Otaku Links: Crowdfund All The Shows!

Otaku Links

otaku-links-dvds

  • Funimation is bringing everyone’s favorite ’90s shoujo mecha series, The Vision of Escaflowne, to Blu-Ray with a Kickstarter campaign. In just 3 days, it’s already funded! What do you think about established companies using Kickstarter to fund their projects?
  • P.S. Don’t forget about the Skip Beat campaign, which isn’t funded yet. For the uninitiated, you can check out Skip Beat on Crunchyroll and see if it’s your kind of thing first. Both of these campaigns are plus six figures, and before writing my Forbes article, I had no idea how pricey it was to dub an anime. “You have to add an extra zero,” Ann Yamamoto told me.
  • Have you ever seen an anime screenshot and wondered, “Which anime is that from?” It’s certainly happened to Soruly, so he built a search engine and Chrome extension specifically for that purpose. Input any screenshot and it will spit back where it came from. I tried a bunch and I can’t believe how accurate it is!

Photo by Donald Kasper

Get ready to disappoint people you love as you pursue your dreams

Anime, Careers, Journalism, Writing

pursue-your-dreams

My friend invited me to go doujinshi shopping in Akihabara when I’m there next month. What an amazing opportunity—to buy lovingly drawn yaoi in its country of origin. Only, I was pretty sure that in the United States, that was going to get me flagged at customs. It’s only been eight years since an Iowa man was jailed for doujinshi possession.

So I decided to write an article for Forbes on my quandary: “Why Every Manga Fan Should Be Worried About Child Porn Laws” (inspired by this Otaku Journalist post of the same name). You should check it out because I worked hard. It was especially great to speak with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

But last week, when I told my husband, John, that I was working on this article, he gave me that look of disappointment. The same look he gave me when I published an article on feminism in video games, when I wrote about Donald Trump, and every other time he has been worried that my habit of writing incendiary articles is going to compromise my personal safety. From Gamergate to hentai, it’s like an itch I can’t stop scratching—I want to write the same sensational, surprising stuff that I like to read. And it’s not always the best way to live.

This isn’t even my first article for Forbes about anime and sex, which I’m sure is a fact that my family must be super proud of. When I’m with them we don’t discuss it. I don’t even share these articles on Facebook (though they’re definitely some of my most popular). And yet, I can’t kid myself—my family knows. My little sister told me she heard about it through one of her friends! My mom said she has friends who read every single one of my articles. If it’s embarrassing for me, I can’t imagine how my mom feels.

And yet, here I am, continuing to write about the stuff I write about. Part of it is that I’m optimistic that eventually I’ll be able to write about whatever I want without having to worry about my personal safety, and I do believe we’re getting there. But most of it is that what my family sees as risky, I don’t. I have accepted that to be a journalist is to write about things in public, and after an embarrassing early mistake, I am comfortable writing in public now.

However, my family didn’t sign up for this. They are private citizens! That’s why I keep my mentions of them to an absolute minimum. The problem is that, as I have become better known, more people read and react to my articles and it’s harder to shield my family from that.

These are the issues I face as a person writing in public. But even before that, I worried about the ways that choosing an unusual career related to my fandom would affect my family. I don’t have a simple answer to “what do you do all day?” and even if I do explain all my current projects, it doesn’t have the same ring as “doctor” or “lawyer.” I’m certain my grandmother has no idea what I do, or if I even work since I always seem to have time to grab lunch with her.

Why do any of us choose a particular career? Because it’s a field we’re interested in, perhaps, or because we’re good at it or, to be a bit cynical, because we have to do something. But I think there’s also a major part that we don’t think about from day to day, the approval of other people, our friends and family especially. Who wouldn’t like to be renowned for what they do?

