Yes! Simplicity is exactly one year old today. Hurray~ I always knew I’d make it to a year (because I always have so much to say) so I can’t say anything humble like…well “I never thought I’d make it this far” because that is a lie. I’m not humble at all. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if my blog is still at least semi-active at its five year anniversary (meaning 1-2 posts a month).

But that’s still four years away, so instead let’s focus on the present. My present is quite awesome, despite my blog still really having no defining features (something I am going to announce possible remedies for). I suppose my blog just inherits my own pure awesomeness. (Oh yeah, modesty is thrown out the window today).

So, my little One Year Anniversary SPECIAL~ *glitter*sparkles*streamers* is going to include quite a few things. Changes I decided to start on a day that…well made sense to change stuff. New theme, restart of rankings, future plans/features, and a peek at the stats I am unworthy of (oh wait, there’s the modesty).

And let’s hear it for random pictures of anime girls (Yay~!!!). It’s been a while since I spammed a post with cute girls for no reason. Awesome! (lol, this is code for: “This post is also quite messy. IGNORE IT!!!” )

But let’s see where to start? I don’t think any little history lesson on Simplicity is that necessary, but I suppose as stats are always going up, there are people who haven’t been around the whole time so we’ll do a little recap.

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History~ (kinda)

I started Simplicity on May 18, 2008. Before that I had been doing little episode reviews on Special A and Shugo Chara on livejournal. I earned a few regular commentors there (somehow…I still have no idea how any of them found me). I started thinking about starting a real blog, because I enjoyed interacting with readers so much and wanted to join a community where I would be able to do more of this. So, I started thinking about it seriously, and once I came up with a name for it I started making plans.

As for how I came up with the name Simplicity, it specifically came about because I was trying too hard to pick a name. I knew I should keep it simple and then…Oh snap! Plus it looked good on a header and it was easy to remember (catchy~). So I immediately glomped onto it and didn’t let go.

I forget if I announced it first or anything, but I decided to make the switch the week before episode 33 of Shugo Chara so I knew I would enjoy my first episode review on the new blog.

Another reason I wanted to move to wordpress.com was because I had no idea how many people were reading my posts. I decided the new blog would be a test and an experiment. As for what I was testing, it was my own readership. And…well, the stats after episode 33 made me decide the experiment was a success (I got 433 page views total). After that blogging became a regular hobby and eventually I ended up here today.

One year~ It’s kind of a shame that I don’t think a lot of unique things happened in this year, but it’s certainly something I hope to change.

My history is boring. So we’ll keep the interesting stuff short. Here’s some random things of note that happened in my first year of having a blog and joining the anime blogosphere:

• Got spammed by immature Shugo Chara fangirls.
• I either made peace with immature fangirls or kicked them to the curb after a few rants.
• Did Top Ten…for a while. Then stopped when I turned lazy~ (Did ten Girls though)
• Went into Crazy Overthinking Shipper Mode. Twice.
• Started up a series of articles called Complexity. Wrote…one.
• Caught News of Shugo Chara’s second season early and…insanity followed.
• Fell in love with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, but mysteriously stopped blogging. (Eventually did explain)
• Joined Twitter and successfully reduced my rage posts.
• Loved Skip Beat’s anime adaptation. Got Bored with it. Loved it, but stopped blogging.
• Joined in the 12 Days of Anime. Wrote…six. (Woo! HALF!)
• Started getting frustrated with Wordpress.com’s lack of options…a lot.
• Joined Kokidokom. Admitted to being “tsundere” and…well that stuck.
• Invaded Kokidokom forums with fellow fangirls (Shugo Chara spoilers in thread)
• Continuing Fangirling to this day. Ahahaha~
• Oh yeah and Clannad had the best end evar. (Not really an event, but it had to be said)

And that’s about it. Though add in a dozen different banners and so on I suppose.

I really haven’t done that much in a year, so that’s my goal for the coming year. Do stuff! Like my story! (Which I will be getting to later~)

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Stats

I have kept my stats my biggest secret in blogging. I only did the one post on my stats, even though…well, I hit all of my planned goals (besides “the world~” )

I forget when it happened, but 1000 page views a day became normal at some point…and then 2000 did.

All of this was kept to myself, because I really didn’t deserve it. It’s kind of disappointing, but if I wasn’t the only one regularly blogging Shugo Chara when I started my blog (and for quite some time after), I wouldn’t have hit nearly the same success. All of my most popular posts on the wordpress.com blog are for Shugo Chara! after all. Though I will give some credit to my initial success to building up a readership on livejournal (somehow…still not sure how it happened).

