The original Anime Academy lived for many years at its own domain, and was an invaluable resource to anime fans. It disappeared from the Internet in 2014, but was largely preserved as part of an Internet archive, with most of its material intact. This is an attempt to bring it back to life as an ongoing project reviewing, critiquing, and discussing all kinds of anime.
All credit goes to the original founders of Anime Academy.
Anime Academy 
This is L-sama of the original AA web page. It’s great to see someone trying to revive the old site. If you need more reviews that were lost, I at least have more of the ones that I wrote for you to upload…Including a few that were formatted and at the ready for the site but were lost due to the web page’s sudden demise. Let me know if you are interested.
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Hajimemashite, L-Sama-sama! I have to say it is quite a thrill speaking to one of the Founders! I have actually been living with a bit of apprehension that one of you would pop up and demand I scrap it all for copyright infringement! What DID happen to the original, anyway? And I absolutely would be delighted to upload any more of your reviews, either that you have now or that you might like to do in the future. Are you in contact with any of the others, and do you know if they’d care to contribute again?
FYI, I’ve had the new AA up for a few months now and am just starting to get a little traction, but still no more than a handful of viewers a day. Prob. would be better if Wikipedia hadn’t suddenly taken notice of my additions in the “External Links” and yanked ’em all down. But I’m finally starting to get hits straight in from Google, and I’m very cautiously putting up some comments with links at BakaBT — I DON’T want to abuse their hospitality! Out of curiosity, how did you find me?
And as a point of reference, do you have any idea what the traffic was at the original AA? Since going live in September, I show a paltry 230 unique visitors, but a lot of that has been in the last month and a half.
You know, BakaBT (nee` BoxTorrents) and AA was my 1-2 combo for anime for many a year. I’d study up for my next series on AA and see if I could get it at BT.
Wow, I’m rambling on, do excuse me. I’ll leave it there. But yeah definitely would be happy and honored to work with you.
’til next time ….
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Don’t you worry about any anger from anyone. If anything, if any others can find this, I’m sure they’d be happy too! As to what happened with the original AA, I can’t give you an answer to that. To be honest, I don’t know myself. The web site, as far as I am concerned, simply ceased to exist one morning. I never received any warning, let alone an explanation. I also do not know any specifics regarding traffic on the old page…I didn’t have access to that information. As long as word spreads more and more about this revival, then traffic should slowly pick up.
As to how I found this site, it honestly happened by accident. Now and again, I’ll try to peruse the internet to see if there was a revival of the site that I was unaware of. One day, I searched “Anime Academy” and my user name, and this site eventually came up. If anything, I was rather impressed at the amount that you were able to recover.
I’m not really able to get in touch with any of the professors since the shut-down, though I was briefly in touch with Illjwamh via e-mail…so I can at least try again with him. He seemed like he wanted to try and get a revival going, so I think I could get him on board if I can get in contact with him.
Otherwise, I’d be more than happy to send along reviews that got lost with the shut-down as well as any that may pop up in the future. It’s great to see someone trying to bring this back, so thank you!
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Glad to hear all that! And yes by all means send along any material I don;t have, and if you can reach Ilj. by all means do so. FYI there is a site called the Internet Archive which basically takes periodic snapshots of sites all over the web, and that’s where I recovered AA from:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130117050253/http://www.animeacademy.com/Gatts.php
Nearly everything is still there, it’s just not readily findable — and of course it’s purely static.
I
There were really only a handful of reviews that I couldn’t recover, I don;t remember now what they were, exc. one of the new Evangelion episodes/movies/OVAs — what DO those count as anyway?!? But they were the newest ones and somehow the front page links or the ranking page links were archived but the actual review itself was not.
t’s quite odd, click the link for the old AA and it’s just a message “no website here”. not even a 404 error. Never seen anything else like it. I think I read one of the last updates on the Archive mentioned something about the domain name being bought up — another reason I worried a bit about my own efforts here stepping on someone’s toes.
Also, I can’t find the site now, it’s another review site, more of a wiki kind of site, but there was a user on there using the name and avatar of Kjeldoran — he just liked the image and adopted it: if you happen to run across it.
Looking ahead a bit, I was also thinking about making this a bit more a “full service” site, and possibly providing torrent links to shows available at BakaBT, which I mentioned before. To the best of my knowledge they are extremely ethical, post up only legitimately-available-in-the-US material, and strictly observe a ban on US-releases. Do you think that would be within the scope of the Academy charter, so to speak ;- } ? Like I said, AA and BBT was my hot combo, and I thought it would be a nice touch to give somebody the ability to click right over to download after finding something they found interesting.
One last detail for now, in the interest of Full Disclosure: when I transferred the reviews over, I left them largely alone. However, I did edit a number for spelling and grammar, a few I did very slight re-writes for clarity or where structure seemed awkward, and not more than a half-dozen did I make any substantive change — I think the “biggest” change I made at all was in a summary where there was a lengthy explanation of the humor; it seemed a bit convoluted and unnecessary, so I just dropped that bit and substituted the meme-ish “Hilarity ensues.” in its place. If you find I’ve tampered with one of yours, or for that matter, if you want to edit one for any reason, just let me know.
Talk soon–
Rob
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I’m so happy that someone is trying to revive it. I was in for quite a shock when I discovered that “No Website Here” thing. I know that there was very much a website there! I met one of my closest friends though AA, so it’s very sad to see it has fallen.
