The first thing I need – and want – to do is thank everyone who stepped up and supported LiA these past three weeks. Since the last update that includes styxhalocapri, jazzdaughter, Paul, Swmy, and Red. If you were a math major you know the graphic means 23 patrons signed on or upgraded their support level during this pledge drive. Words cannot express how grateful I am, but they’re all I have. Thank you – and thank you to everyone who supports LiA financially, reads, and comments. And let me reiterate – just because the campaign is officially over, that doesn’t mean you can’t still step up and support the site. Every little bit helps – a lot.
That said, there’s no point in glossing over the bottom line. The trend is not good – 101% of the target in 2023, 80% last year, and now 46%. I more or less knew this was going to get tougher every year – as I said last year, every time I do this I have to reach higher into the tree. But I have no choice but to give it my best shot, because short of shuttering the site or completely changing the distribution I have no other option but to keep trying.
So the elephant in the room, then – where does that leave us? In short, I haven’t decided. There’s no halfway with keeping the site active. If I’m not generating content and income (which requires many, many hours a week) LiA can’t exist as some sort of archive – I wouldn’t be able to justify the hosting costs. So it’s really all or nothing, and “nothing” is a big decision. It’s not one I relish having to consider. At this point, what I think is most likely is that some significant changes are going to have to happen – supporter-only content, or at least supporter-only extended previews of content.
What content? That’s the big question. Season previews certainly, and perhaps a selection of other posts. Maybe all posts, honestly, if that’s the only way to make the numbers work. At this point I’m just not sure. Of course I’ll go full-force in trying to leverage other possible funding sources – like the YouTube channel for example, once we can get the subscriber count high enough. I’m also going to be looking at some supporter exclusive extras (suggestions always welcome) such as the aforementioned LiA Discord server. In the meantime I’ll have to ask for your patience as I figure out whether LiA still makes sense as a financial and logistical proposition, and what needs to change in order to achieve that.
Thanks again to everyone who supported LiA, and everyone who visits the site and comments! As ever, please share any ideas you have for helping keep the site alive.
Stay frosty,
Enzo
October 14, 2025 Update: Baby Steps to Giant Strides
With about a week to go in the 2025 Pledge Drive, being just past one-third of the way to the goal is pretty daunting. But at the same time, LiA added 15 new one-time supporters of $25 or more and monthly subscriber/patrons since the last update. And that’s not nothing! I’m immensely grateful to everyone who signed up – your support means everything to me.
I knew this was going to be harder this year, and indeed it has been. If I’m honest things are still looking pretty rough in the big picture, but thanks to all of you who support the site I do feel a little more hopeful now than I did at the last update. We need a massive push this last week to get close to the goal – and we need to get close to the goal for LiA to keep making sense as it’s currently structured. As I said last time I’m not going to make any final decisions based on partial returns – let’s see how things look when the fundraising drive wraps up.
Whatever happens, a very sincere thanks to those of you who’ve joined or re-joined the LiA patron family or increased your support level – Alonom, Aisha, Daniel, Guy, Henk, Noni, Alan, Nick, Belle, Cat, Nora, Brett, SW, Guan, Darren, Chawisawa, and John. And to all of you who’ve supported me over the years and continue to do so. Whatever happens, I’m proud of the body of work LiA represents, and to have been able to provide a service to anime fans all over the world.
October 2, 2025 Update – I don’t see much point in sugarcoating – we’re off to a pretty disastrous start here.
At the five-day mark, we’ve only added three supporters (two one-time pledges and one subscriber). I’m running up against a harsh reality here, which is that every time I do this, it gets harder. Inevitably the most persuadable LiA readers are going to be the first to sign up – the low-hanging fruit, as it were. The ones who haven’t supported by now are tougher nuts to crack. The only other way to increase the supporter base is to increase viewership of the site, and believe me I’m doing everything within my power to do that. But I’m swimming against the current there, as similar anime websites decline and fall.
I’m not going to make any irreversible decisions now, when I set October 20 as the end date for the fundraising drive. But needless to say, if early returns are indicative of full results, some hard and unpleasant choices are going to be required. Whether that means going to a paywall system or something even more drastic, I don’t know for sure. But early indications are that I may have kicked that can down the road as far as it can go.
