Blog Post #617 – 2020 Recap

With another year done and over with, I figure I may as well write one of these blog posts.

Umai Yomu Anime Blog 2020

2020 was a slower one for the blog, with only 155 posts compared to 2019’s 329 posts. Despite that, views have more than doubled going from 2019 to 2020. Most of those are views from older posts, so in reality 2019 built a nice foundation for 2020.

Compared to that, we’ll see how 2021 fares, considering I published half the posts.

Unsurprisingly, my Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai posts carried the most weight, with around 25% of the year’s views. After that, surprisingly, my Danganronpa V3 posts picked up and got a lot of views as well. Sorry I never actually finished it…!

The top 10 search terms were all names of characters from the bunny girl anime, with the one exception being “kakegurui”. My review for Kakegurui & sequel did well last year, despite being posted in 2019. Goes to show how an unsuspecting post can just jump in popularity over time, don’t discount your older posts, they may end up carrying their weight in time!

Overall, it was cool to see the growth. Especially considering I was more hands off in 2020. That may mean less growth this year, but we’ll see about that, as you never really know what older posts will gain traction.

Yomu in 2020

As for me personally, 2020 was an amazing year.

I moved to Japan to work as an English teacher and just do something new for a while. Not only has it been great moving to Japan and experiencing the country, but I’ve also done a lot and made a lot of friends. My goal when I came here was to say “yes” to more things, push myself to go out and do more, and I did just that. While most of my friends are foreign like myself, I do have some Japanese friends that I do things with every so often too.

I’ve travelled a decent amount, and I’m not much of a traveler, but it’s been fun with friends. I’ve been to many places in Tokyo, Saitama, and Nagano. Most of which being Nagano, as I live here, and did a road trip in Nagano in the summer. Along the way I’ve been to many onsen / hot springs, which I do love. I wasn’t able to go to a summer festival, but hopefully this year I can do that. I did get to see fireworks though.

The job itself is a lot of fun. There’s a lot of downtime, but that’s given me time to read and learn Japanese. Some classes are better than others, as some are really quiet and unengaging and others are more difficult in other ways, but overall the time spent in the classroom flies by, as do the days. I mean, it’s almost been a year since I first came here, which is crazy to think about.

And finally I’ve settled into my apartment in a great small city in Nagano. The mountains are beautiful, and it’s a great mix of having everything I’d need nearby while also getting the inaka experience.

I didn’t get to post as much, honestly I was operating off of a huge post bank that I had built up before coming here. I came to Japan with around 70 drafted posts, and while I supplemented fresh posts in there, many of last year’s posts were actually written in late 2019 / very early 2020.

This year I have no post bank to rely on, so I’m going to have to try and get back into things. I think I’ll continue only posting 2 or 3 times per week though. This entire time I’ve still been writing 3 or so posts per week for Ecchi Hunter as well, so it all adds up and I like to relax after work most days, even if work isn’t all that demanding or stressful.

Umai Yomu Anime Blog 2021

We’ll see how this year goes. I don’t have any big ideas.

The plan is basically to just slowly go through the anime studios / producers on MAL, the Monogatari Series, and other anime reviews based on what I’ve been watching. In addition to that, just blog posts like this, or Japan posts, or whatever comes to mind.

That’s about it haha.

Yomu in 2021

At the moment I plan on staying in Japan for 2021, likely where I am now, although there is a chance that I will end up having to move somewhere else.

I feel very blessed to have come to Japan when I did, because Canada looks to be a total wreck, with some serious spikes in authoritarianism by the governments, federal and provincial. Here, I haven’t been subject to any lockdowns or major restrictions. I just have to wear a mask at my job. Other than that, it’s all been close enough to normal.

I do hope to go skiing this winter, as Nagano is famous for it, and there is a distinct lack of tourists. That was one benefit of covid, being able to travel and go places that aren’t as crowded as they would normally be. While I am sympathetic to the tourism industry here, I also may as well take advantage. I’m helping the industry by doing so anyways.

Not sure what else I’ll get up to this year. As I have been, I’ll just wait and see and take advantage whenever something comes up. It’s too difficult to plan for things long term – not just here, but in life in general I think. You just never know what will happen in life.

That about does it for this post. Nothing really exciting but at the very least I enjoyed going through 2020 and looking at 2021. Here’s to another great year, both for the blog and in life!

Until next time,
Thanks for reading.