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Thanks! Glad it’s appreciated! I’m slowly adding new material as well so it won’t be just a museum.
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Really glad somebody has found a way to preserve the content at least. I’ve been looking around periodically since the site disappeared and thought it might be lost forever. Thanks for making my day!
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Thanks! I salvaged nearly everything from the Internet Archives and rebuilt it. I’ve been adding a few too, so it won’t be just a museum. If you have a show you like that isn’t here, feel free to write it up, I’ll be glad to accept new content.
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Hi.
The death of the AA is basically my fault, but first a bit of backstory.
If you cast your mind back to the time before last when the AA went down, it was because a credit card expired. I think it was a friend of Mugs or Corpse (I can’t remember which) who was actually paying the bills, but at the time it went down, he was uncontactable. There was a lot of faffing about contacting everyone, figuring out what the problem was, and deciding who would pay for what. At the time, the forum folks were still as characteristically passionate and they wanted to know what happened and when it would be back and why it went down and WHERE THE HELL IS THE AA and etc. After a few days of this, I just sucked it up and said to Corpse/Mugs ‘put it on my card.’ It took a long time to actually get the site back online because I had to contact the US web support folks with a 12 hour time difference because their credit card form didn’t have a way for me to input foreign credit card data. But it worked out eventually. So there’s a fun fact: for a good many years, the secret, underground, puppetmaster owner or the AA was none other than Two-twenty: the drunken Australian PE professor.
Years pass, and I stopped watching anime entirely, gave up on ever being on the IRC channel when it was active, the review site’s output plummeted, the forums slowed down to a trickle of posts, and (IMO) the actual review-site medium became entirely outdated (it is very much a relic of turn-of-the-century internet). I only went on the forums on occasion to see if anyone needed ban-hammering and to follow a handful of threads in the Misc and Manga subforums. There were even times when I’d only be reminded that the AA existed when it was listed on my credit card bill summary.
Eventually, my old credit card expired and I decided not to renew it because it was paid off and credit cards are insidiously horrible little money sinks. I have to admit that I had completely forgotten that I was using it to pay for the AA. So, essentially, it was the same problem as before: the webhost company tried to charge an expired credit card and pulled the website when it didn’t get its money. This time though, no one was around to do anything. I don’t even know when it was pulled or how long it was down before I remembered. No one tried to contact me about it, and I didn’t have anyone else’s contact details (there was a thread for that in the Staff forums, so a fat lot of good that did in this situation) save for a vague recollection of having Mugs’ gmail on an old account I never used and I think Ender was on my Facebook friends list at some point, though I’ve forgotten his actual name. Worth noting as well, I looked into how I could get it back up and still, after all these years, the webhost only took American credit cards!
To be brutally honest, at this point, I let it die. It is by no means a decision I took lightly or quickly and I wish I could have spoken with someone, ANYONE, about it, but as much as I loved it, I had to be realistic about the level of care relatively few people had and the worth of getting another credit card specifically for a website that I/anime fans barely visited anyway.
It’s not a great reason, but there’s the reason.
For what it’s worth, as the only one with any sort of power over the site who seems have found this place, I’m happy and totally okay with what you’re doing here. On occasion, I’d google ‘anime academy’ to see if its absence produced any sort of chatter similar to when it first went down, and this is literally the first time I’ve found something. And it’s probably the best ‘something’ I could have possibly found.
Thanks.
– Two-twenty
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Dear Two-Twenty– What a thrill and honor to hear from one of the original AA staff! I heard from L-Sama a while back, you may have seen our correspondence in the comments, I think they are visible publicly. Apologies for not replying to you sooner, things have been hectic for me lately. That’s a rather strange and sad story of how AA disappeared, but it sounds like you did everything you could. I’m very glad, and flattered, that you like what I’ve done. For quite a while I was dreading that one of the founders would pop up and be very irate about copyright violations and such.
Sorry to hear that you’re not watching anime any more. I hoped at first you might want to contribute some new material. I’ve been adding some new reviews, though. Odd, I never would have thought of a review site as outdated!
As for the site, traffic is slow but steady, maybe a half-dozen unique visitors daily. At least it’s free! Well, piggy-backed on my other Penny Robinson site. Do you recall what sort of traffic the original had? Just curious.
Well, if you happen to encounter any of the others, please let them know about my efforts. Hopefully, any will be just as pleased to see the old place carrying on.
So, glad to hear from you, and you are more than welcome to write again, for any reason. All the best!
–Rob M
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Interesting story! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I guess if I ever wrote something about my early internet memories, AA would be right in the centre of it all. I’d love to take AA forums as a starting point and see what happened to everyone involved in them. A historic project to see how people who all frequented the same ‘digital place’ had divergent paths,
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Hello everyone. I happened to bump into the revised site while looking for any traces of the old Anime Academy. Unlike Two-Twenty, I have continued watching anime (after all, this habit of mine started back in the seventies), although my schedule would make it somewhat hard to continue writing any reviews in a continuous basis.
Truth be told, I somewhat agree with Two-twenty on the matter of review sites. The advent of dedicated streaming services like Crunchyroll and Funimation, with their ability to have dedicated forums and voting systems per anime for discussion make reviews somewhat moot. At the end of the day, people like what they like, and when you don’t have to spend 30 to 50 bucks for anime DVDs or bluray, your need to research the quality of it goes down dramatically. I do consider, however, that this format still serves a purpose for older, hard to find titles.
