With all that in mind, it’s quite understandable when people are stingy with links and the sort. Instead of being a grade-A douche-bag, I decided to “give back” and pay homage to the people/sites I admire and have a great time visiting. There really isn’t any particular criteria I look for, but I’ll let you know what impresses me:

• Wonderful Visual Layout
• Funny or Interesting Opinion Pieces
• Great Analytical Reviews
• Content That Not Everyone Writes About
• Comments On My Site A Fair Amount
• Has Mad Swag

To kickoff the first “Blog of The Week” post, I’ll be doing it on a site called AnimeFullCircle (AFC). Though I love sites with stunning layouts and such, the author of AFC, Andrew B decided to keep things simple; this instantly drew me in. Another thing I really enjoy with AnimeFullCircle is how all the posts feel like they’re from the heart. I don’t know about you, but these days, I’m tired of looking at sites with dryly written “sensational” material about nothing. If you read a post or two, you’ll immediately notice the author takes time out of a busy day to think of something fun to read, and subject matter anyone can appreciate. Below are a couple factors which really impress me.

• Not so much reviewing, but info everyone should know about
• Interesting posts that make you go, “damn, why didn’t I think about writing that?!”
• Fun “warp” posts looking back at cool stuff in the past
• Almost always a sweet video to look at
• Talks about anime releases which aren’t always publicized
• Signature “AnimeRemix” posts – putting a new perspective on things we never think about

After taking a gander and bookmarking AnimeFullCircle, I also decided to send a couple interview questions Andrew B.’s way so I (and we) could get a deeper look into what makes him tick.

1. First off, I really have a fascination with names. More specifically, screen/author names and website names. How did you come up with your web-alias & the name for your website?

Well I came up with the name Anime Full Circle for two reasons. The first reason was originally I was going to do Anime Full Circle as a podcast; however at the time I didn’t have the money to afford the equipment to do one. So I decided to the next best thing which was to create a blog. The second reason as to why I decided to call my blog Anime Full Circle was that I wanted the name of my blog to reflect the message that I wanted to get across to my readers which is that I wanted to cover all aspects of the anime industry and everything in between. As for my web-alias, usually I go by my regular name (Andrew B), but I came up with Anime Remix because I wanted to change the way how the world sees anime as a culture. Thus you could say that I remix the stories that I write to reflect the views and opinions from the fans perspective. So in a nutshell, that’s how I came up with the alias Anime Remix.

2. What post (that you can remember) did you have the most fun writing about?

There were actually two posts that I really enjoyed writing about. The first one would have to be the first ever anime review that I did which was for the anime series Genshiken. I enjoyed writing it because not only was Genshiken the first anime review that I have ever written, but I was also able to understand the world of anime culture a lot better. I was able to relate to some of the characters interests and tastes. Thus I thought Genshiken was a good starting point for doing the types of reviews that I do. The second post would have to be something that I did most recently in which I took a look back at how the anime industry has changed over the past ten years. It was interesting because I took a look at some of the key aspects that affected the industry such as the collapse of ADV Films and the cancelation of Toonami on Cartoon Network. I felt that by doing that post, it was a great way to look back at how the anime industry was in the past and how it will shape up in the future.

3. What are your 3 favorite anime shows atm? Or ever?

There are currently three anime series that I am into at the moment, and those are. Nana, Revolutionary Girl Utena and Genshiken season 2.

4. A lot of people really like anime, but why’d you decide to write about it?

Well, the reason why I decided to write about anime was that I wanted to share my thoughts and opinions about the anime industry with the world. As I mentioned earlier, I came up with the name Anime Full Circle because I wanted the name to reflect my mission of the site which is to cover all aspects of the anime industry and everything in between. I wanted my readers to see the world of the anime industry through a fans perspective, thus to this day I keep that philosophy well in mind when I create posts for my site and Finally Anime. And I never steer away from it.

5. Most websites have a unique trademark. Be it design, writing style, or content. For example, Yi from Listless Ink is synonomous with Yuri along with Yuriness-ai, Michael & BakaRaptor from lowonhitpoints.com & baka-raptor.com force you to focus on content with minimal design, what’s special about your site?

I guess some of the unique trademarks of my site would have to be my writing style and the content that I come up with. For my writing style, I try to keep most of my posts whether it is news stories or other things straight to the point. I try to cover as much information as I can while maintaining my focus on the fans perspective (I.E. My Readers) while trying not to sugarcoat the post to a point in which my readers don’t want to bother reading on. But my writing style is only part of the formula for Anime Full Circle’s success. The other part is that I always try to come up with new ideas for the site. One idea that I have came up with recently is that I wanted to some posts that revolve around the films of Hayao Miyazaki, one of the most successful directors of the Japanese anime genre. The main goal of this is to focus on his works and how his works became masterpieces of the genre. I try to come up with new ideas all the time, but there are some ideas that turn out to be successful while others are not. I do this to keep the site fresh and new and not just the same old things all the time.

