Asian Addicts Anonymous

Totally forgot to do this last week, but last week was rather crazy, so double the fun. And now I have the Doublemint Gum theme song stuck in my head.

Flashback Thursday #3

The month of May I’m covering the first year of Asian Addicts Anonymous. I covered the beginning in the first post, completely recapping my first series ever, plus how the blog posts really evolved in the second one.

In the third one I really wanted to cover my first ever blog friends. The first one was also my first commenter ever! Ender’s Girl (who I believe had/has an obsession over Johnny’s Entertainment idols or was it just Kimura Takuya?) from The Little Dorama Girl. I was a bit sad that my blog had been around for a month with little action by the way of stats and comments and then she appeared and we had a nice discussion about Japanese drama Lunch no Joou. It’s funny how things like stats and lack of comments at the very beginning really can be discouraging, when it really shouldn’t be. It does take awhile (well, maybe not for everyone, but usually, it does take some time for readership to grow and some lurkers to delurk).

The great thing about meeting Ender’s Girl was I discovered her blog which also led me to discover other great drama blogs and realize that there was a lot out there. I think its thanks to Ender’s Girl that I discovered jicks and Candy Me. Ah, the talk of Eita and his bad hair among other things, lol. And then there was Zooey who I always had some great drama discussions with from Rundown Zoo. And I can’t forget chukuma from Lost in Paradise. We had some good discussions as well. It really is amazing how something like Asian dramas can bring you closer to people who live on the other side of the world (I think the first three of my drama blogging friends were located in Australia). I still think of my early blogging friends fondly even though I don’t necessarily get to talk to them much (or at all in some cases) any more. It was nice to discover these people with similar interests who were very warm and welcoming.

Besides getting to know some wonderful people in the blogosphere, I also got to know people outside of it who came and left an occasional comment. It was nice, especially since I started this site with no clear path, to have people come and thank me for sharing recaps and thoughts on various dramas that they themselves couldn’t watch or couldn’t manage to find the subtitles for. That was something that really inspired me to keep going (even though I’ve never been good at starting or finishing recaps – just look at my recap page and you’ll see what I mean).

In my first year I even had someone ask permission to translate my recaps into their language. Isn’t that pretty sweet? At least they asked. I had a website that essentially reposted everything in its entirety without permission. Sure, they linked back to the site and gave credit, but it is a kind of major no no to do such a thing. Oh, and I had commenters who left comments for the actors.

Flashback Thursday #4

This one is the official last post about Asian Addicts Anonymous’ first year of existence.

I think in a lot of ways, my freshman year as a drama blogger saw the most diverse range of posts from me. I ranted about drama tropes, shared bits of entertainment news I found interesting, wrote reviews of movies, dramas, and mangas, graduated to writing recaps, and did a lot with upcoming dramas and new MV releases. Somehow by the latter part of 2010, I guess I had more or less settled into the swing of things that shaped what this blog has become, which was recapping.

I could regale you with the sheer number of dramas I started to recap, but I only managed to finish four. Sure, I finished a few more in upcoming years that I started in 2010, but I really was bad at finishing both recapping and watching a lot of them and for no really good reason a lot of times. Sure, I can blame it on the fact that I was working two jobs and with early and late hours combining, I did get burnt out rather badly by the end of the year, so there was lots of stretches between posts towards the end.

I think I shall leave you with some numbers as food for thought.

• Asian Addicts Anonymous started on February 7, 2010.
• 263 posts were published.
• The most posts were published in April (a whopping 56!)
• This means there was approximately 23 posts per month on average!
• Total views from 2010 wasn’t actually bad. A grand total of 148,575.
• This means a monthly average of 13,500!
• The busiest month was August with 24,707 views.
• If I counted right (is there an easy way to see comment count by year I wonder?) then there was about 150 comments made. Not bad.
• 53 Asian dramas and movies were either recapped or reviewed!
• But, only 4 dramas were completely recapped: Oh! My Lady, Sunao ni Narenakute, Personal Preference, and Nakanai to Kimeta Hi.
• 2 manga titles were also reviewed: Model and Aquarian Age: Juvenile Orion.

So, if you are curious, here is what I covered in the first year drama and movie wise.

1. Jdrama Review: Untouchable
2. Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge Episode Reviews
3. Kdrama Review: Invincible Lee Pyung Kang
4. Jdrama Review: Lunch no Joou
5. Jdrama Review: Mr. Brain
6. Jdrama Review: The Quiz Show Season 2
7. Asian Drama Review: Friends (2002)
8. Jdrama Review: Vampire Host
9. Jmovie Review: Aquarian Age
10. Twdrama Review: Pi Li MIT
11. A Man Called God Episode Reviews & Recaps
12. Down With Love Episode Reviews & Recaps
13. Kdrama Review: Taste Sweet Love
14. Cdrama Review: My Bratty Princess
15. Jdrama Review: LIAR GAME Season 1
16. Oh! My Lady Episode Reviews & Recaps
17. Infinite Challenge Special 2 Episode Recap
18. Personal Preference Reviews & Recaps
19. Life is Beautiful Episode Recaps
20. Dong Yi Episode Recaps
21. Jdrama Review: Majisuka Gakuen
22. Cinderella’s Sister Episode Recaps
23. Jdrama Review: Rinne no Ame
24. Sunao ni Narenakute Episode Recaps
25. Kmovie Review: 200 Pounds Beauty
26. Prosecutor Princess Episode Recaps
27. TROUBLEMAN Episode Recaps
28. Kaibutsu-kun Episode Recaps
29. Nakanai to Kimeta Hi Episode Recaps
30. Yankee-kun to Megane-chan Episode Recaps
31. My Prince Episode Recap
32. Hero Episode Recap
33. Zettai Reido Episode Recaps
34. Call of the Country Episode Recaps
35. Jdrama Review: Hotaru no Hikari
36. Summer’s Desire Episode Recaps
37. Bad Guy Episode Recaps
38. Coffee House First Impressions
39. Kmovie Review: 3-Iron (Bin-jip)
40. Jmovie Review: Death Note Live Action
41. Gumiho: Tale of the Fox’s Child Episode Recaps
42. I Do? Episode Recaps
43. Gakeppuchi no Eri Episode Recaps
44. Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo First Impressions
45. Pure Episode Recaps
46. Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku Episode Recaps
47. Gloria Episode Recaps
48. HAMMER SESSION! First Impressions
49. Fugitive: Plan B First Impressions
50. Kdrama Review: Sungkyunkwan Scandal
51. Kdrama Review: Stars Falling from the Sky
52. Kdrama Review: I Am Legend
53. Kdrama Review: Star’s Echo

Overall, I don’t think my freshman year was all that bad. Sure there was a drastic decline in posting from the beginning months to the ending months, but that actually is a trend. Summer is always hard. I live in the country. We own 2 acres and also have a garden. Summer is a lot of work. Fall is a lot of work what with canning. So…declines are kind of a natural progression. I did vow though in like 2011 to try to post once a day. It’s hard. It’s really hard. I did learn how not to force myself to grind out posts just for the sake of grinding them out.

I hope you enjoyed a look back at my first year! June will cover the year of 2011. Hope you are enjoying this trip down memory lane with me!