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Heya, Yuri(kaStar) here, I kind of agree but I still think there is an important place for reviews. But what becomes important is how people understand the reviewer, they need to have a reason for you to trust their taste. I guess that is harder to achieve now, unless one manages to become a reviewer for a big media outlet. I’d still rather trust a reviewer who I know has similar tastes to me, although I have no idea where to find that reviewer now.
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Wow, I just happened to find this after looking up Kimagure Orange Road on Bakabt. I had been looking for years on search engines, it must have not been showing because of the “the” in the title. Crazy, I’m so glad you spent the time to bring these reviews back! Man, this was my go to place for finding quality anime. I have held their 90% titles on a pedestal even to this day hah!
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Thanks, glad to know we’re appreciated!
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Thank you for doing this! And many thanks to the original team, for creating it to begin with, and for lending support here. I’ve never been more than a casual anime fan at best, but the reviews on AnimeAcademy led me to many hours of solace during a dark time in my life. I’m deeply glad the content lives on, even if as a static archive.
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Thanks, glad it’s appreciated! But not a static archive, we’re adding new material, slowly but surely.
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hello this is Neo hunter.. I am surprised i stumbled on to this site. i was an old member of AA a long time ago before it shut down unexpectedly. its great you found a way to get this. I see some of the sempai have replied soundchazer, two-twenty. its been way too long. I hope you do well..
NH.
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Hello this is Neo-Hunter. I was a member of the old AA. thank you for doing this. I see that some of the older sempai have been here. I am glad that this information still lives on.
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Thank you so much for doing this.
I never posted in the forums of the old site, but AnimeAcademy was my life for years.
Nothing made me as sad as its absence. Thank you for this.
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Thank you for the appreciation!
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Ask them to do a review of Beast King Golion!!!
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Hello, Kjeldoran here. Not sure how to prove it’s me. Hopefully my french accent comes through.
Anime Academy was a huge part of my young adulthood. I believe it was the first AA hiring contest I applied to with my Roujin Z review. I reviewed it from the dub, something that has haunted me for many years (Don’t tell Kain or he’ll have my professorship revoked). I don’t get emotional easily but I remember crying when I got the job. Mostly from happiness but also from the overwhelming pressure that I was now living my dream (hey, it was a big deal back then) and didn’t want to let everyone down.
From that day, I would spend most lunches in college going downtown to either rent or return anime. Going to Otakon with the gang are definitely some of the most memorable weekends of my life. I still have and wear (good quality!) two Anime Academy t-shirts that either Kain or Mugs made for us. I got to use my AA press pass to interview TK Revolution and a cosplayer I had a crush on; Princess Mel I think she was called. Did some of the pictures from the Con reports that were on the site survive?
I would sometimes go back to AA just to reminisce. Then one day it’s a 404 and you have a pit in your stomach. You know it was coming but it still feels wrong. So thank you so, so much for putting the pieces back together again. This means a lot to me and it’s nice to see from the comments that it means a lot to many others.
Rob you mentionned:
“Also, I can’t find the site now, it’s another review site, more of a wiki kind of site, but there was a user on there using the name and avatar of Kjeldoran — he just liked the image and adopted it: if you happen to run across it.”
I’m not sure I understand but you might be talking about Project J. I was a site that I piggybacked on AA’s popularity I might copied the whole site before saying my goodbyes. I`ll have to look. You’re looking for something in particular? That too was an important part of my life. You take it for granted and then one day you see that you failed to renew the domain and some clickbait malware site took it over. It really hurts.
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Kjeldoran! Of COURSE it’s you! Always a thrill and honor to hear from one of the originals! And always a relief not to hear “Take it down or I’m gonna sue.”
First off-the site I referred to was not Project J but MyAnimeList: here’s a link to it with your namesake’s profile page — http://myanimelist.net/profile/Kjeldoran
No, I didn’t salvage any of the convention pics, or anything really but the reviews and “lecture” material. It should still be out there, even as I write I’m trying to find a link for you.
So are you still watching anime, and would you be interested in making any new contributions? I’ve done a few of my own, but it’s nice to have a lot of different views and voices. Coincidentally, I just posted up in a few different places requests for anyone who might be interested in doing some.
Ah, there we are: https://web.archive.org/web/20130117040540/http://www.animeacademy.com/index.php
Most everything got archived. The 3 “new” reviews noted on this page did not, and I’ve been hoping to get reviews for the 3 NGE “rebuilds”. I’ve watched through them once, but I’ve already got so much else lined up! And free time is SO short! I’d also like to get reviews of newer series too, most of AA is SO old in anime & computer years!
Another feature I’d like to add to the Lecture Hall is a discussion of the different studios and their styles. I read someone’s comment there about a certain series being typical of that studio (I don;t remember either right now), and thought that would make a good topic. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m familiar enough with them all to speak intelligently on them like that.
Anyway, great to hear from you and great to know my efforts are appreciated. If you’d like to add anything new (or just correspond), you
can email privately to AnimeAcademy@mail.com
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It’s amazing how important the stuff on that forum was to people. Did it have an ongoing impact on your life in anyway?
