Stintan's blog! - Spring 2024

05/22/24 - exploring old Japanese Gintama fansites

hello sweeties!! Today I fell down an interesting rabbit hole of old yumejoshi/female run Japanese Gintama sites. They're pretty neat. First one I found was a pixel art site that was linked to a blog (both of which have unfortunately been inactive since 2009 :()

the pixel site itself is super awesome, apparently the woman who ran both sites was a mother named Keiko who had a son in kindergarten (I got all this info from the blog) She appears to have been a pretty big fan of Gintama, and a pretty good artist as well, judging by her pixel art and the Takasugi drawing below I found on the blog.

This site was super hard to look through, a ton of the images were completely gone so I had to look at the archived version and wow. There was so much more stuff there. The screenshots from above are both from the archived version. The last post on the blog was Keiko showing off the slime she made. (pretty strange way to go out, huh?) I would reccomend looking around the archives of this blog as it's pretty cute. Keiko seems to have used this blog as a personaly diary to document her kid's schooling and her interests in shonen manga and television. Makes me wonder what Keiko is up to now...

I ended up finding a ton of other Gintama related sites that were linked on Keiko's site, including this one which I think is some sort of fansite search engine or directory of Gintama fansites (?) I used a translator to read most of these pages, but it didn't always work. Many of the fansites linked on these directories are dead links now, which makes me sad. I found a lot of different Gintama fansites, some with what I think were interactive otome-style browser games (I REALLY wanted to play these... unfortunately they were not archived...), some with fanfiction (esp reverse harem/x-reader type of stuff) and even some websites with ship art.

example of one of these types of websites above. Seems to be a website for yumejoshi like myself. Specified as "for women" and appears to be what we in the western internet would call "fluff fanfiction" from the description. Again, dissapointed that so little archives of these exist. I would have loved to see them. Unfortunately a lot of these websites contain R-18 yaoi content which I am not particularly fond of... so I had to avoid many of the ones that were archived because they had that sort of thing (no hate to mlm ships... I just don't want to see nsfw art lol)

and finally, a screenshot of another fansite/fanwork search engine. Super cool layout, and the translator worked on this page too!! I would highly reccomend checking out these sites, as they're a relic of the past and I think they deserve some attention I leave the link to Keiko's page which has links to all other sites mentioned in case anyone is interested. Good luck on your browsing journey.

05/16/24 - TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!

YAAY!!!!

As of today I am officially 18 years old... this is crazy. I can't believe I'm technically a full grown adult now. weird. I'm in school writing this right now lolll.I brought some strawberry milk with me today and I already drank it all... it got warm really quickly and it was kinda annoying but still awesome.

on a completely unrelated note, I just watch the Gintama arc with Okita and Mitsuba... I love it so much. As someone who has recently lost someone important to them, it was very impactful. I really love the relationship between Toshi, Okita, and Mitsuba. The whole thing makes me love Toshi even more , and I think I'm starting to like Okita a lot too. Every time I listen to this song, I think about Toshi and how he felt about Mitsuba. Good stuff. really good stuff...

Pic above is Gintoki, Toshi, and the strawberry milk at school. To end today's blog, I'd like to announce that I will be attending Cradlecon in Garden City at the Cradle Of Aviation Museum! I will be going on saturday, if you see someone dressed as Sacchan from Gintama that's me!! Feel free to say hello!!(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

05/13/24 - Gintama collection + local sakura festival

hello lovlies!!! recently (and by recently I mean like 3 weeks ago...) I attended a local sakura festival in my town. It was really awesome and genuinely one of the coolest things I've ever seen. My favorite part was the kendo demonstrations and THE ONE GIRL WHO REOGNIZED MY COSPLAY THERE... if you're reading... hi... I was sacchan btw... I ate noodles there and they were really good, there was a cosplay photoshoot and show and the photographer was so funny lol... All the people there were so nice and someone there had a booth with a ton of old anime and manga magazines. (pic is my collection of Gintama trinkets... it's kinda unrelated but I wanted to include it).

