1-6-02 On being an anime music web page mistress... (Posted from 1-6-02 to 3-3-02)

One day, I realized that I was buying anime I knew nothing about. I hadn't heard it was good, I wasn't enthralled with the character designer's work, and I had no idea who the seiyuu were. The only reason I bought that tape was because I wanted to hear the music.

It was quite a shock.

Maintaining AMP has changed me: I find myself unable to watch anime just for fun. Now, whenever I pop in a tape or a DVD, I have pen and paper nearby. Not only do I watch, but I *listen*. Ops, eds, background music, and those rare insert songs...I make note of them all. And if I don't, or I miss one, I'm haunted by guilt. I know I have to write down everything, because the odds are that one day someone will ask me for that song. And the more information I know about that song, the easier it will be for me to find.

Incorrect anime mp3 information and tags are rampant on the net. I've lost track of the number of sites and lists that perpetuate the title of the Blue Seed op as "Mysterious Tokyo", instead of the correct title, "Carnival Babel." I try to make AMP's song information as accurate as possible, but I am absolutely certain that there are errors on my site, and I try my best to root them out and correct them. In the end, the only way that I know for CERTAIN if a song's label is correct is if I watch that anime where the song is used, and I see and hear it for myself. I have pages and pages of anime notes, containing seiyuu (for image song identification), op and ed info, and even kanji used in song titles, if I do not have the reading memorized. All carefully noted as I watch my anime collection, and borrow from video stores and friends.

To complicate matters, I can't even trust North American commercial releases. Companies just love to play with songs to some degree or another. Some companies merely change the title to English and never reveal the original Japanese--and if they replaced theJapanese language credits with their English counterparts, then the easiest and most accurate method of finding that original title is lost. Some companies just pick a "better" title in English--if you're lucky, it has vague references to the original Japanese meaning. Still more companies have a field day with anime music. The producers at Viz must have taken great delight in mixing and matching all the ops and eds for the Ranma oav series. If they hadn't included a complete listing of those songs, with oav numbering and op/ed info, at the end of their Ranma oav DVD set, I would have been completely clueless about the original placement of those songs. So even when I do take careful note of song info from commercially released anime titles, I have to take it with a grain of salt. In the end, the only source I can completely trust are either the actual imported Japanese LDs, DVDs, and tapes, or fansubs made from those sources. I find that extremely frustrating.

I imagine a large number of people who trade with me, or just chat about anime and anime music, must find me very annoying. Sometimes I find myself asking the same person over and over again if a song they sent me was the 2nd or 3rd opening to the tv or the oav series, simply because they forget to either answer or don't want to just tell me that they also do not know. Those situations always make me very embarassed, because I feel self-concious about harrassing the poor person again and again for a teensy little bit of info that seems so inconsequential to most. But if they don't answer my questions, then I have to find the answers someplace else, a process that can take months. I've had some mp3s in my collection for over 2 years, but I haven't added them to AMP because I STILL don't know how they relate to their anime. I've had people offer me dozens of songs for trade, and I gaze down their lists with dismay to see none of the songs noted as op/ed/ins/img/bgm. If I've never seen that anime, then I'm clueless as to what song is what just by looking at the title, and I have to email the person and ask for clarification. Otherwise, the songs won't do AMP much good. <:P

I find myself envious of music sites who list only anime, title, and sometimes the singer, and leave the viewer to figure out the rest. Their jobs are a easier than mine. >< I created my site's format based on my own frustrating experience of tracking down anime mp3s years ago. I've tried to make finding music on my site as easy as possible, even if all the person knows is that it's the 2nd opening to the tv series of an anime. BUT...

I honestly do my best to remain humble about my music site. Sometimes I take a step back and look at my page, and I'm overwhelmed with what a monster AMP has become. To think I opened in 1999 with only six little songs!! Damn! My page has certainly had the same troubles that plauge all the other music sites out there. Lost space, deleted songs, busted accounts, burnout on my part...and I've probably even been blasted on a mailing list or newsgroup or two. But I always seem to find a way around a problem, even if I don't particularly care for the solution that ends up saving me. I have no illusions that I am extremely lucky in my friends. If I were a religious person, I would say that I've been blessed. AMP could NOT exist without Derik and Ross, two wonderful men who have given me almost an infinite amount of space on their own personal servers for me to use for AMP. I am so much in their debt that it frightens me. And of course I mustn't forget k-chan, who found a friend of hers willing to give me 20 megs of space on his server, a server that has been the most reliable of all the ones I use for AMP, and from a person with whom I am a complete stranger. The anime no kami have smiled upon me many times.