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Hi all, Naota here (also known as Evapilot in the early days of the forums). I wasn’t a professor, but did moderated the forums. It’s really fantastic to see that Anime Academy hasn’t completely disappeared (great work Rob!). It’s also fantastic to see some of the old professors and members post are still around too! As with two-twenty, I was one of the old Australian members. I actually remember meeting him briefly at the Melbourne Anime Festival where I was also sporting one of the AA t-shirts, lol. Like Kjeldoran, Anime Academy was a big part of my young adulthood. Its reviews guided me to the point of being hired at my local anime store due to my “expert knowledge”, lol. And, throughout my time working there, I continued to use and send customers to AA for the reviews. Alas, life (and some rather pesky military service) got in the way of my regular attendance in the forums, and I dropped off towards the end of the early 2000s.
Last year I decided to revisit Anime Academy in search of any artwork I may not have by another former member, Runicmyth, who I knew in RL. Early members may remember that she passed away in 2005, so last year marked the ten year anniversary of her passing – and a memorial was held in November (for which I was gathering her work). At the time, I was rather saddened that Anime Academy had disappeared but was not surprised unfortunately – for the reasons pointed out by Soundchazer. And, now reading about the background of it all, I can totally understand two-twenty’s reasons (and it was awesome to find out that you were its secret underground puppetmaster in its final years lol!). Anyway, another search recently led me to this site. So thank you Rob! As I said, it’s really fantastic to see that Anime Academy still exists with its reviews and lectures intact. And it’s great to hear from many of the former professors and members again. 🙂
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Hi Naota! Thanks for your story and your appreciation, and glad you’re here!
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Interesting story, did you manage to find much of the art work elsewhere on the web?
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Naota! I don’t know if you’ll see this since I’m 5 years late to this comment, but is Runicmyth the one who drew comics of a lot of the professors/forum users? If so, I am pretty sure I actually still have one of her drawings! (I’m a weird, clingy, nostalgia hoarder.) I hope you see this, because if it is the same person, I would very much like to send it to you if I can! So sorry again for the loss of your friend. I remember she was very sweet. I hope we can get in touch.
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Hi, I remember this place. T’was a good forum and IRC channel(s)
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Hope you like it still!
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Hey Erigion! Hahaha, many nice conversations were had back in the day.
I just remembered trying to download anime on a 56k using !list from bots on IRC. Crappy yet glorious times.
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In the past year I’ve been feeling a tad nostalgic, and have been curious as to what some of my old haunts are up to. Admittedly I was a bit upset when Anime Academy was no longer there, but quickly accepted the fate, as this is just how life and the internet works. It was a good place to have, especially when you’re growing up in the boonies on a 28k dial-up connection. The forums gave me a social outlet that I couldn’t get where I lived at the time. The IRC chat room provided many fun times; it also gave me the knowledge to join other IRC rooms, which have led to many fantastic friendships!
Without getting to rambly, thank you for doing this 😀 I joined in the earlyish days, I think 2001, and it was a huge part of my formative years.
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Thanks, glad you appreciate it still!
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I both would love to see the old IRC logs and forum posts, and am terrified. I found this little wordpress earlier today and it is giving me warm feelings.
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Hey there. Roark here, from way back on the forums. Another old user linked me here today… a full two years after the site’s demise and apparent resurrection.
I was part of the first class of students that didn’t just migrate over with Kain/Mugs/Crapse from… well, whatever the site before AA was. I never actually wrote any articles, but I was very active on the forums, eventually stepping up to moderator on both the forums and the IRC. Although, I’m pretty sure some of the discussions I got into on the forums made there way into the lecture hall.
I came into AA first year of college, which was fitting somehow. The site guided a lot of I did in founding and running the anime club on campus. At any given time, our programming would consist of whatever AA thought were the hot comedies or action series, sprinkled with “prestige” shows recommended by the profs.
Thinking through it, the site indirectly set the direction of my life. One of the people I met on the forums led me to move to the Chicago area after college, and I’m still. That relationship ran its course with a somewhat painful ending, and I abandoned AA for a while just to avoid some memories.
But, anime stayed with me and eventually put me in position as senior management at Anime Central. Which led me to some amazing opportunities, including meeting the woman I’d eventually marry.
So, I’m very glad that someone took it on themselves to preserve this special site. My life literally would not be the same without it.
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Glad the work here is still appreciated! And it’s not just preserved, it IS active, and I try to do new reviews every couple of months. Would you be interested in contributing any new material? Thanks!
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That’s amazing that the site had such a profound impact. I still am in contact with a few of the Brits I met on the site, but I guess it was always relatively US centric. I wonder if it had been different if I had been in the US, maybe i’d have a similar story.
Do you still work around anime?
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Yeah, it’s kinda crazy that a forum moved my life direction so much. I’m not really in contact with lot of the people from that time, although I do have a few on FB.
I don’t really work around anime at all. I’ve actually rather fallen out of the scene. Anime Central got kinda toxic, and I don’t have the free time to volunteer like that anymore. Always good to catch up, though!
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Professor Ender here. My wife was sent this link from one of our friends, and I’ve gotta say…this has certainly brought a tear to my eye.
I first came across AA during my freshman year of college by accident in early 2002–I think I was hunting for some information about FLCL, which I had just seen that afternoon. I often time found myself at odds with the professors: reading reviews and thinking “what!? How can they give that series such a low score!?” But I was still drawn to it, I guess part of me kind of wanted to be part of it. I got that chance in 2003 when I took part in the staff-search contest and it was easily one of the few decisions in my life I was legitimately proud of.
