7th Blogiversary Reflection and Ambitions for 2023

A Reflection of 2022

The actual blogiversary date is tomorrow, but not posting tomorrow. This is the starting of my 8th year of blogging and it’s crazy that I have been around his long and doing alright with it as far as I know. Still so enjoyable for it too.

What a year this has been. As in I think it was better then 2021 in general even if it was a bit messy. What year isn’t messy these days. I really say that because this is a year where I gave into the fact that life isn’t going to go the direction that I want it too. One could say that it was letting go of some things and yet making some connections that make me happy about it. One could say that its called compromising and that would be right. For instance, the second half of this year is me finding a full time job that isn’t exactly what I like, but I still enjoy it. Mostly because its a me job.

I am not an engineer or a tech writer, I became a production planner as a small company. It is a very STEM sort of job where I have to know, write down, and put down procedures on how these materials customers send in are going to get Non Destructive Tested, anodized, and painted if they want it. Or get certain sorts of metal finishing. It doesn’t pay as much as I want it to, but it is a job that I love the smaller job environment with these nice people and I come home with a smile everyday (or would if that the traffic home didn’t suck). It’s a very me job at an aerospace company.

This was after half a year of trying to find somewhere, getting job interviews, failing to get anywhere that I had to go somewhere, then going to a temp agency and then getting the job I liked after it, that the struggling meant something. I really was spending 4 days a week working at a temp job and then still attaching myself to a part time Amazon fresh job at the same time and it was one of those instances that destroyed my body more then I enjoyed. So on a me perspective, everything did eventually turned out ok.

I suppose that the beginning of 2022 was that period where I was trying to find an identity or something on a lot of things and then coming out of not doing as much because I found a lot of things that I enjoyed doing or these sort of potential items that could have going somewhere that I am stopping. So mess in the beginning and then a lot more conductive towards the middle to ending. A lot of this goes towards the blog too because I am planning on not blogging as much as I used to even if I still plan on sticking around for a long time. It’s been 7 years now and I want to find ways to be a bit more inventive then I have to be and that might require pulling back.

Some Stats Talk

Despite the number of followers I have, around 1.5K, I don’t get as many hits as other people who write more about current anime all the time. I think part of that is from followers being dead from years past who haven’t unfollowed yet, accounts trying to do that share for share thing, or so many other things.

Not to mention that I don’t talk about the hottest seasonal anime stuff besides one post a week when they are in their hottest moments or anything like that. Or I could keep going with how in 2021 I tried to blog every single day and I stopped doing that. So there are a lot of reasons why stats are probably down a bit with covid or who knows what else.

Still, I’m pretty happy with getting any likes, comments, opinions, or just viewers at all. I still never expect anyone to follow me even if its been this long. I don’t post about the most obvious things from older anime to newer shows that weren’t as obvious or passed over by people. No matter who you are, thank you for following and continuing to enjoy Mechanical Anime Reviews.

Failures from 2022 and Possible Continuations

As I’ve mentioned in my general recap of this year on a personal scale, I think I tried to do too many things in 2022 and that ended up burning me out a bit. Or some things weren’t going the way I wanted them to and I wasn’t the reason why it fell apart or stopped.

Anime News Network: This fell off because none of the pitches that I’ve sent over to ANN were responded to very well after my Getter Robo anime essay. I was thinking about posting the two things I’ve written over here at some point, just haven’t gotten to it.

Viz Media: For a couple years, I used to be able to read some manga from Viz Media for free before they came out that was a bit too much for me. I am more interested in reading the books that I want to instead of checking out some of theirs. It took too much time and I’m not as interested in it anymore.

Podcast: This was a thing I did during my free time and eventually, I didn’t have enough time to do it consistently at the level I want to and I will have to think about how I do this in the future and what I can focus on in the future.

Original Story: I think releasing one chapter a month was going ok for a while, but I didn’t like the direction it was going. I’ve gotten an idea for how to do a 2.0 edition of it and do a bit more set up and construction for it. Just need some time to sit down and do it.

Collabs

Irina Collabs (I did some episode reviews with Irina at the beginning of the year)
AMAIM Episode Reviews
Sasaki and Miyano Anime Reviews

K Projects (Cool projects K made that I was apart of for some reason.
Anime Tik Tok Quiz
Ultimate Hunter x Hunter Tier List

Jon Spencer Showcase June 2022

Wormhole Project
SushiRainbow
Haru

Kiki’s Delivery Service Collab – Ashley Capes

2023 Projects, Watches, and Goals

The Early Miyazaki Hunt: One of the most random things I started doing was digging into early or Pre-Ghibli Miyazaki work a bit more heavily then last year. That started with Future Boy Conan and then I went on to Lupin Part 1 and so on. I want to do more of this if I can.

Card Captor Sakura: One of my next watch projects is Card Captor Sakura. I’ve been putting it off or too long and I want to finally get to it.

More Ghost in the Shell: It’s time to rewatch GITS:SAC 2nd Gig and Solid State Society at the least. Possibly Arise if I get the time. This has been waiting around for a while and I just need to do it.

Fist of the North Star 2: Another series that I’ve been putting of. Time to finally watch it and see why people consider it bad.

Just More Older Anime: I’m always on the hunt for older anime whether its looking at difference streaming services or purchasing them through discotek. Yeah, still going to do this because I love finding more retro anime to watch.

Some Longer Research Projects: I’ve been wanting to do a major anime research project for a while. There is something cool I’ve been wanting to do for a while and we shall see how it goes.

Mecha March 2023: This is already a go. Almost done putting it together, just need to put in some final touches and start another project like one that I did last year. Should be easy, just need to do it.

Another Themed Month Mid Year: Yeah, I want to do another sort of thing like Shonen Jump movie month last year. Only, I want to do with it something else and I am still figuring out what it will be. But there is still a lot of time for that.

Conclusion

So this is my state of the blog address for 2023. See you in year for the next one. Thank you all for reading this blog and being interested in its content. You now have at least some sort of idea what to look forward to in the future.