“100% Akihabara Style”
Animangemu (Japanese: アニマンゲーム) is an otaku website dedicated to all things of the otaku hemisphere. Anime, manga, video games, otaku culture, and many other things are in the otaku hemisphere. Here at Animangemu, I publish articles that are about reviews, rants, news topics, trivial history, vlogging, products, online gaming, livestreaming, and a lot more. I discuss pop culture icons like Gundam, Pokémon, Magic the Gathering, AKB48, you name it! There is a reason why the slogan here says “100% Akihabara style”, because Animangemu isn’t just a website for the casual viewer; it’s a website dedicated to Otaku culture, directly from the electric city known as Akihabara. Akihabara style (Akiba-Kei) in Japanese is slang for those with strong interests in fantasy worlds such as anime, manga, video games, idols, maids, and other subcategories. If that’s what you are looking for, then you are in the right place!
The idea of Animangemu can be traced back to the year 2017. I always had a strong passion for anime, manga, and video games, dating back all the way to 2011. My passions had a strong association with the Otaku culture, and being so invested in the Otaku hemisphere introduced me to many other hobbies that would eventually become a part of my little Otaku bubble. New passions entered my life, such as toys and games. These involve the likes of trading card games, board games, toy models and action figures that have playing methods, and other types of toys and games that are part of the otaku hemisphere. Later on, I developed a passion for live action that specifically centers around the tokusatsu genre, which is beloved among many otakus in Japan and parts of the world. Adaptations based on anime, manga, and video games are included as well. Finally, I developed a fascinating passion for books that centers around all of my passions for anime, manga, video games, toys and games, live action, and otaku culture. From memoirs, encyclopedias, strategy guides, magazines, and any other piece of knowledge that exists out there. Finally, in my passion hemisphere, I developed a strong and passion for the otaku culture. In fact, this one is the most powerful of the seven, and its interests are what is popular among otakus. They are electronics, trains, robotics, automobiles, military, computers, figures, merchandise, Jpop, idols, seiyuus, maids, cosplay, Japan, camera, phones, plastic models, fashion, dolls, and travel. In other words, all of these new passions with more counting in the future is what led me to establish the otaku culture portal, and become so passionate about it. Despite this, there was a huge problem: between 2016 and 2019, I didn’t know what to do. I always wanted to do something meaningful with what I was so passionate about because I wouldn’t find joy in life doing something that I had no interest in doing. During that time, I kept wondering, “What should I do? I didn’t want it to be a simple passion, but rather a career that aligns with what I am so passionate about in life. I have seen many other Akiba-Kei run their own businesses and make a career out of it. So I thought to myself, “Why don’t I do the same thing? Thus, my three-year journey of creating Animangemu officially began.
The year 2018 and towards the end of it can be described as a prelude for my development of Animangemu. I began to experiment and create ideas for my brand, which would last for nearly five years. While doing this, however, it was in 2020 that I officially began my long, three-year journey to establish Animangemu. Despite it being the year 2020, I have not coined the name Animangemu just yet. In fact, I proposed a few names during its experimental development, such as Foxtaku, Akiba Knight, or simply using my old username, AzzurroKurai97X. These names were considerations for my brand, but somehow none of them clicked for me, so it took me some time to find the right one. Meanwhile, I had the brand’s website and its social media profiles ready to go full throttle, but the problem was that the pandemic happened. This caused issues in my personal life, and dealing with some other issues is what forced me to delay my project. Sadly, because of this, the project was left in limbo for more than a year during the first half of 2020 and into the second half of 2021. Finally, in late 2021, after some time of honing more skill and knowledge about my otaku passion, the name Animangemu was finally coined at long last. The name fit right into how I envisioned my brand, such as its originality, theme, and concept, as well as its establishing itself as an Otaku network. Animangemu is derived from combining the words “anime, “mang, and “game” into one in Japanese: “ani” = “anime, “mang,” and “gemu” = manga, and Gemu = games. The brand’s name, Animangemu, was finally coined, and on December 9, 2021, Animangemu was officially created. The birth of my business had finally begun. Of course, it wasn’t without ease.
Then the year 2022 dawned, and I would then spend my whole year establishing Animangemu. The website, logos, design, social media profiles, and direction of my company Throughout the year, I worked hard on crafting the identity of my company. I worked on creating the logo and design of my brand; for me, that was a significant step towards finishing my project. Later on, to spice up my brand’s look, I decided to add some ideas, such as the colors of my brand, which I chose to be blue, black, and yellow to represent Animangemu. My reasons for deciding the specific colors mentioned before were because those are my favorite colors, and having a brand based on my favorite colors would give me the feeling that this brand is and belongs to me. The head logo, which is the “A” symbol, represents the name of my brand, since my brand’s name starts with the letter “A.”. It also symbolizes the solidification of my brand. Prior to the completion of my brand’s identity, I experimented with a lot of ideas for my brand’s previous logos. While the old ones are nostalgic and represented a huge step towards my progress for the current logo and design that I now have, believe me, the previous designs I created weren’t really that good in my opinion. I created new ideas and trashed old ideas over and over again. Unfortunately, similar to 2020, my life problems in 2022 became an obstacle for me to finish the final steps of finalizing Animangemu. Because of this, the project would go into limbo yet again, but fear not, because my issue did not last too long and eventually things got better for me at the final hurdle. Finally, towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, Animangemu was at long last officially complete. The project took exactly three to five years; thus, the journey came to a full close. Project Animangemu was completed and officially launched on January 23, 2023.
Thank you for taking the time to read my five-year story of creating Animangemu. I hope you enjoy my content!
Animangemu 