Blogging has given me a short attention span. This year, I published 122 posts on Otaku Journalist. But I seem to forget about them as soon as I post them!
This has been an interesting year on this blog, beginning with my failed ecourse launch on January 1 and culminating in the Twelve Days of Anime. I even redesigned the look of the site! But in between, I managed to write a few gems that I don’t want to disappear into the ether. Here are my ten favorites, in chronological order:
- Anime Trope Bingo — We all love anime’s ridiculous tropes, but they can get a little predictable after a while. This is a bingo card I still use whenever I’m trying out a new show.
- Geeky new writers, here’s where to get started — My favorite posts are my most helpful posts. For this one, I reached out to each of the blogs I mention here and asked if they were actively looking for contributors. They were, and are!
- Thoughts on cultural tourism in Hawaii — For our honeymoon, John and I spent two weeks in the Hawaiian islands. It was a complicated mixing bowl of native, U.S., and Japanese traditions, and it took me a few weeks to process my thoughts into this post.
- Read Navigating Ethics and Bias, my latest geek journalism guide! — Of all my digital guides, I feel that this one is the most important. Fan journalists straddle a fine line between allowing their interests to help them or sway them, and this is my guide to the balancing act.
- Why fandom sucks — Like many of the posts that turn out to be my favorites, I got an adrenaline rush when I hit the publish button on this one. Fans are awesome, but as is the case with most angry mobs, fandom can turn us into something ugly.
- Building your first Master Grade gundam — This isn’t a gundam blog, but I love my occasional gundam posts because I love to teach and I’m glad I found a subject that has touched so many people. I STILL haven’t finished the MG gundam mentioned in this post!
- Help, I was personally attacked in the comments of my own article! — I like this advice column because it’s applicable to nearly everyone who’s ever contributed to the internet, whether it was a news article, a blog post, or even a comment on a message board.
- The truth about boys’ love and rape culture — After a colleague’s piece on the topic quoted me, I surprised myself with how much more I still had left to say.
- Where your Crunchyroll dollars really go: An interview with the CEO — Probably the closest thing to reporting I did this year, this was also 2013’s most popular post. Sometimes combating hearsay is as simple as asking, “Is this true?”
- The human journalist’s guide to reporting — After a national tragedy hit my family close to home, I wrote personally about empathy in the news.
Thanks for spending at least a little bit of your year with Otaku Journalist. And don’t forget, you can always browse the archives to read the full 122 posts!
(All images from 2013 posts. Click the post for image credit.)
