Yep, this is the end.
Of course, I thought a lot about this and eventually came to the conclusion to close Airii~n deshou?! for the unforeseeable future. I don't have the energy nor the time to update Airii~n deshou?! like I used to, with school getting harder, and with my life getting more complicated. My PC is also starting to show wear from the heavy encoding that I've done almost every day and so it's probably best I don't push my poor processor any more than I already have, especially not with the old heatsink that I'm using. I'd definitely love to upgrade, but at this point I need to start thinking about my future and save money whenever I can.
Airii~n deshou?! lasted for two years and has over 1,700,000 views and counting - that's way more than I ever dreamed of! I really didn't expect to continue blogging past a few months and I thought no one besides my friends would bother to read it. Of course, I'm so glad that I was wrong. I'm actually a really competitive person and having success really does make me happy, even if that's a childish thing.
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to truly thank everyone who became a regular reader and those who sent encouraging emails/comments along the way. It really helped me continue for as long as I did and gave me motivation to push forward. Even if I didn't always reply to those comments and emails, I did read every single one of them. I'm really thankful that I was able to meet you all! It's because of this blog and because of you guys that my passion for Hello! Project continued to grow throughout these few years. Often times when watching a PV or any H!P video, I'd think to myself "that would make an awesome gif!", or something similar, and it gave me a new perspective of which to experience things.
I honestly enjoyed my time as a blogger and I'm really happy at what I accomplished even though I had never seriously tried anything like this before (and I'm sure that was quite evident in my early posts lol). But, all good things must come to an end and I think it's time for me to let go of Airii~n deshou?!, even if it's hard to do so.
I should also note that I have stepped down from my position at TPF as well. You might still see my name in the credits for a random future TPF release, but that's just because they were finishing up on old projects I had started. They are still committed to providing the English speaking community with new and interesting subtitled videos so please continue to support them as well! When TPF came back to the subtitling scene, it was just myself and SFGundam working on things (and before that, SFGundam had to do things alone) so it's nice to see how much TPF has grown since then. Even though it took a lot of hard work and dedication to work on fansubs as long as I did, that too contributed to my H!P fandom and helped me become the fan that I am today.
As a final thanks, I can't go without mentioning the other contributor to this blog, Chobineko. She's been responsible for the design changes of Airii~n deshou?! ever since I convinced her to help out in the areas that I'm weak in. And she also helped me out with many other things that were never public. Chobi definitely has been one of the biggest positive influences in my life and would always help me whenever I was down, or just needed help running things. Some of you may wonder then, why I'm not asking her to run Airii~n deshou?! now, but that would be way too much for her since she'd have to do almost everything herself. She has tons of school work and a fansite of her own that she works hard at to make successful. It would be unfair to ask her to take on my responsibilities when she already has similar or more difficult things to do in her life. She's done so much for me already and so I'm eternally grateful to her.
I'm in the last year of university here in the U.S. and in about half a year from now I'd like to put my soon-to-be-earned Japanese degree to use by moving to Japan and being closer to the idols that have consumed my life for the past few years. At that time my life should be more stable and so I'll think about re-opening Airii~n deshou?!. I probably won't be able to provide as many downloads as I did before, but I think it would be cool to give trip reports on all the random H!P adventures I plan to go on in addition to the other types of posts that you've come to expect from me (like PV reviews and fanboying over random news to name a few).
Until then, bye bye everyone and never stop supporting Hello! Project!
P.S., my Twitter account isn't going anywhere so you can always talk to me there! If you have any random questions for me, there's Formspring and/or if you have something longer or more private to say, airiindeshou@gmail.com is the best way to reach me.