But enough of that. Let’s get to the actual stats. I’m going to be revealing my Wordpress.com stats, then my current Kokidokom ones because those are only for a couple of months. Wordpress.com is actually a whole year.

10 Most Popular Posts

• Shugo Chara!…Season 2!!!
• Shugo Chara! – Episode 43
• Shugo Chara! – Episode 35
• Shugo Chara! – Episode 33
• Shugo Chara! Doki – Episode 52
• Shugo Chara! – Episode 42
• Shugo Chara! – Episode 44
• Anime Girls: Ushio
• Best First Day of Summer Ever
• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 53

The only only one of those that doesn’t depress me is the one at the top. Because that was only natural. I caught Shugo Chara’s second season announcement like…five minutes after it was posted. I’m kind of proud of my luck in a way (not proud of my hyperventilating fangirling).

The fact that there’s so many episode posts is kind of depressing though. At least they’re mostly worthy (episode 43 being number one makes me happy) except random 35 thrown in there. I’m kind of surprised that outside of 33 and 53 there’s no real fangirling episodes. And 35 just feels really random. Though I guess people really like the wedding fantasy? Other than that there’s nothing special about it.

10 Most Popular Search Terms

• anime girls
• shugo chara
• anime girl
• arina tanemura
• shugo chara doki
• simplicity anime blog
• ikuto
• sakura hime kaden
• shugo chara season 2
• utau

These I am much more proud of. Even though I’m once again dominated by Shugo Chara, most of it is Shugo Chara stuff I can be proud of. Like Ikuto~ and especially Utau (because at one point my post on Utau was the number two search result on google for “utau”, even above the actual word).

Then I also get my Arina Tanemura fangirlism represented which I feel pretty good about. Slightly guilty right now since I haven’t been living up to the title. I skipped SHK’s chapter three post because I don’t have much to say except “Kohaku is cute” and “well, I kind of figured…”

Busiest Day: 1/10/2009 – 3,626 Views

Now then, my busiest day actually changed quite a few times, but this time it was something that made sense to me and what I’m known for. That was the day my Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 65 post was posted. (The aftermath of the shooting star’s landing~) It was also my last Shugo Chara post on Wordpress.com, so it’s nice to think my last best day was the most recent likely day to have a best day.

Anyway, there’s not much left to say for stats. The wordpress.com blog finally stopped getting above 1000 views a day, which is good.

Total Views: 417,559

I…really don’t think I deserve that many views. I get the feeling a lot of people come back and read the same posts so that could explain some of it. I used to do that back when I was a lurker and I wanted to fangirl somehow.

As for how the blog’s current stats are I still have an average of over 1000 page views, though I’m usually under 1000 during the week and then it goes way up on the weekend (with…*sigh* Shugo Chara).

Since I have less time on this blog I’ll just do the top five for stats.

5 Most Popular Posts

• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 74
• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 66
• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 73
• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 68
• Shugo Chara!! Doki – Episode 69

Holy shit, the power of fangirling. Episode 74 was last week’s episode. ^_^; Granted, the most awwsomest episode evar~ (well not quite, but darn close) but still. And the fact that it’s all episode posts makes it feel boring here too. Sigh~

Once again, these are less my stats and more Shugo Chara’s.

5 Most Popular Search Terms

• shugo chara episode 74
• shugo chara 74
• shugo chara episode 66
• shugo chara doki episode 74
• shugo chara doki

…

Erm well…not much to say here, except it’s even scarier if you see the views those terms got…(to give you a hint, on 3/15 the episode 74 post got over 1,500 views)

Also, I am unimpressed by my own search terms. There’s not even any “Simplicity” at all in here. -_-;

So then we have to come to the next obvious result…

Busiest Day: 3/14/09 – 3,719 Views

Holy crap it’s bigger than my best day on wordpress.com

…I guess fangirls really liked White Day (yes, 30+ comments says fangirls liked White Day).

Total Views: 71,268

Um…Saturday really boosted those…I mean…wow…never seen such…and I mean I’ve been blogging it for a year now and…well yeah.

…Chapter 38 animated is totally going to surpass it and end up scaring the crap out of me again (or maybe I’ll be too busy being so fangirly~ happy to care).

I never revealed my stats before this because I didn’t want people judging me for my unworthiness. It’s not my popularity after all, it’s Shugo Chara’s. But I figure as long as I admit that I’m not worthy of these stats, no one else should have a problem. After all, I am lacking in a good reputation in the community and that’s something to be more proud of. I think the difference between the number of bloggers who know me and the amount of views I get isn’t good.

