We’ll Meet Again: The End of Mistakes of Youth: The Blog!!

You know that opening narration in Gundam? The one about how people are born into the world, live life, then die? Well, Mistakes of Youth was born into the world on November 7th, 2006, lived life for four years, and on today, January 1st, 2011, has now died. And yes, I done killed it with my own hands! But don’t get me wrong: I didn’t kill this blog out of malice, revenge, or any of the usual reasons why one kills something. What I’m doing right now is putting this blog out of its misery. So put on some background music, and let me tell you why!

I never really went too much into my personal life here, as it’s honestly of little interest to anyone. But since events in my personal life strongly affected the various directions that this blog took, I feel I should probably let you, the reader, in on what was going on with me between the end of 2006 up until now.

As most of you probably know, the better part of this blog (and my webcomic, for that matter) was written while I was in college. Like most other people, college was a big time of change for me, and I went through many different changes in college. My high school life was, erm, less than enjoyable, so upon entering college I was pretty socially withdrawn. I had hopped to make friends and have a good time, but most of my socializing was done on the internet. Before I knew it, my friends only existed on the internet, and I had no friends in real life. At least in high school I had friends who I spoke to on a daily basis, but for the first two years of college I was all alone.

I wasn’t Tatsuhiro Satou bad–I went to school, got good grades, and went out often; but I was alone, and my mindset grew more and more insular. The results of this insular, geeky mindset shine brilliantly in the posts throughout a lot of this blog, manifesting in articles extolling the virtues of young girls, and cheap bids to get attention by backing controversial viewpoints with a lot of vigor and arrogance. Half-way through junior year, I found myself in Japan. For the first time in a long while, I had to interact with a lot of people on a regular basis, and I gradually came out of my shell. But at the same time, culture shock hit me in a weird way. A way that resulted in posts such as this.

Upon returning to the States, I went out some more, and made some friends. All the insanity that had built up in me had died down, and I managed become less of a jerkoff. This change in attitude resulted in me wanting to do more thoughtful opinion pieces and analysis on this blog–what I’ve wanted to do from the very beginning–and while I managed to get some out, it was kind of tough. I was too used to being either a Negative Nancy or a creep, so that kind of stuff didn’t really come naturally. Furthermore, considering the history of this blog, I doubt many people took such posts too seriously. And I doubt the existing readership cared. So, in an attempt to put all this baggage behind me, I am closing down the Mistakes of Youth blog.

But, don’t fret–I intend to start fresh with a new blog: Analog Housou!

Analog Housou will be a blog completely dedicated to being a blog. What that means is, there won’t be things like comic updates or art site updates clogging up the feed. Those will still be posted on this blog, but will eventually get their own separate blogs. Analog Housou will be a more general “Japan” blog, but considering that I’m going to be writing it, anime will be the main focus. To help me out, I’ve asked some other people if they’d be interested in writing for it, so there’ll a good bit of varied content depending on how things work out. I will probably find my posts on this new blog completely embarrassing after about a year or so as well, but hopefully because they’re poorly written, and not because I’m completely disgusted with the kind of person I was when I wrote them.

To close this off, I just want to thank all of the readers who’ve stumbled upon this site across the past four years. I also want to thank all the friends I’ve made over these past four years for putting up with my bullshit. I know I’ve been an annoying pain in the ass, and I hope for your continued support.

See you guys later!

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