Behind The Nihon Review

This is the official history of The Nihon Review, starting from its creation in 2005, up to the current day. I intend to update this page every year. You may view a current listing of NHRV staff members here.

2005: The end of AMGReviews, and the beginning of The Nihon Review

The beginnings of The Nihon Review go well back beyond 21 Nov, 2005, when the site adopted its current name. Before then, it was known as AMGReviews, where the AMG stood for “Anime, Manga, Games”, and was owned by Seven and managed, in large part, by he and Tamashii. Seven invited me to join AMGReviews in September 2005 after reading a review of Maburaho I posted in “The Library” section of the Anime Academy Forums (the current NHRV version of the review is a slightly modified version of the original I posted). At the time, the most prominent reviewers were Taleweaver, Kuma, DarkKanti, Genkisakura and of course, Seven and Tamashii (who was mostly responsible for the “M” in AMGR). My second review was My-HiME, which I wrote in the same month as I completed my Honours thesis, followed shortly by School Rumble and Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Desperately needing a change in name (on the count of it being undescriptive, and very similar to AllMusicGuide after abbreviation, which has, coincidentally, also undergone a name change and is now known as AllMusic), we adopted the name “The Nihon Review”, after it was suggested to us by our good friend Phate who, at the time, wrote for Anime Secrets.

2006: dheu and Sorrow-kun’s stewardship

In the moment of our name change, the make up of the staff also drastically changed, as we delisted ReadorDie and Zirilan for lack of activity and lost Taleweaver to Anime Academy (who were the bigwig anime review site at the time). We immediately set about trying to recruit new staff, which was difficult for us given our lack of exposure and visibility at the time. We published our first Year in Review article, an idea that was fostered by DarkKanti after I made a random post on the Anime Academy Forums listing my favourite anime of 2005. Kurier joined our site in January 2006, and instantly took on our toughest section: Soundtrack reviews. He was followed shortly after by dheu, who joined on my birthday, coincidentally. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that dheu, who wrote Music reviews for us and was particularly passionate about J-rock, was the most important person to join the NHRV in its fledgling years. This is also when Genkisakura submitted her resignation, but she never wandered too far, even submitting a handful of reviews for the site from time to time.

Still figuring out exactly what we wanted to do with The Nihon Review, we experimented with a couple of ideas. The core of our activity was still, for the most part, reviews, but we also posted random snippets of Japan- and anime-related news on the front page, alongside new review announcements. In March 2006, dheu and I officially become editors, and took over managing the site from Tamashii, who had become burnt out. We set about about smoothing over the review editing process and making sure we had a steady stream of reviews regularly being published. It was about this time that I became smitten by Suzumiya Haruhi, and my fervency for the anime has kinda left an impression on the design of the front page which still lingers.

In May 2006, Scoot joined the NHRV. I invited him after he won a “Student Review Contest” on the Anime Academy Forums (which turned out to be a reasonable recruiting ground back in the day). Scoot’s greatest contribution to the NHRV was the site theme, which he designed and coded, simply after playing around with the site’s layout in June (a “pimpin’”, as he called it). We continue to use his theme even now. Scoot wanted to use an image of Momen from Raimuiro Senkitan (a really bad anime I have fond memories of) for the front page, which is why he named the theme “Momen”. I insisted on Haruhi. I got my way.

We continued to advertise for more recruits (Seven tried a different route and instead asked for “mascots”) and Kurier left for his first of many trips to Japan in June 2006. Arguably Seven’s tactic worked, because shortly after Kurier returned (and submitted reports of his trip), Pachinko joined the site. Somewhere amidst all this, I managed to find the time to review iconic titles such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Monster (as well as its soundtrack) and… High School Girls, while Tamashii added to his catalogue of The Pillows album reviews.

In October 2006, we closed down our Games section after a long bout of inactivity and our inability to find anyone interested in reviewing video games. However, we opened a new section: Live Action, for reviews of J-dramas and J-movies. The idea for a Live Action section came from DarkKanti (IIRC), and we’d actually been debating about it in private since July. At first I was reluctant to the idea, but quickly came around to it, and after a series of votes and decisions about how exactly it would be implemented, the section opened with four initial reviews: Hana Yori Dango, Ju-On: The Grudge, GTO the Movie and Densha Otoko. A fifth review followed from Tamashii, who gave the section’s first “10″ rating to a minimalist three-and-a-half hour drama, Eureka.

I made a post about Rozen Maiden‘s Suiseiseki winning the Anime Saimoe Tournament in October, we celebrated our site’s first anniversary in November just before dheu departed for her tour of Iraq (don’t worry, she came back alive thankfully), and AC joined us in December, his first contribution being a review of Gankutsuou. On 28 December, 2006, TypicalIdiotFan joined our staff after ingloriously being banned from the Anime Academy Forums (which, in my opinion, was the biggest mistake they ever made). Kuma and Scoot were promoted to editors.