That’s one thing I want to do in this next year of Simplicity.

Anyway, here’s the necessary screencaps to go through for those who want proof. I’m going to move on now.

Wordpress.com: blog stats, top posts, top search

Kokidokom: blog stats, top posts, top search

And that’s all I really feel is worth mentioning…so yeah, moving on. *does not like stats…in case you didn’t notice*

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New Theme

That’s right. I have a new theme. In case you somehow didn’t notice. This one is MagicBlue (with some minor modifications by me).

My last one was FlowerTech and I chose it since it best fit what I wanted at the time. I didn’t have to change anything so I could get Simplicity up as soon as possible. MagicBlue better fits my image of Simplicity by being…well…simpler. The downside to was that I actually had to do some code-editing because it wasn’t wide enough, but I managed to do it. I even edited more things to everything would be almost exactly how I wanted it to be. It was mostly guesswork, but I guess I’m better at that stuff than I thought I was. Yay for me.

This one won’t stick around forever either though. I like it quite a bit since I was able to get just about everything just how I wanted it (just thinking about adjusting the header size with the next batch…maybe). So I’m still going to keep on looking for new ones. Change every once in a while is good after all.

And with the new theme also comes new headers. I decided to make it simple and go for anime girls with different taglines that celebrated my anniversary since that’s the reason for the theme change (well I used that reason for the theme change, I would have done it anyway).

The only things that change in the headers is the girl featured and the taglines. The background is the same. I think that’s kind of a fun way to change stuff anyway.

The girls featured include:

• Sakura (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle…I suppose)
• Rin (Little Busters!)
• Amu (Shugo Chara!)
• Utau (Shugo Chara!)
• Nagisa (Clannad)
• Kyoko (Skip Beat!)
• Hikari (Special A)
• Haine (Shinshi Doumei Cross)
• Haruka (Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu)
• Ranka (Macross Frontier)
• Kobato (Kobato.)
• Sumomo (Nanatsuiro Drops)

12 Girls for 12 months. Ohohoho~ You’ll never get this many different headers again though. Even though the header is mostly the same for each one, it was still an ordeal. Cutting some of the girls out of their background was so annoying.

Especially Sakura, the same image I use as the top image for this special. That was an incredibly ordeal because this is the image I worked with. Erasing all of that text…my god. I also had to rebuild part of Sakura’s bow, who knows what that really looks like. Predictably, I didn’t do the best job since it’s my first time tackling such a difficult…thing, but it looks pretty okay after it’s resized I think.

Utau was my favorite though, because I love that image. Utau~

All the taglines kind of go along with the girl, things that have happened this past year, or things that relate to me and my blog. Sometimes all three!

I’m not going to put all the headers here though because it’s too annoying. So for once the rotating headers will be fun because each one will be a little bit new. At least until you see them all.

Please don’t refresh like crazy though. I don’t want my stats to depress me anymore than they already do (almost none of my favorite posts are my most popular posts! RAWR! )

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Plans for Year Two

Well basically I’m going to be continuing like I have been for a while. I’ll still blog anime weekly and the occasional manga. Write an article whenever a topic hits me. But there’s a few specific features that have been in my mind for a while that I’m going to try and bring about this year.

I have three things I want to attempt to do related to this blog this year. Plus one thing I’m finally bringing back.

Rankings

Yes, the rankings are coming back…finally. They went on hiatus some time ago because they take a lot of effort…and I mean a lot. Mostly because I’m obsessive about how the post looks (image, format, etc~), but I think I can handle it now.

I’m still not sure what I’ll go for as my next countdown, but it’s between Anime Boys and Pairings. For now I have a few lists I can just put together and post on Wednesdays. I’m thinking every other Wednesday right now though so I don’t overload myself. But a new one will (should) be up next Wednesday!

Matches

I was thinking of…maybe doing little match-up, versus sort of posts between two characters from two different series that are considered to be similar.

Comparing the two of them and contrasting them in a little fun way and then letting the voting take it away.

…But there’s still a lot more planning that needs to be done with this. So we’ll see…it’s something that floated into my head one day, but it seems like it will take a lot of effort so it may take a while to actually appear. And then it won’t ever really become something weekly or anything.

Rules of Shoujo

I want to do a series of articles on unspoken rules of shoujo including a special series with in a series on predicting the outcome of pairings in shoujo.