Whatever happens, a very sincere thanks to the three of you who’ve joined or re-joined the LiA patron family – Daniela, Stephen, and Steve. And to all of you who’ve supported me over the years and continue to do so. Whatever happens, I’m proud of the body of work LiA represents, and to have been able to provide a service to anime fans all over the world.
Let me set the record straight before I get started.
I don’t like doing these pledge drives. Nor do I like asking for financial support (How? Via Patreon, Ko-fi, PayPal, and Commissions mainly – see below). It would be great if I was independently wealthy and could do this for the sheer joy of it. But something I like even less is the idea of this site ceasing to exist, which is exactly what will happen if I don’t do at least one fundraising campaign per year (and if it’s not mostly successful). So I do them – not because I want to, but because the alternative is worse.
Some of the reasons why that harsh assessment is true are obvious. Hosting a website is expensive, and gets more so every year (my new hosting plan was almost double the cost of the old one). There are a lot of other financial costs involved in running the site, all of which I bear myself. If this was a part-time gig for me, a few hours a week, I could get to the point where at least LiA paid for itself and I might be able to justify continuing it.
But here’s the thing. I work full-time at a “real” job, and not a particularly well-compensated one. Inflation has finally come to Japan, and it’s struck with a vengeance. So the hours I put into the site come at considerable personal expense, in more ways than one. And I’ll say this – however much time you think I put into LiA, I can almost guarantee it’s less than the reality. Probably a lot less. Look around the anime commentary landscape – how many sources offer the content I do? I’ll wait – I don’t think it’ll take you too long.
If you’ll indulge me, I want to talk for just a bit about history (grand as that sounds). I keep hearing about how anime blogs are relics, their time is over. And as I look around, the landscape has certainly gotten a lot more barren. But that makes LiA’s role that much more important, doesn’t it? I think there’s still a place on the net for long-form anime criticism. For analysis that looks beyond the official synopsis and doesn’t go for clickbait “reaction”. Maybe I’m wrong, and the doomsayers are correct. I guess this pledge drive will answer that one way or the other, but I certainly hope it proves me right.
There are no ads here. No paywalls. No content that only premium members get to see. I’ve resisted all those things, and seriously debated whether I would want to continue the site if I no longer could. Nope, it’s only you – the small percentage of you that choose to support the site financially. The debt of gratitude I owe all of you is immense, and humbling. Maybe it would be fairer if I did install gates, and make content available only to those of you that step up and support LiA financially. It’s something that’s always on my mind, and as the financial situation gets more dire every year, my consideration gets ever more serious.
For now, though, I’m going to do what I do every year – ask for your help. I’m setting the same goal I did last year – 50 new subscribers or $25 or higher one-time contributors. We didn’t quite hit it last summer – maybe in this day and age, it’s not realistic. But I have to hope it is, because if not things are going to get pretty dodgy for LiA. And in the big picture, that’s a pretty tiny percentage of the people who visit the site regularly. It’s an arbitrary number in some ways, but based on the realistic needs of the site. And it reflects that over the course of a year’s cycle, a certain number of patrons are going to drop away. It happens every time, and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Last year, I produced a fundraising video for the first time – with free (public domain) kittens! I wanted to talk in more detail – and in a more personal way – about why this site means so much to me, and hopefully to some of you as well. It’s a reflection of how swamped I am that I couldn’t produce a new one this time, but all the things it says are still valid (and the kittens are still cute).
And since these goals need a target date, let’s set one – three-plus weeks from now, October 20. I’ll post progress reports periodically.
Part of the goal here, again, is to avoid paywalls and tiered content. I do however offer some incentives for those who help out. I’m continuing to offer to the following supporters:
The following benefits:
I’m always very interested in new ways to reward supporters, so if you have suggestions by all means please share them in the comments. One possibility I’m strongly considering is adding a LiA Discord server exclusively for supporters. As such I would love your feedback on that idea. Would it make you more likely to support the site, and is it something you would find useful?
How can you support LiA? As always, the links are in the sidebar. The most obvious methods are as follows:
I would also add that subscribing to the LiA YouTube channel, as well as liking and commenting on videos, is very helpful towards the long-term goal of making the channel a means of additional financial support for LiA (and is of course free).
As always, I’m very grateful to everyone who reads, watches, listens and comments – and most of all, to those of you who support LiA financially. Here’s hoping we can keep making history together.
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