Otaku Links: Watch Evangelion

8 years ago

Bless hasn’t seen Neon Genesis Evangelion yet and that’s fine. With so much anime bombarding us every season, this is one story of choosing shows with intention. (Back when I watched Eva, it was one of the only VHS tapes I could pick!)
“Anime can be appealing because it so often accepts that the world is ending — and then offers solutions.” Rollin Bishop on the hope inherent in Your Name. Spoiler warning!
Also: Ollie at Forbes interviewed RADWIMPS, the band that scored the musical soundtrack for Your Name. “The music changed the story, the lines, and if [a] new scene was created, we changed the music.”
I did an interview with Katy at Yattatachi about my life and stuff! Nothing longtime readers haven’t heard me talk about one billion times.
Why Anime? Josh’s blog post is pretty old, but it’s on a topic I think about a bunch. I mean, I barely watch Western movies, so why is my attention span suddenly long enough to binge an anime season? What makes it special?
Is this anime feminist or not? Caitlin suggests some more articulate means of criticism than “I don’t know, it has girls in it.” By the way, Anime Feminist has put out their spring reviews, reminding me that feminists can have a sense of humor.
Finally, I just discovered this dumb meme in which people overlay unrelated images on top of the Evangelion opening. This Seinfeld one is the best of the bunch.

Screencap via Evangelion.

Your audience doesn’t think you suck

8 years ago

I couldn’t believe my ears at Anime Boston when people were raving about a Winter 2017 show called Kemono Friends. But a few weeks later, I’m the one recommending it!

Kemono Friends looks downright awful. And it gets worse from there, according to this Tokyosaurus YouTube video about its production:

The anime was created to promote a cell phone game which was already canceled before the anime began airing.
Only ten people (not counting voice actors) worked on the anime, including the director and producers.
It cut a lot of corners. In the earlier episodes, the wheels on the bus the characters ride around in don’t turn. Also, the majority of the characters are girls with animal characteristics—and they have both animals ears AND human ears.

But despite all that? People friggin’ loved it.

With a simple “hero’s journey” plot that shows instead of tells, and plenty of relatable characters with easily-digestible storylines, it’s a simple, sweet show. Accompanied by an undercurrent of bizarre mystery, it stood out as a mold-breaking show partially because of its risky cheapness.

This is a certainly low-budget and undeniably flawed, but unabashedly adored show. It reminded me of an illustration I’ve seen going around Tumblr about two cakes:

I was thinking about this after doing a collaboration video with Crunchyroll last Monday. My video isn’t perfect—I flubbed my lines and misstated at least one fact. Plus, there are already a lot of way better videos out there by people more talented than I am. I feel stupid admitting this now, but for the day after the video came out I did not spend my time celebrating this great opportunity to work with one of my favorite companies, or feeling good about sharing one of my favorite hobbies, Gunpla building, with a much wider audience than usual.

Instead, I felt that time feeling like crap. I kept thinking that I could have done a better job if I had redone the video. I kept thinking somebody else entirely could have done it better than me.

Of course, that’s not how the audience reacted! Just like Kemono Friends fans were happy to watch a quirky new anime and the audience in the cake comic was excited to chow down, people were happy to find another Gunpla fan, and sent me all sorts of praise. I got email from people who said it inspired them to make their own Gunpla, or even their own Gunpla videos.

Even if I wasn’t 100% confident about it, I know the world is a better place because I got over myself and made something. The world is a better place with more cakes in it. We assume other people look at us through the same harsh lens through which we view ourselves, every fault magnified. But I assure you you’re being way harder on yourself than anyone else would be.

To make your audience happy, you don’t need to be the most talented person. You don’t need to invest tons of cash into a project to make it watchable. You need an idea that you believe in and the enthusiasm to power through and put it out into the world.

You might think you suck, but your audience doesn’t. If even a show as cheap and weird as Kemono Friends could find a massive audience, who is to say your idea is too “out there” to succeed? If you have an idea you’re so passionate about that you can convince your audience to be passionate about it, too, it doesn’t matter how you get it out there as long as you do.

Lead image via Kemono Friends.

Otaku Links: It’s a family thing

Otaku Links

8 years ago

This was a big week for me because my collaboration with Crunchyroll came out on Monday! In celebration of the 38th Anniversary of Gundam (AKA 38 years to the day since Mobile Suit Gundam came out), I made a video about how to get started with one of my favorite hobbies! I wrote all about making the video on Gunpla 101.
The Eccentric Family (the gorgeous show in my lead illustration) is back! To celebrate, Peter Fobian wrote about the nuanced way the show portrays family ties.
By the way, what are you watching this season? I’m still on board with My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, and the aforementioned Eccentric Family. Definitely sticking with Natsume’s Book of Friends and Yowamushi Pedal New Generation as well. As for new shows, I’m interested in Sakura Quest and the Royal Tutor so far.
I finally saw Your Name this week and it was so beautiful I almost cried. I’m not going to say anything about it yet except that @PassionTentacle found out that you can write in a diary just like the one Taki uses in the movie on your iPhone or Android.
Kara explains what the heck a “voice remake” is. Do you think an old anime can be given new life with a more modern dub—and all the original animation intact?
Caroline Olsen, a published BL (that’s Boys’ Love) author, explains the origins of the term and the history of its fandom on Yattatachi.
A woman brings her therapy dog to a furry convention, assuming it’s a convention for pets. This is one of those news story where you read the title and it’s 10x better than you expected.

