Here Lies My Hopes and Dreams for My Blog – January 2023 Edition

I’m often hesitant to plan anything concrete for the blog as it’s often gone south in the past. However, it’s the new year and I think I should think of some sort of course to steer towards. I’ll keep things somewhat simple for now.

Anime

Here’s the current Episode Review lineup:

1. [Backlog] BOCCHI THE ROCK! – 5/12 eps.
2. [Backlog] Laid-Back Camp (Season 2) – 7/13 eps.
3. [Backlog] Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Great Mankai Chapter – 7/12 eps.
4. [Winter 2023] TBD
5. [Winter 2023] TBD

I’m aiming to do a mix of backlogged shows and new shows from this Winter season. Five has always seemed like a good number of shows to me. That said, we’ll see if this is feasible and realistic in the coming days. It admittedly hasn’t been the case for a long while.

I’ll be writing the backlogged shows the usual way but for the seasonal shows, I may write in bullet point when I lack free time. I used to do that and I’ve refrained from doing it again because it feels less “formal” to me. But you know what? Screw it. Between work and the need to stay on top when it comes to seasonal coverage, I have to be more flexible. No one ever minded it back then so I hope no one minds it now. Some general exceptions I’ll make are the premiere, the midpoint, and the finale. I don’t want to wing a list of thoughts in those cases as those are important “checkpoints” when covering a show.

Regarding Laid-Back Camp, I will cover the Season 2 specials and the movie after I finish Season 2 itself. Similarly, I plan on watching the YuYuYu Churutto! shorts after I finish Great Mankai Chapter though I’m undecided if I’ll cover it in episode reviews. Technically, that aired first but I’ve been holding off on it because I’m pretty sure it assumes you know everyone in the canon, most of whom get their formal introduction later in Great Mankai Chapter.

I’ll finally cover Horimiya after I finish one of the three backlogged shows. I don’t know if anyone remembers voting for it but I’m extremely sorry that it’s taking me so long to get to this show. I’ll worry about what do when I finish the other two backlogged shows later. Most likely, it’ll be another backlogged show. I could also just enjoy the free time…

Even though I’m still committed to covering Horimiya, the whole 2021 Catch-Up endeavor is pretty much dead. It stopped being feasible once I had to consider adding Summer 2021, Fall 2021, and all of 2022 into the mix. I also don’t plan on doing polls for the foreseeable future. I’m thankful to those who voted and the first two winners were a lot of fun to cover. I just don’t want to screw up again.

Video Games

Currently don’t have anything specific planned for my Genshin Impact coverage. The 3.4 Livestream should be in a few days so once I officially know who’s running in the gacha, I’ll plan my coverage accordingly. I plan on pulling for Yaoyao, because I think she’s the most adorable thing ever, but that’ll depend on if she’s featured alongside a 5-Star I can pull for and if my wallet will cooperate.

I recently started titling my posts for Genshin‘s playable characters (and Tower of Fantasy‘s for that matter) as “Guides & Reviews” as opposed to “Character Reviews”. I feel this is a more accurate label as I often give an opinionated look at characters but I also give advice on how to build and use the characters. Another change is the use of headings. I feel that it makes the posts look nicer with better structure and organization and it’s also made things a little easier to write (though I am still writing a ton for an individual post).

I have slowed down on Genshin coverage. There’s even been some characters who have ran in the gacha recently that I chose to pass on writing or updating a post for them. Being busy with work played a big part in that but I will also admit that I also hit burnout on the whole project and Genshin itself throughout the latter half of last year and I felt extremely bad at how much it was dominating my output. This scaling down will probably continue from the time to time so that I can better address my anime backlog.

As for Tower of Fantasy, I started covering the game but I don’t think it’ll be as recurring as with Genshin. I’m not on top of the grind (and the whaling…) as I am with the latter and playing the two games together, especially after a long day of work, has been too much for me. That said, me being more on and off with ToF is not indicative to how I feel about the game.