As this year comes to an end, I am amazed and pleased at everything we accomplished this year, which was challenging in every possible way.  To finish off the year on a positive note, I wanted to share some of these things that you and I did together. Once more I thank all my Okazu Patrons for their support. Without them we would have done much less. ^_^ I’ll finish off with a new item and my 2022 Goals. ^_^

Here are our 2021 milestones for Okazu, Yuricon and me, personally. ^_^

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Just under 300 posts for the year. That’s about 5 posts a week, here on Okazu. Which was a lot, but this year, I had a lot of help, because we…

Increased our Guest Reviews by 500% in Q3 & Q4.
Our Guest Writers are now making industry-standard rate for a review, something we’ve extended to them ahead of making our next Patreon goal, because its the right thing to do. Thanks so much to all our new and returning reviewers. I would *love* to expand coverage in 2022. If we get enough Patrons, we’ll look into adding semi-regular columns or reviewers.

We increased our direct support to another new creator. One of our microgoals on Patreon is that for every $50, we support another creator directly through their Patreon on Fanbox. When we sustainably get to $700/month, I’ll add another creator in – I have two I want to support.  Right now we’re currently supporting 5 creators or creative teams. Thanks so much to you all for helping Yuri creators keep creating!

We have 10 new videos on Yuri Studio this year, well ahead of our goal of 6. Next year the goal will be 12. I already have a really cool video planned for the new year…one I’ve been saying I was going to do for a long time. So look forward to that! Thanks to my wife for her design skills and to Ashley for doing my finishing edits which is such a HUGE help.

For personal “appearances” I presented at Mechademia, CasaCon (twice this year!), HYPER JAPAN, Manga in Libraries: The LGBTQ+ Community, Anime Lockdown, and in a return to in-person events, AnimeNYC and talked about Shoujo Manga with the Japan Foundation which was really an extraordinary experience for me. 

We reprised our Mechademia presentations for the Yuricon 20th Anniversary Discussion Event with James Welker and Verena Maser. This is up on Youtube and you can watch it anytime.

I was on podcast and video segments on Shoujo & Tell, Publishers Weekly, Manga Mavericks, Galactic Journey, and Third Impact, and possibly some I am forgetting. If I was on your podcast and forgot to list you here, please remind me!

I also ran a Translation Workshop with Michigan State University that was so successful, we’re running an expanded version with **8** speakers in Feb 2022! Links to sign up will be going live soon, and I’ll be sure to share them here and on other platforms. This is going to be amazing.  If you are interested in doing or understanding translation, you will want to register.

I wrote my first ever review for Anime News Network. I’d been on Zac’s ANNCast, but this was fun. I got to cover Ride or Die, the Netflix movie based on Nakamura Ching’s manga GUNJO which you may remember is my favorite manga.

I finished a novelette, as Editor Ed calls it, that began as a Utena fanic 20 years ago. I can remember exactly where I was when I started it. A/CINet Case File: An Inside Job is up on Kindle for a whopping $1.99 for one more day, then it goes back to $2.99. ^_^

Finally, By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga is in penultimate edits! Next up formatting. After we’ve proofread the proof, we’ll set up pre-orders. We’re also going to do limited-time  orders on some special goods, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

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All in all, a lot of amazing stuff this year.  We’ll wrap up with one new announcement:

I’ve opened up a Pixiv Fanbox for Okazu, in case Patreon goes cryptocurrency like Kickstarter. It will have all the same content at the same levels. If you prefer Pixiv, you’ll be able to start supporting us there in the new year.

This is in addition to Patreon for the moment, unless they lose their minds.

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Now onto our 2022 Goals!

Speaking of Pixiv Fanbox, they are doing a contest, so I took a few moments and entered. ($10 gift certificate is totally worth it for like an hour’s work, right? Right?!?

I shared our 2022 goals on this attractive Ema I designed. I’ll give Inari-sama a donation to see if I can get this through to the powers that be. ^_^

The first two goals are, clearly community oriented. We are at 1400 subscribers on Yuri Studio, for which I am very grateful. I won’t be getting awards from YT anytime soon, but the fact that that many folk clicked subscribe is amazing. I’d like to – and think we can get to – 2000 subscribers for Yuri Studio in 2022.

We’ve hovered back and forth over 100 patrons/subscribers for about a year. This year, I’d love to see us get past that sustainably. It’s not about the money, although that helps so much to hire folks to do things for us(!), obviously and it increases the number of creators we can support indirectly and directly. It’s also about building a community dedicated to the sharing and support of Yuri and the folks who create and write and talk about that work. Now we have a Patreon and a Pixiv Fanbox, and I hope we’ll get past that goal!

The next goal is not entirely personal, but I won’t lie and tell you it’s wholly impersonal. Working on The Rose of Versailles was one of the greatest achievements of my life to date and so, yes, I think I deserve an Eisner award, (^_^) but also and more importantly, the whole team did amazing work and the end result is magnificent. Ikeda-sensei’s work got the treatment it deserved. So, yes, I unabashedly believe RoV deserves an Eisner Award.

Debuting a book during a pandemic is not optimum. And my health, which had been holding steady at “not great, but it’ll do,” has tanked, hard. I’m a hikkikomori now and perfectly okay with that. So while I’d love a real-world book tour for By Your Side next year (and a post-pandemic world to travel), I am resigned to virtual events for the near future. Nonetheless, while I am clapping my hands and praying, I might as well ask. And okay, I’ll admit this one is 100% ego. ^_^

The last thing is eminently doable. I really enjoy doing conventions and meeting fans, but I will not lie, I love doing professional speaking gigs – when I’m being brought in to talk about Yuri, it’s the best feeling. The good news is that I have several professional events lined up, and I’ll hope to get more after the book is released in the summer. So 6 professional speaking events for 2022 is the goal. /nod/

Thank you all once again for an amazing year.  Here is to our wonderful community and all the great work we support and create and enjoy!

I’ll see you in 2022!