The two or three of you who still recall my uneven exploits of aniblogging in the 2010s may remember when this site unceremoniously died in 2017 due to my blunder of not renewing the domain. By then, I had fallen out of the quarterly new anime business and began shifting towards video games. So when it was going to cost me probably a thousand or so to regain the domain, I bowed out.
Fast-forward about 2.5 years and I decided to try and bring the blog back under the name weeboomers. I was reviewing the final season of Symphogear at the time, as well as opining about Evangelion’s final hurrah. I also tried dabbling in some western animation, but that era of streaming networks funding a lot of experimental shows kinda died with, well, streaming network greed. I once more did not renew that domain and it just baleeted from my Namecheap profile. They didn’t even bother holding that one around.
Which brings us to now. I was looking at my MAL profile for funsies earlier, and clicked on a link for tldranimu. To my surprise, it did not take me to some shitty landing page written in Japanese or slathered with ads. Curious, I logged into Namecheap and looked up the domain. Sure enough, it was for sale, and at normal prices. I had to reacquire my old domain name. I still had the EC2 instance with the blog frozen, so I spent the afternoon at work updating Ubuntu, WordPress, and situating everything to bring the blog back up.
But now what?
Honestly, I am not sure yet. I have been getting the itch to go through some newer shows that have caught my eye over the last few years, as well as revisit some old classics I’ve never reviewed. I also wouldn’t mind fixing up the older posts and then maybe giving some of those a second review, to see if they’ve withstood a decade of time. I also intend to keep the western animation posts and do some more of those, as I think it’s interesting to look at the good stuff that comes about every so often.
But I am pragmatic. I’m an old and washed up, raising an almost-three year old, and managing an entire organization’s IT with a building full of people who know zero IT. So my inclination to watch and write will have to rely on my few hours of the night I can get to do so. Shit ain’t as carefree as it used to be. So don’t expect daily updates or anything grandoise.
Nevertheless, welcome to Act Three of this horrid display of wonders. It still promises to be more coherent than Evangelion ever was.
Hey Delta, I’m happy to see you’re still up and at it. I just recently paid my yearly hosting bill which reminded I’m still keeping Jinx! up and went on a nostalgia trip going through old posts (mostly through Wayback Machine, though, since I lost everything prior to 2016) and went through my link list to see which ones were still alive. So I stumbled upon here and it’s good to see some signs of life, so much of the old aniblogosphere has just vanished into the depths of the internet archives.
I’ve toyed with the idea of returning to aniblogging from time to time but as you put it, being old and having responsibilities and other hobbies makes it difficult to commit to. I’m no longer a spunky 20-something full of nervous energy with no commitments and plenty of free time (if not money) to get drunk and ramble on the internet any day of the week. I’m not sure if there even is an audience these days, everything’s moved to video format which I dislike for most purposes and I’m sure as hell not going to put my own face and voice on the internet for Japanese cartoon reviews. Also nowadays it feels like I don’t really have much to say about the stuff I watch. It’s just breakfast entertainment for me before heading out to work. I’m in a discord hangout with what remains of the old #animeblogger IRC crew and even there it’s pretty rare that anyone bothers commenting on a running show or doing simulwatches or stuff. It’s like a gang of old grizzled bums standing around a rusty burn barrel who have seen everything and said everything worth saying but are still enjoying the company.
If you end up making a brilliant return, I’ll be here to witness it. But either way I wish you the best and I’m happy to at least see you’re keeping the lights on.
Three months and change later, I finally read and reply to this. Typical me. I have to remind myself to tweet though we’ll see how long Saint Musk keeps that platform alive.
I get what you mean though. Everything is fucking zoomer shit now, Tiktok and Youtube, and I don’t think I care enough to try and adapt to that when I can’t even care enough to really sink into anything airing. I just sorta pick at some stuff that recently aired or the internet is awash with. I don’t even think I finished the most recent season of Log Horizon. I still prefer the blog format. I know no one reads it just like no one cares about TV Club reviews anymore to the point where they have terrible writers reviewing things now. I’m going to stump on that old man shit until the end.
A brilliant return is questionable, but I’ll keep the lights on for the hell of it. Equilateral on Discord if you find something hilarious I should shake my cane at.