Sometimes, I make things!

A Madoka Magica poster, parodying the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.

If you can't tell I've been reading lots of Black Jack recently.

Anyway, wow, is it already a new year? It blows me away how fast time flies sometimes. Actually, I can't believe I've been working here for over a year already. Why haven't you guys booed me offstage yet?!

Our top ten anime of the year list was pretty cool. A lot of people complained about it, but that's all part of the fun (and for some, the best part)! There's always a level of personal preference involved in such an affair, especially considering we can't watch all the anime a year holds. But for the most part it's a good gauge of what was (at the very least) interesting this year. Wait, what about my choices, you ask? Well, I'm flattered! You want to know MY opinion? Well, if you insist, dear reader! Here's my top 5:



Manly men doing manly things! I'm pretty sure whatever this show is, it's the opposite of moe.



Best 'show that had one episode a month for a whole year' ever.



How did you make this work GAINAX? I'm still not sure how. I should've hated this but I was really entertained by it.



Cross-dressers and jellyfish are a surprisingly great combination.



My headless waifu.

Yes, as is probably no surprise to anyone who reads the site, Kuragehime and Durarara!! are my top picks for the year. Brains Base had an amazing lineup this year (despite noitaminA's random and bizarre twisting of Kuragehime's schedule), so I can't wait to see what they're working on next.

It better be season 2 of Durarara!! or else there will be hell to pay. Maybe the last DVD in February with the bonus episode will shed some light on that.

Anyway, to celebrate,,, uh,,, Durarara!! winning best anime this year from Japanator, and uh... me liking Durarara!! a lot, I'm unveiling the first two of a series of prints I'm doing centered around DRRR!!



Kida and Shizuo are the first two prints up! More will be coming in the future months (in pairs), and I intend to cover as many characters as I can. I'm already working on the next two.

You can pick and choose your favorites OR (and this is my favorite option) you can collect them all! Oh, yes, I must string you along for a while to get them all – what would be the fun otherwise?

Anyway, I wish you all a Happy New Year! I love you guys, keep reading this site forever. <3


(Way more people seem to have a strong fondness for Darkwing Duck than I thought! Good to have company.)

Several of you requested a print version of the final image I used on my Final Impressions of Katanagatari. Well, ask and ye shall receive!



You can purchase it here, at my Society6 studio page. Enjoy!

Yes, let's talk about you. Recently I've been doing a lot of brainstorming. If there was a Japanator Magazine, like I so desperately dream, would you buy it? Say it was, once every six months, in full color, and $12 or so. I know that sounds really specific (no, we're not actually doing a magazine right now), but I'm just curious what our main fanbase is willing to spend and for what. Are you guys picking up Japanator t-shirts? Or do the designs not appeal to you? Or perhaps you don't want to be a walking advertisement? Just throwing things out there.

Also of note, you may say "Where's Weekly Wallpaper?" Well, it got buried under other work I was doing, and it will be continuing soon. In fact, when it comes back, it may be a tad more "Japanator Feature"-ish and "front page"-ish than before. Who knows?!

Oh yeah, and speaking of art prints: there's thriving markets online for movie-related art prints, or other similar work, but I hardly ever see anything like that in the otaku community. If there was a larger presence of nice, high-quality art prints related to your favorite anime or manga, would you be willing to plunk for 40 or 50 bones for one? Would you frame it and display it as well? Once again, I'm curious if people are interested in the same thing I am. I mean, we have plenty of stuff that shows up at cons in Artist's Alley and the like, but nothing at the level of quality like this or this.

But I'm rambling. Again. Oh well.

Nothing really.

Well, there was one small thing...



Okay maybe that wasn't so small.

You know that one really awesome Inception poster? Well, I thought, why not ape that and make it into a Baccano! poster? It kinda turned into it's own thing halfway through, though, which is fine. I made this all in Illustrator CS5 at 27 x 40 inches which is the standard movie poster size. I'm sending myself a test print in the mail and I hope to be able to set this up somehow so you guys can get one too... if you so desire.

Oh and there's more Japanator Magazine designs if you're interested. I occasionally add new stuff to my Flickr every once in a while.

It was a tie between Haibane Renmei and R.O.D. last time (way back before Otakon, woah), so I flipped a coin. I forget which one was heads and which was tails but HEY GUYS HAIBANE RENMEI YAAAAY. Sizes: 1280x1024 1440x900 1600x900 1600x1200 1920x1080 1920x1200 iPad Version iPhone Version AND, I'm sure there's more productive things I could be doing with my time other than imagining a world where there's a Jtor magazine, but I don't know what they are. ALSO, past Weekly Wallpapers: WW11: Toradora! WW10: Angel Beats! WW9: Vampire Bund WW8: Spice & Wolf WW7: YKK WW6: Gunslinger Girl WW5: Yotsuba&! WW4: Shizuo & Celty WW3: Celty WW2: Arakawa - Nino WW1: Baccano!