Lead screenshot via The Eccentric Family.

March 2017 Monthly Income Report

Income Reports

8 years ago

Every month as I’m putting together my income report, I doubt whether it’ll be of value to anyone. However, this month is visibly different from usual.

In March, I didn’t get paid at all for web design or development. (I did some work, but it was all stuff I’d been paid for previously.) And even though I lost a major income stream, it was still a great month, earnings-wise.

So part of why March is great is for the same reason February is low—since February is short, I got a bunch of checks on March 2. But even without those payments, March went well, on nothing but payment for writing. Some of the places I worked this month:

Hippo Reads, the middleman company that connects me with blogging and ghostwriting clients. It’s been absolutely worth it to have a company manage clients and payments for me, absolutely worth a little less income for a lot less stress.
Anime News Network, for which I wrote my weekly streaming reviews, some Gundam Blu Ray reviews, and even a little Anime Boston coverage.
That job I didn’t get last month. Their intensive process had me attending a one hour seminar and doing three hours of writing exercises, so it fortunately paid me for that.
Forbes, which I admittedly haven’t been doing much for lately. That said, it’s a great opportunity and I’m hoping to do some more substantial reporting there this April.
J-Novel Club. Even though the design is all set, I still do PR whenever there’s a new title. If you’d like to be on the PR mailing list, let me know!
Get Bullish. I make a cut whenever somebody buys my Affiliate Linking Guide, so that’s passive income now—I do nothing but cash my check.

Obviously, my income stream pie chart looks very different this month:

Amazon isn’t especially lucrative right now. It’s amazing in November-December, and then surges again around July-August. The rest of the year, I make around $500-$700 a month. Obviously, having more websites with affiliate links could boost those earnings.

Hey, wasn’t that one of those March goals? Let’s see how I did:

Create a new web design site, check!
Ten keyword heavy post ideas for affiliate site: well, more like 4, but almost there!
Create a new mailing list incentive, check! Here’s how I did it.

Wow, it feels good to keep promises to myself. I should try that more often! Starting with:

Launch new affiliate site, no excuses!
Acquire one new writing-focused income source. I should really just make this a recurring goal every month, since freelance income sources ebb and flow.
Write some in-depth reporting I’m proud of for Forbes. It’s been mostly corporate press release write-ups lately.

I know it’s a little late, but how did your March go, freelancer? What are your April goals?

Otaku Links: Let’s all be this cat

Otaku Links

8 years ago

No, you didn’t miss anything—I really didn’t put up a post this Monday. I got back into DC on Monday evening, and it took until Wednesday morning for me to feel like I was almost on top of things again. Anime Boston is a real “work hard, play hard” con for me, so this weekend I’m going to unwind with Sakura Matsuri and actually watching anime (funny how little time you have for that during an anime con.) But first, I’m kicking off my weekend with a 5k race that I’ve built a new Yowapeda soundtrack for.

Hope your weekend plans are just as relaxing. Enjoy some links!

Student journalists are the best kind. The high school newspaper investigated their new principal in a way the experts weren’t willing to, and what they found compelled her to resign.
Does marketing to fan communities help fandom? That’s an easy one—only if the marketers actually understand the community first.
Expert-level cosplayer Bill Doran’s book, A Beginner’s Guide to Making Mind Blowing Props, is currently $0. No idea how long this freebie will last.
Is there a big creative project you keep putting off—in exchange for smaller, less cerebral ones that you at least know will earn money? One of my favorite writers, Alexandra Franzen, explains how to get motivated.
When my friend Rachael wanted to publish a book, she knew so little about it that she started by buying “Getting Your Book Published, For Dummies.” Today her book is in major stores. Here’s how she did it.
I get bored at the gym and my new thing is listening to podcasts. Right now, my favorite by far is Gaby Dunn’s ‘Bad With Money’. Gaby’s interviews are eye-opening: like with a disabled woman who is incentivized to earn less to keep her benefits, and with Roxanne Gay (yes, that Roxanne Gay) about the time a dealership didn’t want to sell her a car because she’s black.
I didn’t watch Ghost in the Shell, but I’ve read a lot about it. My favorite take: 4 Japanese Actresses Dissect the Movie and Its Whitewashing Twist.
Finally, check out ‘Timeless,’ the winning Anime Music Video for Anime Boston 2017. It’s the first video in AB history to win Editor’s Choice, Judge’s Choice, and Best in Show all at once.

Photo via, HT Zoe.