I have never been what you would consider “social.” In fact, I think I might have been one of the only professors who didn’t have a presence in the AA forums before joining the staff. After joining AA though, I found a lot of enjoyment just chatting with “students” and “faculty” through IRC. I’ve met some great people through those forums. Some of my favorite memories involved meeting these people at Otakon–who, in my mind, were these disembodied digital avatars with a blistering knowledge of Starcraft–and realizing just how amazing a community these people are. Even though I always felt intimidated.
I think it was that level of intimidation…scratch that, my lack of self-worth and personal anxiety that reduced my reviewing output. Since the beginning of my professorship (that’s a word, right?) I’ve gone through massive good times and titanic bad times. Ultimately, this unhealthy perspective lead me to stagnate. Even when I actually penned a review I would let it sit and sit and sit and sit…
…and then, while I wasn’t looking, the site was gone.
Anime Academy still owns a decent-sized bit of real estate in my heart. I met the girl, who I would later marry, the same time I started writing for AA–I remember (like the huge nerd I am) telling her that I wrote for a website that reviewed anime. And rather than calling the police on me, she thought it was cool. I have always linked those moments of happiness together. Even to this day, she has encouraged me to write something.
There is a strong part of me that would love, LOVE to write anime reviews again.
Soundchazer mentioned that review sites have taken a hit and “people like what they like.” But that was ALWAYS the case, even when AA was at it’s height. I didn’t write reviews to get people to buy DVDs, I wrote reviews to get people to look at things beyond the “I hate this”/”I like this”-binary thought process that’s diluted so much language. I wrote reviews to tell people that things existed outside of a personal vacuum. You’re never “done” with your hobbies, there is always something around the corner that you might not have even heard of. SC mentioned that there is less reason to research anything nowadays, but I would say that there is MORE of a reason to research: the opinions of a fan that easily cloud another fan’s opinions.
Nowadays, I work with teens who frequently come up to me asking me for anime recommendations. One would imagine that they would have access to everything and therefore not need to ask me. But some things don’t change.
Anime is still a big part of my life, and so was Anime Academy. I am eternally grateful for the opportunities it gave me, and I am proud to see it, once again, live on in it’s own unique way.
Hats off to you.
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Professor! A great honor to hear from you, and especially to receive such kind accolades! As I’ve said before to other former faculty who have found this, I’m always just glad that I’m not receiving some sort of “Cease & Desist” order! As for the site itself, and your & SC’s observations, there are still a number of essentially review sites out there, but rather more freeform blog style, that is, anyone can go in and start posting reviews. It seems to me though that the sheer size of such a place is a bit of a liability more than an asset. Here, with a limited pool of reviewers, a reader can quickly determine which ones are most reliably suited to his own tastes. I would like to expand a bit from the reviews (not to their expense) and get more in the “lecture” pages, more informational and cultural regarding both anime & Japan in general. I’ve been trying to do encyclopedic bits relevant to the current month or holiday, as you may have noticed (have just finished the New Year’s piece), but hardly know where to begin. If you would like to contribute any new material, I would be DELIGHTED! One of the few bits which I couldn’t salvage from the original site was the review for the NGE Rebuild 1.0, and I’ve been trying to find someone else to cover those — I have been adding my own material, I’ve probably got a half-dozen of my own in there now, and more due, but for some reason I’m reluctant to tackle those. Anyway, thanks again for your kind words. Oh by the way, you may be flattered to know that it was you, or your avatar, which inspired me to watch the 1st season of One Piece and post up a review based on that. All the best, and hope to hear from you again!
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You work with teens now and they come to you for recommendations? You’re truly continuing the legacy! Also, super nice to read this memory of the site.
I wonder if there is something to be written about the site and the community.
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I also think the review site format is still important.
Numerical rating systems always have problems, and forums are less likely to help you determine whether or not you’ll like an anime than they are to determine whether or not you like the fandom.
Plus, while the cost investment has (mostly) gone down from the old days, the time investment in taking a gamble on something brand new remains, and intelligent reviews can make those gambles much less risky.
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Thanks for the appreciation!
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I’d always wondered where the site went. I’m so glad that it’s still alive! You guys always had the best reviews.
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Hory shet, how am I only just now finding this? It’s been so long! I’VE BEEN SCRAPING DOPE RHYMES OFF THE KITCHEN FLOOR JUST TO SURVIVE!!
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I mean, it figures as soon as I finally obtain the professor title, the site dies. I’ve been keeping the site alive in spirit by posting anime reviews on my own site (which you can visit at http://hubpages.com/@zelkiiro *wink wink nudge nudge twitch twitch spasm*) in the vain hopes that I can drum up anywhere near as much enthusiasm as Anime Academy once had. Anime Academy was my entire adolescence, man. I feel like a little part of me died with the site. :{
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It’s still alive somewhere, i guess? In our mindsssss. It’s funny how something online can just vanish that was part of one’s life for so long. But, it happens offline as well… Would be fun to get a group chat going somehow.
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RisenHellFire from the old site.
Still saddens me what happened, and not the old wounds keep opening with Crunchy roll using the name for their segments on anime education.
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First discovered the site back in 2003 when I went to see Return of the king in theaters and grabbed an issue of Newtype usa that had a page of anime websites to check out and AA stood out the most for me.
It was my first ever discussion forum I joined and my first year was not my best introduction of myself to everyone else. Thought maybe we’d act like our username personas or something and Roleplay in our posts. So I acted pretty dumb my first month.