I hoestly do my best not to let my success go to my head. Hontou ni! I detest snobs, and I hope I never become one about anything. But like any normal person, I find myself comparing my own music page to every other anime mp3 site I visit. And as much as it makes me embarassed to admit....in my own humble opinion....the vast majority of anime music sites out there fall quite short. And that scares me. <:| I try to remember that I really am extremely lucky, and most of those music page masters just haven't had the fortune that I have when it comes to web space on private servers. I have run AMP on nothing but the free commercial servers, and I know what a frustrating hassle it can be. There certainly are music sites out there that have moved from server to server five times or more, and that suffer music deletion on a weekly basis. Yet still their web masters stubbornly persevere, bringing music to us all. I am envious of their strength and devotion. ^^ Compared to what they go through to spread the music, I live on easy street.

But the greatest thrill for me when I am scrounging around the other sites is to find one of my own mp3s being offered for download on someone else's page. ^^ I always laugh with delight whenever I find someone distributing an mp3 they no doubt grabbed from AMP! If that site makes no mention of me or my page, I don't mind in the slightest. ^^ I myself never keep track of the sources of my mp3s, I can hardly expect someone else to do the same!

One thing that always strikes me in my anime mp3 page wanderings are the songs that people offer. Sites who list music from "old" titles, or non-mainstream titles, are hard to come by. That makes me sad. So much great music is overshadowed by themes from the hot and popular shows! The most requested songs from my collection are, on average, the great classics. The X movie ed, Esca, SM, RK, DHalf, Ranma, AMG, etc etc etc. Of course, the popular titles are there as well, especially if that anime has been shown dubbed (*shudder*) on the Cartoon Network. Outlaw Star is on the verge of tieing with the HYD tv ed1 for Most Requested Song. Every few months, the "hot property" changes. But the music fads pass, just as it passed with the music from HYD and BDB. Two anime titles which, I am quite happy to say, AMP was the first to spread the music far and wide, so much so that their themes are now available almost anywhere. ^^ It's very nice to have made a difference. :D

The other day, a new person I was arranging a trade with looked at my complete list of mp3s and told me he couldn't quite grasp what type of songs I liked. My song list had so much variety of singers and styles that he couldn't pin it down. With lots of smiley faces and real laughter on my end, I emailed him back and explained that I don't just keep music I like. If it's an original op or ed that I don't have, then I want it, end of story. ^^ If I actually like the songs, great! If not, I only listen to them twice (once to make sure the mp3 has no errors, and once to make the sample), burn them onto backup CDRom, and prompty delete them off my hard drive. For the record, AMP has three songs I absolutely cannot STAND: Akria bgm Battle of the Clowns, Sakura Taisen oav ed Watashi no Aozora, and WeißK tv op2 Piece of Heaven. Daikirai yo!!! <:P~~~~

For over a year, I rarely visited other anime mp3s sites. I just didn't have the time, and I was getting more than enough music from trades. But lately I've taken it up again. I always stop to investigate each page's links section, and I'm...surprised. The only links I have seen back to my own site are those which I have solicited myself. It's like no other anime music page out there acknowledges the existence of AMP. As long as my page has been around, as huge as it has become...how is this possible??? Surely these other web page masters and mistresses have visted AMP, yet they do not link to me of their own volition. Is my page not good enough to matter? Are they mad at me for some reason?? I've never been emailed by another anime music web page master. Not once. It's like AMP doesn't exist in the "official" anime mp3 world. And for the life of me, I have no idea why.

Regardless of what the other anime music web page masters might think of me and my site, in the end, I run AMP for one reason: it's fun. I love receiving emails from people absolutely begging me for a hard-to-find song that I have listed, or full of glowing praises for my simple page. If it weren't for such positive reaction for what I do, I might have stopped working on AMP long ago. When AMP is no longer fun for me...then I will probably stop. But at the current moment, I love anime every bit as much as I ever have, and I still love all that great music. So--for now--AMP and Slr2Moons aren't going anywhere. ^^

3-3-02