Sakugabooru launched 3 years ago, and we’re about to take that anniversary as a chance to take it to the next level. The site has grown a lot in ways that make us very happy – there are more uploads than we could have ever hoped for, plenty of professional animators use it to source their own work, and it’s even been partly responsible for the new wave of interest in animation within the anime fandom. People asked to expand the site with a blog and we feel that now it’s the time. As an ambitious project it’ll require more time and effort that we already give the site for free though, and that’s why we’re launching this Patreon campaign.

OK, but who are you?

You might know me as Kevin Cirugeda, freelance writer for Anime News Network on articles like The Joy of Sakuga and the extensive guide to understand anime ending credits. Maybe you know me as kViN or Yuyucow on twitter, talking way too much about anime. Either way, I’ll be a main regular writer here. Onboard with me are writers like liborek, the greatest Studio BONES expert outside of Japan; kraker2k, a mecha connoisseur with a PhD on Masami Obari; Disgaeamad, the idol anime master. As you can see, quite the variety of points of view, and not by accident. We’re open to keep broadening our approaches with other Sakugabooru staff and interesting writers, so look forward to it.

What’s the plan then?

We want a site that any anime fan interested in visual and directional aspects can approach. That doesn’t mean avoiding getting technical when need arises, but we don’t want to alienate casual fans who want to find out more about anime visuals. There’s enough resources for hardcore fans, and we plan to have interesting information for them as well, but this community still needs to work on the fundamentals.

Let’s be more precise though: The Sakugabooru Blog will cover all sorts of visual analysis and appreciation of anime, with a focus – but not exclusively – on the animation itself. It will also deal with anime industry knowledge, both its inner workings and chatter about staff members – which can range from analysis of their ouvre to interviews, translated and original. We’ve even considered ideas like industry rumors, perhaps as short form posts. Here are the concrete plans for now:

Weekly animation highlights: Take a few interesting pieces of animation worth talking about, whether for their technical excellence or their storytelling nuance. Expect lots of current anime talk as the format fits that well, but it’s obviously not limited to that. Anything we watch and feel is worth a mention can be brought up.

Monthly essays: Dealing on just about any of those aspects I mentioned before. Maybe an article about the smart usage of animation in a certain film, maybe a bit of an investigative project on some aspect of the industry. If the demand is really high it could even turn into two a month, but we’ll see!

Irregular articles: The two previous series are something you’ll get no matter what, but we’ll also have a handful of posts a month not following that pattern. The only reason this is being listed as a separate entity is that we wanted to ensure a minimum quota for the readers. If things go as planned though, expect a lot more!

Fan feedback in this regard will be very important to finish shaping up our output. It’s also worth noting that contributors who give us $10 a month or more (thanks!) will get to choose particular TV series and movies they want us to cover. We have a lot to write about without having to focus on straightfoward analysis of works, so we can leave that as an extra for the fans.

That’s nice, but I’m a Sakugabooru user not particularly interested in reading articles

Understandable! We thought about that, and that’s why this campaign is also meant to help the site fix some of its fundamental issues. It seems ridiculous now, but this all started as a joke on IRC. Sakugabooru launched on someone’s server and kept on growing while freeloading in there. It’s an awkward situation, and something that’s had an effect on performance as well – I don’t have to explain anyone how frustrating it is to have to wait for a short video clip to finish loading. We’ve set a goal for this: if there’s enough interest, we’ll move the entirety of the site to a dedicated server, which will hopefully make everything work better. Time to go independent!