Anime Instrumentality’s 7th Year Anniversary and a Certain April Fools

Comparing the last 3 months to the rest of last year and the difference is night and day. we made the resolution last year to continue pecking away with more anime music-related goodness. There was pecking, sure, but it was horrendously slow going. To compare, from May 2013 through May 2014, we succeeded in writing 16 reviews. Not bad, but not ideal. But then, from May 2014 to January 2015, we wrote a mere 10 music reviews. There was even a month where we posted nothing at all, a first for us. Thoughts of the unthinkable began to creep in.

And then January happened. A combination of some life changes on my end and the ensuing New Year’s resolutions solidified my determination to right the ship. Anime music was too awesome to be ignored and I was still passionate about that medium, even if my written output said otherwise. All I needed was to get my priorities in order.

As a result, these past 3 months saw us pour out 7 music reviews. What makes this achievement even better was that since the middle of January, we’ve managed to pump out a post a week! That voracious posting rate was something we haven’t seen since the middle of 2013.

With that, we can sit back and look at the fruits of our labors with glowing satisfaction. More importantly, we can move forward into Anime Instrumentality’s 7th year in existence with much more confidence about the direction of the site. And if not the direction, then at least the knowledge that we can carry out our vision to provide you all with the best that anime music has to offer. Lucky 7 fight, right?

That brings us to a few things:

April Fools
It’s a custom for us to be just a little more dedicated to April Foolery. In April 2012, we pretended to turn into a site dedicated to reviewing J-dramas and even managed to review the Gokusen soundtrack and Joe Hisaishi’s Saka no Ue no Kumo soundtrack. In April 2013, we pretended to give up entirely on Japanese anime soundtracks to focus on Western animation soundtracks. And boy did we get a lot of complaints about that one. Still, that joke resulted in soundtrack reviews of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Peanuts, and yes, even SpongeBob. If there’s anything to take away from this, it’s that, even in the act of tomfoolery, we tend to be very very earnest.

This year is a bit different though. As you may have seen, we launched a radio show as part of our April Fools tradition and approached it with our usual level of earnestness. And of the comments we’ve received, people are receptive to this idea, in spite of the rough execution thus far. Since people are enjoying it, we’ll depart from our previous April Fools pranks by keeping the radio show going for a bit longer. And if you’d like to subscribe to our show, Anime Music on the AIRS, you can hit up our Youtube channel. If you’d like to request tracks or anime from which to draw the music from for our next radio show (next theme: sports!), feel free to send us an e-mail or a DM on Twitter. We’d love to hear what you want to hear!

We’re also on Patreon
When I talked about our posting rate of 1 a week giving us confidence about the direction the site is taking, part of it was to make sure we could serve our readers who share our passions for anime music or are new to anime music and are looking to learn more. If you’ve gotten a lot out of Anime Instrumentality and are looking to support us even further, head on over to our Patreon page.

Your support shows us just how important anime music is to you, whether it’s because the music helps you relive an awesome fight scene like the one in Kara no Kyoukai, makes you smile as you remember Kurenai‘s characters playing at musical, gets you to appreciate an exquisite composition for its own sake, or yields an irresistibly catchy J-pop theme. On top of that, it gives us the ability to stretch ourselves even further than we already have. That means more reviews, more editorials, and yes, even changing a biweekly radio show into a weekly radio show.

None of these are things we can do on our own. The anime music community doesn’t just build itself, but you can help by contributing as much or as little as you want through Patreon. We’ll be more than happy to do the writing and curating portions of it. Together, let’s grow this community. Let’s write the new chapter for Anime Instrumentality’s 7th year.