so very much.
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!
Animated Observations 