By now you’re likely aware of Anime News Network’s down time, the result of some kind of hack. As many of my readers will realize, Anime News Network, specifically the site’s encyclopedia, is where I get a lot of my supplementary information about anime, especially when it comes to staff and production info. I waited a few days to see if the site would be restored at its original location, and that seems to be in flux at the moment. They’ve set up a temporary(?) mirror at www.animenewsnetwork.cc for the time being, with all of the same information, updates, etc. Unfortunately, though, a lot of my prior links to their site don’t currently work, as for pretty obvious reasons they aren’t auto-forwarding to the alternate domain.
While I could spend a day to update the links, it would be a pretty large undertaking and I would rather be writing, so for the time being I’m going to leave the old ones, link to the alternate site in any new posts, and then update the newer posts whenever the main/original site is back online (or, if it never comes back online, then I’ll go and update at that time). The links will still work if you change the “.com” to “.cc” manually in the address bar, so if you’re really needing to read the supplementary material I posted weeks back, that should work as a temporary solution.
As far as the reasons why someone would want to hack an anime news website, it’s difficult to say because it’s never a road I would travel. From what little I’ve researched, it seems that there are some people butthurt about the website specifically putting voice to some opinions that fall in line with social justice movements, and putting effort into moderating their message boards of posts that go against a code of common decency. Speaking as someone who’s been a target in the past of people who are against feminism (and probably just women in general) and racial/sexual equality, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone were to take out their anger about those things in a wholly non-productive, useless, and inappropriate way, just to cause a problem for some people with a different opinion. As much as I enjoy being a fan of anime, I’m constantly reminded that, like most fandoms, it has its segment of people who just want to watch their cartoons without being reminded that fictional media can have many real-life implications, that human beings different than they are deserve to live free of harassment, and that they aren’t entitled to be unquestioned in their privilege. Judging by what’s going on in the world today, though, getting those people to grow up, understand, and change their minds for the better isn’t going to happen any time soon.
In any case, sorry for the minor inconvenience and the posting delay. And thank you for reading!