But…there’s one small thing holding me back, especially from the prediction one. The story I’m writing falls in line with shoujo and pointing out some rules might make it easier to predict the outcome. So…at least on the prediction one I’d like to wait since chapters of my story should start coming out weekly in June.

I’m going to aim for the non-prediction stuff maybe next month? After I get other things situated anyway. It won’t be anything regular, just articles posted whenever I feel like it. Hopefully I’ll still be watching three shoujo series so I can be inspired by the anime to do posts.

The three anime? Well Shugo Chara will obviously still be around. Then Hanasakeru Seishounen and Gokujou Mecha Mote Iinchou if they both last (in terms of enjoyment and actual episodes). We’ll see, but the more relevance the articles have, the better.

Shipping Tournament

I blame the idea for this on Kanzeon and Xiao Jie, especially Xiao Jie for explaining the history behind her coming up with SoMT. Then I started thinking about how all the competitions are to vote on girls. I want to vote on boys!

Then I remembered that there was actually something I vaguely remember being like that, but it didn’t work out. I also remembered that I am not really the right person to do something like that anyway. But someone should…(someone make a bishie contest~ Do it~).

So I figured that shipping would be fun~ But I started to realize I didn’t want it on my blog because too much bias would come if it were on my blog.

I’d want to try doing it on a different blog, with other people involved in the organization as well. The ultimate goal would be to do this in Fall so the accepted nominations could be from the Fall season of 2008 to the Summer season of 2009.

This is another thing in the very basic planning stages, but if people show interest in helping me out with it, I’d want to go for it.

As far as the automatic, “It won’t measure the best pairing, just the most popular one!” response, I’m ahead of you. That’s why it would be a shipping tournament. Silly. It’s to measure which pairing has the most shipping power behind it. I’d want other bloggers and people to get involved for campaigning and all of that. To really make it a competition between shippers! (Sadly as an organizer I’d be silent, I’d give other organizers the opportunity to be anonymous so they can join in the fun too)

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The Story

Well, I’m just about done with the outline for my story, so I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to share a small piece of the story.

This is an excerpt that’s from the prologue, which has been (mostly) finished for quite some time. At least, it’s as finished as it can be before the story is ready to be put up.

But it really is just an excerpt. No story or plot or any of that. It’s such a generic plot in explanation that I don’t want to scare people away before the story is even ready.

Hahaha~ So it’s just an excerpt from the prologue that won’t make much sense. All you can get out of it is a semi-introduction to the main character, Airi. Except that’s also off since this takes place about two years before the story starts. People change after all.

Anyway, just consider it a small peek for those who are interested.

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“Shiro-san?” Airi’s young voice asked softly, startling her adult companion out of his reverie.

“Y-yes?” He sat up straight and coughed to regain his composure. “What is it?”

Airi stared at him with her wide brown eyes, an innocent look on her face that made her appear even younger than usual.

After a few uncomfortable moments she lowered her head. Maybe she hadn’t thought through the idea of “talking” enough. She went back and forth in her head for a while, trying to decide whether or not she should let private thoughts out of her head, let someone else in on her secrets. Small as they may be.

She started twisting a few strands of long brown hair around her finger; a nervous habit she had since she was ten. She did not like the habit, and especially did not like the long hair that allowed it. It was her father’s idea for her to let her hair grow past her waist; he thought it made her look older. She thought the opposite. The longer her hair was, the smaller she felt.

“How often does it snow at Tsukiyoru Gakuen?” she finally asked, keeping her head down.

“Not…often…” Shiro answered slowly, seeming hesitant to give an answer. “I guess it changes from year to year. The weather is really difficult to predict.”

“I don’t want it to snow,” Airi replied to help him find a response. “Not as much as here anyway.”

“How much does it snow here?”

“Every time it should be rain, it’s snow instead. And there’s a lot more rain that becomes snow in winter.”

“You mean…more precipitation in general?”

Airi paused, mildly bothered by the correction. “Yeah, sure,” she answered hurriedly. “There’s a lot more…precipitation than there is the rest of the year. It’s cold so it all turns to snow and that snow never goes away until spring. Does it go away when it snows at Tsukiyoru?”

“Well yeah. It’s not smart to have even more distractions at a school like that so they get rid of it right away.”

Airi blinked. “Distraction?” she repeated, tilting her head to the side.  She was quite sure that “distraction” wasn’t right to explain it.

She thought it over for a few moments on her own. “A…distraction?” she asked once again to be sure.

“Um…yes?”

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And that’s all for now~ It’s messy because it’s still probably not quite the finished draft. There are some awkward places I need to fix and such, but it’s…something. So um…yeah.

