10 Year Anniversary

Today marks the ten year anniversary of this anime blog.  While these archives have rested silently these past three years, I still periodically return to dust off dated impressions and earnest introspection to measure how my anime fandom and behavior has evolved.  I originally intended for this blog to challenge myself in four areas, with all four having been completed years ago.  However, each time I return, I recognize this blog has a newfound and lasting challenge that I never envisioned: when and how do I say good-bye?

7 Year Anniversary and… Now What?

It’s been 7 years since I started this anime blog.  It originally began as a challenge for me: a way to force me to think deeply and critically about anime; to share my thoughts and appreciations of the shows I watch; to develop a voice for my creative writing; and to discover and grow my relationships with other anime enthusiasts.  When I look back – as I’ve done with every anniversary post – across these 7 years and 640 other blog posts – I am satisfied with my accomplishments, achieving far more than even my wildest dreams back on December 20, 2010.  But the same can’t really be said of the last year, which saw only a single post get penned in the last 12 months.  If I were to do a reflection of the year, then I’d simply request that you re-read my thoughts on an anime season that concluded 9 months ago.  Instead of looking back at 2017 for this anniversary post, I’ll try something new and look forward to what the future of this blog might look like.

6 Year Anniversary and the Opportunity to Write about the Autumn 2016 Anime Season

Today is a time to rejoice as we celebrate six years of Avvesione’s Anime Blog.  And while I typically use this post as an excuse to post screenshots of Setsuna from Needless to write about my lessons in anime or blogging from the previous year, I find myself lacking in subjects or ideas that weren’t communicated in years passed.  But I suppose I should consider myself fortunate for reserving the time to pen a post; this is just my fourth post in the last seven months.  Or perhaps more sobering truth of my current situation: in my first 3 years I published exactly 500 posts, whereas in the last 3 years I have only completed 139.

Really, I’d love nothing more than to continue to write about anime and to discuss anime with others, but it’s nearly impossible to find the time these days.  Instead of doing the usual for my anniversary posts, I’ll do what I’ve longed to do these last few months and write about the Autumn 2016 anime season!

12 Days of Anime (2015) – Day 6 – 5 Year Anniversary and Having Fun

Today, December 20th, marks the 5 Year Anniversary of Avvesione’s Anime Blog. As I’ve done with every anniversary post, I reflect upon the previous year and provide my input on the most valuable lesson I learned in terms of watching anime and writing for this blog. This year has been quite turbulent and chaotic, with countless new transitions, obstacles, responsibilities, and challenges – easily the busiest year of my entire life to date. As a result, I’ve had very little time to watch anime and even less dedicated to this blog. It pains me that I haven’t had as much time or energy this year to keep up with currently airing anime or write my weekly or seasonal posts, but it has helped me realize a valuable lesson, one that I may have overlooked since I started writing for this blog back in 2010. So, with that in mind, I’d like to share with you the most important lesson I learned in 2015 which is to make sure you’re having fun with anime.

12 Days of Anime (2014) – Day 6 – 4 Year Anniversary and Accepting Obstacles

Today is this blog’s fourth birthday, and the traditional way I’ve chosen to celebrate this anniversary has been to reflect upon a valuable lesson that I’ve learned since the last December 20th. Of course, these posts are always a cover for me to needlessly post pictures of Setsuna everywhere, but the topic of this post relates to a previous post in this year’s 12 Days of Anime series as well as a couple of future posts that will appear later on. The theme between these posts is on the challenges and difficulties inherent in following anime within a dense, tight schedule, and the focus of this post is learning how to manage these obstacles and accept certain complications.

12 Days of Anime (2013) – Day 3 – Image Search, Views and Understanding Anime Fans

In January of this year, Google Image Search (GIS) changed its structure and format to better accommodate its users in how they search and access images across the internet.  The most noticeable feature of this adjustment was that images would now expand within the window rather than opening the website and loading the page with the image on it.  This improvement was a welcome change among users, allowing them to access more previews quicker, completing searches faster and all without requiring pages to load on multiple websites.  However, as a direct result of this change, my blog and many other anime blogs saw a sharp decline in views due to the reduction in searches leading to page loads.  So while this moment of 2013 is not necessarily related to anime, this change in searches has had an unquestioned effect on this anime blog, perhaps the most significant change in its short history.

12 Days of Anime (2013) – Day 6 – 3 Year Anniversary and 500th Post

To think, on December 20, 2010, Avvesione’s Anime Blog was nothing more than a wild idea derived from my passion for anime and my desire to express it.  It may have been 0 days old and have 0 posts, but I knew this idea would grow into something special.  Today, on December 20, 2013, my anime blog has triumphed through 3 long years and amassed a total of 499 posts.  With this post commemorating the 3 Year Anniversary for Avvesione’s Anime Blog, it also marks a great, new milestone, being my 500^th post.  This is truly an exceptional moment for me and my anime blog.  Just trying to fathom all the time and anime and thinking and writing that occurred between these two time points is nothing short of remarkable.  Never did I imagine that my anime blog would ever make it this far.  And now, I wonder, where will it go from here.