2025-12-08

Writing about subculture is lonely work. Even as I've entertained adding comments to these sites, my estimation is that approximately, on average, no person wants to read minutiae. This isn't a self-deprecation, because I think the expectation that it's possible to target a mass audience is probably dead at this stage. If there is any trajectory to learn from, it is probably most realized with the last fifteen years of sakuga. Sakuga fans overseas used to occupy a general thread on world4ch or bum it on Twitter and are now one of the most ascendant examples of subculture being legitimized through a critical lens. The distinction may be that kVin was buoyed by having a great many anime blog to lend time to as a guest writer, while the remaining venues today are more likely to be shuttering or are fully commercialized to some median of coverage. Zac is, unfortunately, no longer around to bum it at ANN and lend audiences to people like him. Blogs are still losing their grip, social blogging with pingbacks or Google Reader is a dead end with social media around, and even though I would place a long bet on it as a penny stock, I'll likely still need to meditate my patience when contacting so-called blogs that can't even offer an RSS feed. If we've backslid this far, then I'm not sure where we can say we've bottomed out yet.

The anthology model for zines and doujin has kept me energized lately. Even if blogs are not social dens as they once were, people out there are, miraculously, finding and reading them absent much public measure for their success. With some confidence, this is the only way I was ever going to earn profile and be asked to contribute for Async Voice. Seeing my writing floated to a new audience makes the dark forest theory feel more than, well, theoretical. Discovery still requires too many opaque digital boxes spitting out content, but curation, something I will continue to harp until I convince more people to get off socials, is very much analog and human-forward. I see a lot of promise in this informal collaboration that may not require even an offline Comiket replica, but simple nudges that this is a conscious choice we can make to float new and veteran voices. Sakugablog will continue, but note that kVin is now also leading with the introductory article for an anthology of Shaft fan critique. What do you mean there are 3.5 anthology books critically analyzing Shaft?

Nothing about anime this season has much kept my attention. Alma-chan provides a nice fluff and I like turning it on every week if only to hear another ZAQ and TPGF opening for an android girl anime. Sanda has tickled me with how overt it is and the Paru Itagaki designs emote well, though I'm also episodes back on that. Cingray has Super Creek going through a Smash Bros camera appeal. More hints that I've mellowed out are that I'm revisiting Mad Men in chunks (I hope Assistant Puke Machine can be on my personal credits one day) and keeping up with Pluribus. Hollywood rarely puts out anything I want to see anymore, but maybe western TV isn't so bad?

I'm still eyeing how doujin platforms are responding to generative AI, after I first surveyed them about two years ago. Fanza is doing what I consider to be the obvious for UGC platforms and is now limiting AI-labeled works to three per uploader each month. Frankly, it surprises me that YouTube still allows effectively uncapped uploads, even if they can eat the cost. I expect to see more of this and I'd also support seeing a platform adopt it proactively as a feature (maybe limiting to a few post count each day, allowing for burst periods, or banking posts you don't use).

I started toying with my Playdate. I ripped some more doujinsoft that I'll push up to the IA soon enough. I saw Paul McCartney in concert and got jumpscared by an old man using pyro. I bought a mini Metro pylon to hang in my apartment. I finally uninstalled my mIRC that I was using through WINE, only so I could setup a web client with Docker that lets me super idle and use it from my phone. If there's anyting else you want to know, remind me that my diary is supposed to be low-stakes before I put off posting for a month. One month is an eternity online, but a few dozen sunsets offline.