Author Journey (January 3, 2022)

I’ve been so busy trying to keep things moving while on Christmas vacation that I forgot about the Otaku Author’s second anniversary! I hope she won’t be mad! So, let’s talk about the last year and what comes next.

January 3, 2022

#Blogging

That’s right, the Otaku Author officially turned two on December 17, 2021, and I completely forgot about it. I have been blogging for a lot longer than that, but this is the current (and hopefully) final iteration of my work. Also, as I’m still on vacation and not doing any writing until Wednesday when I’m back and refreshed, I figured this was a great time to look at how the last year went and what I’m planning for 2022. Fair warning, there will be some talk of statistics and other things, but first, here’s a quick catch up on what I covered this last week.

Seasonal Anime

• Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
• Takt Op. Destiny
• The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat

All three of my seasonal shows ended in the same week and that meant that I published three complete season reviews. It might seem a little gratuitous, especially after writing about the season for twelve weeks, but I like to pull some of my thoughts together and take a look at my favourite and least favourite things.

Writing a season review also fills in that time between the end of one season and the beginning of the next. This season, based on the shows I’m planning on covering, I will have a couple of bonus posts coming out this week. Keep an eye out for them. As for the new shows, I’m looking at, they will include Princess Connect! Re:Dive season two, Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest season two, and World of Leadale.

It’s going to be an interesting bunch. I loved season one of Princess Connect and have been playing the mobile game for almost a year now. Arifureta was a strange show and something is telling me to watch season two. I’ve no idea how that’s going to go… Finally, Leadale is a complete shot in the dark, but the promo trailer looked interesting enough to get me to commit.

Historic Anime

• Heaven’s Lost Property
• Hundred
• Jujutsu Kaisen

Last week I revisited the first Heaven’s Lost Property movie and was reminded just how depressing that was. This week, I’ll look at the second movie for the first time and I can’t wait to discuss that. That means there is one last post for Heaven’s Lost Property before I move on to another show. Then there’s, Jujutsu Kaisen, which is simply incredible and I can’t wait to see the movie and another season. As for this season, there is one more episode review and then the season review. Almost time to find yet another series to cover. And finally, Hundred moves into the second half and continues to be a lot of fun. It’s definitely been worth revisiting some older shows.

#2021 Review

In 2021, I decided to slow down the pace of my posts. Admittedly, I had already started that in the second half of 2020 so this was just a continuation. I published 314 posts last year compared to 559 in 2020. It would have been more had my entire site not completely vanished from the internet at the end of August and into the beginning of September. That was a very stressful couple of weeks as my ISP tried to recover all of its servers. Don’t forget to back up your work!

I started the year with a full seven-day schedule which was a mix of old and new shows. After the winter 2021 season ended, I made the decision to step back from seasonal shows for a while. I continued with the older shows as they were generally ones that I had seen before and I knew that I loved them. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but the disappointment that came with season two of The Promised Neverland may have had something to do with it.

Ironically, it was after the great ISP catastrophe that I decided to jump back into seasonal anime. It helped that the second part of Mushoku Tensei season one was about to start. After initially reviewing the first part on Ecchi Hunter, who sadly didn’t survive the ISP catastrophe, I decided to redo it here and continue straight into the second part. I’m glad that I took a break and even happier to have come back to it. There’s something exciting about watching a show with other bloggers and exchanging ideas and theories while the shows air for the first time.

So, even though I published 245 fewer posts in 2021, my annual traffic increased from 51k to 75k. One of the great things about blogging is that every post has the potential to be discovered by someone new every single day after it was published. It’s great seeing a mix of old and new posts getting attention year after year. I can’t wait to see what the next year will do to my statistics.

#2022 Plan

If you’ve been following this site for a little while, you’ll be aware of my struggles with finding time to work on my fiction. This year will be my year. It’ll be the year I make it happen. On top of that, I am going to keep this site running as per normal which means a post a day for the entire year. As it is now, it’ll be a mix of old and new shows. I like the balance I’ve found by splitting my time between seasonal shows and revisiting ones that I already love.

I’ve also got some new post formats that I am going to test out with two shows that I’ll be revisiting. One starts next week and the other in February. I had a lot of fun writing them and want to see how they are received before deciding to put them into a more consistent rotation. Variety is a good thing.

Another thing that I intend to work on this year is trying to produce more artwork. With the novels I’m planning, having some artwork that I can use for covers and internal images is going to be a must. I know that I could commission them, but it’s something I really enjoy doing and my insatiable need to control everything about my work won’t let me do that just yet. There are other benefits to creating my own art such as promotional material and merchandising.

I expect to be busy this year and I’m excited about it. My vacation officially ends tomorrow and it’s been great having my parents around for the holidays. I am looking forward to returning to my routine, but the help has been invaluable. It’s just been my wife and me since the beginning of the pandemic and we are exhausted. That’s another reason that I’m also committing to getting a little bit fitter this year. Stamina is essential!

These all probably sound like pretty similar goals to my previous years and they are, however, this Christmas, I’ve spent a lot of time working on my mindset and preparing myself for the New Year. I’ve been studying the industry for the past ten years, devoured thousands of hours of podcasts, and read thousands of articles on story craft and the business. On top of that, I’ve been inadvertently studying story my entire life. I’m at the point where if I want to learn more, I need to publish. I need to prove that I can do it.

Have you ever forgotten an anniversary? What are your plans for 2022? I wish you all a productive and enjoyable 2022. It’s been a crazy couple of years, but we’ve got this far. Let’s keep it going. Anyhow, thanks for reading and stay safe.

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