A Self Reflection: Reading and Watching for Reviews

Being someone who makes content centered on anime and manga on the internet can be a difficult thing to do sometimes. Especially seasonal anime reviewers. People who watch an episode and then write or record their thoughts for their post the next day. I don’t know how people do that. I struggled with doing episodic posts for Chihayafuru Season 3 for two cours worth of content. Those episodes came out on Tuesdays and my posts usually hit on the weekend because I needed that time to think about the episode in question. I just watched more to get everything right somehow. No matter what the case is, whether it’s seasonal anime, finishing a manga up, or watching an older anime series, we are subjecting ourselves to doing more work for little gain of some kind.

I keep thinking about what it would be like to drop out of blogging now. Watch a couple episodes of anime, thinking about it for a bit, and then just doing anything about it? Possibly even watch more anime episodes and then doing the same thing? For almost five years now, I can’t imagine doing that anymore. Even with series that I am deciding not to talk about on any level until later, there is going to be a chance that the show in question emerges somewhere down the line anyway. If it’s not appearing now or a month after I finished watching something, then the odds are that it’s something special in something like Mecha March probably. Just to let you know how it all works.

In thinking about this for a little bit, I think there is always a reason why I put a week or two or three of of space before I post something on a series I just watched. Ok, multiple reasons. The first one is scheduling. The best I can do right now is post four times a week and two to three of those are anime reviews for shows I just watched. So there is that natural dilution of pacing of when I can finish something to when I can post about it. That allows me time to think about a show in full before writing about it. The other reason is that I want my thoughts to be my own for a little while before that appears. Guys, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m really shy in real life. I apologize all the time for minor things that I do that other people don’t care about. I am still, after this long while, a little scared to get my opinions out there. Imagine that, right?

Still, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy blogging. I do. I really do. I like putting my thoughts out in a random portion of the web so someone could be reading it somewhere. I’m still amazed that people are actually doing that. I keep telling myself that I would still write blog posts even If people weren’t following. In essence, that is true. I am still posting the things that I want to post even when they aren’t the largest hits in the universe. Still, I am thinking about years ago when I first started and I didn’t get that much traffic. Would I still have the energy and will power to keep going? In all honesty, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve really gotten lucky. Maybe not as lucky as some other people, but that’s fine. I will take what I can get.

Back on topic, what is the point of taking time away from reading and watching things to write about them? I think there is a lot of them. To inform people about something that exists, to form some kind of community, for profit, for ourselves, a lot of those combined together, and some others that I haven’t clicked in yet. Here is the question though, do we need to get something out of blogging to do it? You know, all that time we could be doing something and having our own fun? I think the natural conclusion would be yes, but I think it’s possible to get something out of it without really trying. For instance, one reason that I blog myself is to vent my other feelings somewhere else because I do get frustrated a lot. I mean, that’s 2020 in general, but I can’t say that I’ve had the easiest life. I’ve had to make some big decisions that I’m still unsure about. Blogging about other things puts that energy somewhere else.

All of that ties into how fun blogging and reviewing has gotten as well. It’s gotten easier to write reviews for things because I’ve found my own way to do it now. It only took forever. I like just doing it in general, but I like planning special things for it. I like doing massive events that I spend a lot of time on doing and then seeing the results from it. Mecha March takes a lot of months of planning in order to do and seeing it happen each month has been a delight. Same for what I have upcoming, Oshii October. Though, that one is simpler. I like having a vocal point to keep me grounded and Mechanical Anime Reviews has been that for me for a while now. At this moment, from the since of community I’ve gotten to even helping me choose on what to go back to school for, it’s become an invaluable thing. It might take some time from me to write posts instead of watching things, but I think that’s ok. I don’t need to watch everything at a fast pace anyway.

I hope to keep going for as long as I can even if I have to cut back on what I’m doing some time in the future. Reaching a thousand posts recently has reminded me that I’ve gone so far, but I feel like I can go farther still. I would like to see if there is a way that I can still do that. Reading and watching for reviews has been pretty fun. I want it to stay that way. When it’s not, I will stop but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

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