But since then the rest of my time was some of the best I had online. Made a decent amount of friends, some I still talk to to this day like Jojo and Hybridragon. Lots of fond memories, like the thread labled “Anime academy moderators are Nazis”, the Annie May creation and implamenting into the site and the comic series for it. Reaching the coveted 1000 posts and ever 600 to use custom avatars, and going beyond there and making it to the top 10 posters of all time before the shut down.
Another surprise was one time on a computer in school I somehow found access to the mods and admin only section and read their “watch list” where they listed users they’re sucpicious about, specially when one of the mods listed my friends account for his obsession of Guyver.
Joined a number of forums after it but only about Gamefaqs and Gametrailers are close to a personal level I have or had that matched my time spent on Anime Academy.
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AA was quite special to me too, I never quite found a forum like it. It seems to me like that moment is gone now?
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Just FYI, you are missing one of the original founders of AA, Kain. He retired a few years before AA seized to be. I loved AA and it’s awesome to see some of the familiar AA names here. I hope everyone is doing well.
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By Gundam, you’re right. I missed his avatar last time I re-did the layout. Thanks, I’ll get him back in the lineup ASAP! And thanks for the support. Although I’ve been contacted by a number of the originals, no-one, unfortunately, seems interested in getting back to doing reviews for AA. So for now it’s just me.
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Priorities have changed. Many of us are fully working professionals with families to boot. I would be willing to do one or two every now and then, but I would be unable to fully commit to it the way I did back then.
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I’m just happy none of the old forum posts have been catalogued.
I hope you’re all doing well.
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Oh mate, I’m thrilled over how many geeks I’ve encountered now…..and how many turn dragon ball and sailor moon into wonderful burlesque routines ❤ .
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the old forum posts would be glorious to read.
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Yurika – This is a link to the archive site from which I rebuilt AA, to the forums page.Unfortunately, few if any of the pages seem to have been catalogued as the review pages were. The only one I found which did seem to lead elsewhere was asking for a user name and password; as I was never in the forums I don’t even have one to try. Be sure to try links on both sides, meaning the “last post” links on the right. Good luck!
https://web.archive.org/web/20130117040536/http://www.animeacademy.com/forums/
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Oh wow, this is a blast from the past. Major Tom, one of the regulars from way back when here. Stumbled across this mainly out of curiosity, I had a vent over Accel World over on the Nihon Review, and it got me thinking, did AA still exist? I had heard it had died. I drifted away from the site as at the time I wasn’t watching anime much, and others had drifted away as well, so it was kind of empty.
Anime Academy was also a big part of my early to mid 20’s, I think I joined sometime around 2003-2004? Maybe 2005, I was still doing my apprenticeship back then. It’s hard to remember without access to my old user profile. But it was also the first forum I joined, and man there are some good memories. Venting about terrible shows as they were airing, manga…and the roleplay thread. God the roleplay thread, where I played an edgy paper user obsessed with guns and mecha. I still have Shinomatrix’s AMV he made based on our adventures on my computer somewhere.
It’s nice to see the old crew is still alive and well.
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They’re alive and well, and I’ve heard from quite a few, but unfortunately none are active here any more. I’ve been trying to get out a new review every few months or so, but I sure would like to have some contributors! Let me know if you;d like to submit a review!!
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Just a suggestion: maybe a tab to highlight the new reviews? That way, people who come here will be more cognizant that this is an active anime review site, not simply a long-dead website preserved for nostalgia purposes.
Also, crazy seeing a bunch of names that I haven’t seen for almost a decade.
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Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been trying to do exactly that just by mentioning new material on the front page. I’m just concerned that since all the new material is my own, it might look like I’m just waving my own flag. Care to offer any new material of your own? I’d really like to get the NGE reboot reviewed, but have been hesitant to tackle it myself.
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Nah, I don’t have the time, sorry. At this point, as far as I see it, no one from the old AA is in any rush to stake their claim on any of this any more. I don’t know if you have had any discussions with the original creators, Kain, Mugs, and Corpse, but as far as I see it, if you want to somehow actually revive this website, than new materials should be advertised front and center. Otherwise, this is more or less a historical curiosity that may attract former members to reminisce once in a blue moon, which I think has value in itself, but I’m not sure if that is what you want to go for.
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Hi, yes, I’ve had messages in from a number of the originals, who are all quite pleased to see the old place alive again! Unfortunately, you are quite right in that none of them have the same time or enthusiasm they once did. I’ve been thinking of just putting a Help Wanted sign on the front page! I’ve also contacted a couple of people who had posted well-written reviews on other anime sites but never got serious interest. As for traffic — well, not sure how many are fans of the original site and how many are new, no way to tell unless I put up a poll, but I’m not sure how valuable that would be. Overall, I’ll never sell advertising here! But I’m not especially interested in this being a moneymaker. It’s slow but consistent — a couple dozen a day is average, I think. But this DOES show where hits come from (yeah I know about IP spoofing), and it looks like we’ve had people from just about everywhere in the world. Speaking of such things though — did you find the new non-review material? Like the “Famous Foods” bit? I also usually do a cultural feature on the top, looking at some holiday or event during the current month, or Japan’s take on a Western holiday, such as St Patrick’s Day last month (I just got lazy this month!). So I am trying to keep it fresh with new things, and I may take you up on the idea of a tab or link to “most Recent”. Anyway. Thanks for writing, and thanks for giving me a chance to yak at somebody about this! All the best, and you’re correspondence is always welcome ….. Rob
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A historical curiosity would be amazing though. This comment section (even as there are only a few people) is interesting to see.
