By Rebecca Kensil, Contributing Writer
Hudson – The Internet is a portal for television and movies to reach other cultures, and it is not just Hollywood media that is crossing boundaries. Anime, or Japanese cartoons, are watched by Americans on television, DVD and websites such as Crunchyroll.com. Hudson resident Chris Beveridge has been a fan of the genre for years and has even created a writing career around his fandom. Now founder of FandomPost.com, he enters his 15th year of this line of work this month.
Beveridge explained what he likes about anime.
“We grew up with shows where people would get shot with lasers, and they would walk away and they would be fine. Anime introduced me to characters that actually lived and breathed and actually died, got hurt, went through changes, grew up,” he said.
What sparked his initial interest in the genre was Robotech, an anime television show from the 1980s. Then the DVD format was introduced in the late 1990s, allowing for more accessibility to anime. At that time, Beveridge created AnimeOnDVD.com to write reviews. Once the content on his website was profitable, he left his full-time job to focus solely on writing.
“There was so much of it coming out and going on,” Beveridge said of anime.? “Everything was on TV, cartoon network, so there was a lot of interest at the time and it made a lot of sense.”
In 2008, however, he decided to sell his website to Mania.com after the nationwide economic downturn.
“It was not an easy thing to do, though, to sell what I had worked on for so long,” he said.
For the next three years he wrote for Mania.com before creating FandomPost.com.
“It got to the point where they didn's want to be doing anime coverage all that much anymore,” Beveridge said. “So I struck out on my own again and started doing Fandom Post using what I had learned while at Mania, but still making anime the primary focus.”
He wakes up at 6 a.m. every day to watch shows, check the news and start writing. He finds that his schedule will often vary because of time zones.
“Every day is different because the shows I watch in Japan are on at different times,” he said.
He and his contributors watch 40 series and review 20 to 30 DVDs per week. Beveridge writes four to eight TV show reviews a day, often at 1,000 words each. He posts news on anime, superheroes, theatrical movies, comic books, videogames, science fiction, and fantasy.
“There is not enough time in the day to watch everything and read everything I want to get involved in. That's my main challenge. I have a stack of about 200 graphic novels that I need to read that I want to write about,” he said.
The advent of social media has given him another job duty. He posts on social media sites Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest and uses these outlets to connect with potential audiences. He also interacts with people at Anime Boston, an annual three-day convention for fans, and answers questions on a panel.
In regard to writing reviews, Beveridge said, “I found it very cathartic over the years to be able to explain why I like certain shows and some of the meanings to them.”