Shameful Otaku Secret!

(For now)

Well, it’s here. Oi, Hayaku!, in all its glory, has launched. The mastermind, or at least mind, behind it was revealed to be Riex, formerly of THAT, and he got a handsome fella to help write an intro post.

It’s still a little rough — in the biz we call it a “soft launch” — but over the next week it’ll fill out nicely, like that one skinny girl you went to school with. Authors will gradually reveal themselves, and then hopefully things will start barrelling like a freight train. There are some great writers on board of various levels of notoriety and handsomeness, and it’s been a lot of fun putting things together. It’s going to be work as well, but the great part is that you guys reap the benefits of that work.

So stop by, add it to your RSS feeds, and if you’re feeling especially nice give us a spot on your blogroll.

Smart ideas.

There’s a new site coming around, and details aren’t too forthcoming yet, but it aims to be a “powerhouse” of the best the otakusphere has to offer.

Oi Hayaku! is my effort to push consistent (Media and Design) oriented blogging on Japanese Entertainment culture at a professional level of quality with a ton of personality. What do I mean?

Head over to their call for writers to find out just what they mean, and no fair asking me what the details are of who’s involved, what’s going on, when’s the launch, etc. because I don’t know! Well, I know a little. And I know there is writer compensation, and there are a lot of big ideas floating around that should be really cool. But the potential is high, here, people, and if you want to be involved this is the ground floor opportunity to be a part of something that could get big. Once again, that URL is www.oihayaku.com.

They listen to the rap music, and that’s what gives them the brain damage.

Like most of you, I got older this year. Also, my blog is turning right around 6 months old. So I’m taking some time to reflect on the nature of this beast. I think the internet is a great equalizer, as evidenced by the recent Gender Drama sweeping the aniblogosphere.

I initially started out trying to be an island, a Google magnet living on the long tail and providing a little insight for people who aren’t necessarily hardcore anime people. Frankly, I think what I was trying to avoid by isolating myself were pictures of Shin’s crotch (don’t click that), i.e. link-baiting, attention-whoring, and retinal-burning. No offense to the trap-in-training himself, I am more inclined to believe you than call you a link-baiter but you sure have talked a lot about it lately, and hey — you got my link.

But my digression actually strengthens my point: No one on the internet is an island if they want to get anywhere, and the community is the logical place to go. What I found were a lot of really interesting conversations, and people generally getting along better and expressing more entertaining opinions than on forums, my previous exposure to anime discussion on the web.

So, I got sucked into this world and now I probably provide very few resources for non-otaku, but it’s fun. And as for that great equalizer, I’m talking age too: I’ve found that other bloggers around these parts, aside from the old school Lawsons and Kabitzins, average about 7 years younger than me, some quite a bit younger — but they’re my “virtual senpais,” as it were, and have managed to teach me a little something by virtue of their blogs’ age.

Contributing to the echo chamber is a great way to get traffic in this space as well as the blogosphere as a whole, but I’m still holding out on too much participation. I just want to talk about anime. But it does seem like exciting things are happening, so, uh… yay! And thanks to everyone, the anime world has been a great place to blog so far.

It would take me back to those days sitting around a tiny crummy apartment in Pittsburgh watching Evangelion on VHS, except that apartment had a carbon monoxide leak and I lost most of those memories.