But when you choose to march to the beat of your own drum, that on its own isn’t strong enough. It’s hard to tell if you’re doing well since you can’t compare. Instead of promotions and raises and stuff like that, I have only my own success benchmarks to measure by. Sometimes it looks like I’m being risky and reckless and getting little in return. Measure by online clicks and sometimes it looks like I hit the big time. Measure by cash per month and sometimes it looks like I’m backtracking. It’s only when I do my monthly assessment that I know how well I’m doing.

This isn’t a post about learning how to explain your weird career to your loved ones. It’s about how, sometimes, you won’t be able to and that’s OK. The metrics of success for your career are entirely unique, and they won’t always be conveyable.

But I’m hoping that when you think of your loved ones, you are thinking of people who want you to be happy. They may not understand what you do, but they will be thrilled to see how happy your pursuits make you. Before I found my purpose, I can’t say I was all that fun to be around. Sometimes, doing something for yourself is the best thing you can do for the people you love.

Photo by Joel Tonyan

Otaku Links: Hidden gems

Otaku Links

otaku_links-crystal

  • The Crunchyroll forums are basically the last useful, positive forums on the Internet, and I loved this list of hidden gems—anime that are fantastic but not talked about as often as they deserve. HT Zoe!
  • This was the week I remembered I have to write five posts for Forbes every month, so I put up four of them. My favorite so far is about the Skip Beat crowdfunding campaign and how fans working together can takes the risk factor out of something as “daring” as shoujo anime.

Photo by Peter Lestari

How to balance a lot of major projects (AKA how to do everything you want)

Careers, Journalism, Writing

how-to-balance-major-projects

I have a lot on my plate right now, as I’m fond of blogging this 2016. “So busy!” about half of my Otaku Links posts seem to have begun. I’m a journalist at Forbes, a reviewer at Anime News Network, an affiliate blogger at Gunpla 101 and at least three other sites, a freelance web designer for practically anyone who will have me, and now a WordPress developer for a DC think tank. All that’s on top of life things, like taking Japanese language classes, shopping around my latest book idea to publishers, and occasionally doing the laundry.

It’s a far cry from the way my husband makes money, as we realize anew every year around tax time, when he collects his single W2 from a job he’s worked for five years and counting, and I juggle a pile of 1099-MISC files from ten or more companies. And while my income is a lot more variable, we often end up bringing comparable amounts to the table. But while I work seven days a week for it, his workday almost always ends at 5 PM.

It works for him (and for many other people!) but, to me, full time employment doesn’t equal security—it means somebody else is calling the shots in my career. So for the last five years, I’ve cobbled together my living out of a lot of different things. You could say I have trust issues, but the bottom line is this: I am not one to put all my eggs in one basket.  I don’t expect one employer, or one project, to keep me afloat for life, even if business is good right now.

So instead of one job, I think of my career as a rotation of long-term projects. If one falls through, I still have all the others. That’s why I do it; now I want to tell you how.

Look at the big picture

From middle school until graduate school, I used a weekly planner to stay organized. It was hard enough getting through one week; I didn’t need or want to look further ahead.

Now, that’s all I do. Planning starts on December 31, when I set major goals for the year ahead. I usually set twelve and dedicate each month to one project. For example, January was dedicated to writing my new affiliate guide, this month I’m building a PHP/MySQL database site, and next month is scheduled as a “catch-up” for ongoing projects before I go to Japan.

balance_color

My planner structure also matches this twelve-month visualization. I now use monthly planners so I can see how the month’s goal is coming together amid all the chaos. I got my current planner at Muji Times Square for $1.50 and it’s a bargain. This January 2016 layout leaves a lot to be desired; like I ought to have written down my dedicated affiliate guide writing days, but instead I just made room for it in the gaps. I like to think I’ve improved since then.

Work in bite-sized bits

Of course, looking at life 30 days at a time can be pretty overwhelming. That’s why I’ve had to make peace with the idea that I can only do a little at a time. I can’t fill my Forbes monthly quota today, but I can write just one article. I can’t write an entire book this evening, but I can write an entire outline and get started on Chapter One.

