Hello and hi there.
Thank you for checking out this newsletter. Some of you may know me as @uninspired_otaku or ryuuji on Instagram. A lot of you probably don’t. So let me give you a quick history and overview of what you can expect.
TL;DR:
I’ve loved anime and manga for years growing up
Began posting anime discussions and reviews on Instagram in 2015
Took multiple hiatuses and breaks in between actual content and shitposts
My biggest barrier to Instagram was the 2200 character limit which limited my writing
I derive genuine enjoyment from writing and always wanted a longform outlet whether it was a blog, twitter, newsletter, etc.
This newsletter will serve as a basis for my longform writing about anime
Subscribe to receive this newsletter to your inbox if you’d like to see my extended ramblings about anime or manga
Now the director’s extended cut edition.
As a kid, I grew up on Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! I didn’t know these were Japanese anime as a kid until my early teens when I discovered Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. The Big Three. If you know then you know. By then, I was hooked. But I had an on and off relationship with anime and manga. There would be periods where I was really into it and binging a lot of shows, reading a lot of different manga, and then I would have periods where I didn’t consume much at all.
One of these periods was my early adulthood. It wasn’t until I watched Sword Art Online (yes, of all anime to get me back into it, it was SAO) in 2014 that I got back into anime. And it wasn’t until Toradora that I felt like writing about anime since I felt the need to talk about Toradora somewhere. Anywhere. Enter @uninspired_otaku. But it wasn’t called that at first. When I made the account in January 2015, I was still riding off the wave of completing Toradora, so I named my first anime account @ryuuji-kun or something to that effect. It wasn’t until 2016 that I wanted to rebrand my account, but I couldn’t think of a better name, so I went with @uninspired_otaku which was supposed to be a placeholder name only while I thought of a better one.
Well, six years later, I never did and ironically it was that name that ended up defining my account. But I still kept the ryuuji moniker all these years. Over the years, I had written posts ranging from:
anime reviews
anime edits
anime analyses
anime discussions
cultural differences
character analyses
best girl Sinon Asada
top 10/25/50 lists
52 anime in a year challenge
drunk shitposts
Throughout my history in the anime Instagram community, I took frequent breaks and would often have spurts of posts when I felt inspired to write or shitpost followed by days, weeks, or even MONTHS with nothing. I think the main reason for this is that I became insecure in my writing and expected too much for myself. This hobby became pressuring to me and the funny thing is that it was me doing it to myself.
Thing is, my audience wasn’t expecting my writing to be good or anything, but rather, it was always me. I was putting too much pressure on myself and as a result, I became paralyzed and stopped posting.
I’m hoping to change that with this newsletter. I never stopped thinking about anime despite not watching as many as I used to. There was a time where I would juggle 6-10 shows per season, but nowadays, it’s maybe 1-2 every few months.
I want to use this newsletter as an outlet for my longform writing about anime as well as a chance to get comfortable with my writing again. I don’t expect to be consistent as I don’t consume as much anime as I did in my early 20s. But I’d like to expand upon some ideas and explore anime years later from the perspective I have now as opposed to then. My hope is that you get some sort of value from reading my thoughts about anime as well as giving myself the chance to improve as a writer.
Follow the original account where it all started on:
Instagram: @uninspired_otaku
Twitter: @uninspiredotaku
Until next time.