They had an old copy of an issue of Margaret (ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHOJO MAGAZINES!! :D) I didn't recognize the idol group on the cover which tempted me to look them up when I got home and they're pretty good! I listened to Love Bias and thought it was pretty awesome. I don't listen to many jpop boy groups but I am trying to get more into them so TwT... unfortunately the only manga I recognized from this issue was Switch Girl (which I want to read a lot bc the mc looks gyaru-ish...), but it doesn't really matter because I still really loved all the art and the layout and design of the whole thing.

in addition to the Margaret issue, they also has some old Newtype copies from the 2007-2012 era and they had a TON of Gintama stuff it was so cool. I want all the stuff in those ads so much!!! :,D Especially the Toshi figure... he's so cute... (/▽＼*)｡o○♡ The episode in the third pic makes me so mad lol... but Gintoki is so cute that it doesn't really matter. Last is the fanart submissions which I LOVEEEEEE OMG they give me so much old school anime fan teenage girl from 2009 vibes and I LOVE ITTTT Literally so cute kinda artstyle envy tbh.

last pic is me cosplaying as sacchan!!! I made the cosplay myself and sewed it by hand. It was super fun and I love to cosplay her but the scarf kept strangling me... o(TヘTo) that's the end of the entry! next post will be an update on the cosplay and my next convention plans! (^人^)

05/01/24 - I'm a... "webmaster?"

honestly I don't even feel worthy of calling myself a "webmaster." like, at all. I'd rather just be called "a girl who has a website," because that feels a lot more natural. I see all this nonsense about "taking back the old web" and tbh I don't feel like I'm doing anything, and I'm okay with that. This site is not claiming to be revolutionary, and neither am I. I am no more than what I decide to show to the world. Recently, I've seen people becoming Increasingly upset with neocities and it's userbase, which I find unfair. If I'm being honest, I'd say, no, I don't really like websites that are just glorified carrds, and people becoming overwhelmingly obsessed with their follower counts, but in the end, it's their website. Not mine. Who am I, or anyone for that matter, to tell you what to do with your website? Also another thing that's been bothering me lately is my use of templates. Yes I use layout templates, heavily modified, with full credit. That is what they are there for. People make them so beginners like me can use them. It's a fact that it takes more time and effort to code one by hand (this is just an objective fact) but I don't think we should completely ridicule sites that use them just because it's easier. This site wasn't made to display my "coding skills," nor was it made to Accurately represnt the old web. This website is not meant to be professional, not meant to be a form of social media, not meant to be any kind of grand statement, and definitely not meant to be anything more than a silly little place where I can talk about my interests and share my art. in the end, it probably doesn’t matter all that much. One very obvious thing about me is that I have possibly the worst case of imposter syndrome on the planet. I never felt like a real gyaru, a real artist, and definitely never felt anything even close to a real webmaster, and I'm not claiming to be. Every time I get into a new hobby or interest, they'res always a voice in my mind telling me I'm not good enough for it. But it's never stopped me, and I won't let it stop me now. Sorry for venting a little bit in the end it's just been bothering me recently. next post will probably be anime magazine scans. See you later. -stintan

04/06/24 - hmm... inch resting...

What am I doing... I am away for a college tour and I'm writing this late at night when I need to wake up at 7am... I am definitely going to have chronic blue light poisoning by the age of 30. My life has been quite unsavory lately. I just stay inside, watch Gintama, and go to sleep I guess. I'm really enjoying it, I'm only now remembering why I loved Kagura so much. I think she's way more well written than other shonen anime girl characters. Firstly, she actually acts like a real young girl, secondly, they don't shove her into the role of a love interest, and thirdly, they don't make her wear a stupid impractical outfit... oh and they don't reduce her entire character to "oh, she's a girl, but she's strong too!" (problem I often see when writing female characters... people take the idea of a "strong" character much too literally lololol) Her story with her family is so emotionally impactful, I love it...

I'm very excited for next year. I'm anticipating some very awesome new hyperfixation content. MEIKOI IS GETTING A SWITCH PORT YAYAYAAAAY unfortunately it won't have a localization butttt it's still a step forward. I've been wanting to play it for like 3 years now I'm so happy... I cosplayed Mei in 2021 just in case you wanted to know how much I care about this game... my favorite character is Ougai because he is SILLY I guess idk I just like him he's a funny little man. I'M TEAM OUGAI FOREVER!!!!!

I am a relatively new otome fan, so a lot of this is kinda confusing to me, but I see meikoi and hakuoki so it must be good... Another thing I'm extremely excited for is the new Gintama movie and the spin off series (obviously) I'M ACTUALLY SO EXCITED BECAUSE THIS MIGHT RESULT IN A RESURGENCE IN POPULARITY FOR THE SERIES ASFFDGHHHHKKJ I'm normal I promise... crunchyroll youtube channel already started reuploading old Gintama clips... soon we will take over the world!!! HAHAHA (jk...) In addition to those things I am also excited for the new Hakuoki content, Smiling Friends season 2, Kimi Ni Tokede season 3 (like, seriously, when was the last time a shoujo series got so many seasons?!), and Fionna and Cake season 2... it's like the perfect storm of brain stimulating slop... until next time. -webmistress stintan

