“Uh-oh! The Backloggers have released a ‘we are finally quitting the blog’’ post after almost two years, they’re officially done-zo.”
…Or maybe that’s what we wanted you to think!
Well, we can talk about all that in a minute. Still, there’s a lot to own up to since we basically went the whole hog in releasing a bunch of content regularly and then just stopped dead in our tracks after a brief hiatus (which let’s be honest, we do tend to have a lot of) and announcing Mythos’ break from the blog for some time.
That brings us to why you’re probably reading this post to start with. Let’s sum up the next several paragraphs briefly: Tofu and Owningmatt (myself) will be the regular/primary contributors to this blog for the foreseeable future, even though the content might be less often than it was in previous years. Mythos is still going to be on hiatus until he wants to come back, as the reality of these times is that life stuff just happens, which is just the reality of the situation for all of us as things have obviously changed a lot since we created this blog seven years ago back when we had all the free time in the world in college.
That’s not to say that I haven’t been busy either; I just have a high tolerance for balancing my real-life burnout and also have a tendency to get bored when things aren’t packed as heck. Reflecting on that, that’s probably one of the reasons this unannounced hiatus ended up happening. The burnout is real… but not for me! Hahaha…
Anyway, I won’t speak too much about their own situations as to why they haven’t posted in my absence since I’m not them and I’ll also let Tofu speak for himself later on in this post when he talks about his future endeavors for the blog. For the past year or so though, we all had something we were tied up in our own lives, and our schedules ended up changing drastically from the norm which did not help things at all.
I’ll gladly explain the reasons for my hiatus and plans for the blog though since I have no shame in keeping things hidden behind the curtain. Then Tofu will talk a bit about his plans for the blog as well! Yay transparency!
MATT;NOTES93
I would love to tell you all that it was something really cool and interesting happening in my life, or something really happy or heartwarming, but unfortunately, everyone knows how crazy the post-COVID world has been for themselves and it’s been no different for me. I won’t bore everyone with a life story of mine, but I had a big move back home, had a couple of job changes, and ended up at a workplace that I highly enjoy now despite having to go through a large work project that ate up pretty much all of my free time up until this point. No time to manage side projects, hobbies, or anything really; it’s a miracle that I’m writing this now so soon afterward!
So, to not accelerate the blog back into an unintentional hiatus state and for my mind to get back into the swing of things, I’ll probably be taking it slow for now. It will be mostly small episodic posts or small summaries of shows that I feel are worth talking about or writing something to just express my feelings about a show in general. You can expect content like the “Episodic Breakdowns” or the “Backlog Bustin’” posts, but it’ll probably be a little off-schedule and more sporadic throughout each month. I won’t say they’ll be intellectually engaging all of the time either, so it may be a little more freeform than our typical content, but I don’t see that really differing in quality from what we normally put out here.
Of course, because I’m a bit out of the loop in the ani-sphere, you can expect seasonal content remarks to be not something I really do at the moment. I intend to focus solely on clearing out shows from my ever-growing backlog. After all, I wouldn’t be a “backlogger” if I didn’t already have a massive pile of stuff that I still needed to watch. This is something I always really wanted to do and is one of the main reasons that I wanted to start the blog back in 2015, so I think going back to the roots of that will produce some fantastic content that everyone can enjoy reading as much as I enjoy watching and writing about it.
Really, the main focus for me for the upcoming year is just to write content that I always wanted to write by watching shows that I’ve always wanted to watch. I wouldn’t change what we did in the past, and I would gladly go back to it given the time and resources, but I just want to do something low-stakes for now that I’ve wanted to do for years. I feel like the long hiatus has mentally changed how I should view this blog, so hopefully, you can see those changes as well throughout my future writing pieces!
To stop myself from going crazy about talking about the future, I’ll just let the future speak for itself. Look forward to the first upcoming piece this month and I’ll let you all explore my life throughout my future anime articles and you can just enjoy the journey with me!
(Do people even still Ani-blog in 2023…? Oh well!)
TOFU;NOTES
Oh shit, everyone’s favorite soy-based protein (from this blog) is back again! I’m not even going to joke about the blog being dead and us coming back, because after doing it for a few years on and off, there isn’t much of a dead horse left to beat, so I’ll just say: hello again! Or hi for the first time if this is, for some reason, the first post you’ve read on the site! Funnily enough, Matt and I talked about reviving the blog while we were at a convention a few months back, but it hasn’t really been until now that it felt like the right time to really kick things back into gear.
I’m not going to tread ground Matt’s already talked about, because nobody would want to read that a second time, so I won’t! However, I will get bummer levels of real for a sec, though, so yeah. Oops! To be entirely honest, as work continued to ramp up for me with additional responsibilities, moving into different levels of seniority, etc, keeping up with the blog (and really any creative projects) felt like work more than it felt like fun. Obviously, running a blog or doing any other creative work IS work, but it wasn’t the work that I was excited for or felt the possibility of fulfillment from. I’ll tell you what, though: a year-and-a-half break from the grind is a great way to feel revitalized in some way.
While Matt is focusing his work on killing his backlog, I’m still watching an unhealthy amount of seasonal anime every quarter, so I’ll be chiming in a fair bit on that. Don’t expect anything quite as large as a full-season check-in or anything like that (unless I feel like it), but I’m excited to at least highlight some choice picks (and perhaps some real stinkers). Beyond that, I’ll really just be honing in on what Marie’s my Kondo, whether that be some backlog-busting, new manga releases, or some anime-ass games. Who knows?
In summary, I’m stoked to be back to do some stuff for the blog! No promises on a set schedule or anything, but I can promise that I’m going to have a great time doing it, which should basically be a seal of quality all its own.
Thanks for plopping back down by the campfire – we’ll be sure to save you a log!
The Backloggers 