2007: Mass recruiting, and experiments in blogging

We published our second Year in Review article in January, heaping praise on anime like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Nana, Honey and Clover II and Death Note. DarkKanti wrote the conclusion. Akira joined our team late in the month as a new J-pop music and live action reviewer, while royal crown and Shadowmage (the latter of whom had been resistant to my advances numerous times beforehand) followed in the early days of February. Shadowmage immediately set about adding a huge pile of anime reviews to the site, giving massive sprays to Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. But he saved his most scathing review for Gundam Wing, which was posted on the site on his birthday in March. royal crown based his claim as being an authority on romance, giving a complimentary review to the Air Movie, but a less positive review to the Air TV series, and dheu kept submitting J-rock and live action reviews from Iraq. In April, I gave a “1″ to Shuffle! Memories, which remains the lowest rating I’ve ever awarded.

During this time, continuing in the tone of “experimentation”, a few of the staff members launched satellite blogs hosted on site subdomains. The idea behind the staff blogs originally came from Kuma as a way to answer Tamashii’s question of “what can we do to make ourselves more useful” (he was always good at asking questions like that). They were made to give our writers a place to express themselves more freely, outside of the restrictions of review writing, so readers could get to know us a bit better. Unfortunately they weren’t, in all honesty, very good, as most of them weren’t updated frequently enough, and the majority of them went into hiatus by April. But this experimentation laid the foundation for what would become Behind The Nihon Review later on. Figuring that we do our best work as a team, rather than individuals, I created Behind The Nihon Review in June, and made blogging on the NHRV a team activity.

Godai joined the NHRV in June, giving the highest possible rating to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Ascaloth, who I first met at the Animesuki Forums, asked me about the site around this time and, inspired by the disappointed tone of my Sola review, joined us in July. In August Shadowmage resigned, and Ascaloth was recruited to write for Riuva… two events that I was not pleased with. Fortunately for us, the lure of writing anime reviews was too much for Shadowmage, and he was back writing for us a couple of months later. This, though, was when we said goodbye to Kuma, who left the site, contributing 47 reviews, the second most of any writer at the time. We gave him our heartfelt thanks.

In October, DarkKanti submitted the first of three completely different takes on School Days, and in December, the biggest mecha fan the NHRV has ever had, Kavik Ryx, climbed on-board. We proved to be not so good at the whole blogging thing, as Behind The Nihon Review went into complete inactivity until August 2008. I officially took sole ownership of The Nihon Review at the end of 2007.

2008: Stability and growth

We again opened the year with a look back at the one that preceded it. Our third Year in Review article was one of the oddest, as there was virtually no agreement about which was the best anime of the year, with Nana, Nodame Cantabile, Moyashimon, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Kaiji, ef – a tale of memories, Baccano and Seirei no Moribito all getting votes from different staff members. Shadowmage put the final “Nice Boat Fight Tha Timotei Rebellion” on the meme filled year.

royal crown wrote his first music review on Round Table Feat. Nino‘s April and then discovered a record low, becoming the first (and so far only) reviewer to find an anime worthy of “0″, Code-E. At the same time, Kavik Ryx handed a perfect “10″ to Cowboy Bebop. TypicalIdiotFan complained about both ratings. Genkisakura made a brief return in July to give us reviews of the live action Itazura na Kiss and Proposal Daisakusen: Operation Love, and Akira and I both wrote glowing appraisals for Kure-nai. It was at this time that we said goodbye to dheu, who left us with two last reviews for the live action section that she did so much to help establish, Hana Yori Dango 2 and Zettai Kareshi. I don’t think I can even begin to express how absolutely grateful I am to her for her contribution to helping us, and our humble review site.

We took one back from the internet, stealing zzeroparticle from Anime Instrumentality in August. (Seriously, when you find a dude that good, you don’t leave them alone.) Ascaloth was promoted to editor, Kavik Ryx continued quietly building a catalogue of sci-fi and mecha reviews and Godai watched Touch, and two of its sequel movies. Behind The Nihon Review awoke from its eight month slumber, and zzeroparticle made us an officially pro-iyashikei site with his review of Natsume Yuujinchou. I found time to slam Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, hard, repetitively and often, which didn’t exactly go down well on the AnimeSuki Forums, the setting of most of my slammings. Shadowmage also got caught up in minor controversy with his provocative review of Code Geass R2. Akira translated fansubs of ef – a tale of melodies, and I used the blog to lament “certain people“. After stabilizing the staff and publishing a total of 142 reviews, I don’t think it’s a stretch the say 2008 was the best year The Nihon Review has had so far.