This has been harder than you’d think. I used to be all about the checklist. A day where I can’t check off a project felt like a day in stagnation. I still have checklists now, but they consist of smaller bits of larger projects. I use Evernote’s checklist feature to make a note for each of my ongoing projects that consists of a checklist of smaller tasks. Then, every evening when I am creating a to-do list for the following day, I put those tasks on my master checklist for every day.

I truly believe this shift in my thinking about accomplishments is what has allowed me to write books. I used to be too overwhelmed by the idea of a writing project I couldn’t finish in one day. But by thinking of it as a group of much smaller writing projects made it possible.

Know your limits

I want this to be a guide about how you can do every single thing you’ve ever aspired to. But there’s a caveat—you can’t do it all at one time. You need to set a realistic schedule.

When you work seven days a week, burnout can be a risk. I keep it at bay by scheduling breaks as seriously as I schedule tasks. I’m certain I come across as pretty lazy, because sometimes you can find me watching anime on a Wednesday morning. Being able to occasionally goof off on weekdays is one of the freedoms of setting my own schedule, and taking full advantage of that reminds me that I’m not an overworked masochist. I could get more done if I took fewer breaks, but I’ve been there and I’ve seen the raw, red-eyed extent of that burnout.

Life is supposed to be enjoyable, and I don’t want to get my only enjoyment through the rush of finishing a major project. I don’t want to work all the time, and neither do you.

Reassess monthly

Sometimes the projects I set for myself in December don’t resonate anymore in September. That’s OK. It’s all part of my end-of-the-month reassessment, where I ask myself, “Are these still the projects I want to be spending my energy on?” That’s when I weigh the sacrifice each of my projects require over the amount of value they bring to my career.

Take my WordPress development job. I know if I got rid of it I could free up my schedule to create two or even three new projects per month. But I also have to consider which projects are bringing in the most value for me, in this case, in the form of regular income and building significantly on my coding skills. In exchange for that value, it’s a job that takes up a chunk of my time and no small amount of mental energy. Right now, it’s totally worth it. A year from now, who knows? I consider everything temporary, so it can wait for my next reassessment.

The most important thing is that I never want to feel like I’m indebted to a project because the boss is nice, or more than 75% of my income comes from there (I don’t want to be in that situation, period). I always want to look at projects as worth my time while they provide value to me in the form of money or exposure or experience, and say goodbye when they don’t.

A lot of my thinking on this modular style of career comes from Jen Dziura of Get Bullish (whom you may remember as the publisher of my affiliate linking guide) and while her advice has a feminist bent, I assure you it’s for everyone who has a job.

Would you call your career a modular one or a 9-to-5? If you’re interested in making money off of your geeky interests, do you see that as a side hustle or an eventual full-time gig?

Otaku Links: Miracle La!

Otaku Links

otaku_links_fushigi

  • Fushigi Yuugi is now streaming on Crunchyroll in its entirety. This is one of the first anime I ever heard about, though in the Before Times I couldn’t get my hands on more than a couple episodes (on VHS!). Now that there are three major anime streaming services between Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Daisuki, I think collecting the rights to classic titles is a great differentiating move.
  • Looking for more old anime? The Anime Nostalgia Tumblr has a fairly comprehensive guide to watching streaming anime 12 years or older. Usually it’s hard enough keeping up with current good anime, but this Winter 2016 has been a little blah for me and perfect for digging into the archives.
  • Here’s an idea, how about we all stop trashing convention hotels? While stuff like this has happened for as long as I have been going to cons, our bad behavior is only going to get more visible as our fandom grows and grows. It would suck if hotels and convention centers stopped putting up with it.
  • Speaking of games, Jet Set Radio is free on Steam right now. No time to play? Do what I do and tune in to JetSetRadio.live to make work a little more awesome.
  • Why do people love anime? Like, as opposed to other kinds of media? Justin Stroman interviewed me and a bunch of other professional fans, about why it resonates so intensely.

Scan from Fushigi Yuugi manga