Hey there everyone! I wanted to announce that effective today kimi.kame will no longer be active.

It’s a pretty sad announcement, but read on below for more about why I decided to end the site now, what will happen to the site, and more.

Why stop now?

The site has been around since September 2015 (almost 4 years) and since then I have posted close to 2,500 posts. That is an insane amount of posts and I have loved every single second of it. This site was an escape from the world and a great way of sharing my passion for Japanese music.

However, early this year I started a new job. It has also been rewarding and I love every single second of it as well. But, that career move has resulted in me having less time to work on the site. That can be reflected by the common pattern of radio silence for 5 days and the sudden posting of 7-8 posts on the weekends.

That’s not the best schedule to have for a site who initially started posting news on a timely manner. In fact, I made tongue in cheek reference to it in my Twitter profile by renaming the slogan to J-pop and idol news posted frequently infrequently.

Instead of continuing this pattern and slowly losing readers, fans, etc I decided that it’s best to just end the site on a high note.

So, now what?

The site will remain as is and will serve as a static resource for everyone that wishes to relive the good ol’ days of idol and my unique style of writing. Yes, you’ll be able to relive my fascination with the word upbeat and my adoration of all things Oda Sakura until the end of the internet. Pretty sweet.

The Facebook page will be deleted. This is unfortunately the main negative thing that’ll happen. Facebook has had a ton of privacy issues. I’ve wanted to leave Facebook for a while but the only reason why I haven’t is because I needed a profile there to manage the page for the site. With the site ending, it’s a good opportunity to leave that sinking ship. That will be deleted on August 31st.

The Twitter account will be reverted to a personal account and I will continue to be active there. Basically, posting through Twitter is much, much easier and it gives me the freedom to happily comment on all things BiSH, Momusu, or other idol stuff without having to set up a post, add images, add referral links, make it dazzle, etc.

Cool, so you’ll be around?

Yeah, but mostly in Twitter. I’ve been posting idol news ever since I was 16 (I used to own Hello! SayuNii, an H!P news site) and now at the ripe old age of 29 I’ve decided that it’s best to retire from being a news source and take the role of a fan.

Awesome, now what?

I’ll be on a break from all things social media and the internet while I travel the world for a couple of weeks. It’s a good way of clearing the mind and getting ready for what comes next.

I’ll be back on Twitter as soon as I feel the time is right.

Thanks everyone!

For everyone who read the posts each week, for everyone who took the time to comment or use a post as a source, for everyone who liked and retweeted the site’s tweets, to everyone who liked and shared my site’s stuff on Facebook, and to everyone who simply read a post and never visited again: thank you.

I’d name all of the people but I know that not everyone likes that. Trust me, I know who you are and you’re pretty awesome.

Where will I get my idol news from now?

If you’re looking for other sites to fill in the gap I highly recommend the following (i.e., here are all of my sources if you want to start your own site):

• Natalie.mu – They’re the ones I’ve linked to thousands of times. It’s my go to for anything idol/J-pop but they’re completely in Japanese. Google translate helps.
• Youtube – Set up alerts for idol groups and you’ll easily know the second someone is releasing a new single, album, or digital track.
• Homicidols – They’re pretty well known in the alt-idol world so you might be following them already, but they’re a fantastic source for smaller alt-idols and alt-idol groups who might not get covered by bigger sites. As a side note, I still have the e-mail from Maniac saying that they had added me to their blogroll. It was the highlight of my week!
• Hello! News Service – They post pretty frequently about all things H!P. I’m an H!P fan for life and they’re pretty on top of anything and everything that happens.
• Idol Is Shit – A variety of reviews from a wide amount of alt-idol groups that are worth a read.
• New School Kaidan – If you ever wanted to know when MVs are released, they’re your go to.
• Tokyohive – They translate news from natalie.mu so if you’re too busy to do it yourself, then Tokyohive are a good alternative.

Final words

This site has been the most rewarding and amazing thing I’ve done in my life. But, it’s time to go to bigger things. Keep being awesome, treat everyone like equals, and keep on listening to Japanese music.

Catch you later everyone!

– kame

TL;DR – The site will stay as is with no new posts, the Facebook page is going away, and I’m moving to posting exclusively on Twitter.

---

Fun fact: kimi.kame (you turtle) is a misspelling of kami.kame (paper turtle). I didn’t notice the mistake until I bought the domain and just decided to roll with it because it cost me $12 and I didn’t have more money to buy another one at the time.

---