As some of you may already be aware of, I just recently graduated from college and started looking for work out in the real world. That’s all well and good, but how does this affect you? Well … as of today, I am pleased to announce that I have accepted a Software Developer position at anime streaming website Crunchyroll in San Francisco! Working in the anime industry has always been something I was interested in, but I assumed (incorrectly) a long time ago that there simply weren’t enough opportunities to use my skillset in the industry. I’m sure happy to be wrong right about now.
I’m extremely excited to be able to develop software for a company whose product I feel passionate about and to be a part of bringing anime to fans, but I understand that there will be concerns about my impartiality as Ani-Gamers’ Editor-in-chief when covering the anime industry. So, after discussing the issue with our editors and contributors, I have decided to restrict my own coverage of Crunchyroll’s industry presence as well as their series. Other Ani-Gamers contributors will continue their coverage of Crunchyroll series, but will no longer review any Crunchyroll service or software that I or anyone I work with may have had a hand in (for example, the Xbox 360 app we reviewed a while back). As with our Genericon coverage, I will take a hands-off role in our sitewide Crunchyroll coverage, allowing our contributors to write their coverage without any direction from me.
Naturally, all of my future posts will contain a disclaimer stating my association with Crunchyroll, and we will include disclaimers even on other writers’ posts so the connection (and our thoroughness in minimizing bias) is clear to our readers. We hope this change of circumstances won’t change your opinion of us or our posts as we continue our dedication to independent, thought-provoking anime, manga, and video game coverage. If you have major concerns about conflict-of-interest, please let us know in the comments so we can do our best to address them!