On 21 May 2006, The Otaku’s Study (then known as Sam’s Anime Study) first opened its doors. I launched the site initially on the AnimeBlogger blogging service, dedicated chiefly to websites focusing on episodic anime reviews and the odd editorial or news piece. It was created on a whim. The site was something I had frankly at the time, never expected to last more than a week before changing interests as I typically did at the time – here we are today celebrating the site’s 15th Anniversary.
Inspired by popular sites at the time, such as Random Curiosity and other names of the AnimeBlogger community back in the day, The Otaku’s Study was initially based on the format of episodic anime reviews. These would usually take recently aired anime episodes in Japan, take screencaps from them, summarise the narrative and then write a quick opinion piece on them. Back before it became effortless to find a great collection of affordable anime collections either via your local retailer or official anime streaming service – for some shows, this was one of the only ways for fans to keep up with a stories.
The Otaku’s Study has sometimes been a difficult, complicated project. As time has passed, I have changed to a more journalistic, professional writing style (and now proudly hold a Master of Arts in Journalism to boot). The site has also changed objectives, being originally focused on anime before expanding to a sweeping range of storytelling mediums, gaining the slogan “Studying the Labyrinth of Fandom“. My time has also been tight at times, as my time has zig-zagged between plenty of free time to being unavailable for weeks or months at a time.
Alternatively, if you really really really want to see some of the older posts made on Sam’s Anime Study and The Otaku’s Study in the early years, I certainly do not recommend going to Web Archive and searching the URL ‘sam.animeblogger.net’.
If you want to check out some earlier posts, perhaps consider checking out some of my initial interviews such as those with anime directors Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai, or video game staffers including Akira Tsuchiya, Ben Penrose, Marcus Smith, or Simon Barlow. Alternatively, look through my historical review collection featuring anime (Eg. Sekirei), video games (Eg. Tales of Xillia or Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc), niche books (Eg. The Manga Guide to Electricity), artbooks (eg. Danganronpa 1&2 Reload: Official Artbook) niche video games (Eg. Soreyuke! Burunyanman Portable or The Idolm@ster 2), visual novels (Eg. Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque), live performance (Eg. The Lion King the Musical @ QPAC) and much, much, much more.
Despite all the ups and downs, today on 21 May 2021, we can celebrate The Otaku’s Study’s 15th Anniversary. It has been a site which has been with me for (this year) half my life, and I am sure it will have an even greater impact on it for the next 15. While many early-years historical posts have been lost to the void forever (or rather, I doubt I will be convinced to ever post them back up again), I hope you will take the time to click on an odd review from the early 2010s (or earlier), check out an interview I conducted from a film festival or just enjoy your time on The Otaku’s Study today.
Will we ever be one of the big players? Probably not. But at the same time, I am proud to have brought The Otaku’s Study to everyone for fifteen years as a lone-wolf writer, not compromising journalistic integrity and honestly, just doing what I love!
Thank you for visiting The Otaku’s Study, and thank you to all my friends, outside work colleagues, industry contacts and – yes – most importantly, you, for everything you have all provided during this journey.
and a special thanks to…
The amazing Japanese artist Mutou, Mato (武藤まと) who I have had the absolute privilege of working together with again to create this special artwork celebrating the 15th anniversary of The Otaku’s Study. This piece features the site’s mascot character, who I have yet to decide a name for just yet…