6. A bit of a random question, but what hosting/domain provider do you have? Just in case anyone looking at this is interested in taking their blog to the next level?

Currently I use Go Daddy as my domain name service. I decided to use them because I heard so many good things about them and that they have a strong relationship with their clients. I hope to someday set up my blog on their servers since they have an excellent service for wordpress blogs.

7. Are you in school right now? (assuming yes)

I am currently in school at the moment. I attend Kent State University, I recently graduated with my Associates Degree this past summer in computer technology and I currently in the process of finishing my Bachelors degree in the same discipline in which I plan to graduate in December of this year. Then I plan on going on towards my Masters degree in either technology or library and information science.

8. Last, but not least, do you plan on doing something with anime in the future? Or do you think you’ll get tired of it?

Well, I plan on trying to keep doing Anime Full Circle for as long as I can. Maybe possibly to the day I die LOL!!!!!!!!!!! I love the genre and I don’t think that I am going to grow tired of it any time soon. In all honesty, there were just sometimes that I just wanted to give up on doing this. But with the support of you and all my fellow bloggers out there, I have the strength to keep on doing what I do and to be able to share my passion of anime with the rest of the world.

With alllllll that said, I really enjoyed AnimeFullCircle, and I hope you all do too!

Unfortunately, with my weird schedule, and this anime blog taking up all my time, I can’t really post all the “tech” stuff I want. And I mostly believe anime blogs should stay fairly close to their main subject matter…anime obviously. The line at which this ends or begins for an individual predictably varies, but I think I eschewed the line as soon as I started randomly posting hentai pictures. In general, I just want a blog that exudes my passion for anime. It might not come out initially from reading my writing, but a little should be gleamed off this visual layout and how I try to keep everything simple and pretty for everyone to simply click and read. Do you get my drift? Of course, mixing simplicity with optimal functionality is a balancing act my virtual self is still getting the hang of.

In the midst of this proverbial balancing act resides a nagging question I’ve thought about for quite some time: is photobucket more efficient, or is using wordpress smarter? This isn’t to say I don’t have an answer, because I already do, but wanted to explore the subject some more. Below, I’ll list the positives and negatives of each one (from my own experience). And if there are any more positives and/or negatives I didn’t cover, please comment and let us know.

Uploading to WordPress Library

Positives

• Have COMPLETE control over which pictures you keep and discard
• Don’t have to worry about too many people beside your webhost (if that even) going through your pics
• Can have as many images as your host will allow and avoid image hosting restrictions
• Don’t have to worry about an image (or images) being removed due to some copyright issue
• Don’t have to worry about an image being removed because of nudity or explicit material
• Allowed to have images as big as you want on there without limits
• Stays with you at all times

Negatives

• The more images you have, the slower your blog might get depending on certain scripts you might have or the dynamic nature of your site
• Takes up precious webhosting space if you don’t have unlimited space
• Can help contribute to filling a bandwidth quota you’re trying not to fill
• Images might load slower
• Editing the exact size of an image proportionally can sometimes be a pain in the ass
• The “gallery” function is a blessing and a curse: allows for showing of current uploads, but you CAN’T edit out pictures you also uploaded. TERRIBLE for people who want to put a gallery in after the fact

Uploading to Photobucket

Positives

• Easy medium to edit photos in realtime, and quickly mind you.
• Don’t have to worry about annoying lists of nonsensical file names since you have a thumbnail list to look at
• Space used is not yours, so you can free up more space for other media on your blog
• all photos can be accessed by whomever you want
• Photo galleries ARE editable and highly customizable

Negatives

• Have no control over pictures which are deleted at photobucket’s whim
• No weird pictures containing nudity are allowed
• Entire library could be removed without warning and all the pictures you have erased from their library. NOT COOL
• There is a limit as to how big your pictures can be
• This is a longshot, but if photobucket is shutdown or even down for a couple hours…or even an hour, it could seriously cost you because your images will be blank, losing important viewers in the process.
• EVERYONE can look at your library and download pics you searched so hard to find.

See, pictures like the above would get deleted. Sad Face.

I tried my best to give each service good positives and negatives, but in my heart of hearts, I strongly believe using the wordpress library built in with your (wordpress) blog is the best thing to do. Trading off a little convenience for extra control wins in my book every time. Though don’t think your web host can’t shut you down either. I’m sure half of my readers already know about the little incident I’m talking about. In any case, I love having complete control over my files. If you think different (or the same), lemme know what you think