Subdued Fangirling's Second Anniversary!

Image from Pixiv
Two years and counting!

This anniversary kind of snuck up on me! I guess that's a good thing, since I've been busy not just with work and school, but also with finishing up reviews for last season's shows. The stereotype is that anime blogs never make it through their first year or don't celebrate an anniversary past two years... But I'm still going strong, so I'm taking it as a good sign! Time to start year 3!

If you'd like to hear the story of how this blog came to be, I tell it in the first anniversary post. Since that post was put up, quite a few things have happened:

Making it to the third round of the Aniblog Tourney
...It feels like the Aniblog Tourney happened several years ago, not just last year. Anyway, I had a great experience in the tourney, and the layout and direction of my posts have been influenced a lot by the feedback I got from it. While I can understand if no one wants to do it next year because of the work and drama involved, I'm glad that I participated in it.

I fail at editorials
Last November, since school and work were taking their toll, I thought that I'd scale back Subdued Fangirling's episodic posts in favor of editorial blogging. This idea crashed and burned spectacularly. I had plenty of half-written post ideas, but no time to finish them and put them up on the blog. I should've just taken a hiatus. On the positive side, now I feel like I've hit a groove where I can balance work, school, and still churn out reviews and episodic posts. I can disappear or just cut down on my internet time for a few days to focus on real life without hurting my blog. Hopefully I can keep this up!

Installing Disqus
I have no idea why I put up with Blogger's default commenting system for so long. The thing is just broken. I remember getting really excited when they finally added threaded commenting...and then that broke too. Disqus is a godsend. I get all the moderating power I want without it breaking my layout. It's an awesome plugin that I can't recommend enough.

Continued Adventures in Figure Reviewing
I was pleasantly surprised during the Aniblog Tourney that a lot of people mentioned that they liked my figure reviews! Since then, I've been trying to make my photography better; I've built a lightbox for my reviews, and I'm still experimenting with the light quality to find out what works best (I'm really jealous of pictures I see where people seem to have perfect light quality in their rooms!). I've also learned a lot more about the figure community and collecting in the last year. Even though it's a pretty expensive hobby (although anime in general is an expensive hobby), I'm really enjoying it, and I'll keep it up as long as I can! I think I'll need some better shelves...

My First Visit to Anime Expo!
It was awesome! ...Even though I could only go for a day. I wanted to go for all four days this year, but some money logistics (I pre-ordered too many figures, ahahaha...) mean that I'll only be there for two days. I still plan to have as much fun as possible though!

And now to show off my horrible stats!


I wanted to do this last year, but I installed Analytics late and couldn't get accurate information for the whole year. This time around, that's not a problem! I'm happy that anyone reads this blog at all, so the fact that I average around 2,000 hits a month makes me really happy. The worst month in the last year was November (for reasons I stated above) at 1,490 hits, and the best month was this last April at 4,481 hits. That's also probably the most active month ever on this blog in terms of posts, so I guess that's not a coincidence.

And for laughs, here's the referrer-spam inflated Blogger stats:


Other Stats
Total Published Posts: 366
Total Comments: 549
Feed Subscribers: 76
Google + Followers: 56

Best/Weirdest Search Terms (in no particular order)
--maoyuu maou yuusha boobs (and every possible variation you could think of, filed under "titles I didn't think all the way through")
--will chihaya and arata kiss (I sure hope so)
--sword art online gba (wat)
--will aichi play cardfight again (I wasn't aware that he'd stopped)
--chihaya and taichi kiss (:|)
--anime nudists (Another title I didn't consider the consequences for)
--kirito is a mary sue (A proven fact.)
--completed romance anime about a girl who has powers (Off the top of my head, Kamaisama Kiss, Fushigi Yuugi, Sailor Moon, and Inu x Boku SS. You're welcome.)
--why is popura so perfect (One of the mysteries of the universe, anon.)
--all anime shows whose main character is a teenage girl (...It would take too long to list them all, anon. Are you new here?)
--amnesia anime why are the eyes weird (Because it heightens the viewing experience for a horrible, horrible show.)
--chihayafuru season 2 what do you think (The pacing could be better.)
--did minority report steal its idea from psycho pass (1. You've got that backwards. 2. There's a difference between "stealing" and "thematically similar." Or "homage.")
--why is medaka box so bad (Gainax has lost everything. Don't take their trolling away from them too)
--sad rain anime (I recommend anything by Key to suit your needs)
--what does fangirling mean (The following is the best definition I can find: