Here’s a Q&A to tell you about AstroNerdBoy and this blog.

Q: Just who is AstroNerdBoy?

A: I’m an older anime and manga fan who lived in Japan for a couple of years (1989-1991). When it comes to religion, I am Calvinist. When it comes to politics, I am more libertarian.

Q: Where’d you come up with the name AstroNerdBoy?

A: Back when 9600 baud modems were king, I bought a PC with a free month of Prodigy access. While exploring it, I wanted to try out the chat area, but I needed an alias. Every name I came up with was already taken and Prodigy would suggest things like my user-ID or the name I’d chosen plus some number, depending on how many others were using that name. Since I was determined to come up with something unique, I tried more and more outlandish names until I came up with one no one had thought of. The rest, as they say, is history.

Q: How long have you been into anime and manga?

A: I was introduced to anime and manga in 1989, when I moved to Japan (Yokota AB, outside of Fussa). My best friend and roommate, Robert, was a big fan and swore it would be big in the U.S. within ten years. I wasn’t into anime during this time, but the seeds were planted.

Then in 2002, I found myself unemployed when my entire department was eliminated. On a whim, I went to Amazon to see if there were any anime titles out there. To my great surprise, there were a ton of anime titles. I tried some out, starting with a couple of small titles (Oh My Goddess OVA and Hand Maid May). From there, I spread out to titles like Love Hina, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and more. By the end of 2002, I realized I could truly say I was into anime.

I got into manga a little later. The driving force behind that was my desire to know more of the Ah! My Goddess story as well as the Love Hina story. As such, fans directed me to the manga origins of those anime titles, which opened my eyes not only to the joys of manga, but also to how much an anime adaptation can change the story of the source material.

Q: What’s your favorite anime and why?

A: The canon Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki anime series.

I started watching it because I found I had a taste for harem genre anime. Folks online told me that the first Tenchi series was the father of the modern harem genre, so I sought it out. I went in for the harem cake, but came away with a full course meal. The more I dug into things, the better I liked it, so much so I ended up taking over the Tenchi Muyo! FAQ site, which back then was a single page, half of which was dedicated to AIC’s English forums.

Q: What’s your favorite manga and why?

A: This one is more of a tough question for me. It used to be Negima!, but the way Akamatsu-sensei ended it didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth.

For a while, my favorite manga was Hayate the Combat Butler. I loved the humor, the characters, and the stories. The plot was so subtle, I ignored it thinking that things were all being done for the gags, but in fact, there’s an actual plot and a really interesting one so far. Unfortunately, once a plot was established, Hata-sensei wasted way too much time avoiding the plot. Thus when the manga ended after some 12.5 years or so, Hata-sensei had to rush the ending, leaving things pretty unsatisfactory for me.

Currently (2017), I’m really loving D-Frag because it is mostly a wacky comedy series with a touch of harem hijinks. However, My Monster Secret has the edge because the comedy is even funnier (and wackier), there’s a better romance element amongst the harem hijinks, but there’s a hint of some bigger story at work. We’ll see how it goes.

Q: Why did you move from Blogger to WordPress?

A: There were a couple of reasons. First, I did not like the direction Google took Blogger, where what I wanted in terms of functionality were ignored in favor of Google having a 1-stop shop for all their products (Blogger, YouTube, Google+, etc.). And then there was the issue of blog posts being taken down due to false copyright strikes, including one from Viz. They gave me the promotional materials for one of their anime titles, then they hit me with a copyright strike for using those materials. 🤬

Second, I have a lot more control with WordPress on my own domain, which is pretty sweet.

Q: What are the categories for this blog?

A: There are only four categories for this blog and unlimited tags.

• Anime — This is where all of my anime reviews and anime news items will go.
• Manga — This is where all of my manga reviews and manga news items will go.
• Japan — This is where my posts regarding aspects of Japan (music, culture, etc.) will go.
• Other — Image posts, live-action reviews, and anything else will go here.

There are times where I may use a couple of categories on top of the various tags used.

Q: Where is your avatar from?

A: That’s Junpei-kun from Those Who Hunt Elves. ^_^

Q: What are the dates I see in “Currently Trending!” widget?

A: “Currently Trending!” displays what posts are currently “hot” in terms of traffic to the blog. The date field is when the post in the list was actually published.

Q: Your “Social Media ANB!” section is jacked up. Why is that?

A: There are a number of reasons for this, none of them site related. If you are running AdBlocker, NoScript, or other such blocking tool in your browser, this can cause things to jack up, including this site’s slide show feature. Avast! anti-virus software recently started blocking things like Google Adsense ads (in Chrome and IE), but that also jacks up the elements in the Social Media section. 🙁

Update: I changed how that section functions, so it no longer should ever be jacked up.

Q: Do you take guest writers?

A: I’m not opposed to it. It depends on the circumstances, what you are wanting to write about, etc. So basically, it would be case by case, assuming I do it at all. And if I did post something from a contributing writer, you wouldn’t be allowed to republish it someplace else.

Q: What are you doing on YouTube?

A: I’m mostly doing gaming videos, whether on the PC or mobile. The only mobile game I’m doing is Fate/Grand Order. I will also store podcasts that I have with Western Otaku there as well. If you’d like to subscribe and help me reach my 1000+ subscriber goal, please click this link. Thanks! 😄

Q: What about Twitch?

Currently, I’m streaming there (and for now, uploading with minor edits on YouTube) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening at 7pm MT. During Fate/Grand Order events, I may live stream more often. If you’d like to give me a follow on Twitch, please click the link. And if you’d like to subscribe to me on Twitch, that would be awesome as well. Thanks to all who’ve subscribed or followed! 😁