Me in early 2010 and late 2014. Still blogging, still wearing funny things on my head. 

This is my 563rd post. That means I’ve been blogging about 112 days a year for five years now here on Otaku Journalist.

I try to write something on my anniversary every year. In 2010 I had a giveaway. In 2011 I did a recap. In 2013 I summed up my entire life as it grew around the blog, perhaps to make up for 2012 when I simply forgot!

I started blogging because I thought it’d be a helpful way to start my career as a writer. Now that I have one (no small thanks to this blog), I write to have somewhere to share my independent thoughts, to have a home online where I’m not indebted to any company and I don’t have to answer to anyone about what I post. I keep it up to make my mark amidst the noise of the Internet.

Various Otaku Journalist blog themes from over the years. There have been three total.

Blogs are so temporary. If you don’t keep them up it’s like they never existed. There’s so much interesting content to read on the Internet that if Otaku Journalist disappeared, nobody would miss it but me. That’s how it should be. People say the blog is dead, but it’s really only blogging for the approval of other people that’s a dead concept. I love my readers and I count myself lucky for every person I manage to drag away from Facebook or Twitter for a moment with my weird anime thoughts, but I also know it’s up to me to earn their time.

This year I’ve been experimenting with more permanent ways of making my writing last, namely in books. Otaku Journalism was completely a result of this blog, and of the back and forth I’ve been lucky to have with journalism students ever since I became a journalist.

I think the most fitting way to celebrate Otaku Journalist’s 5th birthday is to make my knowledge more accessible. So starting today, Otaku Journalism is $2.99. 

Whether you’ve been reading Otaku Journalist for five years or five months or five days, thank you for taking a look. Let’s see where the next five years take us.