03/27/24 - prom, high school, and why I don't care

If you've read my about page, you could probably guess I'm in my senior year of high school- and I am not too happy about that. The best thing I can say about it right now is that I'm lucky that I only have a few months left, and that I can hope that people in uni will be more mature... I'm pretty sure I have PMDD or something similar (if you don't know, google it lol) so I start to break down towards the end of the month and become extremely sad and angry. I'm in a lot of pain as well, and I start to lash out at people and act much more sensitive than usual. Even the smallest comments can deeply upset me at these times... at school it's no fun. Going to high school essentailly forces me to interact with people I don't like since they're just in the same classes with me or they happen to be sitting near me and this really doesn't help my situation. Honestly I'm just getting really tired of it. I'm stuck between trying to be civil while also avoiding people who bother me while the only thing keeping me sane is my Gintama music, my plushies, and my book (pictured below.)

I'll also leave some of my co*des here... 1 kogal and two himekaji... (I won't be a kogyaru anymore next year! It feels weird...)(PS: kogyaru means "high school aged gyaru") Elizabeth pin in the first one, Sakamoto keychain in the second, and Toshi plush in the third... I guess I just always have something Gintama related with me (speaking of Gintama, I just finished the first season recently, I'm on episode 27... I love it so much... reminded me of why I started liking Gintoki in the first place... Episode 27 tends to do that lol.)

And last, I guess I'll talk about the fact that I'm going to senior prom. This is the dress I picked out. I wanted to go for a kyabajo type of look since I really like that kind of thing but I barely get the chance to ever dress that fancy. Honestly, I'm not that excited. It sounds depressing but that's just how I feel. I don't have a date, I hate school events (seriously, this place is so miserable. why would I want to go to a party here?), I don't like loud places and I'll be surrounded by a lot of people I'd rather not be surrounded by. To me, it's not a party if annoying high school student #33 is attending with me. But my friends are going, and I wanna wear a cool dress. It's pretty dumb, I know, but I knew I'd feel left out if I didn't go. I know some people go with one friend and make it a sort of "fake date", but that's just not for me. Actually, there kinda is someone I would like to go with, but I just don't think I really like him enough to actually do it, especially when I know he doesn't want to go with anyone. I just... don't want to date anyone right now. Unless Gintoki suddenly shows up out of nowhere, I don't want a date. I guess I'll leave it at that. (before I forget, I'd like to add that I'm currently obsessed with the new LE SSERAFIM album and Car Seat Headrest- opposite ends of the music spectrum lol. I like listening to "Stop Smoking" with my Toshi fumo. It puts him at ease...)

03/13/24 - Gintama anime, animanga talk, jpop, etc.

Ooh... were in for some interesting things today... sorry for the recent lack of updates (my ten followers need me! *self awareness...* I finished the Gintama manga. Truly an emotional experience. I dont really want to spoil it or anything so I wont say much about it here, but if youd like to see some of my thoughts you can read my SUGI WORLD page here. I started watching the Gintama anime afterwards and omg it is so fun... I love the music. It's so goofy it's like silly music- it makes me so happy whenever I hear it. I wass listening to Mr Raindrop today and it felt so nice. Gintama music is the only thing that brings me happiness at school... (joking XD) I love Toshi a lot. He screams all the time and I find that funny for some reason. Gintoki is still so cute!!! Not much has changed. I feel like I just started all over again...

I also read some of the new manga Ive gotten in the past few months, as well as finishing the Sugar Apple Fairy Tale anime and I really enjoyed both. Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is a very underrated shoujo anime in my opinion. I would highly recommend it if you like fantasy and romance or if youre an artist. The main character is an artist and the whole series is about sugar sculpting (if youve ever watched those crazy holiday themed baking shows youve probably seen something similar before XD), and I think it does a really good job of depicting the creative process. I wish there were more but sadly there are only two seasons... TwT

The manga I read wass Hatsu Haru, My Special One, and the Hatsune Miku Bad End Night manga. I liked all of them a lot but I think My Special One was my favorite. The mc is in love with an idol... just like me fr (talking about Yosuke from SPYAIR... lol.)

I got bored a few days ago and binged watched a ton of jpop music videos- mostly iris, super girls, and e-girls... I really love e-girls now lol. High School Love and Candy Smile are definitely my favorites!!! I think I like e-girls a little more than akb... they feel a little bit less "Male gaze-ey" if that makes any sense- like their costumes and music videos feel a little less like male idol otaku bait (no hate to akb... they are all very talented girls they dont decide on their costumes and choreo...) So thats the end of the post. I have nothing else left to say. Next post will probably be some gyaru co*des and pics of my new haircut. Bye bye!