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Hah, this is super fun to see. I was just searching because a name I saw reminded me of someone from the forums, and this is what I came to. I was Yuri(kaStar) on the forum, and I couldn’t type to save my life, and joined in 2001 I guess.
I’m finishing my PhD now (never became an AA Prof but I might be a non-AA one) and I write a bit about the death and destruction of ‘digital places’, the memory of websites and messaging groups etc. and AA is quite often in my mind – IRC and Forums – when i do this. So, this entire period on forums etc. played a big roll in my life and what I do now.
Wish I could get in contact with people from the forums though, I think I have four or five on Facebook.
Carwyn/Yuri
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Hi there! Glad to have you drop in. Sorry, I haven’t tried doing anything with forums, original or new, this is enough to keep up with as it is. If you;re looking for good forums (fora?) there is a good active community on BakaBT, from which I download a lot of anime, but I think it’s still in a closed membership phase right now. I’m sure there are lots of other anime forums out there though! Thanks again and best wishes with the PhD work!
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Wow is this a blast from the past. I was part of the Anime Academy forums when it was originally formed by members of the Bid For Power (a DragonBall Z Quake III mod) forum. This is absolutely nuts to see usernames like Ender and Soundchazer. Best of luck everyone.
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I was even in the IRC channel back in the day!
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Greetings,
I joined the forums while I was in high school (~2003), which is funny to think about since I’m now in my 30s, and I suppose that means the founders would be in their 40s or older now. I remember Kain and other members making jokes about being old and decrepit because they were in their mid-twenties. In either event, I have since moved halfway across the country (still in the USA) and am knee-deep in my own career. Truth be told, I don’t think I have watched anime in 10 years, if that.
I have contact with some former members via Facebook (and amusingly, LinkedIn). It is an odd form of nostalgia recognizing so many usernames on here– I can even remember the avatars used by some of them.
Good to see y’all are taking care of yourselves!
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Welcome! Feel free to browse both old material and new. And if you want to talk about feeling old — ME, I’m pushing SIXTY!
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Hi Everyone. Wow just came across this and finished reading all the comments, really cool!
Keitaro here. I was a professor and a reviewer going all the way back to the Anime Compendium days (AA’s previous life). Even though I am in my 30s now and rarely watch anime anymore, as Kjeldoran said this site was a big part of my teen years, and I have great memories of this community. So many days spent hanging out with you all on IRC, and seeing all of your screen names I do remember most of you!
Happy to see there are others who care about this community. Please keep me in the loop of any happenings.
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Wow, glad to another of the grand originals stop by! Appreciate that you appreciate my effort to keep it going. If you do start watching anime again, please feel free to do some new reviews!
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Wow, this is a blast from the past. I was a professor as well, back in the day. I remember spending so much time in IRC with so many of these guys. As with many people, life has moved on and I haven’t watched anime in many years– other than sharing Ghibli with my young nephews. Anyway, if you can do something with the old site I’d be glad to see it live on.
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Hi everyone this is Lupin the Third, I used this site back in 2002 when I was in high school, I am now in my mid 30’s, married, and have a 2 year old boy. This site introduced me to many of my favorites anime including: Castle of Cagliostro, Rose of Versailles, Monster, Gankutsuo, Otaku No Video, and Golden Boy. I don’t follow many new shows coming out and I tend to follow older shows and rewatching the classics. I miss talking with everyone. I hope everyone is well.
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I am way late on noticing this, but I just wanted to add a comment to the pile, here. I love seeing these names, again. I’m a bit hesitant about giving my username, since I was such a different person back then… but here we are. Reading all these stories has somehow flooded me with memories of being a part of the forum when AA was first made.
I was very active on the forum when it started, to the point that I somehow became a moderator. The IRC was also a big part of my afternoons, and I remained active for a good amount of time until life happened and I just stopped going online, one day. I unfortunately have not stayed in contact with anyone.
Also I don’t remember the end very well. The only record I found of myself was something about me not following rules. Who knows. Regardless, I’m glad to see that the previous posters are/were doing well.
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Hey! Sorry it took so long for me to catch this! Thanks for writing in. Glad you’re doing well too. I think the current format is what it’s going to be, I’ve thought once or twice about trying to get a good comment section going but I’m afraid i’d neglect it. Have a couple shows in the lineup for review, if you’ve seen anything you like recently and would like to submit a review, please feel free to do so!
All the best…..
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BIKUUU! I hope you’ve been doing well. “I’m a bit hesitant about giving my username, since I was such a different person back then…” LMAO Same, I am a completely different person now and I know I was a cringy child back then so I’m also hesitant, but I can’t help myself, had to leave a comment to say hi. I had so much fun on those forums.
You probably don’t even remember saying this, but I’ll have you know that through all these years, when I notice my closet door isn’t closed all the way when I go to sleep, I think about how you said you couldn’t sleep if your closet door was open because it freaked you out or something like that, and I usually end up getting up to close it even though it doesn’t particularly bother me, lmao. Thought that might make you laugh to know. 🤣
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I am way late on noticing this, but I just wanted to add a comment to the pile, here. I love seeing these names, again. I’m a bit hesitant about giving my username, since I was such a different person back then… but here we are. Reading all these stories has somehow flooded me with memories of being a part of the forum when AA was first made.
I was very active on the forum when it started, to the point that I somehow became a moderator. The IRC was also a big part of my afternoons, and I remained active for a good amount of time until life happened and I just stopped going online, one day. I unfortunately have not stayed in contact with anyone.