Also, I think I said it before, but this story is for fun. I never have any intentions on getting it published. It’s just a story that’s been scratching at the inside of my head forever and I really need to get it out. Plus it’s good to get in the habit of writing daily if I ever have the intention of looking into that as a big part of my life in the future.

Of course, none of that is to say I dislike the story. I love it to pieces. I just don’t necessarily expect anyone else to…though it would be nice.

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Thank You!

Now lastly, I’d like to thank everyone who has commented regularly, read regularly, or just been around at some point and helped me out in some small way.

I…don’t like doing special individual “thank you”s because I’m always sure to miss someone, but a few people come to mind right away.

Xiao Jie for being the first person to ever comment on any post I wrote, way back on my livejournal. Then continuing to comment on almost every post since. Oh you’re so awesome~ If you hadn’t been commenting regularly when I first started up, I would have given up a long time ago. You made me think I actually had something to say that was worth reading (OMGz~). And thanks for agreeing with my stupidity surprisingly often.

warriorhope also deserves a big thank you for commenting so much and very early on as well. Now if you make that blogging group (and are so kind to accept me joining in) I’ll have even more reason to thank you. I’ll have to spend less time trying to come up with topics only to delete them a few days later because I think it sounds stupid.

7 for very obviously offering me free hosting. But more than that you’ve been so very helpful in everything. Especially when I had my recent heart-attack over not being able to publish my posts (oh goodness that was scary) and you kept helping until the problem was solved…somehow. And helping out all the other times too. And also being a good sport and letting me make fun of you and push you into fangirl anime~

kanzeon deserves a thank you just for having such an amazing blog. It makes me want to stop slacking. Designing such wonderful headers (and everything else too) and with a wonderful, unique feature like ANTM, and webcomics too? Ah. Why are you so amazing? You’re making the rest of us look bad! My competitive side is useless here since I’m sure to lose (lol). So yeah, thanks for not letting me be a slacker, lol.

Let’s see who else? Oh yes~ Also kelakagandy because even if she doesn’t know it, I was having a period where my fangirling for Arina-sensei was low. Then…I forget what it was, but I know you brought it back. Now I’m back to levels where I do a birthday post again. Ahaha~ And it’s owed to you~

And MyVampireEyes too! Because you make such wonderful videos that can get me back in the mood for blogging and fangirling even when I’m feeling a burnout. Apparently you are also my ally in “being sick sucks!” twitter rants…somewhat. lol

And uh…that’s all I can think of to say. Sorry if you’re not in here, because I am thankful to everyone. I just don’t have time to point out everyone one by one. *lazy* So I just kept it to the fellow bloggers I associate with the most (and therefore can think of something to say quite easily).

There’s one more thing I want to address. I decided to finally hand out my MSN/Windows Live/Whatever screenname so people can talk to me if they want to. I’ve been hesitant since I’m not good with instant messengers. I’m likely to disappear when I just get distracted doing something on the computer. So…yeah…

Anyway, it’s simple: FuyuMaiden@hotmail.com (big surprise)

It’s FuyuMaiden for AIM too, but I mostly just use AIM to talk to people I know in real life on a different screenname, but FuyuMaiden is linked if you just have AIM. If I’m on you can IM me, but the same “I wander off” rules apply.

I figured I’d finally hand out the info for people who wanted it today in this post, because…well I figured the people reading this (which has nothing to do with Shugo Chara or anything we could get along with on a superficial level) could poke at me for more than “OMG! LISTEN TO ME FANGIRL!”

…Though, granted, that can be very fun as well.

Now someone should give me a nice congratulatory present for making it a year. As well as a “Thank you” for being so kind to give you all the opportunity to talk with me!

I want the Shugo Chara charater song CD that comes out today! >_< I have no money, but I want it! Utau and Amu~ Nana-sama and Kanae-san~ Gimmee!

Though writing about this past year really makes it seem boring and I don’t feel worthy of a present. I guess you could say I’m living up to the name “Simplicity” by keeping things simple though.

Please look after me in the coming year too. After a year in the blogosphere and seeing people talk about bloggers who have disappeared, I don’t want to see any of you disappearing on me too. (At least keep commenting or e-mail me to let me know you’re alive if you decide to desert your blog, ‘kay?)

Now! The new goal is to still be blogging in 2013! Don’t think I can do it? Watch me! (Actually even if I make it that far, most of you will probably abandon me before then…cowards!)

In: Personal, Site, Specials | | #