The Otakusphere: Living an Oxygen normal life

Well good morning to the Otakusphere out there. I hope that you had a lovely week in the real world. The last of our snow is melting over here and the world is returning to its dismal post-winter/pre-spring grayness. That isn’t going to get me down though. I’ve got myself a fresh cup of coffee, […]

In My View: Was Gatekeeping guy wrong?

So gatekeeping made its way around the AniTwitter circle in a dramatic fashion this week with a tweet that was so hyperbolic that the only non-attention-seeking response is derision. Talking about gatekeeping anime itself is not especially interesting. Gatekeepers are fighting over imaginary cultural real estate for imaginary stakes that only really matter to them. […]

The Otakusphere: Politics, gatekeeping and anime hair physics

I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’ve got a sweet new masthead for this feature, done by my friend Jon Spencer. At least that’s what I assume his name is. I just wanted to give him a shout out. It’s gotten me jazzed about getting revving up the engine and taking a tour around […]

Reflections of an old anime fan: On gatekeeping

For the last couple weeks I’ve been thinking about gatekeeping, inspired mostly be Irina’s post about why she doesn’t participate in it. Here’s the thing. There was a time when the people that liked video games, roleplaying games, Magic cards and anime were the outsiders. These were the people nobody else wanted to know. They […]

The Otakusphere: The mindworms are here

You ever have one of those songs that you love, but if people caught you singing it out loud they’d give you some weird looks. I’ve got a few of those, but the one I really want to start with today is “Cheer Up” by Reel Big Fish. The main refrain goes: “I’ve got a […]