It’s been almost a year since I took this photo in Japan. I just dug it up again as possible inspiration for an oil painting class I’m taking. I’m trying to switch things up in the new year, like swapping Japanese classes for painting classes (just for a semester) and trying to unplug for this entire upcoming weekend. But first, links!

• My new gig with Anime News Network involves building and photographing model kits. I realized when I did this Patlabor review that I’ve been photographing my models for seven years, and using the same camera that entire time, a Nikon P7000 which is $300 cheaper now than when I bought it! It does not take a fancy new camera to take good toy photos, just patience, good lightning, and a device with a macro setting.
• Defining Gundam Reconguista in G. I’m so torn about this series because on the one hand, it has gorgeous art, animation and music, but on the other hand, the plot is so bad Tomino has publicly apologized for it. Bless is the latest aniblogger to try and decipher this confusing, sometimes charming show.
• I started playing Mystic Messenger about a year after everyone else, and I just couldn’t stick with it. All these boys demand so much from me and it makes me tired! It turns out I’m not the only one to have this impression. At Kotaku, Cecilia wrote about how Mystic Messenger attempts to gamify emotional labor.
• Are you working in your career or on your career? “When you ask for advice, you’ll often get vague, unhelpful answers. Instead, you need to observe what the top performers in your field are actually doing differently. Act like a journalist.” Tony of Manga Therapy sent me this because he said it sounds like career advice I’d give someone, and I agree.
• This is the most dramatic article I have read on work-life balance: A Not-Very-Relatable Post About Taking Zero Maternity Leave and Doing All the Things and Everything Working Out Just Fine. Jen runs Get Bullish, which contains some of my favorite career advice on the web, but this doesn’t seem easy to emulate!
• Sometimes the journalism that needs to be written and read doesn’t make you feel good. I really enjoyed watching Awesome Games Done Quick last weekend, and I had no idea that it was plagued by so many controversies. But this is the stuff people need to know.
• Speaking of which, maybe you saw the thing I wrote on Anime Feminist about a My Anime List writer’s bad experience with censorship. This story could have been mere gossip, but Reuben was smart enough to document everything. Even when you feel like you don’t have any power, keep those records.
• Bloodlines of the anime vampire. I didn’t realize, as The Little Anime Blog explains, that there are no vampires in Japanese folklore. They didn’t appear in Japanese entertainment until the 1950s!