Author

Kenji Watanabe

Kenji has been deep in anime fandom for fifteen years, then crossed into media studies and now writes about anime as a cultural product without dismissing what fans actually experience. He covers the anime industry, the gacha and iGaming crossover, fan economics, and the criticism of both. Field notes rather than reviews. Honest takes from someone who is still a fan but tries to look at the whole picture.

Page 17 of 17 195 articles total

Fandom

Doujin Culture, Gacha Spending, and the Strange Economics of Modern Fandom

I have been to nine Comiket conventions and have spent more on gacha than I want to add up. Both of those…

Kenji Watanabe May 9, 2026 4 min read

Industry

The Production Committee System Made Anime What It Is — And Now It's Limiting What Anime Can Become

Production committees made the anime industry possible. Without them most of the series I love would not exist. But fifteen years of…

Kenji Watanabe May 9, 2026 4 min read

Crossover

I Spent Three Years Cataloging Anime IP in Slot Machines. Here's What That Actually Tells Us.

I started keeping a spreadsheet in 2022. Every time I saw an anime IP licensed into a slot machine, pachinko cabinet, or…

Kenji Watanabe May 9, 2026 4 min read