2005 Year in Review

Opening Editorial

Welcome to the Anime News Network 2005 Year in Review. Here, we, the staff of Anime News Network will look back on the year that has passed, as well as the year to come.

As in past years, we'll take a look at the North American anime seen from several perspectives. We'll look at industry, marketplace, academic and fan activities. Also we will provide you with commentary and thoughts, far from the dry daily news reading, these articles will be full of opinion and speculation. Keep in mind that, while we certainly are knowledgeable about anime, and may know a few industry secrets that you don't, none of the ANN staff, not even Answerman, has access to a crystal ball (we're working on securing one for 2007). So any forward looking statements are pure speculation on our part.

Before we get onto the task of looking at everything anime related, let's look at what kind of year it was for Anime News Network. 2005 was a very big year for ANN, perhaps our biggest ever in terms of what we've accomplished. With 18 million pages views in December, ANN has grown to be, according to several online tracking services, the largest anime information source on the Internet... in any language. Truly this is something to be proud of, but really what makes us happy is to look back at what we've done, and what people have said about it. Even if we had a billion page views a month, but provided crap content, we wouldn't have any right to be proud. But when we look back on our work, we're able to comfortably say that we did good. Hopefully you think so too. Of course we make mistakes just like everyone else, we're not perfect and we never will be. But we think we're doing a pretty damn good job, and we thank you for all the support that you've given us.

This year saw the release of Anime News Network's Protoculture Addicts issue 82, the first issue of the collaboration between ANN, and the newest chapter in the ongoing saga of North America's oldest anime magazine. Protoculture Addicts has been around for 19 years now, and we're very proud to continue its tradition. It remains a work in progress, with lots of improvements in each issue. Hopefully by the time 2006 is done, Protoculture Addicts will have continued to improve to the point that we are as happy with it as we are with ANN.

Also very important, but on a more personal note, 2005 saw none other than Zac Bertschy join ANN full time. Although I started working on the site full time in 2003, this was, in my humble opinion, a bigger milestone. To me it has always been very important that ANN one day be able to offer real employment to the various people who volunteered so much time making the site a success. It wasn't fair that I was the only one making a living off the site, when I certainly wasn't the only person responsible for making it what it is today. We've also established that within the coming month, Daniel DeLorme will be joining ANN full time. Daniel, you may be aware, is responsible for the creation of the encyclopedia, and most of the scripts that run ANN.

There are still a lot of people volunteering their time for ANN, and we remain ever grateful for all their help.

Well, that's all I have to say about ANN right now, please enjoy the year in review.