2009: Stagnation

Another year meant another Year in Review article, and we again stood relatively divided about which were the anime of 2008: Code Geass R2, Casshern SINS, ARIA the Origination, Kaiba, Kannagi, Macross Frontier and Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei all listed among various staff member’s favourites. Ascaloth concluded by describing the year as anime studios playing Texas Hold’em, not laying out their cards until towards the end.

Godai fished through a heap of fanservice anime seeing if he could find some entertainment, but instead found Koi Koi Seven. I began attaching myself to the wider blogosphere, and discovered the wonders of Google Reader. A new, and much more professional looking site design was implemented on Behind The Nihon Review, and, after a change in management at Anime Nano, I took the opportunity to submit the blog’s feed to the aggregator. This time, thankfully, we were accepted, and our first ever post to get listed on the site, Five Memorable Themes From the Winter 2009 Season, got 18 comments, which was an enormous number for us at the time (still is, honestly).

In April, AC reviewed an Academy Award winning film, Departures. This, unfortunately, was about the time where we started making mistakes with our recruiting. Fuu, who seemed promising to begin with, joined us in April, and was followed by zeroxhour in May. Neither lasted long. We attempted an “Editor’s Choice” award, but it didn’t really take off. Scoot and Pachinko had long fallen inactive, Tamashii officially pulled the plug on his involvement in the site, and DarkKanti and Seven continued to linger on the staff list, despite both having very little recent contact with anime or the NHRV. The site was stagnating, and the blog was also stuttering. I took swift action in November, which resulted in resulting in DarkKanti, Seven and royal crown officially resigning, and Godai, Pachinko, Scoot and zeroxhour being delisted for becoming inactive. Our staff of 16 was cut to 9. I decimated the staff list, but I remain convinced that it was the best course of action.

2010: Rebuilding, and a new method of recruiting

We started the year with a bang, not just with a review of the year, as we usually do, but a review of the decade, inspired by our longtime supporter, gaguri of Ha Neul Seom. Monster was named the anime of the decade by three of our reviewers, Now and Then, Here and There and Planetes were crowned by two others, and Akira called Strike Witches the worst (of sorts) anime of the 2000s. In our annual Year in Review, Clannad ~After Story~, Eden of the East, Bakemonogatari and Kara no Kyoukai were acclaimed as the year’s best, and Akira finished 2009 off by noting that, despite the popularity of certain mediocre works, there’s still a lot to like in anime off the mainstream.

January saw a major change in how we did recruiting, as we set about rebuilding the staff list, and populating it with talented and committed writers. We ran our first (annual) staff contest to fill three positions on the list, starting in mid-January and finishing in the first week of February. At first, the applications came in as a trickle, leaving us nervous about the endeavour, but a few days before the end of the contest, we landed the big fish… the one who I really wanted: kadian1364. I had actually first invited kadian1364 to join the NHRV in August 2009, after noticing the intelligent comments he had left on our blog, and other places around the anime blogosphere, but he turned us down, explaining that he wasn’t really interested in writing at the time. Why he changed his mind, I don’t know, but boy was I glad he did. We ended the contest spoiled for choice and blown away by the quality of applicants. Along with kadian1364, we welcomed Kylaran and Buttercup to our site.

In January, we also brought a close to our long neglected Soundtracks section, but took the opportunity to officially affiliate with Anime Instrumentality, using zzeroparticle’s site as a place to post soundtrack and OP/ED reviews written by NHRV staffers. In April, Fuu left, and Behind The Nihon Review was thrown into the Aniblog Tourney, which helped increase our exposure. Unfortunately our time in the Tourney ended swiftly at the hands of Random Curiosity in the second round. TypicalIdiotFan resigned in June, but not without kicking up a storm first, ending his time at the NHRV with his 10 Things I Hate About You (Idiot Fans) Part A and Part B articles. Shadowmage reviewed The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya after seeing the San Fransisco premiere, while Kylaran and zzeroparticle attended Anime Expo. We obtained MK as a mid-year recruit in July, the same month that Akira and I recorded our first podcast, The Nihon Revue, and added Elineas to the list under the same deal in November. kadian1364 took part in the Reverse Thieves‘ Secret Santa Project, gifted with Seto no Hanayome, Inukami! and Saikano.

We said “see ya soon” to Kavik Ryx in December, who wrote 63 anime reviews and 1 live action review, mostly about his pet love, mecha, couldn’t get enough of TypicalIdiotFan so we pleaded for him to return, and farewelled Buttercup. 2010 was a year of growth and rebuilding for The Nihon Review, as we seek to put together the group of writers who will take us into the future.