New Year – New Website

In Japan, one of the traditional activities undertaken by families at the start of the New Year is a thorough cleaning of the home.  This is seen as symbolic in the sense that you are sweeping away the junk and detritus of the old year, to start the new year in a fresh and clean state.

Well unfortunately doing this in my own home is, erm, not bloody likely.  (If you’ve seen my home, you’ll know why.)  But I can do it to the Otaku no Podcast website!  So let this be a warning to you that, over the next few weeks/months, you may start to see some changes in the Otaku no Podcast website.

I’m not doing this just to annoy you, or because I want to play with some new bit of WordPress code.  (Well, ok, I’ll confess, I actually am playing with a new bit of WordPress code.)  But it’s for a good reason.  I’ve found a new WordPress theme, Atahualpa, that offers a tremendous level of flexibility in terms of the ability to configure and customize things without having to directly hack on the wordpress theme code, which is what I had to do with our previous theme when I wanted to add something custom like a “subscribe to podcast” link or an ad banner or whatnot.  Basically, the practical upshot of all this is that you, the user, will end up with a much prettier, more functional, and faster website, whereas I, the webmaster and server guru, will end up with something much more manageable.

Don’t fret however.  I’ll be confining most of my, erm, experimentation on my personal blog and website, and will only update the Otaku site once I have something that is stable, works well, and looks good.  Look forward to it!

In the meantime, yes, I’m still working on Anime on the Cheap, Part 2; I’ve also gotten into the anime review groove (thanks to my recent work on the Anime Secret Santa project) and have started writing up some reviews of other anime series I’ve completed recently.  You can look forward to those appearing gradually on the website in the coming weeks/months.

Finally, I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I wish you all the best for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you