What Is Anime Herald? Before the rise of the internet, and before everybody carried a supercomputer in their pockets, the anime fandom found unity through fanzines. These plucky indie publications sought to elevate voices and share ideas within the greater community. Though the time of the fanzine has come and gone, Anime Herald aims to keep its spirit alive. We explore the world of Japanese pop culture and the global anime fandom through both a critical and an enthusiast's lens, with topics that cover all aspects of the greater fandom. Whether we’re exploring the subgenres of the Magical Girl genre, diving into the finer points of Patlabor 2, or retelling the story of the infamous Rising Stars of Manga campaign, we aim to bring about articles that will delight and intrigue readers from all corners of the anime community. We're building up a community on Twitter and Instagram, and we host a comfortable and welcoming Discord community for patrons. Our History Anime Herald originally opened its doors in 2010 with a simple, one-paragraph post by our founder, Samantha Ferreira. In our early days, Samantha ran the publication alone, as she sought to establish a community, in which new ideas could flourish, and topics that flew under the radar could find a platform. Over the years, our publication grew, adding new members to our team, and broadening our scope. While we were able to keep the lights on with an ad-based model, we never really felt right about it. We’ve always felt that you, our readers, should be our biggest focus, and that you should expect more from the typical anime site. In 2017, we embraced this to its fullest. In an article on New Year’s Eve, Samantha announced that Anime Herald would go 100% ad-free, with all of our revenues coming from our patrons. Where Does Your Money Go? When Anime Herald moved to Patreon, we made it clear that our biggest priority was to pay our writers a fair rate for their expertise, effort, and time. We’re proud to say that we have upheld this pledge for our contributors, and for our editors, alike. However, we are still paying out of pocket for our hosting and other costs. Our current goal is to be able to pay our bills in full, as we keep growing and increasing the number of articles we publish each month. From there, we hope to be able to grow our publication, with more articles per month, and more types of content reaching our pages, all while we pay fair rates to our team and writers. Why Anime Herald? At the end of the day, we feel that you deserve better than the status quo. You deserve a place that isn't bombarded with banner ads and skins, where you don't have to have ad blockers running to just enjoy something. You should be able to rest easy, knowing that your dollars go directly toward paying fair wages to writers in the field. You should be able to trust us as an independent voice who works in your interest. And, most of all, you should never have to worry about paywalls, drama farming, or clickbait headlines. We’re prepared to be all of this and more, but we need the funding to do so. Every single dollar we raise goes toward making these goals a reality. For as little as $1 a month, we can do amazing things. Please put your faith in us and see what we can do!