Hey gang, Nelson here. It's been a while, I know. With graduate school at Brooklyn College becoming something I take seriously nowadays - unlike the first year where I spent my time lamenting the advent of adulthood - I find myself unable to watch anime at all. The only show I keep up with is The Legend of Korra, which has actually inspired me to create an animation for my own thesis project. I've never animated anything before, but that's not gonna stop me.
Anyway, I'm here to offer a proper goodbye to The Anime Guardians blog I started in 2011. Back then I was serious about becoming a proper anime critic, citing all kinds of examples of what good anime looks like. But after a while I had to mellow out: the internet's full of great people and not-so-great people, and weeding through that muck takes a lot of energy. My concern shifted from trying to be the final authority on anime, to instead being a strongly opinionated commentator on what shows I thought worked and didn't work so well, and I stopped shying away from giving my uncensored thoughts. This myth of "objective commentary" became the bane of my blogging world and I wanted nothing to do with it. And I think I'm better for it.
The Anime Guardians did a lot for me, if only because I knew there was an audience out there, somewhere, reading through my emotional journeys with Japanese animation. When I was working on my Bachelors thesis, I already had years of anime writing in my belt to draw from, making my project on post-human anime cyborgs a breeze to write about. When Clannad got too real to handle, I had a blog to voice my opinions on. When dating sims tore my heart out, I had sympathizers to tell me things would be okay.
So thanks, guys. It's been real. I occasionally post to Project Otaku still, whenever I get a moment. My last post was on Comic Con this year in NYC. But I won't be in the aniblogging game for the long haul, not anymore. Life goes on, and mine has barely begun. Here's to the future.
~ Nelson Rolon
Creator of The Anime Guardians, 2011 - 2014