Also I don’t remember the end very well. The only record I found of myself was something about me not following rules. Who knows. Regardless, I’m glad to see that the previous posters are/were doing well.
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Pachinko (Pachi) here, I still think of the old AA forums from time to time. They were my first foray into internet communities, I was real young back then, not even my authentic self yet online at that point, but my voice was heard on AA despite that. It brings back so many memories, thought I would drop in a give my peace here. Haven’t looked through the comments yet, because I’m not trying to get emotional tonight but!! Just seeing some of these names is making me a bit teary c’: be well!
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Ok! Wow! After reading most of these comments, my heart is hurting in the best of ways. Like for so many of you, AA was not only a wackadoodle group of anime fans, but also a place of balancing ideas and exchanging them in a way I wasn’t used to. As a trans youth, it was insanely hard to be myself online back then – it really goes without saying, but think of the social climate then, as compared to today. I was so young, I wasn’t even sure of my identity or how to make sense of it at the time, being from a small, podunk town in the South. I can’t even recall what name I went by then, or really any of my relations with the lot of you; just that you all would tolerate my rants on pop music and magical girls (something that’s characterized my adult life, in all the best of ways! Equally as passionate as ever). AA was somewhere I wasn’t pressured to hinder my voice. It gave me confidence, in a way, to be listened to in any capacity, especially about something we were all so passionate about. I had/have so much respect for a lot of you, so perhaps that’s why I felt the need to bring up my identity now. Recently having turned 30, and remembering how much a baby I was on the forums, it seems like the right time.
It was probably around 2008 I began bowing out of the forums, as my watching of anime and using internet forums was on decline – I enjoy anime more these days, and try to squeeze a new one in every now and again. I still dream (!!!) of seeing my avatar with that blue border and that yellow font, next to a review of mine. I wanted to be a professor so bad, but never met the mark. Still, seeing AA go down was bittersweet, like a chapter of life had passed, and the future was there to embrace me. More confident, more coherent. More passionate. And finally, genuinely, as myself.
A special place in my heart, it feels like we all graduated alongside each other. For that, and for all of you, I’m grateful.
-Pachinko
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all of this said, if you’d like a contributor on board, at least partially, I’d be more than happy (honored) to contribute.
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Heeeey, Two-twenty here! Yep, the same Two-twenty that commented back in August 2015 and the same drunken Australian twit with a credit card that called himself a professor/secret owner back in the original AA days! (I could still probably prove it too! I may not have the credit card that paid for the website, but I’m still with the same bank!). I think it’s really good to see that this website is still being updated, that old AA folk still comment on this thread, and that decades later we still have people interested in having The Anime Academy to their name! Pachi, on behalf of whatever old AA staff may be poking around, congrats! Welcome to the staff! I’m so glad that ol’ dinky website meant so much to you and to so many people from around the world! It meant a lot to me too!
Once again, PRFC, I love what you’re doing with all of our old content and you have my blessings to do what you see fit with it! Have fun and I look forward to reading more!
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Good to see you again! And thanks for welcoming our new prof!
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If not for AA forums I never would have learned about the magic that is torrenting. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me! Hey y’all it’s everyone’s favorite IRC addict and former Miss Anime Academy sohryu here! Getting old sucks. D:
@Carwyn/Yuri I’m crossing the pond to stalk you. Show me around the UK this November when I visit for a road trip. We still love Leeds right!?
@Two-Twenty How dare you let the site die? Not cool, man.
@phelddagrif I still have the “hay soh am i pretty liek u” meme/pic on an old HDD somewhere.
@Phate Thanks for balancing the universe by moving to Texas so I could come to California
@Erigion hay boo
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Wow, I just read through all these comments, seeing some as recent as this year, and I’m just laughing that I’m not at all the only one who still randomly reminisces about AA! My partner and I have recently decided to try sitting down and checking some old classics off my bucket list of anime I’d always wanted to watch, but couldn’t find at my one dinky local comic store, or failed to download through IRC, hahahaha! We just finished Vision of Escaflowne, one that I remembered being highly rated on AA, and I got curious to see if I could dig up an old AA review for the movie. (What better way to find out if it’s worth watching?)
Anyway, I’m really happy to see someone has put effort into preserving AA like this, so thank you for all your hard work! I wasn’t a professor, but AA was a big part of my early teens/preteen life when I was going through a tough life transition, as I basically lived on the forums. I’ve since fallen out of touch with everyone I friended there, but I had many good memories with the community.
Well, that’s enough of my rambling. Again, I really appreciate what you’ve done to keep it alive as a museum of sorts, and I’m happy to see some old faces come back together here. 🙂
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Just re reading these old reviews
I always wanted to be a reviewer and I did try out but I never made the cut. Of course my writing is not that great! Lol
I just think about how today’s anime fans have better opportunities then nearly 20 to 30 years ago ( or even older) to watch anime. But for me owning physical media still has it place especially for fans of this medium. Bless companies like Discotek for distributing classics that we could never imagine getting a release. I just watched Gunbuster for the first time last night and I remember reading the review on AA all thos years ago and how I wanted to watch it. I never thought I would be able to but now it’s exciting times to be an anime fan. There are some great shows out there but many of the classics are available through places like retrocrush or purchase at discotek.
Still this place gave me an insight of different anime that are out there. I might have been a noob back then ( a term no one says anymore!) It did help me grow up and appreciate people different views and opinions
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